In scientific research in the Netherlands, there is not yet a publication fully dedicated to contemporary Dutch-language protest songs. Laurens Ham's book Op de vuist. Vijftig jaar politiek en protestliedjes in Nederland, published in 2020, is therefore pioneering. It shows Dutch protest music and its relationship to the changing political and social situation in the Netherlands over a period of fifty years, that is, from the 1960s to the first two decades of the 21st century.


SAEM W estern R egional A bstracts Objective: We conducted this study to evaluate the patterns and frequency of use of drug-facilitated intubation (DFI) by pre- hospital personnel following its introduction and availability. Methods: This was a retrospective study of reported pre- hospital data on number of patients in which drug-facilitated intubations were performed between January 1, 2003 and July 31, 2006. For inclusion into the DFI data, the patient had to receive succinylcholine before an attempt at intubation by pre- hospital personnel and meet the indications set forth by standing orders for DFI, specifically presence of incomplete relaxation or high likelihood of losing an airway during transport. Patients in cardiac arrest were excluded from this study. The number of patients receiving DFI was compared to the total number of patients who were not in cardiac arrest that were intubated. The percentage of total non-arrest intubations that were drug facilitated was then calculated for each year between 2003 and 2006 with data through July 2006. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi-square test. Trend analysis was performed using ANOVA and the Tukey test. Results: The percentage of drug-facilitated intubations compared to total non-arrest intubations was 57.8%, 45.0%, 34.1%, and 71.1% for 2003, 2004, 2005, and the first 7 months of 2006 respectively. The percentage of DFI in 2003 (57.8%) compared to the percentage in 2004-2005 (38.8%) was statistically significant (p 0.05). Conclusions: Pre-hospital scene time and run times for acute strokes are less when there is diagnostic concordance between dispatchers and paramedics. Future efforts should focus on improving the stroke recognition by all levels of pre-hospital providers. Utilization of Computed Tomography Angiography in the Evaluation of Acute Pulmonary Embolus Mary Costantino, MD; Geneva Randall, MD; Marc Gosselin, MD; Carl Vegas, MD; Marissa Brandt; Kristopher Spinning. Oregon Health and Science University Introduction: Poor rates of thrombolysis for acute stroke partially result from lack of recognition and delayed hospital arrival by patients. Even though EMS transports reduce time to hospital arrival, acute strokes missed by both emergency medical dispatchers (EMD) and paramedics may result in prolonged transport times. Objectives: We sought to determine pre-hospital time delays for acute strokes in a large urban EMS system. Methods: Retrospective study of patients >18 years identified Western Journal of Emergency Medicine Objectives: To assess the appropriate use of computed tomography angiography (CTA) in the diagnostic evaluation of acute pulmonary embolism (PE). Methods: Review of 580 inpatient (45%), emergency department (ED) (41%) and outpatient (14%) CTAs to evaluate for acute PE performed at a large teaching hospital from January 2004 through March 2005. Based on chart review blinded to final diagnoses, PE pretest probability using Wells criteria was retrospectively assigned. D-dimer values (if obtained) were also reviewed. Results: Of the 580 patients scanned, only three were high probability; two of these had PE (67%). Of the remaining 577, 48% were intermediate and 51% were low probability. The overall positivity rate for PE was 10%; inpatient 12%, ED 8%, and outpatient 1%. Of the high, intermediate and low probability groups, 67%, 14% and 5% had PE, respectively. Volume VIII, no . 3 : August 2007


We consider the online scheduling problems of three and four machines under eligibility constraint. Respectively for the cases of three and four machines, we prove that AW algorithm has competitive ratios of 5/2 and 3 which are shown to be optimal. Also, we show that the same results hold for the semi-online cases with prior knowledge of the total and the largest processing time.


Many current data mining tasks can be accomplished successfully only in a distributed setting. The field of distributed data mining has therefore gained increasing importance in the last decade. The Apriori algorithm by Rakesh Agarwal has emerged as one of the best Association Rule mining algorithms. Ii also serves as the base algorithm for most parallel algorithms. The enormity and high dimensionality of datasets typically available as input to problem of association rule discovery, makes it an ideal problem for solving on multiple processors in parallel. The primary reasons are the memory and CPU speed limitations faced by single processors. In this paper an Optimized Distributed Association Rule mining algorithm for geographically distributed data is used in parallel and distributed environment so that it reduces communication costs. The response time is calculated in this environment using XML data.


The search for new alpha-emitters in the region above tin-100 was carried out in Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) tandem accelerator in Tokai, Japan. This work aimed to discover barium-113 produced via the fusion-evaporation reaction nickel-58(nickel58,3n)barium-113 and observation through its alpha-decay chain from barium-113 to xenon109 to tellurium-105 and tin-101. In the proof of principle experiment in March 2014, the alpha-decay chain of xenon-109 was observed with Double-sided Silicon Strip Detector (DSSD) and digital electronics at JAEA Recoil Mass Separator (RMS). The first discoveryoriented barium-113 experiment was carried out in December 2014 searching for its alphadecay, ground-state to ground-state beta-decay and beta-delayed charged particle emission. An estimate was made on the upper limit of half-life of barium-113 as well as the production cross section.


13C relaxation studies on side-chain methyl groups in proteins typically involve measurements on (13)CHD(2) isotopomers, where the (13)C relaxation mechanism is particularly straightforward in the presence of a single proton. While such isotopomers can be obtained in proteins overexpressed in bacteria by use of (13)C enriched and fractionally deuterated media, invariably all possible (2)H isotopomers are obtained. This results in a loss of both resolution and sensitivity, which becomes particularly severe for larger proteins. We describe an approach that overcomes this problem by chemical synthesis of amino acids containing a pure (13)CHD(2) isotopomer. We illustrate the benefits of this approach in (13)C side-chain relaxation measurements on the mouse major urinary protein selectively enriched with [gamma(1),gamma(2)-(13)C(2),alpha,beta,gamma(1),gamma(1),gamma(2),gamma(2)-(2)H(6)] valine. Relaxation measurements in the absence and presence of pyrazine-derived ligands suggest that valine side-chain dynamics do not contribute significantly to binding entropy.


A new paradigm for prosody research is presented, inspired by the speech production model recently proposed by Guenther, Perkell, and colleagues. This research paradigm aims at generalizing the production model by extending it from a predominantly segmental perspective to a new theory of the production of prosody. Speech movements in the prosodic domain are interpreted as intonational gestures that are planned to reach and traverse perceptual target regions. Evidence from alignment studies suggests that the perceptual targets can be approximately represented by regions in a multidimensional acoustictemporal space. These studies also indicate that segmental, spectral, temporal, and prosodic structure are co-produced in such a way as to mutually support and enhance, and not impair, the perceptual targets. Furthermore, examples of multilevel mappings between invariant and variable targets in the domain of prosody are provided, and a dichotomy of phonemic and postural prosodic settings is discussed.


This paper introduces the Aster distributed configuration-based-programming system that is aimed at easing the development of emerging distributed applications having quality of service requirements. Our approach is based on high-level customization: given the specification of application requirements using the Aster interconnection language, a distributed runtime system, customized for meeting these requirements is built. So as to make the customization process sound, we propose a formal method that allows one to reason about specification matching of a customized distributed runtime system with the application's requirements.


This article explores how desire operates in the daily lives of women with disordered eating. Based on qualitative findings from a South Australian study investigating why women with disordered eating are reluctant to seek help, we trace the multiple "tipping points" and triggers that are central to participants' everyday experiences. Employing anthropological interpretations of desire, we argue that triggers are circulations of productive desire, informed by cultural values and social relations, and embodied in routine daily acts. We examine the cultural-work of desire and the ways in which gendered relationships with food, eating and bodies trigger desires, creating a constant back and forth movement propelling participants in multiple directions. In conclusion, we suggest that a socio-cultural approach to desire in disordered eating has clinical implications, as cultural configurations of desire may help to understand ambivalence towards relapse and recovery.


In a spray agglomeration process the particle wetting influences the agglomerate growth and particle dynamics in the granulator. The mass of binder liquid that is deposited on single particles affects the amount of energy dissipation during particle contacts. For the agglomeration of colliding particles the whole impact energy has to be dissipated due to viscous and capillary adhesion forces in the liquid film and plastic deformation of the material. Therefore, a detailed knowledge of the particle wetting is necessary to model the agglomeration process. This contribution uses a coupled DEM-CFD approach to describe the spray zone of a two-fluid nozzle in a fluidized bed agglomerator. Droplets modeled as discrete elements showed the formation of a spray zone with a conical shape. Simulations of the spray zone and the wetting of single particles are in good agreement with experimental results.


Labeled heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPG) were isolated from wounded and confluent cultures of bovine aortic endothelial cells by nondegradative extraction with 4 M guanidine hydrochloride and detergent. HSPG were separated from more highly charged chondroitin or dermatan sulfate proteoglycans by ion-exchange chromatography, and subclasses of different hydrodynamic size were isolated by gel filtration. Three major subclasses of HSPG were characterized structurally with respect to the presence and relative size of protein core, the presence and amount of nonsulfated oligosaccharide, and size and structure of heparan sulfate (HS) chains. The largest (600-800-kDa) HSPG subclass (I), isolated from cell layers and media of confluent cultures, bears 38-kDa HS chains on an apparently heterogeneous class of relatively large glycoprotein cores. HSPG II (150-200 kDa), isolated from cell layer or media, has 22-kDa HS chains and smaller core glycoproteins (less than 50 kDa). HSPG III, the subclass of smallest hydrodynamic size, has 13-kDa HS chains and a glycopeptide core of less than 15 kDa. All subclasses bear varying proportions of non-sulfated oligosaccharides of similar sizes. Comparisons of HS chain structure indicated that the different subclasses have similar proportions (49-55%) of N-sulfate, with both O-sulfate and highly N-sulfated blocks of disaccharide distributed similarly along HS chains. In addition, HS chains from subclasses II and III contain sequences that are insensitive to periodate oxidation or heparitinase digestion, suggesting that they contain increased proportions of iduronate.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


This work is devoted to the structure of the time-discrete Green–Naghdi equations including bathymetry. We use the projection structure of the equations to characterize homogeneous and inhomogeneous boundary conditions for which the semi-discrete equations are well-posed. This structure allows us to propose efficient and robust numerical treatment of the boundary conditions that ensures entropy stability of the scheme by construction. Numerical evidence is provided to illustrate that our approach is suitable for situations of practical interest that are not covered by existing theory.


