The launching of the African Union on 9 July 2002 marked the turning of a new page in Africa's modern history. This is especially significant in the context of efforts by African nations to achieve deeper political unity and economic integration. The Constitutive Act of the African Union was adopted barely nine months after the adoption of the Sirte Declaration on 9 September 1999, by which African leaders decided to reorient the objectives of the Organization of African Unity to accelerate African integration as a pillar of the continent's collective response to the challenge of globalization. This article argues that while the speedy elaboration, adoption and ratification of the Act demonstrated the collective desire of African countries to accelerate the process of integration, this rush inadvertently precluded a serious debate on the nature and scope of integration entailed in the project of the African Union. The result was the adoption of a document regarded by some of its own signatories, for varied reasons, as an instrument lacking in substance and limited in its scope. These perceived inadequacies have necessitated the early amendment of the Act. However, it is argued here that these amendments will do nothing to hasten the pace of African political unity or economic integration, as they are largely symbolic. They do not deal with the substantive lacunae identified in the Act.


This work studies the dynamic metabolic changes of the rabbit masseter muscle during post-natal development. The composition and proportion of oxidative and glycolytic muscle fibers alter during maturation. The masseter muscle, as most muscles of the craniofacial region, exhibits unusual development in composition of isoforms of myosin. The effect of this unusual composition on the dynamic metabolic properties of the masseter muscle have not been assessed. The metabolism of the rabbit masseter muscle was studied by means of 31P-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Contraction was elicited by electrical stimulation of the muscle in the anesthetized animal. Five animals were studied at 8 weeks and 24 weeks so that both the juvenile and adult stages could be evaluated. The dynamic biochemical changes in the masseter muscle were studied by the analysis of NMR spectra. A single-turn surface coil (copper) was used, and the original signal was treated with Fourier transforms to obtain 31P spectra. The low signal-to-noise ratio required averaging 16 acquisitions (acquisition time = 400 msec, repetition rate = 1.8 sec) in 30 sec and then obtaining continuous spectra for 27 min. Each averaged spectrum demonstrated five peaks: inorganic phosphate (Pi), creatine phosphate (PCr), and three peaks related to adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The protocol involved recording an initial three-minute rest period, stimulating the muscle at 5 Hz for 3 min twice, separated by three-minute rest periods, and stimulating the muscle at 50 Hz twice for 3 min separated by rest periods. The Pi/PCr ratio increased significantly in the adult masseter during both 5-Hz stimulations, evoking twitching, and the first 50-Hz stimulation, evoking tetany (repeated ANOVA, P < 0.05). The resting pH (6.96 ± 0.13) was significantly lowered during both twitching (6.85 ± 0.10; P < 0.0038) and tetany (6.55 ± 0.13; P < 0.0001), but only in the adult masseter muscle. These findings suggest that the adult masseter muscle possesses more glycolytic fibers as it modifies its metabolism during postnatal development.


The article reveals the evolution of environmental and food security in Ukraine's national security strategies during the years of independence. It is determined that at the state level a number of issues related to the creation of the most effective system of environmental and food security of the state within the existing at different stages of statehood National Security Strategies of Ukraine, both at the legislative level and in the functioning of relevant competent government agencies.
The content of ensuring the ecological and food security of the state in four national security strategies of Ukraine is revealed. It is determined that the issue of environmental and food security of the state needs a clear definition of the state in strategic priorities and goals that should meet current trends in the national economy and world realities in this area.
Threats to national security in the field of environmental and food security have been studied.
It was emphasized that in accordance with the Final Provisions of the National Security Strategy of Ukraine 2020 on the development of planning documents in the field of national security and defense, which will determine ways and tools for its implementation, clearly regulates the adoption and approval of the President food security.
The Strategy of Environmental Safety and Adaptation to Climate Change until 2030, adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on October 20, 2021 in order to increase the level of environmental safety, reduce the impacts and consequences of climate change in Ukraine, is analyzed. The implementation of the Strategy is aimed at fulfilling Ukraine's international obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of global climate change. The main environmental threats to Ukraine in this Strategy are: a significant level of air pollution, water and land resources, imperfect system of state supervision (control) and monitoring of the environment.
The draft order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine "On approval of the Food Security Strategy for the period up to 2030", which will be aimed at defining priorities in the field of food security as a component of national security, the importance of preventing hunger and malnutrition of the most vulnerable. It will include: the establishment of a system of national and regional food security monitoring to detect and prevent food threats; development and implementation of an action plan to provide the population with food in emergency situations; measures for the development of sustainable agricultural production; diversification of production; creation of sustainable production and marketing systems.
It is emphasized that the most striking indicator of effective implementation of national Strategies in the field of environmental security and food security should be maintaining the proper natural state of our country's ecology and the formation of a sufficient level of self-sufficiency in food of Ukraine. The directions of increase of efficiency of maintenance of ecological and food safety of Ukraine are defined.


Considerable recent attention has been focussed on understanding the dynamic response of cable-stayed bridges and stay cable vibration, including rain-wind induced vibration. The Fred Hartman Bridge has experienced large-amplitude rain-wind induced vibrations that led to modeling efforts. To validate models of the stay cables developed from design drawings, a field test was conducted to determine the fundamental frequency of each of the 192 cables. This paper presents the field test, analysis of data, and results. Comparison of results for eight sets of nominally identical cables in the design shows small fundamental frequency differences in sets of long stringlike cables, but large frequency differences in sets of short beam-like cables and therefore a need for different test and analysis approaches for long and short stay cables.


We are grateful to Dr B E Wiholm of the National Board of Health and Welfare, Department of Drugs, Sweden, and Dr B H Ch Stricker of the Netherlands Centre for the Monitoring of Adverse Reactions to Drugs for their help and for supplying national data. We are also grateful to the Committee on Safety of Medicines for permission to quote from the UK Adverse Reactions Register, and toProfessor Abe Goldberg for his invaluable help and criticism.


—To improve algorithm compatibility and reduce localization errors and node energy consumption, a hybrid localization algorithm of mobile nodes in wireless sensor networks (HLA) is proposed. In HLA, each mobile node analyzes the locations and number of adjacent stationary nodes. When a mobile node has detected that more than two adjacent stationary nodes exist, it will use energy localization algorithm to calculate its location coordinates. In other cases, the mobile node will use Beidou module to obtain its location coordinates. In the energy localization algorithm, maximum likelihood estimation algorithm is used to calculate energy location coordinates with RSSI values. And Kalman filter is used to filter the energy location coordinates. Finally, the current HLA location coordinates can be calculated based on movement distance and HLA location coordinates at last time. Simulation results show that whether in the area of 10m*10m or 20m*20m, our HLA can improve localization accuracy and control localization error within preferred range. Under certain conditions, our HLA outperforms Centroid Localization Algorithm (CLA) and Beidou Localization Method (BLM).


Introduction : Diagnosis of patients with severe acute pancreatitis as soon as possible is critical for achieving optimal outcomes. Management depends largely on severity. Medical treatment of mild acute pancreatitis is relatively straightforward. Treatment of severe acute pancreatitis involves intensive care. Surgical intervention (open or minimally invasive) is indicated in selected cases. Methodology : A total number of 59 subjects were enrolled in this present prospective study in the department of Radiology and Imaging, BIRDEM during two years aim to find out the correlation between CT severity index and patient serum enzyme levels in acute pancreatitis. Patients with clinically suspected and biochemically diagnosed acute pancreatitis referred to Radiology and Imaging department from department of gastroenterology (GHPD), BIRDEM for imaging investigation were enrolled in this study. Severity of acute pancreatitis was measured by both clinical and imaging staging (Modified CT severity index) in mild, moderate and severe groups. Subjects clinical information's and serum enzymes were recorded and analyzed by computer software SPSS (Ver. 20-IBM). Result : Mean age of the study subjects was 36.43 ± 13.85 years. The age ranged from 20-63 years and the maximum number was found in 21 to 40 years age group. Male female ratio was almost 1.56:1. It was seen that diffuse pancreatic enlargement was noted in 20.33% subjects. Pancreatic inflammation with and without peripancreatic fat involvement were observed in 22.72% and 57.62% subjects respectively. Pseudocyst formation (11.86%), ascites (23.72%), renal fascia involvement (37.28%) and pleural effusion (30.5%) were seen in CT scan. The results of the interpreter analysis was Kappa = 0.852 with p < 0.001 when association of severity by clinical scoring and CT severity scoring was compared and revealed that measure of agreement, while statistically significant, was almost perfect agreement. CT severity index in acute pancreatitis had statistically significant (p is less than 0.05) relation with serum amylase (0.738), lipase (0.638), SGOT (0.581) and SGPT (0.365) during admission which was found on simple linear regression test. Conclusion : This present study concluded that modified CT severity index correlated well with patient's enzymes level (Amylase, lipase, SGOT, SGPT) as well as clinical findings in acute pancreatitis Birdem Med J 2015; 5(1) Supplement: 18-24


Mobile grid supports a new infrastructure to integrate and utilize the exploding population of mobile resources. The mobile grid is not as reliable as the traditional wired grid, mainly due to the users' movement. In this paper, we propose a job scheduling method based on Genetic Algorithm in mobile grid. The scheduling scheme takes into account the characteristics of mobile devices such as inferior reliability, limited capacity and capability. We adopt the replication scheme to enhance reliability of the job execution. Our proposed method minimizes the completion time of grid applications. Furthermore, our method efficiently utilizes mobile grid resources by avoiding the job executions in useless replica. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method outperforms the other conventional scheduling methods in terms of the completion time and wasted resources in job execution.


