Laboratories are an important part of technical and scientific education. To amortize the cost of setup and maintenance, some laboratory facilities can be shared and via remote network access. Such virtual laboratories provide realistic environments and allow for interactive student experimentation. When students access a virtual laboratory via the Internet, it makes it more difficult for instructors to track student progress. In this work, we present the design of a system that can track student progress as an extension of the Open Network Laboratory. Our design presents a mechanism for recording student work, comparing it to a master solution, and visualizing the status of the entire class. This system helps simplify the teaching of courses using the Open Network Laboratory and virtual laboratories in general.


Active regions on the solar surface are generally thought to originate from a strong toroidal magnetic field generated by a deep seated solar dynamo mechanism operating at the base of the solar convection zone. Thus the magnetic fields need to traverse the entire convection zone before they reach the photosphere to form the observed solar active regions. Understanding this process of active region flux emergence is therefore a crucial component for the study of the solar cycle dynamo. This article reviews studies with regard to the formation and rise of active region scale magnetic flux tubes in the solar convection zone and their emergence into the solar atmosphere as active regions.


Background Pressure sores are localized injuries to the skin and underlying tissues and are mainly resulting from overpressure. Paraplegic peoples are particularly subjects to pressure sores because of long-time seated postures and sensory deprivation at the lower limbs. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we report outcomes of a feasibility trial involving a biofeedback system aimed at reducing buttock overpressure whilst an individual is seated. The system consists of (1) pressure sensors, (2) a laptop coupling sensors and actuator (3) a wireless Tongue Display Unit (TDU) consisting of a circuit embedded in a dental retainer with electrodes put in contact with the tongue. The principle consists in (1) detecting overpressures in people who are seated over long periods of time, (2) estimating a postural change that could reduce these overpressures and (3) communicating this change through directional information transmitted by the TDU.Twenty-four healthy subjects voluntarily participated in this study. Twelve healthy subjects initially formed the experimental group (EG) and were seated on a chair with the wireless TDU inside their mouth. They were asked to follow TDU orders that were randomly spread throughout the session. They were evaluated during two experimental sessions during which 20 electro-stimulations were sent. Twelve other subjects, added retrospectively, formed the control group (CG). These subjects participated in one session of the same experiment without any biofeedback.Three dependent variables were computed: (1) the ability of subjects to reach target posture (EG versus CG), (2) high pressure reductions after a biofeedback (EG versus CG) and (3) the level of these reductions relative to their initial values (EG only). Results show (1) that EG reached target postures in 90.2% of the trials, against 5,3% in the CG, (2) a significant reduction in overpressures in the EG compared to the CG and (3), for the EG, that the higher the initial pressures were, the more they were decreased. Conclusions/Significance The findings suggest that, in this trial, subjects were able to use a tongue tactile feedback system to reduce buttock overpressure while seated. Further evaluation of this system on paraplegic subjects remains to be done.


The inhibition effect of heterocyclic organic derivative viz., 2-(Benzothiazol-2-ylsulfanyl)-1-(5- methyl-thiazol-2-ylamino)-ethanol (BMTE) was evaluated against mild steel corrosion in 1 N HCl solutions using conventional weight loss method, potentiodynamic polarization, linear polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results of weight loss method have proved that BMTE was efficient corrosion inhibitor. Electrochemical polarizations such as Tafel Intercept and Linear Polarization Resistance revealed the mixed mode of inhibition. The results of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy have shown the changes in the impedance parameters like charge transfer resistance and double layer capacitance to confirm the strong adsorption on the mild steel surface. The increase in the value of inhibition efficiency was due to the adsorption of the molecules evaluated leading to the formation of a protective layer on the surface of mild steel. The inhibition action of these compounds was, assumed to occur via adsorption on the steel surface through the active centres contained in the molecules.


Breast cancer surgery is frequently associated with postoperative nausea, vomiting, pain and painful restricted movement. It is well established that thoracic paravertebral block with or without general anesthesia provides better postoperative analgesia and reduces the risk of nausea and vomiting after breast surgery as well as the incidence of chronic pain. Paravertebral block improves the quality of recovery after breast cancer surgery and provides the patient with the option of ambulatory discharge.


Durvalumab is a monoclonal antibody that blocks programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1). It has been recently approved for the treatment of advanced urothelial and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a more favorable side effect profile compared to traditional chemotherapy agents. We present a case of durvalumab-induced myocarditis complicated by complete heart block (CHB). A 71-year-old male with a history of atrial flutter status post ablation, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) recently started on durvalumab, presented with new sinus bradycardia on electrocardiogram (EKG). His initial labs were notable for a troponin T of 207 ng/L (normal range ≤50). Transthoracic echo (TTE) and computed tomography angiography (CTA) of the coronaries were unremarkable. The hospital course was complicated by CHB on telemetry for 15 minutes. Given hemodynamic instability, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could not be obtained. The patient received transvenous pacing. Electrophysiology and cardiology-oncology were consulted to evaluate for pacemaker implantation as well as management for durvalumab-induced myocarditis. Methylprednisolone 1000 mg intravenous (IV) was started with an improvement in troponin levels but without improvement in CHB. His course was further complicated by polymorphic ventricular tachycardia prompting the placement of a permanent dual-chamber pacemaker. The patient was discharged on a prednisone taper, and durvalumab was discontinued. A diagnosis of durvalumab-induced myocarditis was made based on elevated troponin levels, with the exclusion of coronary artery disease with CTA of the coronaries. The persistence of conduction abnormalities despite treatment with steroids leads to the placement of a permanent pacemaker. Durvalumab falls under the category of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy which are novel agents that have more favorable side effect profiles compared to traditional chemotherapeutic agents. A review of the literature shows myocarditis with arrhythmias as a potentially rare side effect of ICI therapy. Corticosteroid therapy seems to be promising as a potential therapy.


A 3D split-step Fourier method is presented and tested. It is based on a spectral representation of the discrete wave equation in cylindrical coordinates. The formulations in this method are self-consistent in the discrete domain. This method is applied to simulate the propagation with ducts retrieved after clutter data inversion. In the numerical tests, the difference between N × 2D and 3D models is not significant. Thus, in this case, considering the 3D atmosphere effects is unnecessary.


This study employed the Cobb-Douglas stochastic fro ntier production function to measure the level of technical efficiency in small-holder cocoy am production in Anambra state, Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to s elect 120 cocoyam farmers in the state in 2005 and from them input-output data were obtained using the cost-route approach. The parameters of the stochastic frontier production fu ction were estimated using the maximum likelihood method. The result of the analysis shows that individual farm level technical efficiency was about 95%. The study found education and farming experience to be positively and significantly related to technical efficiency a t 1% while practice index, fertilizer use and membership of cooperative societies also had a dire ct relationship with technical efficiency and were significant at 5% level. Age and farm size had an indirect relationship with technical efficiency and was significant at 1% and 5% level r espectively. There were no significant relationship between technical efficiency and knowl edge index, credit access and family size. Expected increases in agriculture require increase in agricultural productivity. In other words, agricultural productivity very much depends on the efficiency of the production process. Hence, policies designed to educate people through proper agricultural extension services will have a great impact in increasing the level of efficiency and he nc agricultural productivity of these farmers.


This paper describes the relationship that exists between Scotland and its diaspora and the ways in which this has changed since the advent of devolution. Based on interviews carried out primarily in the United States, it explores how members of the diaspora have adopted a less historical and sentimental approach to their 'homeland' and are increasingly knowledgeable about Scottish constitutional change. In part this has resulted from the growth of the internet and the ease of finding out about developments in Scotland itself, as well as the greater ease and affordability of travel back to Scotland. But, most importantly, the existence of a government in Edinburgh has allowed Scottish politicians and organizations to engage with the diaspora in events such as Tartan Day, in a way in which London-based politicians were never likely to do. Tourist developments promoted by the Scottish government, such as the Year of Homecoming in 2009, have also been highly significant. Thus links between Scotland and its diaspora have been changed and strengthened in various ways.


Anxiety in childhood and adolescence can cause serious impairment across many settings in a child's life. Childhood anxiety may be impacted by parent-child attachment and by three specific parenting characteristics: acceptance, control and modelling of anxious behaviours. We review two evidence-based family interventions for childhood and adolescent anxiety problems. Cognitive behavioural treatment is currently the most commonly used form of psychotherapy to treat specific anxieties. Global or diffuse anxiety, however, may be better suited to experiential interventions such as communications approaches to family treatment. Experiential therapists examine how dysfunctional family roles exacerbate childhood anxiety. These intervention techniques and their implications for social work practice were discussed.


Great endeavors have been made to study AI's ability in abstract reasoning, along with which different versions of RAVEN's progressive matrices (RPM) are proposed as benchmarks. Previous works give inkling that without sophisticated design or extra meta-data containing semantic information, neural networks may still be indecisive in making decisions regarding RPM problems, after relentless training. Evidenced by thorough experiments and ablation studies, we showcase that end-to-end neural networks embodied with felicitous inductive bias, intentionally design or serendipitously match, can solve RPM problems elegantly, without the augment of any extra meta-data or preferences of any specific backbone. Our work also reveals that multi-viewpoint with multi-evaluation is a key learning strategy for successful reasoning. Finally, potential explanations for the failure of connectionist models in generalization are provided. We hope that these results will serve as inspections of AI's ability beyond perception and toward abstract reasoning. Source code can be found in https://github.com/QinglaiWeiCASIA/RavenSolver.


