This paper compares a large-screen display to a non-stereo head-mounted display (HMD) for a virtual human (VH) experience. As VH experiences are increasingly being applied to training, it is important to understand the effect of immersive displays on user interaction with VHs. Results are reported from a user study (n=27) of 10 minute human-VH interactions in a VH experience which allows medical students to practice communication skills with VH patients. Results showed that student self-ratings of empathy, a critical doctor-patient communication skill, were significantly higher in the HMD; however, when compared to observations of student behavior, students using the large-screen display were able to more accurately reflect on their use of empathy. More work is necessary to understand why the HMD inhibits students' ability to self-reflect on their use of empathy.


The present study has been done to assess the mutagenic and antimutagenic effects of Punica granatum (Pomegranate) seed extract against the genotoxic effects ifosfamide (IFO) in male albino mice Mus musculus of BALB/c strain. The pomegranate seed extract (tablets) was provided by Source naturals, INC. Santa Cruse Company, Canada (from Egypt). Two independent experiments were performed. In the first, mice was treated daily and orally with phosphate buffer saline (PBS) as negative control group, and the other three groups were treated daily and orally with three different doses of the P. granatum seed extract (12.5, 25, and 50 mg/kg b.w.) for five weeks in order to test the clastogenetic effects of the plant seed extract. In the second experiment, the first group was positive control group which weekly and intraperitonially was treated with ifosfamide (100 mg/kg b.w.), the other three groups were treated daily and orally with three different doses of the pomegranate seed extract (12.5, 25, and 50 mg/kg b.w.) and also intraperitonially treated at the end of each week with IFO for five weeks to test the protective effects P. granatum seed extract. The results of the first experiment indicated that the P. granatum seed extract has no significant clastogenetic effects on chromosomal aberrations of the bone marrow cells of treated mice. The results of the second experiment was that the P. granatum seed extract, especially at the third dose (50 mg/kg b.w.) exhibited well protective and anti-clastogenetic effect against the genotoxic actions of the ifosfamide on bone marrow cells


Background: Rethink Breast Cancer has been offering educational resources and front-line psychosocial and practical support to younger women with breast cancer for over ten years. We have heard first-hand the unique issues that these women face. Some of these challenges include diagnosis during pregnancy, effects of chemotherapy on fertility, risk of menopausal symptoms or osteoporosis, feelings of isolation, questions about sexuality, childcare, relationships, dating, employment and money. Purpose: Health Canada and the Canadian Medical Association have established comprehensive Clinical practice guidelines for the care and treatment of breast cancer and our Provincial Cancer Agencies, the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology (CANO) and the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology (CAPO) all have developed excellent Standards of Care. However, our report, Breast Cancer in Young Women in Canada – A Needs Assessment, finds that younger women9s needs continue to fall through the cracks. The report also shows that despite a growing array of peer support based interventions and community resources for young women with breast cancer, their needs are often not being met by current healthcare systems. In response to the feedback from young women experiencing breast cancer in Canada provided in our report, Rethink Breast Cancer has developed a set of recommended Care Guidelines for Young Women with Breast Cancer to ensure their special needs are addressed (in a timely matter). They serve as a compliment to the guidelines mentioned above. Methods: The care guidelines have been developed in consultation with Rethink9s Young Women9s Network, a group comprised of young women across the Canada that have personal experience with breast cancer and are interested in Rethink9s unique role within the breast cancer community. The network provides important input and feedback on our resources and campaigns for young women dealing with breast cancer. The care guidelines were also developed through consultation with our professional advisors in oncology, nursing and psychosocial support. They are based on original work by UK specialist breast cancer support charity Breast Cancer Care. Results & Conclusions: These guidelines provide information about key issues individuals may want to discuss with their healthcare providers involved in their breast cancer treatment and care. They are recommendations on the kind of information and support to which individuals should be given access to as a younger woman with breast cancer. They will also serve to guide the care these individuals receive from healthcare professionals. Citation Format: DeCoteau MJ. Care guidelines for young women diagnosed with breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-10-04.


Using inverse PCR, two new genes (btrN and btrS) were identified upstream of the putative glycosyltransferase gene btrM in the butirosin-biosynthetic btr gene cluster of Bacillus circulans. The upstream gene btrS showed significant homology with stsC of Streptomyces griseus, which encodes L-glutamine:scyllo-inosose aminotransferase in the biosynthesis of streptomycin. The function of BtrS was further confirmed by heterologous expression in Escherichia coli and chemical identification of the conversion of 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose into 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosamine. The identification of BtrS as L-glutamine:2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose aminotransferase is the first report of the aminotransferase gene responsible for 2-deoxystreptamine biosynthesis.


Storing data in relational databases is widely increasing to support keyword queries but search results does not gives effective answers to keyword query and hence it is inflexible from user perspective. It would be helpful to recognize such type of queries which gives results with low ranking. Here we estimate prediction of query performance to find out effectiveness of a search performed in response to query and features of such hard queries is studied by taking into account contents of the database and result list. One relevant problem of database is the presence of missing data and it can be handled by imputation. Here an inTeractive Retrieving-Inferring data imputation method (TRIP) is used which achieves retrieving and inferring alternately to fill the missing attribute values in the database. So by considering both the prediction of hard queries and imputation over the database, we can get better keyword search results.


University students constitute a population that is highly vulnerable to developing mental health problems, such as distress. The role of different variables associated with the development of states of stress has been studied in order to identify potential risk and protective factors. This study explored whether mindfulness, self-compassion, and experiential avoidance, while controlling for specific sociodemographic and academic variables, were potential significant protective or risk factors explaining perceived stress in a sample of 589 Spanish university students (81.2% female, age range 18–48 years). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed using an exploratory cross-sectional design. Higher experiential avoidance, lower self-compassion, lower mindfulness, not perceiving family support, higher total study hours per week, having a partner (vs. being single), being female (vs. being male), and being older were significantly associated with higher levels of perceived stress. In conclusion, perceived stress in our sample was positively associated with experiential avoidance, which could be regarded as a potential psychological risk variable. In contrast, perceived stress was negatively correlated with self-compassion and mindfulness, which, in turn, could be seen as protective factors. Accordingly, it is concluded that programmes aimed at reducing stress and at improving well-being among university students should include experiential avoidance, self-compassion, and mindfulness as therapeutic targets.


The conformational dynamics around the native structure of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) in both the oxidized and reduced forms was analyzed by a Monte Carlo method using an approximate residue–residue potential derived from the statistics of average distances between Cα atoms of residues as proposed by the present author (T. Kikuchi, J Comput Chem 1996, 17, 226–237). The results from using this effective potential are similar to those from molecular dynamics simulations, taking all atoms into account, and are consistent with temperature factors from an X‐ray analysis and disulfide formation from a kinetic experiment. This agreement suggests that the essential nature of the potential energy surface formed by the potential around the native structure closely mimics the actual energy landscape within the resolution of Cα atomic fluctuation. Furthermore, it is expected that the potential we found can describe the basic properties of folding kinetics. Examination of the fluctuation property of the native structure of BPTI threaded by a sequence from cytochrome b562 reveals differences specific to the sequence and this result also shows that the dynamical properties obtained in our calculations are not only ascribed to the geometrical constraints of the initial conformation but also the force field specifically produced by a sequence. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Comput Chem 20: 713–719, 1999


The availability of the Web has made it possible to provide new life to legacy systems as Web services components within a service-oriented architecture. Web services are self-contained, modular applications that can be described, published, located, and invoked over a network, generally, the World Wide Web. The service-oriented architecture describes three roles: service provider, service requester and service broker; and three basic operations: publish, find and bind. A network component can play any or all of these roles. Web services focus on the integration and infrastructure complexities of B2B by leveraging the benefits of Web service technologies, Internet standards and common infrastructures. While the migration to Web services has the potential of providing significant value to legacy systems and components, a number of critical program comprehension issues need to be addressed. These include understanding the legacy systems and components in enough detail to make decisions on the types of changes that need to be made for using them within the new service-oriented architecture, understanding the legacy and target architectures, and analyzing the specific Web service technologies that will be required and how to incorporate the legacy components as services. This working session will discuss approaches for addressing these issues. Based on the results of the session, a working model will be developed that lists current approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as current open issues.


Social computing has emerged as a broad area of research in HCI and CSCW, encompassing systems that mediate social information across collectivities such as teams, communities, organizations, cohorts, populations, and markets. Such systems are likely to support and make visible social attributes such as identity, reputation, trust, accountability, presence, social roles, expertise, knowledge, and ownership. Social computing is transforming organizations and societies by creating a pervasive technical infrastructure that includes people, organizations, their relationships and activities as fundamental system components, enabling identity, behavior, social relationships, and experience to be used as resources. In this talk, I argue for a broad definition of social computing, selectively review emerging applications, and discuss current research within and beyond IBM that is driving and is driven by the emerging vision of social computing.


ABSTRACT Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) strains were isolated from a variety of fresh produce, but mostly from spinach, with an estimated prevalence rate of 0.5%. A panel of 132 produce STEC strains were characterized for the presence of virulence and putative virulence factor genes and for Shiga toxin subtypes. About 9% of the isolates were found to have the eae gene, which encodes the intimin binding protein, and most of these belonged to known pathogenic STEC serotypes, such as O157:H7 and O26:H11, or to serotypes that reportedly have caused human illness. Among the eae-negative strains, there were three O113:H21 strains and one O91:H21 strain, which historically have been implicated in illness and therefore may be of concern as well. The ehxA gene, which encodes enterohemolysin, was found in ∼60% of the isolates, and the saa and subAB genes, which encode STEC agglutinating adhesin and subtilase cytotoxin, respectively, were found in ∼30% of the isolates. However, the precise roles of these three putative virulence factors in STEC pathogenesis have not yet been fully established. The stx 1a and stx 2a subtypes were present in 22% and 56%, respectively, of the strains overall and were the most common subtypes among produce STEC strains. The stx 2d subtype was the second most common subtype (28% overall), followed by stx 2c (7.5%), and only 2 to 3% of the produce STEC strains had the stx 2e and stx 2g subtypes. Almost half of the produce STEC strains had only partial serotypes or were untyped, and most of those that were identified belonged to unremarkable serotypes. Considering the uncertainties of some of these Stx subtypes and putative virulence factors in causing human illness, it is difficult to determine the health risk of many of these produce STEC strains.


