Due to promulgation of data over internet significance of protection of one's intellectual property is the important topic with technological and legal aspects. Watermarking scheme is used for establishing the ownership of dataset containing multiple objects. As watermarking scheme distorts distance relationship graph, methodology preserves utility of dataset by preserving important distance properties such as nearest neighbor (NN) and minimum spanning tree (MST) of the original data set. We use fast algorithms for NN and MST which gives improved security without any sacrifice in distance relationships then NN and MST algorithms used earlier.


Research was performed to show the impact of several types of pretreatment at Water Treatment Plant, Andijk, on the Advanced Oxidation Process. The objective was to compare the effect of Ion Exchange with Ultra Filtration (IX-UF) pretreatment to the existing Coagulation, Sedimentation, Filtration (CSF) pretreatment on the effectiveness of the UV/H2O2 process. The micro-pollutants chosen for this study are NDMA, atrazine, 1,4-dioxane and bromacil. Characterization of the water matrixes for the pretreated waters was completed to determine the impact of background absorption (DOC and nitrate) on micro pollutant degradation and OH· radical production. Collimated beam studies (MP UV) were performed to determine rate constants (kd ,D), quantum yields (phi), and ROH,UV. Simplified modeling showed that phi and kd, for NDMA were in the same order of magnitude for all water types. For 1,4-dioxane the ROH, UV values were strongly impacted by the water matrix. Pilot studies were completed to determine the efficiency of the two pretreatment techniques in terms of electrical energy consumption (EEO). Results showed EEO is strongly impacted by pretreatment. A reduction of 50% in EEO can be achieved by IX-UF in comparison with CSF.


The most recent extant studies on Korean communication were carried out in the 1990's. Thus, the purpose of this study is to test and thereby update research on Korean in contrast to American communication practices. Students in Korea and the US filled out questionnaires testing their direct, indirect, immediate, verbally aggressive and communicatively apprehensive communication. This study quantitatively tested the impact of culture on direct, indirect communication as well as verbal aggressiveness and communication apprehensiveness. Results showed that Koreans use less direct and more indirect communication than US Americans and that Koreans were also more communicatively apprehensive and less nonverbally immediate than their US American counterparts. Tests on culture and verbal aggressiveness were not significant.


The topic of bilingualism and its influence on executive control development is an active field of research. Executive controls are high-level processes that affect an individual's ability to concentrate, shift between tasks and successfully complete various goal-directed performances such as those that support academic achievement. This paper discusses the effect of bilingualism on three primary executive controls, namely inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility. With a focus on early bilingualism, this paper reviews several studies on the consequences of early bilingual development on children's executive control. The main findings indicate that early bilingual children outperform monolingual children on tasks such as the Attention Network Task (ANT) and the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS) as well as other tasks requiring the use of executive control. These studies support the bilingual advantage hypothesis. The hypothesis suggests that bilingual children that have been exposed to two languages from an early age and continued to actively use two languages, develop increased inhibition control and task-switching abilities. Because of conflicting research outcomes in studies on the connection between early bilingual individual's performance on executive control tasks and working memory, this paper focuses mostly on early bilingual's inhibition control and cognitive flexibility. The studies reviewed in this paper presented consistent results regarding bilingual children's performance on tasks involving inhibition control. Inhibition processes, especially the ability to control attention from a distracting stimulus is of focus in this review since it is believed to influence the other two primary executive controls, working memory and cognitive flexibility. The paper examines how the bilingual experience, that is, the maintenance of two languages in the mind and the constant switching from one language to another language influences executive control. The final topic of this paper reviews and discusses how executive control influences individual's goal-directed performances relevant to academic achievement. Table of


This study aims to develop the program for active solar heating system design & analysis. The program, named ASOLis, is consisted of three user's interface like as system input/output, library, and utilities and used TRNSYS as a calculation engine for the system analysis. ASOLis simplifies user's input data through the database and can design 37 different types of solar systems. Solar system is configurated by two separated parts "solar thermal collecting part" and "load supplying part". Due to the user-friendly layout, all design parameters can be changed quickly and easily for the influence on system efficiency. For the reliability, ASOLis compared with experimental result. As a result, ASOLis is expected to be used as a vital tool for the design and analysis of active solar heating system.


N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (NMU), a potent carcinogen in laboratory animals, has been shown to have a retinotoxic effect in Syrian hamsters. Six animals received two 5-mg doses of NMU intravenously at weekly intervals and six other animals received a single 5-mg dose. The retinal changes were fairly uniform and bilateral. The earliest lesion, observed at seven days consisted of arcades confined to the outer nuclear layer. The pigment epithelium revealed degenerative changes. Later there was widespread destruction of the rods and outer nuclear layer. The end stage consisted of a thin remnant of retina with an attenuated inner nuclear layer in direct contact with the choroid. There was intraretinal migration of pigment. The optic nerve and the anterior ocular structures including the lens showed no abnormality.


Active probe is the main method for Internet end-toend available bandwidth estimation. Based on the analysis of packet gap in active probing, an improved method to estimate available bandwidth is proposed, which is based on the concept of self-induced congestion. In this method, the transmission rates of probe packets are increased step by step and a new decision criteria, NWID (Normalized Weighted Increased Delay), is defined. Another idea is that sliding-window decision is adopted to obtain the available bandwidth in one measurement. Simulation and test results show that the measurement precision is improved with slightly adding probing overhead compared with pathChirp.


Declining fertility, increasing life expectancy and the effect of the 'baby boomer' generation moving into older age groups has contributed to an increase in the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over. This trend will continue over years, to such an extent, that the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over will grow, from the current 13% to 25% by 2051. Demographic changes and urban policies/governance issues are major concerns in cities, and it is expected to have a significant impact on cities in the future. The changing age profile, along with lifestyle and work pattern changes, will effect the future housing arrangements and urban development. The aim of this paper is to examine the consequences of ageing on urban development and housing in South Australia. The research found that current and future housing requirements of older South Australians, varies within and between some groups/cohorts and this differentiation was clearly related to where people live, their age, socio-economic status and the assets they hold. 'Ageing in situ' or 'ageing in place', is seen as a more preferred option by the aged people. There is a strong need to offer more support for ageing in place and options for appropriate and affordable accommodation in suitable locations with a right house design.


In the early 1970s, before the passage of Roe v. Wade, an underground feminist group in Chicago performed an estimated eleven thousand illegal abortions. Women's liberation groups formed abortion referral services across the country, but the Abortion Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, known colloquially as "Jane" after the pseudonym its members adopted, was distinct, and its story has lingered in feminist consciousness while others have not. Members eventually performed abortions themselves, despite lacking formalized medical training, putting the procedure into women's own hands. As the pro-choice community began to fear the erosion of abortion rights, Jane stories gained new currency as tales of women's resilience in the face of unjust legal restrictions. This essay explores how Jane's story has been told, beginning just after the group's dissolution in 1973 and ending in the present—when the group became part of the consciousness of a new generation. Jane members took an increasingly active role in telling their story through interviews and memoirs. Younger women in turn represented them in a variety of media that serve as sites of intergenerational communication. These include documentaries, zines, blogs, and a play. I argue that while Jane members and their contemporaries have been concerned with fashioning their historical legacies, their audience of younger women has eagerly adopted and interpreted their story on their own terms. In this process of remembering, Jane stands as a case study in both the making and using of second-wave feminist history.


To counter widely held negative images of long-term care, managers in the industry should implement quality-improvement initiatives that include six key strategies: Manage the expectations of residents and their families. Address customers' concerns early. Build long-term customer satisfaction. Allocate resources to achieve exceptional outcomes in key areas. Respond to adverse events with compassion. Reinforce the facility's credibility.


Abstract This article analyses the rise of political Islam in Turkey in the context of the akp's tenure in power with reference to complex social, economic, historical and ideational factors. It aims to answer one of the key questions, which has wider implications for the West and Islamic world: 'having experienced the bad and good of the West in secularism and democracy', as claimed by Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilisations' thesis, is Turkey in transition from a secular to an Islamic state? The article first questions Turkey's 'bridge' or 'torn-country' status and then explains the akp's ambivalent policies towards religious and identity issues in relation to the increased public visibility of Islam and a 'performative reflexivity' of 'Muslim-selves'. It concludes that the real issue at stake is not the assumed clash of secular and Muslim identities but the complex of interdependence between Islam, secularism and democratisation in Turkey.


This project assessed the contraception and sexual health needs of people aged under 25 years in the small town of Staveley, UK, and sought to determine how the community family planning service could best meet these needs. One hundred and seventeen young people and 17 local professionals took part. The preferred ideal was found to be a holistic youth service based in an accessible, non-clinic setting. Clinic-based services should be more user-friendly, and various ways to achieve this were suggested. Both clients and professionals need greater awareness of all local services.


As editor of The Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter, I am excited to see new books that treat texts related to Roanoke colonization, such as Thomas Hariot's  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, especially when looked at in conjunction with the Theodore de Bry engravings that accompanied the publication of some of the editions of Hariot's work. My interest is piqued even further when such a text is juxtaposed to a discussion of the various editions of Bartolomé de las Casas's  Brevissima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indies) as translated into English between  and . Moreover, these are but two of the many items covered by Thomas Scanlan in Colonial Writings and the New World, –: Allegories of Desire. Other texts discussed include Jean de Léry's  History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil; Edmund Spenser's  A View of the Present State of Ireland; sermons promoting English colonization in North America by Robert Gray, William Symonds, William Crashaw, and John Donne delivered and published between  and  (which Scanlan labels theVirginia sermons); RogerWilliams's AKey into the Language of America; and John Eliot's  Indian Dialogues. As this list indicates, Scanlan's book is broad in coverage, yet its topic is much more focused—the use of writing about native Americans in the discussion of colonial endeavors, especially those inNorthAmerica, to create of a sense of English nationalism.While there are some problems with Scanlan's book, the issues he raises have enough interest and validity to make Colonial Writings and the New World a useful entry into the discussion of early American writing.


