1,1-Dichloroethylene (DCE) elicits lung cytotoxicity and selectively targets Clara cells of bronchioles. The toxic effects are ascribed to CYP2E1-mediated formation of reactive intermediates including the DCE epoxide. Here we tested the hypothesis that differential CYP2E1 levels in the lungs of A/J, CD-1, and C57BL/6 mice lead to differences in the extents of DCE bioactivation and lung damage. Our results showed that lung CYP2E1 levels differed significantly in the three murine strains, and followed the rank order A/J > CD-1 > C57BL/6. Covalent binding of [(14)C]DCE to lung proteins in A/J mice was significantly higher than in either CD-1 or C57BL/6 mice. HPLC analysis of lung cytosol from DCE-treated mice showed that 2-S-glutathionyl acetate, a glutathione (GSH) conjugate derived from the epoxide (conjugate [C]), was the major metabolite formed. Levels of [C] detected in cytosol from A/J and CD-1 mice were significantly higher than in C57BL/6 mice. Immunohistochemical staining for [C] was pronounced in the lungs of A/J mice, was lower in CD-1 mice, and was lowest in C57BL/6 mice. Levels of GSH were similar in the lungs of all untreated mice. However, significant reduction in GSH was found in DCE-treated mice, with decreases comparable in all three strains. Bronchiolar Clara cell damage was more severe in A/J and CD-1 mice than in C57BL/6 mice. These results showed differences in CYP2E1 levels in the lungs of A/J, CD-1, and C57BL/6 mice that correlated with the extent to which the DCE epoxide is formed as well as with the severity of lung cytotoxicity.


Abstract This article uses actual word-of-mouth (WOM) information to examine the dynamic patterns of WOM and how it helps explain box office revenue. The WOM data were collected from the Yahoo Movies Web site. The results show that WOM activities are the most active during a movie's prerelease and opening week and that movie audiences tend to hold relatively high expectations before release but become more critical in the opening week. More important, WOM information offers significant explanatory power for both aggregate and weekly box office revenue, especially in the early weeks after a movie opens. However, most of this explanatory power comes from the volume of WOM and not from its valence, as measured by the percentages of positive and negative messages.


Implant-supported rehabilitations show higher patient satisfaction when compared with conventional prostheses. Systemic conditions, however, can affect treatment planning of dental implant supported rehabilitations. The oral structures that are commonly affected in patients with Down syndrome include the tongue (macroglossia), teeth (number and shape), and poor quality alveolar and jaw bones (osteoporotic-like). This clinical case presents an interdisciplinary team approach aimed at achieving functional, phonetic, and esthetic outcomes in a patient with Down syndrome.


The present work deals with aerodynamic drag reduction of an urban-concept car for energy-efficient competition. Several modifications have been proposed to the original design of the urban-concept of the car. In order to investigate the effect of the proposed modifications numerical method has been developed. In the numerical method three-dimensional governing equations have been solved numerically. Turbulent flow is modeled using k -epsilon model. The two designs have been simulated at five different inlet velocities. The inlet velocity varies from 10 m/s to 20 m/s. The velocity contour, velocity vector and pressure distributions have been plotted. The results show that the proposed modifications improve the performance of the proposed design. At the given inlet velocities, the aerodynamic drag coefficient of the new design decreased 26.63 % in comparison with original design. It is recommended to modify the original design of the urban concept car by implementing the proposed modifications. The new design will improve the performance of the urban concept car.


The hysteresis modulation for power electronic converters is attractive in many different applications because of its unmatched dynamic response and wide command-tracking bandwidth. Its application and benefits for two-level converters are well understood, but the extension of this strategy to multilevel converters is still under development. This paper summarizes and reviews the various hysteresis modulation approaches available in the literature for multilevel converters. The pros and cons of various techniques are described and compared for tracking the reference signal in order to attain an adequate switching optimization, excellent dynamic responses and high accuracy in steady-state operation. By using the recently developed multilevel hysteresis modulation approaches, the advantages of using several accessible dc potentials in a multilevel inverter have been fully exploited. All of these hysteresis modulation approaches are tested for tracking a current reference when applied to a five-level inverter. The relevant simulation and experimental results are also presented. This study will provide a useful framework and point of reference for the future development of hysteresis modulation for multilevel converters.


AIM
To investigate the actions of protease inhibitors on the enzymatic activities of tryptase and chymase in similar experimental systems.

METHODS
Human lung tryptase and human skin chymase were purified by a similar procedure involving high salt extraction of tryptase, heparin agarose affinity chromatography, and S-200 Sephacryl gel filtration chromatography. Actions of protease inhibitors on tryptase and chymase activities were examined by enzyme assays.

RESULTS
The specific activities of tryptase and chymase were 2.1 kU/g protein and 4.9 kU/g protein, respectively. Both preparations showed a single diffuse band on SDS-PAGE. Among non-native protease inhibitors, N-(1-hydroxy-2-naphthoyl)-L- arginyl-L-prolinamide hydrochloride (HNAP), leupeptin, antipain, benzamidine, and protamine inhibited more than 90 % enzymatic activity of tryptase, whereas soy bean trypsin inhibitor (SBTI), Z-Ile-Glu-Pro-Phe-CO2Me (ZIGPPM) and chymostatin inhibited more than 95 % enzymatic activity of chymase. Native protease inhibitors alpha 1-antitrypsin and secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI) inhibited more than 90 % enzymatic activity of chymase, but lactoferrin appeared to enhance chymase enzymatic activity. All the 3 inhibitors had weak inhibitory actions on tryptase.

CONCLUSION
The protease inhibitors tested had relatively good selectivity to either tryptase or chymase.


The management of ectopic gestation has in recent years transformed from the normally accepted laparotomy to the laparoscopic approach. The objective of this case report is to describe a rare occurrence of an ectopic gestation following in vitro fertilisation procedure. A 35-year-old para 0 + 0, presented with lower abdominal pain and per vaginal bleeding six weeks after an in vitro fertilisation was done in South Africa. The patient was admitted with severe lower abdominal pain and per vaginal bleeding at six weeks gestation following an in vitro fertilisation procedure. She had undergone an "evacuation" one-week prior to this episode due to an initial diagnosis of an incomplete abortion. No chorionic villi were reported on histology. The repeat serum BhCG was 777 mimicro/l and at laparoscopy a right unruptured ampullary ectopic gestation (4 cms in size) was evident. A right linear salpingostomy was subsequently performed laparoscopically. Histology confirmed the presence of tubal chorionic villi. The laparoscopic management of ectopic pregnancies is now regarded as the gold standard in many centres in the world. In this patient the ectopic pregnancy resulted following an intra-uterine zygote transfer, and was managed successfully.


Bronchogenic cysts (BCs) are congenital abnormalities commonly found within the mediastinum. Diaphragmatic location is extremely rare. We present a woman in her 60s with an asymptomatic intradiaphragmatic BC. The patient underwent complete surgical resection with primary closure of the left hemidiaphragm. BCs should remain a differential diagnosis of any soft-tissue mass in the region of the diaphragm. Complete surgical resection is recommended even in asymptomatic patients to avoid complications such as infection, rupture, bleeding or malignant transformation.


Abstract : The GEODSS Vela Search Team developed revolutionary, new procedures for searching for man-made objects in deep space. The procedures were designed to find the Vela communication satellites launched in the 1960s. The satellites were in very high and eccentric orbits and had not been tracked in over 40 years. The approach used the sun to provide illumination along with modifying optical parameters. The GEODSS team has found 6 lost Vela satellites and enhanced the Air Force Space Command satellite catalog. This Vela Search Team worked with the Air Force to aggressively launch a first-ever proactive campaign against a series of lost satellites using our three GEODSS optical detachments. Two new tactics, techniques & procedures were successfully used to capture very hard to track objects. The revisit time was increased from intermittent and yearly tracking to weeks or better for 3 Vela's lost for over four decades. Lessons learned were established for Vela & other orbit types. The Joint Space Operations Center (JSPOC) analysts stated that the Vela search and tracking was a great success. Additionally, a GEODSS Space Shuttle Track Team was the first to use a deep space observing telescope to observe the space shuttle flying at low altitude. The Team developed a procedure using modified optical viewing parameters and new search techniques using the GEODSS telescope in a mission it was not designed to perform. The team was able to observe the space shuttle 14 times over two nights. The ability to observe and then successfully repeat the process was an astronomical achievement. The GEODSS team accomplishment contributed to shuttle safety and mission success.


The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary nano-nutrients on the growth, physiological and amino acid responses in tilapia fish. Vitamins were incorporated with chemically synthesized nanoparticles (Fe, Zn, Cu and Se) to form a nano-nutrient complex (NNC). Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses were performed to confirm the structure and morphology of the as-prepared nutrients. A commercial basal diet without the addition of any NNC was used as a control and compared with the other two diets formulated with different levels of NNC. In a 60 day feeding trial, the fish fed with a diet of NNC60 showed significant differences in final weight and length compared with the basal diet. Furthermore, a high value of nutrient content was observed in the muscles of fish fed with nano diets. In addition, protein, total fat, vitamin C, and essential amino acid levels were significantly higher in the NNC60-treated fish compared with the other groups. The present study suggests that the addition of NNC to a commercial diet has the potential to enhance the growth performance and biochemical parameters in tilapia fish.


The Northern Region Endoscopy Group (NREG) is a collaborative endoscopy network. NREG provides the opportunity for clinicians across the entire Northern region to undertake high quality, clinically meaningful, health service based research. NREG research is undertaken across a wide range of endoscopy units with pooling of resources and ideas. NREG has presented a large number of abstracts and is contributing to a number of National Institute for Health Research trials. NREG is collaborating with other research teams in the UK and a number of research grants have been secured. NREG aims to make a significant contribution to the field of endoscopic research over the coming years.


