OBJECTIVE
The aim: The retrospective analysis of the angiographic picture and clinical results of endovascular treatment of patients with postoperative abdominal and gastrointestinal bleeding was carried out.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Materials and methods: The results of 447 endovascular diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in 391 patients (46 military and 345 civilians) with postoperative bleeding performed from 2012 to 2022 were studied. According to computer tomography with contrast enhancement, the source of bleeding was identified in 216 (67.7%) cases.

RESULTS
Results: In 345 (88.2%) patients, it was possible to reliably identify the source of bleeding on angiography. In 46 (11.8%) patients with an unexplained source of bleeding, the target arterial pool was determined on the basis of localization, volume, and features of surgical intervention and considered as preventive interventions. A total of 447 endovascular hemostatic interventions were performed on 391 patients. A stent graft was installed in 27 patients, 420 embolization were performed in 364 patients. Thus, in 43 (11.0%) patients, embolization was performed repeatedly, in 12 cases - three times, in 1 case - four times. In 16 cases (15 cases of prophylactic embolization), endovascular hemostasis was ineffective and required subsequent surgical intervention.

CONCLUSION
Conclusions: Endovascular interventions are an effective method of diagnosis and treatment of postoperative abdominal bleeding. Prophylactic embolization allows you to prevent the recurrence of postoperative bleeding with an instrumentally undiagnosed source, however, you need to be prepared for the multi-stage treatment aimed at sequentially shutting down the collateral blood supply to the damaged area.


MARKUS MISLAN DEJE
ENGLISH EDUCATION
GRADUATE PROGRAM
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR
2014

ABSTRACT
 The main objectives of this research were to obtain information about the habit forming activities done in the process of learning English in SMA Pondok Pesantren Modern Al Ikhlas Polewali Mandar and to find the description about the extent to what the habit forming activities done in the process of learning English were valuable in fostering the students' oral communicative competence.
 This research applied descriptive qualitative research with case study method . The description about the concepts or phenomena are gathered and identified through nonparticipant observations, interviews and recordings and then, were analyzed and classified through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding into several main categories, i.e. individual setting, school setting, boarding house, habit forming activities in English. The subjects of this research were four 12th grade students (two male students and two female students) from Natural Science program who have been living and studying in the boarding school since junior high school level.
 The results of data analysis showed that (1) habit forming activities done in SMA Pondok Pesantren Modern Al Ikhlas Polewali Mandar were (a) English speaking day, (b) face-to-face conversation and (c) language assembly and (d) English courses by CLID (Central Language Improvement and Development), (2) having joined the English habit forming activities for more than five years and having good motivation in English, the subjects of this research show their good oral communicative competence in English. It can be analyzed and concluded through interviews with the subjects and the qualities of speaking tasks given to them. The subject has shown good oral communicative competence. A few errors found in their interview and speaking tasks do not cause difficulties to understand the overall meaning.

Key words : habit forming activities, oral communicative competence, case study


AACR Annual Meeting-- Apr 14-18, 2007; Los Angeles, CA

4336

Blocking progesterone receptor (PR) function by using progesterone receptor antagonists (PRA) allows the modulation of endocrine processes. In breast cancer cells that functionally express PR, progesterone is essential for cell proliferation. Hence, PRAs could inhibit the growth of breast tumours.

We have developed a highly potent PRA ZK-230211 that has a considerable potential not only for therapeutic intervention but rather may prevent breast cancer more efficiently.

The majority of patients with hormone positive, advanced breast cancer initially respond to endocrine treatment. In some cases tumor progression is observed, indicating intrinsic or acquired resistance. The development of a novel compound therefore should be accompanied by translational research, strongly supporting clinical development by providing: early (bio)markers for response, profound knowledge on molecular mechanisms of action, rationale for combinations, extended indications, and (bio)markers for the occurrence of endocrine resistance.

During our in-depth pharmacological characterization of PRA ZK-230211 we showed strong rationale for use in palliative, adjuvant and prophylactic treatment of breast cancer. We evaluated markers for proliferation (Ki67) and apoptosis as early predictors of response.

In order to learn more about additional mechanisms of action, i.e. apoptosis induction, of PRA ZK-230211, we analysed the expression and status of a panel of cell cycle regulating proteins on breast cancer cells treated with the compound.

Mechanisms of resistance to PRA ZK-230211 were investigated in ER and PR-positive MXT breast tumours transplanted on BDF1 mice. Response of these tumors to the treatment with PRA ZK-230211 is, like often to other anti-hormones, rather heterogeneous. Gene expression in tumors from responders and non-responders was compared to identify new (bio)markers for the stratification of patients.

A subset of exclusively in non-responders up regulated genes was identified and validated by qRT-PCR. For further validation of the respective gene set, a panel of 20 human breast cancer cell lines is being analyzed regarding to their response to PRA ZK-230211 in correlation with protein and gene expression.


[reaction: see text] Substrate specificities of plant polyketide synthases (PKSs) were investigated using analogues of malonyl-CoA, the extension unit of the polyketide chain elongation reactions. When incubated with methylmalonyl-CoA and 4-coumaroyl-CoA, plant PKSs (chalcone synthase from Scutellaria baicalensis, stilbene synthase from Arachis hypogaea, and benzalacetone synthase from Rheum palmatum) afforded an unnatural C(6)-C(5) aromatic polyketide, 1-(4-hydroxyphenyl)pent-1-en-3-one, formed by one-step decarboxylative condensation of the two substrates. In contrast, succinyl-CoA was not accepted as a substrate by the enzymes.


Intrinsic haemangioma of the median nerve is an extremely rare tumor that represents a challenge to diagnose and treat. Only a few cases have been reported in the literature. We present a 10‐year‐old girl who was diagnosed having an intrinsic haemangioma of the median nerve and treated with total surgical resection of the tumor, under high magnification, using microneurolysis and without the need to resect and graft the median nerve. Three years later, the patient is free of symptoms and no recurrence of the mass was noticed. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. Microsurgery, 2008.


This paper provides a contribution to the field of historical simulations of the past. Throughout this document, we will describe a novel model to animate these simulations with autonomous characters exhibiting heterogeneous and spontaneous behaviours and we will discuss a case study, the simulation of the medieval village of Mértola, in the South of Portugal. We will first detail the work of construction of the urban layout. Using manual modeling combined with procedural generation, we have generated a virtual space containing some of the military structures, such as the defensive walls and the watchtower in the river, as well as some of the civilian housing inside the protection of the walls. Following, we will describe the virtual population inhabiting the space composed of autonomous individuals dressed with historical rigour. These inhabitants of the virtual city, are equipped with limited intelligence and personality traits which allows them to self-organize, interact with each other and at the local market. They communicate with their fellow citizens in the narrow streets of the village using expressive gestures and postures that convey their inner emotional states. CCS Concepts •Computing methodologies → Animation; Procedural animation; Multi-agent systems; Intelligent agents; Artificial life;


The goal of this paper is to clarify type, intensity and rate of movements, of topographically expressed features, by evaluation of surface and subsurface data through three cross sections in central part of Iraq. This was attained conveniently by comparing the selected contacts, within neotectonic time, with their original heights represented by global sea level heights and with contemporary topography. The chosen sea levels are assumed to be the original position of the undisturbed contacts. The present study assumed that any departure from the unique sea level could be caused by vertical movement (uplift or subsidence). Four topographically expressed features are included within three cross sections, each of them has specific stratigraphic boundary and unique sea level. These are: topographically expressed fetures of Samarra and Salahaldeen structures beside Shari and Tharthar Lakes. In addition, the sections includes: contemporary topography and the contacts of ; Middle/Late Miocene, Late Miocene/ Pliocene and Pliocene/Pleistocene, derived from geophysical depth maps with their associated global sea level. The first contact represents phase of tectonic stability but the other two are not , they are involved in this study to clarify and to be more close to the neotectoic events.


This research is an excavation of Wayang Topeng performance art as one of the ethnical wealth of Malang, East Java. The main target is the aesthetic domain, which is intensively studied for its potential as a tourism art by various groups, including the efforts of the Malang local government. This research aims to understand the local wisdom that can be performed as tourism arts offered at various events, one of which is at the presentation of the 2018 MCC (Malang Culture Carnival), which carries unique themes, one of which is wayang topeng (mask dance). The research method uses qualitative descriptive with a single case study approach, namely the appearance of MCC 2018. Data collected in the form of words and actions and document review, which emphasizes on key informants, Ida Ayu Made Wahyuni, SH, MS (Head of Malang City Tourism Office), Tri Handaya, S.Kom (Chairman of the Asmarabangun Wayang Topeng Association). The analysis used is a holistic single-case study. The results of this study are as follows: (1) The presentation of the theme of the work is local and historical, (2) the performance is sourced from the form and technique of the Wayang Topeng tradition, (3) the costumes and supporting devices for processing the characteristics locality and ethnicity. The ethnic spirit element raised is the aspect of locality and is offered as a display that is modern, exotic, and spectacular.
Keywords: Mask, ethnical spirit, tourism art, locality


Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key angiogenic factor in tumors, but less is known about what drives vascular remodeling in inflammation, where plasma leakage and leukocyte influx are prominent features. In chronic airway inflammation in mice infected by the bacterium Mycoplasma pulmonis (M. pulmonis), the segment of the microvasculature that supports leukocyte adhesion and migration expands through remodeling of capillaries into vessels with features of venules. Here, we report that the angiopoietin/Tie2 pathway is an essential driving force for capillary remodeling into venules in M. pulmonis-infected mouse airways. Similar to M. pulmonis infection, systemic overexpression of angiopoietin-1 (Ang1) resulted in remodeling of airway capillaries into venular-like vessels that expressed venous markers like P-selectin, ICAM-1, and EphB4 and were sites of leukocyte adhesion during lipopolysaccharide-induced acute inflammation. Ang1 and Ang2 protein increased in M. pulmonis-infected mouse airways but came from different cellular sources: Ang1 was expressed in infiltrating neutrophils and Ang2 in endothelial cells. Indeed, systemic administration of soluble Tie2 inhibited capillary remodeling, induction of venous markers, and leukocyte influx in M. pulmonis-infected mouse airways. Together, these findings suggest that blockade of the Ang/Tie2 pathway may represent a therapeutic approach in airway inflammation.