The growing importance of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in studying the white matter architecture in normal and pathologic states necessitates the development of tools for comprehensive analysis of diffusion tensor data. Operations such as multivariate statistical analysis and hypothesis testing, interpolation and filtering, must now be performed on tensor data, and must overcome challenges introduced by the non-linearity and high dimensionality of the tensors. In this paper, we present a novel approach to performing these computations by modeling the underlying manifold structure of the tensors, using a combination of two manifold learning techniques, isometric mapping (ISOMAP) and local tangent space alignment (LTSA). While ISOMAP identifies the dimensionality of the manifold of the tensors and embeds the tensors into a linear space, facilitating statistical computations therein, operations like interpolation and filtering, integral to the process of normalization, require the reconstruction of the tensor in the tensor domain. To obtain this reverse mapping from the linear space to the tensor domain, i.e. to the domain of the original tensor data, we use LTSA. The modeling of the underlying manifold structure renders our approach better applicable to tensor data than existing methods that may not always be able to capture the non-linearity present in the tensors under consideration. In various simulations with known ground truth, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework based on ISOMAP and LTSA in performing a comprehensive analysis of DTI data.


Thermal control is crucial to real-time systems as excessive processor temperature can cause system failure or unacceptable performance degradation due to hardware throttling. Real-time systems face significant challenges in thermal management as they must avoid processor overheating while still delivering desired real-time performance. Furthermore, many real-time systems must handle a broad range of uncertainties in system and environmental conditions. To address these challenges, this paper presents Thermal Control under Utilization Bound (TCUB), a novel thermal control algorithm specifically designed for real-time systems. TCUB employs a nested feedback loop that dynamically controls both processor temperature and CPU utilization through task rate adaptation. Rigorously modeled and designed based on control theory, TCUB can maintain both desired processor temperature and CPU utilization, thereby avoiding processor overheating and maintaining desired soft real-time performance. A salient feature of TCUB lies on its capability to handle a broad range of uncertainties in terms of processor power consumption, task execution times, ambient temperature, and unexpected thermal faults. The robustness of TCUB makes it particularly suitable for real-time embedded systems that must operate in highly unpredictable environments. The advantages of TCUB are demonstrated through extensive simulations under a broad range of system and environmental uncertainties.


The state-space H2/H(infinity) theory is employed to develop a design procedure that addresses the performance-robustness problem. A numerical example is used to illustrate both the advantages and limitations of the procedure and how it compares to linear-quadratic-Gaussian loop transfer recovery (LQG/LTR). A less rigorous procedure that compares favorably to the LQG/LTR is also constructed.


Multiple Antenna Communication has become one of the major focuses in wireless communication research. MIMO Technology is used to enhance the system capacity. The effect of Fading and Interference can be combated to increase the capacity of a link. MIMO system uses Multiple Transmit and Multiple Receive antennas which exploit the multipath propagation in rich scattering environment. The matrix channel plays a pivotal role in the throughput of a MIMO link since the modulation, data rate, power allocation and antenna weights are dependent on the channel gain. Alternative in order to reduce the complexity of MIMO system, detection techniques are proposed but the complexity of algorithmic schemes are in higher than that of equalizer based techniques such as Zero Forcing (ZF), Minimum mean square Error Methods (MMSE) and Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC). In this paper BER analysis is presented using different equalizers and then optimum equalization method is suggested.


BACKGROUND
Hospital medicine has grown as a field. However, no study has examined trends in career choices by internists over the past decade.

OBJECTIVE
To measure changes in practice setting for general internists.

DESIGN
Using Medicare fee-for-service claims (2008 to 2018) and data from the American Board of Internal Medicine, practice setting types were measured annually for general internists initially certifying between 1990 and 2017.

SETTING
General internists (non-subspecializing) treating Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.

PATIENTS
Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged 65 years and older with at least 20 evaluation and management (E&M) visits annually.

MEASUREMENTS
Practice setting types were defined as hospitalist (>95% inpatient E&M), outpatient only (100% outpatient E&M), or mixed.

RESULTS
67 902 general internists, comprising 80% of all general internists initially certified from 1990 to 2017 (n = 84 581), were studied. From 2008 to 2018, both hospitalists and outpatient-only physicians increased as percentages of general internists (25% to 40% and 23% to 38%, respectively). This was accompanied by a 56% decline in the percentage of mixed-practice physicians (52% to 23%) as these physicians largely migrated to outpatient-only practice. By 2018, 71% of newly certified general internists practiced as hospitalists compared with only 8% practicing as outpatient-only physicians. Most (86% of hospitalists in 2013) had the same practice type 5 years later. This retention rate was similar across early career and more senior physicians (86% and 85% for the 1999 and 2012 initial certification cohorts, respectively) and for the outpatient-only practice type (95%) but was only 57% for the mixed practice type.

LIMITATION
Practice setting measurement relied only on Medicare fee-for-service claims.

CONCLUSION
Newly certified general internists are largely choosing hospital medicine as their career choice whereas more senior physicians increasingly see patients only in the outpatient setting.

PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE
This study did not receive direct funding.


Recent coin finds in ancient Altino allow us to reconsider the representativeness of previous, already published coin finds from the same city. The comparison between old and new samples of Late Roman coins (294 to 498 AD) from Altino shows that there are only relatively slight differences, if you consider all the coins as a whole. On the contrary, if you take specific sub-samples (defined by chronology, origin or typology) into account, it emerges that there are some considerable discrepancies, and it is therefore evident that the these sub-samples are far less representative.


In viewpoint of visual merchandising, display is recognized as important means of expressing fashion as well as essential factor of stimulating customers` interest in purchase. However, visual merchandising is relatively new area and the studies on specialized display personnels are limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the status and educational background of displayers in domestic fashion industry. For this study, 72 display personnels working in 51 fashion brands were interviewed. As results, it was found that most of displayers were consisted of single women in the late twenties. And the main part of display work was performed outside office hours which brought out extension of working time. The displayers had relatively high educational background graduated mostly from the majors related to display such as clothing and applied arts. However, it was noted that new curriculum of these majors needs to be developed in order to provide the courses with more on-hand practices. In general, optimistic attitudes were significantly shown by the interviewees that the importance of display is increasingly recognized in the domestic fashion industry and therefore the prospect of display found to be expected as prosperous.


Abad, CCC, Prado, ML, Ugrinowitsch, C, Tricoli, V, and Barroso, R. Combination of general and specific warm-ups improves leg-press one repetition maximum compared with specific warm-up in trained individuals. J Strength Cond Res 25(8): 2242-2245, 2011—Accurate assessment of muscular strength is critical for exercise prescription and functional evaluation. The warm-up protocol may affect the precision of the 1 repetition maximum (1RM) test. Testing guidelines recommend performing both general and specific warm-ups before strength tests. The general warm-up intends to raise muscle temperature, whereas the specific warm-up aims to increase neuromuscular activation. Although there is scientific evidence for performing the specific warm-up, the effects of general warm-up on strength tests are still unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the combination of a general with a specific warm-up (G + SWU) protocol would improve leg press 1RM values compared with a specific warm-up (SWU) protocol. Thirteen participants were tested for leg-press 1RM under 2 warm-up conditions. In the first condition, participants performed the SWU only, which was composed of 1 set of 8 repetitions at approximately 50% of the estimated 1RM followed by another set of 3 repetitions at 70% of the estimated 1RM. In the second condition (G + SWU), participants performed the 1RM test after a 20-minute general warm-up on a stationary bicycle at 60% of HRmax and the same specific warm-up as in the SWU. Values of 1RM in SWU and in G + SWU were compared by a paired t-test, and significance level was set at p ≤ 0.05. Strength values were on average 8.4% (p = 0.002) higher in the G + SWU compared with the SWU. These results suggest that the G + SWU induced temperature-dependent neuromuscular adjustments that increased muscle force production capacity. Therefore, these results support the recommendations of the testing guidelines to perform a moderate intensity general warm-up in addition to the specific warm-up before maximum strength assessments.


The effectiveness of various Strong Column Weak Beam (SCWB) factors to enhance seismic performance is assessed for Reinforced Concrete (RC) frame building structures. In this study five RC frame buildings of different storey numbers have been analysed using different column overdesign factors. The results are compared as the influence of various SCWB factor over the expected performance of selected RC frame buildings in terms of enhancement in capacity and failure mechanism. With the lower value of SCWB factor insignificant change in capacity curve is observed while gradual improvement is observed with the higher factors. In terms of failure mechanism gradual change from column failure mechanism to beam failure is observed but the hinge formation at the base of bottom storey column is seen even with the higher value of SCWB factor. The effectiveness of alternative method of column flexural capacity enhancement by proposed modified SCWB (MSCWB) was also studied. MSCWB is found to be more effective in terms of enhancement in capacity curve and failure mechanism.


Study on phenolic hollow microspheres (PHMS)-filled vinyl ester (VE) composites has been carried out. Effect of adding PHMS fillers at different filler loading on flexural, impact, and thermal properties were studied. The impact strength increased with the addition of PHMS fillers but at the expense of flexural strength, flexural modulus, and thermal stability of the composites. The second stage of this article aims to study the effect of adding silica as second filler in PHMS-filled VE composite system, and the influence of silane treatment on the mechanical properties of silica/PHMS/VE hybrid composites. PHMS/VE composites filled with silane-treated silica were found to show an increase in flexural modulus with increasing filler content. On contrary, the untreated silica fillers were observed to provide reinforcing effect in PHMS/VE composites at rather low filler concentration. The flexural strengths of silica/PHMS/VE hybrid composites were found to decrease with addition of silica content in the composites, and further decreased with increasing in silica content for both untreated and treated silica/PHMS-filled VE composites. Addition of silane-treated silica in the composites also provided an increase in the impact resistance of the PHMS/VE composites. Interestingly, the addition of silica and PHMS fillers in VE matrix has resulting in low density composites with improved flexural modulus and impact resistance.


