This paper deals with the statistical modeling of turbulent two-phase ∞ows consisting of particles or droplets immersed in a gas. The problem of gaseous turbulence alone being very complex, we concentrate here on the simpler case of an a priori given forced isotropic homogeneous turbulence acting on the particles, whose mean square velocity and integral Lagrangian time-scale are given constants. Our main objective is to derive a hierarchy of reduced models from the joint particle-gas pdf (probability density function). The latter equation may therefore be regarded as a master equation for our problem. The reduced models describe the dispersion of a cloud of particles observed at difierent time scales compared to the dynamic response time of the particles and the characteristic time scale of the turbulence along their trajectories. These derivations rely on very classical Chapman-Enskog expansions. We recover in particular the result of Tchen (C. M. Tchen, Mean value and correlation problems connected with the motion of small particles suspended in a turbulent ∞uid, PhD thesis, Delft, The Hague, Martinus Nijhofi, 1947) stating that the difiusion rate is the same for small or large particles in homogeneous turbulence, under the assumption that the lagrangian statistical properties along their paths are the same. Moreover, our approach allows us to prove that the long-time limit of the joint particle-gas distribution function is a bi-maxwellian distribution, whatever the size of the particles. This is consistent with some usual assumptions made in the literature for the derivation of particle collision models (J. Lavieville, E. Deutsch and O. Simonin, Large eddy simulation of interactions between colliding particles and a homogeneous isotropic turbulence fleld, Gas-Solid Flows, ASME, 228, 347-358, 1995), (Leonid I. Zaichik, Olivier Simonin and Vladimir M. Alipchenkov, Two statistical models for predicting collision rates of inertial particles in homogeneous isotropic turbulence, Phys. Fluids, 15(10), 2995-3005, 2003).


To the Editor: —In your editorial inThe Journalof Feb. 8, 1890, entitled, " Correct Official Instructions as to Disinfection with Sulphur," you say: "there may possibly result from it some bleaching of colored articles..... when the sulphur dioxide comes in contact with wetted goods and there may be some minor damage beside." This statement is eminently correct, and while such damage is not considered as weighing against the disinfection, where necessary; it is well to know that sulphur burnt in the presence of moisture may have the following undesirable effects: It injures the colors of many woolen goods, being especially hard on greens and bright reds— a red flannel shirt, for instance, always comes out yellow, sometimes the color is not affected; the dark blues are generally absolutely uninjured, but not rarely turned a reddish brown. The same color of course may be from very different dyes and thus


This paper investigates how to adapt some discrepancy-based search methods to solve hybrid flow shop (HFS) problems in which each stage consists of several identical machines operating in parallel. The objective is to determine a schedule that minimizes the makespan. We present here an adaptation of the depth-bounded discrepancy search (DDS) method to obtain solutions with makespan of high quality. This adaptation for the HFS contains no redundancy for the search tree expansion. To improve the solutions of our HFS problem, we propose a local search method, called CDDS, which is a hybridization of two existing discrepancy-based methods (DDS and Climbing Discrepancy Search). CDDS introduces an intensification process around promising solutions. These methods are tested on benchmark problems. Results show that discrepancy methods give promising results


The thesis consists of two volumes. Volume I comprises work in various areas of mathematical analysis, especially abstract harmonic analysis, differential equations and moment problems. Volume II comprises work primarily in harmonic analysis, especially work on the Fourier transform, invariant linear forms, and associated phenomena.

The ideas in this work have had a long period of gestation, although the fuller development and expression of them has occurred over a relatively short and intense period. The dominant ideas emerged in an endeavour to answer the following question: if f is a function in L2(IRn), how can the behaviour of its Fourier transform near the origin of IRn be described and characterized? The corresponding question for the circle group had been given a satisfactory answer by Gary Meisters and Wolfgang Schmidt in 1972, so the work also can be regarded as arising from an attempt to extend their result from the compact case of the circle group to the non-compact case of IRn. The answers presented to these and related questions have implications for other areas of analysis; the notable ones being the ranges of partial differential operators, and the behaviour of some of the singular integral operators of classical analysis.


MicroRNAs target specific mRNA(s) to silence its expression and thereby regulate various cellular processes. We have investigated miRNA gene counts in chromosomes for 20 different species and observed wide variation. Certain chromosomes have extremely high number of miRNA gene compared with others in all the species. For example, high number of miRNA gene in X chromosome and the least or absence of miRNA gene in Y chromosome was observed in all species. To search the criteria governing such variation of miRNA gene counts in chromosomes, we have selected three parameters- length, number of non-coding and coding genes in a chromosome. We have calculated Pearson's correlation coefficient of miRNA gene counts with length, number of non-coding and coding genes in a chromosome for all 20 species. Major number of species showed that number of miRNA gene was not correlated with chromosome length. Eighty five percent of species under study showed strong positive correlation coefficient (r ≥ 0.5) between the numbers of miRNA gene vs. non-coding gene in chromosomes as expected because miRNA is a sub-set of non-coding genes. 55% species under study showed strong positive correlation coefficient (r ≥ 0.5) between numbers of miRNA gene vs. coding gene. We hypothesize biogenesis of miRNA largely depends on coding genes, an evolutionary conserved process. Chromosomes having higher number of miRNA genes will be most likely playing regulatory roles in several cellular processes including different disorders. In humans, cancer and cardiovascular disease associated miRNAs are mostly intergenic and located in Chromosome 19, X, 14, and 1.


In this paper we study the carrier contribution to elastic constants in quantum confined heavily doped non-linear optical compounds on the basis of a newly formulated electron dispersion law taking into account the anisotropies of the effective electron masses and spin orbit splitting constants together with the proper inclusion of the crystal field splitting in the Hamiltonian within the framework of k.p formalism. All the results of heavily doped three, and two models of Kane for heavily doped III-V materials form special cases of our generalized analysis. It has been found, taking different heavily doped quantum confined materials that, the carrier contribution to the elastic constants increases with increase in electron statistics and decrease in film thickness in ladder like manners for all types of quantum confinements with different numerical values which are totally dependent on the energy band constants. The said contribution is greatest in quantum dots and least in quantum wells together with the fact the heavy doping enhances the said contributions for all types of quantum confined materials. We have suggested an experimental method of determining the carrier contribution to the elastic constants in nanostructured materials having arbitrary band structures.


BACKGROUND
Dengue hemorrhagic fever, the most severe form of dengue illness, is associated with secondary dengue virus (DV) infection. Preexisting nonneutralizing antibodies to DV that enhance the infection of Fc gamma receptor-bearing cells have been implicated in DV pathogenesis.

METHODS
We conducted a prospective cohort study in Thai schoolchildren. Enhancing activity (EA) was measured as the percentage of DV-infected K562 cells, and viral titer (infected K562 cell supernatants) was measured in preillness plasma samples from children who subsequently had secondary DV2 or DV3 infection.

RESULTS
Plaque-reduction neutralizing titers to the child's own DV2 or DV3 isolate were detected in 23 of 32 and 8 of 27 of the preillness plasma samples, and EA was detected to a low-passage Thai DV2 or DV3 in 31 of 32 and 26 of 27, respectively, of the samples. EA in undiluted preillness plasma did not correlate with subsequent disease severity or peak viremia levels in either secondary DV2 or DV3 infections.

CONCLUSIONS
Preillness plasma enhances DV infection of K562 cells even in the presence of detectable neutralizing antibodies in LLC-MK2 cells. However, levels of preillness plasma EA of DV infection in K562 cells did not correlate with the clinical severity or viral burden of secondary DV infection.


A procedure for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles is presented in which their size is controlled modulating nucleation and particle growth processes by means of suitable proportions of reducing and capping agents. Colloidal dispersions of nanoparticles were obtained, which were evidenced by the Surface Plasmon Resonance exhibited in a wavelength range of the radio-magnetic spectrum from 400 nm to 700 nm, corresponding from spherical nanoparticles to nanoprisms. In addition, we show the effectiveness of garlic extract, whose main component is Allicin, and the cinnamon bark extract, whose main component is the Cinnamaldehyde, as reducing and capping agents in the process of nanoparticle synthesis. The stability of the colloidal dispersion extends for several weeks. Some conductivity of silver nanoparticles embedded in pectin films was also evidenced. In addition antibacterial effect was analyzed. The presence of silver nanoparticles with different shapes was evidenced by the signal of Surface Plasmon Resonance detected by UV Spectroscopy, which were corroborated by Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), using the Z potential to determine the size of the nanoparticles obtained with these syntheses, besides the morphology of them.


This paper describes a new image watermarking technique based on the Natural Preserving Transform (NPT). The proposed watermarking scheme uses NPT to encode a gray scale watermarking logo image or text, into a host image at any location. NPT brings a unique feature which is uniformly distributing the logo across the host image in an imperceptible manner. The contribution of this paper lies is presenting two efficient nonblind and quasiblind watermark extraction techniques. In the quasiblind case, the extraction algorithm requires little information about the original image that is already conveyed by the watermarked image. Moreover, the proposed scheme does not introduce visual quality degradation into the host image while still being able to extract a logo with a relatively large amount of data. The performance and robustness of the proposed technique are tested by applying common image-processing operations such as cropping, noise degradation, and compression. A quantitative measure is proposed to objectify performance; under this measure, the proposed technique outperforms most of the recent techniques in most cases. We also implemented the proposed technique on a hardware platform, digital signal processor (DSK 6713). Results are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique, in different noisy environments.


