The 5'-amino-5'-phosphono derivatives of cytidine, cytosine arabinoside (ara-C), and uridine have been prepared via the corresponding nucleoside aldehydes. Phosphite addition to imines derived from the nucleoside aldehydes and p-methoxybenzylamine was efficient, and use of this amine allowed cleavage of the products to the parent amino phosphonic acids. The phosphite additions proved to be diastereoselective, with the cytidine and uridine derivatives favoring the 5'S stereochemistry and the ara-C derivative favoring the 5'R isomer. The stereochemistry of one cytidine derivative was established by single-crystal diffraction analysis, and detailed comparisons of the (13)C NMR data allowed assignments of the other amino phosphonates.


A set of random variables has a location-scale family distribution if their joint distribution function can be expressed as a function of the standardized observations (xi -μ)/s, where μ and s are, respectively, the location and scale parameters. Important examples are the uniform, normal, and Cauchy distributions. Least squares estimation and minimum risk equivariant estimation are described.

Keywords:

standardized deviate;
uniform;
normal;
cauchy;
least squares;
minimum risk equivariant;
UMVUE ;
order statistics


Freshwater aquatic ecosystems provide a wide range of ecosystem services, yet provision of these services is increasingly threatened by human activities. Directly quantifying freshwater biotic assemblages has long been a proxy for assessing changing environmental conditions, yet traditional aquatic biodiversity assessments are often time consuming, expensive, and limited to only certain habitats and certain taxa. Sequencing aquatic environmental DNA via metabarcoding has the potential to remedy these deficiencies. Such an approach could be used to quantify changes in the relative abundances of a broad suite of taxa along environmental gradients, providing data comparable to that obtained using more traditional bioassessment approaches. To determine the utility of metabarcoding for comprehensive aquatic biodiversity assessments, we sampled aquatic environmental DNA at 25 sites that spanned the full length of the Potomac River from its headwaters to the Potomac estuary. We measured dissolved nutrient concentrations and also sequenced amplified marker genes using primer pairs broadly targeting four taxonomic groups. The relative abundances of bacteria, phytoplankton, invertebrate, and vertebrate taxa were distinctly patterned along the river with significant differences in their abundances across headwaters, the main river, and the estuary. Within the main river, changes in the abundances of these broad taxonomic groups reflected either increasing river size or a higher degree of eutrophication. The larger and more eutrophic regions of the river were defined by high total dissolved phosphorus in the water, a unique suite of bacteria, phytoplankton such as species of the diatom Nitzschia, invertebrates like the freshwater snail Physella acuta, and high abundance of fish including the common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Taxonomic richness of phytoplankton and vertebrates increased downriver while it consistently decreased for bacteria. Given these results, multi-assemblage aquatic environmental DNA assessment of surface water quality is a viable tool for bioassessment. With minimal sampling effort, we were able to construct the equivalent of a freshwater water quality index, differentiate closely-related taxa, sample places where traditional monitoring would be difficult, quantify species that are difficult to detect with traditional techniques, and census taxa that are generally captured with more traditional bioassessment approaches. To realize the full potential of aquatic environmental DNA for bioassessment, research is still needed on primer development, a geographically broad set of reference sites need to be characterized, and reference libraries need to be further developed to improve taxonomic identification.


Department of Physics, Arni University, Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) Corresponding Author: email@example.com _____________________________________________________________________________ Abstract The present work has been prepared on the basis of undoped, doped and co-doped ZnO as Zn1-x-yAgxCoyO NPs which are synthesized by two different methods; solgel method and chemical precipitation method. The prepared doped and co-doped ZnO NPs are described on the basis of properties by using different characterization techniques XRD, SEM/ EDX and UV-Vis for both methods individually. X-ray diffraction analysis proves that double wurtzite phase exist for the co-doped sample when these samples are synthesized by sol-gel method; whereas a single hexagonal crystalline wurtzite phase appears, without indicating any extra doping phase detection; It is shown by all samples when synthesized by chemical precipitation method. From XRD, both crystallite size and lattice strain are evaluated by scherrer, williamson hall method and size strain plot for all samples. SEM micrographs clearly depict it that with increasing doping concentration, the formation of agglomeration size increases. UV-Vis techniques are analysed to find out the optical band gap used as in optoelectronic properties for that sample synthesized by solution route method. The band gap decreases with increase in the dopant concentration which is affected by crystalline size. All results were evaluated by the chemical precipitation method having obtained good output as compare to the results obtained by solgel method. This optical band gap was used in optoelectronic application.


Methotrexate is the most commonly used drug in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, although 30-40% of patients fail to adequately respond. An accurate method for measuring methotrexate polyglutamates, the stable active metabolite of methotrexate, has recently been described. The objective of this review article is to determine if clinical use of this measurement would improve methotrexate efficacy, or decrease adverse reactions. Additionally the pharmacologic rationale for this test is discussed. Although methotrexate response improves at higher methotrexate polyglutamate levels, there is no absolute correlation of level with effect. Moreover, overlapping methotrexate polyglutamate levels between clinical responders and nonresponders limits the clinical utility of this measurement.


Copper amine oxidases (CAOs) catalyse the oxidation of various aliphatic amines to the corresponding aldehydes, ammonia and hydrogen peroxide. Although CAOs from various organisms share a highly conserved active-site structure including a protein-derived cofactor, topa quinone (TPQ), their substrate specificities differ considerably. To obtain structural insights into the substrate specificity of a CAO from Arthrobacter globiformis (AGAO), we have determined the X-ray crystal structures of AGAO complexed with irreversible inhibitors that form covalent adducts with TPQ. Three hydrazine derivatives, benzylhydrazine (BHZ), 4-hydroxybenzylhydrazine (4-OH-BHZ) and phenylhydrazine (PHZ) formed predominantly a hydrazone adduct, which is structurally analogous to the substrate Schiff base of TPQ formed during the catalytic reaction. With BHZ and 4-OH-BHZ, but not with PHZ, the inhibitor aromatic ring is bound to a hydrophobic cavity near the active site in a well-defined conformation. Furthermore, the hydrogen atom on the hydrazone nitrogen is located closer to the catalytic base in the BHZ and 4-OH-BHZ adducts than in the PHZ adduct. These results correlate well with the reactivity of 2-phenylethylamine and tyramine as preferred substrates for AGAO and also explain why benzylamine is a poor substrate with markedly decreased rate constants for the steps of proton abstraction and the following hydrolysis.


Features Regulars 10 Dubai Bank: taking the Shari'ah route NewHorizon examines the bank's conversion from a conventional financial institution to a fully-fledged Islamic one, and talks to the project leaders about the challenges of taking the Shari'ah route. Dr Azeemuddin Subhani, who offered an original interpretation of riba on the pages of NewHorizon in 2008, returns to reassess the importance of zakat, the Islamic principle of charitable giving. 20 Interest rate risk: a threat to the Islamic banking system? In this new section, 'Food for Thought', two experts from the IIBI voice different viewpoints on the issue that may prove to be a real challenge to the industry.


Recent beam bending (BB) experiments of microporous f h s with very small pores have shown that the fluid confined in these pores exhibits monotonic compressive stresses as the relative pressure is varied from vacuum to saturation (relative vapor pressure, p/po = 1). The variation of the stress near saturation is found to be linear in Zn(p) and given by the saturated liquid density, pll to within 20%. Capillary condensed fluids are traditionally described by the Laplace-Kelvin (LK) theory. LK theory correctly predicts the slope of the stress near saturation to be pll but also predicts that the stress should be zero at saturation and tensile between saturation and the capillary transition pressure. Hence LK theory does not capture the monotonic compressive stress observed in BB experiments. This report describes the results of density functional theory calculations for a simple fluid confined to a slit pore network. We show how the presence of even a small amount of polydispersity in pore size leads to both a monotonic compressive stress as well as the observed LK slope.


The OH(v′=4, N′=1) products of the photon-initiated reaction O(1D2)+H2(v=0)→OH(v′, N′)+H have been probed using Doppler-resolved laser induced fluorescence. The data are used to extract the product state-resolved differential cross-section and excitation function. The state-specific angular distribution displays pronounced forward–backward peaks with a bias for backward scattering. The experimental data are compared with the results of QCT calculations, using two alternative abinitio versions of the ground 11A′ potential energy surface, and a recent abinitio version ofthe first excited 11A″ potential energy surface, in order to assess its possible influence on the overall dynamics of the reaction.


Abstract. In this paper ionosonde observations in the East Asia–Australia sector were collected to investigate dusk-to-nighttime enhancement of mid-latitude summer Nm F2 (maximum electron density of the F2 layer) within the framework of Nm F2 diurnal variation. Nm F2 were normalized to two solar activity levels to investigate the dependence of the dusk-to-nighttime enhancement on solar activity. The dusk-to-nighttime enhancement of Nm F2 is more evident at Northern Hemisphere stations than at Southern Hemisphere stations, with a remarkable latitudinal dependence. The dusk-to-nighttime enhancement shows both increasing and declining trends with solar activity increasing, which is somewhat different from previous conclusions. The difference in the dusk-to-nighttime enhancement between Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere stations is possibly related to the offset of the geomagnetic axis from the geographic axis. hm F2 (peak height of the F2 layer) diurnal variations show that daytime hm F2 begins to increase much earlier at low solar activity level than at high solar activity level at northern Akita and Wakkanai stations where the dusk-to-nighttime enhancement is more prominent at low solar activity level than at high solar activity level. That implies neutral wind phase is possibly also important for nighttime enhancement.


