Studies have shown that aluminum (Al) is associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) causality, however, the mechanism underlying this link remains unclear. To investigate the Al neurotoxicity, the high Al-affinity protein from pig hippocampus was screened by native gel electrophoresis and Al3+ plus 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) staining. The protein with high Al3+ affinity was identified to be 14-3-3ζ, which was then used for raising antibodies. By 8-HQ staining and immunocytochemical localization, we found that the co-location of Al3+ and 14-3-3ζ increased markedly in the Al-exposed rat hippocampus tissue and the cultured rat primary hippocampal neuronal cells. By immune analysis with antibodies against tau, we found that tau accumulation mainly located in the neurons of cornu amonis 3 and dentate gyrus of the rat hippocampus. Total free tau in hippocampus tissue and in neuronal cells increased 26.0% and 20.2%, respectively after Al-exposure. By immunofluorescent staining, we found that the levels of tau and 14-3-3ζ co-location declined 15.9% or 12.1% in the hippocampus tissue or in neuronal cells after Al exposure. These findings indicated that 14-3-3ζ combing with tau can prevent the over phosphorylation of tau and can be disturbed by Al exposure due to Al3+ binding to 14-3-3ζ, which could account for the mechanisms underlying Al neurotoxicity related to AD.


Next‐generation flow (NGF) has detected minimal residual disease (MRD) in numerous myeloma patients who achieve a complete response (CR). However, when MRD is not detected via NGF in non‐CR patients, its clinical meaning is uncertain. Here, we investigated the correlation between MRD findings on NGF and the response criteria, paying special attention to patients with discrepant results. We performed NGS analysis of IgH rearrangements on bone marrow samples from the non‐CR patients with negative MRD on NGF. NGS detected residual abnormal clones in those patients, suggesting that NGF and NGS should be used in a complementary manner for MRD investigation.


Friction and nanoscratch tests were performed on amorphous carbon thin films deposited on silicon. The effect of process and conditions on CVD deposited films was studied. Coefficient of friction between the films was estimated by using a special oscillating microtribometer. The lateral force and maximum depth of scratching were measured during nanoscratch tests. The comparison of tribological behavior of the tested films is presented and discussed.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


The review summarises the achievements in the theory of the equation of state. Novel approaches and new high-precision equations of state for one- and multicomponent fluid systems are consdidered. The results are given for both bulk phases and surface monolayers including two-dimensional equations. In the framework of the theory based on the exclusion factor, a hierarchy of approximations is formulated, incorporating both well-established and relatively new equations of state.


The tumour suppressor protein p53 is a sequence-specific transcription factor that coordinates one molecule of zinc in the core domain. In our recent study, magnesium can also bind to the p53DBD and enhance its DNA-binding activity. In this study, a systematic analysis of the conformation and stability changes induced by these two metal ions was reported. The spectra of protein intrinsic fluorescence were used to measure the equilibrium unfolding of the p53DBD protein. The stability against chemical denaturation increased in the order apo < Mg(2+) < Zn(2+). The thermal stability monitored by DSC scans showed that the binding of metal ions to p53DBD increased the thermal stability of the protein. To explore additional information of structural changes after the binding of metal ions, we used the fluorescent probes to evaluate the hydrophobic surface exposure. The results established that metal ions binding increased hydrophobic exposure on the surface of p53DBD. Analysis of acrylamide quenching experiments revealed that the binding of metal ions to p53DBD induced a structural modification of the protein and this change provided significant protection against acrylamide quenching. Overall, the present results indicated that p53DBD underwent a conformational change upon the binding of metal ions, which was characterized by an increased stability of the protein.


The high risk of recurrence in post‐operative hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) highlights the need for an effective adjuvant treatment. A systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) was performed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of adjuvant adoptive immunotherapy (AIT) for post‐operative HCC patients. Electronic (MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Library databases) and manual searches were conducted throughout May 2011 to identify RCTs evaluating postoperative AIT for patients with HCC. Methodological quality was assessed in accordance with the QUOROM statement. Four RCTs totalling 423 patients met the eligibility criteria. All RCTs reported significantly improved disease‐free survival rate or reduced recurrence rate after treating with adjuvant AIT (p < 0.05). The overall survival rates of AIT group are slightly higher than those of the control group in one study. Moreover, AIT was a safe treatment, with fever as the main adverse effects. This study adds to the evidence that postoperative HCC patients treated with adjuvant AIT show an improvement in disease‐free survival rate or recurrence rate.


Abstract The present study evaluated short- and long-term efficacy and tolerability of augmentative vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in a group of patients with treatment-resistant depression (N = 6). A statistically significant improvement in the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS21) and Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale after 3 months (P = 0.039 and P = 0.05, respectively) was found in comparison with baseline (VNS implant). After 12 months, a statistically significant improvement was observed in the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS21), Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, and Clinical Global Impression (P = 0.01, P = 0.005, and P = 0.001, respectively). Patients showed an overall favorable tolerability. Present data support VNS short- and long-term efficacy and tolerability in a small group of patients with treatment-resistant depression. Further controlled investigation is necessary to confirm the present open findings.


The Peloponnese, a province of the Byzantine Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries, was divided into three distinct political entities after 1204: the Frankish Principality of Achaia, the Venetian colonies of Modon and Coron, and the Byzantine lands in the southeast. The number and size of cities in the Peloponnese during the 11th and 12th centuries expanded, and the establishment of the new political entities of the 13th century did not hinder the development of its urban centers. New urban centers appeared, and the dynamics of the old urban centers witnessed a major shift. The focus of this paper is on port towns, since the majority of the available data derive from them, and aims to investigate the economic centrality of the port towns in the Peloponnese in the context of their environs, economic activities, and their position in the eastern Mediterranean exchange system. The theoretical framework is based on concepts of network theory, centrality, and economic complexity, as well as on a thorough evaluation of the material and textual evidence. In doing so, the economic profile of each central place is reconstructed, as well as a comparison between them.


A total of 18 patients with amebic peritonitis were studied. Fourteen of these cases were due to rupture of amebic liver abscess into the peritoneum and the remaining cases were due to perforation of amebic colitis. No initial suspicion of amebic etiology was made in more than half of the cases. In the group of ruptured liver abscesses, nearly half of the patients showed right lower lung syndrome. The diagnosis in 13 of 14 cases of rupture of liver abscess was confirmed on aspiration. Patients with ruptured amebic liver abcess were of two types: 1. Diffuse type with diffuse signs, shorter duration of illness and poor prognosis. 2. Localized type with longer duration of illness, marked signs of peritonitis and better prognosis. Once the diagnosis of peritonitis was made, the management was surgical. Conservative treatment was tried only in cases with signs of localization. The mortality rate had been 33% in amebic liver abscess rupturing into the peritoneum and 75% in perforation of the intestine. A high index of suspicion of amebiasis in patients with an acute abdomen and institution of early treatment are recommended to help in reducing this mortality. Amebic liver abscess and amebic dysentery should be treated energetically to avoid this fatal complication and surgical intervention whenever indicated should not be delayed.


About the book:

A Cultural History of The Human Body presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers 2800 years of the human body as a physical, social, spiritual and cultural object.

Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters:

1. Birth and Death
2. Health and Disease
3. Sex & Sexuality
4. Medical Knowledge and Technology
5. Popular Beliefs
6. Beauty and Concepts of the Ideal
7. Marked Bodies I: Gender, Race, Class, Age, Disability and Disease
8. Marked Bodies II: the Bestial, the Divine and the Natural
9. Cultural Representations of the Body
10. The Self and Society

This means readers can either have a broad overview of a period by reading a volume or follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Superbly illustrated, the full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on the human body through history.


A short-term high-calorie high-fat diet (HCHFD) impairs insulin sensitivity in non-obese South Asian but not Caucasian men; however, the effect of short-term HCHFD on insulin sensitivity in East Asians is unknown. We recruited 21 healthy non-obese Japanese men to evaluate metabolic parameters and gut microbiota before and after 6-day HCHFD consisting of a regular diet plus a 45% energy excess with dairy fat supplementation. We evaluated tissue-specific insulin sensitivity and metabolic clearance rate of insulin (MCRI) using a two-step hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp, glucose tolerance using the glucose tolerance test, and measured ectopic fat in muscle and the liver using ¹H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The primary outcome of this study was insulin sensitivity measured by the clamp study. The secondary/exploratory outcomes were other metabolic changes. After HCHFD, levels of circulating lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP), a marker of endotoxemia, increased by 14%. In addition, intramyocellular lipid levels in the tibialis anterior and soleus and intrahepatic lipid levels increased by 47%, 31%, and 200%, respectively. Insulin sensitivity decreased by 4% in muscle and 8% in liver. However, even with reduced insulin sensitivity, glucose metabolism was maintained by increased serum insulin concentrations due to lower MCRI and higher endogenous insulin secretion during the clamp. Glucose levels during the meal tolerance test were comparable before and after HCHFD. In conclusion, short-term HCHFD impaired insulin sensitivity in the muscle and livers of non-obese Japanese men with increased LBP and ectopic fat accumulation. Elevated insulin levels from modulated insulin secretion and clearance might contribute to the maintenance of normal glucose metabolism during the clamp and meal tolerance test.


Molecular analysis of the polymorphic region of the bovine coronavirus (BCoV)-S gene using recent Japanese field isolates and reference strains revealed that the 148 isolates collected from 1999 to 2008 from 13 prefectures, covering all regions of Japan (Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyusyu region) and divided into 3 clusters, show distinctive divergence from the prototype enteric BCoV strains. Almost all isolates after 2005 were clustered into group 4, and there was no regional specificity in these clusters. To differentiate the genotypes without sequencing, a simple technique-reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction/restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (RT-PCR/RFLP)-was developed. The availability of a simple and easy diagnostic assay will enable larger epidemiological studies of BCoV.