A Modern History of the Kurds, by David McDowall. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1996. xvi + 449 pages. Append. to p. 451. Index to p. 472. $35. David McDowall's new work should prove very valuable for scholars, politicians and students alike. As were his two earlier surveys,' this one also is very readable. Unlike its two pithy predecessors, however, it is a lengthy, in-depth analysis. Basing his analysis largely on primary sources in London's Public Record Office (PRO) and interviews with a host of knowledgeable Kurds, McDowall divides his work into five sections, or "books," as he terms them. Each one is further partitioned into individual chapters. Following an opening chapter on "Kurdistan before the Nineteenth Century," "The Kurds in the Age of Tribe and Empire" covers the period from 1800 until the end of World War I. "Incorporating the Kurds" then analyzes how the Kurds were included in the modern states of Iran, Iraq and Turkey after 1918. The final three "books" deal with more recent "ethno-nationalism" in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Although McDowall lists initially only eight secondary sources used throughout his book, he subsequently ends each chapter with a short, but useful, bibliography appropriate for that particular chapter. The book also contains seven maps and concludes with a good index. In addition to the wealth of data he supplies, McDowall adds both favorable and negative assessments and insights. For example, he states that "frontiers have not been wholly disadvantageous to the Kurds" (p. 8), as, although borders have divided them, "a permeable frontier has afforded a refuge for those who offend the state" (p. 8). This practice of crossing the border has continued for hundreds of years and has been resorted to frequently by the Barzanis of Iraq. Their most famous scion, Mulla Mustafa Barzani, is described by McDowall as "an innocent abroad" (p. 336), because of his misguided trust in Iran and the United States during the 1970s. Yet, in pursuit of his connection with Iran, Mulla Mustafa had "over 40 [Iranian Kurds] killed or turned over to the Shah's men" (p. 253), Machiavellian "behavior [which] . . . sickened many Kurds" (p. 346). Although tribalism among the Iraqi Kurds has currently declined to "perhaps 20 per cent" (p. 380), McDowall aptly terms as "neo-tribalism" the emergence of the two main parties-Mas`ud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)both entrenched patronage systems in the 1990s (p. 386). The future of the Iraqi Kurdish experiment in democracy has been challenged by taxation of trade by the political parties and local aghas (officials), widespread asset-stripping for sale in Iran, and smuggling of the cereal harvest to the Iraqi government, which gave a high price, as well as the tragic internecine fighting that broke out between the KDP and PUK in May 1994. Analyzing the situation to the north, McDowall concludes that "Turkey had unmistakably intended genocide [through assimilation, not murder, McDowall notes] of the Kurdish people. In practice, its intentions were defeated [only] by the sheer size of the task" (p. 210). Kurdish population growth and "a new and burgeoning [Kurdish] professional class . . . suggested that the [Turkish] army might be wasting its time chasing the PKK [Kurdish Workers' Party] through the mountains unless its operations were accompanied by radical efforts to reconcile the Kurdish minority nationally and economically" (p. 441). Indeed, shortly before his death in April 1993, Turkish President Turgut Ozal warned Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel that the Kurdish problem presented Turkey "its gravest threat yet. …


Prostate fibrosarcoma is an extremely rare tumor for which complete excision has been the mainstay of treatment. Although chemotherapy has been attempted in cases with positive surgical margins and/or advanced stage disease, the effectiveness of this therapy has not been established. Herein, we report a case of advanced prostate fibrosarcoma that reacted well to chemotherapy. A 40-year-old man was referred for treatment of a large prostatic tumor with multiple lung, liver, and bone metastases. Needle biopsy of the prostate revealed that the tumor was a high-grade undifferentiated sarcoma. Chemotherapy with doxorubicin and ifosfamide was administered. After five courses of chemotherapy, the primary prostate tumor decreased markedly, and the lung and liver metastases almost disappeared. Radical cystoprostatectomy and ileal conduit formation were performed. Pathological diagnosis was fibrosarcoma. Another three courses of doxorubicin and ifosfamide therapy were performed, and doxorubicin was replaced by etoposide because the maximum dose of doxorubicin was reached. However, the effectiveness of the second-line therapy was poor, and the tumor progressed again. The patient died of lung metastasis 15 months later.


An ion mobility-mass spectrometer (IM-MS) interface is described that can be employed to perform collisional activation and/or collision-induced dissociation (CID) with good transmission of mobility separated ions to the MS analyzer. The IM-MS interface consists of a stacked-ring ion guide design, where the field strength and pressure ratio can be operated such that structural rearrangement reactions and/or CID are achieved as a function of the effective ion temperature. The ion dynamics and collisional activation processes in the IM-MS interface are described as a function of the ion-neutral collisions, ion kinetic energies, and effective ion temperature. The applicability of the IM-CID-MS methodology to studies of peptide ion fragmentation is illustrated using a series of model peptides.


The authors describe in this article the possible complications of spine surgery. By exposing them, they wish to draw the attention of the practitioners on the multiple risks related to these operations, as well as the means to prevent them and to make them stop their effects. The "zero" risk does not exist, even for the most common operations. However there is a tendency by the judiciary system to look favourably at the demands for compensation of damage, considering that at the origin of every post operative complication exists, more or less hidden, a fault eligible for financial repair. Up to the present day, a fault must be proven in the management of a medical case. A reminder of the foundations of the medical responsibility applied to the surgery of the spine is reported, knowing well that surgical damages are not always the result of an error or a misconduct, and therefore, the surgeon is not responsible for the damage in the absence of a proven fault.


T cells are the master regulators of adaptive immune responses, and many autoimmune diseases arise due to a breakdown of self-tolerance in T cells. Understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying T cell tolerance will lead to development of pharmacological approaches either to promote the tolerance state in terms of autoimmunity or to break tolerance in cancer. E3 ubiquitin ligases have been placed among the essential molecules involved in the regulation of T cell functions and T cell tolerance. We as well as other groups have reported that T cells activated in the absence of both CD28 and ICOS costimulation developed into tolerant T cells, associated with markedly upregulated expression of the E3 ubiquitin ligase GRAIL. In order to understand the physiological function of GRAIL, we generated mice deficient in Grail by replacing region that encompassing most of the RING domain and responsible for E3 ubiquitin activity. Remarkably, genetic inactivation of E3 ubiquitin ligase function of GRAIL led to T cell hyper-responsiveness to TCR/CD3z signaling and their independency to costimulation for activation. As a result, GRAIL-deficient mice were more predisposing to autoimmune diseases. On the other hand, modulation of GRAIL function helped to boost T cell immune responses to cancer, and, therefore, mediate tumor rejection. Thus, modulation of the E3 ligase activity of GRAIL might be an important approach to control T cell functions in autoimmunity or cancer.


The statistics on the production and development of passenger airplanes in the world is presented in this article for the first time. The methods for obtaining the results are described, uncertainties of the results are estimated. It is specified what exactly is considered to be a passenger airplane. It is shown that only 60,000 passenger airplanes were built during the entire 20th century. This is less than 3% of the total production of airplanes of all classes. Their total capacity amounts less than 5 million people, or less than a thousandth of the world's population by the end of the last century. These 60,000 airplanes provided unprecedented mobility of the population. It was revealed that the leading role in the passenger airplane manufacturing belonged to the USA, the USSR took a steady second place. The ups-and-downs in airplane production are described, including the recessions during the Great Depression, World War II and the global economic decline (in the USSR, the USA and other countries) in the early 1960s, which was replaced by a rapid increase in output. It is indicated that the number of airplanes produced in the last third of the 20th century remained approximately constant, but their average capacity was growing rapidly, which largely ensured the explosive growth of air transportation during this period. The dynamics of the dead weight per one passenger is given. The dynamics of the number of the new passenger airplane models is presented. It is shown that for the last 30 years of the century their number was approximately constant, and almost all the models that reached the test stage were put into serial production. In the period between the world wars, however, about half of all models tested in flight remained prototypes. The change in the ratio of the number of airplanes by the number of engines is given. The renaissance of three-engine airplanes in the 1960s, the almost complete disappearance of singleengine passenger airplanes by the end of the century and the stable amount of a small proportion of four-engine airplanes for the last 30 years of the past century are noted.


With the competing pressures facing medical school faculty, teaching is no longer considered a top priority. For many reasons, both internal and external, patient care and research activities receive more recognition and financial support than teaching. Most physicians believe they teach well and are frequently correct despite their lack of formal training on the art and science of medical education. Too often this is due primarily to time constraints and a perceived lack of relevance.

As a non-physician medical educator with a terminal degree in Adult Education, there were many things I needed to learn to appropriately develop curricula that would attract a busy physician… who was not exactly clear if they needed anything I had to teach!

The literature review indicated that most physicians receive little training for their teaching roles. Irby says that many (physicians) develop teaching behaviors based on a combination of their own experiences and general conceptions of teaching derived from experience and observation. In a study that rank ordered 30 basic pedagogical principles that could enhance teaching effectiveness, clinical teachers, and non-clinician medical educators had a clear lack of congruence in their ratings of these principles. They did, however, agree on five areas (McLeod et al., 2009):

need for goals and objectives

emphasis on self-directed versus teacher-directed learning

importance of coaching

utility of understanding adult learning theory

idiosyncratic problem-solving (clinical decision making process)

With this data in hand, it was clear the physicians and I looked at the education of our learners from different perspectives. I had to find a way for them to value what I brought to the table as a non-physician educator. Now, in all fairness, most physicians were happy to have someone with formal adult education available to them as a resource. My faculty appointment is in the Neurology department and they were very enthusiastic when I suggested piloting a Resident as Teacher program. But, it was only after I followed what I have come to know as the 10 steps to becoming a non-physician adult educator for physicians that I was embraced. As a well-known adult educator, Myles Horton said, "I made the road by walking it!" (Horton, 1991)

Educationese… who knew I was speaking it! During my first year as a medical school assistant dean I was told to drop the education language. This was a bit of a challenge in that I did not know what to drop and how to translate what I was saying to medical education language.