The impact of HIV on the mucosal compartment is now well recognized and contributes to driving immune activation, a characteristic of HIV pathogenesis. The mucosal immune system is greatly affected by HIV from the first days of the infection. A massive depletion of the mucosal CD4+ T cells, over production of chemokines and cytokines and dysregulation of the epithelial barrier are some of the mucosal hallmarks of HIV infection. Individuals who control HIV replication, such as elite controllers (EC), or who maintain normal CD4+ T cell counts, such as long-term nonprogessors (LTNP), seem to maintain a balance within their mucosal environment that contributes to the delayed progression. At the female genital tract, which is the main route of entry of the virus in male to female heterosexual transmission, sexual activities have been associated with changes in mucosal immune activation that may influence the risk of HIV infection. However, not all exposures to HIV lead to infection and it seems that the immune mucosal milieu of the female genital tract is a critical determinant of HIV susceptibility. HIV Exposed Seronegatives (HESN) represents a group of individuals, such as female commercial sex workers, who are at high risk of infection but remain HIV uninfected. Repeated unprotected sex with many different partners makes them highly susceptible to HIV infection, yet it seems that they can prevent the establishment of HIV infection. What makes them "resistant" to HIV infection? In this review, we will focus on the regulation of the mucosal immune system during exposure and infection with HIV. What goes wrong in HIV infection and what goes right in HESN individuals? Lessons learned from HESN might help to have a better understanding of mucosal immune regulation and develop effective HIV preventive strategies.


With the increasing presence of Indian Immigrants in the West, there is a tendency among the diasporic people to use the World Wide Web (WWW) to create a cyber community. One of these pages is used as a starting point to examine critically the ways in which the WWW text speaks simultaneously to an interpretive community of "ingroup" members who have the interpretive history and strategies to make sense of the pages as well as the "outgroup" members who happen to surf into the India‐related pages. Several textual strategies are identified that create this ingroup/outgroup tension, including modes of formatting, use of language, specific selections of images and multimedia elements, and the specific links provided by the pages. These combine to produce the multi‐accentuated stylistic of the page that assists in speaking simultaneously to the two groups.


A mutant of Micromonospora purpurea, which produces the gentamicin complex only when 2-deoxystreptamine is added to the fermentation medium, produces a new antibiotic complex, 2-hydroxygentamicin, when streptamine or 2,4,6/3,5-pentahydroxycyclohexanone is added to the fermentation medium. This mutant also produces the gentamicin complex when 2,4/3,5-tetrahydroxycyclohexanone is added to the fermentation medium. The C1 and C2 components of 2-hydroxygentamicin have broad spectrum in vitro antibacterial activity similar to the gentamicin C1 and C2 components, but with greater activity against some gentamicin-resistant strains.


The ncural integrator has been at least a conceptual portion of the vestibular system since the earliest vestibular studies. Like others before him, Robinson (e.g. 1975) observed adequate stimulation of the vestibular end organ by angular acceleration results in eye position as the final output of the vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR). Therefore, he reasoned that there must be two levels of integration, one attributable to the mechanics of the cupula and the other to an hypothesized neural integrator. He further suggested that this integrator is common for all subsystems of conjugate eye movement. The results of both single-unit recordings and lesions suggest that the interstitial nucleus of Cajal (INC) and the nucleus prepositus hypoglossi (NPH) of both cats and monkeys are part of the vertical and horizontal oculomotor integrators, respectively. Both structures contain neurons that have discharge components related to velocity and position, as might be expected of a neural integrator. In addition, injury to either structure weakens integrator function. The clearest effect of lesions is on gaze-holding ability. Damage to either the NPH or the INC impairs an animal's ability to maintain eccentric gaze. The INC alone cannot perform the integrating function. Strong reciprocal connections between the INC and the vestibular nuclei play an important role in vertical integration. In addition, the cerebellar flocculus may also be included in the integrator. Some of the oculomotor subsystems may have separate integrators.


This paper argues that the nature of the bilingual education debate, represents a drama of societal self-definition. On one hand the commitment to preserve traditional power structures, and on the other, the desire to live up to theideals upon which the U.S.was founded. The latter implies the creation of a society where equality, freedom and justice represent more than just empty rhetoric. In order to build his case, the author examines the historical context of minority education in the U.S. and the surface text of the arguments both for and against the effectiveness of bilingual education. He concludes that the fundamental causes of minority students' school failure are rooted in socio historical processes of minority group disempowerment. The ways are outlined in which schools have traditionally reflected the societal power structure and rationalized the education disablement of minority students. An invention framework designed to reverse this pattern and prevent minority student academic failure is proposed. However, the author cautions that the implementation of empowerment pedagogy is unlikely to be facilitated by the dominant group because, almost by definition. empowerment pedagogy requires educators as individuals and schools as institutions to challenge the institutionalized racism that still persists in many aspects of society.


The authors have developed a programming learning support system based on source code reading, and the primary target of the developed system is novice programming learners. The question of our system requires learners to answer a variable's value after the execution of a presented source code. This paper shows the details of the developed system, and the effect and the expectation of reading simple source codes are examined from the result of its real operation to a basic programming lecture. This paper obtained student responses from questionnaire, after the students had completed one semester of the instruction in programming, and analyzed the data with factor analysis. From the analysis result, it turned out that characteristic factors and these degrees were found.


Supported biomimetic membranes (SBMs) on solid substrates have been commonly prepared from vesicle-forming double-tail lipids, such as zwitterionic phospholipids, using the method of vesicle fusion. Here we report on the preparation of SBMs on silica surfaces via a similar process of "micelle fusion" from a cationic single-tail bolaamphiphile GLH-20 that forms spherical and elongated thread-like micelles in solution. We demonstrate that, in contrast to zwitterionic phospholipids, GLH-20 self-assembles into a stable contiguous SBM at both low and high ionic strengths. The cationic charge of GLH-20 promotes the formation of a stable SBM through enhanced double-layer interactions with the negatively charged silica surface. It is also shown that spinach aquaporin PM-28 was successfully incorporated within bolaamphiphile SBM in a manner similar to SBMs prepared by vesicle/proteoliposome fusion; thereby the inherent curvature of the micelle surface does not inhibit protein reconstitution. The results suggest that SBMs based on charged bolaamphiphiles might be an attractive platform for applications such as water purification and biosensors, where the stability and low defect rate of SBMs in diverse conditions are crucial for achieving desired performance.


The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the network theory through an application of quantitative studies of text styles. We build a network from sentences of a text and the relative positions of the words in the sentence. The sentences are used as vertices of the network and connections were established between the vertices each time the same word appeared in the same position in the sentence. We compare here, texts of Brazilian authors Machado de Assis and Rui Barbosa and articles of a local newspaper, Tribuna do Norte. We estimate the dispersion, D, of the curve of number of connections of the network vertices which is characterized by presenting strong discontinuities. The quantity D is used to characterize the stylistic richness of the text.


This paper shows the way Leon Battista Alberti treatise De Re Aedificatoria column systematization shape grammar was built, and how the longitudinal elevation of the nave of the Sant'Andrea church was designed, evidencing some steps involved in the grammar construction process, its derivation, and the partial outputs gained from the grammar evaluation. The goal of this grammar is to infer Alberti's treatise rules through a computational approach evidencing its algorithmic nature, illustrating it, and understanding the De Re Aedificatoria rules that may be applied in the generation of some parts of buildings such as the Sant'Andrea church, showing a complementary method to archaeological, bibliographical, historical ones, among others, that have been used to understand the built environment. The rules provided by the grammar may be applied to an initial insertion point to produce a complete column and to a pre-existing plan or section element of a building generating its facade. It was proved, evaluating the grammar with a simple linear regression method, to what extent the treatise influenced the design of the facade in the study.


ABSTRACT Insects are a highly successful group of animals that inhabit almost every habitat and environment on Earth. Part of their success is due to a rapid and highly effective immune response that identifies, inactivates, and eliminates pathogens. Insects possess an immune system that shows many similarities to the innate immune system of vertebrates, but they do not possess an equivalent system to the antibody-mediated adaptive immune response of vertebrates. However, some insect do display a process known as immune priming in which prior exposure to a sublethal dose of a pathogen, or pathogen-derived material, leads to an elevation in the immune response rendering the insect resistant to a subsequent lethal infection a short time later. This process is mediated by an increase in the density of circulating hemocytes and increased production of antimicrobial peptides. Immune priming is an important survival strategy for certain insects while other insects that do not show this response may have colony-level behaviors that may serve to limit the success of pathogens. Insects are now widely used as in vivo models for studying microbial pathogens of humans and for assessing the in vivo efficacy of antimicrobial agents. Knowledge of the process of immune priming in insects is essential in these applications as it may operate and augment the perceived in vivo antimicrobial activity of novel compounds. Abbreviations: 1,3-dibenzyl-4,5-diphenyl-imidazol-2-ylidene silver(I) acetate; SBC3: antimicrobial peptides; AMPs: dorsal-related immunity factor; DIF: Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule; Dscam: Lipopolysaccharide; LPS: Pathogen-associated molecular patterns; PAMPS: Patterns recognition receptors; PRR: Prophenoloxidase; PO: Toll-like receptors; TLRs: Toll/IL-1R; TIR, Transgenerational Immune Priming; TgIP: Tumor necrosis factor-α; TNF-α.