We have developed a 780nm 40ch VCSEL array for laser printers. Low thermal resistance has been achieved by improving the layer construction, with the result that laser power changing due to self-heating and thermal interference in the array have been stabilized. Moreover, single-mode high power and stable polarization have been achieved by GaInPAs strained quantum wells grown on 15° off GaAs substrate and anisotropically-shaped transverse mode filter on the output surface.


DNA methylation occurs early in tumorigenesis and is highly pervasive across cancer types, making it suitable for early detection and intervention of cancer. Gene expression at the transcription level is reflected by epigenetic regulation of chromosome especially DNA methylation, therefore providing a parallel approach to achieve the same goal. Non-invasive and real-time gene expression profiling was performed on plasma circulating cell-free mRNA (cell free m-RNA) enriched from cancer patients using proprietary high sensitivity RT-qPCR assays. A plasma cell free m-RNA expression database covering 750 genes in 9 major cancer pathways was established with multiple layers of cancer type-specific characteristics: (i) the distribution of cell free m-RNA species across 9 major cancer pathways; (ii) the differential expression of target genes (high, medium or low expression); (iii) the global cell free m-RNA expression landscape in circulation; and (iv) the unique cell free m-RNA signatures to differentiate lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer. These novel blood-based metrics and biomarkers can be deployed for early detection and stratification of cancer.


Ammonium nitrogen was removed from pretreated domestic sewage using a natural zeolite-clinoptilolite, applying a column with downflow regime. The pretreated wastewater had an average total ammonium nitrogen (TAN) of 23 mg l-1. Ion exchange was allowed to take place under normal sewage treatment plant conditions and tropical temperature setting. The sorption capacity of the natural clinoptilolite was studied with the column fitted to a chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT)-upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) system, operating at 33°C. Optimal operational cation exchange capacity (CEC) of 14 g TAN kg-1 zeolite was obtained for the zeolite granulometry of 1-2.5 mm in a reversible way. The treatment was done at 3.9 bed volumes (BV) per day, and breakthrough was attained after about 560 BV. Regeneration of exhausted zeolite was effected with a 25 g NaCl l-1 salt solution, rendering the column amenable to reuse. Employing a 3-column test and bed contact times of 6, 2.6 and 1.1 minutes, the use of pretreated wastewater with average concentration of 38 mg NH4 +-N l-1 showed that the operational cation exchange capacity also depended on flow rate, with the removal efficiency decreasing from 95 to 47 % with increase in the flow rate. Overall, the approach of removing TAN from digested sewage offers potential to recover the TAN from the domestic wastewater, thus minimizing the need for subsequent nitrification-denitrification of the whole water volume.


Quantitative changes of extranucleolar RNP-structures were studied on ultrathin cell sections of hepatocytes in the first hours after partial hepatectomy of guinea pigs. This purpose in mind, the sections were treated according to Bernhard. In 2.5 hours after the operation, the relation quantity of perichromatin and interchromatin fibrils increased, whereas the number of perichromatin and interchromatin granules decreased. Therefore the early response of hepatocytes to the proliferative stimulus represents not only intensification of the synthesis of a newly formed hnRNA but also enhancement of the processing and transport of this RNA. After 5 hours the relative quantity of both types of RNP-fibrils diminished to the control level, while the number of perichromatin granules was even smaller than that in the previous case. This points out that the transcription of the extranucleolar RNA becomes less active, and the processing and transport of the earlier synthetized RNA continues. Within the next time lapse (9 hours) the relative quantity of all the studied RNP-structures was low, the content of perichromatin granules being dramatically decreased as compared to that after 5 hours. A comparison of changes in RNP-structures with the degree of condensation of chromatin allows a conclusion that the decondensation of some part of condensed chromatin after 2.5 and 9 hours is functionally different. If initially it is required for the intensification of the template synthesis, thereafter it may be connected with the preparation for replication.


Lice are parasitic infections that can infect humans and survive by consuming host blood. They are most commonly associated with a lack of hygiene and occur most commonly in school-age children, homeless populations, and densely populated areas. Lice infections can potentially lead to vector-containing illness and are rarely complicated by acute blood loss anemia. These side effects, while exceedingly rare, are often very significant and potentially life-threatening. Here we present a rare case of severe anemia found in a patient with chronic lice colonization. We hope our findings will broaden the differential for acute anemias and raise awareness of lice infection as a possible cause of acute anemia.


Rhomphaea sp. from New Zealand captures other spiders which wander onto its web, and ventures onto other spiders' webs to capture the resident. Rhomphaea captures spiders by using aggressive mimicry to lure the victim and by throwing a sticky triangular net over the prey. The importance of this unusual method of capturing spiders is discussed in relation to the evolution of this spider.


Stochastic Gradient Descent Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) algorithms, which add noise to the classic gradient descent, are known to improve the training of neural networks in some cases where the neural network is very deep. In this paper we study the possibilities of training acceleration for the numerical resolution of stochastic control problems through gradient descent, where the control is parametrized by a neural network. If the control is applied at many discretization times then solving the stochastic control problem reduces to minimizing the loss of a very deep neural network. We numerically show that Langevin and Layer-Langevin algorithms improve the training on various stochastic control problems like hedging and resource management, and for different choices of gradient descent methods.


Two techniques, radicel-soaking and seedling root-cutting inoculation, were established according to the effects of disease rate in seedling stage for evaluation of resistance of yardlong bean (Vigna sesquipedalis) to fusarium wilt disease (Fusarium oxsporum f. sp. tracheiphilum). 28 lines were screened for resistance against this pathogen. The results showed that root-cutting inoculation method was suitable for evaluating the resistance of yardlong bean seedling. Among 28 lines, there were 3 resisitant, 12 middle, 8 susceptible and 5 high susceptible. The line Fengchan No2 was the resistant with good pod quality.


This work provides an efficient statistical electrothermal simulator for analyzing on-chip thermal reliability under process variations. Using the collocation-based statistical modeling technique, first, the statistical interpolation polynomial for on-chip temperature distribution can be obtained by performing deterministic electrothermal simulation very few times and by utilizing polynomial interpolation. After that, the proposed simulator not only provides the mean and standard deviation profiles of on-chip temperature distribution, but also innovates the concept of thermal yield profile to statistically characterize the on-chip temperature distribution more precisely, and builds an efficient technique for estimating this figure of merit. Moreover, a mixed-mesh strategy is presented to further enhance the efficiency of the developed statistical electrothermal simulator.
 Experimental results demonstrate that (1) the developed statistical electrothermal simulator can obtain accurate approximations with orders of magnitude speedup over the Monte Carlo method; (2) comparing with a well-known cumulative distribution function estimation method, APEX [Li et al. 2004], the developed statistical electrothermal simulator can achieve 215× speedup with better accuracy; (3) the developed mixed-mesh strategy can achieve an order of magnitude faster over our baseline algorithm and still maintain an acceptable accuracy level.


Background: Canine lymphoma is one of the most commonly reported hematopoietic tumors. Aim: A few retrospective studies have involved complex evaluations including diagnostic features and treatment protocols, but these studies infrequently demonstrate variable factors that affect survival time, and comparisons among chemotherapeutic protocols are limited. This study aimed to identify prognostic factors that can be simply detected in dogs with lymphoma, such as abnormalities in physical and hematologic findings, and treatment protocols. Methods: Clinical records of 77 dogs diagnosed with lymphoma were retrospectively reviewed. Results: The author newly identified leukocyte and platelet abnormalities as negative prognostic factors. Furthermore, this study suggests that decreased gastrointestinal toxicity and improvements of hematologic abnormalities, such as anemia, thrombocytopenia, and lymphocytosis or lymphoblasts, in peripheral blood during chemotherapy act as positive prognostic factors. Finally, strict adherence to therapeutic protocol and selecting multiple agents as rescue protocol are important to prolong survival time. Conclusion: This study identified indicators to be used as prognostic factors through survival analysis.


A fundamental study to correlate the transient space charge and electroluminescence (EL) emission in cross-linked polyethylene under high dc stress (ca 136 kV mm−1) is proposed. Space charge profiles were analysed by the pulsed electro-acoustic method under transient conditions in order to infer from where carriers are generated, how they are transported and how the space charge decays after being formed. The information is used to interpret transient EL signals obtained under similar stress conditions. It is shown that both positive and negative charges are injected from the electrodes. Injected positive and negative charges propagate with similar speed and meet in the bulk about 600 s after the application of the step voltage. A strong luminescence is observed soon after the step voltage application and decays quickly within several tens of seconds. Subsequently, the EL intensity shows a gradual increase. The first intense emission was interpreted as an interfacial phenomenon, probably a hot electron effect, associated with heterogeneities in the electrode/insulation interface. The gradual increase of the EL was correlated with the recombination of two kinds of carriers injected from both electrodes. Periodical application of the stress leads to decreasing EL intensity as a function of time, which was the result of cumulative relaxation of the field around the surface heterogeneities.


An evolutionary changeover between mating systems comes about frequently and independently in flowering plants. Crotalaria mysorensis Roth., an annual weed growing wild in the subtropical regimes of northwestern Himalaya, displays this shift effectively. The species appears as an outbreeder on the basis of its floral architecture. Floral phenological events, however, confirm it to be a strict inbreeder because of its vesperal nature and brief blooming period. This mating strategy provides reproductive assurance to the species, but with low seed germination.