The etiology of type 2 diabetes has long been centered on insulin. Recently, however, glucagon has been attracting attention. It has been reported that glucagon receptor or pancreatic α cell-deficient mice do not deteriorate glucose intolerance after pancreatic beta cells are destroyed with streptozotocin and insulin secretion is depleted. This suggests that glucagon and glucagon receptors are crucial for glucose intolerance in diabetes mellitus, and the elucidation of glucagon signaling is still awaited. This review will begin with an overview of the history of glucagon. In the nearly 100 years since the discovery of glucagon, it has become clear that glucagon plays a role in blood glucose in type 2 diabetes as much or more than insulin. This is due in large part to the advent of the sandwich Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) method, which allows accurate measurement of glucagon by using N- and C-terminal antibodies. Next, the mechanism of action of glucagon on blood glucose levels will be outlined. Glucagon increases blood glucose levels by enhancing gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis. Glucagon also enhances lipolysis, which indirectly contributes to weight loss and improved blood glucose levels. Recently, mice with defective or decreased glucagon secretion have been developed, and the effects of glucagon are becoming clearer in vivo. Mice with elevated glucagon secretion have also appeared, and their glucose tolerance improvement through lipolysis and weight loss is also attracting attention. Research on glucagon is not limited to animal experiments but has already reached the stage of clinical application. Drugs that suppress glucagon have side effects such as liver damage, but they are effective in improving blood glucose. Drugs that increase glucagon also have hypoglycemic effects resulting from weight loss. Thus, glucagon has undergone a dizzying evolution over the past decade. The day may soon come when drugs that target glucagon will dominate diabetes treatment.


Integer lattice gas automata (ILGA) are combined with the transmission-line matrix (TLM) method to yield a new electromagnetic-field computation algorithm using very low-preci- sion integer variables. Lattice gas automata can be evaluated using look-up tables on special-purpose hardware and do not require floating-point arithmetic. In this paper, we present a TLM moti- vated ILGA with emphasis placed on algorithms that demonstrate minimal dissipation.


A gastropericardial fistula, defined as penetration of a gastric lesion into the pericardium, is a rare occurrence. Such a fistula is usually associated with a huge ulcer in the gastric fundus, an ulcer within a hiatus hernia, a history of esophagogastric surgery, the concurrent use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), or Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. The patient in this case presented with shoulder pain and melena, caused by a gastropericardial fistula that had occurred as a late complication of postoperative esophagogastrostomy and a refractory gastric ulcer. Despite the severity of the condition, the patient showed great improvement after medical treatment and the fistula was cured at the end.


Millions of people in Bangladesh suffer from hunger, unpredictable and unstable livelihoods, precarious living conditions and social injustice. Yet they survive and become resilient. However, the resilience achieved by the poor is minimal and incremental in nature and does not result in their wellbeing. Based on three years of qualitative research, this article attempts to understand the nature of and pathways to 'resilience of the poor people'. The article argues that poor people's approach to 'resilience' is twofold. First, they perceive their poverty and associated problems as 'Allah's will', with not much to be done about it. At the same time, they engage in continuous innovative practices to survive. These two worldviews together ('fatalism' and 'self‐help') make the poor 'resilient'. This also 'partially' explains the absence of strong activism, collective action and protests within a context of state failure (in terms of ensuring rights and entitlements to its citizens).


Garbled Circuits (GC) is a technique for ensuring the privacy of inputs from users and is particularly well suited for FPGA implementations in the cloud where data analytics is frequently run. Secure Function Evaluation, such as that enabled by GC, is orders of magnitude slower than processing in the clear. We present our best implementation of GC on Amazon Web Services (AWS) that implements garbling on Amazon's FPGA enabled F1 instances. In this paper we present the largest problems garbled to date on FPGA instances, which includes problems that are represented by over four million gates. Our implementation speeds up garbling 20 times over software over a range of different circuit sizes.


Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a new class of therapeutic compounds. The current advances in mRNA technology require the development of efficient analytical methods. In this work, we describe the development of several methods for measurement of mRNA poly(A) tail length and heterogeneity. Poly(A) tail was first cleaved from mRNA with the RNase T1 enzyme. The average length of a liberated poly(A) tail was analyzed with the size exclusion chromatography method. Size heterogeneity of the poly(A) tail was estimated with high-resolution ion-pair reversed phase liquid chromatography (IP RP LC). The IP RP LC method provides resolution of poly(A) tail oligonucleotide variants up to 150 nucleotide long. Both methods use a robust ultraviolet detection suitable for mRNA analysis in quality control laboratories. The results were confirmed by the LC-mass spectrometry (LC MS) analysis of the same mRNA sample. The poly(A) tail length and heterogeneity results were in good agreement.


The importance of power supply equipment in modern telecommunication systems is investigated and the requirements on rectifier units are precised. Principles and characteristics of "Direct off-Line Rectifiers" are explained and a comparison with conventional rectifier units is given. Advantages of this technique are demonstrated by a small 25 W and a big 1.6 kW DOL-rectifier unit. Possibilities in connection with telecommunication systems are discussed and limits of the DOL-technique are treated.


In this work we present ABAKO, a new computational code based on analytical models and developed to study the population kinetics of steady-state plasmas. The tool ABAKO can be applied to low-to-high Z ions under a wide range of laboratory plasma conditions: coronal, LTE or NLTE, optically thin or thick plasmas. Autoionizing states are explicitly included. The results obtained with ABAKO are competitive with more elaborated, but also time-consuming codes. Our code provides satisfactory charge state distributions (CSD) and reasonable estimations of spectroscopic observables of high-Z plasmas, as it can be seen through comparison with experimental data.


Spurious signals such as the piezoelectric signal from a ferroelectric crystal or the ringing signal from the NMR probe head tuned for low gyromagnetic ratio nuclei are often observed in pulsed NMR. Both signals are cancelled using the Hahn echo sequence with appropriate phase cyclings. The present paper applies a composite-pulse sequence to cancel the ringing signal. The main advantage of this sequence over the Hahn echo sequence is in the simplicity of optimizing the line intensity: the optimization of only one pulse duration for this sequence but of two pulse durations and the interpulse delay for the Hahn echo sequence. We are interested in half-integer quadrupole spins (I = 3/2, 5/2, 7/2, and 9/2), which means that we must consider the first-order quadrupole interaction during the pulses. For simplicity, we deal mainly with spin I = 3/2 nuclei. Since the central-line intensity depends on the ratio of the quadrupole coupling constant (QCC) to the amplitude of the RF pulse, we can determine the QCC from a featureless lineshape by fitting the variation of the experimental central-line intensity for increasing pulse duration with theoretical results. Contrary to the one-pulse sequence where the central-line intensity is proportional to the pulse duration if the latter is short, there is no such condition with the composite-pulse sequence. In other words, this sequence does not allow us to quantify the relative spin populations in powders. The size of the sample must be much smaller than that of the RF coil in order for the RF magnetic field to become homogeneous for the sample. We used (87)Rb (I = 3/2) in an aqueous solution of RbCl and in RbNb2O5F powder, (131)Xe (I = 3/2) of xenon gas physisorbed in Na-Y zeolite, and (23)Na (I = 3/2) in two well-known powders (NaNO3 and NaNO2) to support our theoretical result.


Radio frequency ablation (RFA), which is an important method for treating nonresectable and metastatic liver tumors, has increasingly been used over the past few years. On the positive side, RFA treatment is minimally invasive. On the negative side, the exact dimensions of the coagulated zone are not clearly visible in medical diagnostic images. A practical temperature distribution simulator is needed to overcome this deficiency. To construct such a simulator for RFA, the relation between temperature dependence and thermal conductivity must be known. To determine this relation, a steady-comparative method in- vitro experiment was conducted with a hog liver. The experiment confirmed that the thermal conductivity of the hog liver was certainly temperature dependent. Moreover, we were able to model the relation between thermal conductivity and temperature dependence. It clearly is important to consider the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity when constructing a practical simulation for RFA.


The story of Triptolemos is connected with the myth of Demeter. This goddess, in gratitude for the hospitality received from the parents of Triptolemos during the difficult quest for her missing daughter, Persephone, gave the young man an unusual chariot in order to help him reveal the mystery of agriculture to people and popularise this skill among them. That special moment was commemorated on vases produced in the red-figure technique in the fifth century BC and later artists repeatedly undertook this theme. However, an interesting difference in the way Triptolemos's chariot is depicted appears on the subsequent art works. On ancient vases, Triptolemos is seated on a chariot with winged wheels, whereas two snakes are slithering beside. The following works of art depict a chariot dragged by winged dragons. The analysis of selected texts of ancient authors shows that the growing tendency to portray the chariot of Triptolemos with dragons is not justified by literary sources and is dictated by the imagination of the artist.