Purpose. The rapid information technology development has increased significantly the availability of online marketing tools and introduced new measurement methods that help evaluate online marketing tools return. Hence, it is utmost important to conduct systematic researches in this field to use these tools effective. The purpose of this paper is to explore which social media marketing metrics are used by marketing experts globally and in Latvia. Based on the collected information new formulas which can help evaluate the return of social media campaign depending on consumer purchase decision process stage the campaign was targeted to influence were proposed. Methodology. In order to achieve the aim of this paper several theoretical and practical research methods were used, such as data analysis, literature analysis, surveying, grouping and other methods. First of all, an extended theoretical research about social media campaign metrics was conducted. Author collected information about metrics that are used by marketing experts around the world and summarized it. The collected information was further used as a foundation for the expert surveys. The surveys were used to gather information from Latvian marketing experts to determine which social media campaign metrics are used most often and which social media campaign metrics are the most important. After analysis of all the gathered information mentioned before, the author proposed formulas that can be used by marketing experts to evaluate the return of social media marketing campaigns based on consumer purchase decision process that they were meant to influence. Results. The main results of this paper are: 1. new social media return evaluation formulas were developed and proposed; 2. a new way how to measure social media campaign returns is proposed. The theoretical contribution. This paper suggests a new approach to evaluation of social media marketing. This approach is based on the consumer purchased decision process that was meant to be influenced. This paper can be used as a foundation for further researches that involve social media metrics evaluations. Practical implications . This paper contains the most up to date information about social media marketing metrics that experts use to evaluate their social media campaigns in Latvia. This information can be used to conduct further researches about social media campaign evaluation differences between countries. Keywords: Online marketing tools, consumer purchase decision process, social media evaluation metrics; social media. Paper type : This paper is theoretical and a research paper.


Acetohydroxyacid synthase (AHAS) exists in plants and many microorganisms (including gut flora) but not in mammals, making it as an attractive drug target. Fluorescent-based methods should be practical for high-throughput screening of inhibitors. Herein, we describe the development of the first AHAS fluorogenic assay based on an ICT-based fluorescent probe. The assay is facile, sensitive, continuous, and can be applied toward various AHASs from different species, AHAS mutants, and crude cell lysates. The fluorogenic assay was successfully applied for 1) high-throughput screening of commerical herbicides toward different AHASs for choosing matching herbicides, and 2) identification of a Soybean AHAS gene with broad-spectrum herbicide-resistance, and 3) identification of selective inhibitors toward intestinal-bacterial AHASs. Among the AHAS inhibitors, an active agent was found for selective inhibition of obesity-associated Ruminococcus torques growth, implying the possibility of AHAS inhibitors for the ultimate goal toward anti-obesity therapeutics. The fluorogenic assay opens the door for high-throughput programs in AHAS-related fields, and the design principle might be applied for development of fluorogenic assays of other synthases.


Objective: Orthostatic hypotension commonly accompanies supine hypertension, and is associated with low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. We tested whether high-dose intermittent oral vitamin D therapy could ameliorate orthostatic hypotension in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension. Methods: We conducted a subgroup analysis of data from a parallel-group, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Patients aged over 70 years with supine office SBP above 140 mmHg and DBP below 90 mmHg received 100 000 units oral vitamin D3 or matching placebo every 3 months for 1 year. Office supine and standing blood pressure were measured at baseline, and 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, along with arterial stiffness and flow-mediated dilatation of the brachial artery. Results: Of 159 patients randomized to the main trial, 75 patients with orthostatic hypotension at baseline were included in this analysis. The mean age was 78 (SD 5) years, baseline blood pressure was 162/76 mmHg and the mean baseline orthostatic fall in blood pressure on standing was 32/5 mmHg. After adjustment for baseline age, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, SBP and orthostatic fall, the fall in SBP was less in the vitamin D group at 3 months [treatment effect 6 mmHg, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0 to 12], but repeated-measures analysis showed no significant treatment effect (3 mmHg for systolic fall, 95% CI −1 to 8; 1 mmHg for diastolic fall, 95% CI −1 to 3). Conclusion: Twelve months of intermittent, high-dose oral vitamin D3 did not significantly improve orthostatic hypotension in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension.


AIM
Preoperative suspicion of malignancy in nonfunctioning pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) is mostly based on tumor size. We retrospectively analyzed the contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) features of a series of histopathologically proved nonfunctioning pNETs.

METHODS
In this retrospective study, 37 surgery and histologically proved nonfunctioning pNETs were included. All pNETs lesions were incidentally detected by transabdominal ultrasound. B mode ultrasound (BMUS) and CEUS features were reviewed and analyzed. 52 histopathologically proved pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDACs) lesions were included as a control group.

RESULTS
All nonfunctioning pNETs patients showed no typical clinical symptoms. No significant differences were observed in size, echogenicity or internal color flow imaging signal between pNETs and PDAC patients (P >  0.05). Most of nonfunctioning pNETs showed a well-defined tumor margin. The presence of pancreatic duct dilatation was less frequently observed in nonfunctioning pNETs patients (P <  0.05). After injection of ultrasound contrast agents, homogeneous enhancement was more commonly observed in nonfunctioning pNETs group (P <  0.05). During arterial phase of CEUS, most of nonfunctioning pNETs were hyper- or isoenhanced (32/37, 86.5%), whereas most of PDACs were hypoenhanced (34/52, 65.4%) (P <  0.05). Nonenhanced necrosis area was more commonly detected in PDACs (P = 0.012).

CONCLUSIONS
CEUS features are helpful for preoperative non-invasive differential diagnosis of nonfunctioning pNETs, assisting further clinical decision-making process.


Introduction: Facial soft tissue changes in relation to hard tissue movements after orthognathic surgery cases is always of concern to patients , surgical and orthodontics teams. The aim of the present study was to assess facial soft tissue changes and stability using 3D facial laser scanner after orthognathic surgery Le Forte I maxillary impaction in excessive gingival display patients. Methods: The subjects consisted of 12 patients with skeletal vertical maxillary excess (VME) causing an aesthetic concern to the patients in the form of "Gummy smile", who underwent LeFort I osteotomy with maxillary impaction, Three-dimensional images of the patients were acquired with a 3D laser scanner preoperatively and postoperatively. The changes in facial soft tissue were detected using a colour coded map for analysis. Results: Significant change was recorded in the upper lip, alar base, nasolabial fold and nasal tip areas, without specification of this change in direction. Conclusions: The 3D images captured using the laser scanner in this study can be a useful tool for communication with both patients and professionals but cannot be relied upon solely for accurate analysis of the facial soft tissue changes. The colour coded map analysis cannot be relied upon solely as a method of analysis as it lacks an important aspect of the change which is the direction.


Objective: Determination of the axon numbers of nerve fibers and evaluation of the parenchyma/stroma ratios to indicate the density of the periaxonal tissue (myelin sheath and periaxonal connective tissue) were aimed by using stereological methods on the histological sections obtained from the sciatic and tibial nerves of the human fetuses.
Materials and Methods: This histomorphometric study was carried out on 20 aborted human fetuses (14 males, 6 females, between 12 and 38 gestational weeks) with no external anomalies or malformation. Peripheral nervous tissue specimens harvested from the three levels [proximal (sciatic nerve), middle (first part of the tibial nerve), and distal (distal part of the tibial nerve) levels] through the lower extremities, by anatomical dissection, on either side. Histological sections were prepared. Digital images of the sections were used for the stereological study.
Results: The results showed (i) the axon number of peripheral nerves increases as the fetal period progresses; (ii) the axon number of peripheral nerves do not change from proximal to the distal specimen levels; (iii) the axon number of peripheral nerves increases at the same rate throughout the nerve; (iv) the parenchyma/stroma ratio of peripheral nerves does not change along with the nerve, during the fetal period; (v) the parenchyma/stroma ratio of the peripheral nerves does not vary between specimen levels.
Conclusion: Our results may contribute to the experimental and clinical research primarily related to sciatic and tibial nerves and the histological interpretation of fetal autopsy materials in fields such as fetopathology and forensic medicine.


This letter describes a power amplifier (PA) with high linearity based on the envelope elimination and restoration (EER) technique. PAs based on this technique are composed of a highly efficient nonlinear PA (class E) that performs phase modulation and a wide bandwidth envelope amplifier that supplies the nonlinear PA and has to inject the envelope through power supply modulation. The design of the envelope amplifier is a complicated task due to the tradeoff between demanded high efficiency and very wide bandwidth. In order to obtain a reasonably high efficiency and very wide bandwidth, a solution based on the multilevel converter in series with a linear regulator is proposed. It provides up to 100 W of peak power and tracks sine waves up to 2 MHz. The class E amplifier has been optimized for high-efficiency (near 85%) and high-frequency (120 MHz) operation. The experimental results presented in this letter validate the proposed solutions for the envelope and phase amplifier, demonstrate that the implemented EER PA can handle up to 100 W of peak power, and highlight its high linearity (around 40 dB of attenuation of the intermodulation products) and high efficiency (up to 25% less power losses than an ideal class B amplifier).