One of the most prominent metabolic effects of the systemic administration of the synthetic neuropeptide galanin in man is the increase in growth hormone (GH) secretion. This stimulating action of galanin is thought to occur directly at the hypothalamic level through the release of GHRH. Recently, it has been shown that also dopaminergic drugs may elicit GH secretion through an increase in hypothalamic GHRH secretion. The aim of this study was to investigate if the action of galanin on GHRH and consequently on GH release may be mediated via dopaminergic pathways evaluating the effects of a potent central dopaminergic receptor blocker, metoclopramide (MCP), on the galanin-induced growth hormone (GH) secretion in normal subjects. We studied seven young non obese healthy subjects (three females and four males). GH secretion was evaluated after 45 min iv infusion of porcine galanin (0.5 mg in 100 ml of saline) from 0 to 45 min combined with a 60 min iv infusion of a) saline (100 ml) or b) MCP (10 mg in 100 ml of saline) from -15 to 45 min. In all the seven subjects, during galanin infusion, GH values increased with respect to baseline with peaks occurring between 30 and 60 min after the beginning of galanin infusion. Peak GH values ranged between 3.5 and 15.4 micrograms/l (mean 10.4 +/- 1.6 micrograms/l). During MCP infusion no significant differences in the GH response to galanin with respect to saline were observed both when absolute GH levels and GH AUC were examined.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


We report the first observation of an unusual red sprite produced by negative cloud‐to‐ground (CG) lightning from the Imager of Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL) in Colombia on August 15, 2012. The impulse charge moment change for this event is approximately −520 C·km, barely reaching the threshold for negative sprite production. However, different from all previously reported observations, this negative sprite contains a distinct "sprite current" feature that is unambiguously identified in the very‐low‐frequency magnetic field recorded at the 3,387 km range in Duke Forest. There is no evidence that this feature was produced by a fast discharging process associated with the causative CG stroke. Instead, the sprite current signal corresponds well to high‐altitude optical emissions associated with the charge flow in the sprite body. The charge moment change caused by the charge transfer in the sprite region was estimated to be about −460 C·km. We attempt to reveal the possible causes of this atypical event from the perspective of the parent thunderstorm and the local ionosphere irregularities, whereas we believe that the most possible reason remains to lie in an extraordinarily long duration (more than 5 ms) of charge transfer to ground following the return stroke.


Making decisions when managing organisations always involves the constant management of ambiguity and a great deal of complexity due to uncertainties and the intrinsic political nature of every decision-making processes. This paper argues that in order for management accounting to deal effectively with this ambiguity and uncertainty, both must be embraced, not suppressed, by the design of data visualisations produced by management controls as aids to the decision-making processes. Drawing on studies in rhetoric, alongside others on the rhetorical and communicative power of images and visualisations, this paper identifies a series of principles that can contribute to the development of a visual rhetorical framework to inform the design of data visualisation (e.g. dashboards, business reports). The need to conceive of data visualisations beyond their representational function, and the principles that are identified, are then illustrated through the visual rhetorical analysis of a complex dashboard utilised in the programme management of the construction of a large airport terminal. The paper ends with an outline of a research agenda for the future design of data visualisation in accounting, and beyond.


The common psychoautomatic syndrome nowadays represents the most frequently encountered disease. Since more than 20 years I use a scale of seven for all single psychic and somatic autonomic symptoms. I have termed 'autonomic psychosyndrome' the characteristic psychopathology associated with autonomic dysfunctions. This entity is the most common psychosyndrome. Its autonomic manifestations are linked to the actually prevailing 'Zeitgeist', devoid of eternity, immortality, God as well as divine foresight and reason. I perceive the cause of autonomic dysfunction as lack of faith and trust. The gift to believe, to trust adequately, is disturbed. Causal therapy consists in healing of this faithlessness and inability to trust.


This paper presents a Class-D outphasing RF Power Amplifier (PA) which can operate at a 5.5V supply and deliver +32dBm at 1.85 GHz in a standard 130nm CMOS technology. The PA utilizes four on-chip transformers to combine the outputs of eight Class-D stages. The Class-D stages utilize a cascode configuration, driven by an AC-coupled low-voltage driver, to allow a 5.5 V supply in the 1.2/2.5 V 130nm process without excessive device voltage stress. Spectral and modulation requirements were met when a WCDMA and an LTE signal (20 MHz, 16-QAM) were applied to the outphasing PA. At +28.0 dBm channel power for the WCDMA signal, the measured ACLR at 5 MHz and 10 MHz offset were −38.7 dBc and −47.0 dBc, respectively. At +24.9 dBm channel power for the LTE signal, the measured ACLR at 20MHz offset was −34.9 dBc. To the authors' best knowledge, the PA presented in this work has a 3.9 dB higher output power compared to published CMOS Class-D RF PAs.


Rationale: Gustation is important to several biological functions in mammals. However, chemotherapy drugs often harm taste perception in cancer patients, while the underlying mechanism is still unclear for most drugs and there is no effective way to restore taste function. This study investigated the effects of cisplatin on the taste cell homeostasis and gustatory function. Methods: We used both mice and taste organoid models to study the effect of cisplatin on taste buds. Gustometer assay, gustatory nerve recording, RNA-Sequencing, quantitative PCR, and immunohistochemistry was performed to analyze the cisplatin-induced alteration in taste behavior and function, transcriptome, apoptosis, cell proliferation and taste cell generation. Results: Cisplatin inhibited proliferation and promoted apoptosis in the circumvallate papilla, leading to significant impairment in taste function and receptor cell generation. The transcriptional profile of genes associated with cell cycle, metabolic process and inflammatory response was significantly altered after cisplatin treatment. Cisplatin inhibited growth, promoted apoptosis, and deferred taste receptor cell differentiation in taste organoids. LY411575, a γ-secretase inhibitor, reduced the number of apoptotic cells and increased the number of proliferative cells and taste receptor cells, potentially suggesting as a taste tissue protective agent against chemotherapy. LY411575 treatment could offset the increased number of Pax1+ or Pycr1+ cells induced by cisplatin in the circumvallate papilla and taste organoids. Conclusion: This study highlights the inhibitory effects of cisplatin on taste cell homeostasis and function, identifies critical genes and biological processes regulated by chemotherapy, and proposes potential therapeutic targets and strategy for taste dysfunction in cancer patients.


Tn5251 belongs to the Tn916-Tn1545 family of conjugative transposons (CT) and was found integrated into CT Tn5252, to form the composite element Tn5253 of Streptococcus pneumoniae. We show that Tn5251 is identical in structure and size to Tn916. DNA sequence analysis of a 4,419-bp segment containing the tet(M) gene showed that only 73 nucleotides out of 4,419 were different in the two CT. Essentially all differences (66/73) were clustered in a 688-bp segment of tet(M), which was 90% identical to Tn916 and 100% identical to the tet(M) genes of Tn1545 from S. pneumoniae and pOZ101 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae. DNA sequence analysis of the Tn5251/Tn5252 junction fragments allowed us (i) to determine Tn5251 termini, (ii) to define the 6-bp coupling sequences flanking the CT, and (iii) to infer the structure of the integration site (attB) of Tn5251 into Tn5252. Conjugal transfer of Tn5251 independent from Tn5253 could not be detected, even if we could show excision and formation of Tn5251 circular intermediates at a level of 5.4 copies per 10(6) chromosomes.


Certain epidemiological conclusions have been drawn from a retrospective study of 509 cases of NPC treated in France. NPC was found to represent 3% of cancers of the upper digestive and respiratory tracts and 80% of nasopharyngeal malignancies in adults; 30% are squamous-cell carcinomas. The sex ratio was found to be 3:1. Less than 50% of cases occur in natives of France. A prospective study initiated by the Institut Gustave Roussy lead to the collection of data on 133 new cases of NPC treated in France in 1975 and 1976. The annual rate of NPC in France is about 0.3/100,000. A number of factors set apart well-differentiated epidermoid carcinomas from other forms of NPC: sex ratio (20:1), age of patients, geographic origin and the use of tobacco were similar to those seen in cases of epidermoid carcinomas of the upper digestive and respiratory tracts.


Sentiment analysis (SA) has become an essential component of natural language processing (NLP) with numerous practical applications to understanding "what other people think". Various techniques have been developed to tackle SA using deep learning (DL); however, current research lacks comprehensive strategies incorporating multiple-word embeddings. This study proposes a self-attention mechanism that leverages DL and involves the contextual integration of word embedding with a time-dispersed bidirectional gated recurrent unit (Bi-GRU). This work employs word embedding approaches GloVe, word2vec, and fastText to achieve better predictive capabilities. By integrating these techniques, the study aims to improve the classifier's capability to precisely analyze and categorize sentiments in textual data from the domain of movies. The investigation seeks to enhance the classifier's performance in NLP tasks by addressing the challenges of underfitting and overfitting in DL. To evaluate the model's effectiveness, an openly available IMDb dataset was utilized, achieving a remarkable testing accuracy of 99.70%.