Washington, D. C, Sept. 6th, 1893. Gentlemen :—We are assembled for the purpose of discussing questions relating to military medicine· and surgery; to consider what progress has been made in the treatment of camp diseases and of gunshot wounds as a result of recent discoveries relating to the etiology of infectious diseases and of traumatic infections; to profit by the experience of those· who have had experience in the care of wounded men upon the field of battle and of the sick of armies engaged in actual warfare; to deliberate as to the best methods of transporting the wounded from the firing line and of rendering them the immediate assistance which may be required to save life; to compare the injuries inflicted by firearms now in use with those which came under our observation when a larger bullet with a much less initial velocity was the missile which caused a majority


The recently introduced notion of ASP abstraction is on reducing the vocabulary of a program while ensuring overapproximation of its answer sets, with a focus on having a syntactic operator that constructs an abstract program. It has been shown that such a notion has the potential for program analysis at the abstract level by getting rid of irrelevant details to problem solving while preserving the structure, that aids in the explanation of the solutions. We take here a further look on ASP abstraction, focusing on abstraction by omission with the aim to obtain a better understanding of the notion. We distinguish the key conditions for omission abstraction which sheds light on the differences to the well-studied notion of forgetting. We demonstrate how omission abstraction fits into the overall spectrum, by also investigating its behavior in the semantics of a program in the framework of HT logic.


Backdoor attacks (BA) are an emerging threat to deep neural network classifiers. A classifier being attacked will predict to the attacker's target class when a test sample from a source class is embedded with the backdoor pattern (BP). Recently, the first BA against point cloud (PC) classifiers was proposed, creating new threats to many important applications including autonomous driving. Such PC BAs are not detectable by existing BA defenses due to their special BP embedding mechanism. In this paper, we propose a reverse-engineering defense that infers whether a PC classifier is backdoor attacked, without access to its training set or to any clean classifiers for reference. The effectiveness of our defense is demonstrated on the benchmark ModeNet40 dataset for PCs.


Some commercial samples of bovine catalase contain superoxide dismutase activity. Therefore the inhibition of a reaction on the addition of a catalase preparation need not necessarily mean that H(2)O(2) is responsible for the reaction.


The main purposes of this study are to find out the temporal fluctuation of marine fish community based on impingement data collected at the Second Nuclear Power Plant in recent years (September 2000 to May 2004), and to compare the recent fish community structure data to that of an earlier period, around 14 years ago (July 1987 to April 1990).
Comparison of the data collected recently to that collected 14 years ago showed that there were no yearly or monthly differences. However, the community structures reflected by clustering dendrograms or MDS ordination plots were quite different between earlier and recent years. This difference is likely due to the drastic changes in the dominant species. Fourteen years ago, the most dominant species was mullet (Mugil cephalus), but now, it has changed to lower economic species like rabbitfishes (Siganus fuscescens) and spiny puffer (Diodon holocanthus). This phenomenon might reflect the declination in our fishery resources due to overfishing; a trend especially clear in those species with higher economic values.


With this book the author's aim is to assist the general practitioner and nonotolaryngologic specialist in correlating primary or secondary ear, nose, and throat disorders with disease conditions in other parts of the body. The basic science sections of the text are well written and accurate but unaccompanied by illustrations. One picture is still worth a thousand words. The clinical sections are sketchy and there is no truly authoratative discussion relating ear, nose, and throat pathology with distant disease. One of the main areas discussed is "Focus of Infection," a controversial topic generally discounted in contemporary medicine. Most practicing physicians are quite well aware of the multifocal medical disorders discussed here, and it is therefore felt the book is written below their academic level. Most material appearing in this text is treated in a superficial way and can easily be found in other texts.


Writers reside in particular time and place would portray their surrounding socio-cultural context through their literary works. Yet, they may also use their works to articulate their concerns and critics upon particular socio-cultural practices. Literary works then is ideological. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis as the approach and Transitivity as the analytical tool, this study then focuses on uncovering representation of female character in a selected short story by Anton Chekhov. Representation here is perceived as discursive practice in which patriarchy is considered to be the working ideology. The results show that female character is represented stereotypically and gender-biased in what she does, what she says, what she thinks and what she feels. The result also suggests that the practice of dual representation and ambivalence is also evident in female character representation.


Background and objectives: Native ultrasound is the most common imaging modality in obstetrics. The use of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) during pregnancy has not been officially approved by leading societies for obstetrics and ultrasound. The present study aims to monitor the safety and diagnostic performance of CEUS for assessing abdominal issues in five pregnant women. Materials and Methods: Five pregnant patients who underwent a total of 11 CEUS examinations between June 2020 and October 2020 were included (mean age: 34 years; mean time of pregnancy: 21 weeks). All CEUS scans were interpreted by one experienced consultant radiologist (EFSUMB Level 3). Results: Upon contrast application, no maternal nor fetal adverse effects were observed. Moreover, no fetal contrast enhancement was observed in any patient. CEUS helped to diagnose renal angiomyolipoma, pyelonephritis, necrotic uterine fibroid, gallbladder polyp, and superior mesenteric vein thrombosis. Conclusions: In our study, off-label use of CEUS showed an excellent safety profile allowing the avoidance of ionizing radiation exposure as well as contrast agents in case of CT or use of gadolinium-based contrast agents in case of MRI. CEUS is a promising diagnostic instrument for facilitating clinical decision-making and improving the management of pregnant women.


The maintenance of the ocean general circulation requires energy input from the wind. Previous studies estimate that the mean rate of wind work (or wind power) acting on the surface currents over the global ocean amounts to 1.1 TW (1 TW 10 Watts), though values remain highly uncertain. By analyzing the output from a range of ocean-only models and data assimilations, we show that the tropical Pacific Ocean contributes around 0.2 to 0.4 TW, which is roughly half of the total tropical contribution. Not only does this wind power represent a significant fraction of the total global energy input into the ocean circulation, it is also critical in maintaining the east-west tilt of the ocean thermocline along the equator. The differences in the wind power estimates are due to discrepancies in the wind stress used to force the models and discrepancies in the surface currents the models simulate, particularly the North Equatorial Counter Current and the South Equatorial Current. Decadal variations in the wind power, more prominent in some models, show a distinct decrease in the wind power in the late 1970s, consistent with the climate regime shift of that time and a flattening of the equatorial thermocline. We find that most of the wind power generated in the tropics is dissipated by friction in the mixed layer and in zonal currents with strong vertical and horizontal shears. Roughly 10 to 20% of the wind power (depending on the model) is transferred down the water column through vertical buoyancy fluxes to maintain the thermocline slope along the equator. Ultimately, this fraction of the wind power is dissipated by a combination of vertical and horizontal diffusion, energy advection out of the tropics, and damping by surface heat fluxes. Values of wind power generated in the tropical Pacific by coupled general circulation models are typically larger than those generated by ocean-only models, and range from 0.3 to 0.6 TW. Even though many models simulate a 'realistic' climate in the tropical ocean, their energy budgets can still vary greatly from one 1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, P.O. Box 208109, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, U.S.A. 2. Present address: Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, GPO Box 1538, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 7001. email: email@example.com Journal of Marine Research, 66, 1–23, 2008


Throughout the history of computers, there has been a proliferation of new programming languages. Programmers have a variety of language choices for application or system development. Many languages have differing constructs, syntax rules, and development environments, which impede the productivity of programmers using a diverse language set. With the renewed interest in Domain Specific Languages (DSL), we argue that further emphasis should be put on common core constructs and syntax during the design and evaluation of a new language. We believe common base languages will improve programmers' productivity, and allow the development of a strong supporting ecosystem of programming systems.


Three size classes of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) mRNAs are produced in infected cells: full-length, intermediate, and small. Here we report that the intermediate-size class of viral mRNAs is heterogeneous, consisting of at least 12 differentially spliced species. This group contains nine bicistronic mRNAs producing Env and Vpu and three mRNAs expressing only the first exon of tat. In the latter mRNAs, Env and Vpu expression is blocked by the presence of the upstream tat open reading frame. We conclude that internal initiation of translation is not the mechanism for generation of the bicistronic env mRNAs. Translation of HIV-1 mRNAs is consistent with the scanning mechanism in which Env is produced by leaky scanning from mRNAs that contain env as the second or third reading frame. Env and Vpu proteins are expressed from the same mRNAs and are coordinately regulated by Rev. This arrangement may reflect a requirement for coordinate expression of Vpu and Env.


We propose and demonstrate experimentally a 42.65 Gbit/s dual-gate asynchronous digital optical regenerator in a novel configuration using a single MZM, with receiver sensitivity penalty of only ~2dB.


This paper uses history, law, and First Amendment theory to examine the concepts of political correctness, free speech, and hate speech in a search for a solution of how best to deal with hate speech incidents that occur in the university campus community. The paper notes the American tendency toward tyranny of the majority as noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s and then proceeds to examine the double-edged sword of free speech. By guaranteeing freedom of speech we promote the right to shout down ethnic and other minority groups; by providing penalties against those who use it to shout others down we make society less free. This paper suggests a different answer: promote more speech expressed in community meetings conducted in an atmosphere that is safe and encouraging for all to express their views.


The swing noise of an excavator is reduced in this study. When an excavator is under a swing motion, it produces the annoying noise which is required to be reduced. To identify the characteristics of the swing noise, the signals of noise and vibration from an excavator are measured during the swing motion. From the variation of the driving motor speed, the noise and vibration signals are picked up and plotted in the waterfall plots. From the waterfall plots, we identify the frequency components corresponding to the driving motor frequency, the gear mesh frequency of the planetary gear, and their harmonics. In addition, the natural frequencies and modes of the center frame are extracted by using the experimental modal test. It is found that the swing noise is amplified when the gear mesh frequencies coincide with the natural frequencies of the center frame. To reduce the swing noise, the structural modification is performed to the center frame. Finally, it is observed that the noise is considerably reduced by the structural modification.