Partner with a physician – My credibility increased when I partnered with physicians during my first workshops and programs. My boss, a neurologist, was a great mentor and certainly helped with this.

Aliquots – Another shift to accommodate the schedules of busy physicians. I usually teach adult learners in 4 h blocks and knew that would not fit the schedule of a busy physician. I developed a 2 h Certificate in Academic Medicine that offered the same content twice a week. So, if a physician missed one session they could attend later the same week.

Drive-by learning – "Just tell me what I need to know." I wanted to build a community of learners with each program I developed. I usually do not lecture preferring learners to recognize their knowledge and share it with their colleagues in small group discussion. I wanted the knowledge they bring to the classroom to be valued and validated to be efficient and high yield for the physician.

Flexibility – The patient always comes first! So I am always ready for the beepers to go off and emergencies to happen. I also morph the content and the structure of any leaning environment to the needs of the physician.

Role modeling – I attempt to model the behavior of the content I am teaching.

Relevance – As with any learner, especially adults, the key to their commitment to learning is their understanding of why they are learning it!

Feedback – The only way any of us improve is with good feedback. I request feedback for every session or workshop by asking what three things they learned what I did well and what I could do better as a teacher or facilitator. Then we talk about it. Again, it models what should be happening in all teaching sessions, but, can be time prohibitive in a clinical setting.

Prior learning – Too often in the academic medical environment, the knowledge and experience the learner brings to the learning environment is neither valued or validated. This mistake can be changed by encouraging the exchange of information rather than downloading it to the learner. Participatory learning engages the learner and helps long term retention.

Environment – As an adult educator, providing a safe learning environment is critical and always a goal. When I first started in medical education, I was encouraged to follow a physician teaching students on the wards and see whether a safe learning environment could be achieved. Well, the challenges are real. However, it is incumbent on us as educators to develop a support system with a different framework to nurture our learners. The statistics indicate we are not doing very well in this area. Forty percent of female and 27% of male medical students and residents experienced pronounced symptoms of anxiety or depression, 30–50% of physicians report anxiety, sleeplessness, or depression and the suicide rate is twice that of the general population (Michelfelder, 2011).

As I began this critical reflection on the transition to becoming a non-physician medical educator, I sat with an other trained adult educator and asked, What was our life like before when acute, benign, malignant, and bolis were used to describe medical conditions or the delivery of medication and not part of our everyday language to describe a test or a meeting or the volume of content delivered?

We decided we have acclimated to the environment and have learned to transform our educationese to the culture of medicine. We continue to learn from each other, after all no matter what the educational setting, the student comes first!


Although endoscopy is an established and useful diagnostic tool, its emergency use in acute gastrointestinal tract bleeding has not reduced mortality. 1 However, high-risk groups whose management and ultimate outcome might be influenced favorably by early endoscopy have been identified: patients with visible vessels or fresh blood in ulcer craters (who rebleed at a rate of 58% ) 2 and patients with a history of alcohol abuse or those who rebleed in the hospital after stabilization. 3 Emergency colonoscopy, performed after a large-volume purge in patients with acute passage of bloody or maroon stools per rectum, has been very useful. The source of bleeding was established in 88% of these difficult patients, 17% of whom had an upper gastrointestinal tract source. 4 Advances in therapeutic endoscopy continue. Although there is increasing use of thermal therapy with bipolar electrodes, heater probes, and direct application of laser in gastrointestinal tract bleeding, a consensus


The "smoking gun" of small-scale, impulsive events heating the solar corona is expected to be the presence of hot (>5 MK) plasma. Evidence for this has been scarce, but has gradually begun to accumulate due to recent studies designed to constrain the high-temperature part of the emission measure distribution. However, the detected hot component is often weaker than models predict and this is due in part to the common modeling assumption that the ionization balance remains in equilibrium. The launch of the latest generation of space-based observing instrumentation on board Hinode and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has brought the matter of the ionization state of the plasma firmly to the forefront. It is timely to consider exactly what emission current instruments would detect when observing a corona heated impulsively on small scales by nanoflares. Only after we understand the full effects of nonequilibrium ionization can we draw meaningful conclusions about the plasma that is (or is not) present. We have therefore performed a series of hydrodynamic simulations for a variety of different nanoflare properties and initial conditions. Our study has led to several key conclusions. (1) Deviations from equilibrium are greatest for short-duration nanoflares at low initial coronal densities. (2) Hot emission lines are the most affected and are suppressed sometimes to the point of being invisible. (3) For the many scenarios we have considered, the emission detected in several of the SDO-AIA channels (131, 193, and 211 Å) would be dominated by warm, overdense, cooling plasma. (4) It is difficult not to create coronal loops that emit strongly at 1.5 MK and in the range 2–6 MK, which are the most commonly observed kind, for a broad range of nanoflare scenarios. (5) The Fe xv (284.16 Å) emission in most of our models is about 10 times brighter than the Ca xvii (192.82 Å) emission, consistent with observations. Our overarching conclusion is that small-scale, impulsive heating inducing a nonequilibrium ionization state leads to predictions for observable quantities that are entirely consistent with what is actually observed.


This study aims to see and analyze the relationship between religion and the state towards the Here Krisna sect as a spiritual movement found in Hinduism. This research uses a qualitative method with a case study approach. The problem in this study is whether there is a religious politics that occurs in Hinduism and how the relationship between religion and the state. In this regard, the points that will be elaborated by researchers include the background of the emergence of Here Krishna, the teachings conveyed, the vision of transformation, religious politics, and the relationship between religion and the state. The research results obtained that the emergence of the Here Krina stream does not become a problem for the PHDI because its existence does not make people uneasy about Hindus in general, as well as the relationship between religion and state philosophically the first precepts that read the Almighty God is based as a philosophical basis for national life and state. From the results of this study it can be understood that the Here Krisna stream can exist because it is based on Hinduism, which is an official religion and its social norms do not interfere with social life and its teachings do not conflict with the ideology of the nation as the basis of the state.


This study seeks to describe experiences and perceptions about disability and social participation of people with disabilities and professionals who are part of community rehabilitation centers in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. A qualitative study was carried out with a theoretical sampling of key actors from 4 community rehabilitation centers. 16 focus groups were conducted and a semantic content analysis was applied. The experiences of people with disabilities are diverse, there are common elements such as dependency made equivalent to disability and recognition of social barriers. Perceptions of disability represent individual and social models. The latter appears when injustices and discrimination are experienced. Social participation linked to the center is intense and affective. However, other participation spaces are scarce. The concepts of disability and levels of social participation show the need for more guidelines, training and resources for an effective implementation of community rehabilitation.


The Covid-19 crisis has highlighted innovative high-frequency dataset allowing to measure in real-time the economic impact. In this vein, we explore how satellite data measuring the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2, a pollutant emitted mainly by industrial activity) in the troposphere can help predict industrial production. We first show how such data must be adjusted for meteorological patterns which can alter data quality and pollutant emissions. We use machine learning techniques to better account for non-linearities and interactions between variables. We then find evidence that nowcasting performances for monthly industrial production are significantly improved when relying on daily NO2 data compared to benchmark models based on PMIs and auto-regressive (AR) terms. We also find evidence of heterogeneities suggesting that the contribution of daily pollution data is particularly important during "crisis" episodes and that the elasticity of NO2 pollution to industrial production for a country depends on the share of manufacturing in the value added. Available daily, free-to-use, granular and covering all countries including those with limited statistics, this paper illustrates the potential of satellite-based data for air pollution in enhancing the real-time monitoring of economic activity.


Switched reluctance machines are a prime candidate for aerospace starter/generators and various automotive applications. The choice of SRM for a starter/generator application is driven largely by the perceived reliability and fault tolerance of the machine and its electronics. An analysis of the SR generator's faults and excitation requirements is essential to utilize the full fault tolerance capability of the machine in this application. Thus, research has been undertaken to identify, analyze and simulate the various fault modes of the SR generator. This research included an investigation of the generator's excitation requirements with and without faults. The investigation makes it possible to determine the size of the excitation source required during the initial build up of the generator's output voltage and under fault conditions. The SR machine, controller, EMI filter, excitation source and load were all modeled and integrated into a Matlab-Simulink model in order to analyze the SR generator system.


Runaway electron gamma-ray detection system, a novel hard x-ray (HXR) spectrometer optimized for bremsstrahlung radiation measurement from runaway electrons in fusion plasmas, has been developed. The detector is based on a 1'×1' LaBr3:Ce scintillator crystal coupled with a photomultiplier tube. The system has an energy dynamic range exceeding 20 MeV with an energy resolution of 3% at 661.7 keV. The detector gain is stable even under severe loads, with a gain shift that stays below 3% at HXR counting rates in excess of 1 MCps. The performance of the system enables unprecedented studies of the time-dependent runaway electron energy distribution function, as shown in recent runaway electron physics experiments at the ASDEX Upgrade and COMPASS tokamaks.


Despite the availability of chromatin conformation capture experiments, discerning the relationship between the 1D genome and 3D conformation remains a challenge, which limits our understanding of their affect on gene expression and disease. We propose Hi-C-LSTM, a method that produces low-dimensional latent representations that summarize intra-chromosomal Hi-C contacts via a recurrent long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network model. We find that these representations contain all the information needed to recreate the original Hi-C matrix with high accuracy, outperforming existing methods. These representations enable the identification of a variety of conformation-defining genomic elements, including nuclear compartments and conformation-related transcription factors. They furthermore enable in-silico perturbation experiments that measure the influence of cis-regulatory elements on conformation.