Structure prediction tasks such as event extraction require an in-depth understanding of the output structure and sub-task dependencies, thus they still heavily rely on task-specific training data to obtain reasonable performance. Due to the high cost of human annotation, low-resource event extraction, which requires minimal human cost, is urgently needed in real-world information extraction applications. We propose to synthesize data instances given limited seed demonstrations to boost low-resource event extraction performance. We propose S TAR , a structure-to-text data generation method that first generates complicated event structures ( Y ) and then generates input passages ( X ), all with Large Language Models. We design fine-grained step-by-step instructions and the error cases and quality issues identified through self-reflection can be self-refined. Our experiments indicate that data generated by S TAR can significantly improve the low-resource event extraction performance and they are even more effective than human-curated data points in some cases.


AIM
To date, there is no study from Asian countries describing the pathology and topographic distribution of virulent, "street" rabies viral infection in the canine brain. In the present study, neuroanatomical distribution of rabies viral antigen in the brains of rabid street dogs, by immunohistochemical techniques is documented and the role of apoptosis in pathogenesis of rabies in natural hosts especially canines infected with street virus is studied.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
10 brains of adult street dogs from urban areas of Bangalore, South Central India, infected with rabies were collected. The diagnosis was confirmed by immunofluorescent study. The pathomorphological features and the neuroanatomic distribution of the viral antigen by immunohistochemistry were studied. The ability of the virus to activate apoptosis in nerve cells if any, was studied by determining the DNA fragmentation and TUNEL technique in infected canine brains.

RESULTS
The viral antigen was mostly localized to the neuronal perikaryon extending along the dendrites, while occasional astrocytes were also labeled. In the brain, the limbic areas, thalamus and the reticular formation of the brain stem, the trigeminal and the vagal nuclei were involved, corresponding to areas of cholinergic innervation. It is proposed that the preferential involvement of these cholinergic zones could explain some of the clinical features of rabies in canines. The extensive involvement of thalamus and immunolocalization of the rabies viral antigen in the axons are the unusual features noted in a dog's brain in contrast to murine experimental studies with "fixed virus". Characteristic DNA fragmentation forming 180-200 bp, leading to laddering was not seen, indicating apoptosis is not involved in the evolution of lesions in rabies in adult dogs infected by street virus.


Background: Impaired growth and inadequacy of dietary intake in thalassemia patients may affect the quality of life. This study aimed to determine and examine the relationship between dietary intake, nutritional status, and quality of life in in patients with thalassemia major. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted from February to October 2020. Twelve respondents who were registered at the Yayasan Thalassemia Indonesia and the blood transfusion unit at Fatmawati Hospital participated. This study conducted a physical examination and distributed food record questionnaires and WHOQOL-BREF. Data analysis was performed using Nutrisurvey 2007 and Fisher's exact test. Results: The majority of the respondent were male (58.3%), categorized in the age group 5–18 years (58.3%), had normal nutritional status (50%) and quality of life. Interestingly, the respondents had an excess intake of protein and fats, while the intake of energy and carbohydrates was normal. Respondents had less intakes of all micronutrients. Conclusion: The majority of respondents have normal nutritional status and quality of life but have a low intake of micronutrients. Both patients and parents need to be further educated on dietary intake to meet their nutritional needs


Background: The development of tumor angiogensis is mainly driven by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is strongly overexpressed in many cancers. VEGF induces the expression of the endothelial nitric oxide (NO) synthase (eNOS) and the resultant overproduction of NO may be associated with recruitment of inflammatory cells, disruption of endothelial barrier, edema and impaired drug delivery within tumors (1). Functional polymorphisms in the eNOS gene, including -786C>T and 894G>T, have been associated with impaired production of NO and higher incidence of hypertension (HT) (2), diabetic nephropathy (3) and glaucoma (4). Since suppression of VEGF-eNOS signal transduction by antiangiogenic drugs may normalize tumor vasculature by restoring interstitial fluid pressure and drug distribution in tumors, but may induce HT in patients, the purpose of this study was to examine the association between the major eNOS variants -786C>T and 894G>T with treatment outcome and risk of HT in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients given bevacizumab. Methods: Sixty-five MBC patients given bevacizumab as per approved indication were enrolled. Main characteristics were: mean age 49.5 years (range 29-73) at first diagnosis, 53 years (range 34-74) at metastatic progression and PS 0-1. Four subjects with HT and 1 patient with compensated cardiovascular disease were also included. First-line chemotherapy for metastatic disease was taxol plus bevacizumab. Germline DNA was extracted from peripheral blood with the Qiamp Mini Kit (Qiagen, Milano, Italy) and examined for eNOS -786C>T and 894G>T variants by Real Time PCR (Life Sciences 7900HT platform) and automatic sequencing (Life Sciences 3100 Avant). The study was approved by the local Ethics Committee. Results: Genotype frequencies are reported below (Table 1). The presence of -786TT genotype was associated with longer PFS compared with the other genotypes (median PFS 95%CI, CC/CT = 9 vs TT = 12 months, Log-rank [Mantel Cox] test p = 0.0066), but not with any grade of HT. Also the 894GT/TT was associated with longer PFS compaed with the GG homozygous wild-type genotype (median PFS 95%CI, GG = 7,5 vs GT/TT = 10 months, Log-rank [Mantel-Cox] test p = 0,0497). The incidence and severity of HT did not vary among genotypes. Conclusion: Patients bearing deficient eNOS variant did not experience higher risk or severity of HT with respect to the wild-type allele but enjoied a longer PFS.

View this table:

Table 1. Genotype frequencies

References

1. Goel S et al. Physiol Rev 2011;91:1071

2. Niu W, Qi Y. PLoS One 2011;6:e24266

3. Rahimi Z et al. Dis Markers 2013;34:437

4. Awadalla MS et al. Invest Ophtalmol Vis Sci 2013;54:2108.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P1-08-31.


On 26th of June, 2018, at its 51th session, the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) announced the completion of two important documents — a draft United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, as well as the draft amendments to the UNCITRAL Model L aw on International Commercial Conciliation (2002) that, to a large extent, repeats the provisions of the draft Convention. It is expected that after its approval by the UN General Assembly on August 1, 2019, the Convention will be open for signature and, if ratified by a significant number of States, will play an important role in increasing the attractiveness of this method of dispute settlement to the international business community, allowing it to compete with international commercial arbitration.In this regard, the article attempts to analyze the main provisions of this Convention and to assess the feasibility of accession to it of the Russian Federation, taking into account the fact that currently in Russia this method of settlement of cross-border commercial disputes is not widespread. According to the results of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the adoption of this Convention will create a basis for the enforcement of international agreements reached as a result of mediation and acceptable for States with different legal, social and economic conditions, while maintaining the inherent flexibility of this method of dispute resolution. This, in turn, will reduce the likelihood of parties to cross-border commercial disputes going to court or international commercial arbitration after mediation and, accordingly, will increase the attractiveness of this method of dispute resolution for the parties.


A hydrothermal mineral belt in south central Colorado is defined essentially by the intersection of early Eocene east-dipping, high-angle thrust faults with middle Eocene west- and southwest-dipping, low-angle thrusts, in a zone trending southeast from Kerber Creek to Huerfano Park. West-directed movement in the north, and east-directed movement in the south toward the old central Colorado basin, formed structural intersections of probable deep penetration. The intersections of late Eocene vertical uplift faults with Oligocene to Recent normal block faults along the edge of the Sierra Blanca massif formed a minor structural intersection and the subsidiary Sierra Blanca split of the mineral belt. Mineralized districts nearest the zone of intersection are Bonanza, Dennison City, Orient, Blake, Rito Alto, Silver Cliff, Rosita, Antelope Creek and Grayback. The Cleora, Badger Creek, Red Gulch, and Currant Creek districts, and numerous isolated prospects considerably northeast of the zone, tend to obscure mineral belt definition. However, the effects of severe deformation may extend laterally considerable distances from the zone center, and would broaden the belt. The belt width appears to extend farther northeast than southwest from the zone, probably because the northeastern faults are of steeper dips than those in the southwest and, consequently, of deeper penetration. Gravels of the San Luis and West Mountain Valleys probably conceal portions of the belt. Low productivity of the belt is attributed to weakness of mineralization resulting from parallelism of compressions, epithermal and disseminated character of the ores, and lack of systematic exploration.


New and highly performed concrete/mortar mixes have been obtained with using some of the minerals and concrete additives in concrete technology recently. Self consolidating concrete/mortar is one of these new concrete compounds. In this study, the effects of type and amount of mineral additive on fresh properties of self consolidating mortars produced with pumice aggregate.


Growth, mortalities (natural and fishing) recruitment percentage and exploitation status of Acetes intermedius were examined of samples collected from the coastal waters of Bintulu, Sarawak between January and December 2009. Monthly length frequency data were analyzed using FiSAT software for estimating population parameters, including asymptotic length (L∝), growth co-efficient (K) and exploitation rate (E) to assess the status of the stock. The asymptotic length (L∝) and growth co-efficient (K) was estimated as 43.05 mm and 1.90 yr-1. The maximum life span (tmax) A. intermedius was estimated at 1.58 yr-1. Total mortality (Z) was estimated at 4.68 yr-1. The rate of natural mortality (M) and fishing mortality was calculated as 2.49 yr-1 and 2.195 yr-1, respectively. The recruitment pattern of A. intermedius was continuous throughout the year with two major peaks. The exploitation rate (E) was estimated at 0.47 during the study period. The exploitation rate was slightly below the optimum level of exploitation (E = 0.50) and the condition of the stock is still under-fishing status.