Mechanical cardiovascular support devices are now widely used both in the setting of cardiogenic shock as well as during high risk cardiac catheterization procedures. We report a case of a young female patient who presented with presumed myocarditis and rapidly deteriorating decompensated heart failure requiring the implantation of an Impella Circulatory Support System. Upon transfer to our facility it was discovered that during transport, the Impella device had migrated through the left ventricle. She was emergently taken to the operating room where the Impella was surgically removed and biventricular support devices were placed. The patient eventually expired after weeks of treatment in the intensive care unit. We believe this is the first recorded case of an Impella device perforating the left ventricle. Particularly in cases of newly discovered pericardial effusion, change in waveform on the Impella controller placement signal or rapid decompensation, physicians should consider this rare but potentially catastrophic complication associated with mechanical left ventricular support devices.


The perilymphatic space of the guinea pig was perfused in situ with artificial perilymph containing [32P] orthophosphate and 3H-glycerol while cochlear microphonic potentials (CM) were monitored. The perfusion of 10 mM gentamicin suppressed CM by 62% within 30 min. 32P-incorporation into phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate in the organ of Corti was decreased but distribution of 3H-glycerol in neutral lipids and phospholipids was not affected by gentamicin. The morphological evaluation included all structures lining the scala media, the spiral ligament, the basal membrane and the vestibular organs. Hair cells sometimes contained small intracellular 'precipitation' lines but, in general, ultrastructure of all tissues was essentially normal and no overt histopathological changes were evident. The observed biochemical changes should, therefore, represent early and primary actions of the drug. This confirms the hypothesis that an interaction with the acidic phospholipid, phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate, is an important step in the ototoxic mechanism of amino-glycoside antibiotics.


The research field of this paper is the community of Limni, which is located on the island of Evia in Greece. Τhe aim of this research paper is to study the symbolic dimension of the Kamarachti dance from the Limni of the island of Evia in Greece. In particular, the paper attempts to highlight the symbolic characteristics of the dance under study, in order to determine the reason for its performance during the Easter period, throughout which many rituals related to the regeneration of nature are performed, that is this paper attempts to determine its function. Data was gathered through ethnographic method as this is applied to the study of dance, while its elaboration with the comparative method. The Kamarachti was recorded and analyzed using the Laban notation system and the morphological method. Finally, the symbolic function of Kamarachti was interpreted on the basis of the Pythagorean philosophical tradition. From the data analysis was found that the Kamarachti dance in the community of Limni on the island of Evia, on the basis of its symbolism, emerges as the protector of a magical process that aims at the rebirth of nature. This dance, with its magical and laxative properties and powers, avoids any demonic imposition, in order to ensure the euphoria of the earth.


Acute kidney injury (AKI) is characterized by the acute nature and the inability of kidneys to maintain fluid homeostasis as well as adequate electrolyte and acid-base balance, resulting in an accumulation of nitrogenous waste and elevation of serum blood urea nitrogen and creatinine values. Acute kidney injury may be a single isolated event, yet oftentimes, it results from an acute chronic kidney disease. It is critical to seek out the etiology of AKI and to promptly manage the underlying chronic kidney disease to prevent comorbidities and mortality that may ensue. We described a case of a 16-year-old adolescent girl with Down syndrome who presented with AKI and electrolyte aberrance.Abdominal and renal ultrasounds demonstrated a significantly dilated bladder as well as frank hydronephrosis and hydroureter bilaterally. Foley catheter was successful in relieving the obstruction and improving her renal function. However, a magnetic resonance imaging was pursued in light of her chronic constipation and back pain, and it revealed a structural defect (tethered cord) that underlies a chronic process that was highly likely contributory to her AKI. She was managed accordingly with a guarded result and required long-term and close monitoring.


Phenoloxidase in shrimp and lobster is shown to exist in latent form which could be activated by trypsin and by an endogenous enzyme with ,tryptic activity. On Sephadex G-100 gel, three isoenzymes, differing in molecular weights, were isolated from naturally activated lobster shell extracts. Mechanism of activation of pte phenoloxidase involving limited proteolysis by the activating enzyme to form isoenzymes has been proposed.


In modernizing older existing stations in connection with plant capacity addition programs, difficulties often are encountered in installing adequate generator outlet capacity for modern generators several times larger in rating than the older units being replaced. In some cases the use of forced-air cooling may be justified as a means of increasing cable capacity well beyond the self-cooled rating of the installation.


Density functional theory (DFT) and ab initio (CBS-RAD) calculations have been used to investigate a series of "radical clock" reactions. The calculated activation energies suggest that the barriers for these radical rearrangements are determined almost exclusively by the enthalpy effect with no evidence of significant polar effects. The ring-closure reactions to cyclopentylmethyl radical derivatives and the ring opening of cyclopropylmethyl radicals give different correlations between the calculated heat of reaction and barrier, but the two types of reaction are internally consistent.


This paper describes a series of tests made to determine the dielectric losses in various kinds of 13,000-volt cable. These losses were found to increase greatly with the temperature and thus become an important factor in the rating of such cables. A method is developed whereby the influence of these losses on the rating can be approximately calculated for duct lines with uniformly loaded cables.


OBJECTIVE
To study the genes in the mouse background which predispose to the development of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA).

METHODS
T cell receptor beta transgenic (TCRbetaL) mice that have a T cell repertoire that predisposes to the development of CIA were used. Classic genetic studies and microsatellite gene mapping were done in (SWR-betaL x DBA/1)F2 hybrid mice.

RESULTS
Besides TCRbeta, major histocompatibility complex class II, and Igh-C, at least 2 other genes are absolutely required for CIA development in these mice. A strict association of CIA with the presence of functional complement C5 allele (Hc1) was found, suggesting that Hc1 or a closely linked gene might be one of these essential genes.

CONCLUSION
This study provides new evidence of the pathogenetic role of complement C5 in CIA. Furthermore, these transgenic mice may facilitate molecular identification of other genes that predispose to CIA.


(1) Background: The anterior cerebral artery (ACA) has a precommunicating A1 segment, followed by a postcommunicating A2 segment. Anatomically, after it sends off from the callosomarginal artery (CMA), it continues as the pericallosal artery (PCalA). A detailed pattern of the anatomical variations of the PCalA are needed for practical reasons. (2) Methods: There were 45 retrospectively documented Computed Tomography Angiograms of 32 males and 13 females. (3) Results: In 90 sides, eleven different types of PCalA were documented: type 1: normal origin, above the genu of the corpus callosum (CC) (51.11%); type 2: low origin, below the rostrum of the CC (8.88%); type 3: late origin, above the body of the CC (3.33%); type 4, initial transcallosal course (3.33%); type 5, duplicated PCalA (1.11%); type 6, azygos PCalA (2.22%); type 7, absent PCalA (CMA type of ACA) (7.78%); type 8: CMA continued as PCalA (5.56%); type 9: PCalA continued as the cingular branch (1.11%); type 10: PCalA type of ACA, absent CMA (14.44%); type 11: triple PCalA, with an added median artery of the CC (1.11%). Different types of CMA were also documented: type 0, absent CMA (17.78%); type 1, CMA with frontoparietal distribution (45.56%); type 2, CMA with parietal distribution (22.22%); type 3, low origin of CMA, either from A1, or from A2 (8.88%); type 4, CMA continued as PCalA (5.56%). Ipsilateral combinations of PCalA and CMA types were classified as types A-P. In 33/45 cases (73.3%), the bilateral asymmetry of the combined anatomical patterns of PCalA and CMA was documented. Additional rare variations were found: (a) huge fenestration of A2; (b) bihemispheric ACAs (6/45 cases); (c) twisted arteries within the interhemispheric fissure. (4) Conclusions: The PCalA and CMA are anatomically diverse and unpredictable. Therefore, they should be documented on a case-by-case basis before surgical or endovascular approaches.


Juhani Ivari's (2016) suggestions have merit as incremental steps that are directed towards fixing parts of a broken system—a system in which it often takes six to eight months to get an editorial decision on a paper, in which papers are rejected after five years and five rounds of reviews, and in which radically new ideas struggle to be published. Iivari's suggestions all require the support of journal editors to be effective. These editors are embedded into a system that they have learned to navigate successfully. In fact, they may be too close to the system to make major changes to it. Perhaps people embedded in a review system in which they have been successful will not be able to develop viable solutions to a system that is really broken. Rather, it may be time for a radical change to the IS reviewing system that emanates from a groundswell of IS researchers who are suffering from the problems inherent in the existing malfunctioning system.


The first edition of ISO 11930 (1) was published in April 2012 under the title »Cosmetics ― Microbiology - Evaluation of the antimicrobial protection of a cosmetic product«. This test can be used to evaluate the preservation of a cosmetic formulation. While the regulation on cosmetic products (EC 1223/2009) (2) requires that the cosmetic product safety report demonstrates the results of preservation challenge test to prove the microbiological stability, it does not specify the test procedure for the challenge test. In addition to ISO 11930 tests from the EU (3) and US pharmacopoeia (4), the ASEAN preservative efficacy test (5), the test from the CTFA Microbiology Guidelines (6) as well as several in-house test protocols have been established for many years. This paper includes a comparison of the different methods and comparative test results for ISO 11930, Ph. Eur. 7 and the schulke KoKo Test.


