Efficient object manipulation based only on force feedback typically requires a plan of actively contact-seeking actions to reduce uncertainty over the true environmental model. In principle, that problem could be formulated as a full partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) whose observations are sensed forces indicating the presence/absence of contacts with objects. Such a naive application leads to a very large POMDP with high-dimensional continuous state, action and observation spaces. Solving such large POMDPs is practically prohibitive. In other words, we are facing three challenging problems: 1) uncertainty over discontinuous contacts with objects; 2) high-dimensional continuous spaces; 3) optimization for not only trajectory cost but also execution time. As trajectory optimization is a powerful model-based method for motion generation, it can handle the last two issues effectively by computing locally optimal trajectories. This paper aims to integrate advantages of trajectory optimization into existing POMDP solvers. The full POMDP formulation is solved using sample-based approaches, where each sampled model is quickly evaluated via trajectory optimization instead of simulating a large number of rollouts. To further accelerate the solver, we propose to integrate temporal abstraction, i.e. macro actions or temporal actions, into the POMDP model. We demonstrate the proposed method on a simulated 7 DoF KUKA arm and a physical Willow Garage PR2 platform. The results show that our proposed method could effectively seek contacts in complex scenarios, and achieve near-optimal performance of path planing.


Resistance to antimicrobial therapies reduces the effectiveness of these drugs, leading to increased morbidity, mortality, and health care expenditure. Because globalization increases the vulnerability of any country to diseases occurring in other countries, resistance presents a major threat to global public health, and no country acting on its own can adequately protect the health of its population against it. International collective action is therefore essential. Nevertheless, responsibility for health remains predominantly national. Consequently, there is a potentially significant disparity between the problems and solutions related to antimicrobial resistance and the institutions and mechanisms that are available to deal with them. This paper considers the capacity of national and international institutions and mechanisms to generate a collective response to antimicrobial resistance. Strategies for containing resistance are outlined, with particular reference to globally coordinated activities of countries. The adequacy of national and international responses to resistance is assessed, and the actions that international bodies could take to solve difficulties associated with present responses are highlighted. Approaches are suggested for securing international collective action for the containment of antimicrobial resistance.


Free-living and (ecto)-mycorrhizal fungi enhance rock weathering. In their roles as mineral weathering agents and mutualistic partners of phototrophs, fungi supply primary producers like plants and phototrophic microorganisms with mineral-derived nutrients. The exact mechanisms behind fungus-induced mineral weathering processes are however not well understood. Progress can be achieved here by reproducible experimental simulations of the natural processes, using well-characterised model organisms and minerals.

In this study, the weathering-affecting, rock-inhabiting fungus, Knufia petricola A95 and the Fe-bearing olivine (Fe0.2Mg1.8SiO4) were selected to investigate fungi-induced effects on mineral dissolution. The availability of a melanin-deficient mutant (ΔKppks) of K. petricola A95, that produced more extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) than the wild type (WT), enabled comparative studies of the role of melanin and EPS in weathering processes.

Three experimental systems, which generate long-term microbiological stability, were developed to study the impact of the WT and ΔKppks on olivine weathering: (1) batch and (2) mixed flow dissolution experiments, and (3) biofilm cultivation experiments. In addition, state-of-the-art analytical techniques were used to monitor changes in the growth medium, as well as of the mineral surface and biofilm-mineral interface.

Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) analysis of the Mg, Si and Fe concentrations in the reacted growth medium was used to quantify olivine dissolution. In abiotic controls, Mg and Si dissolved congruently, while Fe precipitated. The measured olivine dissolution rates at pH 6 were two orders of magnitude lower than previously reported, but similar at acidic pH. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses of the olivine surface confirmed the presence of Fe (oxyhydr)oxide precipitates. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging of an abiotically reacted polished olivine section from the long-term cultivation experiment showed the presence of an amorphous layer enriched in Fe. All these observations indicate that the precipitation of Fe (oxyhydr)oxides on the olivine surface inhibits olivine dissolution.

Both tested rock-inhabiting fungal strains affect Fe precipitation as well as olivine dissolution. Evaluation of the WT and ΔKppks revealed that the WT formed less biomass but could take up higher amounts of metals (e.g. Fe) and was more efficient in its attachment to olivine. The WT and ΔKppks enhanced olivine dissolution as demonstrated by higher Mg and Si concentration in the reacted growth medium. They furthermore prevented Fe precipitation by binding Fe and retaining it in solution, thereby allowing olivine dissolution to proceed. The WT cells that were attached to the olivine surface were particularly efficient at inhibiting Fe precipitation. By binding Fe directly at the olivine surface, the WT cells removed the inhibition of olivine dissolution almost completely. TEM analysis of polished olivine sections, colonised by a fungal biofilm for seven months, supported this hypothesis. After long-term fungus-olivine interaction, the Fe-enriched, amorphous layer did not develop, and the olivine surface was stronger etched compared to the abiotic control.

To study the effect of mutualism on mineral weathering, K. petricola was grown with the cyanobacterium, Nostoc punctiforme ATCC 29133. Both partners showed an enhanced growth and formed a stratified biofilm which attached more strongly to olivine. Nevertheless, the olivine dissolution rate of the fungus-cyanobacterium consortium was moderate.

Rock weathering simulation systems developed here are promising research instruments. The experimental conditions allow for the alteration of the studied mineral surface, while the clear definition of these conditions delivers a stable growth of microorganisms. The latter makes these systems universally applicable, especially in combination with integrative multidisciplinary analytics. Processes underlying environmental and biological effects on rock weathering, metal corrosion, plastic degradation, or the deterioration of any other substrate can be studied reproducibly and over a long period of time. The chemical and biological complexity of these simulation systems mimics natural rock weathering processes. The mineral dissolution rates generated in this study are therefore relevant to natural ecosystems.


As retail chain store business is gaining popularity very quickly, people engaged in this sector should pay special attention to the growth of this sector. The present study aims at determining the factors constituting customer satisfaction of retail chain stores in Bangladesh. Customer satisfaction of this sector can be a pivotal indicator of how well the stores are meeting the expectations of the customers. Customers of three big retail chain stores have been interviewed for the study. From the results, it was determined that the model satisfactorily explains customer satisfaction and that retail chain store owners and managers should focus on four major elements ? responsiveness, product quality, physical design and pricing policies if customer satisfaction is to be treated as a strategic variable. The present study found that responsiveness and product quality were most important to customers followed by price and physical design. Location didn?t have a significant effect on customer satisfaction although the exploratory analysis and the secondary research supported it.


Nanocrystalline Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were prepared by using physical vapor deposition under a vacuum of 5 × 10−5 Torr by using rf magnetron sputtering technique at different substrate temperatures ranging from 373K to 573K. X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) indicates that the films are polycrystalline, with strong preferential orientation of grains along the c-axis irrespective of their substrate temperature. The microstructural parameters, such as the lattice constant, crystallite size, stress, strain and dislocation density are calculated. The effect of substrate temperature on the deposited films was discussed. The grain size of the deposited ZnO films is observed to be small and is within the range of 11 to 48 nm. The grain size is observed to be increase from 11.72 to 48.52 nm with increasing substrate temperature. Optical measurements indicate the existence of a direct-band gap-allowed optical transition with a corresponding energy gap in the range of 3.26 – 3.32 eV. The films posses high transmittance over 90 % in the visible region and sharp absorption edge near 380 nm.


The "revolution" has been one of the key words in social and political thinking of the last two centuries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the closure of the era of political utopias (for many, the point of reference would be 1968 in Paris or in Prague), the word seemed to have vanished entirely from the current vocabulary. However, nowadays we are witnessing the return of the idea of Revolution to the political scene, to the media discourse, to social theory and to art. During the last few years, protest movements have became global and turned to be the real "festivals of resistance", and this has been perceived as a symptom of the new "revolutionary situation". The attempts of theoreticians (mostly of the post-Marxist thought) to critically revise the past experience vis-a-vis new political realities seem to be seriously retarded in comparison with the "revolutionary practice". Passing over to the political scenarios for the future development of the situation, I will focus on the convergence of theoretical discourses on revolution, the new forms of political actionism ("Occupy!" movement, flash-mobs, silent protests, etc.) and the contemporary aesthetic praxis. The history of modern art and cinema has provided a rich iconography of the Revolution as an Event (from Delacrois to Eisenstein and further); however, contemporary art (public art first of all), together with political actionism, tends to follow an entirely different strategy which consists in the circumspect resistance to the logic of representation and is based on the concept of revolution as a perpetual nomadic movement, "becoming", and evasion.


The logical connectivity of text is represented by the connectivity of words that form archipelagoes. Here, each archipelago is a sequence of islands of the occurrences of a certain word. An island here means the local sequence of sentences where the word is emphasized, and an archipelago of a length comparable to the target text is extracted using the co-variation of entropy A (the window-based entropy) on the distribution of the word's occurrences with the width of each time window. Then, the logical connectivity of text is evaluated on entropy B (the graph-based entropy) computed on the distribution of sentences to connected word-clusters obtained on the co-occurrence of words. The results show the parts of the target text with words forming archipelagoes extracted on entropy A, without learned or prepared knowledge, form an explanatory part of the text that is of smaller entropy B than the parts extracted by the baseline methods.