Introduction and hypothesis: In acute stroke patients the intensity of a FLAIR lesion in a region of diffusion restriction is associated with time from symptom onset. The DWI/FLAIR mismatch is currently used in trials for treatment of stroke patients with unknown onset time. However the accuracy of the DWI/FLAIR mismatch to predict symptom onset before 4.5h remains moderate. We hypothesized that collateral status, as assessed by the previously described hypoperfusion intensity ratio (HIR) could modify the association between time from stroke onset and FLAIR lesion intensity. Methods: From the 'Ax200 for ischemic stroke trial' 141 patients were included. Quantitative FLAIR maps were calculated in a voxel-based manner. For each voxel the relative signal intensity (rSI) was determined by the ratio of the signal intensity in that voxel and the median of the signal intensity in a sphere with radius 15mm positioned in the homologue voxel in the other hemisphere. Lesion volumes based on diffusion-weighted imaging and perfusion-weighted imaging were determined using RAPID software. The HIR was defined as the proportion of a Tmax >6 s lesion volume with a Tmax >10 s delay. A previously defined HIR-threshold of ≤ 0.4 dichotomized good versus poor collaterals. We studied the interaction between collateral circulation and the association between time from symptom onset and FLAIR intensity. Results: Time from symptom onset was associated with the mean FLAIR intensity in the region of non-reperfused core (b=1.05; 95%CI: 1.01-1.1). We identified an interaction between this association and collateral status (p=0.036). ROC analysis of FLAIR intensity to predict stroke onset before 4.5h showed an AUC of 0.66 (95% CI: 0. 49-0.83) for patients with good collaterals and 0.80 (95%CI: 0.71-0.90) for patients with poor collaterals. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the progression of FLAIR intensity with time varies depending on the quality of the collateral flow. Accordingly collateral circulation influences the accuracy of FLAIR lesion intensity to predict stroke onset before 4.5h. This could be of particular importance for clinical trials enrolling patients based on the DWI/FLAIR mismatch.


Electro-hydraulic proportional valve is widely used in large-scale manufacturing and heavy equipment in the field of machining, which ensures that the automation and precision manufacturing of key components of production process, it is the focus of work of performance monitoring and test equipment troubleshooting. At present, the high-performance electro-hydraulic proportional valve can be produced by the domestic manufacturers, however, it is the low level of test automation and poor reliability, in order to increase the efficiency of automated testing, reliable static and dynamic performance proportional valves. This study is put forward the performance automated test system of electro-hydraulic proportional valve which based on the principle of automatic test principle. Which can achieve the high efficient and reliable, automatic measurement of electro-hydraulic proportional valve.


The software programmable multiprocessor architecture has been employed extensively over the past two decades for embedded signal-processing applications. However, the increased complexity of such systems has, in many cases, required the use of hardware acceleration to meet the growing time-critical aspects of the design. Today's field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) offer an alternative or additional acceleration platform, especially to an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). However, the traditional low-level development methods, such as schematic capture or hardware description languages (HDLs), employed to implement these hardware accelerated parts of the design result in a design lifecycle mismatch between the rapid development techniques available for the software programmable parts. This paper presents high-level design languages that enable users to generate netlists for FPGAs directly from high-level C-like languages, thereby offering an equivalent programming solution to that available with microprocessors. It details how one of these languages can be integrated into a high-level design flow for the rapid development of heterogeneous embedded signal-processing systems and presents results from a benchmark.


Austenitic stainless steels have gathered wide acceptance in the fabrication of components, which require high temperature resistance and corrosion resistance, such as metal bellows used in expansion joints in aircraft, aerospace and petroleum industry. In case of single pass welding of thinner sections of this alloy, pulsed current micro plasma arc welding was found beneficial due to its advantages over the conventional continuous current process. The paper focuses on studying the effect of continuous current and pulsed current in welding AISI 304 L sheets using Micro Plasma Arc Welding (MPAW) process. Welding was carried out on 0.25 mm thick AISI 304 L sheets using continuous current mode and pulsed current mode separately keeping all other welding parameters constant. Weld quality characteristics like micro structure, hardness and tensile properties are investigated and it is found that the usage of pulsed current leads to better weld quality characteristics when compared to continuous current mode.


The effects of dexamethasone on the modulation of insulin secretion by recombinant human interleukin-1 beta (IL-1) were examined in HIT-T 15 cells. The addition of IL-1 from 1.2 x 10(-8) to 10(-10) M increased insulin secretion in the 0-4-h period after IL-1 administration and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production was suppressed by IL-1 from 1.2 x 10(-8) to 10(-12) M. At all doses used, IL-1 inhibited insulin secretion in the 4-24-h period after IL-1 administration and PGE2 levels were increased in the culture medium. In the second experiment, the addition of 10(-7) M dexamethasone prevented the inhibitory effects of IL-1 on insulin secretion. In the third experiment, dexamethasone at 10(-7) M attenuated both the short-term stimulation of insulin release and the long-term suppression of insulin release caused by IL-1. It also prevented the effects of IL-1 on PGE2 production. The present studies suggest that dexamethasone may have a suppressive action on the effects of IL-1 on in vitro insulin secretion.


Although the action of The House of Mirth begins in the upper-middle - class world and the heart of Manhattan, around Washington Square, that Edith Wharton knew so well, the reader is soon taken into successive parallel worlds that always go one notch down. All along the book, and particularly in the last pages, Wharton regularly draws on her intimate knowledge of the lay - out of the city, giving such specific geographical references that one might locate the characters on a map. These street scenes are pitted against indoor scenes which provide her with an opportunity to display what an eye she had for interior decoration. I shall therefore look at what specific places Wharton mentions and depicts and try to establish their function. However, since quite a number of scenes and episodes do not take place in New York (Book 1, for instance, depicts the Trenors' country residence, while Book 2 opens in Mont e Carlo), one may perhaps question the actual usefulness of such a precise setting. Indeed, Wharton seems to indicate that the location does not matter much as long as it is a place favoured by the very rich, into which they displace the way of life they are used to pursuing in New York; in other words, New York is not just a city, it is a society. What is also interesting, in this novel, is that Wharton is not content with describing the world of the very rich and the replica that the nouveaux riches and up starts strive to create (cheap, vulgar, garish, uncouth). She is also quite incisive in her depiction of the living conditions of the lower and working classes (and one may wonder whether she had first - hand knowledge of them): Nettie Struthers' place, the milliner's, Lily's room at the boarding - house, for example. A close look at the depictions of these places will lead me to try and assert their realism.


Facial pain is a rare presenting symptom of nonmetastatic lung carcinoma. Referred pain from tumor invasion and compression of the vagus nerve was the presumed cause in the 31 cases published to date. We report 2 additional cases having an unusual clinical feature, namely, both had radiographic evidence of malignancy absent on initial chest films. Severe facial pain in both cases was explained by pulmonary carcinoma detected only through further investigations. From these cases follows the notable conclusion that referred facial pain of malignant origin can occasionally precede the appearance of neoplasm on routine chest films. It is therefore important for physicians to be familiar with the clinical features of this syndrome in order to choose appropriate further diagnostic testing in patients who may be at risk.


The shikimate pathway, which produces aromatic amino acids and key intermediates, is critical to the viability of the tuberculosis-causing pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The enzyme 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase (DAHPS) catalyzes the first committed step of this pathway and possesses regulatory functions. Its active site contains two cysteinyls: one (Cys87) bound to a metal ion, while the other (Cys440) is in proximity to the first but is located on a connecting loop. This arrangement seemingly appeared as a disulfide linkage. However, Cys440 is not metal binding, and its positioning indicates that it could collapse the disulfide linkage. Hence, its potential role may be more than simply structural support of the active site fold. Using a multiscale computational approach, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, and DFT-based calculations, the influence of Cys440 on the active site properties has been investigated. MD simulations reveal an unusually long disulfide bond, more than 3.0 Å, whereas DFT calculations identified two stable active site conformers in the triplet and quintet spin states. Analysis of group spin density distribution identified antiferromagnetic coupling in each conformer, which suggests their relatively low potential energy and stable conformations. The conformer in the triplet spin state could favor enzyme reactivity due to its low HOMO–LUMO energy gap. In addition, reduction of the Cys440 thiolate group results in collapse of the active site metal–ligand configuration with large exothermicity. Hence, Cys440 could activate and inactivate the enzyme. For the first time, the study revealed the role of Cys440 as being vital for the catalytic activity of the enzyme rather than solely for the structural stabilization of its active site. Thus, the findings may lead to a novel basis for antituberculosis drug design and development that would disrupt the contributions of the Cys440.


The author examines trends in out-migration among young highly skilled Argentines with a focus on those of Italian descent. Data are from interviews conducted among young adults in Buenos Aires Mar del Plata and Rosario. Major factors influencing migration include perceived labor force and economic opportunities. (SUMMARY IN ENG) (ANNOTATION)


In this paper we present the methods implemented in the CLARCS (C++ Library for Automated Registration and Comparison of Surfaces) library. This library allows some basic and high level processing on free-form surfaces, represented as point sets or meshes. Three methods are the "building bricks" of CLARCS; they allow (i) the rigid/affine/non-linear registration of two point sets, (ii) the computation of the mid-sagittal plane of one point set, (iii) the computation of a mean point set from several point sets, and the variability around this mean. These methods are all based on a common methodological framework, in which the point sets/meshes are represented either as a Gaussian mixture model or as a draw of such a model. We propose some applications of the methods implemented in CLARCS on different sets of medical data.