Sharing trajectories is beneficial for many real-world applications, such as managing disease spread through contact tracing and tailoring public services to a population's travel patterns. However, public concern over privacy and data protection has limited the extent to which this data is shared. Local differential privacy enables data sharing in which users share a perturbed version of their data, but existing mechanisms fail to incorporate user-independent public knowledge (e.g., business locations and opening times, public transport schedules, geo-located tweets). This limitation makes mechanisms too restrictive, gives unrealistic outputs, and ultimately leads to low practical utility. To address these concerns, we propose a local differentially private mechanism that is based on perturbing hierarchically-structured, overlapping
 n
 -grams (i.e., contiguous subsequences of length
 n
 ) of trajectory data. Our mechanism uses a multi-dimensional hierarchy over publicly available external knowledge of real-world places of interest to improve the realism and utility of the perturbed, shared trajectories. Importantly, including real-world public data does not negatively affect privacy or efficiency. Our experiments, using real-world data and a range of queries, each with real-world application analogues, demonstrate the superiority of our approach over a range of alternative methods.


Controller area network (CAN) is a widely used fieldbus protocol in various industrial applications. To understand the network behavior under errors for the optimal design of networked control systems, the message response time of the CAN network needs to be analyzed. In this study, a novel delay time distribution analysis method for the response messages is proposed when considering errors. In this method the complex message queues are decomposed into typical message patterns and cases. First, a stochastic fault model is developed, and the probability factor is defined to calculate the error distribution. Then the message delay time distribution for the single slave node configuration is analyzed based on the error distribution. Next, based on the delay time distribution analysis of typical patterns and cases, an analysis framework of message delay time distribution for the master/slave configuration is developed. The testbed is constructed and case studies are conducted to demonstrate the proposed methodology under different network configurations. Experimental results show that the delay time distributions calculated by the proposed method agree well with the actual observations


A partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) is a generalization of a Markov decision process in which observation of the process state can be imperfect and/or costly. Although it provides an elegant model for control and planning problems that include information-gathering actions, the best current algorithms for POMDPs are computationally infeasible for all but small problems. One approach to this dilemma is to identify subsets of POMDPs that can be solved more efficiently than the general problem can be. This report describes a policy iteration algorithm that we prove converges to an optimal policy for any infinite-horizon POMDP for which it is optimal to acquire perfect information at finite intervals. For this subset of POMDPs, the value function can be represented by a value for each state of the Markov process -- the same representation used for completely observable MDPs -- and this simplification makes it possible to compute optimal policies efficiently for many problems in this class. The policy iteration algorithm we describe is a synthesis of ideas from dynamic programming and heuristic search.


ABSTRACT Are the true and the good friendless, for Plato, or is friendship a mode of truth and value? This article will examine Plato's exploration of the aporias of friendship and the broader relationship to the question of the status of finite mediation and participation, as presented in Plato's Lysis. One can note at the outset that this wider bearing is indicated by the term philia itself, which, in addition to friendship, denotes 'self-belonging', and includes the relations that are conducive to such self-belonging, as well as indicating both befriender and befriended (Lysis 218d). The stakes of the discourse seem to concern the sustainability of this polyvalent word: is our self-belonging in true goodness compatible with relational affection, and does the self-belonging of the good encompass any exterior concern? Must the double implication of philia be prised apart?


•STUDY DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial. •BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that multimodal interventions that include exercise therapy may be effective for patellofemoral pain (PFP); however, no study has investigated the effects of trigger point (TrP) dry needling (DN) in people with PFP. •OBJECTIVES: To compare the effects of adding TrP DN to a manual therapy and exercise program on pain, function, and disability in individuals with PFP. •METHODS: Individuals with PFP (n = 60) recruited from a public hospital in Valencia, Spain were randomly allocated to manual therapy and exercises (n = 30) or manual therapy and exercise plus TrP DN (n = 30). Both groups received the same manual therapy and strengthening exercise program for 3 sessions (once a week for 3 weeks), and 1 group also received TrP DN to active TrPs within the vastus medialis and vastus lateralis muscles. The pain subscale of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS; 0‐100 scale) was used as the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included other subscales of the KOOS, the Knee Society Score, the International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee Evaluation Form (IKDC), and the numeric pain‐rating scale. Patients were assessed at baseline and at 15‐day (posttreatment) and 3‐month follow‐ups. Analysis was conducted with mixed analyses of covariance, adjusted for baseline scores. •RESULTS: At 3 months, 58 subjects (97%) completed the follow‐up. No significant between‐group differences (all, P>.391) were observed for any outcome: KOOS pain subscale mean difference, −2.1 (95% confidence interval [CI]: −4.6, 0.4); IKDC mean difference, 2.3 (95% CI: −0.1, 4.7); knee pain intensity mean difference, 0.3 (95% CI: −0.2, 0.8). Both groups experienced similar moderate‐to‐large within‐group improvements in all outcomes (standardized mean differences of 0.6 to 1.1); however, only the KOOS function in sport and recreation subscale surpassed the prespecified minimum important change. •CONCLUSION: The current clinical trial suggests that the inclusion of 3 sessions of TrP DN in a manual therapy and exercise program did not result in improved outcomes for pain and disability in individuals with PFP at 3‐month follow‐up. •LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapy, level 1b. Prospectively registered July 27, 2015 at www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02514005). •KEY WORDS: dry needling, exercise, manual therapy, patellofemoral pain


Background Clients of female sex workers (FSWs) are considered an important bridging population for HIV. This study aims to assess the impact of Avahan (India AIDS Initiative of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), through comparison of HIV prevalence between two surveys (2006–07 and 2009–10) among clients of FSWs across 16 districts in south India (n∼7,000 per-round). Methods Multilevel logistic regression analysis was performed using HIV as outcome, with individual variables at level 1 and district-level programme variables (from the Avahan computerised monitoring system) at level 2. Mean value of the programme indicators for the years 2007 & 2008 were used as district level variables. Results HIV prevalence declined significantly from round 1 to round 2 (5.5% to 3.4%; p = 0.001). Clients' characteristics such as increased age (25–34 yrs-AOR = 2.22, 95% CI: 220.127.116.11, ≥ 35 yrs-AOR = 2.32, 95% CI: 1.75.3.07), being literate (AOR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.58, 0.82), being separated/divorced/widowed compared to never married (AOR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.02.2.26), had sex with 3 FSWs within past 6 months (AOR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.43.0.87), anal sex with man/hijra in last 6 months (AOR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.14, 1.91), being circumcised (AOR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.57, 0.92) and had at least one STI symptom (AOR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.00.1.46) were associated with being HIV positive. Among the programme variables, greater programme coverage was significantly associated with lower prevalence (AOR = 0.992, 95% CI: 0.985, 0.999). Conclusions These results demonstrate that there was a decline in HIV prevalence among clients of FSWs over the course of the intervention and the districts with increased Avahan programme coverage had lower HIV prevalence. Further explorative analysis is required to understand the role of programme coverage on the reduction in HIV prevalence among clients in light of similar surveys among FSWs that showed a clearer association of increase in programme coverage between survey rounds and decrease in HIV.


The nature and depth of internet surveillance has been revealed to be very different from what had previously been publically acknowledged or politically debated. There are critical ways in which the current debate is miscast, misleading and confused. Privacy is portrayed as an individual right, in opposition to a collective need for security. Data gathering and surveillance are portrayed as having an impact only on this individual right to privacy, rather than on a broad spectrum of rights, including freedom of expression, of assembly and association, the prohibition of discrimination and more. The gathering and surveillance of 'content' is intrinsically more intrusive than that of 'communications' data or 'metadata'. The impact of data gathering and surveillance is often portrayed as happening only at when data are examined by humans rather than when gathered, or when examined algorithmically. Commercial and governmental data gathering and surveillance are treated as separate and different, rather than intrinsically and inextricably linked. This miscasting has critical implications. When the debate is recast taking into account these misunderstandings, the bar for the justification of surveillance is raised and a new balance needs to be found, in political debate, in law, and in decision-making on the ground.


In the growing global scene surrounding transformational festivals, psychedelics and other 'party drugs' are used to facilitate experiences of connection and sociability which their devotees see as antidotes to the increasing isolation of society as a whole. Yet the openness and suggestibility that potentiates these experiences can also cause painful, alienating 'psychedelic crises'. Peer support projects within the scene attempt to address this problem by providing 'care spaces': comfortable, lower-stimulus areas within events where support workers known as 'sitters' seek to resolve service users' crises into reintegration with the collective while reducing any harm arising from their drug use. Yet within national and international drug policy frameworks which enforce prohibition and promote abstinence, the care spaces' support of harm reduction approaches to drug crisis care and their beliefs in the potential benefits of psychedelics can bring them into conflict with the authorities and with festival organisers wary of being seen to 'condone drugs'. This complex situation offers fresh perspectives on the relationships between 'party' drug use, drug policy and harm, yet these projects remain almost entirely unstudied.
This thesis examines the cultural role and value system of the transformational scene, and the distinctive patterns of drug use which occur there; investigates how volunteer psychedelic support/harm reduction (PS/HR) projects address the problem of the psychedelic crisis, and the role their identity as scene peers (and often drug users) plays in their work; and finally explores the turbulent intersection between the care spaces and the policy environments in which they operate. It uses a multimodal ethnographic approach centring on participant observation as a care space sitter at events in Portugal, the UK and the US, supplemented by 23 in-depth interviews with sitters and an online qualitative survey of 54 festivalgoers who had undergone a drug-related crisis.
It concludes that the festival environments are both shaped by, and designed to heighten, psychedelic experiences which many festivalgoers see as transformative and highly significant. Relatedly, scene members stress the importance of using the drugs 'respectfully' and responsibly. The desire to manifest such responsibility in a tangible way is a key motivation for sitters. Their identity as scene peers is a powerful asset in their work, helping them establish trust with visitors and assess their cases accurately while lending credibility to the drug information they distribute. However, in prohibition-based policy environments their identity as drug users can become a liability in dealings with the authorities, and networks of festival support staff can become fragmented by under-resourcing, miscommunication and the effects of stigma. Combined with ways in which punitive policy makes responsible drug use behaviours difficult to engage in, this serves to illuminate how drug policies nominally intended to increase the safety of events in fact often exacerbate harm and obstruct the efforts of those attempting to reduce it. In so doing, it extends current understandings of 'recreational' drug use and its contexts.