A 2-structure on a set $S$ is given by an equivalence relation on the set of ordered pairs of distinct elements of $S$. A subset $C$ of $S$, any two elements of which appear the same from the perspective of each element of the complement of $C$, is called a clan. The number of elements that must be added in order to obtain a 2-structure the only clans of which are trivial is called the primitive bound of the 2-structure. The primitive bound is determined for arbitrary 2-structures of any cardinality. This generalizes the classical results of Erd\H{o}s et al. and Moon for tournaments, as well as the result of Brignall et al. for finite graphs, and the precise results of Boussa\"{\i}ri and Ille for finite graphs, providing new proofs which avoid extensive use of induction in the finite case.


Herpesvirus entry mediator (HVEM) is known to regulate immune response and to be expressed in several human malignancies. However, to the authors's knowledge, the precise role of HVEM in human cancer biology remains unknown. The objective of the current study was to clarify the clinical significance of HVEM in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma as well as its in vivo functions.


Children with cerebral palsy are at greater risk of a whole range of oral conditions than their peers. These include bruxism (tooth grinding), oral skill dysfunction, gross malocclusion due to effects of the abnormal orofacial muscle tone on tooth eruption, drooling of saliva, and poor oral hygiene.1 A challenging case of a painful buccal lesion in a 2 year old girl with cerebral palsy (CP) that did not respond to antifungal, antiviral or antibiotic treatment is presented as a factitious lesion. The recognition and significance of self-injurious behaviour and factitious lesions in children are discussed.


Power consumption is an important design issue of current multimedia embedded systems. Data caches consume a significant portion of total processor power for multimedia applications because they are data intensive. In an integrated multimedia system, the cache architecture cannot be tuned specifically for an application. Therefore, a significant amount of cache energy is actually wasted. In this paper, we propose the software-controlled cache architecture that improves the energy efficiency of the shared cache in an integrated multimedia system on an application-specific base. Data types in an application are allocated to different cache regions. On each access, only the allocated cache regions need to be activated. We test the effectiveness of the software-controlled cache of the MPEG-2 software decoder. The results show up to 40% of cache energy reduction on an ARM-like cache architecture without sacrificing performance.


Recent developments demonstrate that the combination of microbiology with micro- and nanoelectronics is a successful approach to develop new miniaturized sensing devices and other technologies. In the last decade, there has been a shift from the optimization of the abiotic components, for example, the chip, to the improvement of the processing capabilities of cells through genetic engineering. The synthetic biology approach will not only give rise to systems with new functionalities, but will also improve the robustness and speed of their response towards applied signals. To this end, the development of new genetic circuits has to be guided by computational design methods that enable to tune and optimize the circuit response. As the successful design of genetic circuits is highly dependent on the quality and reliability of its composing elements, intense characterization of standard biological parts will be crucial for an efficient rational design process in the development of new genetic circuits. Microengineered devices can thereby offer a new analytical approach for the study of complex biological parts and systems. By summarizing the recent techniques in creating new synthetic circuits and in integrating biology with microdevices, this review aims at emphasizing the power of combining synthetic biology with microfluidics and microelectronics.


In the last several years, significant progress has been made in the development of microfluidic-based analytical technologies for proteomic and drug discovery applications. Chip-based nanoelectrospray coupled to a mass spectrometer detector is one of the recently developed analytical microscale technologies. This technology offers unique advantages for automated nanoelectrospray including reduced sample consumption, improved detection sensitivity and enhanced data quality for proteomic studies. This review presents an overview and introduction of recent developments in chip devices coupled to electrospray mass spectrometers including the development of the automated nanoelectrospray ionization chip device for protein characterization. Applications using automated chip-based nanoelectrospray ionization technology in proteomic and bioanalytical studies are also extensively reviewed in the fields of high-throughput protein identification, protein post-translational modification studies, top-down proteomics, biomarker screening by pattern recognition, noncovalent protein–ligand binding for drug discovery and lipid analysis. Additionally, future trends in chip-based nanoelectrospray technology are discussed.


How does organizational identity affect team functioning? We articulate and test an identity instrumentality hypothesis that suggests that organizational identity (1) directly predicts those aspects of team functioning that enable, and are instrumental in, employees' fulfillment of their identity with the organization; and (2) indirectly predicts other aspects of team functioning not instrumental to organizational identity fulfillment. Underlying this hypothesis is the idea that some aspects of team functioning, such as team performance and cooperative team behaviors, are important to individuals' fulfillment of their organizational identity because the implications of these behaviors extend beyond the immediacy of the team, whereas other aspects of team functioning (e.g., team affect) are not instrumental to organizational identity fulfillment because they are relevant mainly within the team context. We test the identity instrumentality hypothesis by using meta-analytic path analysis conducted on effect estimates obtained from 132 independent studies (total N = 28,024) of organizational and team identity. As hypothesized, we find that whereas team identity fully mediates the relationship between organizational identity and team affective constructs (i.e., aspects of team functioning not instrumental to the fulfillment of organizational identity), organizational identity uniquely and directly affects cooperative team behavior and team performance, which are those aspects of team functioning that are instrumental to the fulfillment of organizational identity.


The design problem of two-dimensional recursive digital filters is generally reduced to a constraint minimization problem. Based on our previously proposed Quantum-Behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO) algorithm, inspired by quantum physics, we proposed an improved QPSO, called Diversity-Guided QPSO (DGQPSO) to obtain the solution of the design problem. The DGQPSO is implemented by controlling the diversity measure of the swarm to enhance global search ability of the QPSO. The results yield by DGQPSO in design problem show its superiority compared to other competitive optimization algorithm.


The earliest land photosynthesis would have increased the risk of photo-oxidations and the demand of anti-oxidative protection. In this work, we aimed to determine the evolutionary trends in photoprotection across a wide representation of the plant kingdom and to verify whether the non-ubiquitous lutein-epoxide (Lx) cycle is a polyphyletic or an ancient character. Carotenoids and alpha-tocopherol (alpha-toc) were analysed by HPLC in 266 species. Phylogenetic analyses of the presence of photoprotective compounds and zeaxanthin-epoxidase (ZE) sequences were performed. Violaxanthin-cycle pigments (VAZ) and alpha-toc were taxonomically ubiquitous. Ancient groups showed higher contents of VAZ than vascular plants, while alpha-toc showed the opposite pattern. Lutein-epoxide was present in 45% of the species. It showed a remarkable variation across groups but with a clear increasing trend from algae to basal angiosperms. Lutein-epoxide was also related to woody trait and leaf longevity. No correlation between the presence of Lx and recurrent mutations in ZE sequences, including the duplications, was found. Thus, there is an evolutionary trend to increase the content of alpha-toc and to decrease the total amount of VAZ pigments. Absence of Lx in algae discards an ancestral origin. Present results are also inconsistent with a polyphyletic origin of Lx in angiosperms.


The model (for predicting Curie temperatures of ternary alloys) developed in a previous paper is extended by removing the assumption that the fraction of plus and minus spins contributed by an element in the alloy is directly proportional to the concentration of the element. Empirical data concerning the Curie temperatures of binary Co‐Ni, Fe‐Ni, and Fe‐Co alloys is again used to predict the Curie temperature of ternary fcc Fe‐Ni‐Co alloys. The predicted temperatures agree with experimental values within 30°C over the range of concentrations where the magnetic moments of the elements in the alloy do not vary with concentration (nickel concentration greater than 0.55 and the cobalt concentration greater than 0.4).


To the Editor.— Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) Council of Ethical and Judicial Affairs adopted a stand based on ethical considerations that allows the withholding of nutrition and fluids from patients under special clinical circumstances. This stand is a grievous error, since it impinges on legal areas reserved for judicial authorities and such withholding may be considered euthanasia, which is still illegal in this country. Most clinical decisions are directed at preserving life and have medical, ethical, and legal implications. When non-terminally ill patients or their stead refuse indicated life-preserving medical care including nutrition and fluids (eg, Brophy and Jobes), with the results of these refusals being certain death in the immediate future, the judicial authorities have reserved the right of final decision.1-4These judicial authorities should be consulted on an urgent basis. In terminally ill patients for whom no life-preserving medical care is available, ethical considerations allow


OBJECTIVE
To examine whether the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor seliciclib ameliorates autoimmune nephritis in (NZB x NZW)F(1) mice.

METHODS
In experiment 1, NZB x NZW mice received seliciclib (100 mg/kg or 200 mg/kg) or vehicle by gavage, beginning at age 2 months and ending at 8 months of age. In experiment 2, seliciclib (200 mg/kg) was administered alone or combined with low-dose methylprednisolone, starting at age 5 months, when immune complex deposition in the kidney had already occurred. Animals were followed up until all vehicle-treated mice died. In 2 additional groups of NZB x NZW mice treated with seliciclib or vehicle from 2 months of age until 5 months of age, splenocytes were isolated and tested ex vivo for T cell and B cell activity.

RESULTS
Seliciclib, given at an early phase of disease, prolonged survival, delayed the onset of proteinuria and renal function impairment, and protected the kidney against glomerular hypercellularity, tubulointerstitial damage, and inflammation. Combining seliciclib with low-dose methylprednisolone in mice with established disease extended the lifespan and limited proteinuria and renal damage more than treatment with either agent alone. Seliciclib limited immunologic signs of disease, reducing glomerular IgG and C3 deposits and levels of serum anti-DNA antibodies. Moreover, it inhibited ex vivo T cell and B cell proliferative responses to polyclonal stimuli. T cell production of interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 and B cell release of IgG2a were reduced by treatment with seliciclib.

CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that CDK activity may be a useful target in the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus. A direct immunomodulatory action of seliciclib on T cells and B cells may be one of the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Helicobacter pylori infection causes chronic gastric inflammation and peptic ulceration, and is the strongest risk factor for the development of gastric cancer. The cagA (cytotoxin-associated gene A) gene which is one of the most important virulence factors of H. pylori, is believed to contribute to the gastric tissue injury and cancer development. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling plays a pivotal role in modulating gastric mucosal inflammatory responses. Recently, H. pylori infection has been associated with attenuated TGF-β signaling in gastric mucosa. However, the precise underlying mechanism of H. pylori infection on TGF-β signaling and inflammatory response remains unclear. In this study, we examined the mechanism of inhibition of TGF-β signaling by H. pylori CagA protein. CagA suppressed TGF-β/Smad transcriptional responses. CagA interacted constitutively with Smad proteins, and most strongly with Smad3. Expression of CagA on AGS cells inhibited TGF-β-induced down-regulation of proinflammatory chemokines, such as CXCL1, CXCL3 and IL-8, as well as TGF-β-induced transcription of target genes. These results suggest that the attenuated TGF-β signaling associated with cagA-positive H. pylori infection could be an important determinant for the degree of inflammation provoked by H. pylori.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1962. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1962


We report the unique case of a 14-year-old male with axillary artery pseudo-aneurysm associated with brachial plexus compression after a simple shoulder dislocation. Following shoulder reduction under anaesthetic, the child was discharged on chemical deep vein thrombosis (DVT) prophylaxis. However, progressive shoulder swelling and upper limb neurological symptoms developed. A multi-disciplinary approach was taken to diagnose and treat this complication. After stopping the anti-coagulants, a combination of endovascular stent-graft and open surgical decompression of the brachial plexus was employed. Paediatric guidelines on DVT prophylaxis are scarce but DVT has never been reported in children following upper limb trauma.


We use state repeals of blood test requirements (BTRs) for a marriage license that occurred between 1980 and 2008 to examine the impact of changes in the price of marriage on the marriage decision. Using a within-group estimator that holds constant state and year effects and exploits variation in the repeal dates of BTRs across states, we find that BTRs are associated with a 6.1 percent decrease in marriage licenses issued by a state. This main finding is supported with results from individual-level marriage license and Current Population Survey data. The largest effects are found for lower socioeconomic groups.


Two series of Schiff Bases [VI]n and thiazolidin-4-one derivatives[VII]n were synthesized by many steps starting from cyclization of 4- hydroxyacetophenon with thiourea in iodine to yield 1,3-thiazole compound which was reacted with pentoxy bromide in anhydrous potassium carbonate to converted compound[II] and this reacted with Phenol to yield azo compound[III]. The azo compound reacted with ethyl chloro acetate in basic medium to get a new easter compound[IV]  which is converted to their acid hydrazid[V]. The later compound condensation with n-alkoxy benzaldehyde to give new Schiff bases[VI]n . Imine group undergoes addition cyclization with thioglycolic acid to get thiazolidinone compounds[VII]n .Also, two new series of Schiff Bases [XII]n and their thiazolidin-4-one derivatives[XIII]n were synthesized by using the same steps given for synthesis Schiff bases [VI]n and thiazoidinone [VII]n except using  4- aminoacetophenon instead of 4- hydroxyacetophenon(see scheme 2) .The synthesized compounds were characterized by melting points , FTIR ,C.H.N.S analysis , 1HNMR  and Mass spectroscopy (of some of them)


In this review, the current evidence for the efficacy of psychoeducation, a nonpharmacological treatment strategy in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia and their families, is assessed by summarizing meta-analyses/reviews and important single studies published after the recent meta-analyses. It was found that psychoeducation for patients with schizophrenia and their families can reduce the relapse rates of these patients; long-term family interventions (i.e., with durations of more than 3 months) are particularly helpful. However, there are still unsolved questions in this area. Therefore, future research needs are a further focus of this review; for example, on the questions of how to adapt programs for stable outpatients and their families, and the minimum effective dose of psychoeducation. Finally, new approaches in the area of psychoeducation, such as including quality-of-life issues, offering psychoeducation formats for combined diagnoses, family and patient peer-to-peer programs, and focusing on gender aspects are discussed.


AIM
To present the systematic ultrasonographic assessment in fetal osteochondrodysplasias and to evaluate the fetal MRI intake, as a complementary exploration to US, in the prenatal diagnosis and perinatal prognosis of fetal nonlethal osteochondrodysplasias. Material and methods: In this tertiary multicentre study were included 37 cases diagnosed prenatally with various entities in the category of nonlethal fetal osteochondrodysplasias. The initial diagnosis was carried out by the routine or detailed ultrasound examination. Fetal MRI was accomplished for selected cases.

RESULTS
Nonlethal skeletal dysplasia was suspected and then diagnosed after 17 gestational weeks. The suspicion of osteochondrodysplasia as a reference diagnosis element has required systematic and thorough ultrasound examination. Fetal MRI is a valuable exploration, complementary to prenatal ultrasound bringing in very useful details for the diagnosis of osteochondrodysplasias. The global diagnosis of skeletal dysplasia depends to a great extent on the genetic or biochemical abnormality that causes them.

CONCLUSIONS
US is always the fundamental screening exploration for fetal assessment in nonlethal osteochondrodysplasias. The details brought by the fetal MRI are useful, and the exploration is harmless for the fetus and the mother. Certain diagnosis cannot be accurate and complete without the contribution of genetics, maternal and fetal medicine, obstetrics or radiology.


The diagnosis of Mendelian disorders requires labor-intensive literature research. Trained clinicians can spend hours looking for the right publication/s supporting a single gene that best explains a patient's disease. AMELIE (Automatic Mendelian Literature Evaluation) greatly accelerates this process. AMELIE parses all 29 million PubMed abstracts, downloads and further parses hundreds of thousands of full text articles in search of information supporting the causality and associated phenotypes of any published genetic variant. AMELIE then prioritizes patient candidate variants for their likelihood of explaining any patient's given set of phenotypes. Diagnosis of singleton patients (without relatives' exomes) is the most time-consuming scenario. AMELIE ranked the causative gene at the very top in 2/3 of 215 diagnosed singleton Mendelian patients. Evaluating only the top 11 AMELIE scored genes of 127 (median) candidate genes per patient results in rapid diagnosis for 90+% of cases. AMELIE-based evaluation of all cases is 3-19x more efficient than hand-curated database-based approaches. We replicate these results on a cohort of clinical cases from Stanford Children's Health and the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research. An analysis web portal with our most recent update, programmatic interface and code will be available at AMELIE.stanford.edu. A pilot run of the web portal has already served many thousands of job submissions from dozens of countries.


This paper presents a computerized grammar which can analyze and generate a sample of pedagogical Chinese sentences, in particular those mentioned in the textbook Kinesiska ar inte svart ('Chinese is not difficult') by Goran Malmqvist 1974. Equivalent grammars for English and Swedish have also been constructed allowing translation between the three languages. The grammar model used is the Swetra grammar developed in the MT-project Swetra at the Department of Linguistics, Lund University and used in various translation and generation projects, including the application which generates weather reports in Swedish and English used by SMHI, the Swedish meteorological agency. The Swetra grammar (see Sigurd (ed.) 1994) is written directly in the DCG (Definite Clause Grammar) format and implemented in Prolog (LPAProlog). It has been used for several languages and adapted to various practical needs. Swetra grammar is characterized by its separate functional (-semantic) representation which is abstract enough to be used as an interlingua in automatic translation. The functional representation of Swetra does not show surface details such as word order, case or agreement. Swetra grammar has ways to account for mode, topic, coordinated clauses and subordinate clauses including relative clauses. The word meanings are represented by a standardized English Machinese according to certain conventions. The construction of a computerized grammar of Chinese can be based on traditional Chinese grammar but it requires reconsideration and taking a number of decisions. The computerized grammars presented pinpoint the differences between Chinese, English and Swedish. The Chinese, English and Swedish grammars and lexicons are constructed to enable the automatic translation into or from these languages using the Swetra functional representation as interlingua. In order to allow writing in both Chinese characters and pinyin the lexical items of the grammar are rended in these two systems. Demo sentences showing the use of the Chinese, English and Swedish grammars are presented.


Background Kidney podocytes and their slit diaphragms contribute to prevent urinary protein loss. Previously, we have shown that T cell from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) display increased expression of calcium/calmodulin kinase IV (CaMKIV). Pharmacologic inhibition of CaMKIV using spleen cells from lupus prone MRL/lpr mice resulted in decreased expression of CD86. However, the role of CaMKIV in podocytes function in lupus nephritis (LN) remains unknown. Objectives Here we evaluated the expression of CaMKIV in kidney biopsy specimens from patients with LN and the functional roles in a human podocyte cell line (AB8/13) after exposure to purified immunoglobulin G (IgG) from healthy controls and LN patients. Methods We treated kidney podocytes for 24 h with LN or normal IgG and then analyzed the gene expression using a DNA microarray. The localization of IgG in podocytes was analyzed by immunofluorescence staining with or without silencing of FcRn, the receptor of IgG. In addition, we silenced CaMKIV in podocytes and we analyzed selected gene expression by real-time polymerase chain reaction. We also examined the expression of the gene CD86 in kidney podocytes of MRL/lpr, MRL/lpr.camkiv−/− and MRL/MPJ mice by in situ hybridization. Results We found that exposure of podocytes to IgG from LN patients resulted in entry of IgG into the cytoplasm. IgG entered podocytes using the FcRn receptor because when podocytes where treated with FcRn siRNA less IgG was found in the cytoplasm. The DNA microarray studies of podocytes exposed to LN IgG revealed that genes that are related to the activation of immune cells or podocyte damage were upregulated. These genes included CD86, CaMKIV, PTPN22, PDE5A, CD47 and MALT1. Interestingly, CD86 expression decreased after silencing CaMKIV in podocytes. Also, in situ hybridization experiments showed that the expression of CD86 was reduced in podocytes from MRL/lpr.camkiv−/− mice. Conclusions IgG from LN patients may enter podocytes through the FcRn and causes the upregulation of a distinct set of genes which may alter podocyte function. Upregulation of CaMKIV appears to precede that of genes known to be linked to podocyte damage such as CD86. Blocking of FcRN or inhibition of CaMKIV may prove of clinical use in patients with LN References Tsokos, G,. C. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, N Engl J Med. 2011 Dec 1;365(22):2110-21. Ichinose K et al. Suppression of autoimmunity and organ pathology in lupus-prone mice upon inhibition of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type IV. Arthritis Rheum. 2011 Feb;63(2):523-9. Ichinose K et al. Cutting edge: Calcium/Calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type IV is essential for mesangial cell proliferation and lupus nephritis. J Immunol. 2011 Dec 1;187(11):5500-4. Koga T et al. Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV suppresses IL-2 production and regulatory T cell activity in lupus. J Immunol. 2012 Oct 1;189(7):3490-6. Disclosure of Interest : None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.1859