This paper investigates the success of the well-known reverse-shooting and forward-shooting algorithms in finding stable solutions for linear macroeconomic models that both possess the particular property known as saddle-path instabiity and also have highly cyclic dynamic properties. It is anticipated that assessing how well these algorithms cope with solving highly cyclic models will also provide insights into how well they are likely to cope with solving non-linear models. In this paper, a perfect foresight version of the well-known Cagan (1956) model of the monetary dynamics of hyperinflation is augmented with a labour market. Additional eignevalues are then generated through sluggish adjustment mechanisms for wages and for the supply of labour. This process provides the simplest model with stable complex-valued eigenvalues and a saddlepath: a model with two stable complex-valued eigenvalues and one unstable real-valued eigenvalue. Using this model, it is possible to define an indexing parameter that, when varied, determines a range of values for the stable eignvalues: from (i) real-valued, to (ii) complex-valued with small absolute imaginary part, to (iii) complex-valued with large absolute imaginary part. This leads to corresponding stable time-paths for the model, which are (i) either humped or monotonic, (ii) cyclic but with infrequent cycles, and (iii) cyclic but with frequent cycles. This paper then compares the properties of solutions derived using the reverse-shooting and forward-shooting approaches as the magnitude of the indexing parameter (and hence of the cycles) is allowed to vary. In the highly oscillatory case, we show that the success of both approaches is crucially dependent on the choice of ODE solver and of parameters.


This paper proposes the use of digital knitting to fabricate three-dimensional stretchable fabric with transformative properties. The research focus is on the application of the curling effect and the resultant stitch structures. Rib, purl, and links structures, which have alternating face and back loops in the structural knit cell and produced the curling effect, are investigated. Thirty-six samples based on the three structures along with 12 different stitch combinations are produced through the digital knitting process. The properties of the samples, including the dimensional changes, surface texture, weight and thickness, and tensile properties, are subsequently evaluated and compared by using both quantitative and qualitative assessment methods. The results show that the developed knitted fabrics that use the curling effect through alternating face and back loops are significantly three-dimensional in surface texture and have considerable stretchability. These effects in general increase with the growth of stitch number in a structural knit cell. However, only the links structures show considerable extensibility along both course and wale directions, while the rib and purl structures have enhanced stretchability in only the course and wale directions, respectively. Therefore, this design-led textile study provides a simple but effective means for producing new materials that offer both function and aesthetics for fashion with transformable designs. The work here also provides a technical-based integrated approach for innovative textile and fashion developments.


The present case is reported to illustrate an interdisciplinary approach involving orthodontics and restorative dentistry to manage the case of a 24-year-old Caucasian female with agenesis of the maxillary right lateral incisor, presence of the maxillary right canine in place of the lateral incisor, microdontia of the maxillary left lateral incisor, and midline deviation. Treatment included space opening and positioning of a 3 mm implant supporting a single-unit crown, placed using computer-assisted, templateguided surgery.


Abstract Based on collaborative research between a Congolese activist in HIV prevention in Belgium and a French anthropologist, this paper hopes to initiate a debate about the issue of HIV /AIDS in light of the postcolonial links between Belgium and its former colony Congo/Zaire. By exploring the social representations that HIV has generated in Francophone Belgium and the changing political management of the epidemic since the 1980s, the paper focuses on how Congolese HIV-positive migrants have been viewed, treated and allowed (or not) to settle in Belgium. It analyzes how the HIV/AIDS epidemic was seen as an 'African disease,' and more precisely a 'Congolese virus.' It concludes that Achille Mbembe's 'postcolonial scoriae' must be taken into account (without necessarily implying a linear passage from colonial to postcolonial relations) in order to understand European and international policies in Africa or policies concerning African migrants.


ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate and compare the levels of quality of life of parents/caregivers of children with and without diagnosis of asthma. Methods: Parents of children with asthma (asthma group) undergoing outpatient care and parents of children without asthma or asthma in remission (control group) were selected from public schools. They answered a questionnaire about quality of life (The World Health Organization Quality of Life- WHOQOL-BREF), previously validated for the study population. Domains (physical, psychological, social relations, environment and total score) were compared between groups, as well as the levels of correlation of self-perceived quality of life and satisfaction with health. Results: 101 parents/caregivers were included in the sample, that is, 50 (49.5%) parents of asthmatic children and 51 (50.5%) in the control group. Most parents included in the sample were females (n=89; 88.1%), with mean age of 33.5±10.4 years. When assessing quality of life, the overall score of domains was considered satisfactory, both in general evaluation (68.6±13.4) and in each group (asthma: 62.8±10.7; control: 74.3±13.4; p-value<0.001). Comparison of asthma and control groups showed significant differences in total score and in scores of all domains (p<0.001). Conclusions: Parents/caregiversof children with asthma have a lower quality of life compared to parents/caregivers of healthy children.


Social context strongly influences human motivated behavior. The triadic model implicates three major nodes in the regulation of motivated behavior, i.e. amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and striatum. The present work examines how social context modulates this system. Nineteen healthy subjects completed an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study of a monetary betting task in the presence (social trials) and in the absence of a social peer (nonsocial trials). In the social trials, the scanned subject played along with another subject, although their performances were independent from one another. In the nonsocial trials the scanned subject played alone. Although behavioral performance did not differ between social and nonsocial trials, BOLD signal changes during betting were significantly greater in the amygdala bilaterally and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9) in the social condition relative to the nonsocial condition. In contrast, activation was greater in ventral striatum in the nonsocial condition relative to the social condition. These findings suggest that social context modulates the triadic neural-systems ensemble to adjust motivated behavior to the unique demands associated with the presence of conspecifics.


Abstract Natural and forest-rich ecosystems are determinants of environmental sustainability, which are threatened by forest land conversion for agricultural purposes, especially in less-developed contexts. Moreover, human behaviour is central to achieving the much desired ecologically balanced environment. Hence, a partly novel model informed by the theory of planned behaviour was used in the examination of forest land conversion for agricultural purposes. The study design was a cross-sectional survey targeted at a group of farmers of southwestern Nigeria. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire among 320 randomly selected crop farmers. Independent samples t test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test the significance of difference in respondents' forest conversion behaviour across subgroups of gender and age/education, respectively. Stepwise multiple linear regression was used to identify the determinants of forest conversion behaviour. Results showed that 87.8% of respondents had ever engaged in forest conversion. Gender and education had no significant effect on forest conversion behaviour (p > 0.05), but age did (p < 0.05). Attitude was the best determinant (β = 0.289, r = 0.510, R2 = 0.260, p < 0.001), subjective norm was better (β = 0.257, r = 0.496, R2 = 0.055, p < 0.001), while perceived behavioural control was good (β = 0.131, r = 0.398, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.012, p < 0.005). The three variables correlated with intention by a degree of 57.2% (multiple R = 0.572), while they explained 32.7% of the variance in intention (R2 =0.327). Intention was also found to be a significant determinant of behaviour (β = 0.222, r = 0.222, R2 = 0.049, p < 0.001). Middle age predisposes to, whereas younger and older age protects against greater extent of forest conversion. The partly novel model derived from the theory of planned behaviour proves the likely viability of the pursuit of socio-psychologically predicated interventions to enthrone forest conservation.


The fourth generation of LAPAN satellite will employ Experimental LAPAN Line Imager for Space Application (ELLISA) for its mission on earth observation. In developing the imager, embedded systems like microcontroller and FPGA (field-programmable gate array) are utilized as interface and timing control, respectively. FPGA controls CCD (charge-coupled device) and ADC (analog-to-digital converter) timings and alters the data from CCD format to Camera Link format. Microcontroller, as an interface, handles command from users and other subsystems. Communication system is established between the two devices in order to transfer and translate incoming data from/to the subsystems and user. In this paper, a customized communication design has been successfully implemented between the microcontroller and FPGA for ELLISA development. This communication design can be realized on microcontroller with simple features.


In order to deal with the limited bandwidth of the network and to avoid the uncertainty caused by transmission delays and packet loss, two-level DNCS with deterministic communication logic is presented and central fault diagnosis unit is designed under this communication pattern. The central FDI unit and each subsystem both have identical estimators and thus identical state estimate. For each subsystem, instead of transmitting data to the central FDI unit every sample time, only when the difference between the actual and estimated state of the subsystem is greater than a threshold, the actual state of the subsystem is broadcasted to state estimator in the central FDI unit, otherwise this is no data on the network Using the inputs and outputs of the subsystems obtained from the state estimator in the central FDI unit, observer-based fault diagnosis is proposed. Finally the simulations are presented and discussed.


DNA damage response is essential for maintenance of genomic integrity and functions as a guardian against oncogenic transformation. Ionizing radiation and chemotherapeutic drugs used in anticancer therapies often incur DNA damage in killing of tumor cells. The central regulator of DNA damage response is the tumor suppressor p53, which inhibits cell cycle progression by activating p21 and other cell cycle regulators, or induces apoptosis through proapoptotic targets such as PUMA and Bax. In addition to p53, other p53 family members, such as p73 and p63, also play a significant role in DNA damage response. However, it has remained unclear how coordination of different p53 family members modulates DNA damage response. In this study, we found that sub-lethal levels of DNA damage up-regulated TAp73, the transcriptionally active form of p73, whereas lethal doses of DNA damage triggered TAp73 depletion. In response to mild DNA damage, TAp73 occupied p53 responsive elements in the promoters of p53 target genes to keep the transcriptional activity of p53 in check, which resulted in cell cycle arrest. Following excessive DNA damage, the depletion of TAp73 resulted in enhanced induction of p53 target genes such as PUMA, Noxa and Bax, leading to apoptosis initiation. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that TAp73 depletion after excessive DNA damage was caused by ubiquitin/proteasome-mediated degradation of E2F1, which activates TAp73 expression to maintain cell survival. Collectively, our results suggest that modulation of p53 activity by TAp73 mediates differential responses to genotoxic stress. Citation Format: Dongshi Chen, Lihua Ming, Fangdong Zou, Jian Yu, Lin Zhang. TAp73 depletion unleashes p53-mediated apoptotic response to lethal DNA damage. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 777. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-777


In the modern globar market and manufacturing environment, industries have to put more focus on reducing time to market while reducing production costs on the development of new products. Collaborative product development is a growing trend that is being used to answer some of that problem. However, literature research has revealed that there are only a small number of researches that has talked about cooperative CAD systems. This paper will try to show that this type of system can be used in the conceptual-embodiment design phase while encouraging creative solutions from the designers involved. It will also list some functional requirements and areas of interest for these type of system that has been identified by this research at the time of writing.