The social movements in the dynamics of a country every time gain greater interest in the world democracies, with special attention in Venezuelan, whose democracy is strongly compromised these latest years. The college student leaderships highlight among these movements, assuming themselves during the years 2007 and 2014 as one of the most important cores with major importance in the politic and social dynamics of Venezuela. These groups, that showed up since 2007 associated to the denominated «fights for the defense of liberty» have got such an importance to receive the recognition of the public national and international opinion. This article emerges from the PhD research Signification of liberty in the university student leadership (2016), and is aimed to represent some ideas on liberty and the protests of 2007 and 2014, led by university student leaders from some of the most important universities of Venezuela. It was developed throughout the experientialsubjective epistemological approach with the phenomenological qualitative research tradition. The concept of discursive technology was developed to take the experiences of the very subjects involved. The results suggest that liberty is strongly rooted to processes of political and social participation in the country, developing an extra university approach for the development of the actions. This approximation to liberty is energized by the constituted power, family, language, ethics and moral, and projected towards the actions executed for the transformation of the country, either in students pro or contra the revolutionary government.


Summary The origination of observed X-ray emissions are identified through looking for atomic spectra database lines data. From this observed ion stages, the peak intensity of femtosecond laser over a length of 3 mm of the gas cell can be deduced. We mainly present results of an experiment in which X-rays from an optical-field ionized (OFI) plasma driven by different polarized 34-mJ, 105-fs, 10-Hz Ti: sapphire laser system are generated under well-controlled conditions in a low-pressure gas cell (a gas cell filled with 0.266 KPa of Nitrogen) and in high gas density of the gas cell (a gas cell filled with 1.33 KPa of Nitrogen). Using Nitrogen as the medium, from X-rays emitted under well-controlled conditions of low-density plasmas driven by different laser polarization, we show many important features of the OFI process (the electron temperature for linear and circular light polarization, the generated ionization stages). From X-ray emissions at high gas density by different laser polarization, because of non-OFI process effects such as electron heating, collisional ionization and ionization defocusing, there is different optimum gas density value of the gas cell for different emitting spectrum line. The spectral line in which originated from C-like N ion show more intensity with linear than with circular polarization. The spectral line in which originated from B-like N ion gives a little more intensity with circular than with linear polarization. At the same time, we discuss and analyze that physical mechanisms may be responsible for these influences of laser polarization on X-rays emission from low-density and high-density optical-field ionized plasmas in Nitrogen.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

Prostate cancer (PCa) can remain in the bone marrow for a prolonged period of time (>5 years) while the patient shows no evidence of disease before the cancer eventually recurs. Dormant cancer cells can be detected in bone, the principal metastatic site of PCa, and these bone-homing cancer cells are known as disseminated tumor cells (DTC). Little information is available on the heterogeneity and dormancy of DTC in PCa. In this study, we isolated and compared the gene expression profile of individual DTC (n=45) from the bone marrow of 4 PCa patients with no evidence of disease and 5 patients with advanced disease. Using principle component analysis and cluster analysis of the 1000 most variable genes, we determined the heterogeneity of the DTC population within each patient. To identify a dormancy signature from DTC in the bone marrow and primary PCa cells, we carried out two gene expression analyses: DTC in patients with no evidence of disease vs. those with advanced disease, and primary PCa tissues from patients with a short vs. long dormancy period post radical prostatectomy (8-86 months). Genes associated in other cancers with cellular senescence, cell-cycle inhibition, and dormancy were analyzed. Candidate genes from both gene expression arrays were validated at the protein level by a tissue microarray consisting of 64 primary PCa cases that recurred after either a short or long dormancy period post radical prostatectomy (6-121 months).

The identification of heterogeneous gene signatures in DTC and novel proteins that promote dormancy will guide the development of possible biomarkers and therapeutic targets to prevent PCa recurrence, possibly by either eliminating DTC or inhibiting their escape from dormancy.

Citation Format: Hung-Ming Lam, Lisly Chery, Ilsa Coleman, Bryce Lakely, Sandy Larson, Roger Coleman, Lisha Brown, Kathy Doan, Jennifer Noteboom, Xiaotun Zhang, Lawrence True, Peter Nelson, Bruce Montgomery, Paul Lange, Linda Snyder, Robert Vessella, Colm Morrissey. Disseminated tumor cell heterogeneity and dormancy in prostate cancer. [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 804. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-804


The role of respiratory superinfections in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pneumonia remains unclear. We investigated the prevalence of early‐ and late‐onset superinfections in invasively ventilated patients with COVID‐19 pneumonia admitted to our department of intensive care medicine between March 2020 and November 2020. Of the 102 cases, 74 (72.5%) received invasive ventilation and were tested for viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens on Days 0–7, 8–14, and 15–21 after the initiation of mechanical ventilation. Approximately 45% developed one or more respiratory superinfections. There was a clear correlation between the duration of invasive ventilation and the prevalence of coinfecting pathogens. Male patients with obesity and those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and/or diabetes mellitus had a significantly higher probability to develop a respiratory superinfection. The prevalence of viral coinfections was high, with a predominance of the herpes simplex virus (HSV), followed by cytomegalovirus. No respiratory viruses or intracellular bacteria were detected in our cohort. We observed a high coincidence between Aspergillus fumigatus and HSV infection. Gram‐negative bacteria were the most frequent pathogen group. Klebsiella aerogenes was detected early after intubation, while Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were related to a prolonged respiratory weaning.


How to increase fertilizer use efficiency(FUE) has been an urgent problem still unsolved for agriculture development and environment protection. In this paper, the common approaches to improve FUE were briefly reviewed, and the main reasons for the lower FUE in China were discussed. The loss of nutrients from the cropland is the basic course lead to low FUE, while adsorption or fixation of nutrients in soil is not the main reason for the low FUE. From the aspect of nutrients uptake,the large portion of nutrients distributed in the bulk soil could not be assimilated efficiently by crop roots explains the fundament of the low FUE. Based on the limited movement and diffusion of the nutrients in soil, the limited soil volume from which crop root could absorb nutrients efficiently, and the concentration of the nutrients determined nutrients uptake efficiency by roots, the root-zone fertilization technique was proposed as the key and indispensable approach for the high NUE in future. The definition of root-zone fertilization technique, where this technique is suitable, and what scientific fundaments need to be revealed in future were also discussed in this paper.


Scaling up deep neural networks has been proven effective in improving model quality, while it also brings ever-growing training challenges. This paper presents Whale, an automatic and hardwareaware distributed training framework for giant models. Whale generalizes the expression of parallelism with four primitives, which can define various parallel strategies, as well as flexible hybrid strategies including combination and nesting patterns. It allows users to build models at an arbitrary scale by adding a few annotations and automatically transforms the local model to a distributed implementation. Moreover, Whale is hardware-aware and highly efficient even when training on GPUs of mixed types, which meets the growing demand of heterogeneous training in industrial clusters. Whale sets a milestone for training the largest multimodal pretrained model M6. The success of M6 is achieved by Whale's design to decouple algorithm modeling from system implementations, i.e., algorithm developers can focus on model innovation, since it takes only three lines of code to scale the M6 model to trillions of parameters on a cluster of 480 GPUs.


For embolization to be successful, three factors must be addressed: embolic agent selection, clinical application, and technical skill. The major embolic agents used include stainless steel coils, absorbable gelatin pledgets and powder, polyvinyl alcohol foam, ethanol, and glues. Each of these agents acts at different levels in the arterial system; for example, coils are equivalent to surgical ligation and occlude medium to small arteries, whereas liquid agents and the smaller diameter particles occlude at the arteriolar level or the capillary bed. The type of agent selected should also be determined according to clinical application, which includes trauma, tumors, male infertility, impotence, and vascular malformations. It may be better to occlude an artery only temporarily, particularly in trauma patients, and absorbable gelatin material is preferred for this application. Conversely, permanent occlusion of arteries with either ethanol or polyvinyl alcohol foam particles may be necessary in the treatment of tumors. To use embolotherapy effectively, the interventional radiologist must be experienced, familiar with the underlying pathologic processes, and knowledgeable with regard to the role of other specialties in the treatment of the disease process presented.


ABSTRACT Melioidosis, caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, is an important cause of community-acquired sepsis in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. An important controller of the immune system is the pleiotropic cytokine transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), of which Smad2 and Smad3 are the major signal transducers. In this study, we aimed to characterize TGF-β expression and function in experimental melioidosis. TGF-β expression was determined in 33 patients with culture-proven infection with B. pseudomallei and 30 healthy controls. We found that plasma TGF-β concentrations were strongly elevated during melioidosis. In line with this finding, TGF-β expression in C57BL/6 mice intranasally inoculated with B. pseudomallei was enhanced as well. To assess the role of TGF-β, we inhibited TGF-β using a selective murine TGF-β antibody. Treatment of mice with anti-TGF-β antibody resulted in decreased lung Smad2 phosphorylation. TGF-β blockade appeared to be protective: mice treated with anti-TGF-β antibody and subsequently infected with B. pseudomallei showed diminished bacterial loads. Moreover, less distant organ injury was observed in anti-TGF-β treated mice as shown by reduced blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and aspartate transaminase (AST) values. However, anti-TGF-β treatment did not have an effect on survival. In conclusion, TGF-β is upregulated during B. pseudomallei infection and plays a limited but proinflammatory role during experimental melioidosis.