Pulmonary varicosis is a rare, presumably congenital localized dilatation of a pulmonary vein which is often associated with cardiac disease. We describe a case featuring enlargement of a pulmonary varix after mitral valve replacement, caused by mitral regurgitation, and discuss diagnostic possibilities, differential diagnosis and various development of this vascular malformation. A detailed review of the literature is given.


Sam Faulkner's widowed father is so unreliable that Sam lives with his grandparents, and now his father has disappeared—again. After twelve days, Sam returns to the antiquarian bookshop that serves as both his father's business and home to search for clues, and he discovers a mysterious stone statue with a circular hole at the top, which he fills with a coin he finds near it. Suddenly, fourteen-year-old Sam finds himself ricocheting through time, from the Middle Ages to Viking days, the battlefields of World War I France to the tombs in ancient Egypt. He finally bounces back home and realizes that his father is trapped in time; worse, he's a prisoner of the infamous Vlad the Impaler (Count Dracula). This French import has enough plot and historic detail in each destination to create distinctive moments without overwhelming the central story of Sam's struggle to find his father. The style is everyday colloquial with exclamatory touches, making this an accessible and quick-moving read. Although Sam exhibits a little too much self-possession at times, he is still believably a teen as he attempts to avoid a school bully, recall history lessons, and even sneak the use of a calculator in a different century. Time-travel fans will jump headlong with Sam into his big adventure, and they will be hoping for a sequel to finally resolve the mystery of his father's disappearance. CW


We introduce a model of a generalised multi-receiver radio network with quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. There are two key functions: (1) Ni is non-decreasing and homogeneous and gives i's QoS as function of its carrier-to-interference ratios at each of K receivers, (2) nu_ik is a semi-norm that gives the interference experienced by transmitter i at receiver k as function of the power vector. We utilise "norm" concepts and Banach's well-known fixed-point theorem to characterise the conditions under which a QoS vector is feasible, and the corresponding power-adjustment process converges. The critical power levels equal a_i/h_i where a_i is the QoS target, and h_i is the 'average' channel gain. hi=Ni(h_i1,..., h_i,K) where h_ik is the channel gain from transmitter i to receiver k. If the interference experienced by each transmitter i at each receiver k is less than 1 when each power is set to the critical level (i.e., nu_ik(a_1/h_1, a_2/h_2,..., a_N/h_N)<1), then the QoS targets are feasible. Applications of our general result yields simple feasibility formulae for 3 scenarios from Yates (JSAC, 13(7):1341-1348, 1995): (i) fixed base-station assignment, (ii) macro-diversity and, (iii) multiple-connection reception (terminal must maintain acceptable QoS at several receivers), which includes the minimum power assignment as a special case. The 3 formulae have the simple form: largest weighted sum of N-1 QoS targets less than one, where the weights are relative channel gains.


A survey conducted through personal interviews was done in Canada to estimate the prevalence of subjective symptoms related to restless legs syndrome (RLS) and to sleep bruxism. Of the 2,019 respondents, all over 18 years of age, 15% reported leg restlessness at bedtime; 10% reported unpleasant leg muscle sensations associated with awakening during sleep and with the irresistible need to move or walk. Both these complaints are related to RLS. The prevalence of RLS-related symptoms increased linearly with age. Tooth grinding, a symptom related to sleep bruxism, was reported by 8% of the subjects; in contrast to RLS-related symptoms, the prevalence of tooth grinding decreased linearly with age. RLS-related symptoms were reported more frequently in Eastern provinces than in Ontario and Western Canada, and more frequently in Roman Catholic and French-speaking responders. This was not the case for sleep bruxism; between 14.5% and 17.3% of the subjects who reported subjective RLS-related symptoms also reported tooth grinding. Conversely, 9.6-10.9% of the tooth grinders reported RLS-related symptoms. These data suggest that both sleep movement disorders can be concomitant and that socio-geographic and age characteristics influence the prevalence of reports.


The nature of every war is the same, whether in Asian countries, in Vietnam or anywhere else. However, in reality and literature, war always brings many faces, depending on which aspects and which perspectives it is seen and explained. From the gender perspective, we believe that under a certain aspect "a war has a female face". Contemporary Vietnamese fiction describes war from the view of "feminine disposition", realizes women's beauty during and after war and condemns the brutal destruction of war from the fate of women. From the feminist perspective on war, contemporary Vietnamese fiction also mentions the instinctive desire, the desire to be loved, to be a wife, a mother of women; as well as condemns sexual prejudices to women.


Objective: This study was to investigate the prevalence of patients with type D personality diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, and the use of medical expenditure between type D and non-type D personality, following the diagnosis of breast cancer. Methods: We included patients diagnosed with stages 1 and 2 breast cancer at a single regional teaching hospital to study their medical expenses, that of a five-year full course of treatment. During October 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012, questionnaires (N = 212) were administered by hospital staff members in interviews to collect information about patient's demographic variables and Taiwanese version of Type D Scale-14. Results: The prevalence of type D personality among early-stage breast cancer patients was 37.3%. The patients with and without type D personality were not found to have any significant differences in numbers of outpatient visits, length of hospital stay, outpatient medical expenses, and inpatient medical expenses. Conclusion: This study results revealed that there were no differences existed in expenditure of medical resources between type D and non-type D early-stage breast cancer patients. We suggest that medical resource utilization in breast cancer has become standardized under the current National Health Insurance system.


For many youth with diabetes, school provides a structured and supervised environment for diabetes management. Cyber school is a recent alternative in many states with variable supervision. To our knowledge, no information is available on characteristics of youth with diabetes enrolled in cyber school. We identified 142 youth followed in a large academic diabetes center between 2014-2018. Medical records were reviewed for demographic, anthropometric, clinical, and laboratory data from their first visit after cyber enrollment. The vast majority, 130 (92%), had T1D and were white, 127 (90%). Mean age was 14.0±3.4 years with a duration of diabetes of 5.1±4.3 years. Most, 74 (53%), entered cyber in grades 9-12. Reasons for enrollment were documented for 91 (64%), with medical concerns being the most common, 28 (31%). Forty percent were overweight or obese. Most were managed with multiple daily injections, 104 (73%), compared with insulin pumps, 32 (23%), or other regimens. Very few, 8 (6%), utilized continuous glucose monitors. Mean hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) for those diagnosed two or more years was 9.4±2.1%, and only 17, (18%), of those youth met the glycemic target of a HbA1c ≤ 7.5%. Dyslipidemia (LDL-cholesterol >100 mg/dL) was highly prevalent at 37%; of those, mean LDL was 131±22 mg/dL. Depression was present in 38/84 (45%) screened youth over age 12 years. Missed clinic visits were common; 76 (54%) missed two or more visits in the 12 months before or after enrollment. Mean HbA1c was significantly higher in those missing two or more visits compared with 0-1 visits (9.4±0.3 vs. 8.0±0.3, p-value Disclosure C. March: None. L.M. Siminerio: None. E. Miller: None. I. Libman: Consultant; Self; Novo Nordisk Inc.


AbstractThe organization of environmental health of the hospital is carried out according to the environmental health requirements of the hospital. One of the supporting factors for hospitals in restoring patient health is the provision of linen. Regional General Hospital Dr. Adnaan WD Payakumbuh is a type C regional hospital. Linen infectious and non-infectious patients used ex-patients or former health service activities are produced every day and no sorting of infectious and non-infectious linen is not done. Washing linen uses 1 washing machine to wash all types of linen, does not have a linen carriage storage room, coordination of linen staff with other parts, especially in repairing facilities and equipment is not optimal, linen managers still do not use personal protective equipment (PPE). This study aims to determine the description of linen management at Adnaan WD Payakumbuh Hospital. The research is descriptive with an observation approach. The research instrument used a checklist and measurements referring to the Kepmenkes RI No 1204 in 2004. The data were analyzed descriptively in the form of tables and percentages. The results of the 80% linen washout, 100% linen collection stage, 100% transportation stage, 100% acceptance stage, 100% washing stage, 80% storage stage, and 100% distribution stage fulfilled the requirements.Keywords: infection, non-infection, linen, hospital


Covert channels are data transmission methods that bypass the detection of security mechanisms and pose a serious threat to critical infrastructure. Meanwhile, it is also an effective way to ensure the secure transmission of private data. Therefore, research on covert channels helps us to quickly detect attacks and protect the security of data transmission. This paper proposes covert channels based on the timestamp of the Internet Control Message Protocol echo reply packet in the Linux system. By considering the concealment, we improve our proposed covert channels, ensuring that changing trends in the timestamp of modified consecutive packets are consistent with consecutive regular packets. Besides, we design an Iptables rule based on the current system time to analyze the performance of the proposed covert channels. Finally, it is shown through experiments that the channels complete the private data transmission in the industrial control network. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the improved covert channels offer better performance in concealment, time cost, and the firewall test.


Commentary Epileptic seizures propagate extensively across the brain. The associated electrophysiological mass phenomena can be captured by scalp or intracranial electroencephalography. Recent evidence shows the initiating mechanisms of seizures operate at the smaller scale of neuronal ensembles, producing phenomena such as high-frequency oscillations (1, 2) and microseizures (3, 4) that are best detected at a tighter spatial resolution of local field potentials recorded by microelectrodes. More recently, researchers have started using microelectrodes to analyze the activity of large numbers of individual neurons during seizures in neocortex (5) and hippocampus (6) and to relate this activity to the corresponding macroscopic EEG recordings. The main focus of this commentary is the most recent of these studies by Schevon et al., which provides potential solutions to puzzles arising from previous neocortical work. The idea that seizures represent "hypersynchrony" goes back at least to the 1950s (7). However, until recently, recordings from people with epilepsy suggested that neuronal firing is not hypersynchronous, despite the presence of large rhythmic—arguably hypersynchronous—field potentials. Early studies with single microelectrodes (8, 9) found no evidence for extensive or synchronous neuronal firing during seizures. The advent of dense multi-electrode arrays allows sampling of the activity of many neurons within local regions in the brain. Schevon et al. and Trucculo et al. both used microelectrode (Utah) arrays in the neocortex of epileptic patients. The arrays sampled 96 sites at a depth of 1 mm within a 4 mm × 4 mm area. Closely spaced penetrating electrodes are likely to Evidence of an inhibitory restraint of seizure activity in humans.