The music education can help to develop people's moral cultivation, aesthetic level, intelligence, creativity, and imagination, etc., and it is an important branch of education system. Under new curriculum system, more and more attention is paid to students' comprehensive quality, and the music education is also placed at an important position; there is also no exception for rural music education. This paper firstly analyzes the difficulties faced in the music education of Sichuan rural schools, and then carries out a deep discussion on how to enhance the music education of Sichuan rural schools under new curriculum system from perspective of expanding the investment in site construction and equipments, enhancing teaching staff construction, reasonably selecting the teaching content, blending information technology into music education and teaching, facing all students, and establishing a perfect assessment system, with certain reference value.


We consider the problem of estimating the parameters of a signal when the sampling instances are perturbed by signal-independent timing noise. The classical techniques consider timing noise to induce a signal-independent additive white Gaussian noise term on the sample values. We reject this simplification of the problem and give alternative methodologies. For the problem of delay estimation when the pulse shape and amplitude of the signal are known, we give an iterative algorithm that shows superior performance compared to the traditional method which relies on maximizing the cross-correlation.


This study examines the impact of Philanthropic Social Responsibility on firm value of listed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. The study was motivated by conflicting findings by researchers on the relationship between Philanthropic Social Responsibility and firm value. The study used the correlational and ex-post facto research designs. The secondary data were extracted from the annual report and accounts of the 11 listed Deposit Money Banks by the Security and Exchange Commission of Nigeria as at 31st December 2021. Data collected was analysed using Regression analysis statistical tool with the aid of STATA analytical package. Findings from the analysis revealed that philanthropic Social Responsibility has significant positive relationship with the firm value of deposit money banks (DMB's) in Nigeria. In view of the finding the study recommended that Management of deposit money banks (DMBs) listed in Nigeria should give more emphasis on philanthropic Responsibility. The is because of the positive role it's play in improving the value of the firm.


This work investigates the interaction of guided waves with low-velocity impact damage in carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) which are widely used in aerospace applications. The interaction of guided-waves with impact induced damage was already shown [1-2], but the defect localization is quite difficult because of anisotropic material behavior [3]. An adapted synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) was used for defect localization in such anisotropic materials. In order to utilize the technique for composite materials the wave velocities have to be known. The velocities of different wave modes in CFRPs vary with frequency, mode order and the propagation angle. They can be computed from the stiffness coefficients of the material solving equation of motion for anisotropic case [4] or by the conduction of pitch catch or laservibrometric measurements and the subsequent computation of the angle dependent propagation velocities. This paper shows examples for both the theoretical and experimental approach to obtain the lamb wave propagation velocities. In the experimental work, the velocity data obtained while using laservibrometric measurements are used by the localization algorithm. Therefor an anisotropic CFRP-plate was equipped with a network of distributed piezo disc transducers. Then a low velocity impact was introduced into the structure. The successful imaging of this damage will be demonstrated.


This report presents the effect of Coulomb friction combined with viscous damping in the main system, to which a viscous-damped dynamic vibration absorber is attached. The main system is subjected to harmonic base excitation, and in the analysis, a similar process is used to that explained in the previous report. The conclusions are : -(1) The numerical results of the analytical solution coincide very well with those of digital simulation. (2) Coulomb friction coexisting with the viscous damping in the main system, with a dynamic vibration absorber tuned so as to suppress the resonant response of the system in considering only viscous damping, reduces the maximum amplitudes of the main mass. The features of two equi-height maximums in the resonance curve vanish. (3) Since conventional expressions for the optimum tuning of the absorber do not fit in this case, other new empirical formulae are recommended.


Motion Estimation plays an important role in many applications. A shared-memory-optimized implementation of motion estimation is studied in this work, where bank conflict is minimized and bank occupancy is maximized. Experimental results shows that at most 38 times speedup can be achieved compared with a 3GHz CPU. Moreover, based on the optimization technique, a fast algorithm for real-time motion estimation on 1080p videos is also proposed in this paper.


Multi-modal clustering aims to cluster data into different groups by exploring complementary information from multiple modalities or views. Little work learns the deep fused representations and simutaneously discovers the cluster structure with a discriminative loss. In this paper, we present an End-to-end Adversarial-attention network for Multi-modal Clustering (EAMC), where adversarial learning and attention mechanism are leveraged to align the latent feature distributions and quantify the importance of modalities respectively. To benefit from the joint training, we introducea divergence-based clustering objective that not only encourages the separation and compactness of the clusters but also enjoy a clear cluster structure by embedding the simplex geometry of the output space into the loss. The proposed network consists of modality-specific feature learning, modality fusion and cluster assignment three modules. It can be trained from scratch with batch-mode based optimization and avoid an autoencoder pretraining stage. Comprehensive experiments conducted on five real-world datasets show the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed clustering method.


This study examines the variables influencing CEO compensation in the technology sector using both exclusively exogenous and interchangeably exogenous and endogenous variables. The study was confined to a single industry to isolate industry compensation practices which may be smoothed out in multi-industry studies. Multiple equations in a vector autoregressive model were used to explain compensation in recognition of the endogeneity of variables such as sales growth, stock returns and net income. Using US firms listed on the NASDAQ, we find that CEO compensation (measured separately as salary only, stock option grants only and total compensation from all sources) to be significantly explained by firm size, the ability to reduce debt, the ability to fund growth, net income and personal characteristics. CEOs are rewarded for achieving profitability. While there is an expectation of innovation in the technology sector with research and development expenditure increasing both sales and stock returns, such innovation only contributes to CEO compensation if it is translated into rising net income in an environment of debt-reduction. Further, CEOs are rewarded for implementing disruptive technology as a competitive strategy. The ability to fund growth is pertinent for the technology sector which may be restricted in its access to debt. Increases in age, tenure and the existence of celebrity status of the CEO led to increased compensation underscoring the importance of personal characteristics.


With the inability of international economic integration to create opportunities for important segments of society, many Mexicans are searching for ways to forge their own alternatives. These strategies are the concrete manifestations of the realisation that the 'mainstream' path of the search for proletarian employment is no longer viable and that a return to traditional forms of cooperation, organised around mechanisms for ecosystem management, might offer greater security and a better quality of life. People are finding ways to strengthen their communities, to ensure that their families can remain in the rural areas as part of dynamic communities searching for a new relationship to their regions, as well as to the nation of which they wish to continue to be a part. This article illustrates this process with an analysis of a project that focuses on creating a new product—low-fat pork—that can command a premium price in the market, and in the process contribute to strengthening a community, providing new opportunities for women, and improving environmental management.


By considering Tutte polynomials of a combinatorial Hopf algebras, we show how a Tutte polynomial can be canonically associated to a set of combinatorial objects that have some notion of deletion and contraction. We show that numerous graph polynomials from the literature arise canonically from this framework. These polynomials include the classical Tutte polynomial of graphs and matroids, Las Vergnas' Tutte polynomial of the morphism of matroids and his Tutte polynomial for embedded graphs, Bollobas and Riordan's ribbon graph polynomial, the Krushkal polynomial, and the Penrose polynomial. We show that our Tutte polynomials of Hopf algebras share common properties with the classical Tutte polynomials, including deletion-contraction definitions, universality properties, convolution formulas, and duality relations. New results for several graph polynomials from the literature are then obtained as examples of the general results. Our results offer a framework for the study of the Tutte polynomial and its analogues in other settings, offering the means to determine the properties and connections between a wide class of polynomial invariants.


The study investigated challenges facing the implementation of curriculum in public secondary schools in Suba Sub-County of Homa Bay County. This was based on the fact that children with special needs who pass through curriculum in primary schools are forced to pursue their secondary education in special schools while others do not proceed to secondary school. The objectives of the study were to examine challenges in the enrolment of learners, human resource-related challenges, and challenges in the provision of learning facilities, challenges faced in curriculum delivery and challenges in relation to teachers" attitudes towards the implementation of curriculum. The study may provide crucial information to educational stakeholders on the need to promote curriculum in secondary schools. The study adopted a descriptive survey design and targeted 11 principals and 60 teachers from which a sample of 10 principals and 40 teachers was selected. The study instruments included questionnaire for teachers, interview schedule for principals and an observation guide. Pilot study was done to establish validity and reliability of research instruments. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data while descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data. The results show that majority of schools have not embraced the curriculum programme. The results also show that majority of teachers have not been adequately trained on how to handle l e a r n e r s and that majority of schools did not have well-structured learning facilities while those that had the facilities were very inadequate. The study findings equally showed that majority of schools were ill-equipped with teaching and learning resources. It was also revealed that most teachers feel that the current curriculum is not suited for learners which may explain why most schools are yet to implement the curriculum. Lastly, the findings revealed that teachers have a positive attitude towards curriculum but are skeptical about participating in the implementation of the curriculum. In view of the findings, the study recommended that the Ministry of Education compels schools to ensure that learners are admitted in public secondary schools under the curriculum programme. The government should also allocate funds to public secondary schools to help them procure facilities and facilitate the pre-service and in-service training of teachers. Sensitization campaigns to parents of special needs children on the importance of taking their children to mainstream schools under the curriculum programme should be done. A study should be replicated to the rest of the country and also include private secondary schools. A similar study should also include students and parents whose views could contribute towards establishing challenges facing enrolment of learners in public secondary schools.