Innovation is the first driving force leading economic and social development, and innovation and entrepreneurship education is an important engine for promoting national economic growth. At present, our country is at the critical node of comprehensively deepening reform, decisively building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, and realizing the two centenary goals, and we must firmly grasp the initiative in economic development. College students have always been a barometer of the development of the times, and how innovative and entrepreneurial college students is related to the future and destiny of the country's economic development. The key to the cultivation of college students' innovative and entrepreneurial ability lies in education, and the key to the effect of education lies in teachers. As an important component and supplement to the faculty of colleges and universities, counselors play a key role in the growth of college students. It can be said that the professional ability construction of college counselors is very important to the cultivation of innovative and entrepreneurial talents and cannot be replaced. From the perspective of innovation and entrepreneurship education, this article discusses the development status of domestic and foreign college counselors' professional ability construction, discusses the problems and causes of college counselors' professional ability construction, and proposes a path to optimize the professional ability construction of counselors.


Analytische Geometrie auf der Kugel. Iron PROF. RICHARD HEGER. (Leipzig, G . J. Giische11.) A compact trcatise of about 150 pages, in which tile properties of points and lines on the sphere are treated by means of various systems of spherical co-ordinatcs. Thus, we hare those i ~ ~ v e n t e d I)y Ciudermann (according t o De .\lorgall independently by Grares) , in which AUC being a quadrantal triangle the position of P is fiseil by taking C as origin auil as co-ordinates t a n C E = z and tan CD=y, A P D , BPE being qurtdrantal arcs through P If the radius of the sphere be taken as unity these are of course Cartesian co-ordinates of the gnon~onic: projection of P on the tangent plane a t C. De hforgan proposed to call these ' Titngential,' consiclering the term ' spl~erical ' as already too closely identified with systems of co-ortlinates nsed in Astronomy. Graves' term 'spherical ' has, ho\vever, prevailed, and is used t o cover other systems which liave since been invented. Thus C;uiIerrnann afterwarrls chose a still neater system, based on the same quadrantal tl.iangle ABC, drawing in the quadrtrntal arc ('PF, and taking x=s in DP, y= sin Ef', z =sin FP Since, x2 + y2+z2= 1 , we are by this choice sorl~etirnes enabled to render an equation ho~nogeneous and use the analogies of trilinear co-ordinates. Ciurlermitnn called these ' Uistanz ' co-ortlinates : with the radius of the system unity (x, y) are Cartesian co-ordinates of the orthogonal projection of P on the tangent plane a t A. Dr. Heger mainly employs this sys ten~ , though he makes some use of the ' Tangential,' and points ont tha t t h e position of P with reference to the triangle rlBG may be fixed by means of co-orciiuates analogoos t o the baryeentric co-ordinates of Albbius by the consideration of the forces (L, 11(, which, acting along OA, OB, OL: would give a resultant along OP, when 0 is the centre of the sphere. After discussing various noteworthy points of the spherical triangle, the author proceeds t o the investigation of sphero-conics, to the properties of which about half the book is derotecl. This par t may be read ~vit l l advantage either before or concurretltly with the sections of Reye, dealing with the same subject from a more purely geometrical point of v iew Such a book was much needed. Attention was dra~r-n to these cnrves in thc lat ter editions of Salmon's &Yolid 6'eon~cfl-y and in Kol>ert's E.rctnzplrs i l l A~tnlyt ical Geonlefry. A list of some of their most striking analogies wit11 the corresponding plane curl-es mas atldetl by Rout11 to his Rigid Liyzcimics, with the remark that they appear t o be n e w ; bu t we know of no text-booli of moderate size in which a student car] find a fairly compldte acco~ult of them, such as is here given; and the works of the forty or so writers mentioned by Dr. Heger as having treated of them during the last century are not generally accessil~le to students. Readers of the G'uzette may perhaps remember a T-aluable note by Prof. F. Morley (Val. I., p. %0), in which the well-known figure of the solid cone common in text-boolis on Geometrical Conics is utilisetl for the sphero-conic. This can be further ntilisetl I>v those wlio prefer syntl~et ic treatment. Some tlleorems on s~~l le r ica l cubics are added analogous to those gi\-en by hlaclaurir~ an11 Chasles for the plane. E.g. 11. c nphel-ical cubic /ins thrc? real lioi11t.s 0.f i~? je . r io i~ they all lie oil n (lrectt circle. TTe notice a t r~fl ing error in the spelling of Qrinrtei.ly, p. vii, 1. 19, repeated on p . 1.1. The booli would 11e much improvetl hy the insertion of more diagrams, especially by one like Routh's, accompanied like it Ijy rt list of properties enunciated briefly in the follo\ving way : P L =lat. rect. ; t an PC: tan PF= tanzh. E. 11. LAXGLEP.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text Objective: To project the future age distribution of people with HIV using antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the United States, under expected trends in HIV diagnosis and survival (baseline scenario) and achieving the ending the HIV epidemic (EHE) goals of a 75% reduction in HIV diagnoses from 2020 to 2025 and sustaining levels to 2030 (EHE75% scenario). Design: An agent-based simulation model with mathematical functions estimated from North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design data and parameters from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual HIV surveillance reports. Methods: The PEARL (ProjEcting Age, MultimoRbidity, and PoLypharmacy in adults with HIV) model simulated individuals in 15 subgroups of sex-and-HIV acquisition risk and race/ethnicity. Simulation outcomes from the baseline scenario are compared with outcomes from the EHE75% scenario. Results: Under the baseline scenario, PEARL projects a substantial increase in number of ART-users over time, reaching a population of 909 638 [95% uncertainty range (UR): 878 449–946 513] by 2030. The overall median age increased from 50 years in 2020 to 52 years in 2030, with 23% of ART-users age ≥65 years in 2030. Under the EHE75% scenario, the projected number of ART-users was 718 348 [703 044–737 817] (median age = 56 years) in 2030, with a 70% relative reduction in ART-users <30 years and a 4% relative reduction in ART-users age ≥65 years compared to baseline, and persistent heterogeneities in projected numbers by sex-and-HIV acquisition risk group and race/ethnicity. Conclusions: It is critical to prepare healthcare systems to meet the impending demand of the US population aging with HIV.


Endotoxin adsorption has received extensive attention in the field of blood purification. However, developing highly efficient endotoxin adsorbents with excellent hemocompatibility remains challenging. In this study, we propose a new approach for developing the functional polyethersulfone (PES) membrane to remove endotoxins. First, the PES polymer is grafted with polyethylene glycol methyl acrylate (PEG-MA) in a homogeneous phase system via γ irradiation, and PES-g-PEG can be directly used to prepare the membrane by the phase inversion method. Then, polydopamine (PDA) is coated as an adhesive layer onto a PES-g-PEG membrane in an alkaline aqueous solution, and lysozyme (Lyz) is covalently immobilized with PDA through the Schiff base reaction. Lysozyme acts as an affinity adsorption ligand of endotoxin through charge and hydrophobic action. Our study reveals that the PEG branched chain and the PDA coating on the PES membrane can maintain the secondary structure of lysozyme, and thus, the immobilized Lyz can maintain high activity. The adsorption capacity of endotoxins for the PES-g-PEG/PDA/Lyz membrane is 1.28 EU/mg, with an equilibrium adsorption time of 6 h. Therefore, the PES-g-PEG/PDA/Lyz membrane shows great potential application in the treatment of endotoxemia.


Summary The capability of different bacterial populations to degrade abundant polymers, such as algal‐derived polysaccharides, or to utilize preferentially polymers over monomers, remains largely unknown. In this study, microautoradiography was combined with fluorescence in situ hybridization (MAR‐FISH) to evaluate the ability of Bacteroidetes, SAR11, Roseobacter spp., Gammaproteobacteria and SAR86 cells to use bicarbonate, leucine and starch under natural light conditions at two locations in shelf surface waters off NW Spain. The percentage of cells incorporating bicarbonate was relatively high (mean 32% ± 4%) and was positively correlated with the intensity of solar radiation. The proportion of cells using starch (mean 56% ± 4%) or leucine (mean 47% ± 4%) was significantly higher than that using bicarbonate. On average, SAR11, Roseobacter spp. and Gammaproteobacteria showed a similarly high percentage of cells using leucine (47%–65% of hybridized cells) than using starch (51%–64% of hybridized cells), while Bacteroidetes and SAR86 cells preferentially used starch (53% of hybridized cells) over leucine (34%–40% of hybridized cells). We suggest that the great percentage of bacteria using starch is related to a high ambient availability of polymers associated to algal cell lysis, which, in turn, weakens the short‐term coupling between phytoplankton release and bacterial production.


The tidal properties of a neutron star are measurable in the gravitational waves emitted from inspiraling binary neutron stars, and they have been used to constrain the neutron star equation of state. In the same spirit, we study the dimensionless tidal deformability of dark matter admixed neutron stars. The tidal Love number is computed in a two-fluid framework. The dimensionless tidal Love number and dimensionless tidal deformability are computed for dark matter admixed stars with the dark matter modelled as ideal Fermi gas or self-interactive bosons. The dimensionless tidal deformability shows a sharp change from being similar to that of a pure normal matter star to that of a pure dark matter star, within a narrow range of intermediate dark matter mass fraction. Based on this result, we illustrate an approach to study the dark matter parameters through the tidal properties of massive compact stars, making use of the self-similarity of the dimensionless tidal deformability-mass relations when the dark matter mass fraction is high.