Rabbits in which thrombocytosis had been produced by five daily transfusions of platelet concentrates had suppressed endogenous thrombopoiesis, as reflected by decreased incorporation of selenomethionine-(75)Se ((75)SeM) into the circulating platelet mass. Rabbits in which endogenous thrombopoiesis had been suppressed by transfusion-induced thrombocytosis were used to detect thrombopoietic activity in rabbit plasma. Thrombopoietic activity was demonstrated in the plasma of both normal and thrombocytopenic donor rabbits. A dose response relationship was observed between the incorporation of (75)SeM into platelets and the dose of plasma administered. Infusion of 20-150 ml of plasma from thrombocytopenic donors increased the incorporation of (75)SeM into platelets from 52 to 107% above control values. A dose response effect also was seen after infusion of normal plasma, but normal plasma produced less effect than comparable doses of plasma from thrombocytopenic donors. Rabbits with transfusion-induced thrombocytosis appear to be more sensitive assay animals for the detection of thrombopoietic activity than animals with normal platelet counts. Changes in the rate of appearance and levels of (75)SeM may primarily indicate changes in platelet protein or platelet size and are apparently more sensitive indicators of the state of thrombopoiesis than are alterations in the numbers of circulating platelets. The results strongly support the concept of a humoral agent, i.e. thrombopoietin, that acts on megakaryocytes to regulate platelet production.


In this paper, we consider the strategy of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) internetworking that provide the seamless vertical handover for mobile nodes. We propose Mobility Anchor Points (MAP) based UMTS/WLAN internetworking architecture to support the vertical handover. Also, on integrated UMTS/WLAN networks, we propose a vertical handover scheme that avoids the call blocking caused by the network resource shortage. We provide the numerical analysis to investigate the performance evaluation to the proposed scheme and compare the proposed scheme with the existing scheme.


To date, sufficient data have not been available to examine ethnic differences in religiosity and mental health in the general population. However, evidence exists to suggest that the protective effects of religion may differ across ethnic groups. This study examined the relationship between religious attendance and mental health across ethnic groups.


The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of irrigated areas on the local and regional climate in a valley in Chile's dry zone, using the KAMM model for a late spring and a late summer situation. For both situations, two different simulations are performed, featuring the actual state of the region, i.e. the valley floor used for agricultural activities with irrigation (Moist Valley Simulation MVS), and the original natural state of the region, i.e. the valley floor covered with natural vegetation (Dry Valley Simulation DVS). Agricultural activities modify the energy balance components: near-surface temperature and the thermally induced wind fields – not only in the valley, but also in some surrounding areas. With increased soil moisture and vegetation cover of the valley floor the albedo decreases and, consequently, net radiation is higher in the MVS case. An important part of the available energy is used for evaporation, and during the day the turbulent latent heat flux is higher in the MVS case; less energy is available for transformation into sensible heat flux. In the MVS case, the amplitude of the diurnal cycle of near-surface temperature on the valley floor is smaller. In the early morning, the temperature is higher while after noon it is lower in the MVS case. Outside the valley, there are zones with highly positive differences (around 2oC) which coincide with zones of positive anomalies of turbulent sensible heat flux. Near the coast, in the early morning, the intensity of the sea wind is higher while, after noon, it is lower in the MVS case. Agricultural activities enhance up-slope and upvalley winds in the daytime. With increased water availability in the soil of the valley, near-surface specific humidity is higher, too. Due to advective processes this also affects neighbouring areas. In the early morning and in the late afternoon the relative humidity in the cultivated areas reaches near-saturation values which may in fact induce fog formation at these times of the day. Nevertheless, we have to note that fog is not simulated explicitly in KAMM. Only threshold values for relative humidity have been used to indicate areas where fog formation is likely after changes in land use. In order to model fog formation more adequately, in addition to the dynamic and vegetation models, especially cloud and aerosol microphysics as well as radiation have to be considered. Efficient parameterisation schemes for radiation and cloud physics should be implemented in KAMM to represent fog conditions and their geographical distribution in more detail.


Resolution of acute inflammation is an active process and its dysregulation may contribute to chronic inflammatory disorders. While animal models have been used to study resolution their appropriateness has been questioned. We describe a novel model of resolving inflammation in humans triggered by intradermal injection of UV killed E. coli into the forearm of healthy volunteers (n=30). Inflammatory exudate was drawn into a skin blister induced by negative pressure applied over the injection site. Blister cells were analyzed by flow cytometry while the cell free exudates were assayed for cytokines. To study the different phases of inflammation, blisters were raised at multiple time points up to day 14 post-injection. Vascular response was monitored by laser doppler. Onset (8hr) was characterised by peak erythema and neutrophilia (HLA-DR-/CD16++). By 24hr, neutrophil numbers had fallen by 80% while CD14+ monocytes and CD1c+ dendritic cell numbers increased, indicating resolution. At 48hr blood flow declined along with mononuclear cell numbers. Lymphocytes (CD4+, CD8+ and CD56+ cells) dominated the site at day 3 and persisted up to day 14. Levels of TNF-α, IL-8 and IL-1β were maximal at 8hr, IFN-γ at 24hr. This safe and reproducible model allows, for the first time, exploration of cells and soluble mediators in parallel with the clinical signs of resolution in humans. Potential applications include testing the efficacy of novel anti-inflammatory and pro-resolving drugs.


Norplant is a long-acting subdermal contraceptive implant system introduced to the US market in February 1991. More than one million women in the US and more than 2.5 million women internationally use Norplant. Within two years of Norplants arrival on the US market litigation was filed mainly against the Norplant manufacturer Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories by women who have suffered or who will suffer permanent injuries as a result of the system. Some medical malpractice claims are being filed against health care providers who prescribe and/or remove the system. Current litigation questions the safety of Norplant the adequacy of warnings about side effects and potential adverse reactions the degree of disclosure for informed consent and the adequacy of training involving the product. Nurse practitioners involved with Norplant need to be aware of related litigation in order to provide the highest quality health care and avoid exposure to liability. In particular nurse practitioners who have been trained in the insertion and removal of Norplant must be sure that they have the requisite skills and experience to respond to the known complications of the system. The author offers an overview of litigation against Norplant.


We report on three-dimensional direct numerical simulation of wave turbulence on the free surface of a magnetic fluid subjected to an external horizontal magnetic field. A transition from capillary-wave turbulence to anisotropic magneto-capillary wave turbulence is observed for an increasing field. At high enough field, wave turbulence becomes highly anisotropic, cascading mainly perpendicularly to the field direction, in good agreement with the prediction of a phenomenological model, and with anisotropic Alfvén wave turbulence. Although surface waves on a magnetic fluid are different from Alfvén waves in plasma, a strong analogy is found with similar wave spectrum scalings and similar magnetic-field dependent dispersionless wave velocities.


In stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP), urinary excretion of sodium and water and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) are markedly decreased by acute normalization of the renal perfusion pressure using an aortic clamping technique. To examine the mechanism for the decreased sodium and water excretion, SHRSP rats were subjected to bilateral renal denervation. Sodium and water excretion and GFR in SHRSP with aortic clamping were significantly restored by the renal denervation. The restoration was more prominent in the urine flow and GFR. When renal perfusion pressure was normalized by administration of sympatholytic drugs in another group of SHRSP, sodium and water excretion were decreased. However, the extent of the decrease in urine flow but not in sodium excretion was significantly less than that in SHRSP with aortic constriction. GFR was not changed by administration of the sympatholytic drugs. Renal denervation lowered the blood pressure in SHRSP. These results suggest that renal sympathetic nerve activity is greatly involved in the reduced water excretion and partly involved in the reduced sodium excretion in SHRSP rats.


Background Tocilizumab (TCZ), a humanized interleukin-6 receptor inhibitor, has been shown effective in suppressing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In U-Act-Early, a significantly greater proportion of patients with early RA who initiated TCZ (84%) or TCZ plus MTX therapy (86%) achieved sustained remission (Disease Activity Score assessing 28 joints (DAS28) <2.6 with ≤4 swollen joints for ≥24 weeks), when compared to those initiating MTX (44%).[1] Objectives To determine the effect of treat-to-target TCZ therapy, with or without MTX, on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD)-naïve patients with early RA. Methods Patients (n=317) were randomized to initiate TZC, TCZ+MTX or MTX therapy and treated according to a step-up strategy. TCZ was given (8 mg/kg) every 4 weeks and MTX (oral) was started at 10 mg/week and increased with steps of 5 mg steps 4 weekly up to 30 mg/week (or maximum tolerable dose) until remission. If after 20 weeks remission was not achieved, hydroxychloroquine was added and discontinued 12 weeks thereafter if the target still was not achieved. Patients who originally initiated monotherapy then switched to TCZ+MTX therapy and those already on this combination therapy switched to a tumour necrosis factor inhibitor. To evaluate the effect of TCZ on HRQoL, we used the 36-item Short-Form (SF-36), which can be summarized into a physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) component score. HRQoL was measured at baseline and after 12, 24, 52, and 104 weeks. A linear mixed effect model with a random intercept was used to evaluate differences between treatment strategies over time with visit (time), strategy, baseline SF-36 score, baseline DAS28 level (i.e., DAS28 <5.1 or ≥5.1) and centre as fixed effects. The proportions of patients exceeding the minimum clinically important differences (MCID, ≥2.5-point increase from baseline) were tested for significance using the two-sided Pearson's chi-squared test. Results We found significantly greater improvements over time in the SF-36 PCS in patients initiating treatment with TCZ (TCZ vs MTX; p=0.041, TCZ+MTX vs MTX; p=0.011, Fig. 1). For the SF-36 MCS, no significant differences over time were noted between the treatment arms (p≥0.11). A significantly higher proportion of patients initiating treatment with TCZ (76%; p=0.016, 89%; p=0.030) or TCZ+MTX (73%; p=0.049, 89%; p=0.027) achieved MCID in the SF-36 PCS at week 12 and week 52, when compared to those initiating treatment with MTX (59% and 73%, respectively). Although the proportions of patients achieving MCID in the SF-36 MCS were numerically higher in the TCZ arms, no significant differences were found (p≥0.06). Conclusions Initiation of TCZ, with or without MTX, at start of therapy resulted in statistically significant and clinically relevant improvements in the HRQoL when compared to initiation of MTX alone and may be considered as a valuable treatment strategy in DMARD-naïve patients with early RA. References Bijlsma JW, Welsing PM, Woodworth TG, et al. Early rheumatoid arthritis treated with tocilizumab, methotrexate, or their combination (U-Act-Early): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, double-dummy, strategy trial. Lancet 2016; 388:343–55. Disclosure of Interest X. Teitsma: None declared, J. Jacobs: None declared, P. Welsing: None declared, A. Pethö-Schramm Employee of: Employee of F.Hoffmann-La Roche, M. Borm Employee of: Roche Nederland B.V., J. van Laar Consultant for: Received fees from MSD, Pfizer, Roche, Eli Lilly and BMS, F. Lafeber: None declared, J. Bijlsma Grant/research support from: Received research grants (to his department) and consultancy fees from AbbVie, BMS, Crescendo, MSD, Mundipharma, Pfizer, Roche, Sun and UCB