This thesis aims to discover the current state of dialogue between public relations practitioners and members of the media. At its core, media relations deals with the relationships between public relations practitioners and the journalists they frequently interact and hope to build relationships with. Technology changes rapidly, and so does the communication field, so an ongoing assessment of these dovetailing industries is necessary for the productivity of professionals in a digital and multimedia society. This research captures perspectives and experiences from public relations practitioners in agency and corporate environments alongside external, peer-reviewed research. It examines the contributing factors in how technology enhances, neutralizes or diminishes complex practitioner-journalist relationships. T.A. Hall, J.E. Pettigrew / Media Relations in a Changing Media Landscape / May 2017 3


ABSTRACT Standardized substrate, vegetation, and dark (S, V, & D) spectral endmembers (EMs) are presented for spectral mixture analysis (SMA) of MODIS version 6 daily nadir looking BRDF-adjusted reflectance (daily NBAR). EMs are derived from a diverse collection of over 43,000,000MODIS spectra spanning 6 continents and all non-polar biomes. EM spectra are similar to those from decametre studies. Sensitivity analysis using 351 pairs of 27 EM combinations shows mean differences in SVD fraction estimates of 4±3%, 3±2%, and 3±2%, respectively. An additional snow EM is identified, but deemed tentative pending further cryospheric analysis. Vicarious validation with Landsat shows under 0.5% bias in V fraction, −7% and +11% biases in S and D fractions, and comparable dispersion (standard deviation 6% to 7%) in all fractions. Model misfit is low (root-mean-square error under 5% for 99.9% pixels). When V is compared to Normalized Difference, Enhanced, and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Indices (NDVI, EVI, SAVI), NDVI shows over twice the dispersion (standard deviation 29% vs 13–14%) and over 4 times the bias (+18% vs 4%) of EVI and SAVI. Combined with previous studies, these results extend the scaling linearity and low misfit of the global SVD linear mixture model from 2m up to 500m.


From the 1990s, market-oriented housing renewal took off at extraordinary pace across Chinese cities, modernising the built environment and displacing millions of residents in the process. One prevailing view is that this has been driven by a "growth coalition" of local government and private businesses with the goal of maximising economic potentials through the intensification of land-use. This thesis examines the evolving policies and practices of urban housing renewal in Shanghai since 1990. It questions whether the above perspective adequately captures the underlying socio-political dynamics at work. Through a comprehensive review of housing policies, interviews and analyses of contrasting case studies, it demonstrates that housing renewal had entailed a more diverse set of policies and mechanisms than commonly depicted. Beyond private-funded redevelopment and displacement, local governments have promoted some socially-oriented schemes, as well as recently supporting the piecemeal gentrification of neighbourhoods. This research shows that it is useful to move beyond a monolithic conception of the Chinese growth coalition. The local government plays an increasingly dualistic role in housing renewal. Beyond its core concern to facilitate economic growth and 'global city' building through comprehensive redevelopment, it has evolved socially- oriented housing policies, enlarged market regulation, and made concessions to disadvantaged groups in the interest of maintaining social harmony. Property developers were not a homogenous profit-seeking group in Shanghai's urban growth-coalition. Various quasi-governmental enterprises played a role in delivering socially-oriented projects under bureaucratic command of the local government. Finally, although grass roots actors are politically excluded, their cumulative actions including neighbourhood rehabilitation and protests can sometimes influence policies and urban planning decisions.


The paper discusses informed consent as a component of online research ethics. It begins from the analysis of understanding, from the preconditions on which the realization depends, and from the difficulties that accompany the application of the informed consent in practice. The aim of the empirical part of the research is to determine the characteristics of the process of obtaining the informed consent in online research and to examine the factors on which they depend. The sample included 153 teachers. Data were collected with the survey-type questionnaires and with the descriptive assessment scales. For data processing, besides the frequencies and percentages, the ch 2 test and Kramer 's V correlation coefficient were performed. The results indicate that most of the respondents have had experience of giving informed consent in online surveys in which they have participated so far; that the text often contained information about the purpose and the goal of the research, apart from the tasks of the respondents in the research; that the majority of the teachers evaluate the content of the text as understandable and useful; and also that most of the characteristics depend on the environment of the school in which the teachers are employed. The results are discussed in the context of the possibility of improvement of the process of obtaining informed consent from the respondents in the online survey.


This is an introduction to Lie algebras and their applications in physics. The first three chapters show how Lie algebras arise naturally from symmetries of physical systems and illustrate through examples much of their general structure. Chapters 4 to 13 give a detailed introduction to Lie algebras and their representations, covering the Cartan-Weyl basis, simple and affine Lie algebras, real forms and Lie groups, the Weyl group, automorphisms, loop algebras and highest weight representations. Chapters 14 to 22 cover specific further topics, such as Verma modules, Casimirs, tensor products and Clebsch-Gordan coefficients, invariant tensors, subalgebras and branching rules, Young tableaux, spinors, Clifford algebras and supersymmetry, representations on function spaces, and Hopf algebras and representation rings. A detailed reference list is provided, and many exercises and examples throughout the book illustrate the use of Lie algebras in real physical problems. The text is written at a level accessible to graduate students, but will also provide a comprehensive reference for researchers.


This paper reports the climatology of medium‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) observed between September 2018 and August 2019 in the nighttime redline airglow intensity measurements from an all‐sky imager located in Sutherland, South Africa (32.4°S, 20.8°E; magnetic latitude: 40.7°S). The nighttime MSTIDs appeared as either single or multiple dark bands, commenced mostly before midnight, and predominantly occurred during the southern winter solstice. They primarily propagated westward with speeds of 31–127 m/s. The periods and wavelengths of the multi‐band MSTIDs were in the ranges of 26–155 min and 134–578 km, respectively, while the temporal and spatial scales of the single band MSTIDs were 11–30 min and 43–143 km, respectively. Analysis of neutral wind measurements from a co‐located Fabry‐Perot interferometer showed that the thermospheric wind was mostly northeastward in the evenings of MSTID occurrence and that the favored westward propagation of the MSTIDs was the least restricted propagation direction by the background wind. Based on data from nearby ionosondes, the MSTIDs were mostly accompanied by sporadic E and spread‐F structures. From the seasonal occurrences of MSTIDs and sporadic E as well as the MSTID propagation and prevalent wind directions, it is concluded that Perkins instability is the most likely source of the majority of the observed nighttime MSTIDs, while the remainder may be seeded by gravity waves.


The efficacy of methyl bromide (MB) and sulfuryl fluoride (SF) for managing all life stages of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, was investigated in the Hal Ross Flour Mill at Kansas State University. Eggs, young larvae, large larvae, pupae, and adults, confined in plastic compartments with dusting of flour and 2-cm deep flour, were exposed at 25 mill locations to two MB and two SF fumigations; in May and August 2009. MB and SF treatments were conducted by commercial fumigators, and each fumigation lasted 24 h. Gas monitoring lines were placed near the bioassay boxes to measure gas concentrations over time during fumigations. Both MB treatments killed 100% of all stages in the boxes except for large larvae in a few locations. In these locations, the mortality of large larvae ranged from 96-98%. SF treatments killed 100% of all stages except eggs. In the May treatment with SF, egg mortality ranged from 44-100% with only two boxes showing 100% mortality, because of under-dosing. Under-dosing occurred because the mill temperature was assumed to be greater than 27oC when it was actually below 27oC. In the second SF trial, only three boxes had egg mortalities that were less than 100%. However, data from the two replications showed that the mean mortalities of eggs and large larvae between MB and SF were not significantly different from each other.


Background: Since discovery of blood groups by Landsteiner they have fascinated scientist in more than one way. Patterns of various types of blood groups in various diseases have been studied by many workers. Now we know that in some diseases there is statistically correlation between particular types of blood group. Aims: Aim was to evaluate correlation between blood group and cause of death and manner of death. Material and Method: This study was conducted on 500 medico-legal autopsies which were brought out at Forensic medicine Department, M. P. Shah Govt. Medical College, Jamnagar, Gujarat.  Result: Out of 500 cases, blood groups for both ABO and Rh system could be detected in 457 cases (91.4%) and in 43 cases (8.6%) could not be detected. Out of 212 cases of accidental deaths majority were of blood group B+ ve, 70 cases (33.01%). Of 128 cases of suicidal death, 41 (36.71%) were O+ve. Deaths from cardiovascular system were 62 cases (72.9%) in that blood group B+ve was maximum 24 cases. In case of unnatural deaths, 99 cases (27.42%) were of burns followed by vehicular accident cases, 87cases (24.09%). Out of 99 cases of burns, majority were A+ve, 29 cases followed by O+ve, 23cases. Conclusion: Present study shows correlation between causes of death, manner of death and blood group like death due to CVS and vehicular accident is more common in B+ blood group whereas suicidal deaths and poisoning cases were more common in O+ blood group.  Key words: Blood group, Cause of death, Manner of death.


Parathyroid hormone is a well-known regulator of calcium metabolism in the body. It binds to osteoblasts and assists in the regulation of bone turnover. Changes in parathyroid hormone levels have been documented in pathologic states such as osteoporosis, and fluxes are also noted during healing of fractures. Because fracture healing requires time and is sometimes unreliable, a search for fracture-healing adjuvants that accelerate the healing rate and improve reliability of healing is compelling. Parathyroid hormone, as a systemic mediator of calcium and bone metabolism, is a good candidate. Much research has been accomplished in animal models examining the role of parathyroid hormone in fracture healing. Although further research is required, especially in human fracture patients, early indicators are that parathyroid hormone may play a role in accelerating fracture healing in healthy patients and in reducing rates of fracture nonunion in compromised patients or tissue beds.