In this paper we propose a macroscopic model for elastoplastic materials with continuously distributed dislocations, when we restrict to small elastic strains, but the elastic rotations and plastic distorsions remain large. The material is not homogeneous and it behaves like an elastic material element with respect to non-holonomic configuration. The elastic curvature tensor vanishes. Consequently to complete the definition of the mathematical model it is sufficient to prescribe the evolution equation for the plastic distorsion (i.e. for time-dependent non-holonomic configuration), as well as the for the internal variables. .


This paper provides readers of the 21st century with some assistance in appreciating Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which were originally composed not for readers but for listeners almost three millennia ago. These poems were, moreover, heir to a long tradition of oral poetry which produced many other such compositions, now lost except for some few fragments and late summaries of their contents. Understanding the nature of oral composition (use of formulas, conversational syntax) may make the poems that we inevitably read as texts more accessible to students. In addition, we can recover some of the ways in which the two poems incorporated various elements of the tradition (such as allusions to well-known myths), and how, in doing so, they also diverge from each other (for example, in the contrasting use they make of anticipatory prophecies) in spite of the many qualities they share.


A dielectric cover is used to enhance the gain of an aperture-coupled microstrip patch antenna. The cover is spaced off of the patch antenna by air and, as expected, is found to significantly increase antenna broadside directivity in some configurations. A parametric study on the effects of spacing height, cover size, and thickness of the cover are presented. This study uses a finite element method (FEM) based, commercial analysis tool to perform these parametric searches, and so accounts for finite size ground planes and dielectrics. The previous research work reported in literature considered infinite-area ground planes and dielectrics. The wide impedance matching bandwidth of the aperture-coupled microstrip patch also allows observation of the narrow-bandwidth effects of the added dielectric cover. Finally, a proposed design methodology is outlined, and a prototype of the antenna was fabricated and experimentally verified with a peak gain of 13.9 dBi. The measured results agree reasonably well with the simulated ones.


Introduction Civil–military cooperation (CMC) in infectious disease outbreak responses has become more common, and has its own cooperation dynamics. These collaborations fit WHO's call for multisectoral cooperation in managing health emergencies according to the emergency management cycle (EMC). However, the literature on CMC on this topic is fragmented. The core aim of this review is to understand the breadth and dynamics of this cooperation by using the EMC as a framework and by identifying challenges and opportunities in the management of outbreaks. Methods A scoping review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guideline was conducted. A systematic search for peer-reviewed journals was performed in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Scopus. Eligible papers addressed substantive contributions to the understanding of CMC. Papers were categorised by EMC phase and relevant information on study characteristics and areas of cooperation were extracted from the data. Recurring themes on challenges and opportunities in cooperation were identified by means of qualitative interpretation analysis. Results The search resulted in 8360 papers; 54 were included for analysis. Most papers provided a review of activities or expert opinions. CMC was described in all EMC phases, with the fewest references in the recovery phase (n=1). In total, eight areas of CMC were explored. Regarding the better understanding of cooperative dynamics, the qualitative analysis of the papers yielded five recurring themes covering challenges and opportunities in CMC: managing relations, framework conditions, integrating collective activities, governance and civil–military differences. Conclusion Guided by these five themes, successful CMC requires sustainable relations, binding agreements, transparency, a clear operational perspective and acknowledgement of organisational cultural differences. Early and continuous engagement proves crucial to avoid distrust and tension among stakeholders, frequently caused by differences in strategical goals. Original research on this topic is limited.


Transcription blockage can strongly affect various DNA and RNA transactions (reviewed in Hanawalt & Spivak, 2008; Belotserkovskii, Mirkin, & Hanawalt, 2013). Thus, it is of interest to study the various factors that can cause transcription blockage and to elucidate mechanisms of their action. Peptide Nucleic Acids (PNAs) are artificial DNA mimics with superior nucleic acid binding capabilities. The effect of PNA binding to the (GAA/CTT)n sequence within the transcribed DNA region upon T7 RNA polymerase transcription was studied in vitro. In the case of the PNA binding to the template strand, the blockage signals concentrated primarily in the narrow area close to the upstream flank of the PNA-bound sequence, consistent with the blockage being caused by RNA polymerase "bumping" into the PNA/DNA hybrid (Belotserkovskii, Liu, & Hanawalt, 2009). In contrast, for PNA binding to the non-template strand, a characteristic pattern of blockage signals was observed, extending downstream from the PNA binding site (Belotserkovskii and Hanawalt, 2014), similar to that produced by G-rich homopurine-homopyrimidine sequences (Belotserkovskii et al, 2010, 2013). This striking similarity between transcription blockage patterns caused by two seemingly unrelated factors suggests a common mechanism of blockage. This common mechanism likely involves R-loop formation, which is facilitated both by PNA binding to the non-template strand and by G-rich homopurine-homopyrimidine sequences, due to sequestration of the non-template strand or due to formation of an extra-stable RNA/DNA hybrid, respectively. We suggest that there is a general mechanism of transcription blockage by R-loop formation, which presumably involves destabilization of the transcription complex, making it more prone to spontaneous pausing or termination.


Existing image codec technologies are based on transform which make image signal can be compressed, while quantization has been used to control bit rates. Compressive sensing (CS), which is a novel signal processing and recovery method, can be applied to image decoding to replace inverse transform reconstruction. This paper proposes an error estimate method based on equalization quantization noise model for image codec. Due to the robust character of CS, it can upgrade the quality of reconstruction when error has been estimated accurately. With designed equalization matrix, a new norm constraint which can enhance the quality of CS recovery significantly has been shown. A CS-based JPEG decoding scheme based on quantization error estimate is also presented, and experimental evidence exhibits more gains over CS reconstruction without error estimation and original JPEG decoder.


In this paper a new algorithm for signal denoising is proposed. The algorithm uses two signal processing techniques, wavelet transform and independent component analysis. The approach is based on removing the limitations of one technique by taking advantages of the other technique. In previous works, denoising process causes removing some signal components. In this work an algorithm is presented that keep all them. The performance of this method is studied on some test standard signals. In addition, as a practical application, this method is applied to ultrasonic signal denoising that widely use in nondestructive testing (NDT). The simulation results show up to 2dB improvement in SNR comparing wavelet transform.


Abstract : There seems to be a concensus that two main measures in classical mental test theory are the reliability and validity coefficients of a test. Although these measures have widely been accepted by psychologists and test users in the past decades, they are actually the attributes of a specified group of examinees as well as of a given test, since the correlation coefficient is used in either case. In addition, representation of these measures by single numbers results in over-simplification and the lack of useful information for both theorists and actual users of tests. The same applies for the standard error of measurement also. In latent trait models, the item and test information functions provide us with abundant information about the local accuracy of estimation, a concept which is totally missing in classical mental test theory. These functions do not depend upon any specific group of examinees as the reliability coefficient does, or we can say that they are population-free. By virtue of this characteristic, adding further information about the MLE bias function of the test and the ability distribution of the examinee group, we can provide the tailored reliability coefficient and standard error of measurement in the classical mental test theory's sense for each and every specified group of examinees who have taken the same test.


Purposes: The objective of the research was intended to know the improvement of the students' proficiency in writing through collaborative writing method at second year students' of SMA Muhammadiyah Kalosi, Enrekang regency. Methodology: The method of this research is classroom action research consisted of two cycles. The population of this research is all students grade eight at Senior high school; they were 350 students and as a sample of this research consist of ten percent from the population. There were two kinds of data on this research namely qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data showed that students' interest in writing descriptive because they can write collaboratively, knowledge sharing and critical thinking in teaching and learning process. Quantitative data showed us the improvement from the first up to the last test, the improvement occurred continuously. Findings: The finding of the research was students' improvement in cycle I of content was17.25% became 19.37%. The students' improvement of organization was 19.71% in cycle 1 and it became 20.42% in cycle 2. The students' improvement of vocabulary was 13.54% in cycle 1 and it became 14.09% in cycle 2. The students' improvement of language use was 14.71% in cycle 1 and it became 16.63% in cycle 2, and the students' improvement of mechanics was 3.42% in cycle 1 and it became 3.72% in cycle 2. Implication: It describes us that there was an improvement on students' proficiency by implementing collaborative writing method.


Abstract Postsurgical device-related meningitis caused by multidrug-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci often complicates the treatment options. We report a rare and, to our knowledge, the first clinical case report of drain-associated meningitis caused by methicillin- and linezolid-resistant Staphylococcus haemolyticus following linezolid therapy in a vancomycin-hypersensitive patient subsequently treated with cotrimoxazole, resulting in clinical improvement. The molecular mechanisms responsible for linezolid resistance were found to be the presence of G2576T mutation in domain V of 23srRNA region, which often arises during linezolid usage and also carriage of cfr gene, which promotes resistance independent of antibiotic pressure. We emphasize on monitoring the rational use of linezolid to avoid the spread of resistance and also comprehensive perioperative care to prevent health care-associated infection.