Quantum Hall devices have been used as the primary standard of electrical resistance for over two decades, and they are unlikely to be replaced in this role any time soon. The work presented in this thesis was being done towards the goal of establishing epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide as a new material of choice for these devices. Experiments on individual devices have already demonstrated that due to unique electronic properties of graphene and peculiarities of its interaction with the SiC substrate, quantum resistance standards based on epitaxial graphene can operate at higher temperatures, lower magnetic fields, or higher current densities, as compared to their state-of-the-art gallium arsenide counterparts. Here, we were aiming at developing the technology for reliable mass-production of the devices.

One of the issues that we address is the carrier density control. We have found that photochemical gating, a technique which has previously been used for this purpose, becomes unreliable when the electron density needs to be lowered by more than 1016 m2. Instead, corona discharge can be used for efficient electrostatic gating, enabling us to sweep the carrier density from 4*1016 electrons*m-2 to 5*1016 holes*m^-2 and to observe the quantum Hall effect at low doping.

The presence of bilayer patches in majority-monolayer samples is another important problem. We have observed both metallic and insulating behaviour of these patches while driving the monolayer into the quantum Hall regime. When the bilayer is metallic, we show that a patch completely crossing the Hall bar will break down the quantum Hall effect in a way that agrees with theoretical expectations. Further, we propose imaging these patches by optical microscopy as a way of avoiding them, by selecting substrates where the patches are sufficiently small and sparse. We demonstrate that, despite the optical contrast being less than 2%, the bilayer areas can be imaged in real time using digital post-processing. Also, we show that optical microscopy can be used to detect the steps that form on the SiC surface during graphene growth, and even measure their height: steps as low as 1.5 nm could be clearly seen.

Finally, we have fabricated arrays of 100 Hall bars connected in parallel, devices which provide a low-ohmic quantum standard if every single Hall bar works correctly. We have chosen a substrate with a sufficiently low bilayer content, and adapted the geometry of the Hall bar to the shape of the patches. One out of for devices has performed correctly within the relative measurement precision of 10-4 in magnetic fields above 7 tesla. We see this as a confirmation that the quality of graphene was sufficiently high to enable ≥99% yield of working Hall bars.


Until 1960, the major housing type of rural area in Korea was traditional wooden frame building, which was made of natural materials. In the course of modernization and New Village Movement, most of traditional houses have been renovated focusing on changing roof material of rice straw into slate, keeping existing main wooden structure. And then from around 1980, by economical development the new houses have been constructed. On these three phases of traditional type, remodeling type and new construction type, the natural materials of housing facade as wood, soil, stone and plant changed into artificial materials as cement, chemical material and paint. At the same time the exterior color of housing also have been changed and varied. The purpose of this thesis is to find out the changing aspect of exterior color by comparing remodeled and new constructed housing with of traditional housing. The exterior color of one hundred and fifty seven houses were surveyed and the three color attributes of each part of facade, as roof, wall and window, were analyzed and compared. In case of traditional houses, 98.3% of color are concentrated on the warm color of Y and YR on HUE scale, and 88% of their color are low Chroma. And Value of their color has been varied and spreaded from low to high Value scale. From traditional types to remodeled and new constructed houses, the concentration ratio of warm color on Hue scale reduced from 98.3% to 68.7% and ratio of low Chroma was also changed from 88% to 73.2% and the ratio of low Value color reduced from 51.9% to 29.7%. The exterior color of houses in rural area varied on Hue, and the more saturated colors were used and they became brighter compared with color of traditional houses. It is expected that the results of this study can be used for basic data of exterior color planning and improvement into harmonized color with natural environment.


Despite comprehensive therapy and extensive research, glioblastoma (GBM) still represents the most aggressive brain tumor in adults. Glioma stem cells (GSCs) are thought to play a major role in tumor progression and resistance of GBM cells to radiochemotherapy. The PIM1 kinase has become a focus in cancer research. We have previously demonstrated that PIM1 is involved in survival of GBM cells and in GBM growth in a mouse model. However, little is known about the importance of PIM1 in cancer stem cells. Here, we report on the role of PIM1 in GBM stem cell behavior and killing. PIM1 inhibition negatively regulates the protein expression of the stem cell markers CD133 and Nestin in GBM cells (LN-18, U-87 MG). In contrast, CD44 and the astrocytic differentiation marker GFAP were up-regulated. Furthermore, PIM1 expression was increased in neurospheres as a model of GBM stem-like cells. Treatment of neurospheres with PIM1 inhibitors (TCS PIM1-1, Quercetagetin, and LY294002) diminished the cell viability associated with reduced DNA synthesis rate, increased caspase 3 activity, decreased PCNA protein expression, and reduced neurosphere formation. Our results indicate that PIM1 affects the glioblastoma stem cell behavior, and its inhibition kills glioblastoma stem-like cells, pointing to PIM1 targeting as a potential anti-glioblastoma therapy.


In this paper, we present MuteIt , an ear-worn system for recognizing unvoiced human commands. MuteIt presents an intuitive alternative to voice-based interactions that can be unreliable in noisy environments, disruptive to those around us, and compromise our privacy. We propose a twin-IMU set up to track the user's jaw motion and cancel motion artifacts caused by head and body movements. MuteIt processes jaw motion during word articulation to break each word signal into its constituent syllables, and further each syllable into phonemes (vowels, visemes, and plosives). Recognizing unvoiced commands by only tracking jaw motion is challenging. As a secondary articulator, jaw motion is not distinctive enough for unvoiced speech recognition. MuteIt combines IMU data with the anatomy of jaw movement as well as principles from linguistics, to model the task of word recognition as an estimation problem. Rather than employing machine learning to train a word classifier, we reconstruct each word as a sequence of phonemes using a bi-directional particle filter, enabling the system to be easily scaled to a large set of words. We validate MuteIt for 20 subjects with diverse speech accents to recognize 100 common command words. MuteIt achieves a mean word recognition accuracy of 94 . 8% in noise-free conditions. When compared with common voice assistants, MuteIt outperforms them in noisy acoustic environments, achieving higher than 90% recognition accuracy. Even in the presence of motion artifacts, such as head movement, walking, and riding in a moving vehicle, MuteIt achieves mean word recognition accuracy of 91% over all scenarios.


Among married couples of childbearing age, the frequency of infertility in different regions of Russia and the world ranges from 10 to 21%. The effectiveness of the results of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer is determined by two factors: the functional completeness of the embryo at the blastocyst stage and the absence of intrauterine pathology. One of the main causes of imperfect or unsuccessful implantation is an impaired function and damaged endometrial structure, which is often caused by a chronic inflammatory process in the endometrium.  Chronic endometritis (CE) is a condition associated with a violation of the coexistence between microorganisms and the immune system of a macroorganism in the endometrium. A majority of CE cases produce no noticeable clinical signs or mild symptoms and the CE prevalence rate is approximately 10% based on the histological findings of an endometrial biopsy. The interconnection between СE and reproductive dysfunctions, such as implant damage and repeated miscarriage, has been studied by many researchers at the present stage. Chronic endometritis is common among patients with unexplained infertility. Diagnosis and treatment of chronic endometritis increase the frequency of spontaneous pregnancies and live births in such patients. The diagnosis of chronic endometritis is not simple, often contradictory, and, thus, requires close cooperation between the fertility specialist and the pathologist. In this study, we reviewed the literature on the pathophysiology of chronic endometritis and how it may be associated with infertility, as well as the literature regarding the diagnosis and treatment of CE, published at PubMed as on May 2019 in a version and contra-version format.


Salivary gland changes, characterised by a focal lymphocytic sialadenitits, play an important role in the diagnosis of primary Sjögren's syndrome (PSS) and were first described over 40 years ago. Recent evidence suggests that minor salivary gland biopsy may also provide information useful for prognostication and stratification, yet difficulties may arise in the histopathological interpretation and scoring, and evidence exists that reporting is variable. With the increasing number of actual and proposed clinical trials in PSS, we review the evidence that might support the role of histopathology as a biomarker for stratification and response to therapy, and highlight areas where further validation work is required.


Abstract A mild acid attack of the Llano vermiculite produces porous materials suitable for use as cracking catalysts and/or catalysts supports. After HCl attack at 80°C (1 m), the number of acid sites measured by the Hammett indicator method is ∼0·50/nm2, and the specific surfaces are 245 m2/g after calcination at 550°C (4 h), and 55 m2/g after steaming at 750°C (4 h). The performance of leached (1 m HCl) vermiculite has been compared with another hydrocarbon cracking catalyst—γ-Al2O3. The leached vermiculite produces a definite higher conversion and higher C3, C4 and gasoline yields, but much lower coke production. By electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction and thermal analysis, it has been shown that the leached vermiculite samples are composed of more or less attacked layers retaining their original platy morphology, and non-crystalline hydrated silica. Chemical analyses indicate that octahedral cations are dissolved first.