The conventional method for calculating aerodynamic forces generated on objects is based on the aerodynamics in the high Reynolds number flow, like the airflow around the wings of airplanes, because little is known about the low Reynolds number flow. Using this method to calculate the aerodynamic force acting on a flying microrobot, the obtained results may differ from the actual values. For analysis of this difference. The large-scale models of wings for flying microrobots were made, whose wing lengths are 3 cm and 1.5 cm respectively. With these wings the experiments were done in the low Reynolds number flows (Re=385, 752). The drag forces measured in these experiments were compared with the ones from calculations. As a result, in both flows, the measured values were larger than the calculated one. Using semiconductor surface machining technology, we also fabricated a flapping mechanism with the wings that generate the difference of the drag forces during upstroke and downstroke movements.<<ETX>>


[1] We test the utility of the OII 83.4 nm emission feature as a measure of ionospheric parameters. Observed with the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System (RAIDS) Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph on the International Space Station (ISS), limb profiles of 83.4 nm emissions are compared to predicted dayglow emission profiles from a theoretical model incorporating ground-based electron density profiles measured by the Millstone Hill radar and parameterized by a best-fit Chapman-α function. Observations and models are compared for periods of conjunction between Millstone Hill and the RAIDS fields-of-view. These RAIDS observations show distinct differences in topside morphology between two days, 15 January and 10 March 2010, closely matching the forward model morphology and demonstrating that 83.4 nm emission is sensitive to changes in the ionospheric density profile from the 340 km altitude of the ISS during solar minimum. We find no significant difference between 83.4 nm emission profiles modeled assuming a constant scale height Chapman-α best-fit to the ISR measurements and those assuming varying scale height.


Oral lesions are relatively common findings in clinical practice, can occur due to various factors such as trauma, systemic diseases, autoimmune disorders, malignancies. Local trauma as one of the cause of oral lesions majority due to poor dentures, fractured restorations and sharp edges of teeth. The lesions are commonly found on the mucosa that is subjected to the source of trauma such as buccal mucosa, lateral border of the tongue or lips.  Removable partial denture is a denture that can be removed and reinserted without professional help. Poor removable denture which is an ill-fitting denture, rough/sharp/overextended flanges, or lack of retention/stability could cause oral lesions. This case report describes a 76 old year man complained of pain on his right lateral tongue since 6 months ago. He was wearing a removable upper right denture which cannot be remove for about a year. It was a rough and sharp self-curing acrylic denture. There was erythematous and pain on his lateral right of the tongue but no induration on palpation. Triamcinolone acetonide 0,1% in orabase was the given treatment for the right lateral of the tongue and referred him to the prosthodontic department for replacing the denture. The oral lesion was healed after one week of treatment and the poor denture was removed. As a conclusion dentures should be made properly by the expert in order to prevent oral lesions.


Study of the pseudorabies virus-neutralizing antibody content of pooled and individual samples of swine serum have led to the conclusion that pseudorabies is a highly prevalent, unrecognized, disease in middle western hogs.

It has been shown that wild brown rats develop a fatal infection following ingestion of pseudorabies virus and that their carcasses, in turn, give rise to the disease in swine to which they are fed. It is believed that rats play a role in the epidemiology of porcine pseudorabies, serving as the initial source of infection for a swine herd and also as one means by which virus can be spread from farm to farm in swine herds. The experiments presented furnish further evidence that swine may serve as the source of infection for cattle.


This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the factors involved in dental caries and general limitations of current aesthetic restorative materials. It subsequently reviews antibacterial activity of current commercial aesthetic dental materials and methods employed for their evaluation. Thereafter, various different approaches used to develop an aesthetic dental material that might reduce the risk of bacterial microleakage and secondary caries, are described. Furthermore, the chapter discusses calcium phosphate based dental composites, their limitations and potential carious dentine remineralization activity. Finally, recently formulated dental composites containing reactive calcium phosphate fillers and chlorhexidine (which is both antimicrobial and a matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor) are discussed.


Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice in general people about HBV, HCV and HIV.
Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted in the area of Barakahu, Islamabad, Pakistan and included 200 participants. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data, which was analyzed using SPSS version 20.
Results: Knowledge regarding different aspects for HCV and HBV for participants was 56.5-81.5%. Knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS its transmission and availability of vaccine was only 76.5%, 62.5% and 50.5%,respectively. Attitude was positive towards blood transfusions screening (76%), use of new syringes (73%), preference of dental check up (70%), use of new razor at barber shop (66.05%), sterilization of piercing instrument, transmission of HIV(64%), self-preference for HCV, HBV vaccination (74.5%) and strict precautions for HIV(75%).
Conclusion: The knowledge, attitude and practices of people regarding HCV, HBV an HIV/AIDS was good but in few aspects, it was poor. As people had basic understanding regarding these disease, still a gap exist between knowledge, attitude and practice, which can be filled with extensive health education campaigns, at hospital as well as in community settings for rational control and management of these disease.


Differences between the brightness temperatures (spectral gradient) collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) at 18.7 and 36.5 GHz are used to map the snow-covered area (SCA) over a region including the western U.S. The brightness temperatures are corrected to take into account for atmospheric effects by means of a simplified radiative transfer equation whose parameters are stratified using rawinsonde data collected from a few stations. The surface emissivity is estimated from the model, and the brightness temperatures at the surface are computed as the product of the surface temperature and the computed emissivity. The SCA derived from microwave data is compared with that obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer for both cases of corrected and noncorrected brightness temperatures. The improvement to the SCA retrievals based on the corrected brightness temperatures shows an average value around 7%


Multi-agent Pathfinding is a relevant problem in a wide range of domains, for example in robotics and video games research. Formally, the problem considers a graph consisting of vertices and edges, and a set of agents occupying vertices. An agent can only move to an unoccupied, neighbouring vertex, and the problem of finding the minimal sequence of moves to transfer each agent from its start location to its destination is an NP-hard problem.

We present Push and Rotate, a new algorithm that is complete for Multi-agent Pathfinding problems in which there are at least two empty vertices. Push and Rotate first divides the graph into subgraphs within which it is possible for agents to reach any position of the subgraph, and then uses the simple push, swap, and rotate operations to find a solution; a post-processing algorithm is also presented that eliminates redundant moves. Push and Rotate can be seen as extending Luna and Bekris's Push and Swap algorithm, which we showed to be incomplete in a previous publication.

In our experiments we compare our approach with the Push and Swap, MAPP, and Bibox algorithms. The latter algorithm is restricted to a smaller class of instances as it requires biconnected graphs, but can nevertheless be considered state of the art due to its strong performance. Our experiments show that Push and Swap suffers from incompleteness, MAPP is generally not competitive with Push and Rotate, and Bibox is better than Push and Rotate on randomly generated biconnected instances, while Push and Rotate performs better on grids.


Introduction Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data, including registries, electronic health records and administrative databases, are increasingly used in healthcare intervention research. The development of an extension of the CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement for RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data is being undertaken with the goal of improving reporting quality by setting standards early in the process of uptake of these designs. To develop this extension to the CONSORT statement, a scoping review will be conducted to identify potential modifications or clarifications of existing reporting guideline items, as well as additional items needed for reporting RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data. Methods and analysis In separate searches, we will seek publications on methods or reporting or that describe protocols or results from RCTs using cohorts, registries, electronic health records and administrative databases. Data sources will include Medline and the Cochrane Methodology Register. For each of the four main types of RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data, separately, two investigators will independently review included publications to extract potential checklist items. A potential item will either modify an existing CONSORT 2010, Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology or REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely collected health Data item or will be proposed as a new item. Additionally, we will identify examples of good reporting in RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data. Ethics and dissemination The proposed scoping review will help guide the development of the CONSORT extension statement for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data.


Abstract : 3-DIMENSIONAL Navier-Stokes simulations of chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) hardware are performed to elucidate the unsteady fluid dynamic aspects of these flowfields. Reacting (COIL) and non-reacting flow simulations are performed on varying resolution grids to explore the unsteadiness, and comparisons to experimental data are made.


In recent years, the needs of mass spectrometry for biological samples have rapidly increased. In this study, in order to analyze water-containing biological samples using time-of-(cid:13)ight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), a rapid-cooling method, sectioning system, and a sample introduction method that could avoid frost formation in plant biological samples were developed. It was con(cid:12)rmed that both frost formation and evaporation of volatile compounds were prevented by a rapid-cooling and new introduction method. Essential elements and H 2 O could be detected by this new rapid-cooling TOF-SIMS methodology. Therefore, SIMS analysis in the natural state became possible.


The aim of this study was to scrutinize the assessment of teacher knowledge in a school‐based course at one Swedish pre‐service teacher education program. In a general education school‐based course, teacher educators visited the student teachers at their school placements and met them and their school mentors in student‐teaching conferences to assess their teacher knowledge. The findings primarily show that the assessment procedures are influenced by teacher educators' organization of the school visits and conferences. Secondly, the organization of the school visits and conferences influences who the potential and actual assessors at the conferences can be and are. Thirdly, the assessed student teacher knowledge at the conferences is described as procedural knowledge in a knowledge‐in‐practice perspective, almost exclusively in the area of relational, emotional, and caring learning objectives and aspects of teaching activities. Fourthly, the findings show that propositional knowledge in a knowledge‐for‐practice perspective is hardly mentioned or assessed.