Pollen analyses of sediment samples from five boreholes in the Little Oakley Silts and Sands provide evidence of contemporary vegetational development. Although the sequence is fragmentary, the succession can be reassembled based on the well established subdivisions of vegetational development during temperate stages in northwest Europe. The earliest vegetation represented is of late-glacial herb-dominated character. This is followed by an expansion of Betula , and subsequently Pinus , which together with Picea , Alnus , and later, Ulmus form the pre-temperate forest. After the decline in Pinus , Ulmus becomes dominant in the early temperate substage. The later expansion of Quercus and accompanied decrease in Ulmus marks the development of fully temperate deciduous forest. Other temperate trees such as Tilia and Fraxinus are rare. Throughout, the neighbouring river floodplains supported widespread herb-dominated grassland. The latter may have been maintained by alluvial aggradation and large vertebrate activity. Pollen analysis from a Megaloceros cf. dawkinsi antler base collected by S. H. Warren shows that the find dates from the early temperate substage of the interglacial. Comparison of the Little Oakley pollen sequence with others obtained from Britain, The Netherlands and neighbouring countries suggests probable correlation with the Cromerian sensu stricto of West Runton, England and 'Interglacials III or IV ' of the Dutch 'Cromerian Complex'. The preceding possible late-glacial spectrum should therefore equate with the late Beestonian.


[extract] Digital India Program (DIP) is an ambitious umbrella programme of Government of India. It weaves together a large number of technologies with governance processes and services to empower Indian citizens around its three vision areas viz. "Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen", "Governance and Services on Demand", and "Digital Empowerment of Citizens". These key areas of visions rest on nine pillars of Digital India ranging from provision of "Broadband for all" to its forty-four mission mode projects related to governance services under "e- Kranti" pillar to "IT for Jobs" and "Digital Literacy for All" and so on. DIP is not merely a great opportunity to develop the digital backbone of the country but also promises to deliver a real improvement in the quality of life of Indians by offering an on-demand easier access to governance and services using Internet, Mobile, Cloud based Digi -lockers, Common Service Centres-CSCs, Post offices, public Wi-Fi hotspots and much more. In fact majority of the activities and services delineated under government-to-government (G2G), government-to-businesses (G2B) and government-to-citizens (G2C) categories have been proposed to be delivered using technology through the aegis of DIP by means of innovative implementation models such as 4P model (Panchayat-Public-Private-Partnership). The proposed actions and services are further expected to be refined by all the stakeholders in an open and interactive manner using digital mechanisms such as portal of MYGOV. Further, DIP is also expected to bring all the digital activity to India by ushering in other related concepts such as Smart Cities and therefore lead to a ripple effect business opportunities in all the related sectors such as Software, Support, Hardware, Government Services and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES). The ultimate mission of DIP is to transform India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy by leveraging information technology (IT) as a growth engine of new India.


Two special types of algebraic (or compactly generated) lattices -- called A1- and A2-lattice -- are introduced. These lattices are uncountable, and each element in these lattices, apart from the zero and unit, possesses an incomparable element. The main results characterize those elements that have a largest incomparable element. Then two particular kinds of algebras -- called A1- and A2-algebra -- are defined and it is shown that the lattice of subalgebras of an A1-algebra [A2-algebra] is an A1-lattice [A2-lattice, respectively]. These results are established in order to apply them in formal language theory; viz. they yield necessary and sufficient conditions for a language family to possess a largest incomparable ``similar'' language family. On the other hand formal language theory provides language families that may serve as (counter)example in algebra. In this way we show that, although each A2-algebra [A2-lattice] is an A1-algebra [A1-lattice, respectively], the converse implication does not hold.


Java is one of the most widely used languages in Desktop developing, Web Development and Mobile Development, so there are many lessons that explain its basics, so it should be an intelligent tutoring system that offers lessons and exercises for this language. Why tutoring system? Simply because it is one-one teacher, adapts with all the individual differences of students, begins gradually with students from easier to harder level, save time for teacher and student, the student is not ashamed to make mistakes, and more. In this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching Java to help students learn Java easily and smoothly. Tutor provides beginner level in Java. Finally, we evaluated our tutor and the results were excellent by students and teachers.


A comprehensive simulator of fluidized bed equipment (CSFMB) has been able to reproduce experimental tests of bituminous coal gasification. The tests employed a bubbling fluidized bed pilot operating at atmospheric pressure and mixtures of air and steam were injected as gasification agents. Relatively low deviations between experimental and simu- lation results have been achieved. The simulator can now be applied on optimized scaling up of that equipment operating at any pressure. It also opens the possibility of integrating CSFMB as a module of wider simulations aiming optimizations of CIG/GT (Coal Integrated Gasification/Gas Turbine process) and Fisher-Tropsch processes.


The three forms of herpetic encephalitis have been outlined and particular stress has been laid on herpes simplex encephalitis, which accounts for a large percentage of cases showing necrotizing encephalitis. The possible application of antiviral drugs such as idoxuridine in the treatment of this disease has been mentioned. A case of herpes B encephalitis contracted from a monkey bite has been described, and care in the handling of monkeys has been stressed.


Carbon-epoxy prepreg has been introduced in the forming of the upper and lower swash plates that control the pitch of rotor blade of unmanned helicopter because of its lightweight. Taguchi experimental method has been used by introducing the variables such as arrangement angle, laminated number and forming temperature, in order to obtain the proper forming method by using prepreg satisfying the required strength of the swash plate. In the evaluation of structural safety for the swash plates, three kinds of models are considered by using FE-analysis. In comparison of the hot forged products with Al6061-T6 and the formed products with prepreg, it was found that ultimate tensile strength of the products with prepreg is three times higher than that of the Al6061-T6, and the weight reduction of 68.5g can be achieved by using prepreg swash plates.


Transport of chemical substances through a catchment depend to a large extent on the water content of the soil through which they are transported. When the groundwater level rise and fall, redox conditions change in the soil and the transport of substances is affected. The aim of this study is to develop a hydrological model which is able to simulate soil water content at different depths and groundwater level in a soil profile. A new type of conceptual model is developed, which uses a continous represenation of the soil and soil water from the soil surface down to the bedrock. The model is intended to be applied on small catchments at a later stage. The results show that the simulation of groundwater levels was greatly improved compared to previous results. Simulation of soil water content at selected depths is not yet satisfactory. The runoff simulation was accurate at one of the sites but did not work as well at the other. At one of the sites it was also possible to combine good simulations of runoff and groundwater levels but at the other it was only possible to obtain acceptable simulations of either runoff or groundwater. It is suggested that model performance could be improved by letting the porosity decrease and the soil water content increase non-linearly with depth. Calculations of evaporation from soil and runoff also need to be modified.


History of rice breeding is very old and runs back to 60 years. Initial efforts were to purify land varieties followed by hybridization and selection. Later green revolution progressed and then followed the era of hybrids. Chinese developed many hybrids with outstanding yield performance. New endeavours following this are molecular breeding, and transgenic. Molecular techniques are another promising technique implemented in rice breeding. The time that had been spent earlier for the selection of progenies and parents with desired gene(s) got reduced a lot with the identification of gene tagged markers. Use of markers for the identification of genotype is termed as marker assisted breeding. To get a faster and accurate desired development, transgenic came in to picture.


Physicochemical properties of the soluble Mn2+-dependent adenylate cyclase (MnAC) in the blue fox testis were examined. MnAC activity in the cytosol fraction (106,000 g) migrated in a linear sucrose gradient as a single peak with a sedimentation coefficient (S20,W) of 4.2 Gel filtration on a Sephadex G-200 column revealed an Einstein-Stokes radius of 28 A and a frictional ratio of 1.15, indicating a molecular weight of approximately 51,000. The MnAC migrated as a single peak of activity during polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with an Rf of 0.52. The isoelectric point (pI) estimated by isoelectric focusing was 5.5.


Hypericum triquetrifolium Turra (Guttiferae) has received considerable scientific interest in recent years, as it is a source of a variety of biologically active compounds including phenolics. The present study was conducted to determine the variation in the content of several phenolics, namely phenylpropane chlorogenic acid and flavonoids such as rutin, hyperoside, apigenin-7-O-glucoside, kaempferol, quercitrin, quercetin and amentoflavone among four H. triquetrifolium populations from the Central Black Sea Region of Turkey. The aerial parts representing a total of 30 shoots were collected at full flowering in each population. After drying at room temperature, they were dissected into floral, leaf and stem tissues and subsequently assayed for phenolic compounds by HPLC. The populations varied significantly in phenolic content. Among different plant parts, the flowers were found to be the principle organ for chlorogenic acid, hyperoside, apigenin-7-O-glucoside, kaempferol, quercetin and amentoflavone accumulations, while rutin and quercitrin were accumulated mainly in the leaves. The presence of apigenin-7-O-glucoside and amentoflavone in H. triquetrifolium is reported by us for the first time. The chemical variation among the populations and plant parts is discussed as being possibly the result of different genetic, environmental and morphological factors.