Evidence for biological adaptation is often obtained by studying DNA sequence evolution. Since the analyses are affected by both positive and negative selection, studies usually assume constant negative selection in the time span of interest. For this reason, hundreds of studies that conclude adaptive evolution might have reported false signals caused by relaxed negative selection. We test this suspicion two ways. First, we analyze the fluctuation in population size, N, during evolution. For example, the evolutionary rate in the primate phylogeny could vary by as much as 2000 fold due to the variation in N alone. Second, we measure the variation in negative selection directly by analyzing the polymorphism data from four taxa (Drosophila, Arabidopsis, primates, and birds, with 64 species in total). The strength of negative selection, as measured by the ratio of nonsynonymous/synonymous polymorphisms, fluctuates strongly and at multiple time scales. The two approaches suggest that the variation in the strength of negative selection may be responsible for the bulk of the reported adaptive genome evolution in the last two decades. This study corroborates the recent report1 on the inconsistent patterns of adaptive genome evolution. Finally, we discuss the path forward in detecting adaptive sequence evolution.


In analyses of interstellar materials in meteorites, target material sizes are generally smaller than 100 nm. Therefore, analytical method with high sensitivity and a high mass resolution is required for sub-microscale in-situ analysis. We have developed a tunnel ionization time of flight sputtered neutral mass spectrometer: LIMAS. This apparatus mainly consists of a focused ion beam system (Ga-FIB), a femtosecond (fs) laser system and a MULti-TUrn time-of-flight Mass spectrometer II (MULTUM II) (Ebata et al., 2012). The fs laser is used for tunnel ionization of neutral particles that are sputtered by the Ga-FIB beam. Because the energy density of the fs laser is more than 2 x 10 15 W/cm, all of elements can be ionized. Based on the ion optics of MULTUM II, time of flight of the ion can be infinitely extended to get high mass resolution. In this study, we operated voltages of einzel lenses and deflectors in an ion injection optics based on the result of an ion optics simulation using SIMION. A parameter setting of MULTUM II was based on (Okumura., 2005). As a result, we evaluated mass resolving power and the transmittance of fs laser induced ions in the MULTUM II. Sample surface was kept on ground state, and the acceleration voltage was fixed at -4 kV. The voltages of the ion injection optics and MULTUM II were floated on -4 kV. Then, post-ionized positive ions were injected into MULTUM II. The ion injection optics consists of three stage injection and acceleration lens, two einzel lenses, and two sets of two direction deflectors. The ̃30% of ions were injected into MULTUM II from the result of the ion simulation. We operated parameters in the ion injection optics for an ion was focused on a cycle starting focal point in MULTUM II. Focal point in ion injection optics of ion trajectory moves to sample position side to become a large aperture angle by the high electrode voltage of injection lenses. The focal point in MULTUM II was determined by the aperture angle and voltage of the einzel lenses. The above eight parameters were changed and adjusted based on the result of the ion simulation. Toroidal fields in MULTUM II were optimized by operating electrical potential valance among the fields. After the optimize of the electrode voltages, we obtained the mass resolving power of more than 27,000 ( Mg, number of cycle: 100 cycles in MULTUM II) without laser (SIMS mode), and of more than 40000 ( Mg, number of cycle: 100 cycles) with laser (SNMS mode). The ion transmittance in MULTUM II was evaluated. Relationships of the ion transmittance of MULTUM II with the number of cycles are as follows. Assuming that the ion intensity of linear mode (from sample surface to the detector) is 100%, the ion transmittances at 20 cycles are 28% and 5% for SIMS and SNMS modes, respectively. The transmittances of 100 cycles are 26% and 2% for SIMS and SNMS modes, respectively. The decreasing of the intensity can be explained by two factors. One is that the half of the injected ions cannot meet a condition of the ion trajectory of MULTUM II. Another is ion collision with residual gas molecules in MULTUM II.


Digital technologies pervade modern life. As a result, organizational ethnographers must contend with informants interacting in face-to-face and digitally mediated encounters (e.g., through email, Facebook Messenger, and Skype). This overlap of informants' digital and physical interactions challenges ethnographers' ability to demonstrate authenticity and multivocality in their accounts of contemporary organizing. Drawing on recent theorizing about the nature of digital artifacts and two cases of ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that digital artifacts afford ethnographers different modes of being co-present with research participants: digital as archive and digital as process. We offer guidelines to researchers on how to deploy these modes of co-presence in order to improve authenticity and multivocality in ethnographic studies of modern organizations. We also explore the implications for methodological concerns such as ethics, analytical choice, and reflexivity.


Due to its long spin coherence and coherent spin-photon interface the nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond has emerged as a promising platform for quantum science and technology, including quantum networks, quantum computing and quantum sensing. In recent years larger quantum systems have been demonstrated by using optical entanglement links between distant NV centers. These systems were based on high-quality NV centers that exhibit good optical coherence. State-of-the-art experiments with such systems have shown deterministic delivery of entanglement across a two-node quantum network as well as genuine multi-partite entanglement across a three-node quantum network. The additional capability to create larger quantum registers by direct magnetic coupling between high-quality NV centers and to other nearby defects would provide new opportunities for quantum memories in quantum networks but also for enhanced sensing protocols and spin chains for quantum computation architectures. In this thesis, we investigate methods to create larger quantum registers based on magnetic coupling and develop techniques to address and control individual defects in a system consisting of multiple defects. The results provide new insights for extended quantum registers based on magnetically coupled defects...


We report on a spectral-timing analysis of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) Aql X-1 with the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) on the International Space Station (ISS). Aql X-1 was observed with NICER during a dim outburst in 2017 July, collecting approximately 50 ks of good exposure. The spectral and timing properties of the source correspond to that of a (hard) extreme island state in the atoll classification. We find that the fractional amplitude of the low-frequency (<0.3 Hz) band-limited noise shows a dramatic turnover as a function of energy: it peaks at 0.5 keV with nearly 25% rms, drops to 12% rms at 2 keV, and rises to 15% rms at 10 keV. Through the analysis of covariance spectra, we demonstrate that band-limited noise exists in both the soft thermal emission and the power-law emission. Additionally, we measure hard time lags, indicating the thermal emission at 0.5 keV leads the power-law emission at 10 keV on a timescale of ∼100 ms at 0.3 Hz to ∼10 ms at 3 Hz. Our results demonstrate that the thermal emission in the hard state is intrinsically variable, and is driving the modulation of the higher energy power-law. Interpreting the thermal spectrum as disk emission, we find that our results are consistent with the disk propagation model proposed for accretion onto black holes.


Compressive strength and flexural strength are two important parameters in the concrete job mix formula. Both parameters are strongly influenced by the characteristics of the constituent aggregates. This study aims to obtain the relationship between the compressive strength and flexural strength of concrete mixtures using local aggregates for construction projects around the province of South Kalimantan. The experimental mechanism was carried out by examining aggregates and designing concrete proportions using type V Portland cement with an initial setting time of 80 minutes and a final setting time of 150 minutes. Meanwhile, coarse aggregate from Katunun and fine aggregate from Barito are used in the concrete job mix formula. In this case, the results of the analysis show that there is a correlation value (K) for f'c 30 MPa and f'c 35 MPa, which are 0.84 and 0.78, respectively.


Preoccupation with cultural relativism has until recently crowded out most other theoretical questions in the field of human rights theory; today globalization and other problems are receiving much more attention. The worry addressed here is that despite this timely broadening of the analytic focus we tend to view these new problems through the lens of cultural relativism. As a result, we are asking the wrong questions about globalization and human rights and looking for the wrong kinds of answer. This essay pleads for a critical reevaluation of contemporary approaches to globalization and human rights and proposes an alternative framework.


For more than ten years the courts and Congress have grappled with the issue of subjecting states to suit in federal court for intellectual property infringement. Under the Supreme Court's Florida Prepaid decisions, states and state entities are currently insulated from suit by private entities in federal court for intellectual property infringement under the sovereign immunity preserved by the Eleventh Amendment. This holding has far-reaching effects on the ability of private parties to enforce their intellectual property rights because federal court is the preferred and, often, the only venue available for enforcing such rights. Furthermore, this state of the law is of increasing importance in view of the growing role that many states and state entities are taking in the intellectual property arena. Since the Florida Prepaid decisions, several different legislative remedies have been proposed in Congress, but none have yet been enacted into law. Congress has also commissioned a study by the General Accounting Office to gather statistics and opinions concerning the involvement of states in intellectual property law and the effect of the immunity from suit they currently enjoy in federal court. The results of this study, made available this past year, will impact the scope of the proposed legislation and whether, assuming it is enacted, the legislation survives judicial review.


A novel and efficient catalyst- and activating agent-free amidation method via direct amidation of carboxylic acids where carbodiimides act as a reagent instead of an activating agent is reported. The reaction is conducted under non-traditional coupling conditions where a higher temperature is employed. Besides not using stoichiometric ratios of activating agent or catalyst, this approach is made even more attractive by occurring in the presence of the environmentally friendly and recyclable non-toxic solvent of DMSO. A wide variety of benzylic, aliphatic, α,β-unsaturated and aromatic carboxylic acids provide related amides in up to 95% yield. The excellent yield from a gram-scale reaction shows that this application is particularly convenient for larger-scale synthesis applications.