Digital games are an important component in the contemporary media landscape. They are cultural artefacts and, as such, are subjected to specific conventions. These conventions shape our imaginary about games, defining, for example, what a game is, who can play them and where. Different research has been developed to understand and challenge these conventions, and one of the strategies often adopted is fostering game-making among "gaming minorities". By popularising games and their means of production, critical skills towards these objects could be developed, these conventions could be fought, and our perceptions of those artefacts could be transformed. Nevertheless, digital games, as obvious as it sounds, are also digital: they depend on technology to exist and are subjected to different technologies' affordances and constraints. Technologies, however, are not neutral and objective, but are also cultural: they too are influenced by values and conventions. This means that, even if the means of production of digital games are distributed among more diverse groups, we should not ignore the role played by technology in this process of shaping our imaginary about games. Cultural and technical aspects of digital media are not, therefore, as conflicting as it might seem, finding themselves entangled in digital games. They are also equally influential in our understanding and our cultural uses of these artefacts; but how influential are they? How easy can one go against cultural and technical conventions when producing a game as a non-professional? Can anyone make any kind of game? In this research, I explore young people's game-making practices in non-professional contexts to understand how repertoires, gaming conventions and platform affordances and constraints can be influential in this creative process. I organised two different game-making clubs for young people in London/UK (one at a community-led centre for Latin American migrants and other at a comprehensive primary school). The clubs consisted in a series of workshops offered in a weekly basis, totalling a minimum of 12 hours of instruction/production at each research site. The participants were aged between 11 and 18 and produced a total of 11 games across these two sites with MissionMaker, a software that facilitates the creation of 3D games by non-specialists through ready-made 3D assets, custom audio and image files, and a simplified drop-down-list-based scripting language. Three games and their production teams were selected as case studies and investigated through qualitative methods and under a descriptive-interpretive approach. Throughout the game-making clubs, short surveys, observations, unstructured and semi-structured interviews and a game archive (with week-by-week saves of participants' games) were employed to generate data that was then analysed through a Multimodal Sociosemiotics framework to explore how cultural and technical conventions were appropriated by participants during this experience. Discourses, gaming conventions and MissionMaker's affordances and constraints were appropriated in different ways by participants in the process of game production, culminating in the realisation of different discourses and the construction of diverse identities. These results are relevant since they restate the value of a more holistic approach – one that looks at both culture and technology – to critical videogame production within non-professional contexts. These results are also useful to the mapping of the influence of repertoires, conventions and platforms in non-professional game-making contexts, highlighting how these elements are influential but at the same time not prescriptive to the games produced, and how game development processes within these contexts are better understood as dialogical.


The marriage advisory and preservation advisory body is a semi-official organization that supports the duties of the ministry of religion in the field of marriage and aims to enhance the quality of marriage and create a happy, prosperous and eternal family or household according to Islamic teachings while marriage disputes are a household relationship between husband and disputed wives in marriages and the purpose of this case study is to discuss 1) the marriage counseling and preservation advisory body 2) the role of marital advisory and preservation advisory bodies 3) marital disputes and the role of BP4 in marital dispute resolution.
The role of BP4 in resolving marital disputes over marital disputes is: BP4 acts as a marriage consultant, by providing explanations, guidance to the disputing parties, namely guardians, with the bride and groom through the Marriage Advisory Board, Marriage Counseling and Preservation Agency (BP4). Of the five cases handled by BP4 that could be reconciled and all parties received reunification of the family that was fostered (no divorce occurred, there were 4 cases (80%) and for which the divorce process continued there was 1 case (20%). BP4 in carrying out its duties certainly experienced obstacles. These obstacles are internal to BP4 itself, which tends not to be pro-active in finding families whose marriages are experiencing problems.


Direct shear testing is among the most frequently performed laboratory tests for determining the engineering properties of soil, particularly dry granular soils. This study employed the discrete element method to simulate a direct shear test to examine the microstructure and micromechanical behaviors of granular materials in dense and loose states. The analysis results show that a relationship exists between the microscopic and macroscopic properties of the simulated dense granular assemblies. Dilation of the dense granular material resulted from an increase in volume in the area along the shear plane. By contrast, contraction of the loose granular material resulted from a decrease in volume decrease throughout the granular sample. The dense materials exhibited axial compression and lateral extension stress paths in the middle of the shear plane. The loose materials exhibited stress path variations that were markedly more complex and varied. For the dense materials, the initial orientation of the major principal stress plane was approximately horizontal. During the test, the formation of a contact force chain caused the major plane to rotate counterclockwise until it was at approximately 45°–55° to the original, horizontal position.


The significant bottlenecks in determining bacterial species are much more time-consuming and the biology specialist's long-term experience requirements. Specifically, it takes more than half a day to cultivate a bacterium, and then a skilled microbiologist and a costly specialized machine are utilized to analyze the genes and classify the bacterium according to its nucleotide sequence. To overcome these issues as well as get higher recognition accuracy, we proposed applying convolutional neural networks (CNNs) architectures to automatically classify bacterial species based on some key characteristics of bacterial colonies. Our experiment confirmed that the classification of three bacterial colonies could be performed with the highest accuracy (97.19%) using a training set of 5000 augmented images derived from the 40 original photos taken in the Hanoi Medical University laboratory in Vietnam.


and Implications True digestible lysine requirements of PIC barrows were estimated by using a PUN (plasma urea nitrogen) technique. For the individually penned barrows, daily true digestible lysine requirements were 16.5, 17.8, 19.9, 20.2, 17.4, 16.7, 16.9, and 14.4 grams at the body weights of 33, 52, 69, 72, 87, 93, 106, and 113 kg, respectively. Based on the results, a lysine requirement model of the pigs over the growing and finishing period under an individually penned environment was established. The equation was y = 0.000001x 0.0004x + 0.0365x 1.329x + 32.691, in which y is the true digestible lysine requirement in grams /day, and x is the body weight in kilograms. True digest lysine requirements of the pigs under a group-penned environment were determined to be 15.8 and 19.1 g/d, at 32 and 50 kg body weight, respectively.


The steps in the formal pathogenesis of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (inflammation, proliferation, the synthesis of extracellular matrix, and contraction) provide the target points for medical treatment. A survey of the relevant drugs is given. Anti-inflammatory agents (steroids, heparin) and antiproliferative agents (colchicine, daunomycin, and fluoropyrimidines) are discussed, as are anticollagen agents (penicillamin and cis-hydroxyprolin). Clinical studies were performed with colchicine, daunomycin, fluorouracil, and steroids. Our experimental and clinical data indicate that the therapeutical results might be improved by the combination of two drugs. A two-factorial, controlled clinical study is proposed, using an antiproliferative and an anti-inflammatory drug.


Objective: To determine the mortality, survival, and causes of death in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) through a meta-analysis of the observational studies published up to 2013. Methods: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the observational studies in patients with SSc and mortality data from entire cohorts published in MEDLINE and SCOPUS up to July 2013. Results: A total of 17 studies were included in the mortality meta-analysis from 1964 to 2005 (midcohort years), with data from 9239 patients. The overall SMR was 2.72 (95% CI: 1.93–3.83). A total of 43 studies have been included in the survival meta-analysis, reporting data from 13,529 patients. Cumulative survival from onset (first Raynaud's symptom) has been estimated at 87.6% at 5 years and 74.2% at 10 years, from onset (non-Raynaud's first symptom) 84.1% at 5 years and 75.5% at 10 years, and from diagnosis 74.9% at 5 years and 62.5% at 10 years. Pulmonary involvement represented the main cause of death. Conclusions: SSc presents a larger mortality than general population (SMR ¼ 2.72). Cumulative survival from diagnosis has been estimated at 74.9% at 5 years and 62.5% at 10 years. Pulmonary involvement represented the main cause of death.


This paper gives a map from the set of families of arcs on a variety to the set of valuations on the rational function field of the variety We characterize a family of arcs which corresponds to a divisorial valuation by this map. We can see that both the Nash map and a certain McKay correspondence are the restrictions of this map. This paper also gives the affirmative answer to the Nash problem for a non-normal variety in a certain category. As a corollary, we get the affirmative answer for a non-normal toric variety.


Three large farrow-to-finish swine herds in Illinois, quarantined because of infection with pseudorabies virus (PRV), were enrolled in an intensified PRV eradication program, with the goal being release from quarantine within 3 years. The intervention plan primarily relied on vaccination, using a vaccine with a deletion of the genes coding for glycoprotein I, in breeding and growing/finishing pigs and decreases of movement and mixing of growing/finishing pigs. The initial goal was to decrease viral spread in the growing/finishing pigs, thereby enabling production of seronegative replacement gilts. Off-site rearing of replacement gilts was implemented in 1 recently infected herd in which the seroprevalence in the growing/finishing group was high. Results of bimonthly serologic monitoring indicated that there was minimal spread of PRV in the growing/finishing pigs after 1 year. Increases in the number of sows culled combined with an increase in the number of seronegative replacement gilts entering the breeding group resulted in a reduction of sow seroprevalence, so that phased test and removal of seropositive breeding stock could commence in all 3 herds at about 18 months after initiation of the program. Persistent use of the test-and-removal procedure and repeated testing for release from quarantine were required for the most recently infected herd. All herds were released from quarantine within 3 years, indicating that a PRV eradication program based on vaccination and management changes designed to minimize the spread of PRV can be used in conjunction with test-and-removal procedures to effectively eliminate PRV from large farrow-to-finish swine herds.


Epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS) is a rare skin disease usually inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern. EBS is resulting from mutations in keratin 5 (KRT5) and keratin 14 (KRT14) genes encoding the keratins 5 and 14 proteins expressed in the keratinocytes of the basal layer of the epidermis. To date, seven pathogenic mutations have been reported to be responsible for EBS in the Canadian population from the province of Quebec: p.Pro25Leu, p.Leu150Pro, p.Met327Thr and p.Arg559X in KRT5; p.Arg125Ser, p.Ile377Thr and p.Ile412Phe in KRT14. Here, we present a novel French‐Canadian patient diagnosed with EBS confined to the soles but presenting a severe complication form including blisters, hyperkeratosis, skin erosions and toenail abnormalities. Mutation screening was performed by direct sequencing of the entire coding regions of KRT5 and KRT14 genes and revealed the previously reported missense heterozygous mutation c. 1130T > C in KRT14 (p.Ile377Thr). Furthermore, this patient is carrying a second mutation in KRT5, c.413G > A (p.Gly138Glu), which has been linked to an increased risk of basal cell carcinoma in the literature. We suspect an impact of the p.Gly138Glu variant on the EBS phenotype severity of the studied patient. The pathogenicity and consequences of both genetic variations were simulated by in silico tools.