This paper addresses the current revival of Confucianism in China. It analyzes its political issues and outcomes, underlines the possible defects in Confucianism as a theory of politics, i.e., as a science and art of government and a public ethics. It looks back to the dialectical relationship between Confucius and Mencius and shows how the presence of Confucianist elements in 20th-century politics contributed to shape the public and political sphere in contemporary China. The strains between revolutionary and reformist orientations through the last century are still at work in current social movements and reflected in political debates.


Recently, learned image compression methods have been actively studied. Among them, entropy-minimization based approaches have achieved superior results compared to conventional image codecs such as BPG and JPEG2000. However, the quality enhancement and rate-minimization are conflictively coupled in the process of image compression. That is, maintaining high image quality entails less compression and vice versa. However, by jointly training separate quality enhancement in conjunction with image compression, the coding efficiency can be improved. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid architecture of jointly learning conflictively coupled image compression and quality enhancement, called JointIQ-Net, as well as entropy model improvement, thus achieving significantly improved coding efficiency against the previous methods. Our proposed JointIQ-Net combines an image compression sub-net and an image quality enhancement sub-net in a cascade, both of which are end-to-end trained in a combined manner within the JointIQ-Net. Also the JointIQ-Net benefits from improved entropy-minimization that newly adopts a Gussian Mixture Model (GMM) and further exploits global context to estimate the probabilities of latent representations. In order to show the effectiveness of our proposed JointIQ-Net, extensive experiments have been performed, and showed that the JointIQ-Net achieves a remarkable performance improvement in coding efficiency in terms of both PSNR and MS-SSIM, compared to the previous learned image compression methods and the conventional codecs such as VTM 7.1 (intra), BPG, and JPEG2000. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first end-to-end optimized image compression method that outperforms VTM 7.1 (intra), the latest reference software of the VVC standard, in terms of both PSNR and MS-SSIM.


Siddha medicine is a treatment which is followed by an Ancient Tamilians. It has no side effects and cost efficient. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a hormonal disorder affecting many women nowadays. It is called as syndrome because it shows many symptoms. It is also named as polycystic ovary disease, stein Leventhal syndrome or hyper androgen anovulation syndrome. In this PCOS more than 12 tiny cysts present in the ovary. It may cause due to genetic problem or lifestyle factors. This review interrupts the solution to reduce the risk and ill effects of PCOS with help of siddha medicine which is the best, nil side effects, and cheapest medicinal system.


In This Volume dedicated to medieval canon law expert Kenneth Pennington, leading scholars from around the world discuss the contribution of medieval church law to the origins of the western legal tradition. The stellar cast assembled by editors Wolfgang P. Muller and Mary E. Sommar includes younger scholars as well as long-established specialists in the field. Muller's introduction provides the first comprehensive survey of investigative trends in the field in more than twenty years. Subdivided into four topical categories, the essays cover the entire range of the history of medieval canon law from the sixth to the sixteenth century. The first section concentrates on the canonical tradition before the advent of academic legal studies in the twelfth century. The second addresses the formation of canonistic theory. The third and fourth sections consider the intellectual exchanges between canon law and other fields of study, as well as the practical application of canons in day-to-day court proceedings. Though the twenty-seven essays included in this volume are quite diverse, taken together they provide an outstanding overview of the latest research and cutting-edge scholarship on the topic. Kenneth Pennington is Kelly-Quinn Professor of Ecclesiastical and Legal History at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of numerous works including Pope and Bishops: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries and The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition, and is coeditor of the CUA Press series, History of Medieval Canon Law.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Leptin regulates energy homeostasis and participates in the regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Although hyperleptinemia is described in experimental colitis, its role in the pathophysiology of enterotoxin-mediated diarrhea and inflammation remains unclear. We examined the role of leptin in the inflammatory diarrhea induced by toxin A from Clostridium difficile, the causative agent of antibiotic-related colitis.

METHODS
Toxin A (10 microg) or buffer were administered in ileal loops of leptin-deficient (ob/ob), leptin-resistant (db/db), or wild-type mice and enterotoxic responses were measured.

RESULTS
In toxin A-treated wild-type mice, circulating leptin and corticosterone levels were increased compared with buffer-injected animals. Toxin A also stimulated increased mucosal expression of the Ob-Rb at the messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein level. Ob/ob and db/db mice were partially protected against toxin A-induced intestinal secretion and inflammation, and this effect was reversed by leptin administration in ob/ob, but not db/db, mice. Basal- and toxin A-stimulated plasma corticosterone levels in ob/ob and db/db mice were higher compared with toxin A-treated wild-type mice. To assess whether the effect of leptin in intestinal inflammation is mediated by corticosteroids we performed adrenalectomy experiments in db/db and wild-type mice. Our results suggested that the diminished intestinal response to toxin A in db/db mice was related only in part to increased levels of corticosteroids.

CONCLUSIONS
Leptin plays an important role in regulating the severity of enterotoxin-mediated intestinal secretion and inflammation by activating both corticosteroid-dependent and -independent mechanisms.


Priority as well as constant delay are both important performance criteria in an isochronous scheduler design such as the one in ATM switches. Weighted round-robin (WRR) multiplexing has been proven to be an effective and simple method to implement for priority traffic. The authors present an improved scheduling algorithm based on WRR cell multiplexing to ease the delay jitter problems. The impact of smoothness of the proposed scheduler design is thoroughly presented. The mean response time and its standard deviation are analyzed. The solutions show better performance results than previous work, especially when requested bandwidths are uniformly allocated.<<ETX>>


The seemingly indispensable nature of social media has made it the most used means in communication in the world today. The aim of this paper is to critically look at the negative impact of social media on tertiary students' academic performance in Ghana.
A sample of 1,000 university students used for the study to represent the entire population. Out of the 1,000, there were 900 respondents, 90% of the respondents. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires which were administered to the students. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The study found out that students' access to social media has a negative effect on their academic performance. The study recommends that the authorities in tertiary institutions in Ghana should enact strict rules and regulation to curtail the usage of social media during lectures and library sessions.


This article examines work-injury programmes in different welfare states. The article's goals are to provide a better understanding of these programmes and to further develop concepts for comparison between welfare states. Work-injury programmes are a component in the social security systems of most countries throughout the world. Nevertheless, cross-national comparative research into this field of social protection has been very limited. This article undertakes a quantitative comparison of work-injury programmes in 10 different welfare states, which represent various types of welfare regimes. Decommodification and self-development are the two key concepts that serve as a basis for the comparison and indexes measuring these two concepts are constructed. The findings of the study indicate that social-democratic welfare states, followed by Australia and Israel, have workinjury programmes with the greatest potential for decommodification and self-development. By contrast, work-injury programmes in liberal welfare states such as Britain and the United States have a low decommodifying and self-development potential.


Abstract A review of in situ and remote-sensing data covering the ice shelves of the Antarctic Peninsula provides a series of characteristics closely associated with rapid shelf retreat: deeply embayed ice fronts; calving of myriad small elongate bergs in punctuated events; increasing flow speed; and the presence of melt ponds on the ice-shelf surface in the vicinity of the break-ups. As climate has warmed in the Antarctic Peninsula region, melt-season duration and the extent of ponding have increased. Most break-up events have occurred during longer melt seasons, suggesting that meltwater itself, not just warming, is responsible. Regions that show melting without pond formation are relatively unchanged. Melt ponds thus appear to be a robust harbinger of ice-shelf retreat. We use these observations to guide a model of ice-shelf flow and the effects of meltwater. Crevasses present in a region of surface ponding will likely fill to the brim with water. We hypothesize (building on Weertman (1973), Hughes (1983) and Van der Veen (1998)) that crevasse propagation by meltwater is the main mechanism by which ice shelves weaken and retreat. A thermodynamic finite-element model is used to evaluate ice flow and the strain field, and simple extensions of this model are used to investigate crack propagation by meltwater. The model results support the hypothesis.


Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) (inflammatory pseudotumor) is a rare mass forming disease that can be seen at any site of the body. It is not clear whether if it is an inflammatory process or a true neoplasm. It is confused with many mass forming diseases. In most cases it is diagnosed by pathologists after resection. Our purpose is to present this rare case with an interesting pathogenesis


NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is a 1-meter class cryogenically-cooled space observatory currently in the design and development phase. It is planned for launch in December 2001 by a Delta rocket into a heliocentric orbit. The SIRTF Observatory is comprised of the Cryogenic Telescope Assembly (CTA), the Spacecraft, and the three Science Instruments. The CTA has an 85 cm diameter aperture telescope which is cooled to its lowest operating temperature of 5.5 K by effluent vapor from the 360-liter superfluid helium cryostat. The three Science Instruments, which span an operating wavelength range from 3 to 1 80 rim, will be maintained at a temperature of 1.4 K inside the cryostat. The required SIRTF mission lifetime is > 2.5 years. The CTA system and subsystem design as well as their technical challenges are described.


The Effects of Aggression, Impulsivity, and Psychopathic Traits on Treatment Program Completion in Substance Dependent Individuals Robyn M. Baldridge, M.A. Mentor: Matthew S. Stanford, Ph.D. The P300 component of the ERP (event-related potential) is defined as the most positive peak occurring between 250 and 450 milliseconds after the onset of a stimulus. Previous work has suggested that P300 amplitude may serve as a marker for a dimension of psychiatric disorders associated with disinhibited behavior. Reduced P300 amplitude has been shown in individuals with alcohol and substance use disorders, externalizing childhood behavior problems, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and impulsive aggressive behavior. The present study extended this notion by investigating the usefulness of P300 amplitude as an indicator of treatment compliance in substance dependent individuals. No significant differences were found between treatment program completers and non-completers in psychopathology or impulsive/aggressive behaviors. A significant group difference in P300 amplitude across midline electrode sites (Fz, Cz, and Pz) suggested that treatment program non-completers had an overall lower P300 amplitude than program completers. This study highlights the importance of P300 amplitude as a possible predictor of drug treatment program success. The Effects of Aggression, Impulsivity, and Psychopathic Traits on Treatment Program Completion in Substance Dependent Individuals


This study was aimed to investigate the effect of plasmid-mediated RNAi targeting hTERT on blocking hTERT gene and inhibiting telomerase activity in leukemia cell line K562. For inhibiting hTERT mRNA, three siRNA strands were chemosynthesized and transfected into K562 cells, two effective and specific siRNA strands were chosen. Then plasmid pSUPER-U6-Kan rhTERT-1, pSUPER-U6-Kan rhTERT-2 targeting hTERT mRNA were constructed and transfected into K562 cells by liposome. The expression of hTERT mRNA, telomerase activity and cell apoptosis were detected at 48 hours and 72 hours. The results showed that three chemosynthesized strands began to significantly inhibit target gene expression at 48 hours, but the inhibiting rates were different. The inhibiting effect disappeared after 72 hours. After plasmid pSUPER-U6-Kan rhTERT -1 (P-1 group) and pSUPER-U6-Kan rhTERT -2 (P-2 group) were transfected into K562 cells, the expressions of hTERT mRNA both decreased in the two groups. The expression of hTERT mRNA in P-1 group was 0.39+/-0.13 at 48 hours, 0.57+/-0.32 at 72 hours. The expression of hTERT mRNA in P-2 group was 0.55+/-0.20 at 48 hours, 0.88+/-0.23 at 72 hours. Telomerase activity in P-1 group was 0.42+/-0.07 at 48 hours, 0.31+/-0.08 at 72 hours; the telomerase activity in group P-2 was 0.49+/-0.27 at 48 hours, 0.39+/-0.03 at 72 hours while telomerase activities in both groups were significantly lower than that in negative control group (0.88+/-0.30, 0.88+/-0.32). At 48 hours, the apoptosis rates in P-1 group (18.39+/-3.08%) and P-2 group (15.5+/-3.59%) were significantly higher than that in negative control group (7.64+/-3.73%). At 72 hours the apoptosis rate in P-1 group (13.2+/-1.18%) and in P-2 group (12.86+/-3.09%) had no significant difference as compared with negative control group (8.07+/-0.19%). It is concluded that RNAi targeting hTERT inhibits the expression of hTERT mRNA, and therefore inhibits telomerase activity. The inhibiting effect is closely correlated with target site. The si-hTERT-1 effect is better than si-hTERT-2, while si-hTERT-3 almost has no effect at all. The effective time of plasmid-induced RNAi is obviously longer than that of chemosynthesized siRNA. The former is longer than 72 hours, while the latter is only 48 hours. After the telomerase activity is inhibited, cell apoptosis increases a little than control group at 48 hours. At 72 hours cell apoptosis has no difference with control group. It is supposed that some cells can be induced to differentiation when telomerase activity has been down regulated.


This paper presents Mir-BFT (or, simply, Mir), a robust Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) total order broadcast protocol aimed at maximizing throughput on wide-area networks (WANs), targeting permissioned and Proof-of-Stake permissionless blockchains.
We show that Mir achieves unprecedented throughput on WANs without sacrificing latency, robustness to malicious behavior, or even performance in clusters. Our evaluation shows that Mir orders more than 60000 signed Bitcoin-sized transactions per second on a widely distributed 100 nodes, 1 Gbps WAN setup, while preventing a range of attacks including request duplication performance attacks.
To achieve this, Mir relies on a novel protocol mechanism that allows a set of leaders to propose request batches independently, in parallel, while rotating the assignment of a partitioned request hash space to leaders. Several optimizations boost Mir throughput even further, including partial replication through a novel abstraction we call light total order (LTO) broadcast.
Perhaps most importantly, Mir relies on proven BFT protocol constructs, which simplifies reasoning about Mir correctness. Specifically, Mir is a generalization of the celebrated and scrutinized PBFT protocol. In a nutshell, Mir follows PBFT ``safety-wise'', with changes needed to accommodate novel features restricted to PBFT liveness.


Seventy-one patients with Crohn's disease were interviewed about their diet. All had undergone surgery for the condition. Thirty-seven patients had an ileostomy and 34 patients did not. Information about the effect of 32 foodstuffs and drinks, what advice had been given, who had given it, and the patients' attitude to food, was obtained. Twenty-seven fit health workers acted as a control group. Corn, nuts, fizzy drinks, raw fruits, shellfish and pickles in the ileostomy patients and nuts, raw fruit and tomatoes in the non-ileostomy patients gave rise to problems. These differences were statistically significant (P less than 0.01) when compared to the control group. Chicken, white bread, rice, potatoes and lamb were the foods least likely to provoke symptoms in all the groups. "Eat what you can" was the commonest dietary advice given and physicians were the most important source of that advice. More than half of the patients thought their diet was adequate but more Crohn's patients than controls took regular vitamin supplements. Although only two patients considered that diet might be responsible for their disease, most thought dietary factors important in controlling symptoms or aiding recovery.


The cyclotron resonance of electrons in Si has been optically detected. At resonance, there is a decrease in the luminescence from defects produced near the surface of Si which has been exposed to a dry etching plasma. The resonances are observable optically even when the lines are too broad to be detected directly via microwave absorption measurements. This result, together with the absence of hole resonances, provides clues as to the possible recombination mechanisms at the defects.


Novantrone mitoxantrone, an antineoplastic agent with antiproliferative properties, is under investigation as an immunomodulating agent. The impact of mitoxantrone treatment on B lymphocyte reactivity is presented here. Administered i.p. in H2O at a dose of 0.5 mg/kg, daily for 14 days, mitoxantrone abrogated both the in vivo antibody response (to ovalbumin) and the in vitro plaque-forming cell (PFC) response (to SRC). In addition to the effects on thymus-dependent reactivity, PFC responses to the thymus-independent antigens TNP-LPS and TNP-Ficoll were also inhibited when tested in vivo or in vitro. B cells were identified as a target for the suppressive activity of mitoxantrone by using T cell-replacing factor to reconstitute the in vitro anti-SRC PFC response of a T lymphocyte-depleted spleen cell preparation. LPS-induced B cell mitogenesis was largely inhibited by mitoxantrone treatment. However, depletion of Sephadex G-10-adherent cells significantly restored the proliferative response. Flow cytometric analysis revealed a dramatic decrease in splenic B lymphocyte content. Therefore, mitoxantrone exerted a potent suppressive influence on the humoral immune system through a direct reduction in B cell number augmented by macrophage-mediated inhibition of B cell proliferation.


Surface inlets are installed in subsurface drainage systems to reduce ponding duration and surface runoff, but can contribute to water quality concerns by allowing water to directly enter buried drains. Blind inlets consist of perforated pipes covered with gravel and are separated from an overlying sand layer by a geotextile membrane and have been shown to be more effective in reducing losses of sediment, nutrients, and pesticides than typical tile line risers. In this study, we investigated whether the effectiveness of blind inlets to sorb pollutants, with emphasis on the herbicide atrazine, could be further improved by amended them with materials other than limestone. The media, shredded tires (tire chips), electric arc steel furnace slag (steel slag), and oak-derived biochar were chosen because they are readily available, inexpensive, and do not present environmental concerns. Kinetic sorption and isotherms were determined to ascertain atrazine sorption by these materials, in addition to testing for potential metal leaching using the Synthetic Precipitation Leaching Procedure (SPLP) and the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP). The kinetic data were fitted using pseudo first- and second-order reaction equations and indicated that atrazine sorption rate was 38 times faster and equilibrium was reached 5 times earlier for biochar than tire chips. The 24-h sorption isotherm data were fitted to the Freundlich sorption equation. The sorption coefficient for biochar was higher than for tire chips, steel slag, and limestone. Per the SPLC and TLCP tests, there was no leaching of heavy metals at levels of environmental concern. Our results suggested that the effectiveness of blind inlets as well as other conservation practices that include filter media such as rain gardens and filter socks could be improved by incorporating more reactive materials than sand and gravel with biochar being a particularly effective alternative.


Aim: To study peculiarities of clinical course of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children with connective tissue disorders (CTD).