Morphological analysis is a critical enabling technology for polysynthetic languages. We present a neural morphological analyzer for case-inflected nouns in St. Lawrence Island Yupik, an endangered polysythetic language in the Inuit-Yupik language family, treating morphological analysis as a recurrent neural sequence-to-sequence task. By utilizing an existing finite-state morphological analyzer to create training data, we improve analysis coverage on attested Yupik word types from approximately 75% for the existing finite-state analyzer to 100% for the neural analyzer. At the same time, we achieve a substantially higher level of accuracy on a held-out testing set, from 78.9% accuracy for the finite-state analyzer to 92.2% accuracy for our neural analyzer.


The application of composite membranes for high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has attracted interests. Nafion-metal dioxide composite membranes are considered among the research niche. In this study, Nafion membranes and Nafion-zirconia composite membranes with 1, 3 and 5 wt. % of hydrous zirconia were prepared accordingly. All membranes were characterized by quantitative analysis techniques such as thermogravimetry analyse, diffraction scanning calorimetry and Fourier transform infrared. All composite membranes showed high glass transition temperatures and improved water retention properties, compared to the Nafion membrane. The composite membrane with 3 wt. % of zirconia showed the highest thermal resistance at 90°C.


Electrocoagulation is an efficient method where the flocculating agent is generated by electro-oxidation of a sacrificial anode, generally made of iron or aluminium .In this study Al Electrodes are used to remove Cr(VI) from model wastewater by Optimizing different parameters pH, Current Density, Initial Concentration and Time. From our present study, it was found that the removal of chromium (VI) using aluminium electrodes by Electrocoagulation is a feasible process. At elevated pH, the removal of chromium is higher due to simultaneous co-precipitation and chemical precipitation. This effect is observed till the pH is increased to 7 and the percentage removal starts decreasing beyond that point. And Maximum removal efficiency of 96.89% was achieved at an optimum current density of 58.60 mA/cm.The samples from this experiment were analyzed using the atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS).


Background Acute respiratory failure (ARF) is a common and life-threatening medical emergency. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is a potentially beneficial prehospital treatment, but it is uncertain whether this could improve important outcomes in NHS ambulance services. Methods An individually randomised, external pilot study was conducted to test the feasibility of a definitive pragmatic trial. Adults with respiratory distress and peripheral oxygen saturations below British Thoracic Society target levels were recruited from the West Midlands Ambulance Service between August 2017 and July 2018. Participants were randomised 1:1 to prehospital CPAP or standard oxygen therapy. Feasibility objectives estimated the: incidence of eligible patients; proportion recruited and allocated to treatment appropriately; adherence to allocated treatment; retention and data completeness; and 30-day mortality, as a potential primary outcome for a definitive trial. Results Over 12 months, 77 patients were enrolled (CPAP arm 42, standard oxygen arm 35 cases, target 120). CPAP was fully delivered as planned in 74% (target 75%). There were no major protocol violations/non-compliances (target 0%). Full data were available for key outcomes (target ≥90%). Mortality was higher than expected (overall 27.3%, CPAP arm 28.6% n=12/42, standard care arm 25.7% n=9/35). Of deceased patients, 14/21 (68%) either did not have a respiratory condition or had ceiling of treatment decisions excluding hospital non-invasive ventilation and critical care. Two patients required emergency department treatment for a pneumothorax, neither having received prehospital CPAP. There were no other serious adverse events. Conclusions The lower than expected recruitment rate, limited compliance with CPAP, and the difficulty in identifying patients who could benefit from CPAP, indicate limited potential for prehospital CPAP to reduce mortality. A definitive effectiveness trial is therefore not recommended. These findings also argue against routine implementation of CPAP into NHS ambulance services.


The use of polyolefin flexible foams with typical thicknesses between 1 and 3 mm produced by a physical foaming extrusion process is nowadays quite widespread in the packaging sector. Their high flexibility and closed-cell structure allows them to show good energy absorption properties under low loading conditions. Although the compressive response of these materials is well known, the inner microstructure developed during processing induce a high anisotropy that is responsible for their direction-dependent tensile and fracture behaviours. In this work, two different polyolefin-based foams, with densities ranging from 20 to 45 kg/m3, were studied. The induced microstructure anisotropy was characterized by micro-Raman. With this technique, the relative orientations of both crystalline and amorphous phases in the foam's base polymer could be determined and thus related to their mechanical properties measured in the different directions.


reproducible method has been developed that allows for a sufficient degree of accuracy to estimate the kinetin content in various preparations. The technique can be used for research in the field of plant physiology and biochemistry, medicine, and molecular biology.


In order to judge whether insurable interest exists in property insurance contract, mature theories are put forward in two major legal systems. Nowadays the theory of economic insurable interest and the theory of factual expectation are welcome in German law and common law respectively. Specifically speaking, based on distinguishing the different kinds of insured interests, the theory of economic insurable interest aims to emphasize that insured interest ought to be determined by the risk bearing standard instead of formal ownership during the transaction process, while the theory of factual expectation insists that insured interest should not be judged only by legal or equitable interest but also by factual expectation. What's more, Anglo-American legal system expands the scope of ownership insurable interest to solve the problems related to the insurance coverage of bailees in practice. The difficulties in Chinese judicial practice are mainly reflected in two aspects as follows. Firstly, carriers ought to purchase liability insurance while they prefer to buy cargo insurance containing ownership insurable interest. Secondly, it is not clear who has insurable interest during the transaction process. Based on the article 1 and article 8 in the Interpretation IV of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of the Insurance Law(Draft for Comments), the drafters tend to adopt the theory of economic insurable interest to solve the above problems. According to that theory, for one thing, carriers will get nothing from the insurance contracts only containing ownership insurable interest, for another, the transferring of insurable interest is consistent with the change of risk bearing. Owing to the removal of the rules whether carriers have ownership insurable interest in goods, the formal provisions show that the drafters still have doubts about the distinction among different insurable interests under the theory of economic insurable interest, but this theory is the better choice at present because of our insurance law system. On the one hand, there are many differences between insurance practice and the theory on insurable interest; on the other hand, it is also difficult to find out the value of insurable interest in each case, so the theory of economic insurable interest is not perfect. In the future, we should combine the principle of indemnity with the theory of culpa in contrahendo to improve and perfect rules about insurable interest which are unique and have special functions in insurance law.


A nonlinear oscillation of the level and of the current is theoretically predicted and experimentally observed in a U‐tube system containing a polar liquid with a capillary whose diameter is as large as 1 mm, and which is equipped with an electrode injecting unipolar ions. The observed critical potential difference, amplitude, period, and waveforms of the level oscillation agree qualitatively and quantitatively with the theoretical results. The experimental amplitude of the current oscillation is larger than the theoretical one, and it is suggested that the discrepancy might be due to the high‐field dissociation current of neutral impurities.


This paper specifically outlines the contribution of indigenous knowledge (IK) to the conservation and utilization of biodiversity and enhancement of livelihood in South East Nigeria. It enumerates the importance, usefulness and typical examples of indigenous knowledge in use in South East Nigeria. It also looks at the problems of indigenous knowledge and suggests likely solutions to make indigenous knowledge sustainable by combining it with modern technology. It is clear that with proper knowledge of indigenous technology, biodiversity would contribute to enhance food production thus completing the requirement for reversing poverty. Biodiversity is the major part of natural capital and both its protection and conservation can yield benefit to improve the livelihoods of the poor. Both rural and urban dwellers especially the urban poor depend on biodiversity in the form of non-timber forest products, foods, medicines and domestic energy supplies. Global Approaches to Extension Practice Vol.1(1) 2005: 64-73


Stroke is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide and efforts to reduce the impact of the disease are strongly needed. Patients with acute stroke have an increased risk of in-hospital complications, in particular pneumonia and urinary tract infections. These infections are associated with an adverse patient outcome and increased health care costs. Here we review the existing knowledge on the risk and consequences of post-stroke pneumonia and UTI in adult patients and discuss the evidence of possible targets for intervention.


We formulate and investigate a local, geometrical model for steady-state spiral motion in order to better understand the spiral pattern observed in Belousov-Zhabotinskii (BZ) reactions. In particular, we demonstrate that the surface tension (i.e. curvature dependent) term is responsible for velocity selection in the toy model. In this model, the selected velocity for small surface tension is the unique velocity for which the zero surface tension term is nonsingular. We conclude with speculations on the implications of our results for BZ spirals.


Over the last decade significant exploration for diamonds has expanded beyond the traditional Kaapvaal and Siberian Cratons. However, the globe is a large place, and area selection is clearly key to efficient and effective exploration. Whilst diamond companies traditionally use mainly geochemical methods for area selection, the recent results from deep probing electromagnetic (EM) studies on the Slave craton and western Superior Province indicate that such studies can aid area selection considerably. EM surveys can define the base of the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, they can contribute to knowledge about a region's tectonic history, and they can identify whether a region is likely to contain high concentrations of carbon in its sub-continental lithospheric mantle.


The presentation will s tart with research findings and s tatis tics pertaining to the career paths taken by gifted women. A discussion will then follow of key findings of longitudinal s tudies on the career paths of girls who had been identified as being gifted. Consideration will also be given to the participation rates of girls and women in various talent domains as well as within educational and corporate hierarchies. While the talent-development trajectories of gifted women have improved somewhat in recent years, inequitable gender differences on talent-development outcomes persis t. I will interpret findings on why this is so, looking at both individual-level explanatory variables (e.g., motivation, interes t, confidence in one's own abilities, and attributions) and context-based explanatory models (e.g., s tereotyping, expectations, third-party opinions, opportunity s tructures, and social norms with respect to employment and family activities). The presentation will conclude with a description of possible interventions for reducing gender differences and helping women to make the mos tout of their talents-especially in domains in which they remain underrepresented.