A key receptor supporting the normal role of platelets in hemostasis and thrombosis is the collagen receptor, glycoprotein (GP)VI. GPVI is a member of the immunoglobulin super family and is uniquely expressed on the surface of platelets where it is assembled with the ITAM-bearing activation subunit, FcR-g. We have previously reported the generation of a murine model of GP VI deficiency that revealed profound defects in collagen-induced platelet aggregation and major defects in platelet activation following adhesion under flow to fibrillar collagen. More recently, we have generated congenic GPVI deficient animals through an extensive breeding scheme to the inbred C57BL/6J strain. The relevance of specific platelet receptors in experimental metastasis is emerging with work from our laboratory establishing a key role for the platelet glycoprotein Ib- IX complex. We have now performed similar studies using congenic GPVI deficient animals. In this experimental model, murine tumor cells are placed in the tail vein of mice and establishment of lung tumor burden or lung tumor foci is examined two weeks following injection. This model represents a syngeneic model where animals are fully immunocompetent and the injected tumor cells were originally derived from animals of the C57BL/6J strain. Experiments comparing B16F10.1 cells (murine melanoma) and D121 cells (murine Lewis lung carcinoma) have been performed revealing a consistent and statistically significant reduction in tumor foci as a consequence of GPVI absence. In the case of melanoma cell injections into wild type C57BL/6J mice, a mean of 270 foci (SEM 44.0, n=6) is reduced to a mean of 134 foci (SEM 11.6, n=7) in the absence of platelet GPVI (p = 0.013). Similar reductions were observed using Lewis lung carcinoma cells with wild type animals revealing a mean of 132 surface foci (SEM 13.4, n=15) and GPVI deficient animals having a mean of 69 foci (SEM 7.9, n=12; p = 0.0003). Using either cell line an approximate reduction of 50% in the number of visible tumor foci was observed. Additional studies have been performed to compare the size and growth rate of subcutaneously implanted tumor cells, i.e., primary tumor growth. Here, we observed no noticeable size difference in primary tumors harvested 17 days following subcutaneous injection of D121 cells comparing the presence or absence of platelet GPVI. These results demonstrate in the platelet GPVI facilitates experimental tumor metastasis but does not contribute in the growth of primary tumors. These studies underscore the well-established paradigm of platelet adhesion and activation in hemostasis and thrombosis being applicable to mechanisms participating in the spread of cancer. The importance of metastasis in the prognosis for recovery from cancer can not be under emphasized. Indeed, the spread of metastatic disease represents a fundamental change in significantly shortening the life span of the cancer patient. Thus, understanding the molecules that regulate metastasis identifies potential targets for therapeutic intervention that could significantly improve the patient's prognosis.


Asthma may be induced by chemical sensitisers, via mechanisms that are still poorly understood. This type of asthma is characterised by airway hyperreactivity (AHR) and little airway inflammation. Since potent chemical sensitisers, such as toluene-2,4-diisocyanate (TDI), are also sensory irritants, it is suggested that chemical-induced asthma relies on neuro-immune mechanisms. We investigated the involvement of transient receptor potential channels (TRP) A1 and V1, major chemosensors in the airways, and mast cells, known for their ability to communicate with sensory nerves, in chemical-induced AHR. In vitro intracellular calcium imaging and patch-clamp recordings in TRPA1- and TRPV1-expressing Chinese hamster ovarian cells showed that TDI activates murine TRPA1, but not TRPV1. Using an in vivo model, in which an airway challenge with TDI induces AHR in TDI-sensitised C57Bl/6 mice, we demonstrated that AHR does not develop, despite successful sensitisation, in Trpa1 and Trpv1 knockout mice, and wild-type mice pretreated with a TRPA1 blocker or a substance P receptor antagonist. TDI-induced AHR was also abolished in mast cell deficient KitWsh/Wsh mice, and in wild-type mice pretreated with the mast cell stabiliser ketotifen, without changes in immunological parameters. These data demonstrate that TRPA1, TRPV1 and mast cells play an indispensable role in the development of TDI-elicited AHR. Chemical-induced AHR relies on neuro-immune interactions, involving lymphocytes, TRP channels and mast cells http://ow.ly/Z4LtH


Baculoviruses have a significant potential as biological pesticides. Spodoptera littoralis multicapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus (SpliMNPV) could thus find an application to protect plants against the African Cotton Leafworm. For the in vitro production of SpliMNPV a cellular system has to be established. For this purpose three new continuous cell lines were established from the embryonic tissue of the cotton leaf worm S. littoralis.The three cell lines were designated Spli-C, Spli-S and Spli-B. They consisted mostly of spherical cells, but also contained spindle and giant cells. The population doubling time for the three cell lines Spli-C, Spli-S and Spli-B were 30.5, 31 and 44.5 hrs, respectively, at passage 19, while at passage 120 it decreased to 26, 27 and 32 hrs, respectively. RAPD and DAF DNA fingerprint confirmed that the cell lines originated from S. littoralis tissues. The lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) isozyme analysis demonstrated a distinguishable difference between the three new S. littoralis cell lines and the other insect cell lines which we use in our laboratory.All three new cell lines were susceptible to SpliMNPV and thus are suitable for virus multipication. Cells were immobilized using sodium cellulose sulfate (NaCS) and poly diallyl dimethyl ammoniumchloride (PDADMAC) capsules to protect cells from shear stress. This is caused during cultivation by agitation and gas sparging during supply of sufficient oxygen in order to reach high cell densities. The cell densities increased from 4-5x106 cells/ml in suspension cultureto1.3x107 cells/ml in capsules. Our results suggest that large-scale production of SpliMNPV as a biopesticide is possible with these cell lines.


ABSTRACT A series of consolidated drained triaxial test was performed on weakly bonded soils that were artificially prepared by mixing sand (87%) and kaolin (13%). To create weakly bond strength, samples were fired at 500°C for 5 h. A critical state (CS) concept was used to interpret the results in order to describe the behaviour of the studied soil. Defining the CS is not always straightforward. Several tests showed changing in deviator stress q and volumetric strain εv up to the end of tests. Hence, defining the CS requires careful assessments on q–εa, Δu–εa, q–p′ and v–ln p′ spaces which were performed. A 'discontinuity' approach was applied to position the CS on dilatant path in v–ln p′ spaces after considering stress-strain and volumetric strain curves. The critical state line in a v–ln pʹ space from bonded samples exhibited differences to the destructured samples. This suggests that the influence of cementation bond is substantially clear at lower stresses but as stresses increase beyond the stress yield, cementation degradation becomes more significant. The effect of bonding can be clearly visualised from the normalisation of the stress paths of destructured and bonded samples.


We propose a high-contrast coronagraph for direct imaging of young Jupiter-like planets orbiting nearby bright stars. The coronagraph employs a steptransmission filter in which the intensity is apodized with a finite number of steps with identical transmission in each step. It should be installed on a large ground-based telescope equipped with a state-of-the-art adaptive optics system. In this case, contrast ratios around 10 - 6 should be accessible within 0.1 arcsec of the central star. In recent progress, a coronagraph with a circular apodizing filter has been developed, which can be used for a ground-based telescope with a central obstruction and spider structure. It is shown that ground-based direct imaging of Jupiter-like planets is promising with current technology.


This book by the late Barret J. Foerster and edited by Michael Meltsner tells the dramatic story of how twenty-eight law students — one of whom was the author — went south at the height of the civil rights era and helped change death penalty jurisprudence forever. The 1965 project was organized by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which sought to determine statistically whether capital punishment in southern rape cases had been applied discriminatorily over the previous twenty years. If the research showed that a disproportionate number of African Americans convicted of raping white women had received the death penalty regardless of nonracial variables (such as the degree of violence used), then capital punishment in the South could be barred because of its discriminatory application and the consequent violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.


The described embodiments relate generally to methods, systems and computing devices, including at least a mobile device, for ordering a discovered device list according to a Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) of each device in the discovered device list. Thus, the discovered device list has at the top of the list the device that has the highest RSSI, with the remaining devices in the discovered device list presented in descending order of RSSI.


This paper presents the results of a study carried out on breeding Redshank in the Ribble Marshes, Lancashire, England.

Redshank tend to return to the same breeding area year after year. There was no detectable sex bias in return rates. Experienced birds were more site faithful than inexperienced birds, with previously successful birds exhibiting the highest degree of breeding site fidelity. Older, more experienced birds were more successful at hatching eggs than inexperienced birds.

Breeding dispersal was the same both within and between years. Faithful pairs and males nesting with a new mate dispersed significantly shorter distances than females nesting with a new partner. Dispersal distances in female Redshank were affected by breeding success: unsuccessful females, nesting with a new mate, dispersed significantly farther than successful females. A pair's breeding success influenced the following year's mate fidelity. However, other factors such as overwintering survival and date of return may also have influenced mate fidelity.

Redshank were highly faithful to their natal area; a high proportion of birds that survived post-fledging mortality returned to breed in their area of birth. No sex bias in natal dispersal was detected. Approximately 50% of Redshank breed in their first year of life.


Sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate (SDSS), an anionic surfactant used at a non-antimicrobial concentration, increased the sensitivity of Candida albicans to fluconazole in complex media (such as Sabouraud). The conditions were assessed to determine the in vitro sensitivity to fluconazole. In this connection, the use of a liquid medium at a non-alkaline pH is important. The presence of SDSS in complex media does not seem to affect the neutralization of a particular substances but favours the activity of fluconazole.


AUTHOR'S REPLY Facial nerve injury in patients receiving cochlear irnplants is a rare event. Five surgeons, with a combined case load of approximately 600 cochlear implant patients, operated on these eight cases. Case 5 received a 3M House single-channel device (3M Co., St. Paul, Minn.). The other seven patients received the Nucleus 22-channel implant (Cochlear Corp., Englewood, Colo.). Transient facial weakness, caused by heat of the bur shaft affecting the facial nerve at the facial recess, is the most common facial nerve injury. We agree with Dr. Cohen that the use of copious irrigation and a surgical technique that keeps the shaft of the bur away from the facial nerve prevents facial nerve injury.