Gladys Taylor McGarey, Pioneer of Pre-Birth Communication Born To Live: A Holistic Approach to Childbirth by Gladys Taylor McGarey (1980). (Available from Gladys McGarey Medical Foundation, 7350 E. Stetson Dr. #120, Scottsdale, AZ 85251.) The Physician Within You: Medicine for the Millennium by Gladys Taylor McGarey with Jess Stearn, (1997). Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. Dr. Gladys McGarey's holistic approach to medical care is detailed in her new book with Jess Stearn The Physician Within You: Medicine For the Millennium (1997). Two chapters are devoted to pregnancy, birth, and babies. Equally rich is her earlier book, Born To Live: A Holistic Approach to Childbirth (1980) which contains other remarkable stories of old souls in new bodies. McGarey is a doctor twice over, trained in both allopathic medicine and homeopathy. In a career spanning five decades, she has courageously faced opposition and explored therapies beyond the medical mainstream. She is a founder of the American Holistic Medical Association and past president of that organization. Still practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona, she also serves on the staff of NIH's Office of Alternative Medicine. But Dr. McGarey is a hero to me for a more particular reason. Nearly twenty years ago, she pioneered the concept of soul communication with unborn children. In her 1980 book Born To Live, Dr. McGarey makes the bold statement, "It is reasonable . . . to believe that we are in reality dealing with a ready-formed individual personality when we usher a baby into this world." This respectful attitude toward babies underlies Dr. McGarey's approach to the pregnant women in her care. "I often ask the mother to try to make contact with the baby," she explains. "I ask her to record her dreams and see if she can contact the baby, also to write letters to the baby telling him how she feels about things, and talk to the baby, to establish an early, helpful soul communication." It's no longer so unusual to advocate talking to a child in the womb, but it's rarely suggested that we might also try listening and being receptive to impressions and communication coming from the baby. Dr. McGarey has been a pioneer in recognizing that pre-birth communication is a two-way flow. In Born To Live, she shares remarkable stories of contact between parent and child-to-be. As the attending physician, she has an insider's view of these events and is able to put them in context of the mother's life experiences and the family situation. According to Dr. McGarey, contact happens in various ways. For example, she writes: "I have seen (pregnant) women who discover emotions foreign to their nature and experience, emotions they could not understand. As we watched their dreams, we began to understand that they were apparently picking up psychically the emotions and feelings of the incoming entity. The baby, of course, has feelings and emotions, residuals perhaps from an earlier incarnation." One story illustrates Dr. McGarey's contention that family planning may be a mutual process, with the child-to-be playing an important part in the arrangements. This family already had four children and had decided that four was enough. However, several years after the fourth arrived, the mother was taking a shower and she saw a blue light appear in the top corner of the shower. Instinctively, she knew what the blue light meant. Another entity was wanting to make its appearance. "Go away," she said, "You know I don't need any more kids!" A month later, the blue light came back. Again the same dialogue. And again it happened. And again. Finally, the reluctant mother gave in to the persistence of whatever the blue light meant, and she became pregnant. Child number five arrived-a boy. Her family was larger and more complicated, of course, but more enjoyable. Two years passed by. Once again the mother now of five encountered the blue light while taking a shower. …


Image quality of single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) is essentially determined by the count sensitivity of the detector and the geometry of the collimator. The authors introduce a novel geometry for a dual-head SPECT imaging system (Park Medical Systems Inc., Lachine, Quebec) to improve the count sensitivity. The imaging system is equipped with a coded aperture and a parallel hole collimators. The camera head equipped with the coded aperture collimator is used to acquire count-rich projection images, and the other head with the parallel hole collimator is used to acquire high resolution projection images. To further improve the image resolution of the projections, two expectation-maximization-type blind deconvolution (EMBD) algorithms were derived. The algorithms were evaluated using elliptical cylindrical rod phantom and human hand data. The coded aperture and parallel hole projections were acquired simultaneously using the dual-head SPECT imaging system. The acquired coded aperture projections were decoded using the standard uniformly redundant array (URA) decoding technique to yield decoded projections. The projections acquired from the parallel hole collimator head were incorporated into the decoded images in the EMBD restoration process. Using the coded aperture collimator, the count sensitivity was markedly increased, 8-fold for the phantom data and approximately 20-fold for the hand data, as compared to the parallel hole collimator. Also, image quality of the SPECT projections was significantly improved when the EMBD algorithms were implemented on the projections. Thus, the dual-head SPECT imaging system associated with the EM-type blind deconvolution algorithms may be a preferred system for low-count SPECT imaging.


Periodicals, which transmit the intellectual texts and images on the newsworthy issues together with original designs, also document the political actions of governments through the issues they deal with. In this article, th above-mentioned feature of periodicals has been analysed within the sample of L'Illustration, one of longest-running periodicals of France. Therefore, in the first part of the article, the definitions with regard to the text as well as objective, scope and method of the article is presented; in the following part the changing pattern of the media in France between the 19th century and the Second World War is analysed in detail. In the part entitled L'Illustration and Visual Design, the establishment process of the periodical is analysed, followed by the closer examination of certain issues of the periodical, obtained via archive search. In the final part, the data obtained are evaluated and the place of the understanding of photo-reporting press in political history is discussed.


Background
Due to specific requirements of service, Border Guard officers should be characterized by good health. Whereas there is lack of studies assessing nutritional status as well as dietary behaviours among Polish Border Guard officers.

Objective
The aim of the study was to assess the impact of dietary behaviours of the Polish Border Guard officers on the Fat Mass Index.

Material and methods
The study was carried out with participation of 250 Border Guard officers (187 men and 63 women), aged 37±6; years of service: 12±6. Nutritional status was determined with the electrical bioimpedance method using the TANITA MC-780 analyzer. According to the calculated Fat Mass Index value each person was qualified to one of the following groups: fat deficit, normal fat or excess fat. The Border Guard officers were asked to fill in the original questionnaire containing questions about nutritional behaviours in line with the recommendations of the Swiss Food Pyramid for Athletes in the basic version.

Results
The excessive amount of fat in every third officer of the Border Guard and numerous irregularities in eating behaviours were found. According to the food pyramid the smallest scale of rational dietary choices (especially regularity of meals, fruit and vegetable consumption) was characteristic of officers with excess fat. In addition, officers from the excess fat group obtained, on average, a lower sum of points for compliance of nutritional behaviours with the recommendations of the Swiss Food Pyramid than those from other groups (49% vs. 59% and 56%, p=0.002).

Conclusions
There is a need for nutritional education and further monitoring of both the nutritional status and dietary behaviours of Border Guard officers.


Artificial multilayers, or microlaminates, composed of alternating layers of Nb and MoSi_2 of equal thickness were synthesized by d.c., magnetron sputtering. Four different modulation wavelengths, λ, were studied: 7, 11, 20, and 100 nm. The compositions, periodicities, and microstructures of the microlaminates were characterized by Auger electron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Structural characterization revealed that the as-deposited Nb layers are polycrystalline, while the MoSi_2 layers are amorphous. The hardnesses and elastic moduli of the films were measured using nanoindentation techniques. Neither a supermodulus nor a superhardness effect could be identified in the range of wavelengths investigated; for each of the microlaminates, both the hardness and modulus were found to fall between the bounds set by the properties of the monolithic Nb and MoSi_2 films. Nevertheless, a modest but a measurable increase in both hardness and modulus with decreasing wavelength was observed, thus indicating that behavior cannot be entirely described by a simple rule-of-mixtures. The hardness was found to vary linearly with Δ^−1/2 in a manner similar to the Hall–Petch relationship. Annealing the microlaminates at 800 °C for 90 min produces significant increases in hardness and modulus due to chemical interaction of the layers.


Abstract Background SARS-CoV-2 can infect human and other mammals, including hamsters. Syrian (Mesocricetus auratus) and dwarf (Phodopus sp.) hamsters are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection in the laboratory setting. However, pet shop-related COVID-19 outbreaks have not been reported. Methods We conducted an investigation of a pet shop-related COVID-19 outbreak due to Delta variant AY.127 involving at least three patients in Hong Kong. We tested samples collected from the patients, environment, and hamsters linked to this outbreak and performed whole genome sequencing analysis of the RT-PCR-positive samples. Results The patients included a pet shop keeper (Patient 1), a female customer of the pet shop (Patient 2), and the husband of Patient 2 (Patient 3). Investigation showed that 17.2% (5/29) and 25.5% (13/51) environmental specimens collected from the pet shop and its related warehouse, respectively, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA by RT-PCR. Among euthanized hamsters randomly collected from the storehouse, 3% (3/100) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA by RT-PCR and seropositive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody by ELISA. Whole genome analysis showed that although all genomes from the outbreak belonged to the Delta variant AY.127, there were at least 3 nucleotide differences among the genomes from different patients and the hamster cages. Genomic analysis suggests that multiple strains have emerged within the hamster population, and these different strains have likely transmitted to human either via direct contact or via the environment. Conclusions Our study demonstrated probable hamster-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2. As pet trading is common around the world, this can represent a route of international spread of this pandemic virus.


The univariate Weierstrass–Mandelbrot function is generalized to many variables to model higher dimensional stochastic processes such as undersea topography. Because this topography is difficult to measure at small length scales over the many large regions that affect long-ranged acoustic propagation in the ocean, one needs a stochastic description that can be extrapolated to both large and small features. Fractal surfaces are a convenient framework for such a description. Computer-generated plots for the two-variable case are presented. It is shown that in the continuum limit the multivariate function is equivalent to the multivariate fractional Brownian motion.