This article considers the effect, if any, that company law and corporate governance law had on the phenomenon of excessive lending and borrowing that occurred in the Irish economy towards the end of the Celtic Tiger era (1990–2008). The final years of the Celtic Tiger period saw the growth and collapse of the Irish property bubble, fuelled by lending of 'cheap' money by Irish banks and borrowing by indigenous Irish property development companies. This chain of events culminated in a state guarantee and bailout of the Irish banking sector which has led to ongoing significant damage to Ireland and its economy, the full consequences of which are continuing to be manifest. What is clear is that excessive risktaking by banks, as lenders, and property development companies, as borrowers, led to the collapse of both sectors. The Irish property bubble, and this pattern of behaviour that caused it, is used here as a case study to raise questions as to why corporate governance law and company law seem to have failed to curtail such risktaking during this period. In describing these events from a legal perspective, the paper hypothesises that the failure of law can be explained by considering the inter-relationship between law and non-legal norms, the latter seeming to be more powerful and to have the ability to trump the rule of law in certain circumstances and contexts. This analysis of the role of non-legal norms is not intended to suggest that legal frameworks do not matter, but more to illustrate that, where they have failed to deliver stated goals, other factors must be understood so that the law can address the causes and drivers of this failure.


Poetry translation involves cognition, discourse, and action by and between human and textual actors in a physical and social setting. A poetry translation project usually aims to publicize a poet or poets. The issue of the translatability of poetry has given rise to theoretical and practical debates among scholars. Purpose of this study was to propose a model for the comparison of translations based on Lefevere's theory and Dastjerdi's model. The seven strategies proposed by Lefevere attempt to tackle the problems of translating poetic text and his model aims to study translation in the poetic genre on an empirical basis. They are founded in the belief that poetry is an item of beauty with specific poetic features. Destjerd's model has two levels for poetry analysis: textual (linguistic) and extra-textual (cultural) levels. At the textual level he examines forms, sound, words, images, tone and content of a piece of poetry. At the extra-textual level, coherence and implicature are the elements to be discussed, here the main focus is the knowledge presented in the source text as well as the TT reader's knowledge of the world; that is to say the cultural aspects of the text. Due to the analysis based on Lefevere's theory and the practical model of poetry translation by Dastjerdi, researchers have proposed a model for the analysis of selected poems and comparing the performance of translators. In this study, the second translator's performance was better than the other two because he was able to get a higher score in 4 parts.


We report case of 58-year-old male patient with severe mitral insufficiency in whom in preoperative angiography anomalous left anterior descending coronary artery arising from pulmonary artery was revealed. Patient successfully underwent mitral valve replacement, ligation and bypass of left anterior descending artery. Eighteen months after surgery control exercise echocardiography and angiography were performed to evaluate coronary flow, valve prosthesis and left ventricle function.


We used the three-component model of commitment that includes affective, normative, and continuance components to study the commitment of volunteer workers to their organisation and beneficiaries, and examine how these components independently and jointly related to volunteers' turnover intentions. Based on a sample of 343 volunteers from various organisations, we found affective and normative organisational commitment and normative commitment to beneficiaries to be uniquely related to turnover intentions. In addition, we found two statistically significant cross-foci interactions among the components. Namely, affective and normative commitments to beneficiaries were more strongly related to turnover intentions when affective organisational commitment was low. The implications of these findings for future research on volunteers' multiple commitments are discussed.


Increased sympathetic tone may cause an equivocal response to a prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) penile Doppler ultrasound (US) examination interpreted as a venous leak. We evaluated the US parameters and erectile response to the addition of phentolamine to a PGE1 penile Doppler US examination to ascertain whether addition of phentolamine would abolish a suboptimal response. 32 patients (median age 29 years, range 17-70 years) with either a previous Doppler US pattern of venous leakage or a clinical suspicion of venogenic impotence, underwent Doppler US after a total dose of 20 microg of PGE1. Peak systolic velocity (PSV), end diastolic velocity (EDV) and grade of erection were documented. If erectile response was suboptimal irrespective of the EDV measurement, 2 mg-intracavernosal phentolamine was administered and measurements repeated. Six patients had a normal erectile response, the remaining 26 received phentolamine. A significant increase in PSV between baseline and 20 microg PGE1 (p<0.001) was observed in all cases. Following phentolamine there was a significant increase in grade of erection (p=0.0001) and a significant reduction in the EDV (p=0.0001). A reduction of the EDV to below 0.0 cm s(-1) was observed in 16 patients. Four patients with EDV <5.0 cm s(-1) but >0.0 cm s(-1) had improved erectile response following phentolamine while six showed persistent EDV elevation >5 cm s(-1). No priapism was documented. It is essential to ensure cavernosal relaxation using phentolamine before a Doppler US diagnosis of venous leak is made. This two-stage assessment will allow this to be done efficiently and with a low risk of priapism.


Recent studies found that Omicron variant escapes vaccine-elicited immunity. Interestingly, potent cross-clade pan-sarbecovirus neutralizing antibodies were found in survivors of the infection by SARS-CoV-1 after BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination (N Engl J Med. 2021 Oct 7;385(15):1401-1406). These pan-sarbecovirus neutralizing antibodies were observed to efficiently neutralize the infection driven by the S protein from both SARS-CoV and multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC) including B.1.1.7 (Alpha), B.1.351 (Beta), and B.1.617.2 (Delta). However, whether these cross-reactive antibodies could neutralize the Omicron variant is still unknown. Based on the data collected from a cohort of SARS-CoV-1 survivors received 3-dose of immunization, our studies reported herein showed that a high level of neutralizing antibodies against both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 were elicited by a 3rd-dose of booster vaccination of protein subunit vaccine ZF2001. However, a dramatically reduced neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant (B.1.1.529) is observed in sera from these SARS-CoV-1 survivors received 3-dose of Vaccination. Our results indicates that the rapid development of pan-variant adapted vaccines is warranted.


Background Salivary gland ultrasound (SGUS) may have the potential of facilitating diagnosis and therapy monitoring of salivary gland disease in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). The aim of the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials (OMERACT) US subgroup on SG is to validate US as an outcome measurement instrument in pSS. Following the OMERACT US stepwise validation approach, preliminary consensus definitions for elementary lesions based on a systematic literature review were developed and subsequently a scoring system has been agreed upon and tested through a web-based Delphi exercise. Objectives To assess the reliability of consensus based SGUS scoring system in patients with SS. Methods Nine sonographers conducted an US reliability exercise of the parotid and submandibular glands (PG, SMG) of 9 patients with primary and secondary SS in 3 rounds. A 4-grade semi-quantitative scoring was applied in B-mode for structural lesions as follows: Grade 0: normal, grade 1: mild inhomogeneity without anechoic or hypoechoic areas, grade 2: moderate inhomogeneity with focal anechoic or hypoechoic areas, grade 3: severe; diffuse inhomogeneity with an-/hypoechoic areas occupying all the surface of the gland. Next, presence or absence of typical pSS-lesions was scored in binary fashion. Intrareader and interreader reliability were computed by Cohen and Light kappa. Weighted k coefficients with absolute weighting were calculated for B-mode abnormalities. Results Light weighted kappa for grading and diagnostic evaluation for intra- and inter-reader reliability was moderate to excellent (see Table for details). Conclusion The developed US definitions and the scoring system for salivary gland lesions in pSS showed a good to excellent reliability in patients with SS. Next step is to apply the scoring system in clinical trials. Disclosure of Interests Stephanie Finzel: None declared, Sandrine Jousse-Joulin: None declared, Annamaria Iagnocco: None declared, Esperanza Naredo Consultant for: Abbvie, Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, UCB, Lilly, Novartis, Janssen, and Celgene GmbH, ALOJZIJA HOCEVAR: None declared, Sarah Ohrndorf: None declared, Petra Hanova: None declared, Maria-Antonietta d'Agostino: None declared, Felicie Costantino: None declared, Lene Terslev Speakers bureau: Speakers fee from : Roche, Novartis, Pfizer, MSD, BMS, Celgene, Helen Keen: None declared, George Bruyn : None declared


The alpha adrenergic receptors of rabbit platelets can be identified by using [3H]-dihydroergocryptine. The binding of [3H]dihydroergocryptine to platelet lysates reaches equilibrium in 30 min and is slowly reversible. The maximal number of binding sites is 280 ± 25 fmoles/mg, and the dissociation constant was determined to be 2.26 ± 0.48 nM. The specificity of the binding sites for receptor agonists and antagonists is consistent with that of an alpha adrenergic response in inhibiting prostaglandin E1-stimulated adenylate cyclase in the same lysate preparation and is thus in agreement with the classical definition of alpha adrenergic receptors in mediating physiological responses. Divalent cations such as magnesium and manganese and monovalent cations such as sodium markedly influence the binding affinity of agonists but have little or no effect on the binding of antagonists. Calcium produces no change in binding. Neither magnesium nor sodium alters the number of receptor sites. Magnesium (1.25 mM) increases the binding affinity of (-)-epinephrine by a factor of 4. In contrast, sodium chloride (100 mM) strikingly decreases the binding affinity of agonists (more than 10-fold). The effect of sodium chloride on agonists is apparent with concentrations as low as 10 mM, and shows a dose-dependent response. LiCl and KCl are only 44% and 19% as effective, respectively, as sodium chloride. The magnitude of the shift in binding affinity of alpha adrenergic agents produced by sodium chloride is directly related to the intrinsic activity of those agents for inhibition of prostaglandin E1-stimulated adenylate cyclase. The results suggest that physiological concentrations of magnesium chloride and sodium chloride may selectively regulate the binding affinity of agonists.