Surgical techniques for the removal of vocal fold (VF) disorders that arise within the lamina propria must permit the preservation and/or restoration of VF vibratory characteristics. The endoscopic VF microflap is designed to do such. A retrospective study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of this procedure. Forty microflaps (7 bilateral, 1 revision) were performed on 32 patients. Charts and surgical pathology findings were reviewed. Preoperative and 3-month postoperative video recorded voice samples and stroboscopic examination results were compared. Findings on perceptual voice analysis did not significantly change. Stroboscopic examinations revealed improved postoperative VF closure in 27 of 29 patients with impaired preoperative closure and return of mucosal wave in 18 of 24 VFs operated on for the excision of cysts or polyps. When present preoperatively (6 patients), the mucosal wave was preserved. Most patients (28 of 30) rated themselves as clinically improved. The endoscopic VF microflap is efficacious in the treatment of selected VF disorders. The surgical technique is discussed.


Introduction: Natural habitats of the medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) are declining due to unsustainable collection, high demand, and high volume and continuous supply of the raw materials, and most recently due to global and regional climatic changes. Hence, there is a high need to alternate the original species in terms of plants and plant part use. Materials and Methods: Alternatives/substitution of an Ayurvedic, genuine, and grantha based, as per Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India species are studied and analyzed with taxonomical and phytochemicals points of view such as Rasa, Guna, Veerya, Vipaka, and Prabhava versus species, genus, family, and order along with bioactive chemical markers. Results and Discussion: Some of the RET, MAPs are belong to monotypic genus and some are also belong to IUCN red list category: Aconitum chasmanthum Stapf. ex Holmes, Aegle marmelos L., Aquilaria agallocha Roxb., Berberis aristata DC., Cissampelos pareira L., Commiphora wightii (Arnott) Bhandari, Embelia ribes (Burm.) F., Gmelina arborea Roxb., Hemidesmus indicus (L.) R. Br., Hydnocarpus kurzii (King) Warb, Nardostachys grandiflora Wall. ex DC., Oroxylum indicum (L.) Kurz, Picrorhiza kurrooa Royle, Pterocarpus santalinus L. f., Saraca asoca (Roxb.) Wild, Stereospermum suaveolens (Roxb.) DC, Swertia chirayita (Roxb. ex Flem.) Karst and Tecomella undulata (Sm.) Seems has been suggested for possible alternates with the plants and plant part use. Selection of substitution may be regional or disease-wise in particular but in general whole plants substitution required comprehensive study on botanical aspects, active phytoconstituents, biological active markers, and pharmacological activity.


ABSTRACT The acrosome is a cap-shaped, Golgi-derived membranous organelle that is located over the anterior of the sperm nucleus and highly conserved throughout evolution. Although morphological changes during acrosome biogenesis in spermatogenesis have been well described, the molecular mechanism underlying this process is still largely unknown. Family with sequence similarity 71, member F1 and F2 (FAM71F1 and FAM71F2) are testis-enriched proteins that contain a RAB2B-binding domain, a small GTPase involved in vesicle transport and membrane trafficking. Here, by generating mutant mice for each gene, we found that Fam71f1 is essential for male fertility. In Fam71f1-mutant mice, the acrosome was abnormally expanded at the round spermatid stage, likely because of enhanced vesicle trafficking. Mass spectrometry analysis after immunoprecipitation indicated that, in testes, FAM71F1 binds not only RAB2B, but also RAB2A. Further study suggested that FAM71F1 binds to the GTP-bound active form of RAB2A/B, but not the inactive form. These results indicate that a complex of FAM71F1 and active RAB2A/B suppresses excessive vesicle trafficking during acrosome formation.


Array imperfections may exist in an antenna system subject to non-ideal design and practical limitations. It is difficult to accurately model array imperfections, and thus complicated algorithms are usually inevitable for model-based methods to estimate the direction of arrival (DOA) with imperfect arrays. Deep neural network (DNN)-based methods do not need to rely on pre-modeled antenna array geometries, and have been explored to handle flawed array models because of their better flexibility than model-based methods. The DNN autoencoder (DAE) method has been proposed for the array imperfection problem, which decomposes the input into multiple components in different spatial subregions. These components have more concentrated distributions than the original input, which avoid a large number of connections and nodes used in the layers to realize DOA estimation classifiers. In this paper, we study the convolutional AE (CAE) method that substantially focuses on the learning of local features in a different manner from the previous DAE method. The advantage of the convolutional operation using a kernel in CAE is to capture features in a more efficient manner than the DAE, and thus be able to reduce the number of parameters that are required to be trained in the neural networks. From the numerical evaluation of DOA estimation accuracy, the proposed CAE method is also more resistant to the noise effect than the DAE method such that the CAE method has better accuracy at a lower signal-to-noise ratio.


City deals – place-based agreements between central and local state actors – are an increasingly common intervention for supporting economic performance in urban areas. This paper presents empirical evidence on the effectiveness of city deals by estimating the impact of the UK's City Deals scheme on rates of economic growth, productivity and job creation across England between 2010 and 2019. Because the City Deals were introduced in two waves, we estimate its effects using a differences-in-differences (DiD) with multiple time periods (MTPs) approach. Our DiD estimates indicate that, overall, the City Deals were associated with improvements in local economic performance, but that the first wave of city deals resulted in gains of around 2.5% to 3% that were not observed in the second wave. These results suggest that city deals are most effective when appropriate institutional structures are in place and highlight the value of MTP approaches.


Thermoplastic retainers are removable appliances used to prevent teeth from moving from their corrected position after orthodontic treatment. Polyethylene and polypropylene and copolymers of these are used to fabricate thermoplastic retainers.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cleaning agents, whitening gel and uniaxial tensile cyclic loading on the mechanical and thermal properties of thermoplastic orthodontic retainer materials.
The materials chosen for this investigation were: Essix ACE (polyethylene terephthalate) and Essix C+
(polypropylene), manufactured by Dentsply Raintree Essix, Florida, USA. Dumb-bell shaped specimens were fabricated using a thermal forming method for each test group from an acrylic template. Double-edge notched tension specimens were produced for tensile strength testing and un notched specimens for creep testing. Differential scanning calorimetry was used to understand the glass transition temperature and crystallinity of each material. For each characterisation both materials were initially tested dry and then following an immersion protocol in relevant cleaning and whitening solutions (distilled water, sodium hypochlorite, Retainer Brite and whitening gel).
Essix ACE demonstrated superior mechanical properties compared to Essix C+ in terms of tensile strength and creep. The use of cleaning agents or whitening gel in the short-term does not negatively affect the mechanical properties of either material.


Continuity of knowledge is the objective regularity of library science development. Library science is characterized by non- cumulated model of cognitive potential growth. The processes of new knowledge generation, actualization and complementation go on continuously, although unevenly, with varying degrees of intensity at different historical stages. The goal of the article is rationale for continuity and dynamics as the main instruments of library science knowledge development. The article is based on data analyses (including content-analyses) in the framework of methodology of inductive approach. Traditions and innovations are the main categories that provide continuality and dynamics in library knowledge growth and its further enhancement. The author considers the ideological impact on library science development, shows the influence of political changes on library science and the professional community. The article gives examples of Marxist ideology blocking the creation of new scientific ideas, determining the nature and content of research programs and the methodological tools chosen by scientists. Continuity in science can be strengthen by organization and fulfilling microhistorical researches. Portraits can creates a good basis for biographical and prosopographic research. Portraits of researchers presented in scientific, popular science, memoirs and other texts give an idea not only about their lives, but also about the features of the historical era. The role of creating portraits, as well as biographical and prosopographical research, is very important for understanding the processes of dynamics and continuity in the development of library science knowledge. Studying the professional career of practitioners and researchers allows getting answers to questions related to the origins of ideas, concepts, and theories, and helps tracing the complex path of transition from practical activities to library science. These types of research help to identify the social background of researchers, understand their beliefs and motivation to improve practice based on the use of scientific knowledge. Biographical and prosopographical research contributes to the removal of many misconceptions on the development of library science at different historical stages. Local history research is also important for studying and understanding the development of library science and the features of professional and personal life of researchers who have contributed to its cognitive enrichment. The integration of the results of local history, biographical and prosopographical research allows the creation a more complete picture of the development of library science in the historical perspective.