Abstract 1449 Despite unprecedented success of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) in treating chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patients, optimum clinical management is still impeded by lack of reliable predictive and prognostic markers to identify those at risk of progression from chronic phase (CP) to advanced disease (AD), i.e. accelerated phase (AP) and blast crisis (BC). Significantly, SHP-1 (Src homology 2 domain-containing phosphates-1) is reported to bind to BCR-ABL1. Furthermore, SHP-1 knockout mice fail to thrive and develop a myeloproliferative-like disease, while point mutations have been detected in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) disorder. These observations are consistent with SHP-1 function as a negative regulator of PI3K-Akt pathway and a tumour suppressor. More recently data implied SHP-1 expression levels were prognostic and predictive of TKI response. Therefore we quantified SHP-1 mRNA levels in CML patients to assess these findings. In addition, we included acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and adult blood donor samples controls. SHP-1, BCR-ABL1 and GUSβ (endogenous control gene) and MSI2 mRNA levels were retrospectively assessed by Taqman quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction in 78 highly heterogeneous CML patients [median age of 50 years (20–76); M: 44; F: 34]; 54 in CP; 24 in AD (6 in AP and 18 in BC). Among the 78 patients 59 were treated with two or more agents. But 19, all in CP, were prescribed single drug only; Imatinib (n=11); nilotinib (n=6); dasatinib (n=1) and interferon + cytarabine (n=1). Sanger sequencing of the BCR-ABL1 kinase domain in 40 (CP: 27; AD: 13) of the 78 patients identified 18 (CP: 9; AD: 10) with one or more mutations. In 8 patients the mutations mapped to the P-loop, 3 had T315I in isolation or in combination with another KD variant and 7 had non-P-loop variants. Seventyseven diagnostic samples from AML patients (M: 42; F: 35) with a median age of 63 years (8–85) were included and 18 normal control (NC) samples from blood donors with median age 44 years (35–61). Target gene expression levels were reported as ratio to GUSβ. Samples with SHP-1 expression was significantly higher (p= We report here differential expression of the putative tumour suppressor SHP-1 in CML patients in CP and AD, with lower levels in the latter. However, SHP-1 expression in these two groups was higher than that detected in AML and NC samples. In contrast to earlier reports we did not observe a significant difference between those achieving and failing MMR within 18 months nor between patients with different degrees of response to TKI therapy. This variance may have been affected by the different time points of sample acquisition during the course of the treatment. Our data imply SHP-1 regulates or is regulated by BCR-ABL1. Moreover, it is reported that SHP-1 may counteract oncogenic effect of BCR-ABL1, however, we observed no correlation in mRNA levels between them in our 78 CML patients. The data presented here warrant a prospective study to assess whether SHP-1 expression levels is able to identify patients at risk of progression prior to other markers, e.g. BCR-ABL1 copy numbers. Disclosures: le Coutre:Novartis: Consultancy.


This paper examines how the results of elections in a country are affected by their relative timing. Particularly, I focus on the types of policymakers in terms of capital endowment for the framework of strategic delegation under tax competition. The game is composed of three stages: i) an election is held in the first-mover country and a policymaker is chosen by majority voting; ii) similarly, an election to choose a policymaker is held in the second-mover country; and iii) capital tax rates are simultaneously determined by the policymakers of both countries. As a result, it is indicated that the policymaker elected through voting by citizens in the first-mover country is likely to be less capital-rich, or relatively more left-winged, compared to that in the second-mover country. However, when income disparity within country is sufficiently large, the second-mover country becomes more redistributive.


Abstract Neogene arc activity in the Southwest Pacific began simultaneously at 25 Ma on three differently oriented sectors. Two sectors (Norfolk-Three Kings and Colville Ridges), aligned north and north-northeast, were near-orthogonal to subduction, while the intervening Northland-Reinga sector (northwest aligned) was strongly sinistral-oblique and produced twin parallel arcs of differing compositions. This complexity was inherited from a complex late Eocene-Oligocene margin that was convergent but amagmatic, and was due primarily to its proximity to the Pacific-Australia pole of rotation. The inception of arc magmatism at 25 Ma was triggered by a 20° increase in convergence angle between the north moving Australia Plate and the northwest moving Pacific plate (from 44° to 65°), and an increase in convergence rate from c. 20 to 30–40 mm yr−1. Between 25 and 15 Ma three subduction zones were required. The Pacific Plate was subducted at the Colville Arc, and a South Fiji Basin Plate was subducted at the Norfolk-Three Kings Arc in a manner analogous to the present-day Philippine Sea Plate located between the Mariana Arc and the Japan Trench. During this interval the Norfolk Basin opened as a back-arc basin, while the Three Kings Arc moved eastwards between two fracture zones. Eastward movement of the Three Kings Arc (c. 350 km) was sufficient to drive a magma-producing subduction rate of c. 35 mm yr−1 independently of Pacific Plate convergence which was therefore taken up at the Colville Subduction Zone. Sinistral-oblique subduction beneath the Northland-Reinga sector was also driven by Pacific Plate convergence of c. 30 mm yr−1. At 15 Ma the Colville Ridge extended 400 km southwestwards across North Island, New Zealand, to become a Colville-Coromandel-Taranaki Arc, and the two other arc segments died; this was the main simplification event, and it was probably a response to the progressive southeasterly retreat of the pole of Pacific-Australia rotation located to the south of New Zealand and the consequent increase in convergence rate. Between 15 and 5 Ma there was stability and no back-arc basin formed. A big change at 5Ma was probably driven by further movement of the pole, this time to the southwest, and an increase in convergence rate across New Zealand. In response, the arc split to form the still-active Lau-Havre Back-arc Basin and the active Tonga-Kermadec-Taupo Arc, and the New Zealand mountains formed. Factors remaining to be resolved are the time of collision of the oceanic Hikurangi Plateau, which has entered the New Zealand Subduction Zone, and the timing of dextral displacement(s) of the forearc to its present location along the eastern margin of the North Island. Arc simplification was accompanied by further fragmentation and dispersal of New Zealand continental crust which had already been fragmented by late Cretaceous extension. The Vening Meinesz Fracture Zone, 900 km long, originated as an Eocene near-transform sinistral boundary, and had a complex Cenozoic record of strike-slip and transpressional activation and reactivation, with both sinistral and dextral sense.


In this paper we explore primary school trainee teachers' perception of their linguistic-communicative competence in EFL and of their training as language teachers. 44 questionnaires were administered and 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Italian trainee teachers. The findings revealed that the respondents considered themselves only partly ready to handle pluralistic approaches for teaching in a plurilingual, multicultural and socially fluid context. In fact, while they expressed confidence in their general pedagogical knowledge, they perceived their linguistic-cultural education and training insufficient to enable them to teach English for interactional purposes. A few suggestions are put forward at the end of the paper.


Dynamic soil behavior has to be known very well to consider safe and economical precautions against earthquake effects. This paper deals with modelling study to predict deformations under earthquake effect for city of Eskisehir, Turkey. Various deformation types can occur due to the earthquake for different type of soil. In this study, soil deformations are found under possible earthquake by using Plaxis 2D software. Soil types are chosen as silty sand and loose sand due to most common soil types in Eskisehir. Results are presented and suggestions are given to minimize soil deformations under earthquake effects. Deformations change depends on the local soil types. Therefore, precautions should be determined according to local soil conditions.


Cancer is a common condition of the older male. Risk factors for developing a malignancy include genetic, environmental and life style features. Cancer epidemiology and prognosis differ depending on the age and gender of the population being studied. In the group of men older than 65 years, the most common malignant tumors are prostate, lung, colon and pancreatic cancer. Treatment options vary depending on the stage of the tumor when it is diagnosed, and the decision for therapeutic versus palliative interventions will depend upon the functional status, comorbidity and personal wishes of the patients.


The application of microwave energy in heating of materials is not new; however, newer applications are emerging in the field of material processing, which allowed microwave processing as novel processing methods. The earlier reported work was based on sintering of many ceramic materials, which are better absorbers of microwaves. The applications were further extended to metallic powders. In recent years, researchers have developed methods to process bulk metallic materials. The developments reported were in the field of joining of bulk metals and claddings on various steels. The present work is based on the comparative evaluation of properties of microwave processed joining and TIG welded joints of SS-316 and Hastelloy steels. The joints were characterized by available techniques such as XRD, EDS and SEM. Mechanical characterizations were carried in the terms of Vickers microhardness and tensile testing of joints. Results revealed that the joining of steels was successfully attempted by using nickel based powder. The characterizations of joints revealed that microwave processed joint showed cellular structure with lower defects. Joints mechanical characterizations showed that microwave processing enhanced the mechanical strength due to better metallurgical bonding and diffusion, with lower processed defects. Ultimate tensile strength was 20.7% more than TIG welded SS-316 joint and 23.25% more than TIG welded Hastelloy steel. Higher hardness was obtained in microwave processed joints due to the presence of carbon which was absorbed from graphite sheet, which led to the formation of carbides in the microstructures. Fractographic analysis showed mixed mode fracture for microwave processed joint and ductile behavior for TIG joint. The brittle behavior was due to the presence of unmelted nickel particles in the joint region.


We prove a relation between a certain weighted radial limit of an n-subharmonic function in the polydisc Un and the representing measure of its least n-harmonic majorant. We apply this result to functions in N(U'"), the Nevalinna class of Un. In particular, we obtain a necessary condition for a function to belong to the component of the origin in N( U'). These results are extensions of the work of J. H. Shapiro and A. L. Shields to n > 1.


We present the results of a study of a piezoelectric generator that generates electricity by the application of tension to an element. A device is named "EYE-type generator". The EYE-type generator consists of a rectangular ceramic and two elastic body plates that are attached to upper and lower surfaces of a ceramic. If tension is applied to both ends of the elastic body, that tension is transformed to pressure on the ceramic through a change in the form of the elastic body, causing a piezoelectric effect whereby electricity is generated by the ceramic. This generator is relatively durable because a forces are not applied directly to the ceramic. We examined dependencies of the generator's output characteristics on the size of the ceramic and elastic body. A resonance and output characteristics were analyzed by using a finite element method. The generator was fabricated based on results of the analysis, and this was attached to a frequency-controllable vibrator to measure the output characteristics. The measured results were compared with results of the simulation, and the results pointed to the practicality of the design.