Abstract
 This study aimed to determine the effect of different dairy breeds and seasons on reproductive, productive and economic efficiency of dairy farms under Egyptian conditions. This study was carried out through field survey in different regions of Egypt that includes (El Behira, Alexandria and Kafr El-Shaikh) province during the period extended from summer 2012 to winter 2014 on random samples of dairy production sectors. These sectors were Farmers (Fallahy), Private farms (special) and Governmental. The dairy breeds included were Balady (local breed), Holstein-Friesian (exotic breed) and Cross-bred (Balady X Friesian). The reproductive, productive and economic data were collected from cross-sectional and longitudinal and field survey. During the data collection, the researcher was in intimate contact with dairy holders and managers. The dairy farms were visited two times at least, once in summer and the other in winter. The results of our survey concluded that the breed significantly affected (P


The process of intensive psychotherapy is carefully dissected by a truly dedicated therapist. Although orthodox in his orientation, he has sufficient flexibility to make his contribution worthwhile for therapists of all persuasions. Even an eclectic psychiatrist, whose armamentarium includes somatic therapies, will find much here to help him in the psychodynamic understanding of some of his most difficult patients. It is rightfully pointed out that therapists who "drift" into long-term psychotherapy with patients should have the proper training. It is also noted, however, that there are "no specific diseases in psychiatry," but "only patterns or clusters of symptoms." The therapeutic process is, therefore, seen as an attempt to get to its core, an emotional immaturity whose roots lie in childhood. This then necessitates the development of a "regressive transference situation" so that infantile conflicts can be relived and relieved in a corrective emotional setting. Problems of countertransference, including the conduct


Wheat is one of the main crops that ensure the country's food security and export potential. In the Stavropol Area winter wheat annually occupies more than 1.5 million hectares. Despite this, grain productivity and quality remain unstable. To increase the volume of grain production in the country and improve its quality, the development and rapid introduction of new varieties into production is of fundamental importance. The purpose of the current study was to develop a new winter bread wheat variety adaptable to the sharply continental climate of the North Caucasus region, with a high level of productivity and grain quality. According to the positive results of the trials in the North Caucasus region, since 2019 the new winter bread wheat variety "Korona", developed by the FSEP "Prikumskaya Experimental Breeding Station", has been included in the State List of Breeding Achievements and recommended for cultivation. The variety was developed by the method of complex staged hybridization with the participation of the best local lines "126768", "140356" (FSEP "Prikumskaya Experimental Breeding Station") and the varieties "Don 95" (FSBSI "ARC "Donskoy"), "Ukrainka Odesskaya" (Ukraine). Over the years of the State Variety Testing (2017-2018) at the variety plots of the Stavropol Area, the variety 'Korona' has shown a significant productivity advantage over the standard variety "Grom" in extremely arid and arid zones, with an increase of 0.40 and 0.39 t/ha, respectively. During the years of study, the maximum productivity (11.71 t/ha) was obtained at the Stavropol SVTS. When testing the variety in the Republics of the North Caucasus, the maximum productivity increases to the standard varieties were obtained in Adygea (+0.46 t/ha), Karachay-Cherkessia (+ 0.65 t/ha), Crimea (+0.42 t/ha). According to the FSEP "Prikumskaya Experimental Breeding Station", the new variety "Korona" has formed large-sized well-made grain with high baking qualities. The yield of bread from flour of a new genotype exceeded the standard and was 638 ml, the general estimation of bread was 4.8 points. The variety belongs to the valuable wheat varieties. The grain of the new variety contains on average 13.4% of protein, 26.4% of gluten of the first quality group, 75 of IDK. In 2019, for large productivity and environmental adaptability the new variety "Korona" was awarded a diploma of the State Variety Commission of the Russian Federation and was awarded the title "The Variety of the Year".


Thalamic circuits are able to generate state-dependent oscillations of different frequencies and degrees of synchronization. However, little is known about how synchronous oscillations, such as spindle oscillations in the thalamus, are organized in the intact brain. Experimental findings suggest that the simultaneous occurrence of spindle oscillations over widespread territories of the thalamus is due to the corticothalamic projections, as the synchrony is lost in the decorticated thalamus. In this Letter we study the influence of corticothalamic projections on the synchrony in a thalamic network, and uncover the underlying control mechanism, leading to a control method which is applicable for several types of oscillations in the central nervous system.


All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. Faecalibacterium prausnitzii treatment improves hepatic health and reduces adipose tissue inflammation in high-fat fed mice Munukka, Eveliina; Rintala, Anniina; Toivonen, Raine; Nylund, Matts; Yang, Baoru; Takanen, Anna; Hänninen, Arno; Vuopio, Jaana; Huovinen, Pentti; Jalkanen, Sirpa; Pekkala, Satu


The identification of eroded areas at catchment scale can be very useful for environmental planning and can help to reduce land degradation and sediment yield. In this paper remote sensing techniques are used to discriminate both eroded areas and erosion risk areas in a badlands landscape developed on Eocene marls, in the Esera River catchment (Spanish Pyrenees). The spatial distribution, the scarce vegetal cover and the high erosion level let a good visual and digital discrimination of badlands, as opposed to other land covers and surfaces. A maximum likelihood supervised method was used to discriminate heavily eroded areas (badlands) from scarce or densely vegetated lands, by means of the spectral signature of bare soil. The classification distance was used to obtain thresholds for eroded areas and areas at risk. Two error statistics (sensitivity and specificity) where used to determine the most adequate threshold values. The resulting map shows that most areas at risk are located surrounding the badland areas.


Dental air abrasion is a minimally invasive, ultraconservative method, with indication of choice for incipient fissural caries, which still count for 90% of newly appeared caries and raise diagnosing problems of the lesional stage. In this context, the aim of the paper was to use and assess dental air abrasion as an alternative technique for the preparation of dental structures, both on extracted teeth and on patients. Bio-Art microblaster was used on 14 extracted teeth and 6 patients for the removal of fissural caries in molars and pre‐ molars. After being acquainted with the technique and according to the specific protocol of use, minimally invasive preparations were made, followed by their restoration with adhesive materials. The advantages of the method, also specified by similar surveys, were: absence of pain, vibration, noise, pressure, and heat that are generated by conven‐ tional methods (burs), leading to high acceptance by patients.


On March 2015 an L'-band vortex coronagraph based on an Annular Groove Phase Mask made up of a diamond sub-wavelength grating was installed on NIRC2 as a demonstration project. This vortex coronagraph operates in the L' band not only in order to take advantage from the favorable star/planet contrast ratio when observing beyond the K band, but also to exploit the fact that the Keck II Adaptive Optics (AO) system delivers nearly extreme adaptive optics image quality (Strehl ratios values near 90%) at 3.7μm. We describe the hardware installation of the vortex phase mask during a routine NIRC2 service mission. The success of the project depends on extensive software development which has allowed the achievement of exquisite real-time pointing control as well as further contrast improvements by using speckle nulling to mitigate the effect of static speckles. First light of the new coronagraphic mode was on June 2015 with already very good initial results. Subsequent commissioning nights were interlaced with science nights by members of the VORTEX team with their respective scientific programs. The new capability and excellent results so far have motivated the VORTEX team and the Keck Science Steering Committee (KSSC) to offer the new mode in shared risk mode for 2016B.


The high representation of the TIM barrel as a scaffold for enzymatic proteins makes it an interesting model for protein engineering. Based on previous reports of folding mechanisms of TIM barrels that suggest an independent folding unit formed by six (beta/alpha) subunits, we interrupted the gene of phosphoribosylanthranilate isomerase (PRAI) from Escherichia coli at three different positions to yield fragments with different combinations of (beta/alpha) subunits. When these constructions were expressed as polycistrons in a TrpF-E. coli strain, complementation of the function only occurred with fragments beta1-alpha4 and beta5-alpha8, demonstrating that (beta/alpha)(4) subunits are stable enough to survive in vivo conditions and to assemble to yield a functional enzyme. The expression of these fragments in a separated plasmid/phagemid system to complement the function gave a slower complementation in the TrpF-E. coli strain; this was overcome by introducing extra secondary elements to the structure that reinforce their interaction.


With more than 7000 languages worldwide, multilingual natural language processing (NLP) is essential both from an academic and commercial perspective. Researching typological properties of languages is fundamental for progress in multilingual NLP. Examples include assessing language similarity for effective transfer learning, injecting inductive biases into machine learning models or creating resources such as dictionaries and inflection tables. We provide ParCourE, an online tool that allows to browse a word-aligned parallel corpus, covering 1334 languages. We give evidence that this is useful for typological research. ParCourE can be set up for any parallel corpus and can thus be used for typological research on other corpora as well as for exploring their quality and properties.


In-depth subgroup analyses are under way to further refine the protocol for patient selection and monitoring, with the aim of reducing treatment-related mortality to less than the 10% seen in the ASTIS trial. Exclusion of patients with less severe pulmonary arterial hypertension may be indicated, although no signal of harm in such patients emerged in assessments by the independent data and safety monitoring committee during the trial. However, some degree of treatment-related mortality will always be associated with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in a severe disease such as systemic sclerosis, in which progression is associated with poor survival.5 It is gratifying that in ASSIST, no treatment-related mortality occurred in 17 transplanted patients; however, the first treatment-related death in the ASTIS trial occurred after 28 transplants, emphasizing the importance of large clinical trials.