SUMMARY Bluetongue is a disease of major economic concern in Europe. Its causative agent, bluetongue virus (BTV), is transmitted by several Culicoides species (mainly Culicoides imicola and Culicoides obsoletus in Europe). The application of insecticides on animals may reduce transmission of BTV, however, no formulation is currently licensed specifically against Culicoides midges. The present study assesses the susceptibility of C. obsoletus to deltamethrin using an adapted World Health Organization (WHO) susceptibility test. Midges were exposed to different dosages of deltamethrin for 1 h, and mortality after 1 h and 24 h was recorded. Results indicated that deltamethrin is highly toxic to C. obsoletus since a dose of 1·33×10−4% was enough to kill 50% of the population (LD50) in 24 h. The deltamethrin concentration needed to kill 90% of the population (LD90) was 5·55×10−4%. The results obtained in the present work could help to create a system that can be used to assess insecticide resistance and susceptibility of Culicoides biting midges.


UNLABELLED
Intoxication with novel recreational drugs poses significant challenge for medical staff due to diagnostic difficulties, complex clinical pattern, resulting from polyethiology of poisoning and potential risk of life threatening complications.

OBJECTIVES
Description of clinical pattern novel drug intoxication.

METHODS
retrospective review of medical records patients hospitalized in the Toxicology Unit (TU) with diagnosis of intoxication with novel recreational drugs.

RESULTS
During the period from 2008-2010--431 patients were admitted to TU with mentioned above diagnosis. 159 (36.9%) patients were positive for ethanol with its average concentration in blood 150 mg%. Presence of other substances like amphetamine, cannabinoids, atropine, ephedrine, carbamazepine, benzodiazepines and dextrometorphan was confirmed. The most frequent clinical symptoms observed on admission were: anxiety, agitation, complaints associated with circulatory system and vertigo Average pulse rate and both: diastolic and systolic pressure were within normal limits, however authors noted slight tendency toward tachycardia. One patients died due to multiorgan failure. Average period of hospitalization amounted 2.24 days. Co-poisoning with ethanol was associated with higher frequency of circulatory system disturbances.

RESULTS
Clinical pattern of poisoning with novel drugs could partially correspond with mild sympathomime. tic syndrome.


We consider a quantum entangled state for two particles, each particle having two basis states, which includes an entangled pair of spin 1/2 particles. We show that, for any quantum entangled state vectors of such systems, one can always find a pair of observable operators X ,Y with zero–correlations (〈ψ| XY |ψ〉−〈ψ| X |ψ〉 〈ψ| Y |ψ〉 = 0). At the same time, if we consider the analogous classical system of a "classically entangled" (statistically non-independent) pair of random variables taking two values, one can never have zero–correlations (zero covariance, E[XY ] − E[X]E[Y ] = 0). We provide a general proof to illustrate a different nature of entanglements in classical and quantum theories.


ABSTRACT We introduce the Weibull distributions in presence of cure fraction, censored data and covariates. Two models are explored in this paper: mixture and non-mixture models. Inferences for the proposed models are obtained under the Bayesian approach, using standard MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) methods. An illustration of the proposed methodology is given considering a life- time data set.


In oil and gas field operations, the dynamic interactions between reservoir and wellbore cannot be ignored, especially during transient flow in the near-wellbore region. A particular instance of transient flow in the near-wellbore region is the intermittent response of a reservoir that is typical of liquid loading in gas wells. Despite the high level of attention that the industry has devoted to the alleviation of liquid loading, the fundamental understanding of the associated phenomena is still surprisingly weak. This applies not only to the flows in the wells, but also to the ways in which these flows interact with those in the reservoir. The classical way of dealing with these interactions, inflow performance relationships (IPRs), relate the inflow from the reservoir to the pressure at the bottom of the well, which is related to the multiphase flow behavior in the tubing. These relationships are usually based on steady-state or pseudo steady-state assumptions. However, such IPRs may be inadequate when a transition from an acceptable liquid loading regime to an unacceptable occurs over a relatively small range of production rates and, hence, over a relatively short time. The most satisfactory solution would be to couple a transient model for the reservoir to a transient model for the well. This paper presents the results of a numerical modeling effort focused on the identification of the transient pressure profile in the near-wellbore region during fully transient flow conditions. The preliminary results, obtained for a single-phase (gas) situation and for a three-phase (oil-water-gas) situation, show a "U-shaped" pressure profile along the reservoir radius. The existence of a similar pressure profile could be the explanation for the reinjection of the heavier phase into the reservoir during liquid unloading in gas wells.


Though superliquid-repelling surfaces are universally important in the fields of fundamental research and industrial production, the understanding and development of these surfaces to impacting liquid droplets remain elusive, especially the changes of wettability states. Surface roughness is required to obtain superliquid-repelling surfaces. However, the effect of surface roughness on the transition of these surfaces' wettability states is uncertain. Herein, we unveiled the relationship of surface roughness on regulating the wettability states of superliquid-repelling surfaces with randomly distributed rough structures through experiment and calculations. The roughness was controlled via regulating the size of surface rough structures, which were formed by a facile coating method. The results indicated that the surface rough structures could impact the value of the polar component (γsp) and then impact the wettability states of superliquid-repelling surfaces. Quantitatively, when the increment of surface roughness was low, the decrement of γsp was low and the wettability state of the superliquid-repelling surface was superhydrophobicity. When the increment of surface roughness was high, the decrement of γsp was high and the wettability state of the superliquid-repelling surface converted to superamphiphobicity. The findings will shed light onto the development of superliquid-repelling surfaces in future studies.


In this paper, TE(transverse electric) scattering problems by a conductive strip grating between a double dielectric layer are analyzed by applying the PMM(point matching method) known as a numerical method of electromagnetic fileld. The boundary conditions are applied to obtain the unknown field coefficients, the scattered electromagnetic fields are expanded in a series of Floquet mode functions, and the conductive boundary condition is applied to analysis of the conductive strip. The numerical results for the normalized reflected and transmitted power are analyzed by according as the width and spacing of conductive strip, the relative permittivity and thickness of the double dielectric layers, and incident angles. The most normalized reflected powers of the sharp variations in minimum values are scattered in direction of the other angles except incident angle. The numerical results for the presented structure of this paper are shown in good agreement compared to those of the existing papers.


Background: PD 0332991 is an orally bioavailable selective inhibitor of CDK 4/6 and prevents cellular DNA synthesis by prohibiting progression of the cell cycle from G1 into the S phase. Preclinical evaluations suggest that reduction in CDKN2A (p16) expression and cyclin D1 (CCND1) overexpression confer susceptibility to PD 0332991 (Finn 2009). In addition, PD 0332991 was synergistic in combination with tamoxifen in vitro in ER+ human breast cancer cell lines. Based on these observations, a phase 1/2 study in combination with letrozole as first-line therapy for advanced ER+ post-menopausal breast cancer was initiated. The phase 1 part of the study (completed) determined the recommended phase 2 dose to be PD 0332991 125 mg QD on Schedule 3/1 (3 weeks on treatment followed by 1-week off treatment) in combination with letrozole 2.5 mg QD. The combination was generally well tolerated and encouraging antitumor activity was observed. We present preliminary data from the randomized Phase 2 portion comparing letrozole alone to letrozole plus PD 0332991. Methods: The Phase 2 portion of the study is designed as a two-part study; we present data from Part 1. In both parts, eligible patients are randomized 1:1 to letrozole 2.5 mg QD alone (control) or PD 0332991 125 mg QD on schedule 3/1 and letrozole 2.5 mg QD (treatment, tx). Part 1enrolled post-menopausal women with ER+, HER2− cancer using only ER+, HER2−as a selection criteria. Part 2 is now enrolling post-menopausal women with ER+, HER2− breast cancer with CCND1 amplification and/or loss of p16 by FISH (target N=150). The primary endpoint is progression-free survival (PFS); secondary endpoints include overall survival, response rate, safety, and correlative studies. Pts are stratified for disease site and length from prior adjuvant therapy. Pts continue assigned study treatment until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or consent withdrawal and are followed every 2 months to assess disease status. Tumor tissue was required for participation. Results: 66 patients have been randomized in Part 1. At the time of data cut-off (April 2011) median duration of treatment is 20 (range 4–64) wks for control and 27 (2-59) wks for tx. Dose reductions occurred in 9 pts on the tx arm and none on the control arm. There are no complete responses. The number of partial responses for pts with measurable disease are similar between arms (4/22 control vs 5/24 in tx). The number of pts with stable disease> 24 weeks was higher in the tx arm (5 vs 8). The number of pts with best response of progressive disease is lower in the treatment arm (2 vs 6). PFS data are immature. Twelve pts remain on control vs. 21 on tx. As in the Phase I portion of the study, the most common treatment-related AEs were neutropenia and leucopenia without febrile neutropenia. Biomarker studies for CCND1 amplification, p16 loss, RB status, and Ki67 are ongoing. Conclusion: The combination of PD 0332991 and letrozole is well tolerated as first-line treatment of ER+, HER2− post-menopausal breast cancer. Updated efficacy data and biomarker data will be presented. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-17-05.