BACKGROUND: Melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) is predominantly recognized to mediate energy metabolism and anti-inflammation through the central nervous system. However, the expression of MC4R has recently been identified in rat liver and was shown to be upregulated during acute phase response. This study aims to investigate potential roles of MC4R in liver regeneration. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Rat partial hepatectomy (PHx) was performed, and MC4R expression was analyzed at different time points after resection. Sham-operated animals (SH) served as controls. In vitro primary hepatocytes (HCs) were isolated from normal rat liver and stimulated with α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MC4R agonist). Real-time polymerase chain reaction, Western blot, and immunofluorescence staining were applied to detect gene expression. RESULTS: Up to 8h after PHx, hepatic messenger RNA of proinflammatory cytokines interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor α reached peak values. Between 8 and 72h after PHx, rat liver regeneration was extremely active as assessed by the regeneration indices labeled by Ki-67. Immunofluorescence staining indicated that MC4R was mostly expressed in hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α + cells (HCs) and upregulated during rat liver regeneration. Concurrently, the expression of hepatic MC4R protein was significantly higher in PHx than in SH animals, and phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 was remarkably increased in PHx compared with SH animals (p<0.05, respectively). In vitro experiments showed that the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen was significantly higher in HCs treated with α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone than in control HCs, which was correlated to the increase of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 and reduction of phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p<0.05, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: MC4R is predominantly expressed in HCs and upregulated during rat liver regeneration. In vitro stimulation of HC MC4R is associated with a modulation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 pathways regulating liver regeneration.


BACKGROUND
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) may be complicated by extraintestinal manifestations (EIM). Both conditions may be implicated in the overall increase of cardiovascular (CV) risk profile of the patients. The study aimed to assess CV risk in IBD patients with EIMs in relation to the stages of both diseases.

METHODS
A total of 70 (38 men, mean age 51.7±12.4 years) patients with IBD and 22 controls (12 men, mean age 49.2±13.6 years) were enrolled. All patients and controls were screened for extraintestinal manifestations and underwent physical and anthropometric examinations, standard laboratory investigations, ultrasound evaluation of carotid arteries and flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD). Patients were divided into four groups in relation to their active or remission stage of disease: 1. IBD+ EIM+; 2. IBD+ EIM-; 3. IBD- EIM+; 4. IBD- EIM-.

RESULTS
The groups were homogenous according to their clinical characteristics. Patients with both IBD and EIM in active phase showed significantly lower values in FMD than controls (p=0.024). Carotid intima-media thickness values (cIMT) were similar among groups. Patients with active phases of IBD and/or EIM showed statistically significant lower values in FMD measurements (p=0.0008 and p=0.0011, respectively). Multivariate regression did not reveal any independent predictors for FMD values.

CONCLUSIONS
The active phase of IBD or EIM or both may promote endothelial dysfunction in patients, thus increasing their CV risk profile. Patients in remission phase showed endothelial function similar at controls.


AIMS
The present study was carried out to assess the effect of the selective beta2-adrenoceptor agonists on erythropoietin (EPO) production.

METHODS
Routine tocolysis with fenoterol (using the regular rate of 2 microg min[-1]) was used as a clinically easily accessible model.

RESULTS
EPO concentrations had doubled 24 h after the start of tocolysis (P < 0.001). This increase lasted over the entire observation period of 48 h. Potassium concentrations fell significantly during the first hours of fenoterol infusion. There was no increase of human placenta lactogen during the period of EPO increase.

CONCLUSIONS
The data confirm our earlier results that fenoterol increases EPO concentrations following haemorrhage. In this model it was not necessary to stimulate EPO production prior to pharmacological treatment.


The structure of the Pyrenean Axial Zone laterally transitions from an imbricate thrust system to an antiformal stack displaying downward facing structures in its frontal part (the Nogueras zone). We carried out a paleomagnetic study through this structural transition to better constrain thrust kinematics and better define the factors controlling the occurrence of antiformal stacks. Triassic red beds unconformably overlying the Paleozoic basement were sampled across three main thrust sheets (the Nogueras zone, the Bielsa, and the Orri thrust sheets). From 31 new sites, two meaningful magnetizations were defined, both carried by hematite: (1) the primary magnetization, that unblocks at 660–685 °C and (2) an intermediate‐temperature, syn‐orogenic remagnetization. Paleomagnetic data indicate variable, clockwise vertical axis rotations, with mean, thrust‐scale values that range from 0 to +38°. They increase both from the base to the top of the stacked units and from west to east and display a thrust‐scale directional dispersion that is higher for the lower wavelength thrusts. Results evidence that increasing thrust displacements in the upper thrusts units are a key factor for the formation of antiformal stacks showing downward facing structures. Displacement gradients in the basement are transferred to cover units and can account for important rotations such as those registered by the Mesozoic‐Cenozoic units to the south of the study area.


A promising method for efficiently querying RDF data consists of translating SPARQL queries into efficient RDBMS-style operations. However, answering SPARQL queries requires handling RDF reasoning, which must be implemented outside the relational engines that do not support it.
 We introduce the database (DB) fragment of RDF, going beyond the expressive power of previously studied RDF fragments. We devise novel sound and complete techniques for answering Basic Graph Pattern (BGP) queries within the DB fragment of RDF, exploring the two established approaches for handling RDF semantics, namely reformulation and saturation. In particular, we focus on handling database updates within each approach and propose a method for incrementally maintaining the saturation; updates raise specific difficulties due to the rich RDF semantics. Our techniques are designed to be deployed on top of any RDBMS(-style) engine, and we experimentally study their performance trade-offs.


The modern definition of geography as the science of 'space' derives in important measure, it will be argued, from the Germanic concept of Raum. The implications of the importation of this concept into English are masked, however, by its translation as 'space', an English word with very different connotations from the German Raum. Whereas the English space is conceptually distinct from place, Raum has a double meaning, combining elements of both space and place. This doubleness becomes duplicitous when Raum is transmogrified into the English space, thereby blurring the distinction; allowing space to appropriate the meaning of place. The problem is further complicated by the fact that this process of transmogrification occurred largely via contact with Swedish geography–in which rum is cognate to the German Raum. Geography, this essay concludes, would do well to apply the same reflexive critique to its concept of space as it has applied, with great success, to landscape, a Germanic concept that can also refer to both place and space.


Bloodstains provide admissible information for crime scene investigators. The ability to resolve latent bloodstains that are commonly found in real scenarios is therefore pivotal to public security. Here, we report a facile approach for invisible bloodstain visualization based on the click reaction between serum albumin and tetraphenylethene maleimide (TPE-MI), an aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen). Compared to the widely adopted methods based on the harsh catalytic oxidation activity of hemoglobin, this working principle benefits from the specificity of the mild catalyst-free thiol-ene click reaction that improves the reliability and resolution. In addition, the mild conditions preserve DNA information and bloodstain patterns, and the excellent photophysical properties of the AIEgen afford high sensitivity and stability (>1 yr). Such an excellent performance cannot be achieved by conventional AIEgens and aggregation-caused quenching luminogens with similar structures. TPE-MI outperforms the benchmark luminol-based technique in visualizing latent bloodstains as showcased in two mock crime scenes: spattered blood track and transfer blood fingerprint. This disclosed method is an advancement in forensic science that could inspire future development of technology for bloodstain visualization.


Objective measurement of daily steps was used to assess whether children (n = 2,076) in Years 1, 5 and 10 who reported walking to or from school were more active and more likely to reach recommended step targets than those who were driven or took public transport to school. Walking to school was associated with higher school-day steps in older children (16,238 vs 15,275 for Year 5 male p < .05, 13,521 vs 12,502 for Year 5 female p < .01, 12,109 vs 11,373 for Year 10 female p < .05). The proportion of children who met recommended step thresholds was higher in those who walked to school compared with those who took motorized transport, and this was significant for Year 5 females (71.7% vs 54.5%, p < .01). This study suggests that walking to school for older children has potential to contribute significantly to daily activity levels and increases the likelihood of attaining recommended step targets. These data should encourage public policy and those concerned with the built environment to provide and support opportunities for walking to school.


We contribute to the perturbation theory of nonlinear eigenvalue problems in three ways. First, we extend the formula for the sensitivity of a simple eigenvalue with respect to a variation of a parameter to the case of multiple nonsemisimple eigenvalues, thereby providing an explicit expression for the leading coefficients of the Puiseux series of the emanating branches of eigenvalues. Second, for a broad class of delay eigenvalue problems, the connection between the finite-dimensional nonlinear eigenvalue problem and an associated infinite-dimensional linear eigenvalue problem is emphasized in the developed perturbation theory. Finally, in contrast to existing work on analyzing multiple eigenvalues of delay systems, we develop all theory in a matrix framework, i.e., without reduction of a problem to the analysis of a scalar characteristic quasi-polynomial.