The structure of one of the major products resulting from the treatment of diethyl galactarate (2) with an excess of p-toluenesulfonyl chloride in pyridine has been shown to be diethyl 2,5-ditosyloxyhexa-2,4-diendioate ( 5 ) rather than hex-3-enoate 1 proposed earlier. The corresponding dimesyloxy derivative 6 was also prepared in a similar manner. Some additional aspects of the reactions, including some mechanistic proposals, are presented.


Curcumin (diferuloylmethane) is found in large quantities in the roots of Curcuma longa. It possesses strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and inhibits chemically-induced carcinogenesis in the skin, forestomach, colon, and liver. Unfortunately, the poor bioavailability and hydrophobicity of curcumin pose a major hurdle to its use as a potent anticancer agent. To circumvent some of these problems, we developed a novel, dual-core microcell formulation of curcumin. The encapsulation of curcumin in microcells increases its solubility and bioavailability, and facilitates slow release kinetics over extended periods. Besides being safe, these formulations do not bear any toxicity constraints, as revealed by in vitro and in vivo studies. Histopathological analysis revealed that curcumin-bearing microcells helped in regression of hepatocellular carcinoma and the maintenance of cellular architecture in liver tissue. Free curcumin had a very mild effect on cancer suppression. Empty (sham) microcells and microparticles failed to inhibit cancer cells. The novel curcumin formulation was found to suppress hepatocellular carcinoma efficiently in Swiss albino mice.


Here, a tetrakaidecahedron-shaped Cu four-core supramolecule was designed to overcome the defects of supramolecules for lithium-ion batteries. With multiple metal centers, conductive ligands and abundant hydrogen bonds, this novel electrode shows excellent rate capability (459.4 mA h g-1 at 2000 mA g-1) and cyclicality (494.5 mA h g-1 after 700 cycles).


Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) endows carcinoma cells with migratory, survival and stem cell-like attributes that facilitate therapeutic resistance and metastasis. Expression of the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase in breast cancer correlates with EMT, poor survival and is prevalent in patient metastases. Axl upregulation in mammary epithelial cells by EMT-transcription factors, TGFbeta or hypoxia, establishes an autocrine-signaling loop with its ligand, Gas6. Inhibition of Axl signaling blocks EMT/ cancer stem cell traits including invasiveness, drug resistance, mammosphere formation, in vivo tumor initiation, and prevents spontaneous metastasis in orthotopic breast cancer models. Congruently, we show that Axl is expressed on mammary epithelial stem/progenitor cells and regulates multipotent progenitor activity. Thus Axl signal transduction represents a novel regulatory pathway linking normal mammary stem/progenitor cells and breast cancer stem cell activity. Clinical Axl-inhibitors represent a novel therapeutic opportunity to treat aggressive breast cancer. Citation Format: Crina Tiron, Fanny Pelissier, Katarzyna Wnuk-Lipinska, Ingunn Stefansson, Reeta Virtakoivu, Masaru Miyano, Tone Sandal, David Micklem, James Garbe, Martha Stampfer, Johanna Ivaska, Lars Akslen, Mark LaBarge, James Lorens. Axl signaling is required for stem cell traits and metastasis in breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Tumor Invasion and Metastasis; Jan 20-23, 2013; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(3 Suppl):Abstract nr C76.


Many efforts have been made in the last few years to solve the high-level scheduling problem in Grid computing, i.e., the efficient resources utilization and allocation of workload within resources domains. Nowadays, some trends are based on the consideration of Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems, whose performance is critically conditioned to theirs knowledge bases quality. In this sense, Genetic Algorithms have been extensively used to obtain such knowledge bases, mainly founded on Pittsburgh approach. However, new strategies are recently emerging showing improvement over genetic-based learning methods. In this work, comparative results of two non-genetic learning strategies derived from bio-inspired algorithms, Differential Evolution and Particle Swarm Optimization, are presented for the evolution of fuzzy rule-based meta-schedulers in Grid computing.


A precise regulation of the temperature of spin crossover (SCO) is an essential task to envisage practical applications of switchable materials. Here, we present three isostructural complexes with the formula [Fe(LCl)(NCE)2], where LCl is the tetradentate ligand N,N′-bis[(4-chloro-2-pyridyl)methyl]ethane-1,2-diamine and E = S (1-S), Se (1-Se), and BH3 (1-BH3). Single-crystal X-ray diffraction, magnetic measurements, Mossbauer spectroscopy and DSC measurements have been carried out to study their SCO properties. 1-S remains in a high spin state over all temperatures due to the weak ligand field strength imposed by NCS− ligands. The replacement of NCS− by NCSe− allows the occurrence of SCO around 177 K. Using NCBH3− instead allows a further increase of the conversion temperature (T1/2) by ca. 30 K. A literature survey of complexes containing NCE− ligands was carried out to examine their influence on the SCO properties. A 50–90 K difference in T1/2 was found between NCS− and NCSe− derivatives and a 30–50 K difference was found between NCSe− and NCBH3− derivatives.


Selective inhibition of the cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) isoform has been shown to reduce inflammation and tumorigenesis and lack the gastrointestinal toxicity of traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The COX-1-selective inhibitor 5-(4-chlorophenyl)-1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-(trifluoromethyl)-1H-pyrazole (SC-560), shown in Fig. 1, was identified as one of several structurally related compounds with varying selectivity for the COX isoforms during the development of the COX-2-selective inhibitor celecoxib (1). From this work, SC-560 was found to be a highly selective and potent inhibitor of COX-1, with in vitro studies showing an IC50 of 0.007 μM for COX-1 and 75 μM for COX-2. In animal studies, SC-560 has been shown to be effective in treating neuroinflammation when administered by injection (2). However, the poor bioavailability that results following oral administration of SC-560 may limit its effectives in treating diseases where COX-1 inhibition would provide efficacy. When administered orally to rats as a suspension in 1% methylcellulose, the mean bioavailability is only 5% of the dose (3). Altering the oral dosage formulation by dissolving in polyethylene glycol 600 improves the bioavailability to only 15% (3). Therefore, additional studies are needed to identify dosage formulations which may improve oral bioavailability. To develop dosage forms and products of a potential drug compound, solid-state properties of the chemical need to be thoroughly examined. One of the basic attributes is the crystal structure of the compound, which determines important physical and chemical properties of the substance, including solubility and dissolution rate. We have solved the crystal structure for SC-560 and reported it elsewhere (4). Herein, we describe additional solid-state properties, including its solubility in water.

Fig. 1

Molecular structure of SC-560 and its labeling in the crystal. The two torsion angles are also marked

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Materials
SC-560 was from Cayman Chemical Company (Ann Arbor, MI, USA). Organic solvents (high-performance liquid chromatography grade) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich Co. (St. Louis, MO, USA) without further purification.


Many mental disorders (MD) share common etiology, fuelling debates about the specificity of clinical categories and whether the presence of specific risk factors (RF) can distinguish among them. The study of developmental language disorder (DLD), more specifically, has been further hindered by a lack of consensus regarding its definition. These limitations increase the risk of under-detection and lifelong consequences for affected children. This paper aims (1) to document which individual RF allow differentiating DLD from other MD and (2) to compare the cumulative RF between children with DLD versus other MD. This case-control design study used medical records of a psychiatric sample of 795 preschoolers (mean age 4:11, 75% boys). A logistic regression measured the predictive value of potential RF on DLD. Later first sentences, maternal immigration and family history of language delay were identified as significant in explaining 30% of the variance for DLD diagnosis. An ANCOVA revealed that children with DLD were exposed to a significantly higher number of RF than were children with other MD. Public health policies informed with the knowledge of specific RF associated with DLD, and their cumulative impact, could improve early detection and reduce the cascade of negative consequences associated with DLD.


In this book -- the first volume in the Kierkegaard as a Christian Thinker series -- Lee Barrett offers a novel comparative interpretation of early church father Augustine and nineteenth-century philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard. Though these two intellectual giants have been paired by historians of Western culture, the exact nature of their similarities and differences has never before been probed in detail. Barrett demonstrates that on many essential theological levels Augustine and Kierkegaard were more convergent than divergent. Most significantly, their parallels point to a distinctive understanding of the Christian life as a passion for self-giving love. Approaching Kierkegaard through the lens of Augustine, Barrett argues, enables the theme of desire for fulfillment in God to be seen as much more central to Kierkegaard's thought than previously imagined.


What, this essay asks, is the relation between contemporary IR scholarship and the existentialist intellectual and cultural tradition? How is our discipline informed and animated by existentialist thinking? Is existentialism a heritage to be recovered, claimed, and embraced by IR scholars, or a shadow to be escaped? And what resources does it furnish us for thinking through the kind of issues that IR scholars are called upon to grapple with today? These questions are not purely theoretical. There are practical and political reasons, not only for considering them, but for considering them now. Living through what has been termed an unfolding 'Age of Anxiety', we find ourselves confronted by existential questions and existentialist ideas at almost every turn. It is, however, unclear how substantive or meaningful this apparently existentialist moment truly is. Does existentialism have something to say to contemporary IR, or does it flatter to deceive? We think the time is ripe to take stock of existentialism as it relates to IR and global politics. This is the purpose of this article and of the collection of essays it introduces.