It has been postulated that exocrine pancreatic enzymes may undergo an enteropancreatic recirculation as a mechanism for the conservation of digestive enzymes. Exocrine pancreatic secretions contain considerable amounts of ribonuclease (RNase), Therefore we examined the absorption of RNase from the small bowel of 4-week and 10-week-old rats by measuring concentration changes of the substrate in portal blood after instilling RNase into in vivo, in situ intestinal loops. Unphysiologically high intestinal luminal RNase concentrations were required for sufficient RNase to cross the mucosal barrier and raise portal vein blood RNase levels. A gradient of 1,000:1 existed between intestinal lumen and portal vein blood RNase concentrations in the 4-week-old rats. The gradient was 10 times greater in the mature animals. No significant differences in luminal absorption of RNase from duodenum or ileum were detected. The data indicate that RNase penetrates the intestinal mucosa in vivo but that only small amounts are absorbed. Therefore if an enteropancreatic recirculation of exocrine pancreatic RNase exists in the rat, only neglible quantities of RNase are included in such a recirculation.


The health of riparian habitats across northern Australia is becoming increasingly important to its diverse land management community. Assessing, protecting and improving the condition of riparian habitats has been and will continue to be a major activity focus of regional planing in northern Australia. However, a lack of information on assessing the health of savanna riparian zones has resulted in little evaluation of the effectiveness of existing programs or the prioritisation of works for future programs. Many methods already exist to assess riparian health, but their application is often limited to specific areas or projects and purposes. Consideration of the vast river lengths present in northern Australia, often in remote areas, led us to develop a rapid appraisal method suitable for trained non-specialists to assess savanna riparian health. The method is being applied across northern Queensland and the Northern Territory and is comprised of attributes of vegetation cover, woody debris, weediness, native plant regeneration and evidence of disturbance. It is based on methods developed by Werren and Arthington (2002) and Jansen et al. (2004) and has been modified for the different conditions of northern Australia. It provides a consistent approach across large geographic areas and should help to assess and improve management of savanna riparian zones in pastoral, mixed use and conservation managed lands across northern Australia.


Background T1 and T2 mapping detect myocardial fibrosis and oedema respectively. T1 values show segmental variation in mid ventricular SAX slice, making the identification of regional pathology difficult.We tested the reproducibility of T1 and T2 mapping in health and disease and regional variations of T2 values. Methods Patients with non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy (NICM, n-10), ischaemic heart disease (IHD, n-10) and 10 controls underwent T1 and T2 mapping in a single SAX slice on a 3T scanner using MOLLI and T2 multi-echo sequence. Two independent observers measured T1 and T2 values from quantitative maps in six standardised regions of interest. Intra- and inter-observer reproducibility of T1 and T2 mapping was assessed using Bland-Altman plots and Pearson's correlation. Results Age was significantly higher in IHD group (p < 0.05). Patients with NICM had increased EDV (p < 0.05), IHD patients had increased ESV (p < 0.05) and decreased EF (p < 0.05). Intra- and inter-observer agreements for T1 (r = 0.988; r = 0.965) and T2 (r = 0.978; r = 0.948) values across the whole cohort were very high (p < 0.001 for all agreements). Similarly, the intra- and inter-observer coefficients of variation (CoV) for T1 (0.66%; 1.19%) and T2 (1.85%; 2.5%) values were low. There was no significant difference between segmental T2 values in theSAX slice (p = 0.205). Conclusions T1 and T2 mapping are highly reproducible techniques. T2 maps show no segmentalvariation. Our study suggests that a single normal range of T2 values could be applied to the entire mid-ventricular SAX slice. Future work should aim to create a normal range of T2 values for this purpose.


From the Publisher:
User-Centered Technology presents a theoretical model for examining technology through a user perspective. Johnson begins with a historical overview of the problem of technological use from the ancient Greeks to the present day - a problem seen most clearly in historical discussions of rhetoric theory. The central portion of the book elaborates on user-centered theory by defining three focal issues of the theory: user knowledge, human-technology interaction, and technological determinism. Working from an interdisciplinary perspective, Johnson uses rhetoric theory to present a definition of user knowledge; human factors engineering to illuminate the ideological presuppositions built into technology design; and history, philosophy, and sociology to explain technological determinism, possibly the greatest impediment to user-centered technology development in modern times. The latter part of the book applies user-centered theory in two contexts: the nonacademic sphere, where the writing and design of computer user documentation is discussed, and the academic sphere, through a discussion of how user-centered concepts might drive university technical communication and composition curricula.


Novel pathogens have the potential to become critical issues of national security, public health and economic welfare. As demonstrated by the response to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and influenza, genomic sequencing has become an important method for diagnosing agents of infectious disease. Despite the value of genomic sequences in characterizing novel pathogens, raw data on their own do not provide the information needed by public health officials and researchers. One must integrate knowledge of the genomes of pathogens with host biology and geography to understand the etiology of epidemics. To these ends, we have created an application called Supramap (http://supramap.osu.edu) to put information on the spread of pathogens and key mutations across time, space and various hosts into a geographic information system (GIS). To build this application, we created a web service for integrated sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis as well as methods to describe the tree, mutations, and host shifts in Keyhole Markup Language (KML). We apply the application to 239 sequences of the polymerase basic 2 (PB2) gene of recent isolates of avian influenza (H5N1). We map a mutation, glutamic acid to lysine at position 627 in the PB2 protein (E627K), in H5N1 influenza that allows for increased replication of the virus in mammals. We use a statistical test to support the hypothesis of a correlation of E627K mutations with avian‐mammalian host shifts but reject the hypothesis that lineages with E627K are moving westward. Data, instructions for use, and visualizations are included as supplemental materials at: http://supramap.osu.edu/sm/supramap/publications.


Independent living in their own home is currently an ideal shared by many older people. However, weakening physical strength and illness are often associated with nutritional risks. Convenience food is one option to ensure that nutritional needs are met, but convenience food itself and its packaging face negative attitudes. This article analyzes the factors connected to acceptability of and obstacles to using convenience food among older people in Finland. The analysis was done by using three sets of data gathered using a qualitative research method for examining how older people relate to convenience food and food packaging. The methods used were empathy-based stories (2011 n = 114) and two rounds of focus group discussions (2012 n = 22, 2014 n = 32). By and large, the study participants associated negative meanings with convenience food. Some saw convenience food as an easy solution in certain situations. Our study showed that elderly individuals valued healthiness of food, freedom of choice, and right of self-determination in eating. Acceptability of convenience food requires an availability of meals matching taste preferences and sensory capabilities. Moreover, healthiness of food and easy-to-use and environmentally friendly packaging were valued by many interviewees.


Cystic fibrosis is caused by the aberrant function of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. We examined whether intramolecular binding interactions involving the regulatory (R) domain contributed to CFTR regulation and function. When the R-domain (amino acids 596-836) was coexpressed with Delta1-836 CFTR (a carboxyl hemi-CFTR beginning immediately after the R-domain), strong binding between the two polypeptides was exhibited. The R-domain that co-immunoprecipitated with Delta1-836 exhibited a slower mobility on SDS-PAGE that resulted from phosphorylation of the protein. A larger CFTR polypeptide that included the R-domain (M837X) also exhibited a phosphorylation-dependent mobility shift when coexpressed with Delta1-836. Moreover, coexpression of M837X and Delta1-836 led to enhanced halide permeability in living cells. The activity, unlike in full-length CFTR, was present without forskolin activation, but still sensitive to the PKA inhibitor, Rp-8-CPT-cAMPS. This PKA inhibition of activity was found to be dependent on the carboxy region of the R-domain, amino acids 723-836. Our results indicate that the R-domain binds CFTR residues after amino acid 836 and that this binding facilitates phosphorylation and CFTR activation. We have also characterized a subdomain within CFTR (residues 723-837) that is necessary for PKA-dependent constitutive activation. Finally, these experiments demonstrate that constitutive CFTR activity can be accomplished by at least two mechanisms: (1) direct modulation of the R-domain to abrogate PKA regulation and (2) modifications that increase R-domain susceptibility to steady-state phosphorylation through PKA.


This paper examined and analysed the desire of Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) to find the cheapest way of visiting all given set of cities and returning to the starting point.     We presented a unique decomposition approach model for TSP in which the requirements and features of practical application in communication network, road transportation and supply chains are put into consideration.  We used a Mathematical Modeling solution with the application of Ant Colony Search Algorithm (ACSA) approach for result computation. In our approach, different Agents were created for difference purposes.   Information agent gathered information about best tour and detected the solution agent that arrived at a given point with information message containing details of where the solution agent has come from as well as best tour cost.  The place ant performs local pheromone decay on the relevant links.   This help to avoid random visit to irrelevant edges and allows the place ant to calculate the cost of tour of all place ants including the latest pheromone level on the links to each of the place ants. The solution agent uses available information to decide  which node to visit next and informs the place ant of  its decision to move to a given destination and update better tour  previously sampled while information about where to go next also obtained.       The place ant updates its pheromone value for that link using the equivalent of the algorithm for local pheromone update.    The cycle continues until solution agent arrives at its destination. The main advantage of our approach is that it permits the use of mixed integer programming and combinatorial optimization techniques to compute real optimal routing path, solving the problem in practice by returning actual shortest route with its numerical value and not the best effort result as provided by some previous models and analytical methods. The implementation was carried out using C# programming language.  Data used were generated and the performance evaluation of the model was carried out through simulation using Matlab 7.0.  The result shows that by considering all possible paths between a node as the source and another as the destination , all possible routes for a particular journey with shortest route in each case were generated. Keywords: Ant Colony, Combinatorial Optimization , Mixed Integer Programming, Pheromone, Search Algorithm and Traveling Salesman.