In Kansas, winter cover crops have a new interest with the development of summer crops for biofuel. When a crop is harvested for bioenergy, the residue is removed leaving the soil prone to erosion during the winter. It is possible that the use of winter cover crops may allow for more residue to remain in a field while keeping the soil from blowing. Therefore, the objective of this research was to determine the effect of two winter cover crops on the growth of two biofuel crops, corn (Zea mays L.) and forage sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] in a cornforage sorghum rotation. The two cover crops were a legume, Austrian winter pea (Pisum sativum var. arvense Poir.) and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Control plots were fallowed. The experiment was done for two years (2010 and 2011) at two locations: under rainfed conditions in Manhattan in the northeastern part of Kansas, where the soil was a Belvue silt loam (coarse-silty, mixed superactive non-acid, mesic Typic Udifluvents) and under irrigated conditions in Tribune in the western part of Kansas, where the soil was a Richfield silt loam (fine, smectitic, mesic Aridic Argiustolls). Two levels of nitrogen were added to the soil: 0 and 101 kg ha -1 N. Grain and stover yields of the corn and forage sorghum were determined at harvest of the crops in the fall, and dry matter production of the cover crops was determined at their termination in the springs of 2011 and 2012. Additional nitrogen fertilizer increased grain and stover yields in both growing seasons at both locations, except for Manhattan in 2010. During the second winter of the study, Austrian winter pea did not emerge in Manhattan, probably due to a combination of cold temperatures and drought. Austrian winter pea survived both winters at Tribune. Corn yielded more grain than did the forage sorghum in Manhattan in 2011 and in Tribune in 2011. This suggests that, under both rain-fed and irrigated conditions in Kansas, corn would potentially be more productive for bioenergy production than forage sorghum. The results of the study also showed that winter wheat for both Manhattan, Kansas, and Tribune, Kansas, should be the cover crop chosen, because of its ability to grow well during the off-season of the bioenergy crops and to provide soil cover during winter. WINTER COVER CROPS IN CORN AND FORAGE SORGHUM ROTATIONS IN THE GREAT PLAINS


Abstract Ethical aspects are of key importance in research and the development of technical systems. They play a major role when the societal impact of innovative products and new technologies is considered. However, ethics are already essential during technology development, especially when testing these technologies with human participants. The latter is becoming increasingly important when applying for project funding and for publishing peer reviewed journal papers. Responding to these needs, a local ethics committee at the Department of Psychology and Ergonomics at Technische Universität Berlin was founded in 2009. In this paper, we present an analysis of common pitfalls and blind spots that were detected by reviewers of this ethics committee. We studied the reviews of 98 applications for ethical approval. Results show that researchers (a) often lack concrete knowledge about potential ethical issues of their research and (b) that they might benefit from convenient tools to address relevant ethical challenges at early stages of product design. Based on the results of our analysis, we propose a set of six simple rules that can help to detect and to overcome most of the frequently appearing ethical issues.


An oral combination of piperazine and ivermectin was used over a 6-week period for treating three different colonies of mice or rats infested with Syphacia obvelata, Syphacia muris or Aspiculuris tetraptera. No acute toxic effect was found in transgenic lines of mice or rats with these products in a preliminary trial. The colonies were treated with piperazine, 2.1 mg/ml in tap water for 2 weeks, then with ivermectin, 0.007 mg/ml, in tap water for the third and fourth weeks, and finally with piperazine for two further weeks. Hygiene measures such as a complete cage change, thorough disinfection and cleaning of the rooms were associated with the treatment. All examinations subsequent to completion of treatment have proved negative for further parasites.


Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) was employed as a spectroscopic tool to detect Bisphenol A (BPA), a building block in polycarbonate and epoxy resins or an additive in other polymer plastics like PVC, which has an endocrine disruptor effect. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesized by using different reducing agents such as hydroxylamine (Ag@HX), citrate (Ag@Cit), borohydride (Ag@BH), and β-cyclodextrin (Ag@βCD) were employed, aiming to select the best standard SERS substrate. The lowest limit of quantification was reached at a concentration of 0.01 mM (2.3 μg/mL) of a sonicated aqueous solution by using Ag@Cit NPs and identifying two enhanced bands recorded at about 350 and 460 cm−1. In order to gain insight into the nature of the enhanced bands, and therefore into which mechanism governs the SERS signal, electrochemical spectra recorded at different electrode potentials were acquired and TD-DFT calculations were applied to a neutral silver complex of BPA, Ag2-BPA, and to its monohydroxylated chemical specie, Ag2-BPA(OH), which is present in sonicated solution. The calculated electronic structure and the resonance Raman spectra point out that a surface plasmon-like resonance inside the silver cluster dominates the SERS spectrum corresponding to the physisorbed BPA(OH) species, a charge transfer enhancement mechanism or an intramolecular resonance transition localized in the phenolic framework was then discarded.


The scatterplot matrix (SPLOM) is a commonly used technique for visualizing multiclass multivariate data. However, multiclass SPLOMs have issues with overdraw (overlapping points), and most existing techniques for alleviating overdraw focus on individual scatterplots with a single class. This paper explores whether animation using flickering points is an effective way to alleviate overdraw in these multiclass SPLOMs. In a user study with 69 participants, we found that users not only performed better at identifying dense regions using animated SPLOMs, but also found them easier to interpret and preferred them to static SPLOMs. These results open up new directions for future work on alleviating overdraw for multiclass SPLOMs, and provide insights for applying animation to alleviate overdraw in other settings.


In this paper, analytical formulas for the electric field generated by currents, charges, and magnetization in conductive, dielectric, and magnetic media are presented in the framework of the partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) method. Under the quasi-static hypothesis, assuming a Manhattan-type tessellation of the geometries and rectangular basis functions, the electric field is exploited in its contributions due to charges, currents, and magnetization. These different contributions require the computation of different type of integrals which are evaluated analytically. The mathematical derivations and the treatment of the singularities are described in detail. Two numerical examples are presented proving the accuracy of the proposed analytical formulas and their speed-up with respect to the numerical computation.


The microbial communities that inhabit the distal gut of humans and other mammals exhibit large inter-individual variation. While host genetics is a known factor that influences gut microbiota composition, the mechanisms underlying this variation remain largely unknown. Bile acids (BAs) are hormones that are produced by the host and chemically modified by gut bacteria. BAs serve as environmental cues and nutrients to microbes, but they can also have antibacterial effects. We hypothesized that host genetic variation in BA metabolism and homeostasis influence gut microbiota composition. To address this, we used the Diversity Outbred (DO) stock, a population of genetically distinct mice derived from eight founder strains. We characterized the fecal microbiota composition and plasma and cecal BA profiles from 400 DO mice maintained on a high-fat high-sucrose diet for ∼22 weeks. Using quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis, we identified several genomic regions associated with variations in both bacterial and BA profiles. Notably, we found overlapping QTL for Turicibacter sp. and plasma cholic acid, which mapped to a locus containing the gene for the ileal bile acid transporter, Slc10a2. Mediation analysis and subsequent follow-up validation experiments suggest that differences in Slc10a2 gene expression associated with the different strains influences levels of both traits and revealed novel interactions between Turicibacter and BAs. This work illustrates how systems genetics can be utilized to generate testable hypotheses and provide insight into host-microbe interactions. Author summary Inter-individual variation in the composition of the intestinal microbiota can in part be attributed to host genetics. However, the specific genes and genetic variants underlying differences in the microbiota remain largely unknown. To address this, we profiled the fecal microbiota composition of 400 genetically distinct mice, for which genotypic data is available. We identified many loci of the mouse genome associated with changes in abundance of bacterial taxa. One of these loci is also associated with changes in the abundance of plasma bile acids—metabolites generated by the host that influence both microbiota composition and host physiology. Follow up validation experiments provide mechanistic insights linking host genetic differences, with changes in ileum gene expression, bile acid-bacteria interactions and bile acid homeostasis. Together, this work demonstrates how genetic approaches can be used to generate testable hypothesis to yield novel insight into how host genetics shape gut microbiota composition.


At the heart of pragmatism is the refusal to accept the correspondence theory of truth and the idea that true beliefs are accurate representations of reality. At the heart of romanticism is the thesis of the priority of imagination over reason – the claim that reason can only follow paths that the imagination has broken. These two movements are both reactions against the idea that there is something non-human out there with which human beings need to get in touch. In this chapter I want to trace the connections between James' and Dewey's repudiation of what Heidegger called "the Western ontotheological tradition" and Shelley's claim that poetry "is at once the center and the circumference of knowledge." I shall begin with the quest for the really real. Common sense distinguishes between the apparent color of a thing and its real color, between the apparent motions of heavenly bodies and their real motions, between non-dairy creamer and real cream, and between fake Rolexes and real ones. But only those who have studied philosophy ask whether real Rolexes are really real. No one else takes seriously Plato's distinction between Reality with a capital R and Appearance with a capital A. That distinction is the charter of metaphysics. Parmenides jump-started the Western philosophical tradition by dreaming up the notion of Reality with a capital R. He took the trees, the stars, the human beings, and the gods and rolled them all together into a well-rounded blob called "the One."


The granting of free allowances by the Member State under Directive 2003/87/EC may involve a transfer of State resources for the reason that in such cases the State itself foregoes revenues that it could earn, were it to auction them. Free of charge allocation of emission allowances in the context of the general rule of auctioning of allowances from 2013, has to be regarded as an economic advantage, which the recipient undertaking would not have obtained under normal market conditions. If free allocation of allowances constitutes State aid in the meaning of Article 107 (1) of the TFEU, it will be incompatible with the internal market as a general rule and therefore prohibited. The Commission practice and Decisions of the Court of Justice considers that Article 107 (3)(c) of the TFEU is the only basis for the consideration of free of charge emission allowances as being compatible with the internal market. Moreover, we have to take into account if state aid might be covered by the scheme of general rules of assessment established in the Environmental Guidelines of 2008 and if so, under what conditions.


Gas hydrate is a solid compound mainly comprised of methane and water that is stable under low temperature and high pressure conditions. Usually found in offshore environments with water depths exceeding about 500 meters and in arctic regions associated with permafrost, gas hydrates form an efficient storage system for natural gas. Hence, they may represent an important future energy resource [e.g., Kvenvolden, 1988]. Gas hydrates also form a natural geo-hazard, and may play a significant role in global climate change [e.g., Dillon et al., 2001].