The outcome of laryngeal carcinoma is favourable and cure rate high if detected early. A major complication experienced post surgery for advanced laryngeal carcinoma is recurrence especially at the tracheostome. This study aimed at evaluating the incidence of stomal recurrence post total laryngectomy with respect to the risk factors. This is a retrospective review of eighteen patients (14 males and 4 females) that had total laryngectomy for histologically confirmed laryngeal carcinoma from 1990 - 2002. Seven patients (38.9%) had stomal recurrence. Seven patients (38.9%) had palpable deep cervical nodes at presentation. Fourteen (77.8%) and four (22.2%) patients had emergency and elective tracheostomy procedures respectively. Twelve patients (66.67%) had neck node dissection during surgery. Post-operatively, twelve patients (66.7%) had only radical radiotherapy; four (22.2%) had both radio-/ chemotherapy while two had preoperative and additional postoperative radiotherapy. The mean duration between the preoperative tracheostomy and total laryngectomy was 62.19 +/- 64.56 days while the mean duration between total laryngectomy and development of stomal recurrence was 7.79 +/- 8.57 months. Ten patients (55.6%) died, (seven with and three without stomal recurrence but who died of distant metastases to the lungs and thoracolumbar vertebral bodies). Stomal recurrence post laryngectomy has a grave prognosis. This present study also showed that advanced stage 3 and 4 tumour, transglottic involvement and the presence of preoperative tracheostomy are the likely risk factors that could be associated with recurrence in our environment. There is therefore the need to reevaluate these preventive measures in a prospective study in order to improve the final outcome in our environment.


The distribution of the vertical wells has the significant effect on the collection capacity of methane in landfill. The gas wells spacing that contribute to the wells point should be predicted according to the field condition, such as organic fraction, density, reservoir capacity, and so on. The Multi‐wells Co‐optimizing Method (MWCOM) was developed for pre‐accessing the collection system to increase the methane recovery efficiency. This method depend on the well spacing and well number and recovery efficiency as output variables to reach the optimum of the control of the pumping system to the gas. The application of the MWCOM was presented for vertical wells distribution in C.J.C. landfill in China. And the field measurement of gas production from running wells was investigated. The results show that the recovery efficiency can be largely increased by using the MWCOM. The recovery efficiency from field measurement was up to 74.5%–85.1% in the last two years. The method is validated by the comparison between the simulation and test results in four areas. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 33: 972–977, 2014


The different processor scheduling approaches in parallel program execution are introduced and compared. On the basis of simulation results, it is concluded that the best choice of a runtime model for parallel programming depends on the nature of the application programs and the hardware architecture.<<ETX>>


Children do not seem to drive transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We isolated culture-competent virus in vitro from 12 (52%) of 23 SARS-CoV-2–infected children; the youngest was 7 days old. Our findings show that symptomatic neonates, children, and teenagers shed infectious SARS-CoV-2, suggesting that transmission from them is plausible.


Eight years of streamflow data are analyzed to show the effects of strip mining on chemical quality of water in six first-order streams in Breathitt County, Kentucky. All these watersheds were unmined in August, 1967, but five have since been strip mined. The accumulated data from this case history study indicate that strip mining causes large increases in the con- centrations of most major dissolved constituents in the runoff waters, the concentration of most of these reaching a maximum some time after min- ing has ceased, then holding steady for several years. The maximum concentration of dissolved salts occured during the low flow of the dormant season, whereas maximum salt loads occurred during the high flow of the early part of the growing season.


The kinetics of co - oxidation study of anils and oxalic acid by PCC in aqueous acetic acid had been studied under different experimental conditions. The order is one with respect to oxalic acid , anil , and PPC. The order is 1.5 with respect to [ H+ ]. The oxidation was found to increase with increase of perchloric oxalic acids. The rate of the reaction was increased by the addition of NaClo4 . The protonated species of the oxidant is involved in the rate - determining step. The effect of various meta and para - substituted anils on the reaction rate had been studied at four different temperatures viz., 35 , 40 , 45 and 50 0 c and the thermodynamic parameters are also calculated. The analysis of rate constants of ortho substituents reveas that the localized and delocalized effects are major components while steric effect place only the minor role.


The homeostatic function of prostaglandin E(2) (PGE(2)) is dependent on a balance of EP receptor-mediated events. A disruption in this balance may contribute to the progression of renal injury. Although PGE(2) excretion is elevated in diabetes, the expression of specific EP receptor subtypes has not been studied in the diabetic kidney. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to characterize the expression profile of four EP receptor subtypes (EP(1-4)) in 16-wk streptozotocin (STZ) and B6-Ins2(Akita) type I diabetic mice. In diabetic mice, the ratio of kidney weight to body weight was increased twofold compared with controls, blood glucose was elevated, but urine albumin was only increased in B6-Ins2(Akita) mice. The excretion of PGE(2) and its metabolite was augmented two- to fourfold as determined by enzyme immunoassay. Accordingly, renal cyclooxygenases were also increased in diabetic mice, with isoform-specific and regional differences in each model. Finally, there was altered EP(1-4) receptor expression in diabetic kidneys, with significant differences between STZ and B6-Ins2(Akita) mice (fold-control). In STZ mice, cortical EP(1) increased by 1.6, EP(3) increased by 2.3, and EP(4) decreased by 0.63; yet in B6-Ins2(Akita) mice, cortical EP(1) increased by 2.4, but there was a general decrease in the remaining subtypes. Similarly, in the STZ medulla EP(3) increased by 3.6, but both EP(1) and EP(3) increased by 5.5 and 1.95, respectively, in B6-Ins2(Akita) mice. Therefore, knowing the pattern of change in relative EP receptor expression in the kidney could be useful in identifying specific EP targets for the prevention of various components of diabetic kidney disease.


Systems with hardware accelerators speedup applications by offloading certain compute operations that can run faster on accelerators. Thus, it is not surprising that many of top500 supercomputers use accelerators. However, in addition to procurement cost, significant programming and porting effort is required to realize the potential benefit of such accelerators. Hence, before building such a system it is prudent to answer the question 'what is the projected performance benefit from accelerators for workloads of interest?' We address this question by way of a performance-modeling framework, which predicts realizable application performance on accelerators speedily and accurately without going to the considerable effort of porting and tuning.


In this thesis the use of the discrete 3D Voronoi diagram in modelling continuous fields in geosciences will be assessed. The Voronoi diagram is a structure that divides a certain space into cells, called Voronoi cells. These cells are created so that every location within each cell is closest to the corresponding data point, or seed, of that cell. Every location in that cell is assigned the value of the corresponding seed. Throughout history, the Voronoi diagram has been widely used. In general, the Voronoi diagram is used in three spatial operations. • Using the Voronoi diagram to determine spatial distribution and neighbourhood relations between points in a dataset. • Using the Voronoi diagram to determine the area of influence of points in a dataset. • Using the Voronoi diagram as a basis for the natural neighbour interpolation method. In geosciences, data is sampled in many different ways. Sometimes by means of a regular grid for instance, but measuring continuous fields is often done in an anisotropically distributed pattern. Most often this is due to the way in which samples are collected. The Voronoi diagram can be a good means of visualizing and determining the distribution of data points, and therefore it can be a useful tool when working with anisotropically distributed data. The exact 3D Voronoi diagram is a data model in vector format that has been investigated for quite some years now, often in different areas of sciences. The properties, the advantages and the disadvantages of this data model have been documented. The discrete 3D Voronoi diagram is a data structure in raster format, and, although it has been investigated, it has not been properly documented with respect to its properties, advantages and disadvantages. In this thesis these properties are described, especially in light of the modelling of continuous field data in the realm of geosciences, to perform for instance the natural neighbour interpolation, visualize the data distribution and other spatial operations. To do so, first a new algorithm has been devised, based on literature reviews of different articles on the 3D discrete Voronoi diagram. The new algorithm presented in this thesis has been implemented through the Python programming language. In order to use the discrete 3D Voronoi diagram in combination with geo-scientific, continuous data, a GIS that handles 3D raster data was identified, namely GRASS, and the possibilities and functionalities of GRASS with respect to the discrete 3D Voronoi diagram were investigated. Some functionality, such as resampling and natural neighbour interpolation, that was not found in the GIS but that is considered necessary, has also been implemented. By using test data, the entire process has been tested, from creating a discrete 3D Voronoi diagram, through interpolation it, to visualizing and analyzing it. The outcome shows that the discrete 3D Voronoi diagram is a proper tool for handling and analyzing 3D continuous field data. It enables user to go from a dataset of 3D points to a 3D continuous field, in the environment of a GIS, which allows for even further spatial analyses and operations. One of the advantages of the implemented algorithm is the effectiveness in adding, moving and removing points. This makes it very suitable for dynamic modelling, as well as natural neighbour interpolation. The algorithm also shows other interesting future possibilities, such as creating 3D generalized Voronoi diagrams. Some of these advantages and future uses are currently difficult or not yet possible to implement in an exact environment. Besides the possibilities of the presented algorithm, practical implementation of the algorithm is not yet feasible, due to calculation-time related issues. However, it is expected that if a compiled programming language such as C++ is used, as opposed to the interpreted language Python, the efficiency of the algorithm will increase.


A BSTRACT . In this paper, the performance of Network Coded (NC) based cooperative network for various relay location over Rayleigh fading channels is studied. Comparisons of Amplify and Forward (AAF), Detect and Forward (DTF) and Decode and forward (DCF) protocols for the proposed system are shown. The performance of relays in AAF, DTF and DCF is analyzed in terms of bit error rate (BER) vs signal to noise ratio (SNR). Matlab is used to build Monte-Carlo link level simulation. The effect of relays at different position is studied.