List of Contributors Introduction Mark Field Part I: Pluralist Health Systems 1. The Swiss Health System: the Paradox of Ungovernability and Efficacy Philippe Lehmann, Felix Gutzwiller and Jean F. Martin 2. Issues in the Health Service in the United States Odin W. Anderson Part II: Insurance-Social Security Health Systems 3. The New Zealand Health Services Marshall W. Raffel 4. Health Care and the Japanese State William E. Steslicke 5. The Health System in Spain Jess M. de Miguel and Mauro F. Guilln 6. Yugoslavia: Health Care under Self-Managing Socialism Donna E. Parmelee Part III: National Health Service 7. A Service within a Service: the National Health Service in Scotland T. D. Hunter Part IV: Socialized Medicine 8. The Soviet Health System: A National Health System in a Socialist Society Christopher M. Davis Part V: Didactic or Suggestive Aspects of Cross-National Studies 9. New Ideas for Health Policy in France, Canada and Britain Victor G. Rodwin.


A complicated interaction between outgoing and incoming protein transport occurs in eucaryotic cells. The incoming protein transport commences when protein molecules (ligands) cleave to specific glycoprotein- or glycolipid-receptors on the cell surfaces for endocytosis thereby. This can proceed in two types of membrane vesicle. Endocytosed ligands and receptors are transported from the surface of the cell to its endosomal system where a dissociation of the ligand from its receptor and sorting with regard to its next destination may occur. There are a good many possibilities of intracellular transport, depending on which ligand/receptor complex is at issue. Thus ligands and receptors can be transported back to the cell surface (recycling), across e.g. a polarized epithelial cell (transcytosis) to the lysosomes, and to the cell's Golgi apparatus. Apart from a large number of physiological ligands, viruses and diverse bacterial and plant toxins are also endocytosed. This allows scope for a therapeutic use of endocytosis.


Lebesgue Points for Orlicz-Sobolev Functions on Metric Measure Spaces In this paper we deal with a metric measure space equipped with a doubling measure and supporting an Orlicz-Poincaré inequality, namely a weak (1, Φ)-Poincaré inequality, that is more general than the (1, 1)-Poincaré inequality. For a wide class of Orlicz spaces, we prove that the corresponding Orlicz-Sobolev functions have Lebesgue points outside a set of zero Orlicz-Sobolev capacity. This results extends a theorem of Tuominen (2009) from the case where Φ is the identity of [0, ∞) to the case where Φ is a doubling Young function. Our main tools are the Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator and a discrete maximal operator introduced by Kinnunen and Latvala (2002).


The current teaching trend of ESL is focused on maximizing the use of the L2 so that the student learns the language through linguistic immersion. This approach leaves the L1 out of the game, even though research has shown it can also be beneficial for the learner. My research intends to demonstrate that translation of English grammar tenses into Spanish can be a helpful way of assimilating English grammar more easily and faster, especially for those students with a poor command of English.


Abstract GRONER, U. (2010). Calicioid lichens and fungi in the Muota Valley, central Switzerland: high species diversity in a small area. Candollea 65: 377–391. In English, English and French abstracts. An inventory of the calicioid lichens and fungi of the Bödmeren Forest region in the Muota Valley, central Switzerland, produced no less than 51 lichenized and non-lichenized taxa on bark and wood. This mainly subalpine spruce forest in the Prealps hosts the most diverse calicioid flora in Switzerland today and a similarly rich flora from a comparably small area is unknown from neighbouring countries. Calicium denigratum (Vain.) Tibell and Chaenothecopsis oregana Rikkinen are new to Switzerland. Calicium adaequatum Nyl., Chaenothecopsis tasmanica Tibell and Chaenothecopsis vainioana (Nádv.) Tibell are also reported for the first time from this region. Chaenotheca chrysocephala (Ach.) Th. Fr., Calicium viride Pers., Chaenotheca trichialis (Ach.) Th. Fr. and Microcalicium disseminatum (Ach.) Vain. are the most frequent species, the majority of the other taxa are uncommon or rare. The diversity of the calicioid (and other) species is due to several favourable conditions, such as the presence of old-growth forest stands and the occurrence of standing dead trees. More than 40% of the recorded lichenized calicioid taxa are threatened; the state of the poorly known non-lichenized calicioids is undetermined as they were not evaluated in the "Red List".


This paper compares active and passive cooling systems in tidal turbine power electronic converters. The comparison is based on the lifetime of the IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) power modules, calculated from the accumulated fatigue due to thermal cycling. The lifetime analysis accounts for the influence of site conditions, namely turbulence and surface waves. Results indicate that active cooling results in a significant improvement in IGBT lifetime over passive cooling. However, since passive cooling systems are inherently more reliable than active systems, passive systems can present a better solution overall, provided adequate lifetime values are achieved. On another note, the influence of pitch control and active speed stall control on the IGBT lifetime was also investigated. It is shown that the IGBT modules in pitch-controlled turbines are likely to have longer lifetimes than their counterparts in active stall-controlled turbines for the same power rating. Overall, it is demonstrated that passive cooling systems can provide adequate cooling in tidal turbine converters to last longer than the typical lifetime of tidal turbines (>25 years), both for pitch-controlled and active speed stall-controlled turbines.


Molecular analyses in recent years have begun to elucidate the identity and role of two extrachromosomal DNAs found in apicomplexan parasites. One of these is a small tandemly repeated DNA that encodes three classical mitochondrial protein coding genes, attesting to its identity. This molecule also encodes mitochondrial rRNAs as small fragments in scattered locations. Despite their unusual nature, evidence suggests that these rRNAs are functional. They offer an opportunity to evaluate structure-function correlations in the absence of much of the more variable sequences found in other rRNAs. The second extrachromosomal DNA has characteristics reminiscent of chloroplast DNAs and thus points to an unexpected ancestry for the apicomplexans. Both DNAs are inherited maternally, as is usual for organelle DNAs, but their subcellular locations have not been demonstrated unequivocally. Although the majority of studies with these two DNAs thus far have been with Plasmodium species, evidence from other apicomplexans suggests that these unusual organelle genomes are common to the phylum.


The POU domain of the human Oct1 transcription factor has been crystallized with two different POU-dimer-binding DNA elements. Protein±DNA cocrystals suitable for structural analysis could be obtained only with a redox-insensitive version of the POU domain. The recombinant protein expression in a prokaryotic host was adjusted for fast puri®cation. Optimized crystals were obtained by systematically varying the length of the oligonucleotide and by modifying cryofreezing procedures. These steps are generally applicable to the preparation of protein±DNA complexes for structural studies.


We conduct a two-phase laboratory experiment, separated by several weeks. In the first phase, we conduct urn games intended to measure ambiguity aversion on a representative population of undergraduate students. In the second phase, we invite the students back with four different solicitation treatments, varying in the ambiguity of information regarding the task and the payout of the laboratory experiment. We find that those who return do not differ from the overall pool with respect to their ambiguity version. However, no solicitation treatment generates a representative sample. The ambiguous task treatment drives away the ambiguity averse disproportionally, and the detailed task treatment draws in the ambiguity averse disproportionally.


ABSTRACT In a preregistered experimental study that draws from the met expectations hypothesis, we examined how volunteer recruitment messaging can shape expectations of new volunteers prior to their first day, and whether meeting or failing to meet expectations on the first day would affect satisfaction. By experimentally manipulating a recruitment poster, we set either a transactional (i.e., by volunteering, one can learn new skills) or a relational expectation (i.e., one can work in a team). Participants then viewed an experimentally determined vignette that depicted their first day as a volunteer as either being rich in, or bereft of, experiences of teamwork and learning new skills (crossed). We found that recruitment messaging strongly impacted the participants' expectations of the volunteering experience prior to their first day. Neither meeting expectations regarding teamwork nor learning new skills played a statistically significant causal role in determining satisfaction. By contrast, richer experiences notwithstanding expectations, and especially those pertaining to learning new skills, were more important determinants of satisfaction. Polynomial regression analyses supported the experimental results, namely that experiences far more strongly determined satisfaction than did expectations. We conclude that providing richer experiences to volunteers is more important than expectation management for volunteer satisfaction.


Gravity flow water distribution systems are reliable and cost effective over pumping systems as no external power is required to maintain the flow. Generally, the gravitational networks are designed as branched systems and in order to maintain their looped configuration the missing links are joined by pipes of nominal diameters. This approach does not take full advantage of looped configuration for economy and reliability. Presented herein is an algorithm for the design of a gravity flow distribution system with looped configuration and multiple input points. A linear programming (LP) technique has been used to solve the discrete problem for the optimal pipe design, keeping the looped configuration intact. Also developed is a criterion for the choice between the pumping and gravity systems where the elevation difference is marginal. It is hoped that the algorithm will be useful to engineers engaged in the design of gravity flow water distribution networks.


The Queen has approved of the transfer of the undermentioned officer to the Half-Pay List :?Surgn.-Major Joseph Blood, Bengal Medical Establishment. The Queen has also approved of the retirement from the service of the undermentioned officers :?Brig.-Surgn. Benjamin Thomas Sufferin, Madras Medical Establishment; Surgn.Major William Duncan, Bengal Medical Establishment ; Surgn.-Major Edwin Sanders, Bengal Medical Establishment.