Submitochondrial particles (SMP) were isolated from potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Bintje) tubers. The SMP were 91% inside-out and they were able to form a membrane potential, as monitored by oxonol VI, with succinate, NADH and NADPH. The pH dependence and kinetics of NADH and NADPH oxidation by these SMP was studied using three different electron acceptors – O2, duroquinone and ferricyanide. In addition, the SMP were solubilized, fractionated by non-denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and the gels were stained for NAD(P)H dehydrogenase activity and specificity at different pH using Nitro Blue Tetrazolium. From the results we conclude that there are at least two distinct NAD(P)H dehydrogenases on the inner surface of the inner membrane: (1) Complex 1 which oxidizes NADH and deamino-NADH in a rotenone-sensitive manner, (O2 as acceptor) with optimum activity at pH 8 and a very low Km(NADH) of 3 μM. It also oxidizes NADPH and deamino-NADPH in a rotenone-sensitive manner, but with a pH optimum at pH 5.8 and a very high Km(NADPH) of more than 1 mM. This complex is found as a broad, diffuse band at the top of the gels. (2) A second dehydrogenase which oxidizes NADH in a rotenone-insensitive manner with optimum activity at pH 6.2 and a higher Km(NADH) of 14 μM. It also oxidizes NADPH in a rotenone-insensitive manner with an activity optimum at pH 6.8 and low Km(NADPH) of 25 μM. This dehydrogenase does not oxidize deamino-NAD(P)H. One of the sharp bands around the middle of the native gels may be caused by this dehydrogenase indicating that it has a relatively low molecular mass compared to Complex I. Several other NAD(P)H dehydrogenase bands were observed on the gels which we cannot yet assign.


SIR,-Dr Greg Wilkinson's subject of the use of seclusion in the nursing of psychiatric patients (19 February, p 581) is an important one for discussion. Its use in an emergency to help cope with disturbed behaviour is of particular interest to me. Guidelines are in use in many hospitals and are useful to safeguard not only patients but also nursing staff. Anyone managing a violent person is at risk of returning the violence in some form or of being accused of doing so. Psychiatric nurses should be protected from both. Winnicottl points out that psychotic patients inspire hate in their therapists as a clinical phenomenon. This may be difficult enough to master at any time and is often handled by doctors by discharge, admission, or simply termination of an interview, all of which serve to remove the patient from the therapist and so alleviate the therapist's distress and likelihood of acting directly on the feeling. The nurse with a psychotic, non-voluntary patient is in a similar position but with fewer options. If the patient's aggression is not only emotional but also physical the difficulty increases. The nurse must handle the patient physically with just enough force to contain him and no more and must also tolerate the emotions that the psychotic generates. In other words the nurse must contain the patient's feelings and the patient's body, non-punitively. I agree with Dr Wilkinson that hospitals should, as a minimum safeguard, have strict regulations about the use of seclusion. Any action which compromises the freedom of a human being must be constantly subject to scrutiny and particularly so when concerned with people who have already lost their freedom on account of mental illness. The option of seclusion not only protects the patient from damage to others but protects the staff. Perhaps discussion should not only focus on concrete methods of control but should look also at the emotional aspects which have led to this physical expedient. Any discussion of seclusion must place emphasis on helping nurses in this difficult situation which few of us would be willing or able to tackle. ANNE MACDONALD


The Single Assessment Process (SAP) has been introduced as part of the National Service Framework for Older People and has major implications for health and social care. The aim of this study was to evaluate a pilot introduction of the Single Assessment Process in the South-East of England. A qualitative case study design incorporating observation and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Assessment visits were observed and recorded, and interviews were carried out with older people and their carers (n = 9), health and social care practitioners, operational managers, and other key individuals involved in the pilot (n = 26). Overall the evaluation found three major themes that had an impact on the implementation of the Single Assessment Process. These were: the process of implementing policy and change, the health and social care boundary, and communication and sharing of assessments. Front-line practitioners (street-level bureaucrats) had a major impact on the SAP implementation, particularly through their reluctance to engage with the process, work together and share assessments. Success of the national SAP implementation will depend on the extent to which those working directly with older people can be engaged in the policy process.


Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has provided great insights into the microstructural features of the developing brain. However, DTI images are prone to several artifacts and the reliability of DTI scalars is of paramount importance for interpreting and generalizing the findings of DTI studies, especially in the younger population. In this study, we investigated the intrascan test–retest repeatability of four DTI scalars: fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) in 5‐year‐old children (N = 67) with two different data preprocessing approaches: a volume censoring pipeline and an outlier replacement pipeline. We applied a region of interest (ROI) and a voxelwise analysis after careful quality control, tensor fitting and tract‐based spatial statistics. The data had three subsets and each subset included 31, 32, or 33 directions thus a total of 96 unique uniformly distributed diffusion encoding directions per subject. The repeatability of DTI scalars was evaluated with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC(3,1)) and the variability between test and retest subsets. The results of both pipelines yielded good to excellent (ICC(3,1) > 0.75) reliability for most of the ROIs and an overall low variability (<10%). In the voxelwise analysis, FA and RD had higher ICC(3,1) values compared to AD and MD and the variability remained low (<12%) across all scalars. Our results suggest high intrascan repeatability in pediatric DTI and lend confidence to the use of the data in future cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies.


: Aim: To determine the endoscopic frequency of GERD in obese patients Study design: This study is cross-sectional. Place and Duration: In the Gastroenterology outpatient department of Allied Hospital Faisalabad for six months duration from October 2019 to March 2020. Cases and methods: 100 patients were selected from the outpatient clinic who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The patients were informed about the upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and then arranged an appointment. The incidence of GERD has been documented in these patients, followed by data analysis. Results: GERD was confirmed endoscopically in 42 of 100 patients. Out of 58 female patients, 23 had confirmed GERD, and out of 42 males only 19 had the confirm disease. Conclusion: GERD is common in obese people. Obese patients with GERD symptoms should be taken more seriously because they have a 50% chance of having endoscopic GERD.


To the Editor: Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV; genus Morbillivirus, family Paramyxoviridae) causes severe infectious disease in sheep and goats in Africa and Asia. Pneumo-enteritis clinical signs are dominated by ocular and nasal discharge, and mortality rates are high (1). Four distinct lineages of PPRV have been described on the basis of a phylogenetic analysis of a cDNA fragment of the nucleoprotein (NP) gene (2): lineages I and II are found in western Africa (1,3,4), lineage III in eastern Africa and the Middle East, and lineage IV in Asia. Recent studies have shown changes in this distribution (1,5), including the emergence of PPRV lineage IV in northeastern and northern Africa (5). Sparse serologic results (6,7) are available regarding PPRV spread in Mauritania or genetic features of circulating PPRV strains.

A seroprevalence survey was implemented in October 2010 to assess PPRV spatial distribution in Mauritania. The study was limited to 8 southern provinces (wilayas), which covered 99.3% of the national sheep and goat stocks (Technical Appendix Figure 1). Of 40 districts (mougataas), 21 were randomly selected. A single geographic point was randomly sampled within each of the selected mougataas, and 100 small ruminants were sampled in a 7-km radius around the coordinates. None of the mougataas in which sampling occurred had a PPRV vaccination program.

In addition, field veterinary officers from Trarza and Tagant Provinces were asked to report suspected outbreaks of peste des petits ruminants disease (PPR) during January–March 2012. All outbreaks were investigated, and biologic samples were collected for laboratory diagnostics.

All serum samples from the 2010 and 2012 surveys were analyzed by using antibody ELISA ID Screen PPR competition (IDvet Innovative Diagnostics, Grabels, France). Optical density values were converted to inhibition percentages; according to the ELISA cutoff value, inhibition percentages of <45% were considered positive. A logistic beta-binomial regression model was used to analyze prevalence rates within mougataas. Swab samples were tested by using reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) adapted to a 1-step format (OneStep RT-PCR Kit; QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany) and based on nucleoprotein (NP) 3–NP4 PPRV-specific primers targeting the 3′ end of the NP gene (8). Amplicons of 351 nt were extracted, and after sequencing, nucleic acid segments were aligned with PPRV sequences stored in the database of the Centre de cooperation internationale en recherche agronomique pour le developpement (Montpellier, France) or retrieved from GenBank (Figure).

Figure

Phylogenetic tree based on the nucleoprotein gene of peste des petits ruminants viruses identified in Mauritania (black diamonds) and selected comparison sequences from GenBank. The neighbor-joining method was used for phylogenetic analysis; evolutionary ...

A total of 1,190 sheep and 714 goat serum samples were collected during the 2010 survey; the estimated serologic PPRV prevalence rate was 43% (n = 1,904; 95% CI 38%–47%). PPRV infection was widespread: prevalence rates ranged from 3% (Guerou) to 98% (Kobeni) (Technical Appendix Figure 2). No significant difference was found by species or animal age (p = 0.28 and p = 0.92, respectively), but an increasing gradient in prevalence rates was observed from north to south; the effect of latitude was significant (p<10−6) (Technical Appendix Table). The increasing prevalence rates moving from the north to the south might be related to higher small ruminant density in southern Mauritania (pastoral resources), which might increase between-herd transmission. Moreover, the movement of livestock between Mauritania and 2 countries to the south, Mali and Senegal (Technical Appendix Figure 2), was favorable for PPRV exchanges over the years.