Spatial and spatiotemporal cluster methods are used for a wide range of applications including the study of criminal activities, but have never been compared for studying a specific form of crime, i.e. wildlife poaching. We aimed to identify elephant poaching hotspots by analyzing the differences in clusters of poached elephants in the Tsavo ecosystem (Kenya) that emerged from different cluster detection methods. Reports of elephant poaching in the Tsavo ecosystem were obtained for 2002–2012 from the Kenya Wildlife Service. The study area was divided into 34 blocks for analysis. Two spatialand two spatiotemporal clustering methods were applied to the data. The predictive accuracy of the spatial methods in defining hotspots was assessed using the prediction accuracy index (PAI), which was then modified (MPAI) for measuring the predictive accuracy of the spatiotemporal methods. The results from the spatial methods indicated eight consistent poaching blocks, with Kulldorff's spatial scan statistic having a slightly higher PAI value than the flexible scan statistic (2.39 vs 2.12). The spatiotemporal clustering methods revealed four consistent poaching blocks. The MPAI value was higher for the spatiotemporal scan statistic than the spatiotemporal permutation scan statistic (1.46 vs 0.97). The results demonstrated that although the hotspot predictions varied for the different methods, three blocks were consistently identified as poaching hotspots. Our findings may assist wildlife departments such as the Kenyan Wildlife Service to allocate their financial and human resources as effectively as possible in combating poaching. Further research is needed to examine the environmental and human factors contributing to the patterns that have been observed in elephant poaching. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Pulmonary artery intimal sarcoma (PAIS) is a rare tumor with a very poor prognosis. Clinical and radiological findings usually mimic thromboembolic disease, leading to diagnostic delays. The treatment of choice is surgery, and adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy have limited results. We report the case of a 48-year-old male patient, initially suspected with pulmonary thromboembolism. The angio-CT revealed a filling defect in the pulmonary artery trunk. The patient underwent surgery, resulting in with complete resection of the mass with a diagnosis of PAIS. The tumor progressed rapidly in the lung, requiring surgery of multiple lung metastases. The patient was treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) on two occasions for new pulmonary lesions. In the last followup (4 years after initial diagnosis), the patient was disease-free. In conclusion, SBRT proved to be an alternative treatment to metastasectomy, allowing palliative chemotherapy to be delayed or omitted, which may result in improved quality of life.


A computer-aided method for teaching energy band formation in a superlattice which enables direct comparison to energy band formation in crystals through the tight-binding method is presented. The time-independent Schroedinger equation for a heterostructure stack is solved by the transfer matrix method along with the effective mass approximation using a standard Fortran 77 computer code. The code is suitable for use on a personal computer which provides a ready laboratory in which the student can examine the effect of varying the electron wavefunction overlap between adjacent sites. In this way, the student can perform a series of computer experiments which vividly illustrate energy miniband formation in superlattices and by direct analogy energy band formation in crystals. >


This paper reports the simulation of an electron gun. The effects of some parameters on the beam quality were studied and optimal choices were identified. It gives numerical beam qualities in common electrostatic triode gun, and the dependences on design parameters such as electrode geometries and bias voltages to these electrodes are shown. An electron beam of diameter 5 mm with energy of five kilo electron volt was assumed for simulation process. Some design parameters were identified as variable parameters in the presence of space charge. These parameters are the inclination angle of emission electrode, the applied voltage to focusing electrode, the gap width between the emission electrode and the focusing electrode and the diameter of the focusing electrode. The triode extraction system is designed and optimized by using CST software (for Particle Beam Simulations). The physical design of the extraction system is given in this paper. From the simulation results, it is concluded that the inclination angle of the emission electrode is optimized at twenty two point five degrees, the applied voltage to the focusing electrode was optimized and found at minus sixteen volts, also, the separation distance (gap between emission electrode and focusing electrode) equals to four milli meter, and the diameter of the emission electrode is fourteen milli meter.


House to house inspection around the University of Uyo and environs revealed apparently poor sanitary situation. This unhealthy environmental situation was largely blamed on unwholesome waste disposal habits of the students living in the neighborhood. The aim of this study was to investigate waste disposal habits of the students of the University of Uyo. Methodology employed questionnaire, interview and observation techniques. The study area was divided into three zones. A total of Ninety randomly selected houses were sampled, thirty in each of the three zones. Seventy-one percent of the houses in the study area accommodated students of the University. The environments where students were accommodated were generally poor as a result of the indiscriminate waste disposal habits of the university students. The remaining 29% that accommodated no student were judged above average. It is recommended that students irrespective of the course of study should be enlightened on environmental issues. Landlords must be encouraged to create circumstances that make for easy disposal of waste. Each home should have at least 3 different bins, properly labeled: waste to recycling; food wastes; wastes to dumping site. Home compost of leaves, grass clippings, and vegetable waste from kitchen is also recommended among others. The compost product can be added to vegetable garden and flower beds thereby reducing the need for artificial fertilizers and increasing garden productivity. Students in the university must be properly educated to take the lead in the course of environmental friendliness.


In this paper, the exact solution of Abel's integral equation is found by using new integral transform named "SEE (Sadiq-Emad-Eman) integral". The capability of SEE integral transform in solving Abel's integral equation is demonstrated and proven by applying the transform on some Abel's practical applications, in which the efficiency and simplicity of the transform in finding the exact solution of these problems has been proven.


Zeolite ZSM-5 is a key catalyst in commercially relevant processes including the widely studied methanol to hydrocarbon reaction, and molecular diffusion in zeolite pores is known to be a crucial factor in controlling catalytic reactions. Here, we present critical analyses of recent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) data and complementary molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The QENS experiments show that the nature of methanol diffusion dynamics in ZSM-5 pores is dependent both on the Si/Al ratio (11, 25, 36, 40 and 140), which determines the Brønsted acid site density of the zeolite, and that the nature of the type of motion observed may vary qualitatively over a relatively small temperature range. At 373 K, on increasing the ratio from 11 to 140, the observed mobile methanol fraction increases and the nature of methanol dynamics changes from rotational (in ZSM-5 with Si/Al of 11) to translational diffusion. The latter is either confined localized diffusion within a pore in zeolites with ratios up to 40 or non-localized, longer-range diffusion in zeolite samples with the ratio of 140. The complementary MD simulations conducted over long time scales (1 ns), which are longer than those measured in the present study by QENS (≈1–440 ps), at 373 K predict the occurrence of long-range translational diffusion of methanol in ZSM-5, independent of the Si/Al ratios (15, 47, 95, 191 and siliceous MFI). The rate of diffusion increases slightly by increasing the ratio from 15 to 95 and thereafter does not depend on zeolite composition. Discrepancies in the observed mobile methanol fraction between the MD simulations (100% methanol mobility in ZSM-5 pores across all Si/Al ratios) and QENS experiments (for example, ≈80% immobile methanol in ZSM-5 with Si/Al of 11) are attributed to the differences in time resolutions of the techniques. This perspective provides comprehensive information on the effect of acid site density on methanol dynamics in ZSM-5 pores and highlights the complementarity of QENS and MD, and their advantages and limitations. This article is part of the theme issue 'Exploring the length scales, timescales and chemistry of challenging materials (Part 2)'.


As they grapple with containing the cost of caring for patients who frequently return to the ER or hospital for care, some hospitals are trying a new route: housing. In San Francisco, plans are under way to house 50 homeless patients. "Hospitalization is a failure of the medical system. It means that the condition has gotten so out of control that someone is at risk of life or limb," says Dr. Kelly Pfeifer, left, of the San Francisco Health Plan.


We present a unified theoretical framework for the study of spin dynamics and relativistic transport phenomena in disordered two-dimensional Dirac systems with pseudospin-spin coupling. The formalism is applied to the paradigmatic case of graphene with uniform Bychkov-Rashba interaction and shown to capture spin relaxation processes and associated charge-to-spin interconversion phenomena in response to generic external perturbations, including spin density fluctuations and electric fields. A controlled diagrammatic evaluation of the generalized spin susceptibility in the diffusive regime of weak spin-orbit interaction allows us to show that the spin and momentum lifetimes satisfy the standard Dyakonov-Perel relation for both weak (Gaussian) and resonant (unitary) nonmagnetic disorder. Finally, we demonstrate that the spin relaxation rate can be derived in the zero-frequency limit by exploiting the SU(2) covariant conservation laws for the spin observables. Our results set the stage for a fully quantum-mechanical description of spin relaxation in both pristine graphene samples with weak spin-orbit fields and in graphene heterostructures with enhanced spin-orbital effects currently attracting much attention.


Abstract:Akram Zaatari is one of the founders of the Arab Image Foundation, a nonprofit organization established to collect, preserve, and study photographs from the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arab diaspora. Over the past two decades, Zaatari has used material from this collection as the basis for a larger artistic inquiry on archival practices and the social and material life of photographic images. In this text, Zaatari questions the desires and motivations that underpin the established preservation protocols. As opposed to the impulse to protect photographs from deterioration, he asks what it means to embrace their ephemerality. Zaatari looks for what remains after something inadvertently vanishes in a photographic negative, or what gets reconfigured by environmental and chemical processes over which we have no ultimate control. He tries to learn from these accidents or phenomena and deploys them as tools into the making of what he calls "informed objects," or things that can speak of what they have been through. Here, it is not simply the image that bears historical information but the material on which it is ingrained.