Silicon carbide (SiC) is a promising material for electronic devices operating at high temperatures, thanks to its large energy band gap, superior mechanical prop- erties and excellent chemical inertness. Among various poly types of SiC, cubic single crystalline silicon carbide (3C-SiC) is considered to be the most suitable poly type for MEMS applications, as it can be grown on a Si substrate which is com- patible with the conventional MEMS process and reduces the cost of SiC wafers. Studies on the piezoresistive effect of 3C-SiC are of great interest for developing mechanical sensors such as pressure sensors and strain sensors used for controlling combustion and deep well drilling. This research aims to experimentally charac- terize and theoretically analyze the piezoresistive effect of p-type single crystalline 3C-SiC grown on a large scale Si substrate. The gauge factor, the piezoresistive coefficients in two-terminal and four-terminal resistors, the comparison between single crystalline and nano crystalline SiC, as well as the temperature dependence of the piezoresistive effect in p-type 3C-SiC are also addressed. The large gauge factors of the p-type 3C-SiC at both room temperature and high temperatures found in this study indicated that this poly type is feasible for the development of mechanical sensing transducers used in harsh environments with high temperatures.


Harris DL, Weston PJ, Harding JE Waikato District Health Board, Hamilton, New Zealand, Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Email: email@example.com Background: Blood glucose screening is recommended for babies identified as being at risk for neonatal hypoglycaemia, but not for healthy term babies. We compared the incidence of low glucose concentrations in the first 48 h after birth between healthy term babies and term babies identified as being at risk for hypoglycaemia. Methods: Healthy babies were appropriately grown singletons. Participants and researchers were unaware of the glucose results. At-risk babies were small (<10 centile or <2.5 kg) or large (>90 centile or >4.5 kg) or infants of diabetic mothers. Clinicians were aware of blood but not interstitial glucose results and treated with the aim of keeping blood glucose concentrations ≥ 2.6 mM. Results: 67 healthy and 326 at-risk babies were included in the analysis. Healthy babies had fewer blood glucose measurements than at-risk babies (median (range) 6 (4-7) vs 8 (1-22), P < 0.001). The number of babies with episodes of low glucose concentrations was similar in both groups (Table).


commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract-This paper involves the design and development of a single chip VHDL FPGA processor which performs all arithmetic and logical functions and the output is displayed by means of LCD interface. This processor can perform 2n number of operations, where n is the number of control bits. In this design, a 5 bit control input is used so that the processor is capable of performing up to 32 operations. The chip is designed to execute 21 operations for different specified functions and 11 more operations can be worked on for improvements and future works. Two data with a size of 8 to 16 bits can be applied as input and the results are obtained on 4 to 8 hexadecimal digits carrying 32 bits in all. A status flag is also designed with the features such as indication of overflow, carry, borrow and zero value. To implement the above design, Very High Speed Description Language simulation is required which can be performed using Altera or Xilinx softwares. Once the program has been developed, the authors demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed design by incorporating it into a FPGA chip and the required hardware can be brought into effect. The state of each output bit is shown by using Light Emitting Diodes. Based on users needs, more features can be added to the designed hardware without hindering the implemented one. A Abstract-This paper involves the design and development of a single chip VHDL FPGA processor which performs all arithmetic and logical functions and the output is displayed by means of LCD interface. This processor can perform 2n number of operations, where n is the number of control bits. In this design, a 5 bit control input is used so that the processor is capable of performing up to 32 operations. The chip is designed to execute 21 operations for different specified functions and 11 more operations can be worked on for improvements and future works. Two data with a size of 8 to 16 bits can be applied as input and the results are obtained on 4 to 8 hexadecimal digits carrying 32 bits in all. A status flag is also designed with the features such as indication of overflow, carry, borrow and zero value. To implement the above design, Very High Speed Description Language simulation is …


The production of high-quality seedlings is a critical factor for successful implementation of a determined crop in the field. In order to evaluate the production of coffee seedlings, experiments were conducted with different substrates and in different protected environments. Treatments consisted of evaluation of the following substrates: 50% cattle manure + 50% commercial substrate, 50% cattle manure + 50% vermiculite, 50% commercial substrate + 50% vermiculite, 1/3 cattle manure + 1/3 commercial substrate + 1/3 vermiculite, 50% cattle manure + 50% sand, 1/3 sand + 1/3 cattle manure + 1/3 commercial substrate and 50% commercial substrate + 50% sand. These substrates were tested in different protected environments: agricultural greenhouse, mesh screen with 50% shading, aluminized screen with 50% shading, black screen with 30% shading, black screen with 70% shading, nursery with a buriti straw roof and full sunlight. In each environment, the experiments were conducted in a completely randomized design with five replicates of four plants each followed by joint analysis. The substrates containing 50% cattle manure associated with vermiculite or the commercial substrate may be indicated for production of coffee seedlings. Screened environments with 30, 50 and 70% shading resulted in the highest quality seedlings.


Widely portrayed as a 'cure-all' for poverty, the group-lending micro-credit model has received much attention as a development strategy. This book introduces the basic structure of Grameen Bank's group-lending model through an examination of its general tenets, eligibility requirements, and services offered. In understanding this methodology, the author turns to adjustments made by Grameen's international replications. The study concentrates on the Kashf Foundation, one of the most successful micro-credit institutions in Pakistan, and both the environmental differences as well as the consequent institutional changes in the replication process. After elucidating the particularities of each model, the concepts of 'success' and 'empowerment' are critically examined to understand the aims of different replicating models. The study concludes with a view of success as something more than mere market penetration, as well as recommendations for how business strategies such as marketing and branding can be useful in enhancing outreach.


I consider a model for the control of criminality in cities. The model was developed during my REU at UCLA. The model is a system of partial differential equations that simulates the behavior of criminals and where theymay accumulate, hot spots. I have proved a prior bounds for the partial differential equations inbothone-dimensional andhigherdimensional case, which proves the attractiveness and density of criminals in the given area will not beunlimitedlyhigh. In addition, I have foundsome local bifurcation points in the model.


The polyhedron that features so prominently in Melencolia I occupies a privileged place in the histories of both art and geometry. Art historians and mathematicians have puzzled over the precise shape, debating whether it is a truncated triangular trapezohedron or rhombohedron, and possibly a precursor to the study of quasicrystals. In these histories the polyhedron is elusive, withdrawn, and indifferent—it exudes melancholy. This chapter considers the evolution of the polyhedron as a melancholic object, and later appropriations by artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Anselm Kiefer, and, most recently, Fabien Merelle.


In this article the possibility of analytical calculation of kinematic parameters of thehinged laddermechanisms of the 2-nd class and 2-nd order with the use of analytical geometrybasis in the plane and differential calculus is considered.Derived analytical dependences for determination of the linear and angular velocities and accelerations points and links of six-linkedlever mechanism.Examples of graphs, obtained with the use of the calculation of the mathematical programs MathCad 14 are introduced.


In this paper, we consider incidences of arrears to the IMF, focusing on protracted arrears cases and attempt to identify determinants of their occurrence. We use narrative and formal methods. In addition, we analyze determinants of the duration of arrears. We find that previous arrears, reserves coverage, and institutional quality are among the main determinants of arrears. In addition, we identify a role for political developments, including civil unrest, which make arrears more likely to arise and to last longer. We conclude that improved macroeconomic conditions and turnaround of political fortunes would help to clear the currently remaining protracted arrears cases.


Abstract:This article explores the uses, effects, and limits of humor for the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous collective of women artists established in 1985. Using archival materials, oral histories, and contemporary news coverage, it explores how the Guerrilla Girls employed humor to leverage critiques of institutionalized sexism and racism in the art world. It demonstrates how irony in particular helped lampoon art world pretensions, point out inequalities, and render the exclusion of women and people of color absurd. This article asserts the Guerrilla Girls' place within the history of US feminism and frames the group as belonging to an underexamined history of feminist humor.


Using register renaming and physical registers, modern microprocessors eliminate false data dependences from reuse of the instruction set defined registers (logical registers). High performance processors that have longer pipelines and a greater capacity to exploit instruction-level parallelism have more instructions in-flight and require more physical registers. Simultaneous multithreading architectures further exacerbate this register pressure. This paper evaluates two register sharing techniques for reducing register usage. The first technique dynamically combines physical registers having the same value the second technique combines the demand of several instructions updating the same logical register and share physical register storage among them. While similar techniques have been proposed previously, an important contribution of this paper is to exploit only special cases that provide most of the benefits of more general solutions but at a very low hardware complexity. Despite the simplicity, our design reduces the required number of physical registers by more than 10% on some applications, and provides almost half of the total benefits of an aggressive (complex) scheme. More importantly, we show the simpler design to reduce register pressure has significant performance effects in a simultaneous multithreaded (SMT) architecture where register availability can be a bottleneck. Our results show an average of 25.6% performance improvement for an SMT architecture with 160 registers or, equivalently, similar performance as an SMT with 200 registers (25% more) but no register sharing.


Since 1998, TNO Defence, Security and Safety has performed operational analysis with the Underwater Warfare Testbed, which provides an environment for evaluation and validation of systems, concepts, and tactics. On top of this testbed the Torpedo Defence System TestBed has been built to simulate torpedoes, torpedo detection systems and torpedo countermeasures. Studies are performed in a research programme in which knowledge in this field is acquired to support the Royal Netherlands Navy in the procurement of new torpedoes and torpedo defence systems. This paper focuses on the most recent studies into the use of existing sonar systems (towed, hull mounted and dipping) to detect torpedoes. The detection performance results are used in the Area Torpedo Defence study to determine the composition of ship formations, which are in transit or operate in expeditionary operations including sea basing. Furthermore, the deployment of torpedo countermeasures in two different torpedo defence concepts is investigated.


Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative illness that is unremittingly fatal and for which no effective treatment exists. All forms of ALS are characterized by protein aggregation. In familial forms of ALS, specific and heritable aggregation-prone proteins have been identified, such as mutant superoxide dismutase (SOD1). It has been suggested that a factor capable of preventing mutant SOD1 protein aggregation and/or disassembling mutant SOD1 protein aggregates would ameliorate SOD1-associated forms of familial ALS. Here we identify Fas Apoptosis Inhibitory Molecule (FAIM), a highly evolutionarily conserved 20 kDa protein, as an agent with this activity. We show FAIM counteracts intracellular accumulation of mutant SOD1 protein aggregates, which is increased in the absence of FAIM, as determined by pulse-shape analysis and filter trap assays. In a cell-free system, FAIM inhibits aggregation of mutant SOD1, and further disassembles and solubilizes established mutant SOD1 protein aggregates, as determined by thioflavin T (ThT), filter trap, and sedimentation assays. In sum, we report here a previously unknown activity of FAIM that opposes ALS disease-related protein aggregation and promotes proteostasis of an aggregation-prone ALS protein.


Transport is an industry that generates a significant portion of national income and directly or indirectly employs a large number of workers, while supporting the existence and development of all other sectors of the economy. Despite the long-standing goal of decoupling economic and transport growth in the European Union (EU), freight transport volumes, especially road freight transport, continue to increase. This leads to a deterioration of the quality of life and the environment, but on the other hand also creates business opportunities. The question is which country's haulers will benefit the most. Using a shift-share analysis, the authors provide an overview of the dynamics of the EU road freight market and select countries for closer examination. They then examine the extent to which the road freight sector contributes to national income in these countries. Using a regression analysis, they estimate transport prices and changes in turnover and gross value added (GVA) for selected countries due to market structure change. The results show that the sector's turnover increased by 4% due to market changes, sectoral GVA deviated only slightly, and there was a loss of at least 8 billion EUR in GVA due to the shortage of truck drivers.


We propose a method for reconfiguring a relay node for polarization encoded quantum key distribution (QKD) networks. The relay can be switched between trusted and untrusted modes to adapt to different network conditions, relay distances, and security requirements. This not only extends the distance over which a QKD network operates but also enables point-to-multipoint (P2MP) network topologies. The proposed architecture centralizes the expensive and delicate single-photon detectors (SPDs) at the relay node with eased maintenance and cooling while simplifying each user node so that it only needs commercially available devices for low-cost qubit preparation.


Comparative HPLC-UV and LC-MS/MS studies of impurity profiles of a reference sample (Xenical®, F. Hoffmann–La Roche Ltd., Switzerland) vs. generic (Lipiblock®, EMS–Sigma Pharma, a generic drug) were carried out with ethanol extracts of commercial samples. The generic formulation contained higher levels of common impurities as well as a considerable number of impurities not found in the reference product. The detected impurity profile of Lipiblock® revealed that it most likely is based on fermentation. Since the effect of the impurities is unknown, at this point fully synthetic Xenical® appears to offer a better safety margin than Lipiblock® which, however, compares quite well to other generic formulations.


Spinal cord parenchymal lesions may induce intractable neuropathic pain. However, the efficacy of conventional spinal cord stimulation for the neuropathic pain following spinal cord lesions remains to be controversial. In this study, we present three cases of spinal cord stimulation using a paddle lead at the rostral side of the spinal lesion causing pain symptoms. Good pain reductions were achieved using conventional stimulation in one case and using differential target multiplexed stimulation in two cases. Case 1: A 55-year-old man presented with neuropathic pain affecting his bilateral upper extremities due to a traumatic cervical spinal cord injury. Conventional stimulation via a paddle-type electrode was able to reduce the pain from 8 to 4 via a visual analog scale. Case 2: A 67-year-old man had undergone three spinal surgeries. He presented with pain and numbness of bilateral lower extremities due to a spinal cord lesion by thoracic disc herniation. Differential target multiplexed stimulation via a paddle-type electrode achieved excellent pain reduction, that is, from 9 to 2 on the visual analog scale. Case 3: An 80-year-old man presented with pain in his bilateral upper extremities due to a cervical spinal cord lesion caused by compression and spinal canal stenosis. Posterior cervical decompression and paddle-type electrode placement were performed simultaneously. Differential target multiplexed stimulation was able to achieve excellent pain reduction, from 7 to 2 on the visual analog scale. Spinal cord stimulation using a paddle lead at the rostral side of the spinal lesion and differential target multiplexed stimulation may provide significant opportunities for patients with intractable neuropathic pain following spinal cord lesions.


Background Non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) is the most common cause of cardiogenic cerebral embolism (CCE). However, the underlying mechanism between cerebral embolism and NVAF is indefinite, and there is no effective and convenient biomarker to identify potential risk of CCE in patients with NVAF in clinic. The present study aims to identify risk factors for interpreting the potential association of CCE with NVAF and providing valuable biomarkers to predict the risk of CCE for NVAF patients. Methods 641 NVAF patients diagnosed with CCE and 284 NVAF patients without any history of stroke were recruited in the present study. Clinical data including demographic characteristics, medical history, and clinical assessments, were recorded. Meanwhile, Blood cell counts, lipid profiles, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and coagulation function-related indicators were measured. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis was utilized to build a composite indicator model based on the blood risk factors. Results (1) CCE patients had significantly increased neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and D-dimer levels as compared with patients in the NVAF group, and these three indicators can distinguish CCE patients from ones in the NVAF group with an area under the curve (AUC) value of over 0.750, respectively. (2) Using the LASSO model, a composite indicator, i.e., the risk score, was determined based on PLR and D-dimer and displayed differential power for distinguishing CCE patients from NVAF patients with an AUC value of over 0.934. (3) The risk score was positively correlated with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale and CHADS2 scores in CCE patients. (4) There was a significant association between the change value of the risk score and the recurrence time of stroke in initial CCE patients. Conclusions The PLR and D-dimer represent an aggravated process of inflammation and thrombosis in the occurrence of CCE after NVAF. The combination of these two risk factors can contribute to identifying the risk of CCE for patients with NVAF with an accuracy of 93.4%, and the greater in change of composite indicator, the shorter in the recurrence of CCE for NVAF patients.


Coastal village and Inland village was village in jeju. This study was cultural elements of stone to village in jeju. Memorial Stone and Stone Monument Street, Shrine, An altar of sarificial site for village tutelary spirits, Bangsatap(pagoda), 25 Bongsu(25 beacon fire stations) and 38 Yeondae(38 signaling sites), Hwanhaejangseong Fortress, Grave wall and Horse pasture walls were included in elements of history and culture to village in jeju. An altar of sarificial rite for village tutelary spirits was generally on the a hill near a village, built of Stone wall. Bangsatap(pagoda) was the kind and the size of stone to a location, that expresses the form and the scale. the form of grave wall was the oval or the rectangle, the latter was frequent. Thatched houses in jeju and facilities in a house, Stone wall, Tongsi(pigsty), Paeng namu and A heights of stone, Spring water and Water collected in a depression, Stone Weir, Horse mill and Dodaebul(Old Lighthouse) were included in elements of life and culture to village in jeju. Stone wall has the multiplicity of the size and the building method in the use, the function and the region. The form of Stone weir was the rectangular figure or the curvilinear figure, the section of that was the right triangle or the rectangular form.


The study entails impact on operational performance (OPER) of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) by using supply chain management (SCM) and information system (IS) practices in Saudia Arabia empirically. Moderation investigation of Supply Chain Management and Information System link promoted factors and impeding factors in implementing Supply Chain Management and Information System applies and OPER also taken in to account in the second part of the research. In the current study, underlying dimensions of SCM and IS practices are also empirically identified, and enabling and inhibiting fators related to SCM-IS are also identified at the first stage. Regression analysis was used for estimation of studying impact of variables on OPER and SMEs in the second phase of the research. Comparative results discussion have taken place in Saudi context at the end of the research. The study significantly contribute while considering and evaluating literature, acquire and analyses of collected data about Supply Chain Management and Information System implementations in Saudi Small and Medium Enterprices.


Medical records of 27 cats with masses of the larynx and trachea were examined. Six cats had inflammatory masses, and 21 cats had neoplastic lesions. A definitive diagnosis was reached in 22 cats with a single biopsy. The median age of the cats was 12.0 years (range 6 to 20 years). Dyspnea was the most common clinical sign. Accurate diagnoses were best obtained through direct laryngeal or tracheal examination combined with histological examination of tissue biopsies. Kaplan-Meier survival data for all inflammatory and neoplastic lesions showed a median survival of 5 days, with 7.4% of cats alive at 1 year.


An immunoassay now permits the determination of human exposure to aflatoxin at an individual level and consequently allows a better assessment of the role of aflatoxin, and its interaction with hepatitis B virus infection, in the aetiology of liver cancer. Measurements of aflatoxin bound to serum albumin in children and adults from various African countries show that between 12 and 100% contain aflatoxin-albumin adducts, with levels up to 350 pg AFB1-lysine equivalent/mg albumin. In Thailand, lower levels and prevalence of this adduct were observed, while no positive sera were detected from France or Poland. Data are presented showing that exposure to this carcinogen can occur throughout life and the relevance of these observations to the understanding of the multifactorial aetiology of liver cancer in these countries is discussed.