Methods: 64 children with CAP aged 1-18 were studied during one year. Patients were divided for analysis into two age groups: children aged 1-3 (group A, n = 16), and aged 4-18 (group B, n= 48). All patients had manifestations of CTD. CAP was clinically and radiographically diagnosed with detection of serum antibodies (IgG and IgM) against intracellular pathogens measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Results: All patients had CAP caused by atypical pathogens with indistinct clinical manifestations and symptoms. Recurrent course of CAP was in 54 (84,4%) patients. CAP caused by Chlamydophilla pneumonia (Cp) was more frequent in group A – in 15 (93,7% of the group) patients. CAP caused by Mycoplasma pneumonia (Mp) was more frequent in group B - in 44 patients (91,6% of the group), in 6,8% - together with Cp, in 27,3% - with Cytomegalovirus. Asthma was diagnosed in 29 (45,3%) patients mainly of group B, with recurrent CAP in 10 (34,5% of patients with asthma); 62,1% of these children had pulmonary hypertension (PH). 44,4% of patients with PH had evidence of pulmonary fibrosis (PF), which led to pneumatocele (PC) in 27,7%, polyserositis (PS) in 11,1% and spontaneous pneumothorax (SP) in 3,4% of patients.

Conclusions: 1. Close relationship between CTD and CAP is revealed. 2. In children up to 3 years old Cp CAP was more frequent, in children aged 4-18 - Mp CAP. 3. More than one-third of patients with asthma had recurrent CAP. 4. Asthma in children with CAP and CTD was more severe with development of PH, PF, PS, SP.


With the increasing use and impact of recommender systems in our daily lives, how to achieve fairness in recommendation has become an important problem. Previous works on fairness-aware recommendation mainly focus on a predefined set of (usually warm-start) users. However, recommender systems often face more challenging fairness issues for new users or cold-start users due to their insuf-ficient amount of interactions. Therefore, it is essential to study whether the trained model still performs fairly for a new set of cold-start users. This paper considers the scenario where the recommender system meets new users who only have limited or even no interaction with the platform, and aims at providing high-quality and fair recommendations to such users effectively. The sufficient interaction data from warm users is treated as the source user domain, while the data from new users is treated as the target user domain, and we consider to transfer the counterfactual fairness from the source users to the target users. To this end, we introduce a framework to achieve transferable counterfactual fairness in recommendation. The proposed method is able to transfer the knowledge of a fair model learned from the source users to the target users with the hope of improving the recommendation performance and keeping the fairness property on the target users. Experiments on two real-world datasets with representative recommendation algorithms show that our method not only promotes fairness for the target users, but also outperforms comparative models in terms of recommendation performance.


Chipped stone artifacts are a significant, and often the only available, record of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. The assemblages from four Middle Paleolithic sites in the Iberian peninsula form the basis of a study that addresses the behavioral significance of the variability in these objects. Artifact edges form the primary focus of this analysis, and permit morphology to be quantitatively characterized. Variability is generally continuous for the morphological features examined. Additionally, both edge and tool morphology seem primarily a function of the intensity of edge use and rejuvenation, and whether edge use was linearly extensive or concentrated in small areas. This suggests that retouched artifacts are more the result of the extent and nature of the use of their various edges than preconceived tools. The implications of these results for the study of the Middle Paleolithic and for the interpretation of lithic variability in general are discussed.


Magnetically dilute samples of complexes Dy(H(2)BPz(Me2)(2))(3) (1) and U(H(2)BPz(2))(3) (3) were prepared through cocrystallization with diamagnetic Y(H(2)BPz(Me2)(2))(3) (2) and Y(H(2)BPz(2))(3). Alternating current (ac) susceptibility measurements performed on these samples reveal magnetic relaxation behavior drastically different from their concentrated counterparts. For concentrated 1, slow magnetic relaxation is not observed under zero or applied dc fields of several hundred Oersteds. However, a 1:65 (Dy:Y) molar dilution results in a nonzero out-of-phase component to the magnetic susceptibility under zero applied dc field, characteristic of a single-molecule magnet. The highest dilution of 3 (1:90, U:Y) yields a relaxation barrier U(eff) = 16 cm(-1), double that of the concentrated sample. These combined results highlight the impact of intermolecular interactions in mononuclear single-molecule magnets possessing a highly anisotropic metal center. Finally, dilution elucidates the previously observed secondary relaxation process for concentrated 3. This process is slowed down drastically upon a 1:1 molar dilution, leading to butterfly magnetic hysteresis at temperatures as high as 3 K. The disappearance of this process for higher dilutions reveals it to be relaxation dictated by short-range intermolecular interactions, and it stands as the first direct example of an intermolecular relaxation process competing with single-molecule-based slow magnetic relaxation.


The authors report the results obtained in 34 adult patients suffering from early degenerative arthritis of the hip following mixed dysplasia in which the reduction in the central-edge angle and the increase in the acetabular index is associated with modification of the neck-shaft angle and/or femoral anteversion. These patients underwent a combined Chiari iliac osteotomy (C.I.O.) and intertrochanteric osteotomy (In.O.). The results indicate that, when the indications and technique are respected, C.I.O. associated with In.O. is a reliable surgical method.


With the emergence of pandemic influenza A virus (IAV) strains such as H1N1 and H5N1, the development of a universal vaccine has become more necessary than ever. In contrast to the highly mutable outer coat proteins, internal proteins of IAV are more conserved among different strains and are therefore a target for developing vaccines that induce strong T cell responses. Using a Toll-like receptor 9 agonist with unmethylated CpG motifs, we have shown that intranasal immunization with CpG and inactivated x31 (H3N2) IAV protects mice following a heterosubtypic challenge with a lethal dose of PR8 virus (H1N1). Vaccination with CpG and inactivated IAV cause a stronger inflammatory response than IAV infection alone, with significant levels of antiviral cytokines such as MIP-1β, CXCL 10, and IL-6 produced in the lungs. Furthermore, CpG immunization induces a substantial influx of CD11b+ cells into the draining lymph nodes as well as a population of CD11c+ cells that express high levels of the costimulatory molecule CD86, providing favorable conditions for T cell activation. At 6 days post immunization, effector CD4 and CD8 T cells expressing Granzyme B and IFN-γ are observed in the lungs of vaccinated mice. These experiments suggest that TLR agonists can act as potent immune adjuvants to generate robust T cell immunity capable of combating IAV and other viral infections where successful vaccines have not yet been developed.


The National Health Service in England is currently halfway through the most austere decade in its history. Finding ways to improve health care efficiency is crucial to ensure the sustainability of the health system. While evidence of supply-induced demand (SID) has often been used as an economic argument to restrict labour supply, in the UK the risks of SID may be much less than in health care systems with more deregulated entry into the market post-qualification and with fee-for-service payment systems. This article focuses on the problem of staff shortages in nursing. We argue that, although an oversupply of some types of labour can add to cost pressures by increasing demand for health care services and that the cost of training staff is high, undersupply and poor labour planning lead to unintended consequences such as poor labour productivity. As a result there is a case for public policy to target an oversupply of nurses in the future. If government reforms to nurse funding help, they are to be welcomed.


Since the seminal work of Jakobson (1941), phonological patterns observed in child language have been documented and analyzed from a number of perspectives. Throughout the relevant literature, an interesting paradox often manifests itself: while child language is generally characterized as a "simpler" version of the target language, many types of phonological patterns observed in acquisition data create challenges for theories developed to account for more "complex" adult systems. Phonologists within the generative framework have reacted to this problem in a number of ways, from tacitly or conspicuously ignoring acquisition data (e.g. Chomsky and Halle 1968: 331) to elaborating phonological models that account for phenomena observed in child phonology (e.g. Smith 1973; Bernhardt and Stemberger 1998) or, in some extreme cases, rejecting the validity of evidence from child production data for theoretical investigations of phonology (e.g. Hale and Reiss 1998). The disconnect between findings from child phonology and generalizations arising out of generative theories of grammar based on adult phonology has also been recruited in support of alternative, functionalist approaches to child phonology, including Stampe (1969) within Natural Phonology and, more recently, Vihman and Croft (2007) within Construction Grammar.


This thesis considers intelligent, model-based systems and the system design choices that will result in enhanced explanatory power (i.e., more transparency and flexibility in the system). Intelligent systems provide advice to the end-user to assist in decision-making and problem-solving and model-based interfaces make use of a graphical representation of a model, which an end-user is free to interact with and explore to better understand the system's advice. Having a model-based interface is believed to facilitate the development of an appropriate mental model of the system, so that a user can become a more proficient problem-solver when interacting with an intelligent system.
A primary objective of this dissertation is to offer empirically-based guidelines on how specific enhancements to explanatory power will improve system effectiveness. Two separate experiments were conducted to explore explanatory power by manipulating its three components: (1) content-based enhancements, (2) interface-based enhancements, and (3) the selection of an appropriate advisory strategy. Experiment I explored whether providing end-users with graphical-based hierarchies representing the structure of expert system rule-bases (interface-based enhancement) as well as with deep explanations, or underlying domain principles explaining system actions (content-based enhancement), actually improved problem-solving ability. Experiment II was an investigation that demonstrated how manipulations of advisory strategy affected explanatory power. For this experiment, two versions of an intelligent system were created: a high-restrictive system, in which the system prescribed for the end-user the order and manner in which the procedures of an intelligent system were to be used; and a low-restrictive system , in which the end-user was free to use an intelligent system's procedures in any sequence and in any manner he/she chose.
Multiple methods of measurements were employed to understand the effects of different treatments in the study. Problem-solving performance, as assessed by a series of tasks, and execution time were the main dependent variables of interest. Questionnaires and essay questions were administered to all subjects to gain a deeper understanding of user preferences. Finally, to gain a richer understanding of the problem-solving process, all of the subjects' actions were captured in a computer log, so that problem-solving strategies could be reconstructed and analyzed.