The turn to populism in Western governments is increasingly marked by a breakdown in communication between those who disagree. Martin Buber's analysis of I-It as the nature of communication accounts for the impersonality and incivility of populist responses to globalisation. His writings on utopias account for the lack of centre in societies formed solely around bureaucratic means of production. This article elaborates upon his concept of I-It from I and Thou and his account of the breakdown of Marxism. These point to a loss of Thou as a binding and guiding force in community, leading to the uncivil distrust and populist reactions to globalisation. Neoliberal globalisation, as with the I-It interaction, is marked by a disconnection from nature in a system that is centred around self-interest. Buber theorised his Thou as the place where humanity is reconnected with nature and joined to others in dialogue. His work points to religious community as one witness to communities where forms of dialogue and interaction lie beyond market-based solution creation and negotiation. In Buber's work, a diagnosis for the anger and mistrust between neighbours and citizens in the present moment becomes salient: a disconnection from Thou as the organizing centre of community.


In order to control position and shape of a plasma in a Tokamak machine, a measurement of the geometrical parameters which characterizes the configuration of the plasma becomes mandatory. Since some of these parameters are not directly measurable, they must be estimated starting from the set of available data. To this end the authors suggest the use of the /spl Hscr//sup /spl infin// filtering method to observe the state variables.


It is shown that the orientation of locus of daylight chromaticities with respect to the Planckian locus may be explained in terms of the dust content and other atmospheric conditions responsible for the absorption features in the long-wavelength part of the daylight spectrum.


We present a clever design concept of using femtosecond laser pulses in microscopy by selective excitation or de-excitation of one fluorophore over the other overlapping one. Using either a simple pair of femtosecond pulses with variable delay or using a train of laser pulses at 20-50 Giga-Hertz excitation, we show controlled fluorescence excitation or suppression of one of the fluorophores with respect to the other through wave-packet interference, an effect that prevails even after the fluorophore coherence timescale. Such an approach can be used both under the single-photon excitation as well as in the multi-photon excitation conditions resulting in effective higher spatial resolution. Such high spatial resolution advantage with broadband-pulsed excitation is of immense benefit to multi-photon microscopy and can also be an effective detection scheme for trapped nanoparticles with near-infrared light. Such sub-diffraction limit trapping of nanoparticles is challenging and a two-photon fluorescence diagnostics allows a direct observation of a single nanoparticle in a femtosecond high-repetition rate laser trap, which promises new directions to spectroscopy at the single molecule level in solution. The gigantic peak power of femtosecond laser pulses at high repetition rate, even at low average powers, provide huge instantaneous gradient force that most effectively result in a stable optical trap for spatial control at sub-diffraction limit. Such studies have also enabled us to explore simultaneous control of internal and external degrees of freedom that require coupling of various control parameters to result in spatiotemporal control, which promises to be a versatile tool for the microscopic world.


The physiological status of in vitro-grown coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) plants during acclimatization was studied using nursery-raised seedlings as the control. The percentage of open stomata in leaves of in vitro-grown coconut plants was high at the initial stage of acclimatization but decreased during the course of acclimatization indicating an improvement in stomatal regulation. A progressive increase in the stomatal density, epicuticular wax deposition and leaf thickness in in vitro-grown plants was observed during acclimatization. As a result of the low light intensity, the epidermal cells of in vitro-grown plants were narrower and longer when compared to the control. With the exposure of plants to increased light intensity, the cells became wider and shorter as observed in the control. The leaf chlorophyll content was high in in vitro-grown plants under low light intensity. With increasing light intensity, a reduction in leaf chlorophyll content in vitro-grown plants was observed and at the later stages of acclimatization, it was comparable to that of the control. Variations in the rates of photosynthesis and transpiration in vitro-grown plants were observed in response to the changing environmental conditions. However, at the end of acclimatization, where the plants were ready to be transferred to the field, the physiological statuses of in vitro-grown coconut plants were comparable to that of nursery raised seedlings. The present study revealed that the embryo-cultured coconut plants could adjust well to the changing environmental conditions during acclimatization.


Let $\xi\geq 1$ be a countable ordinal. We study the Borel subsets of the plane that can be made ${\bf\Pi}^0_\xi$ by refining the Polish topology on the real line. These sets are called potentially ${\bf\Pi}^0_\xi$. We give a Hurewicz-like test to recognize potentially ${\bf\Pi}^0_\xi$ sets.


The geotechnical community typically relies on recommendations made from numerical simulations. Commercial software exhibits (local) numerical instabilities in layered soils across soil interfaces. This research work investigates unsaturated moisture flow in layered soils and identifies a possible source of numerical instabilities across soil interfaces and potential improvement in numerical schemes for solving the Richards' equation. The numerical issue at soil interfaces is addressed by a (nonlinear) interface problem. A full analysis of the simplest soil hydraulic model, the Gardner model, identifies the conditions of ill-posedness of the interface problem. Numerical experiments on various (more advanced and practical) soil hydraulic models show that the interface problem can also be ill-posed under certain circumstances. Spurious numerical ponding and/or oscillations around soil interfaces are observed consequently. This work also investigates the impact of different averaging schemes for cell-centered conductivities on the propensity of ill-posedness of the interface problem and concludes that smaller averaging conductivities are more likely to trigger numerical instabilities. In addition, an agent-based stochastic soil model, with hydraulic properties defined at the finite difference cell level, results in a large number of interface problems. This research compares sequences of stochastic realizations in heterogeneous unsaturated soils with the numerical solution using homogenized soil parameters. The mean of stochastic realizations is not identical to the solution obtained from homogenized soil parameters.


Desirability functions are an effective way to express and implement complex behavior coordination strategies inside a single robot. In this paper, we extend the desirability function approach to deal with behaviors of teams of robots. We show that desirability functions offer a convenient tool to incorporate and blend individual objectives and team objectives. We illustrate our approach on two significant problems of team coordination: reactive formation motion control, and collaborative searching and tracking.


This paper investigates the lifetimes of the objects used by Radar signal processing(RSP) systems and classifies them into temporary objects and persistent objects. Based on this classification, we propose a memory allocator which is well suited for embedded RSP systems. It is shown that this allocator has constant response time and introduces neither internal nor external fragmentations.


Lung transplantation is a viable option for those with end-stage lung disease which is evidenced by the continued increase in the number of lung transplantations worldwide. However, patients and clinicians are constantly faced with acute and chronic rejection, infectious complications, drug toxicities, and malignancies throughout the lifetime of the lung transplant recipient. Conventional maintenance immunosuppression therapy consisting of a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI), anti-metabolite, and corticosteroids have become the standard regimen but newer agents and modalities continue to be developed. Here we will review induction agents, maintenance immunosuppressives, adjunctive therapies and other strategies to improve long-term outcomes.


A general, rapid and highly efficient method for the synthesis of diaryl ethers under the assistance of microwave irradiation was described. A series of diaryl ethers were prepared by direct coupling of phenols and aryl halides in good to excellent yields in anhydrous DMF or NMP at 150 °C within 20 min. The presence of water was found to have a significant impact on the Ullmann C-O coupling reaction between aryl halides and phenols under microwave irradiation.


UNLABELLED
Although airway management by emergency physicians has become standard for general emergency department (ED) patients, many believe that anesthesiologists should manage the airways of trauma victims.

OBJECTIVES
To compare the success and failure rates of trauma intubations performed under the supervision of anesthesiologists and emergency physicians.

METHODS
This was a prospective, observational study of consecutive endotracheal intubations (ETIs) of adult trauma patients in a single ED over a 46-month period. All ETIs before November 26, 2000, were supervised by anesthesiologists (34 months), and all ETIs from November 26, 2000, onward were supervised by emergency physicians (12 months). Data regarding clinical presentation, personnel involved, medications used, number of attempts required, and need for cricothyrotomy were collected. Study outcomes were: 1) successful intubation within two attempts, and 2) failure of intubation. Failure was defined as inability to intubate, resulting in successful intubation by another specialist, or cricothyrotomy. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to compare results between groups.

RESULTS
There were 673 intubations during the study period. Intubation within two attempts was accomplished in 442 of 467 patients (94.6%) managed by anesthesiologists, and in 196 of 206 of patients (95.2%) managed by emergency physicians (OR = 1.109, 95% CI = 0.498 to 2.522). Failure of intubation occurred in 16 of 467 (3.4%) patients managed by anesthesiologists, and in four of 206 (1.9%) patients managed by emergency physicians (OR = 0.558, 95% CI = 0.156 to 1.806).

CONCLUSIONS
Emergency physicians can safely manage the airways of trauma patients. Success and failure rates are similar to those of anesthesiologists.


One of the goals of a marriage in addition to forming a happy family is to get offspring. The presence of children in a household is very important. In a household there is a husband and wife who cannot get offspring, so in such circumstances a husband and wife will certainly take various efforts as a way out. Artificial insemination is one solution that can be taken for married couples who experience infertility. This program is a process of conception (conception) carried out outside the uterus, which is between the sperm and the ovum reunited in a fetri dish which is given the temperature according to the heat of a woman. This is intended to stay alive to the stage of being inserted into the womb of a woman, or more popular with the test-tube baby. In this discussion the author discusses IVF with sperm and ovum from donors whose embryos are transplanted into the womb of the wife. This is done on a husband and wife who are not good in their wife's condition and the husband's sperm is lacking so that fertilization is not possible. In the end the couple receives the ovum and sperm from the donor, after fertilization, the embryo is transplanted into the womb of the wife. Artificial insemination programs with sperm and ovum from donors whose embryos are transplanted into the womb of the wife cause various problems in Islamic law. That is because it is not in accordance with the provisions of the syara law '. Furthermore, how is the law and status of children as a result of artificial insemination from donors in a review of Islamic law? What is the position of guardian of a child as a result of artificial insemination from a donor in a review of Islamic law? The method used by the author is a library research method, namely research whose data comes from library materials: books, books, laws and other scientific works. The approach in this study is normative-juridical. While the nature of the research is descriptive-analytic, namely describing and describing the law, status and guardianship of children from artificial insemination from donors in the perspective of Islamic law, then analyzed from the point of Islamic law. The analysis in this study is qualitative data analysis, namely in the form of deductive analysis. The results of this study are that according to Islamic law the legal provisions of the implementation of artificial insemination with sperm and ovum from donors who are not husband and wife then the embryo is transplanted into the womb of the wife is illegitimate, children born from the process are illegitimate children or the same as zina children and he was only associated with his mother and obtained a series of rights from the mother and family of his mother, one of which was guardianship when he was a child and not yet an adult. This trust includes guardianship of the self and property of the child. Guardianship of a child is in accordance with Maqasidasy-Shari'ah, namely for hifz an-nafs and hifz al-mal.