A method of realization of automatic abstracting based on text clustering and natural language understanding is brought forward, aimed at overcoming shortages of some current methods. The method makes use of text clustering and can realize automatic abstracting of multi-documents. The algorithm of twice word segmentation based on the title and first-sentences in paragraphs is brought forward. Its precision and recall is above 95% for a specific domain on plastics, an automatic abstracting system named TCAAS is implemented. The precision and recall of multi-document's automatic abstracting is above 75% And experiments do prove that it is feasible to use the method to develop a domain automatic abstracting system, which is valuable for further study in more depth.


Some bat species seem to be lunar phobic, i.e., they avoid flying in bright areas or during bright periods of the night; however, the evidence is still controversial. We think that part of this controversy comes from pooling data on bat captures and moonlight intensity according to broad categories, such as moon phases, which conceal the high variability among nights. Therefore, we used detailed, long-term field data on three phyllostomid bat species, in order to test the hypothesis of lunar phobia at two different time scales: 1) among nights, by pooling data of different nights according to moon phases and testing for differences in the distribution of captures; and 2) within a night, by analyzing the relationship between capturability and moonlight intensity (measured as illuminance) in one-hour intervals for 29 individual nights. Although most captures of the studied bat species occurred in the first half of the night, their activity pattern varied largely among nights, and was not always unimodal as commonly assumed. At the larger time scale, all studied bat species showed evidence of lunar phobia, as they were more frequently captured on dark moon phases. Nevertheless, at the smaller time scale, only Carollia perspicillata (Linnaeus, 1758) was less frequently captured on brighter periods of the night. We propose that the unimodal activity pattern assumed for frugivorous phyllostomid bats may be an artifact of data organization, and that activity and lunar phobia are much more variable than previously assumed.


The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant activity of model systems of phenolics (individual and combinations) without and with the addition of sugars (sucrose or trehalose). Also, the synergistic or antagonistic effects of the phenolics in all model systems were evaluated. The results for the antioxidant activity were obtained by three assays, ABTS+•, DPPH• and FRAP. ABTS+• and DPPH• assay showed that quercetin and gallic acid had the same antioxidant activity, higher than catechin. When the FRAP assay was applied, the order of increasing of antioxidant activity was quercetin < gallic acid < catechin. The highest synergistic effect was achieved in the model system of catechin, quercetin and gallic acid. Addition of sugars, sucrose and trehalose, influenced both antioxidant activity and synergistic effect of phenolics in the model systems. The highest synergistic effect in the model systems with sucrose addition was observed with catechin, quercetin and gallic acid, while in samples with trehalose, the highest synergistic effect was in combination with catechin and gallic acid. Interactions of phenolics and phenolics/sugars caused changes in antioxidant activity as well as synergistic effects.


Objectives: To study the pattern, clinical presentations and management outcomes of childhood intussusception seen at El Obeid Hospital, Western Sudan.
Patients and Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive study. The medical records
of children who presented with intussusception during 2004 to 2007 at the University
Surgical Unit, in El Obeid Teaching Hospital were reviewed. The data were analyzed
for gender, age, clinical presentations and treatment outcomes.
Results: There were 24 children, males were 14. Infants constituted 71% of the study
group. Patients came from rural areas, mainly during the dry season. They had their symptoms for more than 36 hours, were seen and initially treated elsewhere and only 41% presented with classical clinical features.
All patients were operated and found to have ileocolic intussusceptions, with no pathologic lead point. 54.2% of cases had resection and anastomosis for bowel ischaemia, while in 45.8% manual reduction was done. The post-operative mortality was 16.7%.
Conclusions: Childhood intussusception was common in male infants from rural areas in the dry season. Late presentation to the surgeon necessitated major operative procedures for bowel ischaemia with considerable morbidity and mortality. Keywords : Bowel invagination, Western Sudan. Sudan Journal of Medical Science Vol. 3 (4) 2008: pp. 315-317


Heterogenous materials under shock compression can be expected to reach different shock states throughout the material according to local differences in microstructure and the history of wave propagation. Here, a compact, multiple-beam focusing optic assembly is used with high-speed velocimetry to interrogate the shock response of porous tantalum films prepared through thermal-spray deposition. The distribution of particle velocities across a shocked interface is compared to results obtained using a set of defocused interferometric beams that sampled the shock response over larger areas. The two methods produced velocity distributions along the shock plateau with the same mean, while a larger variance was measured with narrower beams. The finding was replicated using three-dimensional, mesoscopically resolved hydrodynamics simulations of solid tantalum with a pore structure mimicking statistical attributes of the material and accounting for radial divergence of the beams, with agreement across several impact velocities. Accounting for pore morphology in the simulations was found to be necessary for replicating the rise time of the shock plateau. The validated simulations were then used to show that while the average velocity along the shock plateau could be determined accurately with only a few interferometric beams, accurately determining the width of the velocity distribution, which here was approximately Gaussian, required a beam dimension much smaller than the spatial correlation lengthscale of the velocity field, here by a factor of ∼30×, with implications for the study of other porous materials.


This article examines Jacques Derrida's treatment of history in his recently published 1964-1965 seminar on Heidegger. Derrida argues that Being and Time signals a commendable break with the treatment of nonhistoricity by Hegel and Husserl. At the same time, Derrida addresses Heidegger's association with National Socialism. The seminar shows us that terms used in Of Grammatology, such as trace, différance and repetition, had been elaborated in 1964-1965 in relation to problems of history, heritage, tradition and epoch. The article ends with some wider questions about Derrida and the history of philosophy and the philosophy of history


In this article, we contribute to the earnings management literature by addressing the issue of Related Party Transactions (RPTs) during a firm's Initial Public Offering (IPO) process. We regard RPT-based earnings management as a kind of agency problem in the context of Chinese IPOs, and argue that the conflicts of interests between the controlling shareholders and the minority shareholders are the root of RPT-based earnings management in Chinese IPOs. We provide empirical evidence to demonstrate that RPT-based earnings management in a portfolio of earnings management tools including accruals management, and how it affects the firm's post-IPO long-term performance in China. Using 257 Chinese A and B shares IPOs during 1999 and 2000, our empirical findings suggest that controlling shareholders structure operating RPTs in pre-IPO period and these RPTs are positively associated with firm's operating performance. The decline in operating RPTs after IPO contributes to firm's post-IPO long-term underperformance and negatively affects firms' stock return.


This chapter not only attempts to identify those variables which govern and impact the relationship and interplay between Corporate Social Responsibility and Foreign Direct Investment, but illustrate the conditions under which such variables are likely to be most susceptible to change and fluctuations – as well as consequences that are likely to be generated as a result of such fluctuations. In so doing it also contributes to the literature in highlighting why greater focus and priority should be accorded to Foreign Direct Investment and Corporate Social Responsibility, as tools for poverty alleviation. Further, as well as accentuating, under the conclusion section, why the UK Government strategy for building more plants after Hinkley Point, implies that the UK would not reap all benefits of the Project, the chapter expansiates on contributory factors which have resulted in the decision of the UK Government to delay its decision on the Hinkley Point Project. Contributory factors, which include among a notable few, the need for flexible generating capacity was also cited, since renewable energy cannot be easily converted at Hinkley Point.


The control and identification of a traveling-wave ultrasonic motor (TWUSM) using a neural network control scheme is described in this paper. A recurrent neural network (RNN) control scheme that uses continual online training to simultaneously identify and control the TWUSM is proposed. The control scheme utilizes two three-layer RNNs: one is a recurrent neural network identifier which captures the nonlinear dynamics of the plant system and the other is a recurrent neural network controller to provide the necessary control actions to achieve desired reference trajectory. Some experimental results reveal that the proposed control structure adapts and generalizes its learning to a wide range of operating conditions and provides promising results under system uncertainties and load changes.


Two Cobas-Bio analyzers were found to have significantly increased imprecision, owing to absorbance errors, when we used rotors pieced together from segments of four to 10 cuvets. The difference in CV between whole/unbroken and four-cuvet or 10-cuvet segment rotors was significant by Student's unpaired t-test (P = 0.038 and less than 0.0001, respectively) and by the Mann-Whitney U test (P less than 0.0001 for either). Pieced-together rotors were found to have plastic fragments in some cuvets, both adjacent to the break points and in other positions within the segment. There was no significant difference in delta A between adjacent cuvets at break positions or in between break positions by unpaired t-test (P = 0.214) or by the Mann-Whitney U test (P = 0.235). There was a significant difference by either test (P less than 0.0001) for the delta A between adjacent cuvets in broken rotors and those in whole/unbroken rotors. We conclude that random errors in absorbance are observed both in cuvets adjacent to break positions and in cuvets removed from the break point when pieced-together rotors are used.


The significant increase in the number of people diagnosed with diabetes mellitus in recent years makes studies of this problem topical. The persistent hyperglycemia accompanying the development and course of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) can affect the func-tional and structural levels of the organization of the central nervous system. These changes may be mediated by metabolic aberrations. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a common method of intravital detection of metabolic reactions. In this study, MRS of the hippocampus of NOD.CB17-Prkdcscid/NcrCrl mice (NODSCID) was performed 4 days after the administration of streptozotocin (STZ) to assess the effect of STZ itself, and 60 days after the administration of STZ to another group of animals to assess the effect of chronic hyperglycemia caused by the delayed effect of STZ, involving the death of pancreatic β-cells. The simulation of T1DM by STZ administration is used worldwide. Nevertheless, the question remains whether there is a short-term effect of the introduction of STZ at the level of hippocampal metabolites recorded by MRS. The comparison of experimental and control animal groups revealed no effect of STZ on metabolites in the hippocampus of NODSCID mice on day 4 after its administration. In contrast, another comparison of the experimental and control animals on day 60 after STZ administration showed elevated contents of alanine and taurine, and a reduced lactate content. Thus, the introduction of STZ itself does not affect the metabolism of the hippocampus, and MRS is a promising method for assessing the effect of T1DM on brain metabolism in animals.