In this paper, the effect of transmission codes on the performance of coherent square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (CSMQAM) under hybrid selection/maximal-ratio combining (H-S/MRC) diversity is analysed. The fading channels are modeled as frequency non-selective slow independent and identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). The results for coded MQAM are computed numerically for the case of (24,12) extended Golay code and compared with uncoded MQAM under H-S/MRC diversity by plotting error probabilities versus average signal to noise ratio (SNR) for various values L and N in order to examine the improvement in the performance of the digital communications system as the number of selected diversity branches is increased. The results for no diversity, conventional SC and L order MRC schemes are also plotted for comparison. Closed form analytical results derived in this paper are sufficiently simple and therefore can be computed numerically without any approximations. The analytical results presented in this paper are expected to provide useful information needed for design and analysis of digital communication systems over wireless fading channels. Keywords—Error probability, diversity reception, Rayleigh fading channels, wireless digital communications.


Fixed orthodontic appliances causes plaque accumulation, which leads to the formation of dental caries and gingivitis. Therefore, concise oral hygiene instructions (OHI) is necessary to avoid the occurrence of these diseases. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) ensures interactive learning to improve knowledge retention. MOOC transfers the responsibility of learning OHI to the patients with remote guidance from the clinician, thus reduces clinical time. This research aimed to develop the MOOC learning content on OHI in orthodontic practice. The secondary aim was to assess the overall analytics data among learners enrolled for the completion rate and time taken to complete the MOOC. The ADDIE principles which were, "Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate", were used to develop the MOOC. The contents were based on a published pamphlet of OHI from the Ministry of Health, Malaysia. The MOOC was pre-tested, and content was improved based on the feedback from users and experts. The MOOC named "Penjagaan Kebersihan Pendakap Gigi" utilises the Bahasa Melayu language to educate learners regarding oral care with orthodontic appliances. Sixty-two learners joined the MOOC, with 77.4% achieving a high rate of completion of the MOOC learning content. There were forty-six female learners (74.2%), while male learners comprised sixteen (25.8%). The median (interquartile range) time taken to complete MOOC learning content were 31.50 minutes, (13.00 minutes to 55.50 minutes). This shows that MOOC could be an alternative platform to instruct patients on OHI with fixed appliances. MOOC can potentially reduce clinical time to teach OHI to patients.


The INCLUDE (INtegrating and improving Care for patients with infLammatory rheUmatological DisordErs in the community) pilot trial aimed to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a nurse-delivered review in primary care for people with inflammatory rheumatological conditions (IRCs), to identify and manage common comorbidities including anxiety and depression, cardiovascular and fracture risk. We report analysis of data focusing on the fracture risk assessment component of the review.

 Ethical approvals obtained. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore experiences of participating in INCLUDE, with 20 patients, the two nurses delivering the intervention and three General Practitioners (GPs) within participating practices. 24 consenting patients had their INCLUDE review recorded for fidelity checking. Selected extracts were played within some interviews to stimulate discussion (tape-assisted recall). Extracts from recorded consultations relating to fracture risk assessment were transcribed and coded. Interviews were digitally recorded, with consent, transcribed and anonymised. Thematic analysis of the interview data was followed by mapping to the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF).

 Findings mapped to 10/14 TDF domains relating to knowledge, skills, social/professional role and identity, beliefs about capabilities, optimism, beliefs about consequences, reinforcement, intentions, memory attention and decision processes and environmental context/resources. GPs and nurses identified a lack of knowledge and skills in relation to the identification and management of osteoporosis, due to lack of exposure and repeated changes in clinical guidance. GPs reported differing opinions about whether osteoporosis screening was the role of primary or secondary care. GPs and nurses had differing views about the limits of the nurse role in communicating risk. The INCLUDE nurses reported confidence (self-efficacy) in undertaking FRAX assessments. Nurses valued the opportunity to learn new skills and believed that they were improving patient care. They described practical barriers using FRAX including the difficulty navigating between different IT systems. Nurses described uncertainty over when to refer to the GP. Fidelity checks of recorded reviews, showed that FRAX was appropriately calculated for 22/24 patients; whilst INCLUDE nurses introduced the reason for calculating fracture risk, explanations of the meaning of risk were limited, and patients' understanding was not always checked and queries not responded to; patient interview findings confirmed patients had limited understanding of the meaning of FRAX. Life-style advice related to bone health was given in few consultations.

 Screening for fracture risk in people with IRCs in a review consultation is acceptable and feasible, although explanations of the meaning of risk assessment could be improved. Integration of a fracture risk assessment tool within GP software would facilitate risk calculation. More work is needed to understand barriers to risk assessment, including clarity over roles and professional boundaries, and develop management pathways to optimise management of fracture risk in people with IRCs.

 A.W. Hawarden None. Z. Paskins None. E. Ediriweera Desilva None. D. Herron None. A. Machin None. C. Jinks None. S. Hider None. C. Chew-Graham None.


Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is a slowly progressive disease that can be postponed or even avoided through lifestyle changes. Recent data demonstrate highly significant correlations between DNA methylation and the most important risk factors of T2D, including age and body mass index, in blood and human tissues relevant to insulin resistance and T2D. Also, T2D patients and individuals with increased risk of the disease display differential DNA methylation profiles and plasticity compared to controls. Accordingly, the novel clues to DNA methylation fingerprints in blood and tissues with deteriorated metabolic capacity indicate that blood-borne epigenetic biomarkers of T2D progression might become a reality. This Review will address the most recent associations between DNA methylation and diabetes-related traits in human tissues and blood. The overall focus is on the potential of future epigenome-wide studies, carried out across tissues and populations with correlations to pre-diabetes and T2D risk factors, to build up a library of epigenetic markers of risk and early progression of T2D. These markers may, tentatively in combination with other predictors of T2D development, increase the possibility of individual-based lifestyle prevention of T2D and associated metabolic diseases.


In this article, a new nonisolated full soft-switching step-up dc/dc converter is introduced with a continuous input current for renewable energy applications. The use of a three-winding coupled-inductor (TWCI) along with a voltage multiplier, enables the proposed converter to enhance the voltage gain with lower turns ratios and duty cycles. Also, a lossless regenerative passive clamp circuit is employed to limit the voltage stress across the power switch. In addition to zero current switching performance at the turn-on instant of the power switch, the turn-off current value is also alleviated by adopting a quasi-resonance operation between the leakage inductor of the TWCI and middle capacitors. Moreover, the current of all diodes reaches zero with a slow slew rate, which leads to the elimination of the reverse recovery problem in the converter. Soft-switching of the power switch and all the diodes in the proposed converter significantly reduces the switching power dissipations. Therefore, the presented converter can provide a high voltage gain ratio with high efficiency. Steady-state analysis, comprehensive comparisons with other related converters, and design considerations are discussed in detail. Finally, a 160 W prototype with 200 V output voltage is demonstrated to justify the theoretical analysis.


Angle-resloved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is a powerful technique to study the electronic structure in solids. Its unique ability of resolving the energy and momentum information of electrons inside a solid provides an essential tool in measuring the electronic structure of solids. ARPES has made great contributions in the understanding of correlated system such as high-Tc superconductors and ruthenates. The Metal-insulator transition is a fundamental problem in condensed matter physics. The calcium substituted strontium ruthenate, Ca2−xSrxRuO4, provides a good platform to study the metal-insulator transition in multi-orbital systems. This system has a complex phase diagram that evolves from a p-wave superconductor to a Mott insulator. One of important projects of this thesis focuses on Ca2−xSrxRuO4. The growing evidence for coexistence of itinerant electrons and local moments in transition metals with nearly degenerate d orbitals suggests that one or more electron orbitals undergo a Mott transition while the others remain itinerant. We have observed a novel orbital selective Mott transition (OSMT) in Ca1.8Sr0.2RuO4 by ARPES. While we observed two sets of dispersing bands and Fermi surfaces (FSs) associated with the doubly-degenerate dyz and dzx orbitals, the Fermi surface associated with the dxy orbital which has a wider bandwidth is missing as a consequence of selective Mott localization. Our theoretical calculations have demonstrated that this unusual OSMT is mainly driven by the combined effects of inter-orbital carrier transfer, superlattice potentials and orbital degeneracy, whereas the bandwidth difference plays a less important role. Another important project of this thesis focuses on the recently discovered ironpnictides superconductors. The idea of inter-FS scattering associated with the nearnesting condition has been proposed to explain the superconductivity in the pnictides. The near-nesting condition varies upon the carrier doping which shifts the chemical potential. We have performed a systematic photoemission study of the chemical potential shift as a function of doping in a pnictide system based on BaFe2As2. The experimentally determined chemical potential shift is consistent with the prediction of a rigid band shift picture by the renormalized first-principle band calculations. This leads to an electron-hole asymmetry (EHA) due to different Fermi velocities for different FS sheets, which can be calculated from the Lindhard function of susceptibility. This built-in EHA from the band structure, which is fully consistent with the experimental phase diagram, strongly supports that inter-FS scattering over the near-nesting Fermi surfaces plays a vital role in the superconductivity of the iron pnictides. To my wife Rusha Khanal and my daughter Melina Neupane.