Media multitasking refers to the simultaneous use of more than one media form
(Ophir et al., 2009). This definition has sometimes been inclusive of using media while doing
a non-media activity such as interacting with others (Xu et al., 2016). This research examined
the relationship between media multitasking, psychosocial well-being and personality traits.
Additionally, this research investigated media multitaskers' emotion processing on three
established attention tasks.
Existing research has shown that media multitasking is associated with poorer
psychological (Becker et al., 2013) and general well-being (Pea et al., 2013). A principle aim
of the present research was to expand on the existing literature by exploring the link between
media multitasking and a range of psychosocial well-being constructs including trait
depression, trait anxiety, social anxiety, general well-being, and empathy. A link between
media multitasking and personality traits has also been reported in the literature, however
only a few traits have been examined to date (e.g., impulsivity, sensation seeking). One aim of
the current research was to expand on this by exploring other personality traits such as the Big
5 (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) and narcissism.
Therefore, the link between media multitasking and well-being has been reported, and the link
between media multitasking and personality appears to be present as well. Yet, how these
three variables might intertwine with each other has yet to be investigated.
In the present research, Study 1 examined the relationship between media
multitasking, psychosocial well-being (trait depression, trait anxiety, social anxiety, general
well-being, and empathy), and personality traits (Big 5 and narcissism) through an online
survey. The study examined if media multitasking mediated the relationship between
personality traits and psychosocial outcomes. Study 1 also investigated the specific
association between using media while interacting with others, and how this behaviour contributes to psychosocial well-being after controlling for personality variables. Study 2 was
a word rating study that was necessary to generate comparable face and word stimuli sets that
would be used in Study 3. This was needed because word databases have generally
categorised words into positive and negative categories only, or have used words that may
have subjective meaning attached to it (e.g., objects or occasions). Study 3 employed three
well-established attention tasks: the dot-probe paradigm, visual search task, and attentional
blink task. These tasks are designed to measure selective, spatial and temporal attention,
respectively. Across the tasks, happy, angry and neutral faces and words were used. The
primary research questions of interest were: (a) whether heavy media multitaskers perform
worse on attention tasks compared to light and average media multitaskers; (b) whether
different groups of media multitaskers have attentional biases towards specific emotions; and
(c) whether the group differences are consistent across the three attention tasks.
Findings from Study 1 showed that higher levels of media multitasking were related to
poorer levels of psychosocial well-being, in particular, trait depression, trait anxiety, general
well-being, and empathy. Further analyses showed that media multitasking partially mediated
a number of the relationships between personality traits and psychosocial well-being
outcomes. Study 1 also found that using media while interacting with others was associated
with higher levels of trait depression, trait anxiety, social anxiety, and lower levels of general
well-being, and empathy. Whereas previous studies have found that heavy media
multitasking is related to performance on several cognitive tasks such as task switching
(Cardoso-Leite et al., 2016; Ophir et al., 2009), filtering (Cardoso-Leite et al., 2016; Ophir et
al., 2009), and working memory tasks (Ralph & Smilek, 2017; Uncapher et al., 2016),
findings from Study 3 showed a significant group difference on the dot-probe task in relation
to emotion bias, but not on overall performance. There were no group differences found on
the visual search and attentional blink tasks. Potential explanations for these unexpected findings are outlined and discussed. The overall performance on each task also produced
results showing some biases towards emotions compared to neutral stimuli, but this was not
consistent across all conditions nor across faces and word tasks. This was likely due to the use
of subtle stimuli and task instructions which resulted in an inconsistency with previous
research showing robust effects for emotional biases.
This research provides a better understanding of how an increasingly prevalent
behaviour such as media multitasking can potentially contribute to people's well-being and
cognitive performance. This has practical implications for the need to highlight cautionary use
of multiple media forms concurrently, as it is currently increasingly encouraged or sometimes
necessary in schools, workplaces, and homes.


Basketball is a sports discipline in which the ankle sprain is the most common injury. It is considered to be an aggravated activity by its dimension of teamwork, contact and requiring a variety of motion dynamics. The aim of this paper is to identify basketball game elements that contribute to the development of traumatic torsion injuries, to present methods of injury prevention and to present possible methods for the rehabilitation of athletes in different stages of injury healing. A sprain and a torsion of the ankle is not a traumatic event defined at one time, but is often a cycle of repetitive trauma. It is also important to educate competitors not to underestimate these types of injuries and to treat them with serious medical and rehabilitation procedures. Rehabilitation of the ankle joint is dependent on the degree of injury, and above all on the extent of the damaged tissue. In order to avoid trauma, proprioception and global stabilization training play a very important role. Unstable ankle instability is associated with serious complications.


Gender and ethnicity classifications are a long-standing challenge in the face recognition's field. They are key-demographic traits of individuals and applied in real-world applications such as biometric and demographic research, human-computer interaction (HCI), law enforcement and online advertisements. Thus, many methods have been proposed to address gender or/and race classifications and achieved various accuracies. This research improves race and gender classification by employing a geodesic path algorithm to extract discriminative features of both gender and ethnicity. PCA is also utilized for dimensionality reduction of Gender-feature and race-feature matrices. KNN and SVM are used to classify the extracted feature. This research was tested on the face recognition technology (FERET) dataset, with classification results demonstrating high-level performance (100%) in distinguishing gender and ethnicity.


The informatics of instrumented infrasiructure will require multi-level computational abstractions that not only collect and declutter the data but also support higher-level automated reasoning capabilities relevant to decision support needs of both owners responsible for the safe operation of the facilities and users of those facilities. This paper describes the appeal and implemented demonstration of Internet-based paradigms for higher-level automated reasoning about condition of instrumented infrastructure using the Java computing language. This enables interactive program execution from a web page. These notions are presented and demonstrated in the context of illustrative application scenarios involving fatigue monitoring, overweight vehicle detection, and bridge deck surface travel condition monitoring. By means of this demonstration, it is suggested that there is an important role for Java-based expert systems in handling key aspects of the data fusion requirements associated with intelligent, internet-mediated post-processing of data obtained from instrumented civil infrastructure.


In a retrospective study, we identified 55 elderly patients with acute renal failure (ARF) admitted to our hospital during an 8-year period from 1985 to 1993. Information about the etiology, complications, laboratory data, and treatment course were obtained from the clinical history. Of the 200 patients with ARF admitted to the hospital during this period, 28% were patients more than 60 years old (41 male and 14 female) with an average age of 68.5 +/- 7 years. The main causes of ARF were sepsis, volume depletion, low cardiac output, arterial hypotension, nephrotoxicity by antibiotics, and obstructive uropathy. The global mortality of elderly patients with ARF was 53%. The mortality rate of the different types of the ARF were: prerenal 35%, intrinsic 64% (oliguric 76%, nonoliguric 50%), and postrenal 40%. Mortality as a result of sepsis occurred in 18 patients (62%), by cardiovascular disease in 4 patients (13%), by acute respiratory failure in 2 patients (7%), and by other causes in 5 patients (18%). In the cases of sepsis, Pseudomonas was detected in 7 cases (39%), Escherichia coli in 2 cases (11%), Gram-negative nonspecific in 3 cases (17%), Klebsiella in 1 case (5%), and in 5 cases (16%), the hemoculture was negative. The patient survival rate was 47% (26 of 55 patients). Of these patients, 19 recovered their normal renal function (73%), but 7 patients remained with renal failure (27%). In conclusion, the global mortality in the elderly patients without considering the types of ARF was 53%. The oliguric form had the highest mortality rate with 76%. The main causes for mortality were sepsis with 62%, cardiovascular disease with 13%, and other causes 18%.


We are delighted to welcome you to the First International Workshop on Gamification for Information Retrieval, held on April 13, 2014 in conjunction with ECIR'14 in Amsterdam.

This workshop focuses on the challenges and opportunities that gamification can present for the information retrieval (IR) community. Gamification is the application of game mechanics, such as leader boards, badges or achievement points, in non-gaming environments with the aim to increase user engagement, data quality or cost effectiveness. A core aspect of gamification solutions is to infuse intrinsic motivations to participate by leveraging people's natural desires for achievement and competition. While gamification, on the one hand, is emerging as the next big thing in industry, e.g., an effective way to generate business, on the other hand, it is also becoming a major research area. However, its adoption in Information Retrieval is still in its infancy, despite the wide ranging IR tasks that may benefit from gamification techniques. These include the manual annotation of documents for IR evaluation, the participation in user studies to study interactive IR challenges, or the shift from single-user search to social search, just to mention a few.