The relationship between the equations used in the atomic pair distribution function (PDF) method and those commonly used in small-angle-scattering (SAS) analyses is explicitly shown. The origin of the sloping baseline, -4pirrho0, in PDFs of bulk materials is identified as originating from the SAS intensity that is neglected in PDF measurements. The nonlinear baseline in nanoparticles has the same origin, and contains information about the shape and size of the nanoparticles.


Background Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GORD) is one of the leading gastrointestinal disorders,Patients with GORD often seek alternative therapy for inadequate symptom control,with over 40%not responding to medical treatment.Current treatments include lifestyle modifications, pharmacological therapies,surgical and STRETTA therapy that is a minimally invasive procedure that significantly reduces GORD symptoms, allowing the majority of patients to eliminate or decrease use of PPIs. Methods and patients A multi-centre retrospective data collected from three Mediclinic Middle East centres in DubaiUAE on(75)patients,period Jan2015-Nov2017.Most Patients evaluated had ambulatory 24 hour pH testing and previous gastroscopy for assessment of LOS.3 patients had Previous Nissan fundoplication (NF) surgery and 1 had previous gastric bypass.Stretta uses radiofrequency(RF)energy delivered to the tissues of the distal lower Oesophageal sphincter (LOS) and gastric cardia,which decreases LOS compliance,increases LOS muscle mass,and limits the inappropriate transient LOS relaxations responsible for GORD.Patients were followed up 2 wks,30 days,3 months and one year. Results Prior DeMeester score average of 99,with hypotensive LOS pressure.There was a small learning curve(45±7) min for the first 10 procedures;mild to moderate pain during the first 72postoperative hours was controlled with paracetamol syrup.Two(2.5%)complications;one patient presented with ulcerative esophagitis 7 days after the Stretta treatment,and one patient developed pneumonia 5 days postoperatively.50patients(63%)were 50%on reduced PPI dose at two months and 61patients(77%)were off treatment at 6 months and 70patients(88%)at 12 months were off all antisecretory medication.The other five patients (6%)were on PRN PPI. Conclusion In our study 88% of patients were off PPIs at one year. The rising concern of long-term side effects of the popular proton-pump inhibitors have prompted reinterest in endoscopic procedures for GORD and also economic significance as the costs of long-term pharmacological treatment are tremendous.STRETTA delivery significantly improved GORD symptoms with high efficacy and low complication rate endoscopic procedure. This procedure represents an excellent alternative for selected symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux disease patients who are intolerant of/or desire an alternative to, traditional medical therapies.


Following the WHO's declaration of a public health emergency due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the subsequent quarantine and confinement measures that were adopted, including distance learning measures, were shown to have caused a significant deterioration in the mental health of medical students. The goal of this study was to explore the mediating role of resilience and life satisfaction in the relationship between perceived stress and burnout among medical students in the context of COVID-19. A transversal assessment was performed using an online questionnaire, to which 462 students responded. The instruments applied were the Perceived Stress Scale-10, the Resilience Scale-25 items, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and the Burnout Scale (Oldenburg Inventory). A regression model was estimated for each dimension of burnout. The results revealed that resilience and life satisfaction play a mediating role in the association between stress and the dimensions of burnout. This suggests that measures of promoting mental health based on resilience and improving perceptions of life should be implemented.


This study presents a comparison of two types of bifunctional structured surface that were made from the same polymer—an antimicrobial polycation (a synthetic mimic of an antimicrobial peptide, SMAMP) and a protein-repellent polyzwitterion (poly(sulfobetaines), PSB). The first type of bifunctional surface was fabricated by a colloidal lithography (CL) based process where the two polymers were immobilized sequentially onto pre-structured surfaces with a chemical contrast (gold on silicon). This enabled site-selective covalent attachment. The CL materials had a spacing ranging from 200 nm to 2 µm. The second type of structured surface (spacing: 1–8.5 µm) was fabricated using a microcontact printing (µCP) process where SMAMP patches were printed onto a PSB network, so that 3D surface features were obtained. The thus obtained materials were studied by quantitative nanomechanical measurements using atomic force microscopy (QNM-AFM). The different architectures led to different local elastic moduli at the polymer-air interface, where the CL surfaces were much stiffer (Derjaguin-Muller-Toporov (DMT) modulus = 20 ± 0.8 GPa) compared to the structured 3D networks obtained by µCP (DMT modulus = 42 ± 1.1 MPa). The effects of the surface topology and stiffness on the antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, the protein repellency (using fibrinogen), and the compatibility with human gingival mucosal keratinocytes were investigated. The softer 3D µCP surfaces had simultaneous antimicrobial activity, protein repellency, and cell compatibility at all spacings. For the stiffer CL surfaces, quantitative simultaneous antimicrobial activity and protein repellency was not obtained. However, the cell compatibility could be maintained at all spacings. The optimum spacing for the CL materials was in the range of 500 nm–1 µm, with significantly reduced antimicrobial activity at 2 µm spacing. Thus, the soft polymer network obtained by µCP could be more easily optimized than the stiff CL surface, and had a broader topology range of optimal or near-optimal bioactivity.


The effects of human recombinant tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) on human keratinocytes cultured in a serum-free medium were investigated. TNF-alpha markedly suppressed cell growth. The growth-inhibitory effect was reversible and cytostatic at a concentration of 1-5 U/ml, but appeared to be irreversible and cytocidal at 10 U/ml. The growth suppressive effect was more marked when TNF-alpha was added in the late growth phase or preconfluent phase than when it was added in early or mid-growth phases. No effects of TNF-alpha on cell adhesion to the substrate were observed. These results indicate that TNF-alpha is a very potent anti-proliferative agent for human keratinocytes.


The favorable stoichiometry of Co(n)O(m)(+) clusters has been recently determined by means of multiphoton dissociation of oxide cluster beams coming from laser evaporation of metal rods seeded with 0.5-5% oxygen and selected by time of flight mass spectroscopy. It was observed that the prominent stoichiometry is n = m, and that the preferred dissociation channel is the loss of O2 molecules. The Co4O4(+) cluster is found to be particularly abundant, an indication of its high stability. In this work we present density functional calculations, within the generalized gradient approximation, for the geometric, electronic, and magnetic properties of neutral and cationic Co(n)O(m)(0/+) clusters with n = 3-8 and m = 1-10. The ionic structures were determined after optimizing several initial geometries selected from previous calculations of pure Co clusters, with consecutive adsorbed oxygen atoms, as well as geometries constructed by assembling several CoO units and adding subsequent oxygen atoms. The fragmentation patterns were studied by comparing the energy separation of O2, CoO, Co2O, CoO2, and Co fragments. We obtain that the preferred fragmentation channel is the loss of O2, that the favourable stoichiometry is 1 : 1, and that Co4O4(+) is especially stable, in full agreement with the experiments. In addition the magnetic properties related to spin isomeric configurations of (CoO)n(+) clusters are studied in detail.


Typical symptoms of hypothyroidism are lethargy, cold intolerance, slowing of intellectual and motor activity, declining appetite, increasing weight, and dry skin. A 43-year-old man with hypothyroidism presented with dysarthria as the leading symptom. Further symptoms were cramps in the legs after exercise, dizziness, and stunned feeling. He suffered from severe snoring for 4 years, and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome was diagnosed 2 years before. Creatine phosphokinase was elevated. Electromyography was myogenic. Echocardiography showed a thickened myocardium. An otolaryngologic investigation revealed macroglossia and hypertrophy of the uvula. After administration of L-thyroxine, the symptoms rapidly improved. Dysarthria may be the leading symptom of hypothyroidism and can be promptly resolved after hormone substitution.


Modern mobile devices contain integrated sensors that enable multitude of applications in such fields as mobile health (mHealth), entertainment, sports, etc. Human physical activity monitoring is one of such the emerging applications. There exists a range of challenges that relate to activity monitoring tasks, and, particularly, exploiting optimal solutions and architectures for respective mobile software application development. This work addresses mobile computations related to integrated inertial sensors for activity monitoring, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, integrated global positioning system (GPS) and WLAN-based positioning, that can be used for activity monitoring. Some of the aspects will be discussed in this paper. Each of the sensing data sources has its own characteristics such as specific data formats, data rates, signal acquisition durations etc., and these specifications affect energy consumption. Energy consumption significantly varies as sensor data acquisition is followed by data analysis including various transformations and signal processing algorithms. This paper will address several aspects of more optimal activity monitoring implementations exploiting state-of-the-art capabilities of modern platforms.


plates older than one week are discarded. The technique by which specimens are obtained is important. The coughplate is held approximately six inches from the patient's mouth during a paroxysm, which may be induced by extending the head, lightly pressing the thumb on the trachea, and then rapidly flexing the neck. After the paroxysm a pernasal swab is taken, as the organism is most likely to be found in the bronchial secretions. With this method there is an 80 to 90% chance of isolating Bordetella pertussis in the first 10 days of the illness. Later the organisms quickly disappear from the secretions, presumably on account of antibody production. The characteristic changes in the white blood cells-namely, leucocytosis with absolute and relative lymphocytosis-are a later development, not usually evident until the second week. In the infectious diseases department of this hospital there are at the present time six cases of whooping-cough, and it might reassure Dr. Came to see that laboratory findings support the clinical diagnosis in all cases.