Data stream management systems make prominent use of a subset of relational algebra for describing continuous queries. The phenomenon has highlighted the wide spread use of declarative interface for stream data manipulation. As relational algebra is set oriented while the data streams are essentially sequences of data, there exist some cases where the use of relational algebra to describe processing in a data stream management system is counter productive. Supporting event algebraic operations on stream systems represents one such case. We have developed a combination of sequence algebra and relational algebra that is capable of supporting event algebra. Our alternative approach has been compared for performance and ease of specification. Unlike previous such attempts that exclusively focused on pattern detection in sequences of data, our work focuses on use of sequence operators to support a subset of event algebra. Additionally, event-condition-action (ECA) paradigm is used to create a Turing complete subset of extended SQL that supports relational and event algebra for data stream systems


ABSTRACT This qualitative study analyzes the retention data of an urban teacher residency program, a recent approach to developing quality teachers. The authors identify patterns of movers, leavers, and stayers and draw on interview data to better understand residents' (program graduates) perspectives on ways the program informs their practice after graduation. Using the university conceptual framework of curriculum, inquiry, and social justice, the authors examine how residents might demonstrate retention and practice of key concepts and principles that undergirded their residency program. This study furthers our understanding of how residencies support the preparation of new teachers in high-needs schools and shortage areas.


Reflective filters are characterized by a frequency response with good matching at the band of interest and usually reactive impedance out of those frequencies which may adversely affect the system performance. On the other hand, reflectionless filters are characterized by good matching characteristic not only at the interest frequencies, but in the whole frequency spectrum which improves the overall linearity, efficiency, and reduces instability scenarios at the system level. Although several reflectionless structures can be found in the literature, the concatenation of different reflectionless sections, combined with the use of acoustic resonators has not been exploited yet. The particular electrical behavior of acoustic wave resonators, where two different resonant frequencies are found, allow to obtain a frequency response with high selectivity due to the presence of transmission zeros below and above the passband. A bandpass filter has been designed following the described procedure with a fractional bandwidth FBW = 2%, a pair of transmission zeros below and above the bandpass, and an improved out-of-band rejection with respect conventional topologies.


Clinical trials with Poisson distributed count data as the primary outcome are common in various medical areas such as relapse counts in multiple sclerosis trials or the number of attacks in trials for the treatment of migraine. In this article, we present approximate sample size formulae for testing noninferiority using asymptotic tests which are based on restricted or unrestricted maximum likelihood estimators of the Poisson rates. The Poisson outcomes are allowed to be observed for unequal follow‐up schemes, and both the situations that the noninferiority margin is expressed in terms of the difference and the ratio are considered. The exact type I error rates and powers of these tests are evaluated and the accuracy of the approximate sample size formulae is examined. The test statistic using the restricted maximum likelihood estimators (for the difference test problem) and the test statistic that is based on the logarithmic transformation and employs the maximum likelihood estimators (for the ratio test problem) show favorable type I error control and can be recommended for practical application. The approximate sample size formulae show high accuracy even for small sample sizes and provide power values identical or close to the aspired ones. The methods are illustrated by a clinical trial example from anesthesia.


The paper presented herein proposes an algorithm that aims at improving the classification accuracy of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) speller. In this work, feed-forward neural network with back propagation learning is used for classification purposes. Testing of the proposed algorithm was performed through the utilization of two datasets, namely; Berlin BCI Competition III and EPFL BCI groups. Results, for the first dataset, indicated that the use of 64 electrodes with 30 hidden layers grants an accuracy of 94.9 %, while an average accuracy of 95.8% (range: 92%-100%) was obtained for the second dataset when using a 32 electrode configuration with 20 hidden layers. The obtained accuracy levels, in this study, are higher when compared with other recent classification approaches.


Automatic image classification has become a necessary task to handle the rapidly growing digital image usage. It has branched out many algorithms and adopted new techniques. Among them, feature fusion-based image classification methods rely on hand-crafted features traditionally. However, it has been proven that the bottleneck features extracted through pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can improve the classification accuracy. Thence, this study analyses the effect of fusing such cues from multiple architectures without being tied to any hand-crafted features. First, the CNN features are extracted from three different pre-trained models, namely AlexNet, VGG-16, and Inception-V3. Then, a generalised feature space is formed by employing principal component reconstruction and energy-level normalisation, where the features from individual CNN are mapped into a common subspace and embedded using arithmetic rules to construct fused feature vectors (FFVs). This transformation play a vital role in creating a representation that is appearance invariant by capturing complementary information of different high-level features. Finally, a multi-class linear support vector machine is trained. The experimental results demonstrate that such multi-modal CNN feature fusion is well suited for image/object classification tasks, but surprisingly it has not been explored so far by the computer vision research community extensively.


In the aftermath of the Great Recession, many local governments have experienced significant financial strain. Local governments' financial challenges are likely to continue in the foreseeable future, as federal deficit-reducing measures trigger cuts in state and local aid and as all levels of government struggle to fund their medical and retirement obligations. In an effort to maintain service provision without significant tax increases, many cities and towns will be forced to consider a variety of cost-cutting measures, including joint service provision with other localities. ; This research examines the potential long term savings that could be realized through greater regional consolidation of select local government services, specifically emergency call handling and dispatch, public health, and high-level government administrative services. It focuses especially on the expected long term savings in the New England states, with specific estimates for Massachusetts and Connecticut. ; The report finds that regional service-sharing can be an effective means to achieve savings, particularly for services that rely on high levels of technology, capital, or specialized expertise. The author recommends that the state consider playing a stronger role in encouraging local regionalization through measures such as instituting quality standards and using funding to promote and facilitate consolidation.


Phenyllactic acids are found in numerous natural products as well as in active substances used in medicine or plant protection. Enantiomerically pure phenyllactic acids are available by transition-metal-catalyzed hydrogenations or chemoenzymatic reductions of the corresponding 3-aryl-2-oxopropanoic acids. We show here that d-lactate dehydrogenase from Staphylococcus epidermidis reduces a broad spectrum of 2-oxo acids, which are difficult substrates for transition-metal-catalyzed reactions, with excellent enantioselectivities in a simple experimental setup.


Chloride-malonate deep eutectic solvent (Cm-DES) was applied to synthesize nano-crystalline Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO4 ceramic powder by using Zr(CH3COO)4, SnCl2∙2H2O and Ti(OCH3CH3)4 as raw materials. The nano-crystalline Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO4 powder was obtained at 450 °C, dramatically lower than that by solid state reaction. Meantime, the grain size of as-synthesized Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO4 powder at 450 °C is 10.7 nm. In the synthesized process, Cm-DES, as a solvent and template, affects the synthesis process and the time required for synthesis is greatly reduced. These results show that the Cm-DES is suitable and prospective for the synthesis of nano-crystalline Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO4 ceramic powder, which could contribute to reduce energy consumption and time cost.


In Assam, Approximately 17 different types of Tribes are residing from immemorial times. They have lots of knowledge to remedy disease by using various medicinal plants. The aim of our study is to extract out the knowledge of those plants having the medicinal values and examine the laboratory based antibacterial and antifungal property. The selection of these three plants was based on highly uses by the Tiwa Tribes in gastrointestinal troubles and skin diseases. Aquous and 50% ethanolic extract was prepared from the plants and screened against enteropathogenic bacteria E.coli ( MTCC723 ), Bacillus subtilis (MTCC 10619 ) and Staphyllococcus aureus ( MTCC96 ). Antifungal activity were tested against Aspergillus niger and Candida albicans . Centella asiatica and Nerium indicum showed good results against E.coli and Bacillus subtilis and Cuscuta reflexa showed higher activity against S. aureus . In case of antifungal activity, Centella asiatica results were found fruitful in comparison to the others.


The community food environment has potential influences on community members' dietary health outcomes, such as obesity and Type II diabetes. However, most existing studies evaluating such health effects neglect human mobility. In food patrons' daily travels, certain locations may be preferred and patronized more frequently than others. This behavioral uncertainty, known as the selective daily mobility bias (SDMB), is less explored in community-food-environment research. In this paper, we aim to confirm the existence of the SDMB by systematically exploring the large-scale GPS-based restaurant-visit patterns in the Greater Harford region, Connecticut. Next, we explore the restaurant and neighborhood characteristics that are associated with the restaurant-visit patterns. Our primary results demonstrate that (1) most restaurant customers originate from areas outside of the census tract where the restaurant is located, and (2) restaurants located in socially vulnerable areas attract more customers in total, more customers from local areas, and more customers from other socially vulnerable areas. These results confirm the relevance of the SDMB to the community food environment, and suggest ways that the SDMB can be moderated by an uneven socio-economic landscape. The findings demonstrate the necessity of incorporating human-mobility data into the study of the community food environment.


Fuzzy fractional differential equations with fuzzy coefficients are analyzed in the frame of Mikusiński operators. Systems of fuzzy operational algebraic equations are obtained, in view of the definition of fuzzy derivatives. Their exact and approximate solutions are constructed and their characters are analyzed, considering them as the corresponding solutions of the given problem. The described procedure of the construction of solutions is illustrated on an example and the obtained approximate solutions of the considered problems are visualized by using the GeoGebra software package.


Caudal Epidural analgesia reduces the overall intraoperative Anesthetic requirement and facilitates rapid return of conscious state with stable hemodynamic condition. Different additives like, opioids, ketamine and clonidine have shown better pain management but brought about evitable complications. Addition of neostigmine improves pain management with minor postoperative complications. The purpose of this review was to compare caudal epidural neostigmine co-administered with bupivacaine and Bupivacaine alone. Different databases were explored to identify controlled clinical trials comparing neostigmine co-administered with bupivacaine and bupivacaine alone. Seventeen controlled trails have been collected for eligibility assessment and eleven trials were incorporated for extraction of outcomes. Eleven studies (838 participants) were included in this review. The mean difference of Postoperative analgesic duration was better in patients received neostigmine co-administered with bupivacaine when compared to bupivacaine alone (MD=3.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.86 to 4.4, 4 trials, 193participants). There was significant association on postoperative analgesic consumption in 24 h when neostigmine group was compared with bupivacaine alone (SMD=-1.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) -2.14, 1.01, one trial, 63 participants). Conclusion: Caudal epidural with neostigmine co-administered with bupivacaine is better as compared to caudal epidural with bupivacaine.