In this paper, a new structure of spatial-coded coating phosphor is proposed and effectively benefits the efficiency enhancement in the white light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The spatial-coded phosphor plate contains two subregions. One subregion is of the yellow phosphor for providing the greatest extracted yellow light, and the other subregion is the open windows for preventing the blue light from the absorption by the yellow phosphor and the Stoke loss in the wavelength conversion. In the design process, the thickness and the concentration of the phosphor and photon recycling in a high-reflectivity cavity are all simulated and optimized. Finally, the predicting spectra of the resultant white LEDs with the spatial-coded phosphors by the simulation model are all in very good agreement with the corresponding spectra from the practical measurements. Moreover, as the correlated color temperature (CCT) is around 6500 K, the maximal packaging efficiency of the white LEDs with the spatial-coded phosphors is as high as 68.0% in the measurement, and the corresponding simulation is 71.8%. It is much higher even than the optimal packaging efficiency of the conventional conformal or remote-dome phosphor packaging structure.


ABSTRACT In this study a sustained-release formulation of traditional Chinese medicine compound recipe (TCMCR) was developed by selecting heart-protecting musk pills (HPMP) as the model drug. Heart-protecting musk pellets were prepared with the refined medicinal materials contained in the recipe of HPMP. Two kinds of coated pellets were prepared by using pH-dependent methacrylic acid as film-forming material, which could dissolve under different pH values in accordance with the physiological range of human gastrointestinal tract (GIT). The pellets coated with Eudragit L30D-55, which dissolves at pH value over 5.5, were designed to disintegrate and release drug in the duodenum. The pellets coated with Eudragit L100–Eudragit S100 combinations in the ratio of 1:5, which dissolve at pH value 6.8 or above, were designed to disintegrate and release drug in the jejunum to ileum. The pellets coated with HPMC, which dissolves in water at any pH value, were designed to disintegrate and release drug in the stomach. Finally, the heart-protecting musk sustained-release capsules (HPMSRC) with a pH-dependent gradient-release pattern were prepared by encapsulating the above three kinds of coated pellets at a certain ratio in hard gelatin capsule. The results of dissolution of borneol (one of the active compounds of the TCMCR) in vitro demonstrated that the coating load and the pH value of the dissolution medium had little effect on the release rate of borneol from pellets coated with hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), but had a significant effect on the release rate of borneol from pellets coated with Eudragit L30D-55 or Eudragit L100–Eudragit S100 combinations in the ratio of 1:5. The pellets coated with Eudragit L30D-55 at 30% (w/w) coating load or above had little drug release in 0.1 mol/L HCl for 3 hr and started to release drug at pH value over 5.5. The pellets coated with Eudragit L100–Eudragit S100 combinations in the ratio of 1:5 at 36% (w/w) coating load or higher had little drug release in 0.1 mol/L HCl for 3 hr and in phosphate buffer of pH value 6.6 for 2 hr, and started to release drug at pH value 6.8 or above. The release profiles of lipophilic bornoel and hydrophilic total ginsenoside from HPMSRC, consisting of three kinds of pellets respectively coated at a certain ratio with HPMC, Eudragit L30D-55, and Eudragit L100–Eudragit S100 in the ratio of 1:5, showed a characteristic of pH-dependent gradient release under the simulated gastrointestinal pH conditions and no significant difference between them. The results indicated that various components with extremely different physicochemical properties in the pH-dependent gradient-release delivery system of TCMCR could release synchronously while sustained-releasing. This complies with the organic whole concept of compound compatibility of TCMCR.


In this paper, a novel color texture classification approach is introduced and applied to computer-assisted grading of follicular lymphoma from whole-slide tissue samples. The digitized tissue samples of follicular lymphoma were classified into histological grades under a statistical framework. The proposed method classifies the image either into low or high grades based on the amount of cytological components. To further discriminate the lower grades into low and mid grades, we proposed a novel color texture analysis approach. This approach modifies the gray level cooccurrence matrix method by using a nonlinear color quantization with self-organizing feature maps (SOFMs). This is particularly useful for the analysis of H&E stained pathological images whose dynamic color range is considerably limited. Experimental results on real follicular lymphoma images demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms the gray level based texture analysis.


"If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand." This statement by Howard Schultz carries profound truth in it. In order for any brand and its products to be successful in the market, they should be able to satisfy their consumers. Customers can be retained only when the company identifies the behavioral purchasing patterns of the consumers in a world constantly stuck among changing trends, technology and lifestyle. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the direct relationship between the unique selling methods adopted by Colgate and their diversification in the products that they offer and their combined effect on brand loyalty. This paper provides a preliminary understanding of the various factors that have contributed to the brand loyalty of Colgate over the decades and why people still continue to trust the brand despite having the discretion to switch to rival brands at almost similar prices.
The paper highlights the significance of the effect of brand loyalty on the sale of its products and how by adopting different marketing strategies, brands can retain old customers and attract new ones.


Even though extensive studies have been conducted on the effect of noise exposure on hearing apparatus / auditory system, information on the effect of noise on the other body functions is sparse. The present study examined the effect of exposure of albino rats to acute and chronic noise stress on two important interlaced endocrine levels. In acute experiments the animals were exposed to 120 dB noise for a duration of 1, 2, 3 hrs. In chronic experiments the animals were exposed to noise for one hour daily for 30, 60 and 90 days. Plasma corticosterone and leptin levels were measured in these animals. There was significant elevation in the levels of corticosterone and leptin after exposure to noise stress. The elevation in corticosterone level after noise stress is in agreement with earlier reports. So noise acts like a stressor and elevates the secretion of the corticosterone, the stress hormone and leptin, the product of the ob gene there is an elevation in leptin levels after noise stress.


It is a common practice to conduct medical trials to compare a new therapy with a standard‐of‐care based on paired data consisted of pre‐ and post‐treatment measurements. In such cases, a great interest often lies in identifying treatment effects within each therapy group and detecting a between‐group difference. In this article, we propose exact nonparametric tests for composite hypotheses related to treatment effects to provide efficient tools that compare study groups utilizing paired data. When correctly specified, parametric likelihood ratios can be applied, in an optimal manner, to detect a difference in distributions of two samples based on paired data. The recent statistical literature introduces density‐based empirical likelihood methods to derive efficient nonparametric tests that approximate most powerful Neyman–Pearson decision rules. We adapt and extend these methods to deal with various testing scenarios involved in the two‐sample comparisons based on paired data. We show that the proposed procedures outperform classical approaches. An extensive Monte Carlo study confirms that the proposed approach is powerful and can be easily applied to a variety of testing problems in practice. The proposed technique is applied for comparing two therapy strategies to treat children's attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and severe mood dysregulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Purpose: To present a patient with stellate nonhereditary idiopathic foveomacular retinoschisis on one eye and peripheral retinoschisis without foveal affection on the other eye. Methods: A case report with complete workup of family history and clinical examination, including multimodal imaging with optical coherence tomography and angiography, fluorescein angiography, and infrared fundus imaging. Genetic testing for gene mutation XRLS1 was performed. Results: A white woman with unremarkable medical history presented with stellate foveal splitting of the outer plexiform layer on the right eye and peripheral splitting of the outer plexiform layer on both eyes. All known allegeable trigger factors for the existence of a hereditary or acquired foveomacular retinoschisis were ruled out either by clinical presentation or genetic testing. This led to the diagnosis of stellate nonhereditary idiopathic foveomacular retinoschisis with central involvement only present on one eye. Conclusion: Although peripheral schisis of the outer plexiform layer is often concomitant with central splitting in X-linked juvenile retinoschisis, this is the first known report of nonhereditary cleavage of the outer plexiform layer of the peripheral retina without central affection in a patient with documented stellate nonhereditary idiopathic foveomacular retinoschisis on the other eye. These findings suggest an accurate bilateral examination of the peripheral retina while confirming the diagnose of stellate nonhereditary idiopathic foveomacular retinoschisis.


This paper presents an intelligent hybrid scheme for short-term electric load forecasting using multilayered perceptrons. The hybrid neural network uses the membership values of the linguistic properties of the past load and weather parameters and the output of the network is defined as the fuzzy class membership values of the forecasted load. A hybrid learning algorithm consisting of unsupervised and supervised learning phases is used for training of the feedforward neural network. In the unsupervised learning phase optimal fuzzy membership values of input/output variables are obtained along with the optimal fuzzy logic rules. Kalman filter is used for the supervised learning phase. Extensive tests have been performed on a two-year utility data for the generation of peak and average load profiles in 24 and 168 hours ahead time frame. Results for typical winter and summer months are given to confirm the effectiveness of the hybrid scheme in comparison to standard ANN approach using backpropagation algorithm.


In the shot peening process, the residual stress on the shot-peened surface and its distribution under the surface are important evaluation items for the high value-added surface creation. In this paper, it was proposed that the residual stress distribution under the shot-peened surface for a thin plate was non-destructively estimated from the measured value of residual stress on the surface and that of the arc height, by applying the theory of linear thermal stress analysis for a thin plate. The analyzed residual stress profile showed good agreement with that of the experimental results obtained from the surface removal by electro-polishing. From the results of analysis, it was found that the depth of compressive residual stress (the depth which changes from the compressive stress to the tensile stress), the residual stress at the depth of the inherent strain and the residual stress on the opposite surface to the shot-peened surface characterizing the profile of residual stress distribution had a relationship with the ratio of a thickness of plate to an inherent strain depth.


The origin of certain portions of the ballistocardiographic pattern has been discussed only briefly in the physiological literature. Starr and his associates (1) have given letter designations to the salient peaks and troughs and have discussed in some degree the origin of the I and J waves. Hamilton and his coworkers (2, 3) have suggested that the pattern may be due in part to the oscillations of the blood mass within the larger portions of the arterial tree. It is the purpose of the work being presented here to consider the results of some simple experiments which help elucidate in broad outline the significance of several parts of the ballistocardiograph pattern. Two sources of information have been tapped in this study, to wit, model experiments and clinical observations. The ballistocardiograph used in this investigation was not the instrument constructed by the workers mentioned above but was the low frequency, critically damped instrument designed by Nickerson and Curtis (4). The heart model built for the study of the ventricular contribution to the ballistic pattern was a simple onechamber device. This model ignores the asynchronism which sometimes appears between the ejection of the left and right ventricles (5, 6) and also ignores the auricular contribution to the impacts, a problem which will be dealt with in a different fashion.