This thesis discusses the rise of the Republican party in Texas and specifically Harris County. The time period is the decade between the Presidential election of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the campaign of Jack Cox for Governor. Changes in the structure and leadership of the Republican party at the state level and specific precincts are examined in detail in chapter one. Leaders in Houston during this time period, such as Jesse Jones, Roy Cullen, and Oveta Culp Hobby are discussed in chapter two. The elections of Eisenhower, Cox, and Republican John Tower are analyzed in chapter three. The conclusion finds six major factors for the political changes occurring in Harris County, including economic and demographic changes. Main sources for this work included the Harris County Democratic party records and the Jack Cox Papers at the Center for American History, the Eisenhower Library, and the John Tower Papers.


A common dimorphism in life‐history tactic in salmonids is the presence of an anadromous pathway involving a migration to sea followed by a freshwater reproduction, along with an entirely freshwater resident tactic. Although common, the genetic and environmental influence on the adoption of a particular life‐history tactic has rarely been studied under natural conditions. Here, we used sibship‐reconstruction based on microsatellite data and an 'animal model' approach to estimate the additive genetic basis of the life‐history tactic adopted (anadromy vs. residency) in a natural population of brook charr, Salvelinus fontinalis. We also assess its genetic correlation with phenotypic correlated traits, body size and body shape. Significant heritability was observed for life‐history tactic (varying from 0.52 to 0.56 depending on the pedigree scenario adopted) as well as for body size (from 0.44 to 0.50). There was also a significant genetic correlation between these two traits, whereby anadromous fish were genetically associated with bigger size at age 1 (rG = −0.52 and −0.61). Our findings thus indicate that life‐history tactics in this population have the potential to evolve in response to selection acting on the tactic itself or indirectly via selection on body size. This study is one of the very few to have successfully used sibship‐reconstruction to estimate quantitative genetic parameters under wild conditions.


We report a process for the lift-off of an ultrathin Si layer. By plasma hydrogenation of a molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown heterostructure of SiSb-doped-SiSi, ultrashallow cracking is controlled to occur at the depth of the Sb-doped layer. Prior to hydrogenation, an oxygen plasma treatment is used to induce the formation of a thin oxide layer on the surface of the heterostructure. Chemical etching of the surface oxide layer after hydrogenation further thins the thickness of the separated Si layer to be only 15 nm. Mechanisms of hydrogen trapping and strain-facilitated cracking are discussed.


Proceedings: AACR 103rd Annual Meeting 2012‐‐ Mar 31‐Apr 4, 2012; Chicago, IL

Herein we describe the implementation of a biochemical and biophysical screening strategy to discover small molecules that inhibit Akt through a mechanism distinct from ATP-competitive inhibitors. A series of novel derivatives of the core scaffold 3H-imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine were identified and optimized. These Akt inhibitors demonstrated potent inhibition of intracellular Akt and downstream targets including PRAS40 activation in vitro. Pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic studies in vivo demonstrated the effectiveness of the series at inhibiting the activation of Akt and an additional downstream effector (p70S6) following oral dosing in mice. Co-crystallization studies with un-phosphorylated Akt1 revealed that as a consequence of binding these novel, potent and selective, ATP-independent inhibitors the ATP binding cleft is occupied by non-polar residues which are associated as tight clusters. The cleft is closed with a 'hydrophobic lock' which may function to sterically exclude the binding of both ATP and ATP-competitive inhibitors.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-1. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-LB-1


Event Detection (ED) is a fundamental task in automatically structuring texts. Due to the small scale of training data, previous methods perform poorly on unseen/sparsely labeled trigger words and are prone to overfitting densely labeled trigger words. To address the issue, we propose a novel Enrichment Knowledge Distillation (EKD) model to leverage external open-domain trigger knowledge to reduce the in-built biases to frequent trigger words in annotations. Experiments on benchmark ACE2005 show that our model outperforms nine strong baselines, is especially effective for unseen/sparsely labeled trigger words. The source code is released on https://github.com/shuaiwa16/ekd.git.


Amyand's hernia is a rare clinical condition in which a normal or an inflamed appendix lies in the inguinal hernial sac. Perforated appendicitis in an Amyand's hernia is even more uncommon. Herein we report such a rare case in a 4 month old baby who presented with an irreducible right inguino-scrotal swelling. Exploration revealed perforated appendix in the hernial sac with local abscess. A transherniotomy appendectomy was done. Postoperatively, the patient developed wound infection, which resolved with wound care. Pediatric / hernia surgeons must remember this rare clinical situation while managing children with acute right inguino-scrotal swellings.


*e sustainable development of the human settlements (HS) has become a global universal program. *e comparison of cities in different countries is of great significance to provide international experience for future urban construction. Combined with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper establishes an evaluation index system for the sustainable development ability of urban HS and constructs a three-dimensional research framework of "development-coordination-sustainability," which compares the sustainable development ability of the HS of Dalian, China, and Kobe, Japan, from 2005 to 2018 and explores the spatial evolution characteristics and obstacle factors of the HS of the two cities. *e results show that (1) the development degree of the HS of the two cities is on the rise. *e development level of Kobe is always higher than that of Dalian, and the gap is gradually narrowing; Kobe has advantages in natural and residential environment, while Dalian has advantages in cultural and economic environment. (2) *e coordination degree of the development of the HS of the two cities has improved steadily, and the coordination degree of Kobe is better than that of Dalian. (3) *e sustainability of the development of the HS of the two cities is fluctuating, and the average sustainable growth rate of Dalian is higher than that of Kobe. (4) *e sustainable development space of the HS in Dalian presents a pattern of "high in the south and low in the north," and the spatial characteristics of the subsystems are different; the main obstacles have changed from economic-natural to economic-natural-cultural-public services, and the obstacles to development in districts are different. (5)*e sustainable development space of the HS in Kobe has a high level of development in the southeast, radiating to the surrounding area, and the spatial characteristics of the subsystems are different; the main obstacles have changed from economic-cultural-natural to economic-natural-population, and the obstacles to development in districts are different. Finally, it puts forward targeted suggestions for the sustainable construction of Dalian. *is paper can provide methodological reference for quantitative assessment of the sustainable development of HS and provide policy reference for scientific planning of the construction of HS.


Abstract-In this paper we propose an architecture for fullyreconfigurable, plug-and-play wireless sensor network testbed. The proposed architecture is able to reconfigure and support easy experimentation and testing of standard protocol stacks (i.e. uIPv4 and uIPv6) as well as non-standardized clean-slate protocol stacks (e.g. configured using RIME). The parameters of the protocol stacks can be remotely reconfigured through an easy to use RESTful API. Additionally, we are able to fully reconfigure clean-slate protocol stacks at run-time. The architecture enables easy set-up of the network - plug - by using a protocol that automatically sets up a multi-hop network (i.e. RPL protocol) and it enables reconfiguration and experimentation - play - by using a simple, RESTful interaction with each node individually. The reference implementation of the architecture uses a dual-stack Contiki OS with the ProtoStack tool for dynamic composition of services.


2G. B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, Kosi-Katarmal, Almora (Uttarakhand), India. Accepted 22 May, 2012 Molecular profiling of 12 different accessions of Hedychium spicatum were investigated using 25 random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers. A total of 240 amplification products were scored with an average frequency of 14.11 bands per primer. Based on the Jaccard's similarity coefficient, 12 accessions were grouped into two main clusters with 38% similarity. The data obtained suggest that H. spicatum has high genetic diversity, which could be attributed to its wide range of geographic distribution.


International cooperation with the Equatorial Guinean administration in biodiversity conservation issues started more than 20 years ago. Since then, an ample number of projects have been implemented with different outcomes but similar limitations and challenges. Despite of most governmental effort, future conservation proposals in the country will have to attain authorities assume like own the biodiversity conservation of the country. Next to it, the development of the recent national conservation institutions and the appropriate training of sufficient number of local staff could be the following challenge. To obtain a continued funding to support conservation actions will help to the establishment in the country of a strategy of conservation that secure effective results in the long term.


Here we present a new, compact magnetic tweezers design that enables precise application of a wide range of dynamic forces to soft materials without the need to raise or lower the magnet height above the sample. This is achieved through the controlled rotation of the permanent magnet array with respect to the fixed symmetry axis defined by a custom-built iron yoke. These design improvements increase the portability of the device and can be implemented within existing microscope setups without the need for extensive modification of the sample holders or light path. This device is particularly well-suited to active microrheology measurements using either creep analysis, in which a step force is applied to a micron-sized magnetic particle that is embedded in a complex fluid, or oscillatory microrheology, in which the particle is driven with a periodic waveform of controlled amplitude and frequency. In both cases, the motions of the particle are measured and analyzed to determine the local dynamic mechanical properties of the material.


We analyze the uniform general decay of the solution of a system modeling a mixture of two interacting continua with nonlinear localized damping acting in a arbitrary small region of the interval under consideration, assuming appropriate assumptions on the nonlinear terms. To do this, we used a observability inequality obtained for the conservative system combined with the Holmgren's uniqueness theorem and the reduction principle (see [14]) where the problem of decay rates with nonlinear damping is reduced to an appropriate sta-bilizability inequality for the linear equation. This study generalizes and improves previous literature outcomes.


Primary gastric cancer (PGC) is the fourth most common malignant human cancer and the second leading cause of death worldwide. The majority of the subjects of PGC is diagnosed at a late stage, resulting in poor prognosis and therapeutic outcome, largely attributable to dissemination of tumor cells into circulation as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and their formation of distal tumor. Curcumin is an active ingredient from the rhizome of the plant Curcuma longa. Here, we assessed whether treatment with Curcumin may reduce the incidence of metastatic tumor formation in liver in mice carrying PGC. We found that Curcumin treatment significantly reduced the presence of CTCs and formation of liver tumor. Mechanistically, Curcumin reduced CXCR4 expression in PGCs in vitro and in vivo, and thus likely inhibited metastasis of PGC through suppression of stromal cell -derived factor-1/CXCR4 signaling. Thus, our study suggests that Curcumin may inhibit liver metastasis of PGC through reducing CTCs.