Rationale: Chemotherapy is one of the lung cancer treatment methods. The search for new substances with antitumor effect against malignant lung neoplasms is relevant because of low efficacy and side effects of cytotoxic agents. A promising substance class with various biological activities, including antitumor, includes alkaloids of the tropolone family, such as heptamerous non-benzoid aromatic compounds. 2-(6,8-dimethyl-5-nitro-4-chloroquinoline-2-yl)- 5,6,7-trichloro-1,3-tropolone has been synthesized in Institute of Physical and Organic Chemistry; it is a  new compound belonging to 2-quinoline-2-yl derivatives of 1,3-tropolone.Aim: To assess the antitumor effect of 2-(6,8-dimethyl-5-nitro-4-chloroquinoline-2-yl)- 5,6,7-trichloro-1,3-tropolone on subcutaneous xenografts of A-549 lung tumor cells in immunodeficient Balb/c Nude mice.Materials and methods: The study included 50  immunodeficient Balb/c Nude mice divided into 4  experimental groups depending on the dosage of the study substance (0.0055, 0.055, 0.55, and 2.75  mg/g); group 5  was the control group. A-549  cells of lung cancer were used as a xenograft. The antitumor effect of tropolone was evaluated by the inhibition of tumor growth and the index of tumor growth. The experiment lasted for 36 days starting from the first administration of the substances.Results: The mean tumor volumes on day 36  of the experiment in the control group and four experimental groups were 2729.5; 2150.8; 1746.4; 952.3  and 678.9  mm3 , respectively. The indices of tumor growth in groups  1, 2, 3 and 4 were significantly lower than in group 5 (control) starting from days 24, 21, 21 and 15, respectively, and till the end of the experiment. Maximal differences between groups 4 and 5 were observed at days 33 and 36 (by  3.7, p=0.01 and 4.1, p=0.003  times, respectively).Discussion: The anti-tumor effect of 2-(6,8-dimethyl-5-nitro-4-chloroquinoline-2-yl)- 5,6,7-trichloro-1,3-tropolone demonstrated in the study could be related to various mechanisms. For example, numerous studies have shown that its related compound hinokitiol exerts a cytotoxic effect associated with cessation of the cell cycle, apoptosis induction, DNA damage, and autophagic death of tumor cells.Conclusion: The study demonstrated significant differences in xenograft volumes in all experimental groups, compared to the control group. In mice, 2.75  mg/g bodyweight was the most effective dosage of the studied compound leading to a slow decrease in tumor growth rates and a  decrease in the volumes of subcutaneous xenografts.


Extraction of teeth without adequate prosthetic rehabilitation frequently can lead to overeruption of opposing teeth, which may cause occlusal disturbances and complicate dental restoration. Equilibration with consequent need of endodontic treatment, surgical intrusion or extraction are often indicated as a remedy in such cases. The article proposes a method of orthodontic intrusion with the use of temporary anchorage devices as a predictable and less invasive option. Important clinical aspects of molar intrusion with respect to surrounding anatomical structures are also discussed.


The ancient religion of Zoroastrianism devotes considerable attention to relations between human and nonhuman animals. All animal species are seen as being in one of two categories—either beneficent or malevolent, aligned either with the forces of good or with the forces of evil in an ongoing cosmic battle. Humans should treat each species accordingly, zealously protecting "beneficent" species while ruthlessly exterminating "malevolent" ones. Zoroastrian attitudes toward nonhuman animals have likely had a range of influences, both positive and negative, on those found in other traditions, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.


A variable-temperature, proton noise-decoupled, (13)C nmr spectral study of the chair-chair interconversion in 1,1,3,3-tetramethylcyclohexane has demonstrated the utility of (13)C spectra for probing conformational equilibria. There is a much larger chemical-shift difference between the carbons of axial and equatorial methyl groups than between the protons of these methyl groups, 133 Hz compared to 7.5 Hz. Comparison of the activation parameters determined from the (13)C spectra of 1,1,3,3-tetramethylcyclohexane with those determined from a variable-temperature (19)F study on 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1,1-difluorocyclohexane shows that the introduction of a gem-difluoro group into the ring causes significant steric interactions. The (13)C chemical shifts for 1,1,3,3-tetramethylcyclohexane reflect the importance of the methyl-methyl 1,3-diaxial interactions.


Abstract. Sodium‐lithium countertransport (Na‐Li CT) has been reported to be increased in essential hypertension (EHT) but the nature and degree of distinction from normal controls is unclear. Of 44 unselected patients with EHT in the hospital hypertension clinic 36% had Na‐Li CT greater than the normal control range and 70% of these had a family history of hypertension. Almost all the patients with normal Na‐Li CT had no family history of hypertension. Analysis of variance showed that raised Na‐Li CT was related to both a family history of hypertension and a family history of a cardiovascular event. Of 23 patients with hypertension secondary to renal disease, 43% had Na‐Li CT greater than the normal control range and raised Na‐Li CT was related to both a family history of hypertension and a family history of cardiovascular event in the same way as EHT. Raised Na‐Li CT was not characteristic of EHT but identified a subgroup of patients with EHT and a family history of hypertension, some of whom also had renal disease.


Objective This study examined health care professionals' perceptions of parental preferences and preferences of parents of affected children (cleft lip, cleft palate, both, or other craniofacial anomaly) for prenatal testing with respect to oral-facial clefts and craniofacial anomalies. Design This was a descriptive study assessing and comparing questionnaire responses of two independent groups. Participants Healthcare professional participants comprised 570 U.S. members of the American Cleft Palate–Craniofacial Association. Parent participants comprised 97 parents of children seen at the University of Pittsburgh Cleft Palate–Craniofacial Center. Main outcome Measures A practitioner survey was developed to examine practitioner perception of parental desire for involvement, desire for knowledge, and reaction to learning of a birth defect. A parent survey was developed to correspond with the practitioner survey. Results Health professionals' perceptions of parental preferences often paralleled parental preference data. However, parental responses were found to be significantly different from practitioner perception of parental preferences on one question reflecting desire for involvement (x2 = 33.35, df=1, p = .001) and on one question reflecting desire for knowledge (x2 = 4.82, df =1, p = .03). For both questions, higher percentages of parents responded that they would want this involvement or information. Conclusions Findings are consistent with those reported In other studies of prenatal testing preferences and susceptibility. Results suggest that parents of affected children have a strong desire for information and involvement in prenatal testing and counseling decisions. Parents appear to value preparation in spite of acknowledging anxiety associated with prenatal information.


This article explicates a comprehensive process for identifying, specifying, testing, and implementing nationally standardized performance measures. A growing body of research ties nurse staffing to patient outcomes, reinforcing the important role of nursing in the delivery of safe, efficacious health care. The Joint Commission has developed a multistep process to identify robust sets of evidence-based measures that includes a review of the evidence, expert advisory panel guidance, use of established criteria, public input and comment, and multistage field testing before implementation. This proven approach to the establishment of performance metrics is applicable to the identification and implementation of nurse-sensitive workforce measures. These metrics can then be used by providers to support performance improvement activities by health care stakeholders to monitor nurse staffing-related issues, and by researchers to better understand the relationship between staffing effectiveness and patient safety, and the quality of health care.


In its first three centuries the Roman Empire expanded politically at the same time as Greek culture was enjoying its heyday. This not only created tensions but also many productive impulses, which were mirrored in different branches of cultural life. In this collection of papers an assembled team of international scholars from the fields of philosophy, history of ideas, literature, epigraphy, archaeology and history explores the intercultural aspects of that thriving period. Lisa Nevett's paper "Continuity and change in Greek households under Roman rule - the role of women in the domestic context" looks at the extent to which individual households and especially attitudes to women changed under Roman control. her evidence of patterns of social behaviour is archaeological and she concludes that a relaxation of restrictions on women took place from the later Hellenistic period onwards and therefore was a development which had begun prior to the arrival of the Romans. Paolo Desideri surveys Greek historiographical literature of the second century AD to find a key to Greek mentality and political ideology in the late Roman Empire. The Greeks did not have to give up their civilisation and identity; Appian and Cassius Dio even created the idea of a Hellenistic rather than a Roman Empire. Philip Stadter in "Plutarch's Lives and their Roman Readers" argues that Plutarch in "Lives is counselling the elite class of the Roman Empire, and that Tiberius Gracchus in particular would have provided a useful lesson, e.g. for the emperor Hadrian. Ewen Bowie explores the literary tales of Hadrian in Latin and particularly Greek poetry, including ancient sources for his preferences, his own compositions and some of the poems composed by the friends of ministers. Hadrian seems to have preferred Antimaches over Homer, admired Archilochus, Parthenius and short polymetric compositions.


This paper analyzes the effects of distance between classes and training datasets size to XCS classifier system on imbalanced datasets. Our purpose is to answer the question whether the loss of performance incurred by the classifier faced with class imbalance problems stems from the class imbalance per se or it can be explained in some other ways. The experiments from 250 artificial imbalanced datasets show that XCS can perform well in some imbalance domains if the training datasets size is large enough and the distance between classes is appropriate. Thus, it dose not seem fair to correlate imbalance datasets directly to the loss performance of XCS. Through this research, we also know what kinds of datasets are suitable for training XCS and dealing with class imbalances alone will not always help improve performance of classifiers.


OBJECTIVE
In epithelial ovarian cancer, concordance between results of microsatellite instability (MSI) and immunohistochemical (IHC) testing has not been demonstrated. This study evaluated the association of MSI-high (MSI-H) status with loss of expression (LoE) of mismatch repair (MMR) proteins on IHC and assessed for potential factors affecting the strength of the association.