The lecture follows up with our recent systematic applications of the analysis of domain averaged Fermi holes (DAFH) for the description of the electron reorganization during the formation and/or splitting of chemical bonds and complements the original picture provided by the traditional DAFH analysis in ordinary r-space by the complementary insights into details of the dissociation process in the momentum space1. The approach was applied to the analysis of the dissociation process in several simple diatomic molecules (H2, LiH and N2) and we believe that new insights provided by such an alternative description noit only contribute to the better understanding of the phenomenon of chemical bonding, but also to throw some new light on the origin of the so-called bond directional principle (BDP)


At the late phase of megakaryocytopoiesis, megakaryocytes undergo endomitosis, which is characterized by DNA replication without cell division. Although a number of cell cycle regulatory molecules have been identified, the precise roles of these molecules in megakaryocytic endomitosis are largely unknown. In a human interleukin-3-dependent cell line transfected with the thrombopoietin (TPO) receptor c-mpl(F-36P-mpl), either treatment with TPO or the overexpression of activated ras (Ha-RasG12V) induced megakaryocytic maturation with polyploid formation. We found that TPO stimulation or Ha-RasG12V expression led to up-regulation of cyclin D1, cyclin D2, and cyclin D3 expression. In addition, expression levels of cyclin A and cyclin B were reduced during the total course of both TPO- and Ha-RasG12V-induced megakaryocytic differentiation, thereby leading to decreased cdc2 kinase activity. Neither the induced expression of cyclin D1, cyclin D2, or cyclin D3 nor the expression of a dominant negative form of cdc2 alone could induce megakaryocytic differentiation of F-36P-mpl cells. In contrast, overexpression of dominant negative cdc2 together with cyclin D1, cyclin D2, or cyclin D3 facilitated megakaryocytic differentiation in the absence of TPO. These results suggest that both D-type cyclin expression and decreased cdc2 kinase activity may participate in megakaryocytic differentiation.


Objective: To study Simvastatin induced, qualitative histomorphological changes in skeletal muscle fibers of rats and find protective effect of Formoterol co-administration in Simvastatin induced myopathy.
Study Design: Laboratory based experimental randomized controlled trial.
Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted at the department of Anatomy, Army Medical College Rawalpindi in collaboration with National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad and Armed forces institute of Pathology (AFIP) Rawalpindi, from Jan 2015 to Jun 2016.
Material and Methods: Adult male Sprague-dawley rats were procured from NIH Islamabad. Their average approximate age was 70-80 days with weight as 250 ± 50 grams. The animals were randomly selected and divided into three groups. Group A was the control. Each rat of group B received Simvastatin dissolved in distilled water, by oral gavage (60mg/kg/day) once daily, for 12 weeks. Animals of Group C received simvastatin dissolved in distilled water (60mg/kg/day) once daily plus formoterol dissolved in distilled water (3μg/kg/day) once daily for 12 weeks. Both were administered with the help of oral gavage. The animals were sacrificed after three months of the experimental period. Extensor digitorum longus (EDL) tendon was isolated and dissected out. Tissue processing was done on the EDL muscle followed by Hematoxylin and Eosin staining. Fiber variability,inflammation, necrosis, shape of nuclei and location of nuclei were assessed per high power field in each specimen of all the groups.
Results: Examination of H&E stained sections of the extensor digitorum longus muscle of the control group revealed the normal structure of skeletal muscle. Fiber variability, inflammation and necrosis were significantly higher in group B as compared to the control group A. Group C showed significantly decrease in myofiber variability, inflammation and necrosis in myofibers as compared to group B.
Conclusion: Simvastatin induced the histomorphological changes in the skeletal muscle of experimental rats by increasing myofiber variability, inflammation and necrosis. Formoterol co-administration minimized the simvastatin induced myopathy by significantly decreasing myofiber variability, inflammation and necrosis.


The ethanolic extract of soursop leaves (Annona muricata L.) is reported as an antioxidant agent with an IC50 value of 14.48 µg/mL. This research aimed to examine physical characteristics and investigate the antioxidant activity of the ethanolic extract of soursop leaves in a scrub cream. Soursop leaves powder was extracted with 70% ethanol and formulated as scrub cream at the concentration of 1.4%, 2.8%, and 4.2%, then evaluated for physical characteristics. The antioxidant activity was evaluated using DPPH (1.1-diphenyl-2 picrylhydrazyl) method. The result showed that the scrub cream at all concentrations tested fulfilled all physical characteristics required for good topical preparations. These included organoleptic, homogeneity, viscosity, pH, spreadability, and adhesion. The IC50 value of the scrub cream at the concentration of 1.4%, 2.8 %, and 4.2% were 30.72, 26.82, and 24.03 µg/mL, respectively. The IC50 values indicated that the scrub creams exhibit radical scavenging activities which categorized as strong activity antioxidants.


In this paper we investigate the relations between possibility, imagination and conception. We develop a theory according to which these three notions are compatible but independent. This means in particular that none of these notions reduces to another one and that there are things which are: (1) imaginable but neither possible nor conceivable; (2) conceivable but neither possible nor imaginable; (3) possible but neither imaginable nor conceivable. We first explain our methodology: structuralism, equilibrium between norm and description, prototypical examples. And then we proceed


This paper presents a control framework on Lie groups by designing the control objective in its Lie algebra. Control on Lie groups is challenging due to its nonlinear nature and difficulties in system parameterization. Existing methods to design the control objective on a Lie group and then derive the gradient for controller design are non-trivial and can result in slow convergence in tracking control. We show that with a proper left-invariant metric, setting the gradient of the cost function as the tracking error in the Lie algebra leads to a quadratic Lyapunov function that enables globally exponential convergence. In the PD control case, we show that our controller can maintain an exponential convergence rate even when the initial error is approaching π in SO(3). We also show the merit of this proposed framework in trajectory optimization. The proposed cost function enables the iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator (iLQR) to converge much faster than the Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) with a well-adopted cost function when the initial trajectory is poorly initialized on SO(3).


In this study price knowledge is viewed as a necessary component of a product knowledge structure, in which it is inferred from domain-specific relations among product features. Consumers' knowledge of tuition rates of colleges and universities was investigated in two tuition-estimation experiments. In Experiment 1, providing participants with seed knowledge of a small subset of listed schools improved the mapping properties of the estimates and reduced reliance on using the availability heuristic. In Experiment 2, similar effects were observed when instructions contained information about tuition magnitudes of school groupings, information about how to categorize schools into these groups, and, especially, both types of information combined. Results were interpreted within a frame structural view of consumer knowledge, in which price knowledge occupies an obligatory slot in a richly structured frame as opposed to being derived from memory of isolated exposures to specific prices. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This paper is concerned with the mixed H2/H∞ control problem via static output feedback control. The main purpose of this paper is to give an iterative method for finding a sub-optimal static output-feedback controller for the mixed H2/H∞ control problem. The contribution of this paper is to derive a gradient of the H2 cost function. Using this gradient, we propose a gradient method for H2 and mixed H2/H∞ control problems. Numerical examples show the efficiency of our methods.


Abstract Ceramic-metallic nuclear fuels are a candidate fuel for nuclear thermal propulsion systems due to their high heat transport properties, which are necessary in very high-temperature environments. The conventional fabrication of uranium nitride–molybdenum fuel has been thoroughly studied in the past, but modern manufacturing techniques have presented a unique opportunity for further development within this field. This work demonstrates the use of advanced manufacturing techniques to produce nuclear fuel pellets composed of uranium nitride microspheres encased in a molybdenum matrix. Binder jetting is used to print molybdenum disks that are filled with uranium nitride microspheres and afterward sintered using spark plasma sintering. Two fuel pellets were fabricated to demonstrate the methodology and to provide a baseline analysis of the effects of temperature and pressure processing conditions. Characterization of the sintered fuel pellets includes detailed microstructural analysis and thermal conductivity measurements.


Since the ancient time, medicinal plants play a central role in the day-to-day life of humankind as crucial additive agents in foods, drinks and drugs and also as components in perfumes and cosmetics. The nutritional, pharmacological, biological and toxicological properties of the medicinal plants also have extensive applications. Globally, the majority of people nowadays rely on alternative and complementary medicines as safe sources for the treatment of various ailments obtained from natural sources. Plenty of plant and marine sources are available worldwide including the Sultanate of Oman with notable medicinal values. Hyoscyamus gallagheri ( H. gallagheri ), is one of the leafy plants grown in the desert areas of the Sultanate of Oman which belongs to the family of Solanaceae. Omanis have used the selected plant species traditionally to increase hair density, hair fall, dental pain, relieve snake bite, scorpion sting pain, motion sickness, asthma and cough. This plant is considered as a new species because still now there is no evidence on phytochemicals, pharmacological and toxicological studies available of the selected species. Previously, our group from Nizwa University has conducted two studies on the pharmacological and phytochemicals of the selected plant species and the results showed that the plant extracts contain different groups of phytochemicals, which possess notable biological activity. This present review is to summarize the updated scientific information available on the selected plant species grown in Oman. Therefore, the main objective of this current review is to compare and contrast the morphology, toxicity, pharmacological activity, phytochemicals, potential uses with other species belong to this family including the selected plant species of H. gallagheri . In conclusion, the raw plant materials, its crude extracts and isolated ingredients might be used as a novel therapeutic or herbal medicine to treat various ailments.


Abstract A Cameca IMS 300 ion analyzer has been used to measure fluorine concentrations in tooth material. Samples of human and shark teeth were studied. Negative oxygen primary ions produce secondary mass spectra in which positive as well as negative fluorine ion peaks are well re presented. With constant measuring conditions, the reproducibility of the F/Ca ion ratios is satisfactory. Fluorine concentrations in the 10 ppm region are easily recorded. By means of samples previously measured by macroscopic F-determining methods, a calibration can be effected to obtain, from the ion current ratios, at least semiquantitative values of F-concentrations. In a sample of human enamel, the F-concentration was found to vary from about 3000 ppm at the surface to about 100 ppm in the interior. In shark enamel the composition at the surface cor responded to nearly saturated fluorapatite, 3.6% F, but the fluorine concentration decreased distinctly at increasing depth.