Three suspected outbreaks of PPR were reported during January–March 2012 (Technical Appendix Figure 2). Both sheep and goats were affected; the animals, particularly young animals, had signs typical of acute PPR. Illness rate ranged from 11% to 17% and case-fatality rates from 39% to 58%. Clinical signs lasted 27–39 days. A total of 43 animals were sampled for virus detection, and 12 animals from 2 sites tested positive by RT-PCR. Seroprevalence rates were estimated on larger samples, including recovering animals in the 3 outbreak locations; these rates were high for all 3 sites: 61%, 70%, and 75% (n = 87, 31, and 12, respectively).

N-gene sequences were obtained from 2 sheep swab specimens collected in Trarza during the outbreak survey in early 2012 (deposited in the GenBank under accession nos. {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"KF483658","term_id":"563324962","term_text":"KF483658"}}KF483658 [Mauritania1_2012] and {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"KF483659","term_id":"563324964","term_text":"KF483659"}}KF483659 [Mauritania5_2012]). These isolates were placed in a phylogenetic tree built from PPRV sequences recently collected in western (Senegal, Mali) and northern Africa (Morocco), as well as isolates from other parts of the world retrieved from GenBank. Phylogenetic analysis involved 255 nt located on the C terminus end of the NP gene of the virus (84 aa). The PPRV strain from Mauritania belonged to lineage II (Figure). Sequences were close to, but distinct from, those collected in Senegal and distinct from those identified in Morocco and northern Africa (lineage IV).

Our study results highlight 2 PPRV epidemiologic systems: northern Africa, where all identified PPRVs belonged to lineage IV and were closely related to PPRV initially identified in Sudan (5); and western Africa, where all identified PPRVs belonged to lineages I and II (3,4). This information might be useful for the design of regional control strategies. Ongoing monitoring of PPRV in Mauritania is needed to watch for the possible spread of PPRV lineage IV from northern Africa.

Technical Appendix:
Small ruminant density in Mauritania, peste des petits ruminants virus seroprevalence rates in 2010, and reported peste des petits ruminants outbreaks in early 2012.

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The electrochemical oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is a highly attractive strategy to generate valuable biomass-based oxygenated chemicals. Robust, stable and inexpensive electrocatalysts are crucial for this interesting reaction. In this work, we found that the electrocatalytic performance of cobalt oxide (CoO) could be significantly improved by introducing oxygen vacancies via Se doping. The resulting CoO-CoSe2 with a CoO/CoSe2 molar ratio of 23 : 1 showed excellent performance and stability for the electro-oxidation of HMF to FDCA, and a FDCA yield of 99% could be achieved with a faradaic efficiency of 97.9% at a potential of 1.43 V vs. RHE. A systematic study indicates that the introduction of rich oxygen vacancies could enhance the catalytic activity and the selectivity to FDCA by increasing the electrochemical surface area and reducing charge transfer resistance. As far as we know, this is the first work to develop a highly stable metal oxide as the active component for this reaction.


In order to provide early intervention services for aggressive and self-injurious behaviour to a total population of children with intellectual disabilities, a community strategy must be developed, to complement programmes within specialist schools, services and support groups.
Within this thesis a number of important elements of a community early intervention strategy were explored. A recruitment strategy based within community child health services was trialled. Within the community cohort of children identified specific putative risk markers for aggressive and self-injurious behaviour were examined, indicating several suitable candidates for screening.
A more in depth examination of this community cohort highlighted a complex psychological profile, with high levels of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder type characteristics. An assessment protocol based on traditional functional analytic methods was also trialled within a sub-group of high risk children. Whilst a useful starting point was identified for the majority of children, serious barriers to recruitment were identified, and a more comprehensive assessment protocol is required. High levels of parental anxiety and depression symptoms, associated with avoidant coping strategies and negative views about child behaviour, were also reported.
The results presented within this thesis have important implications for the development of a community early intervention pathway. Specific considerations relating to screening, recruitment, assessment and family context are necessary when implementing early intervention within a community cohort of children.


A detailed numerical assessment of the data deviations and the corresponding corrections needed by hot-wire anemometry (HWA) measurements in wall vicinity was performed. The aim of this study was to determine effective correction functions to HWA data for different wall materials. Two extreme cases were first investigated: a perfectly heat conducting and an adiabatic wall. In the case of the perfectly conducting wall the computed results agreed well with available experimental data for highly conducting materials. However, the numerical results for the case of an adiabatic wall contradicted previous experimental observations based on low-conducting wall materials. A close evaluation of the numerical results led to a better understanding of the physical problem and motivated the simulation of realistic wall materials, such as aluminum and glass.


For a given real Abelian field and a given prime natural number we obtain an index formula for the order of the group , where is the -component of the class group of denotes the -component of corresponding to a -irreducible character of the Galois group that is trivial on the Sylow -subgroup of . This result generalizes a conjecture of Gras. The proofs rely on the "main conjecture" of Iwasawa theory.


Earnings Management is one of the efforts made by companies to manipulate the numbers in the financial statements so that the company's financial statements can be seen in good condition for investors and other stakeholders. This study aims to determine the effect of managerial ownership structure, leverage, bonus compensation and company size on earnings management in manufacturing companies listed in BEI 2017-2019. The sampling method in this study used purposive sampling so that the researchers found 55 companies that match the criteria in 2017- 2019, so that this study analyzed as many as 165. The testing technique in this research is in the form of classical assumption test, normality test, autocorrelation test, multicollinearity test, heteroscedasticity test, determination coefficient test and T test. The results of the study indicate that Managerial Ownership Structure, Leverage, Bonus Compensation and Company Size do not significantly influence earnings management.


An all-digital technique for the measurement of the Jitter transfer function of charge-pump phase-locked loops (PLL's) is introduced. Input jitter may be generated using one of two methods. Both rely on delta-sigma modulation to shape the unavoidable quantization noise to high frequencies. This noise is filtered by the low-pass characteristic of the device and has little impact on the test results. For an input-output response measurement, the output jitter is compared against a threshold. As the stimulus generation and output analysis circuits are digital, do not require calibration, and demand a small area overhead, this jitter transfer function measurement scheme may be placed on the die to adaptively tune a PLL alter fabrication. The technique can also implement built-in self-test (BIST) for the characterization or manufacture test of PLL's. The validity of the scheme was verified experimentally with offthe- shelf components.


Bis-cyclometalated PtII complexes of dianionic 2,5-bis(aryl)-pyridine ligands (L1–6)2–, carrying various cyclometalating or pending aryl groups, are synthesised in two steps. The reactions of H2L protoligands with K2[PtCl4] in acetic acid give the mono-cyclometalated complexes [Pt(HL)Cl]2. Heating these complexes in hot DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) yields the double-cyclometalated DMSO complexes [Pt(L1–6)(DMSO)]. The reaction of [Pt(L4)(DMSO)] with N,N-dimethylimidazolium iodide in the presence of KOtBu as the base gives the carbene complex [Pt(L4)(Me2Imd)]. Detailed photophysical studies reveal the intense orange luminescence of these complexes in CH2Cl2 solution, with quantum yields up to 0.22, and increased quantum yields of up to 1.00 in glassy frozen CH2Cl2/MeOH (1:1) and up to 0.44 in PMMA matrices. Detailed electrochemistry (including spectroelectrochemistry) reveals reversible ligand-based first reductions at –2.1 to –2.3 V, irreversible Pt-centred oxidations at around 0.8 V and electrochemical band gaps of 2.8–3.0 eV. Further reduction waves at very negative potentials interfere with the solvent (THF with traces of water) discharge and can be traced, with UV/Vis spectroelectrochemistry, to Pt-centred reductions for the DMSO complexes and to a second ligand-centred reduction for the Me2Imd complex from. The photo/electrochemical properties can be roughly correlated with the ligand pattern and suggest their use in optoelectronic applications.


The creative spirit is always alive in the human heart. It constantly seeks to renew itself by
finding different and original ways to express the fundamental things which paradoxically
appear to remain the same. This research seeks to connect with those fundamentals: the
mystery of the past and our sense of belonging to a history, collaboration with others, the
excitement, energy and inspiration brought about by experiencing new things, new music. A
significant body of compositions has been produced for a range of performing groups
comprising:
1. O Frondens Virga for SATB choir
2. Compline a fantasia for orchestra
3. Summer Suite for oboe and bass Clarinet
4. Children of the Monsoon for mixed instrumental ensemble and soprano
5. Tall Ships Suite for traditional group and string quartet
6. One of the houses James Joyce lived in. Once
for soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass and clarinet in Bflat
7. Bust a short opera in two acts
8. 3 Songs for Baritone and Piano1

It is hoped that this work will not only be of the highest standard but will demonstrate the
acquisition of a compositional style that is uniquely personal and that it will make a
significant and original contribution to the advancement of new music.

1 Volume 1 contains detailed commentary on all works in chronological order. Volume 2 contains seven of the
eight scores, number 7, Bust, exists as a separate volume (Volume 3).


Point-of-interest detection is a way of reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed in a certain application and is widely used in 2D image analysis. In 2D image analysis, point-of-interest detection is usually related to extraction of local descriptors for object recognition, classification, registration or pose estimation. In analysis of range data however, some local descriptors have been published in the last decade or so, but most of them do not mention any kind of point-ofinterest detection. We here show how to use an extended Harris detector on range data and discuss variants of the Harris measure. All described variants of the Harris detector for 3D should also be usable in medical image analysis, but we focus on the range data case. We do present a performance evaluation of the described variants of the Harris detector on range data.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Peanut allergy has continued to increase in prevalence and despite efforts to prevent the allergy with early peanut introduction, treatments for those already with the allergy have been lacking. While the physical effects of peanut allergy have been well known, what has more recently begun to be discussed are the broad psychosocial and financial implications that are also related to the allergy. Oral (OIT), epicutaneous (EPIT), and sublingual (SLIT) immunotherapy have been developed as potential treatments for peanut allergy. Areas covered: Pivotal clinical trials in OIT, EPIT, and SLIT from the past 10 years are reviewed in this manuscript. Peanut OIT has been shown to induce strong desensitization; however, side effects and safety of the treatment have remained a concern. Peanut EPIT has demonstrated a reassuring safety profile but with a more modest protective effect. Peanut SLIT has remained behind in development but recent studies have suggested a balance of desensitization, safety, and convenience. Expert opinion: There are no perfect treatments for peanut allergy and OIT, EPIT, and SLIT each has its unique pros and cons. Shared decision-making between patients and providers will be essential to achieve optimal care for patients with peanut allergy.