Background: Knowledge of the factors that predispose to postdural puncture headache in children may help reduce the occurrence of this complication. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort study of children who presented to the study institution between 2010 and 2018 was conducted. Children were divided into 2 groups: those who experienced postdural puncture headache and those who did not. The 2 groups were compared with respect to certain demographic, technical, and personnel-related factors. Only children who had opening pressure documented during the procedure were included in the core study group. Results: In univariate analysis, children aged ≥10 years, female gender, children with higher body mass index, standard blinded lumbar puncture procedure, use of sedation, higher opening pressure, and presence of pseudotumor cerebri increased the probability of postdural puncture headache. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, presence of pseudotumor cerebri was the only factor that attained statistical significance when the opening pressure was measured and documented. Conclusions: The risk factors for postdural puncture headache in a pediatric cohort varied from risk factors that are classically implicated in adults.


Calculations based on two different finite-element models have been carried out to investigate the flux flow behaviour of High Temperature Superconductors (HTS), in particular of Coated Conductors (CC) based on 123-HTS. The models allow the simulation of the response of the CC to various experimental operating conditions: e.g. a fast ramping of the transport current typically done in measurements of the critical current Ic or sinusoidal changes of an external magnetic field typically used in AC loss measurements. The models also allow calculating the response to arbitrary combinations of current and field changes. The superconductor is modelled by using either a simple power-law E(J) characteristic or one which also accounts for field and temperature dependences. The obtained results go beyond Bean's approximation, which is mostly employed for interpreting such flux penetration effects. One consequence is that hysteretic losses, which in Bean's model are frequency independent, show a dependence on the time scales of current or field changes. The field and frequency ranges where such deviations from Bean's model should be taken into account are discussed.


In this paper we estimate technical efficiency in International Air Transport, by means of Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) using a panel set of the world's twenty-four (24) largest network airlines, for the period 1991-2000. The results are compared to those from Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a popular approach for efficiency measurement in the literature. Findings suggest that airlines experience constant returns to scale, while technical efficiency ranges between 51% and 97% approximately. Furthermore, the level of technology experienced a slight increase, while the privatization of few of the airlines in the data set didn't seem to affect their technical efficiency. Results from SFA and DEA do not vary significantly.


Bisphosphonates have proven efficacy in reducing skeletal complications in metastatic breast cancer. Potent third generation bisphosphonates are more effective but the dose limiting toxicity is usually renal. Ibandronate is a 3rd generation bisphosphonate available in oral and intravenous form which offers many clinical advantages in ease of administration and lack of renal toxicity. A dose-response effect has been observed between 2mg and 6 mg IV doses and there is a single study suggesting that higher dosing (4 mg IV daily for 3 days) is tolerable and effective. A steady state of oral ibandronate is achieved at 8 days with oral administration but time to response is not known. In trials so far, IV ibandronate 6mgs appears safe. Due to lack of renal toxicity there is potential for further escalation of IV ibandronate. The objective of this study was to establish if an IV loading dose can improve efficacy and time to biochemical response compared to oral standard therapy and to assess the safety of a higher IV dose of ibandronate. Methods and Patients: This was an open randomised phase II study conducted on patients with bone metastases from breast cancer comparing IV ibandronate 12 mg on day 1 followed by oral ibandronate 50 mgs daily (Arm A) with standard oral therapy of 50 mgs daily from day 1 (Arm B). The primary study end-point was the percentage reduction in serum CTX from baseline by day 5 on study, secondary end- points were the percentage reduction of bone turnover markers including serum CTX from baseline end of week 8 and percentage reduction in urine NTX from baseline to day 5 on study and baseline to end of week 1–8. Bone pain was recorded by Brief Pain Inventory. Patients had metastatic breast cancer with proven bone metastases, no previous treatment with bisphosphonates or other bone directed therapy within 6 months and no change in systemic therapy within a 3 months preceding trial therapy. Sample size of 22 patients in each arm was calculated to give a 90% chance detecting a 20% difference in average percentage reduction between the IV and oral arms. Results: Seventeen patients were randomised to each study arm. A more rapid change in bone turnover markers was demonstrated in patients recieving the 12 mg loading dose of ibandronate. There was a 15.8% greater reduction of serum CTX in Arm A compared with Arm B at day 5, p=0.005. The percentage reduction of serum PINP at day 5 was also greater in Arm A, p=0.002. Over the 8 week period of study there was no overall significant difference in bone turnover markers. All patients had pain at study entry, median baseline pain severity scores were 3 in study arm and 4 in controls. Average bone pair score remained higher in treatment arm B at the end of 8 weeks. There were no additional adverse side-effects following administration of 12 mg of IV ibandronate and no evidence of additional renal toxicity. Conclusion: A 12 mg dose of IV ibandronate can be safely administered without additional renal toxicity. A rapid reduction in bone turnover markers is demonstrated within 5 days of IV loading dose of ibandronate. Potential exists for dose escalation of ibandronate. The clinical benefit of a more rapid reduction in bone turnover markers is unknown. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-16-05.


The developmental process of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is famously invariant; however, these animals have surprisingly variable lifespans, even in extremely homogenous environments. Inter‐individual differences in muscle‐function decline, accumulation of lipofuscin in the gut, internal growth of food bacteria, and ability to mobilize heat‐shock responses all appear to be predictive of a nematode's remaining lifespan; whether these are causal, or mere correlates of individual decline and death, has yet to be determined. Moreover, few "upstream" causes of inter‐individual variability have been identified. It may be the case that variability in lifespan is entirely due to stochastic damage accumulation; alternately, perhaps such variability has a developmental origin and/or genes involved in developmental canalization also act to buffer phenotypic heterogeneity later in life. We review these two hypotheses with an eye toward whether they can be experimentally differentiated. Developmental Dynamics 239:1306–1314, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The essay takes up an aspect of German-American relations first raised by Eduard Baumgarten and Wilhelm Hennis. Unlike them, it argues that Weber and James were in any simple sense cultural opposites, basing this finding upon an examination of the two men's views on religion, psychology and 'pragmatism'. However, James seemed to correspond well to Weber's idea of Anglo-American Kultur, and any perceived difference certainly did not imply low esteem. Nonetheless, there is a warning here against too simple or unreflective a view of Weber's undoubted enthusiasm for things American and English; and a reminder that for Weber Kultur could be read both as international and as national.


The goal of this thesis is to modify projection pursuit by trading accuracy for interpretability. The modification produces a more parsimonious and understandable model without sacrificing the structure which projection pursuit seeks. The method retains the nonlinear versatility of projection pursuit while clarifying the results. Following an introduction which outlines the dissertation, the first and second chapters contain the technique as applied to exploratory projection pursuit and projection pursuit regression respectively. The interpretability of a description is measured as the simplicity of the coefficients which define its linear projections. Several interpretability indices for a set of vectors are defined based on the ideas of rotation in factor analysis and entropy. The two methods require slightly different indices due to their contrary goals. A roughness penalty weighting approach is used to search for a more parsimonious description, with interpretability replacing smoothness. The computational algorithms for both interpretable exploratory projection pursuit and interpretable projection pursuit regression are described. In the former case, a rotationally invariant projection index is needed and defined. In the latter, alterations in the original algorithm are required. Examples of real data are considered in each situation. The third chapter deals with the connections between the proposed modification and other ideas which seek to produce more interpretable models. The Abstract Page iv modification as applied to linear regression is shown to be analogous to a nonlinear continuous method of variable selection. It is compared with other variable selection techniques and is analyzed in a Bayesian context. Possible extensions to other data analysis methods are cited and avenues for future research are identified. The conclusion addresses the issue of sacrificing accuracy for parsimony in general. An example of calculating the tradeoff between accuracy and interpretability due to a common simplifying action, namely rounding the binwidth for a histogram, illustrates the applicability of the approach.Page iv modification as applied to linear regression is shown to be analogous to a nonlinear continuous method of variable selection. It is compared with other variable selection techniques and is analyzed in a Bayesian context. Possible extensions to other data analysis methods are cited and avenues for future research are identified. The conclusion addresses the issue of sacrificing accuracy for parsimony in general. An example of calculating the tradeoff between accuracy and interpretability due to a common simplifying action, namely rounding the binwidth for a histogram, illustrates the applicability of the approach.


AbstractTaking Belarmino as a portrait of the atmosphere of Lisbon in the early 1960s rather than the cinebiography of the relatively minor sportsman Belarmino Fragoso, this article analyses how the protagonist's circulation by foot in the city is used to convey this 'soggy grey ambiance'. Drawing on Bruno's ideas concerning film and flânerie, it is argued that by observing the protagonist's impoverished interaction with everyday urban space, with which struggle an explicit parallel with his career as a boxer is drawn, the viewer emotionally experiences the isolation and alienation of the protagonist. Supposed to stand as a metaphor for Lisbon and Portugal, this emotional access to the protagonist's plight permits Belarmino to stand, as the director wished, as a portrait of the city in a certain epoch of its history: 'you look at Lisbon in the film and you see what Lisbon was like back then' (Lopes).


Research activities in mobile computing environments have been focused, in recent years. To deal with the dynamic nature of mobile environments, middleware has been cited as an appropriate approach for the development of mobile applications. Several middleware models have been proposed so far. We have proposed a new model in middleware, based on tuple-spaces. Clustering technique is applied to tuple-spaces, in order to increase the performance, when a large number of tuples are involved. The proposed model is developed, and implemented as a coordination service in mobile computing environments. Tuple-space has a few partitions and a tuple space manager controls them. We conclude that, exploiting this model improves accessibility, security and fault toleration.