Little mechanical data is available on human arteries because of the difficulty of testing artery samples often obtained from autopsy, while arteries are still considered "fresh". Various solutions mimicking the physiological environment have been used to preserve artery samples from harvesting to testing. Cryopreservation might provide a means to preserve the mechanical properties of arteries for days or weeks after harvesting. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of several preservation methods, including simplified cryopreservation methods, on the passive mechanical properties of arteries. Eighteen fresh cruciform samples were mechanically tested. Samples were divided in three groups based on preservation medium and freezing method: isotonic saline solution, Krebs-Henseleit buffer solution with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and dipped in liquid nitrogen. In each group, half of the samples were stored at -20℃ and the other half at -80℃. Two months later, all the tissues were thawed at 4℃ and mechanical tests were repeated. Preservation of arteries for two months in Krebs solution with DMSO (at -20℃ or at -80℃) or in isotonic saline solution at -20℃ were the methods that least changed the mechanical properties of the arteries.


We examined [Y. Savir and T. Tlusty, Cell 153, 471 (2013)10.1016/j.cell.2013.03.032] the decoding performance of tRNA by the ribosome. For this purpose, we specified the kinetics of tRNA decoding and the corresponding energy landscape, from which we calculated the steady-state decoding rate R_{C}. Following our work, Xie reexamined [P. Xie, Phys. Rev. E 92, 022716 (2015)10.1103/PhysRevE.92.022716] the energy landscape of tRNA decoding. His analysis relies on an alternative expression for R_{C}, while claiming that the expression we use is missing some terms. In this Comment we rederive in detail our expression for the steady-state decoding rate R_{C}, show they hold, explain why the alternative expression for R_{C} is inaccurate, and discuss the underlying intuition.


What policy objective should a common central bank in a heterogeneous monetary union pursue? Should it base its decisions on the EU-wide average of inflation and growth or should it instead focus on (appropriately weighted) national welfare losses based on national rates of inflation and growth? We find that a central bank that minimises the sum of national welfare losses reacts less to common shocks. This can lead to higher average union-wide expected welfare if the variability of common shocks is large relative to the inflation bias and if idiosyncratic demand shocks in the non-tradables sector are not too high.


Recent advances in the capabilities of personal, workstation, and cloud computing platforms have spurred developments in many computational fields. Terramechanics, involving the study of the dynamic interactions between vehicle and terrain, could, to great benefit, leverage existing compute power towards the use of higher fidelity models. In this paper, we outline the formulation and implementation of an inelastic continuum based soil model in a multibody system (MBS) simulation environment. Such a new computational environment will allow for the simulation of the complex and dynamic interactions occurring at the interface between tracks and wheels, and the ground. The soil model is developed using the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) finite elements. In deformable terrain, soil is modeled as a set of 8-node brick ANCF elements whose mechanical behavior may be defined by a suitable constitutive model. A Drucker-Prager plasticity material, which is used to model the behavior of the soil, is proper for the simulation of a number of types of soils and offers a good starting point for computational plasticity in terramechanics applications. Such higher fidelity terramechanics simulations can be fruitfully applied towards the investigation of complex dynamic phenomena in terramechanics. The proposed ANCF/Drucker-Prager soil model is implemented in a MBS computer code. This implementation is demonstrated using an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) model.


BACKGROUND
The predictability and high success rate of implant treatment have averted attention from factors affecting fixture loss and bone loss around implants.

PURPOSE
The goal of this study was to retrospectively evaluate late fixture loss and marginal bone loss around implants that have been in function for 5 years and to relate these findings to bone loss in the natural dentition.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
One hundred and forty-three consecutively treated patients who had received an implant-anchored fixed prosthesis and completed a 5-year follow-up were selected. Intraoral and panoramic radiographs were used to assess bone loss.

RESULTS
The bone loss was greater around remaining implants in patients who had lost implants after loading. No correlation was found between bone loss around implants and that around teeth. Only 2% of the fixtures were lost during 5 years of functional load. Most fixtures losses occurred in the edentulous maxilla. Seven of the nine patients who lost fixtures were smokers.

CONCLUSION
These findings show that patients who lost implants also lost more bone around the remaining implants. There was no correlation between bone loss around implants and that around teeth, indicating that different interacting mechanisms are involved.


The paper considers the dependence of the production and distribution of electricity, gas and water from the main socio-economic indicators of development of regions of the Russian Federation. The calculated values of the regression statistics. Correlation and expert analysis identified the following factors: crop production, livestock breeding; commissioning of the total area; retail trade; net financial result (profit minus loss) of organizations; investment in fixed assets. Based on regression analysis investigated the importance and significance of these equations and factors, which used F and P statistics, P values, the lower and upper limit of the interval. Draw appropriate conclusions.


In this paper we analyze the aggregate volatility of a stylized economy where agents are networked. If strategic relations connect agents' actions, idiosyncratic shocks can generate nontrivial aggregate fluctuations. We show that the aggregate volatility depends on the network structure of the economy in two ways. On the one hand, the more connected the economy, the lower the aggregate volatility. On the other hand, the more concentrated the network, the higher the aggregate volatility. We provide an application of our theoretical predictions using US data on intersectoral linkages and firms' diversification patterns.


Growth curve analysis provides important informational benefits regarding intervention outcomes over time. Rarely, however, should outcome trajectories be assumed to be linear. Instead, both the shape and the slope of the growth curve can be estimated. Non-linear growth curves are usually modeled by including either higher-order time variables or orthogonal polynomial contrast codes. Each has limitations (multicollinearity with the first, a lack of coefficient interpretability with the second, and a loss of degrees of freedom with both) and neither encourages direct testing of alternative hypothesized curve shapes. Especially in studies with relatively small samples it is likely to be useful to preserve as much information as possible at the individual level. This article presents a step-by-step example of the use and testing of hypothesized curve shapes in the estimation of growth curves using hierarchical linear modeling for a small intervention study. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v3i2_herman


Bayesian estimation has played a pivotal role in the understanding of individual differences. However, for many models in psychology, Bayesian estimation of model parameters can be difficult. One reason for this difficulty is that conventional sampling algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), can be inefficient and impractical when little is known about the target distribution--particularly the target distribution's covariance structure. In this article, we highlight some reasons for this inefficiency and advocate the use of a population MCMC algorithm, called differential evolution Markov chain Monte Carlo (DE-MCMC), as a means of efficient proposal generation. We demonstrate in a simulation study that the performance of the DE-MCMC algorithm is unaffected by the correlation of the target distribution, whereas conventional MCMC performs substantially worse as the correlation increases. We then show that the DE-MCMC algorithm can be used to efficiently fit a hierarchical version of the linear ballistic accumulator model to response time data, which has proven to be a difficult task when conventional MCMC is used.


Water resources management is one of the most important challenges the world faces. It is difficult to think of a resource more essential to the health of human communities or their economies than water. Humans cannot live for more than several days without water, shorter than for any source of sustenance other than fresh air. In meeting their demand for water, societies extract vast quantities from rivers, lakes, wetlands, and underground aquifers to supply the requirements of cities, farms, and industries. The summer of 2002 in the United States will be remembered for putting Americans from coast to coast through one of the worst droughts in decades. While experts discussed the links between water shortages, erratic weather conditions, and population growth, there is also evidence that the way we grow—development patterns—can exacerbate problems with both water quality and quantity. And ironically, water supply is no longer just a western issue in the United States. We are drinking, irrigating, and using water faster than precipitation can replenish groundwater from the Great Plains to the Chicago suburbs to the Florida Everglades. There is also growing recognition that functionally intact and biologically complex freshwater ecosystems provide many economically valuable commodities and services to society (ecosystem services) beyond simply direct water supply. These services include flood control, transportation, recreation, purification of human and industrial wastes, habitat for plants and animals, and production of fish and other foods and marketable goods. These ecosystem benefits are costly and often impossible to replace when aquatic systems are degraded. Deliberations about water allocation should therefore, always include provisions for maintaining the integrity of freshwater ecosystems, including the need to maintain minimum in-stream flows and to anticipate the impact of hydrologic modifications on downstream environments (Flint, et al., 1996). Otherwise, we have few safeguards that will protect the systems that sustain us. Besides being an integral part of the ecosystem, water is a social and economic good. Demand for water resources of sufficient quantity and quality for human consumption, sanitation, agricultural irrigation, and manufacturing will continue to intensify as populations increase and as global urbanization, industrialization, and commercial development accelerates (Flint and Houser, 2001). Water runs like a river through our lives, touching everything from our vigor and the fitness of natural ecosystems around us to farmers' fields and the production of goods we consume. It is critical that efforts intended to be sustainable fully consider the health and operation of aquatic ecosystems and that the environmental value of watersheds be recognized when making economic and social decisions on water allocation and use.


In order to examine the effect of strain rate on critical stress intensity factors of bones, fracture toughness tests were performed using compact tension specimens prepared from bovine bones under the strain rate ranging from the quasi-static to the high-speed. To confirm anisotropic properties, two different specimens were used, that is, one is the L-direction specimen with initial fissures in the bone running parallel to the axis, and the other is the T-direction specimen with fissures running perpendicular. Further, the specimens under wet and dry states were tested to ascertain the effect of humoral components contained in the bones on critical stress intensity factors. In reference to directional dependence of fissure development, anisotropic properties were observed. Stress intensity factors of the T-direction specimen are two to three times higher than that of the L-direction specimen under the quasi-static range. In the case of wet specimens, directional dependence, however, was not so clearly observed under the high-speed-strain rate compared with the case of the quasi-static range. The physiological state of bone is close to wet specimen compared with dry specimen, and wet specimens possessed a reinforcing mechanism two to three higher in terms of critical stress intensity factor. It was confirmed that the fracture toughness of bone was deteriorated in the vicinity of the strain rate from 100 to 101s-1 regardless of the humoral condition of the specimens. It is speculated that a drastic change of fracture toughness at each strain rate is caused by microfractures due to potential defects at the origin before the main fracture develops.