METHODS
Tumor specimens from three population-based studies of epithelial ovarian cancer were stained for MMR proteins through manual or automated methods, and results were interpreted by one of two pathologists. Tumor and germline DNA was extracted and MSI testing performed. Multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to predict loss of IHC expression based on MSI status after adjusting for staining method and reading pathologist.

RESULTS
Of 834 cases, 564 (67.6%) were concordant; 41 were classified as MSI-H with LoE and 523 as microsatellite stable (MSS) with no LoE. Of the 270 discordant cases, 83 were MSI-H with no LoE and 187 were MSS with LoE. Both IHC staining method and reading pathologist were strongly associated with discordant results.

CONCLUSIONS
Lack of concordance in the current study may be related to inconsistencies in IHC testing methods and interpretation. Results support the need for validation studies before routine screening of ovarian tumors is implemented in clinical practice for the purpose of identifying Lynch syndrome.


In order to improve the quality of cast metal and to control solidification of metals, two new casting processes controlling metal solidification by imposing electromagnetic field are developed. One is simultaneous imposition of multiple-electromagnetic fields from the outside of a cold-crucible copper mold during continuous casting of Sn–4.5 mass% Pb alloy, and the other is the imposition of a rotating magnetic field during the unidirectional solidification to make in situ surface composite with special mechanical and physical properties. The experimental results show that multiple-electromagnetic fields can not only eliminate surface defects, but also improve solidification structure of cast metal. Moreover, a new kind of composite pipe and gear of Al–12.6 mass% Si eutectic alloy was made by imposing electromagnetic stirring during unidirectional solidification. This suggests a new method of making surface composite with special mechanical and physical properties. It is also found that a separated eutectic occurs in the anomalous eutectic and the separated phase is the leading faceted phase with solution entropy over 23 J/mol·K.


Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is highly prevalent in Southeast Asia. It is characterized by its strong etiologic association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, and its highly invasive and metastatic nature. The underlying mechanism for its high metastatic potential is poorly understood. To enable spreading (metastasis), cancer cells need to detach from their primary sites and survive in the absence of extracellular matrix (ECM). Anoikis is a programmed cell death resulted from the loss-of-contact with ECM. Proliferation/survival of normal epithelial cells is guarded by anoikis to ensure its survival in a matrix-dependent status. However, many cancer cells acquire anoikis resistance for their survival in the detached status for metastasis. The neurotrophin receptor TrkB and its ligand, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), are key players in anoikis suppression in cancer. BDNF/TrkB overexpression, which is often associated with poor prognosis in many malignancies, has been reported in NPC. Here, we investigated the possible involvement of BDNF/TrkB signaling in NPC tumorigenesis. BDNF mRNA expression was detected in 7/11 (~64%) NPC patient biopsies. TrkB and BDNF were expressed in a representative NPC cell line, HONE-1-EBV. Several NPC cell lines, when grown on neutrally charged plates, were able to proliferate in a detached status. For HONE-1-EBV, BDNF (50 ng/ml) enhanced cellular proliferation in suspension. This effect was blocked by the pan-Trk inhibitor, K252a (300nM). BDNF also induced HONE-1-EBV cellular migration through the transwell chamber in a dose-dependent manner. Therefore, BDNF/TrkB signaling enhances the migration and survival of the anoikis resistant NPC cells, which may contribute to NPC invasiveness. Citation Information: In: Proc Am Assoc Cancer Res; 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract nr 2169.


In this article, Cara Dunne and Catherine Warren challenge the current role of genetic counselors in advising expectant mothers about potential genetic defects of their fetuses. They show that genetic counselors sometimes provide one-sided negative information to women undergoing prenatal diagnosis of genetic variants. This biased information promotes abortion of what are considered "defective" fetuses. The misleading information provided by the genetic counselors and the termination of the pregnancies is akin to the eugenics movement. The authors describe the early 20th century eugenics movement, explore the origin and development of the Human Genome Project, analyze the current role of genetic counseling, and explain the importance of the informed consent process to the exercise of autonomy. Dunne and Warren conclude by offering methods by which to restructure the informed consent mechanism to offer a more balanced assessment of the risks and benefits associated with genetic disability.


Abstract A phylogenetic analysis of Cyperaceae tribe Cariceae was conducted using chloroplast DNA sequences from the gene ndhF and trnL intron and trnL-trnF intergenic spacer. Twenty nine taxa within Cariceae, four outgroup genera, and approximately 3,000 bp of cpDNA were included in the study. Our analysis reveals a monophyletic Cariceae with 100% bootstrap support. Within Cariceae, the South African genus Schoenoxiphium forms a clade that is sister to the rest of the tribe. Our results indicate that genus Carex is paraphyletic with respect to Kobresia, Cymophyllus, and Uncinia. Cymophyllus and Uncinia are nested within an assemblage containing Kobresia, Cymophyllus, and several unispicate Carex species. At the subgeneric level within Carex, only Carex subgenus Vignea appears monophyletic. Several well supported clades were identified within the Cariceae, including the Schoenoxiphium clade, Uncinia clade, Carex subgenus Indocarex/Carex clade, and subgenus Vignea clade; however, relationships among some clades are only moderately supported. Interpretation of the phylogenetic patterns and an account of past phylogenetic hypotheses with respect to the new data are provided. Communicating Editor: Jeff H. Rettig


An array-based sensing system based on polymer/carbon composite conductometric sensors is under development at JPL for use as an environmental monitor in the International Space Station. Sulfur dioxide has been added to the analyte set for this phase of development. Using molecular modeling techniques, the interaction energy between SO2 and polymer functional groups has been calculated, and polymers selected as potential SO2 sensors. Experiment has validated the model and two selected polymers have been shown to be promising materials for SO2 detection.


An X-ray imaging device based on a triple-GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) detector, a fast delay-line circuit with 700 MHz cut-off frequency and two dimensional readout strips with 150 μm width on the top and 250 μm width on the bottom, is designed and tested. The localization information is derived from the propagation time of the induced signals on the readout strips. This device has a good spatial resolution of 150 μm and works stably at an intensity of 105 Hz/mm2 with 8 keV X-rays.


This article reviews simple, noninvasive ways to assess physical activity in patients with chronic heart failure. Six- or 9-minute walk tests appear to be useful not only for selecting patients with relatively advanced heart failure but also as prognostic screening tests. The Master-Borg test (Master's two-step testing and 10-point Borg scale) is useful for assessing symptoms during exercise. Weekly pedometer counts show that the level of activity in patients with heart failure is dramatically less than in healthy controls. Physical activity can be determined directly by an ambulatory calorie counter that measures step scores and energy expenditure using specific accelerometers. Careful clinical interviewing regarding symptoms, together with submaximal exercise testing and use of motion sensors, are recommended as useful, simple, noninvasive alternatives for assessing physical activity in this patient population. (c)2000 by CHF, Inc.


Automatic recognition of digitally modulated signals has seen increasing demand nowadays. The use of ANNs for this purpose has been popular since the late 90's. We propose an MLP recogniser implementation with better generalisation as well as an addition of a new statistical cumulant based features set for recognising ten different modulation types. Simulations show satisfactory results even with low SNR value, e.g. 98% success rate at 0 dB SNR.


Parallel demand for food, feed, and energy from agricultural crops coupled with climate change will pose major challenge to feed the increasing global population. Hunger and malnutrition has affected over 900 million people worldwide. Access to diverse genetic resources is vital in plant breeding to provide genetic traits to deal with new challenges to sustain agricultural production and meet demand for nutritionally-rich food worldwide.


Recent evidence suggests that the lung may be one of the principal organs directly or indirectly affected by haemorrhagic 'shock' to produce the 'shock-lung syndrome'. Because of advances in resuscitation facilities and techniques more patients are surviving the acute phase of severe trauma and a number of these will subsequently develop respiratory failure heralded by increasing dyspnoea and cyanosis. Radiography of the chest demonstrates pulmonary oedema although the clinical signs of crepitation on auscultation and the characteristic sputum are absent. A marked progressive reduction in Pa02 occurs despite controlled ventilation with increasing oxygen enrichment. The aetiology is uncertain and a variety of factors have been suggested. These include direct ischaemic damage to the pulmonary parenchyma, allergic reaction to the donor blood, microembolism from inadequate filtration of formed elements in the donor blood and microemboli derivedfrom intravascular coagulation at the site of soft tissue damage or elsewhere. Eight patients are described who developed this condition following surgery or severe trauma in which substantial haemorrhage had occurred. There were five deaths. The differential diagnosis is exemplified by a further seven cases that had been variously diagnosed as aspiration pneumonitis, overtransfusion and renal failure, left ventricular failure, multiple pulmonary emboli, fat embolus, pulmonary contusion and infection. The diagnosis in each of these is reassessed and 'shock-lung syndrome' is now considered to be a more acceptable alternative. Evidence is presented that in the management of 'shock-lung syndrome' a raised expiratory pressure or resistance may be of value.