Ovarian cancer (OC) and endometrial cancer (EC) are two types of the most frequent gynecological malignancies worldwide. However, the prognosis of OC and EC patients remained gloomy. Therefore, there was still an urgent need to identify new biomarkers for early diagnosis and treatment of OC and EC. TCGA datasets were used to screen the KLHL14 expression levels in 18 different types of human cancers. TCGA datasets were also used to analyze the association between KLHL14 expression levels and OS/PFS in OC and EC. Human Protein Atlas was used to detected the KLHL14 protein levels in OC and EC. Kaplan-Meier plotter was used to evaluate the prognostic values of KLHL14 in Ovarian cancer. MAS 3.0 was used to perform GO and KEGG pathway analysis. STRING was used to perform PPI network. KLHL14 was specially expressed in OC and EC samples. Moreover, KLHL14 was found to be up-regulated in all stage of OC and EC samples. By analyzing Kaplan-Meier plotter and TCGA datasets, we found higher KLHL14 expression level was associated with shorter overall and progression-free survival in both OC and EC patients. Furthermore, GO and KEGG analysis of KLHL14 co-expressing genes indicated it played important roles in OC and EC progression. We for the first time reported KLHL14 was specially over-expressed in ovarian and endometrial cancer, up-regulation of KLHL14 was positively associated with worse outcome. Finally, we found knockdown of KLHL14 suppressed OC cell proliferation. KLHL14 could be a potential biomarker and therapy target for OC and EC.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Mice with a disrupted gene for the G-protein alpha inhibitory 2 chain ( Gnai2 -/- ) develop a spontaneous colitis resembling human inflammatory bowel disease. Disease expression differs markedly between inbred strains of mice, indicating genetic control of disease susceptibility. We performed a genome-wide screen to localize the chromosomal regions regulating disease expression.

METHODS
A total of 284 F2 mice derived from resistant C57BL/6J Gnai2 -/- mice and susceptible C3H/HeN Gnai2 -/- mice were analyzed in a genome-wide screen for colitis susceptibility and severity.

RESULTS
A highly significant locus on chromosome 3 (Gpdc1) contributed to colitis susceptibility and severity (likelihood ratio statistics [LRS] = 32.4; LOD score = 7; P < 1.0 x 10(-5)). The peak linkage of this locus at 62 cM colocalizes exactly with a previously identified locus controlling colitis susceptibility in interleukin-10-deficient mice. In addition, evidence for linkage with a locus on chromosome 1 (Gpdc2 ; LRS = 19.7; LOD = 4.3) was found, and the 2 loci interacted epistatically (combined LRS = 68.2). A third locus (Gpdc3) was found on chromosome 9 and this locus interacted epistatically with a locus on chromosome 7, which by itself did not have an effect on the trait.

CONCLUSIONS
The identification of a major locus on chromosome 3 that controls susceptibility to spontaneous colitis in 2 different gene-knockout models indicates that this locus harbors a gene(s) that plays a key role in maintaining mucosal homeostasis. Identification of this gene(s) may contribute to further understanding of the mechanisms underlying human inflammatory bowel disease.


Background: General Practitioners (GPs) play a central role in caring for people with dementia. There is a growing demand for GP-led community-based dementia care, as advocated in the Irish National Dementia Strategy (INDS). However, there is a paucity of research exploring GPs' views on dementia care since publication of the INDS. The aim of this qualitative study is to develop a deeper understanding of how to improve the quality of dementia care in General Practice, explored from the perspective of Irish GPs. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with GPs. GPs who completed the "Dementia in Primary Care" CPD module at University College Cork in Ireland were purposively recruited. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by thematic analysis. Results: 12 interviews were conducted with 7 female and 5 male participants. Experience in General Practice ranged from 3 to 32 years. Most GPs practiced in mixed urban-rural settings (n = 9) and had nursing home commitments (n = 8). The average interview length was 45 minutes. Six major themes emerged from the data set, including resourcing primary care, addressing disparities in secondary care, community-centered care as patient-centered care, linking a dementia network, universal access to care, and raising public awareness. Conclusion: GPs find dementia care to be a complex and challenging aspect of primary care. While education and training is advocated by GPs, service delivery must be reconfigured. This will necessitate adequate financial resourcing and the restructuring of community-based dementia care services.


Figures 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in this paper were incorrectly printed. However, they appeared correctly in the online version of the journal. Correct versions of these figures are given in the full text files.


Purpose This research examines the user interaction of global and local news agencies' tweets based on three dimensions. The types of agencies, content richness of posts, and categories of shared news content. Methodology A mixed research model was used both quantitative and qualitative. Five elements have been evaluated with a special score table. The news categories were examined through eight selected categories. User interactions were analyzed with 4,582 tweets collected from the news agencies. Content analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA and correlation analysis were conducted. FindingsIt has been seen that user interaction differs regarding news agencies and types of news agencies. So having influenced the audience from the Agency perspective, there should be considerations regarding sharing content to have interactions. ConclusionContent marketing is a useful tool for social media marketing, and news agencies are the leading producers of the social media content. By this point of view, this work has implications for both academicians and practitioners.


Adsorption isotherms for p-xylene and n-hexane in silicalite-1 films with a thickness of 200 nm were determined at 323, 343, 368, 393, and 423 K using Fourier transform infrared/attenuated total reflection (FTIR/ATR) spectroscopy. For both adsorbates, the low-pressure data agreed with literature data for MFI powder and the estimated Henry's constant and adsorption enthalpy were close to previously reported results. The upper region of the n-hexane isotherm (p > 2 kPa at 323 K) was likely influenced by micropores in open grain boundaries, as expected for a polycrystalline film of small (<200 nm) crystals. As for n-hexane, the first part (0 ≤ p ≤ 65 Pa at 323 K) of the p-xylene isotherm agreed with data for powder. However, the saturation capacity was only about half of that previously reported for powders, which indicates that p-xylene molecules do not adsorb in the sinusoidal channels in the film. We speculate that the small crystals used in the present work may behave differently from the larger crystals...


There has been growing public opposition against genetically modified (GM) foods. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation methodology, we analyze the factors that affect the willingness to pay for GM-corn-fed beef by consumers in Spokane, Washington. The mean discount required to choose the GM-fed beef is small at 8% compared to other studies in Europe and Japan. Further, half the sample was provided information about biotechnology, and the effect of this information is analyzed.


This paper studies a combined voltage control strategy that coordinates a variety of reactive compensative devices such as fixed capacitors, SVC/Statcom, DFIGs (Double-fed Induction Generators) to improve voltage control performance in multi-time scale. Based on the control restraints and response performance, three modes - planning mode, online mode and emergency mode - are optimized for lower cost and higher security margin, respectively. The paper introduces wind power forecast into wind farm voltage planning for slow, discrete devices such as fixed capacitor, while engages devices that are capable of instantaneous response to smooth quick, small voltage fluctuation and track online voltage reference from dispatching centre. The feasibility, effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control strategy are verified with simulation.


AIM: Without on-side pathology it is difficult to decide about the adequacy of the EBUS-TBNA material. But often assistan staff makes a comment about the qualification of material. The aim of the study is to investigate the predictability of qualification of material from the macroscopic appearence of smear material obtained by EBUS-TBNA. METHOD: Smear preperations of EBUS-TBNA materials were given points according to the macroscopic appearances from 0 to 5 by the same assitant staff in December 2013. 0 to 2 was accepted as inadequate material whereas 3 to5 was adequate material. All smears for every aspiration was sent to pathology department with different numbers. The same cytopathologist was eximined the smears without knowledge of macroscopic scores. Macroscopic evaluation of smears was compared with cytopathological results. The data obtained was eximined with SPSS 17.0 program and chi-square test. RESULTS: 110 smears obtained by different aspirations by EBUS included in study. 23(20.9%) of them were accepted macroscopically as inadequate, 87(79.1%)were adequate.There was a statistically signifficance between microscopic evaluation and lymph node reflection of the smear cytopathologically(p=0.01). CONCLUSION: With experience and good training, from the macroscopic appearence of smears obtained from EBUS-TBNA it can be estimated if the lymph node is sampled adequately. Nevertheless more studies whith larger series are necessary in this issue.


This article provides an overview of online arbitration. It considers some of the distinct features of online arbitration as compared to traditional arbitration. If then discusses online arbitration in practice. The article concludes by examining some of the reasons why online arbitration has yet to prove attracting to many internet users.


Since China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001, it has participated in a relatively small number of cases brought to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), contrary to the many wild predictions made prior to entry. In the first few years post-accession, China seemed content to act as a passive observer, participating mainly as a third party. However, since 2006, there appears to have been a shift in attitude with China now taking a more combative stance, particularly in the past few years. This article will examine China's participation in the WTO DSB from 2002 to date to explore whether China's approach really has shifted from that of passive observer to that of an active participant, possible reasons to explain this transformation and what the implications of such a shift may be for other WTO Contracting Parties.


Overexpression of the efflux pump P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is one of the important mechanisms of multidrug resistance (MDR) in many tumor cells. In this study, 26 novel 5-oxo-hexahydroquinoline derivatives containing different nitrophenyl moieties at C4 and various carboxamide substituents at C3 were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their ability to inhibit P-gp by measuring the amount of rhodamine 123 (Rh123) accumulation in uterine sarcoma cells that overexpress P-gp (MES-SA/Dx5) using flow cytometry. The effect of compounds with highest MDR reversal activities was further evaluated by measuring the alterations of MES-SA/Dx5 cells' sensitivity to doxorubicin (DXR) using MTT assay. The results of both biological assays indicated that compounds bearing 2-nitrophenyl at C4 position and compounds with 4-chlorophenyl carboxamide at C3 demonstrated the highest activities in resistant cells, while they were devoid of any effect in parental nonresistant MES-SA cells. One of the active derivatives, 5c, significantly increased intracellular Rh123 at 100 µM, and it also significantly reduced the IC50 of DXR by 70.1% and 88.7% at 10 and 25 µM, respectively, in MES-SA/Dx5 cells. The toxicity of synthesized compounds against HEK293 as a noncancer cell line was also investigated. All tested derivatives except for 2c compound showed no cytotoxicity. A molecular dynamics simulation study was also performed to investigate the possible binding site of 5c in complex with human P-gp, which showed that this compound formed 11 average H-bonds with Ser909, Thr911, Arg547, Arg543 and Ser474 residues of P-gp. A good agreement was found between the results of the computational and experimental studies. The findings of this study show that some 5-oxo-hexahydroquinoline derivatives could serve as promising candidates for the discovery of new agents for P-gp-mediated MDR reversal.