The monoamine oxidases (MAOs) are flavin-containing amine oxidoreductases responsible for metabolism of many biogenic amine molecules in the brain and peripheral tissues. Whereas serotonin is the preferred substrate of MAO-A, phenylethylamine is metabolized by MAO-B, and dopamine and tyramine are nearly ambivalent with respect to the two isozymes. β-Carboline alkaloids such as harmine, harman(e), and norharman(e) are MAO inhibitors present in many plant materials, including foodstuffs, medicinal plants, and intoxicants, notably in tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) and in Banisteriopsis caapi, a vine used in the Amazonian ayahuasca brew. The β-carbolines present in B. caapi may have effects on neurogenesis and intrinsic antidepressant properties, in addition to potentiating the bioavailability of the hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which is often present in admixture plants of ayahuasca such as Psychotria viridis. Tobacco also contains physiologically relevant concentrations of β-carbolines, which potentially contribute to its psychopharmacology. However, in both cases, the threshold of MAO inhibition sufficient to interact with biogenic amine neurotransmission remains to be established. An important class of antidepressant medications provoke a complete and irreversible inhibition of MAO-A/B, and such complete inhibition is almost unattainable with reversible and competitive inhibitors such as β-carbolines. However, the preclinical and clinical observations with synthetic MAO inhibitors present a background for obtaining a better understanding of the polypharmacologies of tobacco and ayahuasca. Furthermore, MAO inhibitors of diverse structures are present in a wide variety of medicinal plants, but their pharmacological relevance in many instances remains to be established.


Recent advances in nanophotonics have brought about coherent light sources with chaotic circular polarization; a low-dimensional chaotic evolution of optical spin was evidenced in laser diodes. Here we propose a mechanism that gives rise to light with a spatiotemporal spin chaos resembling turbulent states in hydrodynamics. The spin-chaotic radiation is emitted by exciton polaritons under resonant optical pumping in arbitrarily sized planar microcavities, including, as a limiting case, pointlike systems with only three degrees of freedom. The underlying mechanism originates in the interplay between spin symmetry breakdown and scattering into pairs of Bogolyubov excitations. As a practical matter, it opens up the way for spin modulation of light on the scale of picoseconds and micrometers.


Teacher opinions and discussions about Visual Culture Theory and Material Culture in art education are examined in this paper. Both approaches were compared and evaluated within their contents and fundamentals. Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE) in art education, specifically, has been criticized as having a Neo-Marxist or Cultural Marxist agenda stemming from Critical Theory, nonetheless, it is also viewed as being just another recent Postmodernist approach. Being a controversial theoretical account, VCAE seems widely unknown and not understood in its conceptual frame among art teachers in Turkey. Its name also may have caused confusions. In this study, art teacher opinions of VCAE content, principles, applications and practices were collected through a survey questionnaire; and examined. Participants were 71 art teachers. Purposeful, convenient, random sampling method was employed to represent a population of art teachers from various backgrounds, with various experience levels, with educational experience from various universities, working at various geographical regions and towns in Turkey. The study was designed and structured as a descriptive survey research. Analyses revealed that art teachers usually are not aware of the typical discussions about VCAE. Having been criticized as an ideologically rooted theory, applicability of VCAE in Turkey seems controversial in many aspects.


Degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon were studied by using the bacteria pseudomonas sp. isolated from soil contaminate with oil. The yield of microbial cells reaches a maximum at pH value of 7 for five different phenanetherene concentration media (5-25) mg/ml. At temperature of 32oC, the growth was activated established metabolism within five days. Higher biomass concentration obtained with time of 22.5 min for initial substrate concentrations of 25 mg / ml. The change of cell growth and substrate concentration with time is directly proportional to time while substrate concentration decreases exponentially with time. These results analytically confirmed that the bacteria undergoes Monod's Kinetics. The order of degrading phenanthrene is obvious when a limiting substrate ( 5 or 10 mg/ml ) is been used , the degradation processes are rather sluggish than those observed in ( 20 or 25 mg/ml ). First order curve fitting was determined that the statistical software Statistica was used for estimating Monod's kinetics constants.


To the Editor. —After reading the Editorial entitled "Examining the Examinations for Licensure and Certification in Medicine" by Dr Norcini,1I was left with the discomforting impression that Norcini is recommending that if candidates fail the examination it may be the examination's fault rather than the preparation of the candidate. I think that he is also suggesting that the candidate's ethnic background should be taken into account when difficulty with an examination is found. Can't a candidate just plain flunk? Then he or she can study harder, take it again next year, and hopefully do better.


Hepatitis B infection remains a global problem since the 1990s and the reasons for which disease is still in existence remain poorly understood. However, understanding the important role played by vaccination in the transmission dynamics of Hepatitis B virus is critical to its control and management. In this paper, an epidemiological model is proposed to model the spread of the Hepatitis B virus disease in the presence of imperfect vaccination. The basic reproduction number, R 0 and the equilibria of the model are determined and the stabilities of the equilibria determined. It is shown that the disease-free equilibrium point is both locally and globally asymptotically stable when R 0 1. The model is also shown to exhibit a backward bifurcation phenomenon. Numerical simulations are carried out and it is observed that increasing both the vaccination and treatment rates reduces the populations of both the acutely infected and chronic carriers which eventually leads to the containment of the disease. We conclude that the combination of both vaccination and treatment with the use of a vaccine with a high efficacy is essential in the control of Hepatitis B virus disease.


A comparative study of ,the Ba,rmer and the adjacent Jaisalmer basins brings out striking differences in the stratigraphy, palaeontology and heavy mineral suites of the sediments. Sedimentation in the Jaisalmer basin started with the deposition of the PermoCarboniferous tiliites and continued with breaks through (?) Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Eocene. The total computed thickness of sediments appears to be more than 7000 feet in the centre of the basin; and there are evidences of a thickening northwestwards.  Sedimentation in the Barmer basin started with the Lathi formation (? Triassic); and after a major break during the Jurassic, continued intermittently from Cretaceous through Eocene to the Late Tertiary. The total thickness of the sediments in the Barmer basin is only of the order of 1500 feet, very much less than in the Jaisalmer basin. The Jaisalmer sediments were deposited on a platform dominantly under marine conditions. On the other hand, the Barmer sediments were deposited in a narrow embayment under changing conditions, viz., fresh, marine or brackish water. Throughout the entire sedimentary column the Jaisalmer sediments are characterised by the presence of staurolite, garnet, and kyanite. Staurolite is markedly absent in the Barmer basin sediments which have hornblende, garnet and kyanite. Subsurface and surface geological data show that the two basins were separated by a ridge formed by the Malani Igneous suite and Vindhyan sediments. The ridge acted as a barrier preventing the intermigration of the fauna, and also as a watershed separating the two distinct provenances of the Barmer and Jaisalmer basins.


The efficacy of gastric lavage as it is practiced in a major metropolitan hospital was evaluated. From a population of 76 patients with chemical evidence of sedative-hypnotic drugs in the blood, two or more therapeutic doses were recovered from 15.8% of the lavage samples, and 10 or more therapeutic doses were recovered from 6.6%. In a population consisting of patients with detectable quantities of drugs in the lavage sample, diazepam and amitriptyline are more adequately recovered than the sedative-hypnotic drugs. Very poor recoveries were obtained in patients lavaged more than 2 h after ingestion except in cases of amitriptyline overdose or massive sedative-hypnotic ingestion. The study indicates that inadequate criteria are employed in selecting patients most likely to benefit from lavage. Dose, time since ingestion, and symptomatology are discussed as criteria for selection of patients for lavage.


Context: Model checking has become a key tool for gaining confidence in correctness of multi-threaded programs. Unit tests and functional tests do not suffice because of race conditions that are not discovered by those tests. This problem is addressed by model checking tools. A simple model checker is useful for detecting race conditions prior to production. Inquiry: Current model checkers hardwire the behavior of common thread operations, and do not recognize application-dependent thread paradigms or functions using simpler primitive operations. This introduces additional operations, causing current model checkers to be excessively slow. In addition, there is no mechanism to model the semantics of the actual thread wakeup policies implemented in the underlying thread library or operating system. Eliminating these constraints can make model checkers faster. Approach: McMini is an **extensible** model checker based on DPOR (Dynamic Partial Order Reduction). A mechanism was invented to declare to McMini new, primitive thread operations, typically in 100~lines or less of C~code. The mechanism was extended to also allow a user of McMini to declare alternative thread wakeup policies, including spurious wakeups from condition variables. Knowledge: In McMini, the user defines new thread operations. The user optimizes these operations by declaring to the DPOR algorithm information that reduces the number of thread schedules to be searched. One declares: (i) under what conditions an operation is enabled; (ii) which thread operations are independent of each other; and (iii) when two operations can be considered as co-enabled. An optional wakeup policy is implemented by defining when a wait operation (on a semaphore, condition variable, etc.) is enabled. A new enqueue thread operation is described, allowing a user to declare alternative wakeup policies. Grounding: McMini was first confirmed to operate correctly and efficiently as a traditional, but extensible model checker for mutex, semaphore, condition variable, and reader-writer lock. McMini's extensibility was then tested on novel primitive operations, representing other useful paradigms for multithreaded operations. An example is readers-and-two-writers. The speed of model checking was found to be five times faster and more, as compared to traditional implementations on top of condition variables. Alternative wakeup policies (e.g., FIFO, LIFO, arbitrary, etc.) were then tested using an enqueue operation. Finally, spurious wakeups were tested with a program that exposes a bug **only** in the presence of a spurious wakeup. Importance: Many applications employ functions for multithreaded paradigms that go beyond the traditional mutex, semaphore, and condition variables. They are defined on top of basic operations. The ability to directly define new primitives for these paradigms makes model checkers run faster by searching fewer thread schedules. The ability to model particular thread wakeup policies, including spurious wakeup for condition variables, is also important. Note that POSIX leaves undefined the wakeup policies of `pthread_mutex_lock`, `sem_wait`, and `pthread_cond_wait`. The POSIX thread implementation then chooses a particular policy (e.g., FIFO, arbitrary), which can be directly modeled by McMini.