Curved channel is commonly used in cement mill's journal bearing. In this study, heat transfer enhancement of curved channel having a rectangular cross-section with using inclined shape baffles is numerically investigated. The effects of different parameters of baffles, i.e. attack angle (α= 45°, 60°, and 90°), and the number of baffles (NB=9 and 13 baffles) are examined. The water is selected as working fluid for laminar and turbulent flow region. A standard k- 𝜀 turbulence model together with enhanced wall treatment is applied to solve the complex flow in Re of 500–5000. Influences of those parameters on heat transfer and friction performances in terms of Nusselt number, friction factor , Nussellt number enhancement ratio, and thermal performance factor, respectively are studied. The results show that the best condition to achieve maximum heat transfer at angle 𝛼 = 90 ° , NB=13 and Re=5000 compared with other conditions. Furthermore, the maximum thermal performance factor (TEF) of the curved channel with using baffles is 4.4 at the same condition. This indicated that the geometry of baffles inside curved channel can improve the heat transfer significantly with reasonable increase in friction losses.


Abstract Background: The present study aimed to fabricate surface-modified chitosan nanoparticles with two mucoadhesive polymers (sodium alginate and polyethylene glycol) to optimize their protein encapsulation efficiency, improve their mucoadhesion properties, and increase their stability in biological fluids. Method: Ionotropic gelation was employed to formulate chitosan nanoparticles and surface modification was performed at five different concentrations (0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4% w/v) of sodium alginate (ALG) and polyethylene glycol (PEG), with ovalbumin (OVA) used as a model protein antigen. The functional characteristics were examined by dynamic light scattering (DLS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Stability was examined in the presence of simulated gastric and intestinal fluids, while mucoadhesive properties were evaluated by in vitro mucin binding and ex vivo adhesion on pig oral mucosa tissue. The impact of the formulation and dissolution process on the OVA structure was investigated by sodium dodecyl-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and circular dichroism (CD). Results: The nanoparticles showed a uniform spherical morphology with a maximum protein encapsulation efficiency of 81%, size after OVA loading of between 200 and 400 nm and zeta potential from 10 to 29 mV. An in vitro drug release study suggested successful nanoparticle surface modification by ALG and PEG, showing gastric fluid stability (4 h) and a 96 h sustained OVA release in intestinal fluid, with the nanoparticles maintaining their conformational stability (SDS-PAGE and CD analyses) after release in the intestinal fluid. An in vitro mucin binding study indicated a significant increase in mucin binding from 41 to 63% in ALG-modified nanoparticles and a 27–49% increase in PEG-modified nanoparticles. The ex vivo mucoadhesion showed that the powdered particles adhered to the pig oral mucosa. Conclusion: The ALG and PEG surface modification of chitosan nanoparticles improved the particle stability in both simulated gastric and intestinal fluids and improved the mucoadhesive properties, therefore constituting a potential nanocarrier platform for mucosal protein vaccine delivery.


Objectives: The aim of the study was to compare long-term mortality and causes of death in children post admission to an ICU with a control population of same age. Design: Longitudinal follow-up study. Setting: Registry study of a national ICU register and hospital registries. Patients: Children admitted to an ICU in the years 2009 and 2010. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: The mortality and causes of death following ICU discharge were analyzed retrospectively. The median follow-up period was 4.9 years (25–75th percentiles, 4.4–5.5 yr). The causes of death in survivors 30 days after ICU discharge were compared with a cohort of 1 million children of the general population of same age. In total, 2,792 children were admitted to an ICU during the study period. Of those, 53 (1.9%) died in the ICU and 2,739 were discharged. Thirteen children died within 30 days of discharge, and 68 died between 30 days and the end of follow-up (December 31, 2014). In the control population (n = 1,020,407 children), there were 1,037 deaths (0.10%) from 2009 to 2014. The standardized mortality rate for the children admitted to the ICU during the study period was 53.4 (95% CI, 44.7–63.2). The standardized mortality rate for those children alive 1 year after discharge was 16.7 (12.1–22.6). One-year cumulative mortality was 3.3%. The most common causes of death in subjects alive 30 days post ICU were cancer (35.3%), neurologic (17.6%), and metabolic diseases (11.7%), whereas trauma was the most common cause in the control group (45.3%). Conclusions: There was an increased risk of death in a cohort of ICU-admitted children even 3 years after discharge. In those who survived 30 days after discharge, medical causes of death were dominant, whereas deaths due to trauma were most common in the control group.


Background: Intracellular cytoskeleton in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) might be a key factor in its poor outcome. Reliable biomarkers estimating the cytoskeleton involvement are lacking. Ezrin is involved in intracellular signaling and adhesion, by linking in the PI3K/Akt pathways. Aim of the Study: To assess the significance of ezrin protein expression in PDAC related to the clinical stage and survival. Methods: This prospective cohort study enrolled patients with proven adenocarcinoma and a matched group of controls without any malignancies. The plasma levels of ezrin were analyzed using western blotting and were correlated with the clinicopathological features and survival data. These results were validated by immunohistochemical analyses of the pancreatic tumor tissue of the patients included in the study and a supplementary group of surgically resected specimens from patients with a benign disease. Results: The study comprised 51 patients with PDAC, 53 controls and a supplementary group of 13 normal pancreatic tissue samples. EZR was over expressed more frequently in the plasma of patients with PDAC than in the controls (80% vs. 32%, P<0.001). EZR was detected in the fine needle aspiration tumor tissue by immunohistochemistry and it was not significantly correlated with its plasma expression. The EZR protein expression was closely related to the advanced clinical stage (P=0.02), and the risk of metastasis was five times higher (P=0.048) and with no influence on survival. Conclusion: Ezrin pathway as an intracellular cytoskeleton biomarker is related to the local spread and metastasis of PDAC, but not in the survival.


A system of Boundary-Domain Integral Equations is derived from the mixed (Dirichlet-Neumann) boundary value problem for the diffusion equation in inhomogeneous media defined on an unbounded domain. This paper extends the work introduced in [?] to unbounded domains. Mapping properties of parametrix-based potentials on weighted Sobolev spaces are analysed. Equivalence between the original boundary value problem and the system of BDIEs is shown. Uniqueness of solution of the BDIEs is proved using Fredholm Alternative and compactness arguments adapted to weigthed Sobolev spaces.


ObjectivesTo establish the actual rate of risky unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) among young gay men in steady relationships by correcting for negotiated safety (NS) and NS compliance. In addition, to examine whether the rate of UAI with steady partners, after correction for NS and NS compliance, is higher than the rate of UAI during sexual contacts with casual partners. MethodsA total of 435 young gay men completed questionnaires regarding relationship status, HIV status, NS agreements, and sexual behaviour with steady and casual partners in the preceding 6 months. ResultsTwelve per cent of the participants in a relationship practised NS. The non-compliance rate with NS agreements reached 10%. The rate of UAI with steady partners stood at 54%. After correction for NS and NS compliance, the actual risky UAI rate with steady partners dropped to 39%. Chi square tests showed that even after correction for NS and NS compliance, the rates of UAI with steady partners remained significantly higher than the rates of UAI with casual partners. ConclusionIt is imperative to correct the rates of UAI with steady partners for NS and NS compliance in order to estimate accurately the rates of risky UAI. The higher rates of risky UAI found with steady partners, even after correcting for NS, support the assumption that steady relationships provide a context that facilitates sexual risk-taking behaviour. We should therefore specifically target primary relationships as a source of risk for HIV transmission, and take into consideration non-compliance with NS agreements.


Teaching different kinds of skills are of the great importance in ELT. One of the most challenging skills, which is used either in classrooms or out of the class, is speaking. It consists of several other skills and it is considered as a burden especially for lower level students since it causes great anxiety and stress for them. This study is about how to overcome anxiety for teachers while teaching speaking. In addition to this, it includes the reasons and the solutions that teachers should pay attention to while forming their lesson plans and implementing it in the syllabus. It also contributes to the variety of techniques that can be used for how to overcome this nervousness by producing and using classroom material. The content of the activities is explained, and each solution is illustrated with specified examples and detailed explanations. With this study, it can be observed that trying to overcome the stress levels by implementing different techniques develops both teachers' and students' success and makes them more sufficient and competent in using this skill. Using these in ELT is a significant source for the educators who would like to take language learning outside the textbooks by creating more friendly and distressing atmosphere.


BackgroundIt is known that the investment in promoting health, both at the individual level and at the organizational level can bring benefits to all individuals included in this process. This Scoping Review compares the main results addressed in Brazilian qualitative researches and in other countries that addressed the topic of workers' health promotion.Methods Thirty-three articles were selected for analysis from the SciELO, BVS - BDENF/Index, PubMed, and LILACS databases. Scientific articles that used a qualitative or quantitative-qualitative approach in Portuguese, English or Spanish, during the period from 2009 to the present moment of our Review (October 2019) were included. This Scoping Review was guided by Arksey and O'Malley's framework.Results The literature review allowed the discussion on the following related topics: worker's social participation in health decisions, perceptions/meanings about health promotion, working conditions and worker's suffering, working conditions and the risk of illness, worker's awareness, and changes in lifestyles, employers' stereotypes about their workers and health promotion, the use of technology in health promotion interventions, the importance of communication in promoting workers' health and social support at work for carrying out health promotion actions.ConclusionThis study showed differences in the research analyzed and provided the mapping of the main results that may support future research and changes in worker's health policies in general. While in Brazil, studies are still focused on workers' perceptions about health promotion and the assessment of working conditions risks to their health, in other countries, most qualitative research has been used to assess workers' perceptions after a given workplace health promotion intervention.