In a static magnetic field paramagnetic and nonmagnetic colloids immersed in a ferrofluid self-assemble into fluctuating colloidal flowers. Adsorption and desorption of nonmagnetic petals to larger paramagnetic cores and changes in the petal conformation around the paramagnetic core induce a fluctuating dynamics. We track the motion of colloidal petals on the paramagnetic core. Adsorption and desorption of petals occur on a larger time scale than the rotational diffusion of the petals. Magnetic dipole interactions split the motion of the petals into different modes of rotational diffusion. Modes of rotational diffusion that change the petal conformation are suppressed compared to the conformation invariant rotational diffusion of all petals. The suppression of higher modes of rotational diffusion results in a subdiffusive dynamics of the individual petals.


Exciton binding energies and wavefunctions are calculated for spherical quantum dots of GaAs embedded in GaAlAs for a range of radii from 10 to 200 AA. The calculations use the quantum Monte Carlo method which allows the finite potential barriers in this system to be treated in a straightforward manner. The exciton binding energy and absorption intensity are found to pass through a maximum for dots of approximately 30 AA radius; strong optical non-linearities would be expected in dots of this size.


A Michelson twin interferometer is described, which is used for precise measurements of the refractive index n of gases in the visible wavelength range and temperatures between 100 K and 1300 K. The evacuated twin interferometer (length 2.4 m, diameter 90 mm) consists of two adjacent identical Michelson interferometers A and B, using the same beam splitter and mirrors. Interferometer A serves as the proper measuring interferometer with the gas sample cell in measuring beam 1 and the identical, but evacuated, reference cell in its reference beam 2. Interferometer B is used only for controlling the geometrical changes of the interferometer equipment during the refractive index measurements performed with interferometer A. Both the gas sample cell and the reference cell are made from quartz glass and thermostated. The construction of this very stable twin interferometer as well as the devices for gas pressure and temperature measurements are described in detail.


Perspectives on salvage treatment in prostate cancer Salvage treatment represents the second radical treatment after the first attempt has failed. Up to 38% of patients will be informed after primary radical prostatectomy (P-RP) that their margins were positive, that recurrence is likely and that adjuvant salvage radiotherapy (S-RT) should be considered [1]. The percentage of patients with evidence of recurrence after primary radiotherapy (P-RT) depends on whether and how follow-up biopsies are taken. Positive biopsy rates as high as 67% have been reported [2]. Ablative technologies should not be considered as salvage therapy methods unless they are recognized as a true primary treatment. High-intensity focused ultrasonography and cryoablation may be used as primary treatments in carefully selected patients, although only cryoablation is recommended in the current European Association of Urology guidelines [3].


Neither the limits of elements and processes of the petroleum systems of Colombian sedimentary basins are known nor interpreted without ambiguities undermining the reservoir complexities and hampering the data integration in the upstream business. Partly it is due to poor understanding of the datasets and poorly articulated data modelling, visualization and interpretation artefacts in complex geological regimes. We propose an ontology based multidimensional warehouse repository approach with ontology constructs and models for various data sources, acquired from multiple domains of upstream business. We choose several data volumes, variety of multidimensional data attributes and their fact instances for interpreting seismically integrated geological horizons. Structure and fracture attribute map views are computed to ascertain the density of fractures and their orientations, calibrating the fracture signatures with production data existing within the interpreted faulted compartments. Field development plans are assessed based on new knowledge, obtained from domain ontology descriptions, exploring connections among multi-stacked fractured reservoirs. Though we find no structural bearing on the accumulations of oil and gas in the study area, the fracture density and orientation appear to have definite bearing on production. Integrated framework minimizes the ambiguity involved in the interpretation of fractures, their density and orientations in the study area.


The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the organizational justice levels and the turnover intention of trainers working in different departments. The present research was designed with relational screening model. Organizational Justice Scale developed by Kim (2009) and adapted to Turkish by Sayın and Şahin (2017) and the Turnover Intention Scale developed by Mobley et al. (1978) were applied to 382 volunteer participants. One-way analysis of variance was used in order to determine whether there was a significant difference in turnover intention and organizational justice levels according to demographic characteristics of participants. Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated in order to determine the level of relationship between the participants' organizational justice levels and their turnover intention. Significance level was taken as 0.05. At the end of the study, it was determined that there was a negative and medium level relationship between the organizational justice levels of the trainers and their turnover intention. When evaluating them in terms of demographic variables, it was determined that as the level of educational level of the trainers increases, the level of distribution justice sub-dimension decreases and the levels of organizational perception of the trainers, whose branches are the combat sport, were low.


In May 2020, the General Court rendered its long-awaited judgment in the UK mobile merger case (Case T-399/16). At issue in this case was whether the Commission lawfully prohibited the acquisition by Hutchison of O2 (Telefónica UK) back in 2016. That deal would have reduced the number of mobile network operators in the UK from four to three.

Hutchison appealed the Commission's prohibition decision to the General Court and won, as the General Court annulled the Commission decision.The judgment contains a wealth of interesting holdings, among others on the standard of proof in merger cases, the legal test to prohibit mergers, the role of market shares and concentration levels, the notion of "important competitive force", the meaning of "close competitors" and on the probative value of a quantitative analysis of the effects of a merger.

This note summarizes and comments on the key parts of the Court's judgment.


This study aimed to produce practical guide labwork using a project-based learning models to know the quality of products and to produce practical guide that can be used as a learning media. The study consisted of a preliminary study in the form of carbohydrat tests such as: iodine test, seliwanoff's test and moore test. Lipid solubility test within alcohol, ether and chloroform. Protein tests: biuret test, test and xanthoprotein ninhydrin test. Vitamin C tests: benedict test and iodine test. The results of the research were developed into a practical guide with coreldraw x6 software applications and Microsoft Word 2010 through the stages of data entry into the software developer, the preparation of layout and provision of the activity in laboratory. The final result of the product was a user-based food testing laboratory project. The product guide assess by a subject expert, a media expert, a biology teacher, 5 peer reviewers, while experts responded that module classified into "very good" with a percentage of 85.80%. The assessment from 20 students of class XI and XII High School get a percentage rating of 78.60% with good quality.


The significance of nauplii versus copepodite stage V of Calanus finmarchicus grazing and their effects on the structure of the food web were investigated during two sampling periods of 7-8 days in March and April in experimental mesocosms held in a Norwegian fjord over a 2 month period. The mesocosms were manipulated by the addition of two different levels of inorganic nutrients (control versus enriched). During the naupliar' period in March, the phytoplankton was characterized by a diatom bloom while during the copepodite' period in April, it was in a post-bloom phase characterized by small-celled species, mainly Phaeocystis pouchetii. Phytoplankton, bacterial and protozooan biomass and production rates were measured in addition to copepod hiomass. Copepod grazing was estimated by three different methods: (i) gut fluorescence; (ii) chlorophyll clearance from the water; and (iii) growth method measured as body carbon increase. The two latter methods gave similar results for nauplii, hut all three gave different results for the copepodites. Independent somatic growth, based on changes in abundance and individual carbon content, and grazing estimates revealed an overall growth efficiency of 0.66 ± 0.20 (mean ± S.E.) for copepodites. Empirical carbon flow models were constructed, wnich indicated that the nauplii could not control either phytoplankton or protozoan growth in either the control or in the enriched system. Ignoring recycling and sedimentation, the late of the primary production for the nauplii-dominated community was to he grazed by a diverse and abundant protozooplankton community. In the copepodite-dominated community, the copepods grazed >100% of the daily primary production, and also grazed heavily on a protozooplankton community of low biomass and diversity and presumably on detritus. The fate of the primary production in the two different copepod scenarios followed predicted routes for low meso-zooplankton' and for 'high meso-zooplankton' biomass systems, as suggested by Wassmann (Wassmann. 1998).


CONTEXT
Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) hamartoma tumor syndrome (PHTS) is a complex disorder caused by germline-inactivating mutations of the PTEN tumor suppressor gene. Carriers develop benign and malignant tumors of multiple tissues, including the breast, thyroid, intestine, and skin. Surveillance to facilitate the early detection and treatment of malignancies is recommended but, because thyroid cancers have been reported almost exclusively in adults, childhood risk is considered to be low, and consensus guidelines recommend that surveillance imaging begin at 18 yr of age.

OBJECTIVE/PATIENTS
Seven children with PHTS referred to two thyroidologists form the basis of this report. Medical records, operative histology, and PTEN mutational analysis were reviewed to evaluate the pediatric presentation of PHTS-associated thyroid neoplasia.

RESULTS
Five of the seven children presented with thyroid nodules or thyroid cancer between the ages of 6 and 12 yr, often as the initially identified component of their PHTS. Two others were diagnosed with PHTS on the basis of extrathyroidal features but had markedly abnormal screening ultrasounds with solid thyroid nodule(s) of at least 2 cm, despite the documentation of normal physical examinations. Five of the seven children in this cohort developed thyroid cancer.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with PHTS can develop thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer in early childhood. This argues both for a high index of suspicion for PHTS in children diagnosed with multiple thyroid nodules and for careful thyroid surveillance in children diagnosed with PHTS. Because early detection improves the outcome of thyroid cancer, we recommend ultrasound surveillance for all patients upon the confirmation of a germline PTEN mutation, regardless of their age.


The authors characterize spinal cord traumatic disease (SCTD) and methods of the taxonomic evaluation of the index (IR) and degree of rehabilitation (DR), which allow the control over the efficacy of the treatment of patients suffering from SCTD. The IR and DR of two treatment types are compared in two groups of patients with SCTD (n-153, 47 controls). The method suggested makes it possible to accurately control the IR and DR of each patient with SCTD as well as to use the findings obtained for elaborating the program of rehabilitation of patients with SCTD and for computer-based analysis.