This paper presents the development of a parallelmulti-tier approach to address the problem of optimisingthe Rehabilitation of Urban Drainage Systems(UDS). A parallel multi-objective GA-based algorithmhas been developed to deal with problems thatare expensive in computational time. The problemis posed as a constrained optimization problem (dueto limited resources) in a multi-criteria context (dueto many stakeholders with conflicting interests). A"multi-tier" approach is introduced, where differenttiers correspond to different dimensions (or sub-problems)of the whole problem. An evaluation of theperformance time is carried out based on the numbercomputer of processors. The first results show apromising and cheap solution for "expensive tasks"like urban drainage optimization in the multi-criteriacontext, it was possible to reduce the total runningtime from 12.8 to 4.8 hours for the test problem.


The paper proposed a clustering method of decade observation data based on k-means algorithm, which adjusted the weight influence to similarity function by the missing values handling and scaling of range fields. This paper discussed the way to select initial cluster centers and the process of calculating cluster centers and assigning records to clusters. The test indicated the k-means algorithm had effective clustering result.


Inverted pendulum systems, because of highly nonlinear, coupled, and unstable dynamic behaviour, are excellent experimental platforms for testing new developed control algorithms. This study explores nonlinear modelling, simulation and sliding mode stabilizing control of a real rotary inverted pendulum in detail. For simulation purposes only, the system was modelled in a nonlinear state space form including the servomotor dynamics. In the light of the simulation results, a rotary inverted pendulum system was designed and manufactured. For a certain quality level of desired output, benefits of the sliding mode control of the system without using an equivalent control signal by selecting a proper smoothing function were shown. This model free approach can be used to satisfy a need especially for practical control applications in industry to a certain level, encouraging practical control engineers to use sliding mode control, who have no ability to model a system or no sufficient time for this, or encounter very complex nonlinear system models in many cases. Comparisons of the theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that the state equations describe the dynamics of the system satisfactorily, and that robust and accurate balancing of the pendulum can be achieved by using model free sliding mode control with sigmoid smoothing function.


Historically, brainstem gliomas have been considered as a single entity. Since the introduction of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the late 1980s, these tumors are now regarded as a heterogeneous group of neoplasms with different age of onset, clinical and radiologic presentation, and varying behavior and natural history. This article describes the different subtypes of brainstem gliomas in children and adults. We focus on recent advances in MR such as MR spectroscopy, MR perfusion, and diffusion tensor imaging that often strongly suggest the histopathologic diagnosis of the lesion.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) effectively eradicate chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, although HCV genotype 3a is less responsive to these drugs. We aimed to develop genotype 3a infectious cultures and study the effects of inhibitors of NS5A and NS5B and resistance to sofosbuvir-the only nucleotide analog approved for treatment of chronic HCV infection.

METHODS
The developed HCV genotype 3a full-length genome (DBN3a), with a strain-DBN coding sequence, modified NS5B consensus sequence, pS52 untranslated regions, and coding mutations from a culture-efficient JFH1-based core-NS5A (DBN) recombinant, was transfected into Huh7.5 cells. The efficacy of selected DAAs was determined in dose-response assays, in which the number of HCV-infected cells was measured after incubation with different concentrations of the specific DAA. Long-term culture of infected Huh7.5 cells with increasing concentrations of sofosbuvir was used to promote selection of HCV-resistant variants.

RESULTS
We engineered a DBN3a variant with 17 substitutions (DBN3acc) that had replication and propagation kinetics in Huh7.5 cells comparable with prototype J6/JFH1. The adaptive mutations also produced culture-efficient DBN-based recombinants with NS5B from HCV genotype 3a strains S52 and DH11. Compared with genotype 1a, genotype 3a was less sensitive to daclatasvir, ledipasvir, and elbasvir, but equally sensitive to ombitasvir, velpatasvir, beclabuvir, dasabuvir, MK-3682, and sofosbuvir. Exposure of Huh7.5 cells infected with DBN3a to sofosbuvir led to identification of an escape variant with substitutions in NS5B, including the resistance-associated substitution S282T. This variant showed increased infectivity of Huh7.5 cells, compared with DBN3a, and was genetically stable in cell cultures without sofosbuvir. Sofosbuvir, MK-3682, dasabuvir, or combinations of sofosbuvir and ledipasvir or sofosbuvir and velpatasvir had decreased efficacy against infection with the DBN3a sofosbuvir escape variant.

CONCLUSIONS
We developed a system for highly efficient culture of HCV genotype 3a. Genotype 1a has a high genetic barrier to resistance for sofosbuvir, whereas resistance to this DAA can be induced in genotype 3a. We therefore isolated HCV genotype 3a variants with reduced sensitivity to sofosbuvir, with increased fitness and with cross-resistance to other NS5B inhibitors. These findings indicate that sofosbuvir escape variants could compromise the effectiveness of nucleotide analogs against HCV. GenBank accession numbers: KX280712-KX280716.


A series of carbon nanotubes doped with Fe and/or Cu, Fe100−xCux/CNT (x = 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100) has been prepared by an easy method of wetness impregnation of commercial multiwalled carbon nanotubes previously oxidized with nitric acid. The wide characterization of the solids by different techniques demonstrates that the incorporation of Fe and Cu to the CNTs has been successfully produced. Fe100−xCux/CNT samples were tested as catalysts in the removal of paracetamol from aqueous solution by a combined process of adsorption and Fenton-like oxidation. Under mild conditions, 25 °C and natural pH of solution, i.e., nearly neutral, values of oxidation of paracetamol between 90.2% and 98.3% were achieved after 5 h of reaction in most of cases. Furthermore, with the samples containing higher amounts of copper, i.e., Cu100/CNT and Fe25Cu75/CNT, only 2 h were necessary to produce depletion values of 73.2% and 87.8%, respectively. The influence of pH and dosage of H2O2 on the performance has also been studied. A synergic effect between both Cu+/Cu2+ and Fe2+/Fe3+ in Fenton-like reaction was observed. These results demonstrate that Fe100−xCux/CNT are powerful Fenton-like catalyst for degradation of paracetamol from aqueous solution and they could be extended to the removal of other organic pollutants.


The higher institutions basically adopted the concept of further education and purposefully organized research into programmes structured under the institutional academic staff advancement programme. The nature of the programme involves all kind of information, which needs to be turned into useful information before it can be transmitted or disseminated to accommodate the needs of stakeholders and to support the institutional integral functions through its collection, relevance, dissemination, and retrieval. The study reveals the needs for higher academic institutions to have in place a proper information system to preserve their corporate records and the involvement by the information professionals from all level of management and designated to have the knowledge and skills in Information Management (IM) that would consecutively improves their working processes as a whole. Therefore, this study explores the issues revolving within the management of staff academic advancement program in higher institutions and attempts to develop the understanding of how a systematic information management may serve to improve and simplify the tasks.


Authors report a prospective clinical an bacteriological study in 32 patients, almost with a chronic bronchopulmonary disease. A group of 16 patients was treated with the association clavulanic acid-amoxicillin (ACA) and the 16 others with josamycin (J) for an acute exacerbation of bronchitis. Pus and numeration of bacteria in expectorations were the criteria of efficacity. Better results of ACA group were assessed with 14 cures (87%) against 4 (25%) (p less than 0.001) and no failure against 4 in J group (p less than 0.05). They conclude therapy with ACA is more effective and recommended in serious acute exacerbations in chronic bronchopulmonary diseases.


This document defines the mathematical backbone of the Statebox programming language. In the simplest way possible, Statebox can be seen as a clever way to tie together different theoretical structures to maximize their benefits and limit their downsides. Since consistency and correctness are central requisites for our language, it became clear from the beginning that such tying could not be achieved by just hacking together different pieces of code representing implementations of the structures we wanted to leverage: Rigorous mathematics is employed to ensure both conceptual consistency of the language and reliability of the code itself. The mathematics presented here is what guided the implementation process, and we deemed very useful to release it to the public to help people wanting to audit our work to better understand the code itself.


We create realistic autonomous fish for Virtual Reality systems. The fish are realistic in appearance, movement and behaviour: the swimming behaviour being non-scripted, within real time rendering.The form of the fish is procedurally created. The size and shape of the form are controlled by a number of variables which are stored in a simple ASCII file. This allows efficient creation of different fish at run time.The behaviour is obtained by implementing a flocking algorithm.


This paper investigates the impact of economic freedom and human capital on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in a large panel dataset of 137 developing and developed countries covering the period of 1995-2010. Foreign direct investment is by far the largest source of private capital flows to developing and middle income countries, far exceeding other private capital flows such as portfolio investment and remittances. Many of these countries have been liberalizing their policies in recent decades to attract more foreign direct investment. The ultimate goal of attracting more foreign direct investment is to augment limited domestic investment and spur economic growth through transfer of knowledge, technology, and managerial skills. The role of traditional determinants of FDI such as availability of natural resources, market size, and cheap labor are well researched in the literature. What has not received much attention is the impact of non-traditional determinants of FDI flows like the presence of economic freedom and high skilled labor in the recipient countries. Besides, there has not been any attempt to simultaneously model the impacts of economic freedom and human capital as well as their interaction on foreign direct investment inflows, a crucial void which this paper fills. In order to deal with potential endogeneity problem in the explanatory variables and unobserved country fixed-effects, we use dynamic panel data methods. The system generalized method of moments (S-GMM) estimator of Arellano and Bond, and Blundell and Bond are estimated in two-step procedure, using levels of the variables as instruments for the difference equation and differences of the variables as instruments for the levels equation. We test for instrument validity using Sargan's test and second order autocorrelation AR (2) in the differenced equation. The results show that economic freedom has a positive and significant effect on foreign direct investment in middle- and high-income countries. Human capital is a significant determinant of FDI in all countries. After accounting for endogeneity of and interaction between economic freedom and human capital, we find that the marginal effect of economic freedom on FDI is contingent upon the level of human capital in the recipient country. We postulate that Transnational Corporations (TNCs) care about the quality of human capital only in the case of low-income countries when they make their decisions to locate in developing countries. We do not find this to be the case with respect to TNCs' decisions to invest in middle-income and high-income countries.