The usefulness and value of Multi-step Machine Learning (ML), where a task is organized into connected sub-tasks with known intermediate inference goals, as opposed to a single large model learned end-to-end without intermediate sub-tasks, is presented. Pre-optimized ML models are connected and better performance is obtained by re-optimizing the connected one. The selection of an ML model from several small ML model candidates for each sub-task has been performed by using the idea based on Neural Architecture Search (NAS). In this paper, Differentiable Architecture Search (DARTS) and Single Path One-Shot NAS (SPOS-NAS) are tested, where the construction of loss functions is improved to keep all ML models smoothly learning. Using DARTS and SPOS-NAS as an optimization and selection as well as the connections for multi-step machine learning systems, we find that (1) such a system can quickly and successfully select highly performant model combinations, and (2) the selected models are consistent with baseline algorithms, such as grid search, and their outputs are well controlled.


Polycrystalline films of ZnS with a slight excess of S have been grown on (100) Si by congruent sublimation from a single Knudsen cell. Intense blue emission is observed at 460 nm from room-temperature photoluminescence studies, and is ascribed to S-Zn vacancies acting as self-activated (SA) centres. The emission is quenched by the addition of Zn from a second Knudsen cell, which also causes the growth of a luminescent peak centred on 678 nm. No reduction in the SA luminescence is seen when co-sublimating ZnS and AgS, implying that it is not possible to remove the S-vacancy completely. Quenching of the blue emission occurs when Mn, instead of Zn, is added to the ZnS films, providing direct evidence of Mn incorporation into Zn vacancies. At the optimum Mn concentration, the intensity of the Mn emission at 580 nm is comparable to the blue emission (460 nm) from the undoped ZnS films.


Primary fungal diseases in marine mammals are rare. Mucormycosis, a disease caused by fungi of the order Mucorales, has been documented in few cetaceans and pinnipeds. In 2012, the first case of mucormycosis in the Pacific Northwest was documented in a dead stranded harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) in Washington state. Since then, mucormycosis has been detected in a total of 21 marine mammals; fifteen harbor porpoises, five harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), and one southern resident killer whale (Orcinus orca). Infected animals were predominately found in the inland waters of Washington and British Columbia, and one harbor seal was recovered in northern Oregon. Fungal hyphae were detected histologically in a variety of tissues, including brain, lung, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, muscle, lymph nodes, and skin. Three fungal species were identified from seven cases by PCR screening or fungal culture; Rhizomucor pusillus (four cases), Lichtheimia corymbifera (two cases), and Cunninghamella bertholletiae. Underlying conditions such as emaciation, current or recent pregnancy, multisystemic parasitism, protozoal infection, and herpesvirus were found in several affected animals. Reasons for the appearance and subsequent increase of these fungal infections in marine mammals are unknown. The emergence of this disease as a source of marine mammal mortality in the Pacific Northwest is of particular concern for endangered southern resident killer whales that spend time in this region. Current population-level stressors such as insufficient prey, high levels of contaminants, and noise pollution, could predispose them to these fatal infections.


We report the first observation of linear magnetoresistance (LMR) in multilayer epitaxial graphene grown on SiC. We show that multilayer epitaxial graphene exhibits large LMR from 2.2 K up to room temperature and that it can be best explained by a purely quantum mechanical model. We attribute the observation of LMR to inhomogeneities in the epitaxially grown graphene film. The large magnitude of the LMR suggests potential for novel applications in areas such as high-density data storage and magnetic sensors and actuators.


Background: As the American population is aging, the number of people with a new diagnosis of IBD at an older age and the number of people who age with IBD is increasing. We used clinical data from the Sinai-Helmsley Alliance for Research Excellence (SHARE), a prospective cohort, to examine disease and treatment differences in older adults. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study of participants at study entry assessing demographics and disease behavior by age at diagnosis with univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses. "Older-onset" patients were diagnosed after age 60, "younger-onset" patients were diagnosed before age 60, but are now older than 60 years. The remainder were "young". Results: There were 91 older-onset, 389 younger-onset and 3431 young Crohn's disease (CD) patients. Mean ages were 70 years for the older-onset group, 66 years for the younger-onset group and 37 years for the young group. Older-onset patients had more ileal (37%) and colonic (27%) disease compared to younger-onset and young patients (P < 0.01). After controlling for confounders, there were no differences in disease behavior, location or surgeries between older-onset and young CD patients within 5 years of diagnosis. Newly diagnosed older-onset patients with inflammatory disease behavior had a higher odds of being in remission, by Harvey-Bradshaw Index (HBI) compared to newly diagnosed young CD patients (87% versus 68%, P = 0.03). Young CD patients reported more anti-TNF and thiopurine use compared to younger-onset and older-onset patients (P < 0.01). There were no differences in corticosteroid use between young, younger-onset and older-onset CD patients. There were 98 late-onset, 218 younger-onset and 1702 young ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. Mean ages were the same as CD patients for all 3 groups. There were no differences in disease extent or Simple Clinical Colitis Activity Index (SCCAI) scores. After adjusting for disease duration and remission status, older-onset UC patients had 0.22 times the odds of having surgery compared to younger-onset patients (95% confidence interval: 0.06–0.83). Young UC patients reported more anti-TNF use (26%) compared to younger-onset patients (17%, P < 0.01). Older onset patients reported more anti-integrin use (5%) compared to younger-onset (1%) and young (1%) UC patients (P < 0.01). There was no difference in corticosteroid use between the 3 groups. When comparing older-onset UC patients within 5 years of diagnosis to young UC patients within 5 years of diagnosis, there were no differences in disease extent, SCCAI scores, remission status and surgical status. Conclusions: Disease behavior or location were not different between young adults and adults with older-onset IBD as the literature currently suggests. Older patients were less likely to be treated with immunosuppression. As older patients may not have different disease, less frequent treatment with immunosuppressives may risk sub-optimally controlled disease.


&NA; Recent technological advances have significantly altered the way many anterior segment surgeons approach the patient with concomitant cataract and glaucoma. Small‐incision cataract extraction techniques and pharmacologic modulation of wound healing utilizing antimetabolites have made the combined glaucoma procedure an increasingly viable option. This discussion reviews the literature as it pertains to combined cataract and glaucoma surgery over the recent 1‐year scanning period. Various techniques for combined cataract and glaucoma surgery are addressed with specific attention to small‐incision phacotrabeculectomy, pseudoexfoliation and the combined procedure, antimetabolites, and postoperative astigmatism. The intention is not to provide a comprehensive review of this important topic but to discuss current opinion on the various issues that have appeared in the literature during the past year.


After the Teutonic Knights successfully broke through Gdańsk's defenses on 12/13 November 1308, they set about massacring not only those knights who supported the rule of the margraves and Brandenburg, but also Gdańsk's burghers. In 1310, Pope Clement v set up a special commission to investigate whether it was true that the Teutonic Knights had killed more than ten thousand people in Gdańsk. The Teutonic procurator, in response to allegations of slaughter, argued that Gdańsk was harboring thieves who were causing great damage to the Order. After the massacre, it was claimed that the burghers who survived were asked several times to expel the lawbreakers, and were threatened with the destruction of the town if they failed to do so. Fearing for their lives, the burghers handed over fifteen criminals to the Teutonic Knights, and left the town to go and live elsewhere, their abandoned houses falling into ruin. Though it is unknown what happened to the exiled burghers who survived the massacre in Gdańsk, it is likely that they took refuge in other German cities, possibly Lübeck. For over ten years historical records make no mention of life in Gdańsk or of its burghers, until 1327, when it is noted once again as a thriving city. There is little doubt that its favorable location—on the Baltic coast—ensured its revival. The resurrected city was founded next to the one destroyed in 1308.


Background: Women advised about breast self-examination (BSE) by healthcare professionals have greater knowledge, confidence and are more likely to practice it routinely. Many pharmacy organisations and indeed the World Health Organisation (WHO) support the pharmacists' role in public health. Objective: This study aimed to assess the effect of clinical lectures on breast cancer on knowledge, attitude and practice of BSE among student pharmacists. Methods: This study was a descriptive pre/post-type survey. Final year students of the largest pharmacy faculty in Nigeria participated in the study. A 17-item pre-tested questionnaire on knowledge, attitudes and practices of BSE was given to each participant before clinical lectures (including a case review) on breast cancer. Six weeks after the lecture, the students were given the same questionnaire. Mean differences of survey item scores were analysed (paired sample t-test for preand post-test score) using SPSS. Results: A total of 79 females were sampled, response rates were 91.4% and 75.95% for the preand post-surveys respectively. No statistically significant differences (p<0.05) were found between the mean knowledge (2.00±0.93 and 1.92±0.65), mean attitude (19.29±2.32 and 19.48±2.02) and mean practice scores (1.53±1.08 and 1.67±1.03) in the preand postsamples of the study. Conclusion: Health promotion techniques such as BSE should be explicitly taught and incorporated into pharmacy education.


What do narcolepsy and anesthesia have in common? Almost a decade ago, a mouse model for human narcolepsy was developed on the basis of results demonstrating that the neuropeptide orexin promoted wakefulness and that genetic ablation of orexinergic neurons yielded mice with behavioral and physiological symptoms remarkably like those of narcoleptic humans. Anesthesia, on the other hand, can be induced by a wide variety of agents such as isoflurane or sevoflurane but has resisted efforts to identify its neural loci of action. In their mouse model, Kelz et al. find that the neural systems innervated by orexinergic