A multicenter, open‐label study was performed to investigate the safety and tolerability of bosentan in Japanese patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and secondary digital ulcers. Twenty‐eight patients were enrolled. The safety and tolerability of bosentan was monitored over 52 weeks of study treatment (primary end‐point), while incidence and healing of digital ulcers were also assessed up to week 16. The following adverse events occurred in 5% or more of patients during the 52‐week treatment period: upper respiratory tract infection (50.0%), abnormal liver function tests (42.9%), digital ulcers (25.0%), anemia (17.9%), peripheral edema (14.3%), diarrhea (10.7%), urinary tract infection (7.1%), arthralgia (7.1%), constipation (7.1%) and herpes zoster (7.1%). Eight patients experienced at least one serious adverse event, including drug‐related serious adverse events in two patients, which were abnormal liver function tests and fluid retention (pericardial effusion) in one patient each. During the 16‐week observation period, seven out of 28 patients (25%) developed new digital ulcers. In this study, adverse events were comparable with those previously reported with bosentan. Approximately half of the patients had adverse events associated with abnormal liver function tests, thus we conclude that liver function should be monitored regularly during treatment with bosentan.


Purpose of the study was to investigate the features of the occurrence of risk factors in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease associated with arterial hypertension, overweight and obesity. Material and methods. The object of the study was the data of 14 393 case histories of patients with arterial hypertension (AH), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NFLD), overweight body (OB) and obesity, examined and treated at the clinic of the Federal Research Center for Fundamental and Translational Medicine Results and discussion. Features of biochemical parameters in patients with NFLD with AH, OB and obesity were studied in comparison with patients with isolated diseases. It was shown that in patients, in case of the presence of this comorbidity, the value of transsystem polymorbidity is statistically significantly increased compared with groups of patients with isolated diseases. It was established that patients with concomitant diseases have higher, statistically significant values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body mass index. They have higher concentrations of total cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, glucose, uric acid in the blood serum, higher atherogenic index. A study of the frequency of occurrence of risk factors in the groups showed the highest frequency values in patients with associated diseases: high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, hypercholesterolemia, hypoalphacholesterolemia, hyperlipidemia, increased atherogenic index, hyperglycemia, hyperuricemia, the higher levels of C-reactive protein, which indicates that with associated pathology, changes in carbohydrate, lipid and purine metabolism are more pronounced. These changes are factors that aggravate the course of the pathology and are risk factors for the development of diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and associated conditions, which requires a personalized approach to the treatment and prevention of this category of patients. The results of this study can form the basis for the development of new medical technology for assessing the severity of condition in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease combined with arterial hypertension, overweight and obesity.


In this paper we study the problem of determining the location of nodes in a wireless sensor network, describing a fully decentralized algorithm called HECOPS, where every node estimates its own position after interacting with other nodes. Only a limited number of nodes have exact knowledge of their position coordinates. Any node can, however, be selected as a reference. We establish a ranking system to determine the reliability of each estimated position. This leads to a novel approach for position calculation that uses fewer but more reliable landmarks, thus reducing data communication and limiting error propagation. We present heuristics that are used to reduce the effects of measurement errors, including a scheme to calibrate range measurements by comparing, whenever possible, the estimated distance with the actual distance between a pair of nodes. Experiments demonstrate that the algorithm is superior to a previously proposed method in terms of its ability to compute correct coordinates under a wider variety of conditions and its robustness to measurement errors.


GOSAT (Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite) is an Earth observing satellite, launched in January 2009. The satellite equips two sensors, TANSO-FTS (Thermal And Near-infrared Sensor for carbon Observations ? Fourier Transform Spectrometer) and TANSO-CAI (Thermal And Near-infrared Sensor for carbon Observations ? Cloud and Aerosol Imager). TANSO-FTS is a primary sensor of the satellite devoted to measuring concentrations of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide and methane. On the other had, TANSO-CAI is a secondary sensor and the purpose of this is to detect clouds and aerosols with four bands, 380 nm, 674 nm, 870 nm, and 1600 nm, from near ultraviolet to near infrared. The precision of retrieval of greenhouse gases gets lower, when an area is contaminated with clouds or aerosols but greenhouse gases are retrieved without any consideration for clouds or aerosols. Aerosol retrieval is also important for understanding the direct and indirect influence of aerosols on climate as assessed by the IPCC-AR4. In this study, we have developed an aerosol remote sensing algorithm implement for operational process. Over ocean area, two-channel method 2000) is implemented. Both of Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) and Angstrom Exponent (AE) are retrieved by use of 674 nm and 870 nm. Over the land area, we a modified Kaufman (MK) method, which is a modified of Kaufman method and retrieved AOT with use of 380 nm. It is difficult to estimate the ground reflectance with use of minimum reflectance (MR) method of the observation frequency is not enough for TANSO-CAI case. In MK method, we use NDVI, which is calculated by MR of 674 nm and 870 nm, and the MR of 674 nm to estimate the reflectance of 380 nm. The relationships between NDVI, MR of 674 nm and 380 nm are determined empirically. It is thought that the values of retrieved AOT are influenced by the assumptions of characteristics of aerosol particle, such as mode radius and standard deviation of particle size distribution function, single scattering albedo (SSA) and aerosol layer height. These parameters are fixed in the current version of operational algorithm. We performed sensitivity tests to study such assumptions do not cause a significant error for retrieval other than the assumption of SSA. Mode radius and standard deviation of particle size distribution function do not produce large errors even if they are fixed in the algorithm. However, SSA is thought to be the reason of large error if they are far from real value. We have calculated correlation coefficient between AOT of CAI and AOT of AERONET(AErosol ROBotic NETwork) in condition that both SSA is fixed and SSA is from averaged value of AERONETS. The result shows that correlation coefficients are improved in some sites, but in some other sites, correlation coefficients are not improved. We need to investigate this result further. We further discuss a use of the 1600-nm channel as a reference band of Kaufman method to estimate the ground reflectance at 680 nm to retrieve AOT at 680 nm.


The discussion about counting methods in bibliometrics is often reduced to the choice between full and fractional counting. However, several studies document that this distinction is too simple. The aim of the present study is to give an overview of counting methods in the bibliometric literature and to provide insight into their properties and use. A mix of methods is used. In the preliminary results, a literature review covering 1970-2018 identified 29 original counting methods. Seventeen were introduced in the period 2010-2018. Twenty-one of the 29 counting methods are rank-dependent and fractionalized meaning that the authors of a publications share 1 credit but do not receive equal shares, for example harmonic counting. The internal and external validation of the counting methods are assessed. Three criteria for well-constructed bibliometric indicators - adequacy, sensitivity, and homogeneity - are used to assess the internal validity. Regarding the external validation of the counting methods, it is investigated whether the intentions in the studies that introduced the 29 counting methods comply with the subsequent use of the counting methods. This study has the potential to give a solid foundation for the use of and discussion about counting methods.


We report a rare case of proximal fibular fatigue fracture developing 14 years after total knee arthroplasty in a known case of rheumatoid arthritis. A valgus deformity of the knee can put abnormal stress on the upper fibula leading to its failure. We believe that, as the fibula acts as an important lateral strut, its disruption due to a fracture led to rapid progress of the valgus deformity of the knee in this patient.


BACKGROUND
Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery leads to significant weight loss and reduced morbidity in patients with severe obesity. The technique was introduced at the private Aleris hospital the autumn 2005. We here present the method and results from our initial experience.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Inclusion criteria were BMI > 40 kg/m2 or BMI 35-39,9 kg/m2 , with obesity-related co-morbidity for more than 5 years and insufficient effect of conservative treatment. The first 121 (103 women) consecutive patients who underwent gastric bypass surgery at Aleris Hospital were included. Characteristics were; mean age 40 years (18-68), mean preoperative body weight 134 kg (91-211) and BMI 44 m/kg 2 (35-64). Serious complications or major morbidity were defined as anastomosis- or intestinal leakage and bleeding requiring surgical treatment.

RESULTS
No deaths or major morbidity was observed the first 30 days after surgery. One patient underwent successful surgery of a perforated ulcer localized distally to the gastro-jejunal anastomoses 3 months p.o. Mean operating time was 62 min (40-124) for patients who underwent isolated laparoscopic bypass. The mean hospitalisation time was 2.9 days (2-6).

CONCLUSION
Our results demonstrate that bariatric surgery can be established successfully with a low rate of perioperative complications. We believe that thorough planning and experienced bariatric surgeons contribute to our favourable results. .


This research paper aims at extracting features, especially the plane feature, of building from Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) point clouds in Urban Area, and with these features and information to build the model of object. Unlike modeling object in other fields, such as reverse engineering, surfaces of building usually consist of abundant big and plane surfaces which are significant features. In urban area, most buildings can be simplified to the models that are made up of approximate plane surfaces to which features of buildings refer, in this paper. Among these surfaces, there are distinct points and intersection lines (the edges and vertices of the building object). Plane detection, surface adjacency relations restoration, model parameter calculation, and model reconstruction constitute the main research of extracting geometric features and modeling the object. In this contribution, some examples of deriving information from the point clouds are presented to demonstrate the method. And, the results prove that when the geometric information of vertices, edges and normal lines of the plane surface, together with the topological relations (Surface adjacency relations) among them, is derived from the point cloud data, the model, representing building in this paper, can be built effectively. Equally significant, models generated from this method, while occupying less memory space, can store more comprehensive structural information, and have a better exhibitive effect. And this method can provide three dimensional data of buildings from point cloud data in applications like GIS, navigation and virtual city.