Left and right trial prescription lenses, a reference lens common to left and right, and reference object planes common to left and right and including a plurality of reference planes are defined, and principal-ray transit positions on the reference lens and on the trial prescription lenses are calculated, said principal-ray transit positions being where principal rays from each point on the plurality of object planes transit. The ratio of the distance between a point where the reference lens intersects with the visual axis in a frontal view and the principal-ray transit position on the reference lens, to the distance between points where the trial prescription lenses intersect with the visual axes in a frontal view and principal-ray transit positions on the trial prescription lenses is calculated, the curvature distribution of the trial prescription lenses is corrected by respectively correcting for left and right, on the basis of the ratio, the curvature at the trial-prescription-lens principal-ray transit positions corresponding to each point on the plurality of object planes, and the curvature distribution of prescription lenses is corrected on the basis of the curvature distribution of the corrected trial prescription lenses.


The purpose of this paper is to research the opportunities that arise from the usage of Social Networking technologies in healthcare, both for patients, physicians and the service providers, the business models behind and the possibilities for introducing the models in Macedonia. For this study, data available through the Internet has been used as the primary source of information and reference. A new Healthcare Social Networking (abbreviated to HSN, in the paper) model has been introduced based on analysis of several existing HSN cases. Finally, an overview of the state of Social media usage in Macedonia and the level of healthcare online presence is given.


We used data sets from two Arctic shelves to examine relationships between primary production (or a proxy), ice cover, and the diversity of polychaetes. Benthic samples were collected from the Northeast Water Polynya on the Northeast Greenland shelf and from the Barents Sea. Each of these areas is characterized by large differences in seasonal ice cover and primary production on a mesoscale. In addition to enumerating polychaete diversity, we also quantified the concentration of benthic algal pigments, sediment percent organic carbon, ice cover for the four years preceding sampling, and sediment grain size. In the Barents Sea, primary production was estimated from an ecosystem model. In both northeast Greenland and the Barents Sea, locations with lower primary production (Barents Sea) or proxies for primary production (benthic algal pigments: Greenland and Barents Sea), exhibited the greatest taxonomic richness. In Greenland, the area with the lowest concentration of benthic pigments had an ES (201) up to 30% higher than values from areas with four times more pigments. In the Barents Sea, ES (201) was greatest in the North under heaviest ice cover (>25% cover per year), again approximately 30% higher than in the South (<15% cover) or under the Polar Front (15–25% cover). Other factors also explained diversity: multiple regressions and Principal Component Analysis indicated that grain size, water depth and concentration of sediment organic carbon were important predictors of species diversity (Shannon-Wiener Index and Simpson's Reciprocal Index), but the results of these analyses were occasionally different from the patterns observed in the species accumulation curves or ES (201) values. Simpson's Index indicated that high ice-cover (and low primary production and benthic pigment) areas in the Barents Sea had greater evenness (lower dominance) than regions with higher indicators of food supply to the benthos. Low resource levels may prevent a few species from becoming very abundant and out-competing rare species. Diversity indices from northeast Greenland did not vary significantly among regions. We did not address habitat heterogeneity, but patchy distribution of food, combined with small- scale sediment heterogeneity also could enhance richness in food-poor areas. While the mechanism for the relationship between polychaete species richness and ice concentration or primary production is not clear, it does suggest that a change in polychaete diversity may need to be added to the list of possible responses of the benthos to climate-driven changes in ice cover.


The dynamic measurement and identification of structural deformation are essential for structural health monitoring. Traditional contact-type displacement monitoring inevitably requires the arrangement of measurement points on physical structures and the setting of stable reference systems, which limits the application of dynamic displacement measurement of structures in practice. Computer vision-based structural displacement monitoring has the characteristics of non-contact measurement, simple installation, and relatively low cost. However, the existing displacement identification methods are still influenced by lighting conditions, image resolution, and shooting-rate, which limits engineering applications. This paper presents a data fusion method for contact acceleration monitoring and non-contact displacement recognition, utilizing the high dynamic sampling rate of traditional contact acceleration sensors. It establishes and validates an accurate estimation method for dynamic deformation states. The structural displacement is obtained by combining an improved KLT algorithm and asynchronous multi-rate Kalman filtering. The results show that the presented method can help improve the displacement sampling rate and collect high-frequency vibration information compared with only the vision measurement technique. The normalized root mean square error is less than 2% for the proposed method.


The shape dependence of target materials on the sensitivity of terahertz metamaterial sensors was investigated. Polystyrene microbeads with a known dielectric constant and spherical, ovular, lens-shaped, and star-shaped structures were studied. The resonant frequency showed a clear red-shift after the deposition of low-density microbeads owing to the change in the dielectric environment in the gap area of the metamaterials. Results of simulations based on a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, in which the known dielectric constant of a polystyrene sphere was used, showed excellent agreement with experimental results. The shift in the resonant frequency increased linearly with the surface density, saturating at 60–80 GHz when the gap area was full of microbeads. More importantly, the resonant frequency shift was higher for non-spherical microbeads, such as the star-shaped microbeads. Therefore, the shape of the individual target material was a crucial factor in determining metamaterial sensor sensitivity.


Background: Enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP) is a noninvasive method previously shown to improve measures of myocardial ischemia in patients with coronary artery disease. However, the concomitant effects of EECP on large and small arterial properties have been poorly examined. In a randomized controlled study, we investigated whether arterial stiffness and resistance of the carotid circulation are altered by EECP. Methods: Thirty patients with angiographically demonstrated coronary artery disease were randomized into two groups to receive either 'sham' or active EECP therapy for 35 1-hour sessions. The β stiffness index was calculated by the ln(Ps/Pd)/DD equation where Ps and Pd = systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and DD = the ratio between carotid pulse and diastolic diameter, measured by ultrasound sequential frames during the cardiac cycle. Carotid vascular resistance was calculated as the ratio between mean arterial pressure and mean common carotid blood flow. Results: No significant between-group differences were seen in clinical characteristics or carotid hemodynamics at baseline. The β stiffness index and carotid vascular resistance were significantly reduced after 35 h of active EECP (p < 0.01), and the decrease was significantly different when compared with controls (p < 0.05 for β stiffness index and p < 0.001 for carotid vascular resistance). These reductions persisted after multiple covariate adjustment. Conclusions: This study suggests that EECP exerts clear arterial effects on large and small vessels of the carotid circulation. The combined effects on arterial stiffness and vascular resistance are of particular interest in cardiovascular disease involving reduction in blood flow, in which techniques that increase regional blood flow may be beneficial.


The southern part of the Altiplano of the Andes Range is characterized by a complex hydrography, due to an intense geologic activity and the effects of the Pleistocene glaciations. This has produced a high degree of diversity at the species level in some aquatic taxa (e.g., fish and amphibians), which suggests that these same processes have produced divergence at the intraspecific level in co-distributed taxa. We investigated the genetic variation in populations of the anuran Rhinella spinulosa which represent its entire distribution in the extreme north of Chile (17°44′S-23°47′S). Haplotype networks of the mitochondrial control region recognized two main lineages, one of which is distributed from the northern boundary of Chile to the Salar de Alconcha and the other from the Salar de Carcote to the locality of Tilomonte. The northern lineage showed little phylogeographic structure; a few very frequent haplotypes are widely distributed. The southern lineage had greater structure, due principally to the high divergence of the populations from the eastern springs of the Salar de Atacama. Fu's Fs test and the mismatch distributions suggested that most of the populations of both lineages are in the process of demographic expansion. The spatial distribution of the genetic variability was correlated with the hydrography and the paleoclimatological data available for the region, which suggested that geographic expansions followed by periods of contraction of population ranges, together with sporadic floods may explain the observed phylogeographic patterns.


This paper addresses the skills and characteristics required of successful learners, workers and citizens in the knowledge economy. The authors trace the shifting commercial, technological and cultural conditions characteristic of this economy, and highlight the key qualities now required for individual success. Effective learners will increasingly need to be autonomous and self-directed, flexible, collaborative, of open sensibility, broadly knowledgeable, and able to work productively with linguistic and cultural diversity. While still prevalent, it is held that standardised testing and a 'back to basics' approach to curriculum are unable to promote and measure effectively these skills and sensibilities. Instead, a broader and more creative approach to curriculum and assessment is recommended. A 'new basics' is argued for at the level of curriculum, with correlative assessment techniques such as analysis of portfolios, performance, projects and group work.