The study of 'risk' in social work involves complex interplay between human behaviour, emotion, evidence of fact, professional values and organisational systems. This book brings together contributions from key social work researchers and theorists from the UK, USA, New Zealand and Italy, writing with a focus on aspects of risk within social work. It examines key debates concerning risk in contemporary social work practice, including ethical dilemmas, approaches to decision-making and the challenges of ignorance and errors. Contributions range from the perennial challenges of how one uses formal knowledge when assessing risk to emerging risks arising from the counterterrorism agenda. This book will enable practitioners, policy makers and researchers to appreciate the complexities of risk in different settings and apply this understanding to their own practice.This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice.


Identifying influential nodes that can jointly trigger the maximum influence spread in networks is a fundamental problem in many applications such as viral marketing, online advertising, and disease control. Most existing studies assume that social influence is static and they fail to capture the dynamics of influence in reality. In this work, we address the dynamic influence challenge by designing efficient streaming methods that can identify influential nodes from highly dynamic node interaction streams. We first propose a general time-decaying dynamic interaction network (TDN) model to model node interaction streams with the ability to smoothly discard outdated data. Based on the TDN model, we design three algorithms, i.e., SieveADN, BasicReduction, and HistApprox. SieveADN identifies influential nodes from a special kind of TDNs with efficiency. BasicReduction uses SieveADN as a basic building block to identify influential nodes from general TDNs. HistApprox significantly improves the efficiency of BasicReduction. More importantly, we theoretically show that all three algorithms enjoy constant factor approximation guarantees. Experiments conducted on various real interaction datasets demonstrate that our approach finds near-optimal solutions with speed at least 5 to 15 times faster than baseline methods.


Procaccia and Gitterman have suggested that the reaction rates of chemically reacting binary mixtures are drastically reduced near their thermodynamic critical points and that this reduction is responsible for anomalies observed in a series of experiments performed more than 15 years ago. A more detailed analysis shows that this suggestion is untenable, that spatially uniform composition fluctuations are not drastically retarded at thermodynamic critical points, and that spatially varying composition fluctuations are at best slowed down over a small range of wavenumbers that will be difficult to detect experimentally. A qualitative picture is provided by mean-field and Van Hove theory. Quantitative corrections are obtained with use of renormalization-group techniques. At small and large wavenumbers, the hydrodynamic modes most affected near the critical point are, respectively, thermal and particle diffusion. The mode-couplings relevant in these regimes differ from the mode couplings relevant at intermediate wavelengths where the critical slowing of a reaction might be observable.


The possible association of the DRD2 locus, and in particular the Taql-A1 allele, with alcoholism remains controversial, in part because of differences in allele frequencies among populations. To avoid problems associated with differences in allele frequencies in different populations, we tested whether the DRD2 locus is associated with alcohol dependence in a large family-based sample. Neither the transmission/disequilibrium test nor the Affected Family-Based Controls test provide any evidence of linkage or association between the DRD2 locus and alcohol dependence.


The perturbations on magnetic probe signals, due to current redistribution in current-carrying plasmas, caused by the encasing body of the probe are discussed. Calculations are presented evaluating these perturbations for plane current distributions, and the relevance of this effect is analysed.


Natural rubber (NR) latex was grafted by emulsion polymerization with styrene monomer, using cumene hydroperoxide/tetraethylene pentamene as redox initiator system. The polystyrene-grafted NR (PS-g-NR) was hydrogenated by diimide reduction in the latex form using hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide with boric acid as a promoter. At the optimum condition for graft copolymerization, a grafting efficiency of 81.5% was obtained. In addition, the highest hydrogenation level of 47.2% was achieved using a hydrazine:hydrogen peroxide molar ratio of 1:1.1. Hydrogenation of the PS-g-NR (H(PS-g-NR)) increased the thermal stability. Transmission electron microscopy analysis of the H(PS-g-NR) particles revealed a nonhydrogenated rubber core and hydrogenated outer rubber layer, in accordance with the layer model. The addition of H(PS-g-NR) at 10 wt % as modifier in an acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) copolymer increased the tensile and impact strengths and the thermal resistance of the ABS blends, and to a greater extent than that provided by blending with NR or PS-g-NR. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013


Distributions of stopping power ( ${\rm LET}_{\infty}$) have been calculated for four beams of fast neutrons: neutrons of 14.6 MeV, neutrons produced by bombarding a thick beryllium target with 15-MeV deuterons, neutrons of 3 MeV, and fast neutrons produced by bombardment of a235 U converter plate with thermal neutrons. The track average LET is correlated with mean neutron energy, but the dose average is approximately constant. Neither average is expected to be a satisfactory description of the effects of these neutron beams on mammalian cells.


We consider the problem of estimating the frequency of an unknown periodic function from observations which consist of a particular almost periodic function and additive white noise. First, we propose a frequency estimator based on a penalized least-squares approach and we explain how to implement it in practice. Then, we compare its performances with the optimal ones forecast by a theoretical study. At last, we apply our processing to some signals arising in laser vibrometry and compare it with a classical technique in such a field


Congenital epulis (CE) or "Granular cell epulis" also previously termed as "Neumann's tumor" is a benign growth arising from the mucosa of the gingiva, typically seen as a mass protruding from the infant's mouth, often interfering with respiration and feeding. These tumors generally present as a single mass arising from the upper alveolus. We report a rare case of two congenital epulides arising from the maxillary and mandibular alveolus in a day old female infant, which was surgically excised, allowing for early initiation of breast feeding. The tumor cells stained negative for S100 protein hence differentiating from other granular cell tumors. The clinical presentation, differential diagnosis in regard to the various neonatal oral swellings and the management of CE has been discussed.


Background The definition and grading system of post-pancreatectomy acute pancreatitis (PPAP) has recently been proposed by ISGPS. This study aimed to put this definition and classification into practice and investigate the potential risk factors and clinical impacts of PPAP. Methods Demographic and perioperative data of consecutive patients who underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) from January 2019 to July 2021 were collected and analyzed retrospectively. The diagnostic criteria of PPAP published by ISGPS, consisting of biochemical, radiologic, and clinical parameters, were adopted. The risk factors were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analyses. Results A total of 298 patients were enrolled in this study, and the total incidence of PPAP was 52.4% (150 patients). Stratified by clinical impacts of PPAP, the incidences of grades B and C PPAP were 48.9% and 3.5%, respectively. PPAP after PD was significantly associated with pancreatic fistula and other unfavorable complications. Soft pancreatic texture (OR 3.0) and CRP ≥ 180 mg/L (OR 3.6) were the independent predictors of PPAP, AUC 0.613. Stratified by the grade of PPAP, soft pancreatic texture (OR 2.7) and CRP ≥ 180 mg/L (OR 3.4) were the independent predictors of grade B PPAP, and soft pancreatic texture (OR 19.3), operation duration >360 min (OR 13.8), and the pancreatic anastomosis by using conventional duct to mucosa methods (OR 10.4) were the independent predictors of grade C PPAP. PPAP complicated with pancreatic fistula significantly increased the severe complications and mortality compared to only PPAP occurrence. Conclusion PPAP was not an uncommon complication after PD and was associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes, especially since it was complicated with pancreatic fistula. Soft pancreatic texture and CRP ≥ 180 mg/L were the independent predictors of PPAP. Higher-volume multicenter and prospective studies are strongly needed.


Why is there so much violence in the developing countries? What does it have to do with economic development? What does it have to do with globalisation? In addressing these and other questions, Christopher Cramer takes a broad comparative approach, from recent wars, insurgencies and violence in Angola, Brazil, and Iraq to the American Civil War, showing how wars have been paid for throughout history. He also compares post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Mozambique and Iraq with how nineteenth-century America and twentieth-century Europe rebuilt their shattered societies and economies. "Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing" takes issue with two common perspectives on violence and war. The first is the liberal interpretation, according to which war is exclusively negative in its effects and peace is easily achieved through democratisation and free trade. In this view, modern liberal market democracies have outgrown violence, and only resort to it in self-defence. The second is a romantic, utopian view of violence. Transposed into political rhetoric, these two views are often directly opposed, as they are nowadays in Iraq and in the 'War on Terror'. Cramer's book forges an alternative way of understanding the role of violence in the transition to capitalism and a global economy.


Body forms are fit models used by retailers and small- and large-scale apparel manufacturers to create patterns and fit clothing on, and are based on body conformations extracted from anthropometrical data. However, commercial body form standards are still unsatisfactory due to their limitations in terms of shape and accuracy. This study firstly seeks to establish body profiles of Swazi women that can be used in the production of body forms used for the small- and large-scale manufacturing of apparel sold to the Swazi population, and secondly to compare the most prevalent female Swazi body shape with those of the body forms that are used by small- and large-scale apparel manufacturers. This study was executed in two phases. In phase 1 the body measurements of the sample (101 size 32 and 34 young females aged between 18 and 30) and sizes 32 and 34 of two different figure form brands were taken. Phase 2 consisted of a fit test of a basic dress designed and made according to the measurements of the most prevalent Swazi body shape and fit-tested on the figure forms. The results revealed the triangular shape as the most prevalent Swazi body shape. Although similar in shape, significant differences were found between the triangular-shaped Swazi body shape and the triangular-shaped body form.