The paper reviews seven partial equilibrium global models used over the last 10 years to the analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy (ESIM, FAO-WFM, FAPRI-CARD, MISS, SPEL/EU, SWOPSIM and WATSIM). The discussion starts from the basic modelling assumptions, the data and parameters employed, by looking first at the common aspects of the models, and then at the unique characteristics of each model for simulating the effects of the CAP. Then the effectiveness of the modelling of five specific CAP tools is discussed; these are - direct price support, trade measures, supply management tools, partially "decoupled" payments, and voluntary schemes. It is argued that considerable improvements have taken place in the ability to capture the effects of changes in some of the main CAP tools, especially in relatively more recent efforts, and especially in terms of the explicit modelling of different measures. Further work is required on the quality of functional forms, the parameters and of the data employed in the models to complement the achievements already made in modelling agricultural and trade policy tools.


B. megaterium NCTC 5637 has been shown to grow into long chains in 1% glucose and 1% suramin (w/v). This effect was not noticeable in lower concentration of the inhibitor. The effect diminished in suramin free medium, indicating the change to be phenotypic.


Humeral head chondrolysis has been widely reported as a devastating complication after arthroscopic shoulder surgery; however little is known about post-arthroscopic humeral head osteonecrosis. We experienced a 66-year-old female patient with rapidly progressive osteonecrosis of the humeral head only seven months after arthroscopic Bankart and rotator cuff repair. The patient had no systemic risk factors for osteonecrosis. A satisfactory result was achieved with reverse total shoulder arthroplasty for severe humeral head destruction and an irreparable massive rotator cuff tear. Shoulder surgeons should be aware of such severe complication, perform routine radiographs, and pay close attention to the presence of constant pain or loss of motion after arthroscopic shoulder surgery.


Background: This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of low and high dose magnesium sulfate in reducing pressure responses to laryngoscopy and sternotomy. Methods: A total of 90 patients were assigned into three groups. The patients in Group L received a 20 mg/kg bolus dose of magnesium sulfate 3 minutes before intubation followed by an infusion of magnesium sulfate (10 mg/kg/h) in contrast to 40 mg/kg of magnesium sulfate followed by an infusion of 20 mg/kg/h magnesium sulfate administered to Group H. Patients in Group P received saline as placebo. Heart rate and mean arterial pressure (MAP) recorded at the baseline were noted down again before intubation and 30 seconds, 2 and 4 minutes after intubation and 1 minute before, and 30 seconds, 2 and 4 minutes after sternotomy. Results: MAP in Groups L and H compared to Group P was significantly lower, after intubation (P = 0.0040). The difference between MAP in Groups L and H was only statistically significant 30 seconds after intubation. MAP 30 seconds and 2 minutes after sternotomy was statistically different between Groups L and H compared to Group P. The difference between Groups H and P was only statistically significant before sternotomy and 4 minutes after sternotomy (P = 0.0001). Conclusions: A low dose magnesium sulfate attenuates the hemodynamic response to laryngoscopy and sternotomy in coronary artery bypass graft surgery.


A 42-year-old woman was referred to our hospital because of abdominal fullness and a large abdominal mass. Computed tomography (CT) demonstrated bilateral ovarian tumors, uterine myoma and left hydronephrosis. On excretory urography the left kidney was not visualized and retrograde pyelography (RP) revealed left hydronephrosis and a filling defect in the left lower ureter. Based on the diagnoses of endometriosis of bilateral ovaries, uterine myoma and a left ureteral tumor, abdominal total hysterectomy, right salpingo-oophorectomy and partial ureterectomy were performed. Pathologically, in the uterus, both leiomyoma and adenomyosis, and endometriosis of the right ovary and ureter were diagnosed. Medication with buserelin acetate was started.


The thesis consists of theoretical and the empirical part. In both parts the thesis answers the research questions on ways of including children in a group, positive effects of including Roma children in group work with other children, work programmes for Roma children, and the part of professional workers in enrolling Roma children.
The theoretical part describes the education and culture of Roma people in Slovenia and Bela krajina through history. It defines the concepts of integration, segregation and inclusion and determines how these concepts are connected with the discussed issues. Then follows the analysis of the laws, rules and documentation connected with the discussed Roma problems, which is used in analytical work.
The empirical part researches, in greater detail, the way of including Roma children and various work forms professional workers use with Roma children, in one of Bela krajina's kindergartens. In this case, Roma children are integrated in regular classes and included in daily programme, this is why the thesis focuses mainly of this type of inclusion. Later it also researches the impact of individual professional workers (kindergarten teachers and their assistants, head teacher's assistant, adviser, Roma children assistant) on the inclusion of Roma children in regular kindergarten classes. It is also interested in the ways the employees help with enrolling Roma children in regular kindergarten classes: with encouraging the parents of Roma children to enrol their child into regular kindergarten classes, with designing an adjusted programme, with additional work with Roma children, etc. By researching it defines the ways of including Roma children in the group and the part of professional workers in their enrolment. Inclusion of Roma children is the same for all, but the role of professional workers differs. The adviser manages all necessary documentation, Roma children assistant communicates with the parents of Roma children, and the head teacher's assistant organizes all the work. Kindergarten teachers and their assistants do not have a role in enrolling children, however they have a key role in working with Roma children in the group.


Hypertension is an important risk factor for cardiovascular complications of diabetes. Most of the studies performed in diabetics so far, however, have dealt with the assessment of blood pressure by traditional sphygmomanometry. In order to investigate the circadian pattern of blood pressure and heart rate in patients with different categories of glucose tolerance, we performed ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in 28 obese hypertensives without clinical nephropathy divided in two groups. Group A consisted of 14 hypertensive males with type 2 diabetes mellitus (mean age 49.7 +/- 7.1 years, mean duration of diabetes 4.0 +/- 2.9 years); group B consisted of 14 hypertensive males with normal glucose tolerance according to National Diabetes Data Group (mean age 47.2 +/- 7.1 years). There was no significant difference in casual blood pressure (151.4/104.8 in group A versus 148.5/104.2 mmHg in group B). Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring revealed significantly higher systolic blood pressure in group A during the day (162.2 +/- 12.1 vs 152.1 +/- 9.0 mmHg in group B, P < 0.05) and at night (141.0 +/- 13.2 vs 125.5 +/- 12.5 mmHg in group B, P < 0.005). That suggests that casual readings underestimate systolic blood pressure as a predictor for macrovascular events in type 2 diabetics. The decline in nocturnal heart rate was significantly lower in group A (11.2 +/- 5.2 min-1) in comparison to group B (16.9 +/- 7.0 min-1; P < 0.05) suggesting reduced parasympathetic tone at night in diabetic patients. We conclude that type 2 diabetes has significant influence on systolic blood pressure and heart rate 24-h profiles even in patients without diabetic nephropathy.


In this study, 2′,4′,6′-Trimethoxyacetophenone was reacted with various fluorine-substituted benzaldehydes in the presence of an aqueous solution of 50%-potassium hydroxide, and new chalcone derivatives in the structure of 1,3-diaryl-2-propenone comprising both fluorine and methoxy groups in the aromatic B ring were obtained in high yields under mild conditions. In base-catalyzed Claisen-Schmidt condensations, MeOH is usually used as solvent. In the condensation reactions performed with mono-fluorine-substituted benzaldehydes in MeOH, the corresponding fluorine-substituted chalcone derivatives in the B ring were synthesized in high yield. On the other hand, when diand tri-fluorine-substituted benzaldehydes were used, it was determined that a nucleophilic aromatic substitution (SNAr) occurred in the reaction condition and the condensation yield decreased. Consequently, fluorine-methoxy substituted chalcone derivatives were isolated by substitution of fluorine and methoxy group in para position in the aromatic B ring. On the other hand, it was found that when THF was used as the reaction solvent, chalcone derivatives carrying only fluorine atoms could be obtained with excellent chemical selectivity without any competitive aromatic nucleophilic substitution (SNAr) in the condition. Particularly in the synthesis studies of such fluorine-substituted chalcones, it was determined that the Claisen–Schmidt condensation ratio is dependent on the effect of the solvent in addition to steric and electronic factors.


In this paper local sensitivity measures are proposed to evaluate deviations from multivariate normality caused by asymmetry; the model we use to regulate asymmetry is the multivariate skew-normal distribution because it reflects the deviation in a very tractable way. The paper also examines the connection between local sensitivity and Mardia's and Malkovich-Afifi's skewness indices. Once the local sensitivity measures have been introduced, we study the effect of local perturbations in asymmetry on the conditional distributions; this issue has important implications because there are many procedures in statistics and other fields where the output depends on the distribution of some variables for known values of the others. The proposed measures use the Kullback-Leibler divergence to evaluate dissimilarities between probability distributions in order to assess deviation from normality on the joint distribution and on the marginal and conditional distributions as well. The results are illustrated with some examples


In order to facilitate the technologist's work, a simple method of counting the activity of wipe test samples for contamination control in the nuclear medicine department has been developed. A scintigraphic three-minute image is directly obtained from the uncollimated gamma camera with the help of a homemade plexiglas template which holds the samples. A computer program analyzes this image, simultaneously calculates the activity of a maximum of 12 samples after correcting for the background, and expresses the result as a percentage of the predetermined maximum permissible activity. The results are stored on diskette and a hard copy is produced for permanent record keeping.