Four major geopolitical developments have the potential to impact on the flow of oil supplies from the Arab Gulf region: Iran's nuclear programme, the US shale oil revolution, the natural gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean and the steep-rising domestic oil consumption among the Arab Gulf States and a lack of a meaningful diversification of their economies. Whilst Iran's nuclear programme with the inherent risk of war in the Gulf could have direct and serious impact on the flow of oil from the region and the price of oil, its adverse impact would be short-lived. On the other hand, both the US shale oil revolution and the eastern Mediterranean gas discoveries would virtually have no impact. However, the real threat to oil supplies from the Gulf region in the long term actually comes from the steeply-rising domestic oil consumption among the Gulf States and a lack of meaningful diversification of their economies. This means they will have to cut their domestic oil consumption drastically or replace oil with nuclear power and solar energy for electricity-generation and water desalination. Failing to do either would result in their relegation to minor crude oil exporters by 2025 or ceasing to remain oil exporters by 2032 altogether.


Multiple-head array systems, which allow reading and writing of data simultaneously on multiple tracks, can potentially provide both high density and high speed, but the readback signal in such systems is corrupted by intertrack interference (ITI) in addition to intersymbol interference (ISI). In this paper, we report on the performance of a multitrack system and propose a low-complexity multitrack soft-error-event decoder (SEED) to counter the effects of ISI and ITI. The multitrack SEED is based on a high-rate Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem code, and is capable of correcting most frequent error events produced by the channel. Used in conjunction with a joint partial response equalizer followed by an ITI equalizer, the SEED scheme provides a gain of 0.5-2 dB at a bit-error rate of 10/sup -4/ relative to an uncoded system.


A model that gives rise to vacuum bubbles is considered where the domain wall field interacts with another real scalar field, resulting in the formation of domain ribbons within the host domain wall. Ribbon-antiribbon annihilations produce elementary bosons whose mass inside the wall is different from the mass in vacuum. Two cases are considered, where the bosons get trapped either within the bubble wall or the bosons get trapped within the vacuum enclosed by the bubble. The bosonic (meta)stabilization effect on the bubble is examined in each case. It is found that when the bosons become trapped within the bubble wall, the stabilization mechanism lasts for only a limited amount of time, and then the bubble undergoes unchecked collapse. However, when the bosons become trapped within the bubble's interior volume, the bubble can be long-lived, provided that it has a sufficiently thin wall.


Background/Aims: Knockdown of protein tyrosine phosphatase nonreceptor type 2 (PTPN2) exaggerates IFN-γ-induced intestinal barrier defects, but mice constitutively lacking PTPN2 in epithelial cells (PTPN2xVilCre mice) do not show changes in epithelial function or enhanced susceptibility to experimental colitis. Here, we investigated whether PTPN2 modulates the expression of related tyrosine phosphatases. Methods: PTPN2 knockdown in HT-29 cells was induced using siRNA constructs. Acute colitis in PTPN2xVilCre mice was induced by 2% dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in drinking water for 7 days. Colitis-associated tumors were induced by injection of azoxymethane prior to treatment with DSS for 3 consecutive cycles. Results: In HT-29 cells, PTPN2 depletion resulted in enhanced mRNA expression of PTPN11 and PTPN23 and in parallel to upregulation of IL-18 mRNA upon treatment with TNF for 24 h. DSS treatment of PTPN2-deficient mice resulted in a strong induction of Ptpn23 mRNA in colon tissue in vivo. In the tumor model, Ptpn23 mRNA was again clearly upregulated in nontumor tissue from PTPN2-deficient mice; however, this was not observed in tumor tissue. Conclusions: Our experiments show that PTPN23 function might, at least partially, compensate lack of PTPN2 in epithelial cells. Upregulation of PTPN23 might therefore crucially contribute to the lack of a colitis phenotype in PTPN2-VilCre mice.


At the beginning of each parliamentary session, almost all European governments give a speech in which they present the government's policy priorities and legislative agenda for the year ahead. Despite the body of literature on governments in European parliamentary democracies, systematic research on these executive policy agendas is surprisingly limited. In this article the authors study the executive policy agendas—measured through the policy content of annual government speeches—over the past 50 years in three Western European countries: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Contrary to the expectations derived from the well-established "politics matters" approach, the analyses show that elections and change in partisan color have little effect on the executive issue agendas, except to a limited extent for the United Kingdom. In contrast, the authors demonstrate empirically how the policy agenda of governments responds to changes in public problems, and this affects how political parties define these problems as political issues. In other words, policy responsibility that follows from having government power seems much more important for governments' issue agendas than the partisan and institutional characteristics of governments.


—Modern programs are monolithic, combining code of varied provenance without isolation, all the while running on network-connected devices. A vulnerability in any component may compromise code and data of all other components. Compartmentalization separates programs into fault domains with limited policy-defined permissions, following the Principle of Least Privilege, preventing arbitrary interactions between components. Unfortunately, existing compartmentalization mechanisms target weak attacker models, incur high overheads, or overfit to specific use cases, precluding their general adoption. The need of the hour is a secure, performant, and flexible mechanism on which developers can reliably implement an arsenal of compartmentalized software. We present SecureCells, a novel architecture for intra-address space compartmentalization. SecureCells enforces per-Virtual Memory Area (VMA) permissions for secure and scal-able access control, and introduces new userspace instructions for secure and fast compartment switching with hardware-enforced call gates and zero-copy permission transfers. SecureCells enables novel software mechanisms for call stack maintenance and register context isolation. In microbenchmarks, SecureCells switches compartments in only 8 cycles on a 5-stage in-order processor, reducing cost by an order of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art. Consequently, SecureCells helps secure high-performance software such as an in-memory key-value store with negligible overhead of less than 3%.


HER3 is a member of the Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (HER) family. HER3 is a kinase dead receptor, but by forming heterodimers with other HER family receptors, HER3 works as amplifier for PI3 kinase driven tumorigenesis. It has been reported that tumors treated with EGFR-, HER2- or cMET-targeted therapies can escape via HER3 activation or upregulation. HER3 is expressed in a large variety of tumors for example in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), head and neck, colorectal, gastric, pancreatic, breast, ovarian and prostate cancer. Anti-HER3 antibodies can work via various mechanisms including: (1) blocking ligand (HRGs) binding to the receptor, (2) blocking heterodimerization with other HER family members (HER1, 2 and 4), (3) downregulation of the receptor from the cell surface, and (4) engaging immune effector functions such as antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). The first three mechanisms lead to inhibition of HER3 phosphorylation and downstream signaling thereby resulting in tumor cell growth inhibition, while ADCC is a mechanism of direct target cell killing triggered by cross-linking of Fc receptors on immune effector cells (e.g. NK cells, macrophages). GE-huMab-HER3 is a novel humanized and glycoengineered IgG1 antibody that binds to HER3 with high affinity. This antibody prevents ligand binding and receptor heterodimerization thereby blocking receptor phosphorylation. In various tumor xenograft models treatment with this antibody leads to substantial tumor growth inhibition. E.g. GE-huMab-HER3 treatment achieved >50% tumor growth inhibition in 10 out of 17 NSCLC models and in some cases even resulted in complete tumor remission. However, these xenograft experiments only reveal part of this antibody9s therapeutic potential. A unique feature of GE-huMab-HER3 that differentiates it from other anti-HER3 antibodies, including AMG 888 and MM-121, is its ability to bind to human FcgRIIIa on immune effector cells with a 50-fold higher affinity than standard IgG1 antibodies, a property conferred by the engineered glycosylation of the antibody Fc region. Consequently, GE-huMab-HER3 exhibits superior potency and efficacy in ADCC, as shown in vitro using recombinant A549 cells and in vivo by its Fc mediated greater anti-tumor effect in A549 orthotopic mouse models compared to a non-glyco-engineered variant of the antibody, WT-huMab-HER3. The combination of strong signaling inhibition and enhanced ADCC capability renders GE-huMabHER3 a highly potent HER3-targeting agent. Phase I clinical testing of this promising novel compound is ongoing. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2508. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-2508


Tillage systems and crop rotation significantly affect soil carbon and soil productivity in the long-term, including the physical, biological, and chemical soil quality indicators. Additionally, tillage systems and crop rotation control weed and soilborne diseases. There is a need for a well-defined, long-term tillage and crop rotation study across the different soil types and climate conditions in the state. The objective of this study was to evaluate the long-term effects of different tillage systems and crop rotations on soil quality and productivity.


A rare case of regression of a lesion resembling pyogenic granuloma after endodontic treatment of a maxillary lateral incisor in a 16-year-old female patient is reported. After clinical and radiographic examination, the maxillary right lateral incisor was endodontically treated in two visits. At the second visit, clinical regression of the exophytic lesion was evident and the size of this lesion had been greatly decreased, so was not biopsied. After 3 weeks, the exophytic lesion had totally disappeared. This case report indicates that surgical excision of exophytic lesions resembling pyogenic granuloma is not necessary in all situations.


Inexperienced researchers often learn how to do research from the many methodology text books that are available. These are useful, but what might be more valuable would be an opportunity to learn what works and, just as importantly, what does not work from those who have already navigated the research process. They have planned their research, started their journey and been forced to respond to the everyday challenges of real world research.