The intestinal immune system is constantly exposed to a plethora of antigens (Ags) from innocuous ingested material and the commensal flora that must be distinguished from pathogen-derived antigens. To this end, a number of anatomic, cellular and molecular mechanisms operate in the intestinal tract to acquire, process, present and interpret Ags from the intestinal lumen. The intestinal mucosa is also populated by a large number of T cells that reside within the epithelial lining (intraepithelial lymphocytes, IELs), in the underlying lamina propria (LPLs) and in gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT). Both IELs and LPLs are heterogeneous populations consisting of conventional CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and numerous unconventional T cells, including TCRγδ+ T cells and CD4-CD8αβ-TCRαβ+T cells (double negative; DNT cells). The latter are rarely found in non-intestinal tissues and their function is still enigmatic. Here, we show that murine DNT cells in the small intestine (SI) reach across the epithelial barrier to capture luminal Ags. A sizeable fraction of DNT cells in Peyer's patches (PPs), mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs) and among LPLs, but not among IELs, express MHC-II, but little or no classical co-stimulatory molecules, suggesting that DNT cells-mediated Ag presentation to naïve CD4+ T cells may trigger tolerogenic rather than effector responses. Indeed, intestinal DNT cells, particularly in PPs, acquire, process and present antigenic proteins and tolerize Ag-specific CD4+ T cells. Conditional genetic ablation of MHC-II in T cells disabled this suppressive function and rendered mutant mice hypersusceptible to DSS colitis. Moreover, similar to our findings in mice, DNT cells in human SI express HLA-DR and readily uptake exogenous Ags. Intriguingly, intestinal DNT cells in Crohn's disease patients expressed lower levels of HLA-DR than control patients. These findings suggest that MHC-II+ DNT cells play a key role in intestinal immune homeostasis and may contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease.


The MBD4 gene is involved in the repair of mutation at methyl-CpG dinucleotides. In microsatellite unstable tumours MBD4 can itself be mutated at an exonic polynucleotide tract. By analysing DNA from microdissected tumour samples we have found that both frequency and pattern of mutation are more significant than originally reported. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com


Virulence of Leptospira cultures isolated in leptospirosis centres of different regions of Ukraine has been studied. It is shown that certain strains of leptospiras with high virulence several times exceed in their antigenic activity the standard strains and their introduction into the set of strains for the reaction of microagglutination and use for making diagnostic and, probably, prophylactic preparations are promising.


Resilience-based frameworks, founded upon the existence of multiple attractors and regime shifts, have long been applied to complex dynamics of semiarid systems. Utilizing seed addition tests in experimental plantings along grazing gradients, we applied an increase-when-rare criterion to identify bidirectional (states can invade each other) and directional (only one state can invade) transitions among vegetation states characteristic of California grasslands over five years. Annual forage and medusahead grasslands were able to invade each other at all grazing intensities, indicating coexistence. Directional transitions involving invasion of native bunchgrass by other species occurred as grazing intensity increased; recovery (transitions to natives) did not occur at low grazing. While directional transitions at some grazing intensities were accompanied by state persistence at others, we found little evidence for persistence of alternative states at any grazing intensity. Our results suggest that grazing can affect resilience by causing hard-to-reverse transitions, but rarely produces alternative states. However, variation in precipitation seems to dominate grazing responses, supporting the applicability of the nonequilibrium concept in our study system.


The authors have calculated collision strengths for electron excitation of the 3s23p4 3Pe0.1,2, 1De2 and 1Se0 levels of Ar III using the R-matrix method. They included the five states 3s23p4 3Pe, 1De, 1Se and 3s3p53P0, 1P0, which they represented by configuration interaction wavefunctions. These wavefunctions yield oscillator strengths for allowed transitions between the levels which are in good agreement with the experimental values. Reactance matrices were obtained in LS coupling and were transformed using JAJOM to give the fine-structure collision strengths. The latter have been averaged over a Maxwellian electron velocity distribution to give the effective collision strengths, for temperatures from 4000 to 24000 K. The calculated electron excitation rates are up to 50% larger than previous values at 10000 K due to resonance structure in the collision strengths.


Psalm 72 embodies the ideal that the Davidic dynasty wished to be seen by its subjects to fulfil. Rhetorical analysis shows that the conception of the king as the protector of the poor is offered as the sole justification for the world-wide dominion claimed for him. But this ideology, which presents the king as caring for the poor of his own people but claiming tribute from foreign nations, contains a moral contradiction, as well as concealing the truth that the king was supported by domestic exploitation. However, the appropriateness of the model of the tributary mode of production is questioned in the light of the evidence for private property rights. The ideology draws its plausibility from an ancient tradition of royal measures in favour of the poor. Although direct evidence is limited, it will have been to the advantage of the judaean dynasty to take such measures in order to repress the independent power of local elites. The text suppresses this interest of the king, as well as his own exploitative activity, in favour of his alleged concern for the poor, and thus harmonizes the interests of the king with theirs. But it achieves this at the expense of the doctrine of unconditional divine election, deriving the king's legitimacy from his fulfilment of the divine will in his 'option for the poor'. The psalm's permanent ethical value lies in that it treats state authority as legitimate only if exercised on behalf of the weakest members of society.


The patterning of adaxial-abaxial tissues plays a vital role in the morphology of lateral organs, which is maintained by antagonism between the genes that specify adaxial and abaxial tissue identity. The homeo-domain leucine zipper class III (HD-ZIP III) family genes regulate adaxial identity; however, little is known about the physical interactions or transcriptionally regulated downstream genes of HD-ZIP III. In this study, we identified a dominant rice mutant, lateral floret 1 (lf1), which has defects in lateral organ polarity. LF1 encodes the HD-ZIP III transcription factor, which expressed in the adaxial area of lateral organs. LF1 can activate directly the expression of LITTLE ZIPPER family gene OsZPR4 and HD-ZIP II family gene OsHOX1, and OsZPR4 and OsHOX1 respectively interact with LF1 to form a heterodimer to repress the transcriptional activity of LF1. LF1 influences indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) content by directly regulating the expression of OsYUCCA6. Thus, LF1 forms negative feedback loops between OsZPR4 and OsHOX1 to affect IAA content, leading to the regulation of lateral organs polarity development. These results reveal the cross-talk among HD-ZIP III, LITTLE ZIPPER, and HD-ZIP II proteins, and provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the polarity development of lateral organs.


Tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) acts as an autocrine growth factor in chronic B cell malignancies. TNF also induces production of interleukin 6 (IL-6) which stimulates B cell growth and differentiation. We have previously demonstrated increased TNFα production by (Rai) stage 0 chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) cells and the absence of TNF production by cells from stage IV patients. In an attempt to elucidate a possible role for TNF in the malignant progression of B-CLL we investigated the possibility of IL-6 involvment in the stimulatory action of TNF on B-CLL cells. We observed that: (1) the in vitro proliferative response of B-CLL cells to recombinant human (rh)THFα was consistently inhibited by a monoclonal antibody (MoAb) against IL-6, (2) the release of IL-6 by B-CLL cells could be augmented by rhTNFα, (3) no differences were detected in the foregoing parameters between stage 0 and stage IV-derived cells and (4) despite the inhibitory action of an anti-IL-6 MoAb on the TNF-induced proliferative response of B-CLL cells, IL-6 receptor expression was undetectable in these cells. Although these findings are suggestive of an autocrine or paracrine mechanism involving TNF and IL-6, the importance of the release and action of these cytokines in the regulation of B-CLL cell growth and malignant progression still remains to be elucidated.


Responding to patients' requests for "that new fat surgery," 400 plastic surgeons recently learned how to do suction-assisted lipectomy via a live surgery broadcast from UCLA Medical Center. After watching the world's masters describe the technique and its problems, most of the surgeons said they would try it on selected patients. The procedure, which is designed to minimize lumps and bumps—not to serve as a panacea for obesity—involves suctioning out small amounts of fat from certain areas of the body. Since a 14-member panel of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (ASPRS) returned from Europe last December with glowing, though guarded, praise for suction lipectomy, plastic surgeons have been flocking by the hundreds to two- or three-day "how-to" continuing medical education (CME) courses. Although nothing beats hands-on experience, those who watched the video from Los Angeles's Century Plaza Hotel agree that a large symposium may be the only


Following a synthesis of naturalistic and experimental studies of language creation, we propose a theoretical model that describes the process through which human communication systems might arise and evolve. Three key processes are proposed that give rise to effective, efficient and shared human communication systems: (1) motivated signs that directly resemble their meaning facilitate cognitive alignment, improving communication success; (2) behavioral alignment onto an inventory of shared sign-to-meaning mappings bolsters cognitive alignment between interacting partners; (3) sign refinement, through interactive feedback, enhances the efficiency of the evolving communication system. By integrating the findings across a range of diverse studies, we propose a theoretical model of the process through which the earliest human communication systems might have arisen and evolved. Importantly, because our model is not bound to a single modality it can describe the creation of shared sign systems across a range of contexts, informing theories of language creation and evolution.


Fuel magnetizer is a magnetic device that can improve the combustion efficiency on vehicles or other combustion systems. Many studies have been studied about the effect of fuel magnetizer on fuel viscosity or combustion efficiency, fuel savings, and emissions reductions. This study aims to identify the main factors that can influence on the performance of fuel magnetizer and optimal fuel magnetizer parameters in gasoline generator set and LPG gas stove using Factorial Design method. This study used three factors with each factor consist of two levels. The result shows that the optimal parameters of fuel magnetizer in generator set are fuel magnetizer with Ferrite C8 magnet type, polarity repel each other with the liquid flows parallel to the lines of force in the magnetic field (mono-polar) with one magnet pair installed on the fuel pipe. It can increase 10.05% duration of fuel consumption. While optimal parameters of fuel magnetizer in LPG gas stove are used fuel Ferrite C8 magnet type, mono-polar polarity, and use two of magnet pairs installed on fuel pipe. It decrease 7.69% of water heating time.