BackgroundFatigue, a common and distressing symptom of heart failure, is a non-specific, invisible and subjective experience, which is difficult to describe and for which there are no effective interventions. Fatigue negatively impacts on patients' everyday life, prognosis and quality of life, therefore it is important that patients can manage, monitor and respond to changes in fatigue. To cope with fatigue patients may need or seek advice on self-management strategies. ObjectivesTo synthesize the best available evidence on the experiences and management of fatigue in everyday life among adult patients with stable heart failure. Inclusion criteria Types of participantsAdults with confirmed and stable heart failure. Phenomena of interestStudies exploring the experiences and management of fatigue in everyday life among adults with heart failure. Types of studiesQualitative studies focusing on qualitative data, including, but not limited to, designs within phenomenology, grounded theory or ethnography. Search strategyA three-step search strategy was used to identify published and unpublished qualitative studies from 1995 to 2014. Methodological qualityStudies that met the inclusion criteria were assessed by two independent reviewers for methodological validity using the standardized critical appraisal tools of the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-QARI). Data extractionData was extracted from the five included studies using JBI-QARI. Data synthesisFindings were identified and arranged according to the three research questions: patients' experiences of fatigue, impact of fatigue on everyday life and how patients' managed fatigue and its consequences in everyday life. Findings were pooled using JBI-QARI. ResultsFrom the five included studies, 108 findings were derived and subsequently aggregated into 24 categories, which were finally meta-synthesized into five syntheses: "A pervasive and unignorable bodily experience" captured the patients' descriptions of fatigue experiences; "Limited performance of daily living and social activities" and "Loss of self-esteem, identity and intellectual function" aggregated the impact of fatigue on patients' everyday life; "Using protecting and restoring strategies according to the body barometer" and "A dynamic balance between accepting and struggling against fatigue" captured how patients managed fatigue and its consequences. ConclusionThree different types of bodily fatigue challenge patients with heart failure. Decreased physical capacity, unpredictability and fluctuating intensity are dominant features of fatigue experiences, which cause limitations in performing daily and social activities, increased dependency of others, and loss of self-esteem, identity and intellectual function. Patients' management of fatigue and its consequences is an ongoing process involving use of protective and restorative activities to handle the specific bodily fatigue. However it also relates to living constructively with fatigue by striking a balance between adjusting to and struggling against fatigue. Implications for practiceHealthcare providers should be accountable to their patients, recognizing and taking into consideration patients' fatigue experiences and the meaning of fatigue, in order to provide optimal and individual care to their patients. Implications for researchFurther qualitative research is needed to consider cultural factors of importance for managing fatigue in everyday life among patients with heart failure. Furthermore research should explore and test different kinds of physical and mind-body activities on the patients' functional capacity and wellbeing.


Increasing number of cyber attacks demotivate people to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for industrial as well as day to day work. A main reason for the increasing number of cyber attacks is mistakes that programmers make while developing software applications that are caused by usability issues exist in security Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These mistakes make software vulnerable to cyber attacks. In this paper, we attempt to take a step closer to solve this problem by proposing a methodology to evaluate the usability and identify usability issues exist in security APIs. By conducting a review of previous research, we identified 5 usability evaluation methodologies that have been proposed to evaluate the usability of general APIs and characteristics of those methodologies that would affect when using these methodologies to evaluate security APIs. Based on the findings, we propose a methodology to evaluate the usability of security APIs.


We combined the hybrid density functional theory (DFT) calculations and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) experiments in the study of the local atomic structure around Ir ions in ZnO thin films with different iridium content. This was then used in the first principles analysis of the thermoelectric properties of material. The emphasis has been put on the conditions for a positive Seebeck coefficient and p-type electrical conductivity as the functions of the Fermi level. We studied both computationally and experimentally several possible IrOx polyhedra (complexes) with a different number of surrounding oxygens and Ir oxidation states, including those with the formation of peroxide ions (O22−). In particular, octahedral coordination of iridium ions was identified by reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulations of the Ir L3-edge EXAFS spectra of ZnO:Ir thin films as the predominant complex, which is supported by the calculated lowest interstitial oxygen incorporation energies. All the calculated IrOx (x = 4, 5, 6) complexes, regardless of Ir the oxidation state, demonstrate potential for p-type conduction if the Fermi level (μF) falls in the range of 0–0.8 eV from the valence band maximum (VBM) and the Ir concentration is high enough (12.5% in the present DFT calculations). Even though the corresponding calculated Seebeck coefficient (S) around 80–89 μV K−1 slightly exceeds the experimental values, we emphasise the presence of an important plateau in the dependence of S on μF in this range for two complexes with the formation of peroxide ions (O22−). We predicted also that peroxide ions O22− are characterized by the calculated phonon frequencies of 810–942 cm−1 in agreement with our previous Raman experimental results. In this light, we discuss the high sensitivity of calculated S(μF) dependences to the atomic and electronic structure.


To the Editor: We take the issue of duplicate publication of data very seriously and, therefore, were quite concerned when we learned that some readers had contacted theJourna1 of the American Geriatrics Society about the possibility that our two recent publications may be characterized as duplicative. This is not so. The appearance of the article in this journal shortly after the publication of our article in Medical Care makes it seem that the two were submitted simultaneously. This, indeed, would be duplicative because the article in this journal that focuses on the 16-month data includes the 8-month data presented in the Medical Care article. In fact, however, the first article was accepted for publication in Medical Care before we undertook the data analysis for the Journal article and 6 months before its submission to the Journal. Unfortunately, an unexpected editorial delay postponed the publication of the Medical Care article from its original proposed publication date of March 1995 to June 1996, thus leading to the appearance of possible joint publication.


This study reveals that RT-PCR utilizing sputum significantly increased the detection rate for respiratory viral nucleic acids among adult patients admitted to the hospital, compared to nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS). Notably, combined samples of sputum and NPS maintained the majority of the improved sputum detection rate with only a few positive signal losses from NPS samples. ABSTRACT Nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) or washings have traditionally been used to diagnose respiratory tract infections. Reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) is widely used for rapid viral detection using samples from the upper respiratory tract. However, RT-PCR is rarely applied to sputum samples, mainly due to the viscosity of sputum. Thus, we assessed the detection rates of respiratory viruses from NPS, sputum samples, and combined NPS and sputum samples using multiplex RT-PCR (Allplex respiratory panels I, II, and III; Seegene, Seoul, South Korea). Paired NPS and sputum samples were collected from 219 patients admitted to the hospital with acute respiratory illnesses from October to December 2019. RT-PCR was performed on each sample for virus detection. Combined samples for virus detection were produced using remnant NPS and sputum samples with a positive virus signal. Respiratory viral nucleic acid was identified in 92 (42%) of 219 patients. Among the 92 viral detections, 61 (28%) were detected by both NPS and sputum samples. Twenty-four (11%) were sputum positive/NPS negative, and seven (3%) were sputum negative/NPS positive. For the combined NPS-sputum samples (n = 92), all paired samples positive in both specimens (n = 61) were also positive in the combined NPS-sputum sample. Twenty-seven (87%) of the 31 discordant paired samples were positive in the combined samples. Out of the total of 103 viruses identified before combining the samples, the detection rate of the combined samples was 94% (97/103), which was higher than the detection rates of sputum (88%; 91/103) and NPS (71%; 73/103). Because additional tests incur additional costs, our findings suggest that combining samples instead of testing separate samples using RT-PCR is likely the most cost-effective method of viral testing for patients with acute respiratory illnesses. IMPORTANCE This study reveals that RT-PCR utilizing sputum significantly increased the detection rate for respiratory viral nucleic acids among adult patients admitted to the hospital, compared to nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS). Notably, combined samples of sputum and NPS maintained the majority of the improved sputum detection rate with only a few positive signal losses from NPS samples. In order to detect respiratory viruses in adult patients with acute respiratory illness, it is important to choose the optimal respiratory samples. This study helped to improve our understanding of this process.


Meningiomas are one of the most common brain tumours in adults. Invasive and malignant meningiomas present a significant therapeutic challenge due to high recurrence rates and invasion into surrounding bone, brain, neural and soft tissues. Understanding the molecular mechanism of invasion could help in designing novel therapeutic approaches in order to prevent the need for repeat surgery, decrease morbidity and improve patient survival. The aim of this study was to identify the key factors and underlying mechanisms which govern invasive properties of meningiomas.


The utilisation of digestible nutrients in the feed rations containing black gluten and red rice by Mini Rex Rabbits were observed in the research study. The free variable of rations, including P0 as commercial feed as the control ration, P1 ration with white rice content, and P2 and P3 containing red and black gluten rice, respectively. The research used twelve Mini Rex Rabbits averaging 2 months of age and 1.95 kg body weight as experimental animals. They were divided into four groups with three replications. The experimental design was a Complete Randomised Design (4 x 3 replications). All animals received 10 g/h/d of Alfalfa and a concentrated feed ration as well as the treatment groups, respectively.
Results of the experiment showed that the utilisation of digestible organic matter by the Mini Rex Rabbits were not significantly (P>0.05) difference among the treatment groups. It ranged from about 51.18 to 53.24 g/h/d. However, the utilisation of digestible crude protein was higher (P<0.05) in the Mini Rex Rabbits which received the black gluten rice ration 12.85 g/h/d. The utilisation of digestible fat was lower (p<0.05) in the white rice feed ration; it was about 4.79 g/h/d, while the utilisation of digestible crude fibre was higher (p<0.05) in the commercial feed. The utilisation of digestible Nitrogen Free extract was higher (p<0.05) in the black gluten rice feed ration, as it about 16.04 g/h/d.
Key word: Black gluten, red rice, digestible, nutrient, rabbit.


Growing concern about knowledge of aerosol transport in human lungs is caused by great potential of use of inhaled pharmaceuticals. Second substantial motive for the research is an effort to minimize adverse effects of particular matter emitted by traffic and industry on human health. We created model geometry of human lungs to 7th generation of branching. This model geometry was used for fabrication of two physical models. The first one is made from thin walled transparent silicone and it allows a measurement of velocity and size of aerosol particles by Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA). The second one is fabricated by stereolithographic method and it is designed for aerosol deposition measurements. We provided a series of measurements of aerosol transport in the transparent model and we ascertained remarkable phenomena linked with lung flow. The results are presented in brief. To gather how this phenomena affects aerosol deposition in human lungs we used the second model and we developed a technique for deposition fraction and deposition efficiency assessment.