Progress in self‐powered wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring (SHM) have motivated the development of power‐efficient data communication protocols. One such approach is the energy‐aware pulse switching architecture, which employs ultrasonic pulses to transmit binary data through the material substrate. However, this technology creates time delays on the generated data due to the power budgets demanded for sensing and communication. The nature of data collected from such protocol thus requires the development of new analysis and interpretation methods. This study presents a robust damage identification strategy for aircraft structures, within the context of data‐driven SHM, using discrete time‐delayed binary data. A novel machine learning framework integrating low‐rank matrix completion, pattern recognition, k‐nearest neighbor, and a data fusion model was developed for damage identification. Performance and accuracy of the proposed data‐driven SHM strategy was investigated and tested for an aircraft horizontal stabilizer wing. Damage states were simulated on a finite element model by reducing stiffness in a region of the stabilizer's skin. The reliability of the proposed strategy with noise‐polluted data was also validated. Further, the effect of variations in harvested energy on the performance of the approach was investigated. Results demonstrate that the developed machine learning framework can effectively detect the presence and location of damage based on time‐delayed binary data from a self‐powered sensor network.


The article considers choices and opportunities to access the arts in the contemporary UK, connecting these to engagements in culture in relation to position in social space. The reflection is informed by the ESRC funded investigation of the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion project, CCSE, which assessed the applicability to Britain of Pierre Bourdieu's work in Distinction (1984), 40 years after his original French study. While exploring the broader thesis the project probes and disagrees with many elements of Bourdieu's arguments. This article outlines the main thesis about how cultural capacity affects the structure of social inequality and explores how this takes shape in the current British context. After considering the broader picture emerging from the interplay of various cultural fields, based on Multiple Correspondence Analysis, the discussion focuses on the field of visual art. This has the aim to reflect about the links that this field has with broader cultural processes in the UK and its specificities. The field of visual art appears as one of the most distinctive fields of cultural practices, and one where the intensity of participation is highly relevant for social position. The engagements of individuals indicate powerful tensions in the ways people conceive visual art. Cultural capital is relevant for the kind and level of involvement in this field with individuals being positioned predominantly according to possession of cultural capital, but with inflections linked to particular demographics where divisions of gender, age and ethnicity, as well as biographical patterns are significant. These are mixed in different ways as resources for social position in the field of visual art.


Biological effects of water-soluble inclusion complexes of fullerene C60 with poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (C60/PVP) and gamma-cyclodextrin (C60/g-CD) as well as solid C60 (C60-coated surface) on cell viability have been studied in vitro. It is established that both inclusion complexes (in a broad range of concentrations) and solid fullerene coatings are nontoxic in the dark for the cell of all lines tested. In contrast, under intense UV illumination, the C60/PVP complex reliably protected test cells from the UV radiation damage, whereas the C60/g-CD and fullerene-coated surface exhibited pronounced phototoxicity. Moreover, solid fullerene caused a photodynamic effect under irradiation with both UV and visible light. The radiation damage could be blocked by some antioxidants (e.g., hypoxen) and singlet-oxygen scavenger (sodium azide). This is evidence for the participation of 1O2 in phototoxicity manifestations. The results indicate that the biological properties of fullerene C60 in vitro depend on its aggregate state, form of solubilization, and, probably, the nature of solubilizing medium.


Whilst new generation sequencing techniques of blastocyst biopsies give rapid response times and are more accurate, we question whether counting chromosomes can lead to an improvement in pregnancy rates and if the cost of trophectoderm biopsy outweighs the benefit in PGS. NGS does not define embryo viability or health, as it does not guarantee that genes are free from DNA breaks/errors, or that they will be expressed/transcribed correctly at the appropriate time in preimplantation development. In addition, PGS cannot detect embryos whose health has been jeopardized by metabolic malfunctions due to epigenetic effects resulting from inherent gamete physiology or sub-optimal in vitro culture and handling.


The present paper reports the implementation of syllabus innovations in EFL teacher education in Chile after diagnosing a lack of language achievement standards common to all EFL teacher training programs offered in public and private universities alike. The aim of this study is to collect linguistic data in natural and artificial social contexts – EFL trainees' intermediate status between their native language (Spanish) and the target language (English) – in order to create the first Chilean corpus of spoken English as a foreign language, in the interest of analyzing the errors that are most likely to be made and fossilized by native speakers of Chilean Spanish. Once the results of this exercise are available, EFL trainers, professors, and SLA researchers will be able to design a newly sequenced syllabus based on the Content-based Approach and tailored to students' needs so as to enhance oral performance in L2 English.


Pseudomembranous colitis (PMC) is an infrequent but serious complication of oral and intravenous antibiotic therapy. Twelve patients with antibiotic-associated PMC, documented by sigmoidoscopy and rectal biopsy, were treated with cholestyramine resin. The mean time from the institution of therapy to cessation of diarrhea was 2.1 days. The response interval bore no relationship to the time symptoms were present prior to therapy. Complete resolution of sigmoidoscopic and histologic evidence of PMC usually accompanied or followed cessation of diarrhea. Obstipation was reported in 5 of 12 patients as a side effect of cholestyramine treatment. Therapy should be continued for up to five days after cessation of diarrhea to prevent recurrence of active PMC. Cholestyramine resin is shown to be an effective treatment for antibiotic-associated PMC.


Methods for random-effects meta-analysis require an estimate of the between-study variance, $\tau^2$. The performance of estimators of $\tau^2$ (measured by bias and coverage) affects their usefulness in assessing heterogeneity of study-level effects, and also the performance of related estimators of the overall effect. For the effect measure standardized mean difference (SMD), we provide the results from extensive simulations on five point estimators of $\tau^2$ (the popular methods of DerSimonian-Laird, restricted maximum likelihood, and Mandel and Paule (MP); the less-familiar method of Jackson; the new method (KDB) based on the improved approximation to the distribution of the Q statistic by Kulinskaya, Dollinger and Bjorkestol (2011) ), five interval estimators for $\tau^2$ (profile likelihood, Q-profile, Biggerstaff and Jackson, Jackson, and the new KDB method), six point estimators of the overall effect (the five related to the point estimators of $\tau^2$ and an estimator whose weights use only study-level sample sizes), and eight interval estimators for the overall effect (five based on the point estimators for $\tau^2$; the Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman (HKSJ) interval; a modification of HKSJ; and an interval based on the sample-size-weighted estimator).


The septicaemia expert-system (SES) consists of 18 departments of infectious diseases and microbiology in different French university hospitals. In this context, and compared with the totality of cases analyzed, ceftazidime was used by preference in worrying infections, i.e. often older patients, higher frequency of hospital-acquired infections and of multibacterial infections, greater number of pathogens regarded as difficult to eradicate. The results of ceftazidime treatment in these patients were not different from those obtained in the totality of cases.


The cytologic and histologic slides on all patients with a diagnosis of Hürthle cell tumor at Mount Sinai Hospital during the last 12 years were reviewed. There were 67 Hürthle cell tumors of which 15 (22%) were malignant. Four carcinomas (27%) occurred in a background of thyroiditis. Forty‐three patients with Hürthle cell tumors had undergone preoperative fine‐needle aspiration, of which 31 had satisfactory aspirates. For Hürthle cell neoplasia, fine‐needle aspiration cytology had a sensitivity of 83.8% (26 of 31) and positive predictive value of 93% (26 of 28), provided that the aspirate was of adequate cellularity. All 3 cases predicted as Hürthle cell carcinoma on the basis of cellular and nuclear atypia were correctly predicted, but 3 carcinomas composed of bland cells were incorrectly predicted as adenomas. We conclude that aspiration cytology can differentiate nonneoplastic from neoplastic Hürthle cell lesions with high accuracy, but that the differentiation between benign and malignant lesions is less reliable.


In 2008, researchers at the Hewlett-Packard (HP) laboratories claimed to have found an analytical physical model for a genuine memristor device [1]. The model is considered for a thin TiO_2 film containing a region which is highly self-doped with oxygen vacancies and a region which is less doped, i.e., a single-phase material with a built-in chemical inhomogeneity sandwiched between two platinum electrodes. On base of the proposed model, Strukov et al. [1] were able to obtain the characteristic dynamical state equation and current-voltage relation for a genuine memristor. However, some fundamental facts of electrochemistry have been overlooked by the authors while putting forward their model, namely the coupling of diffusion currents at the boundary between both regions. The device will operate for a certain time like a "chemical capacitor" until the chemical inhomogeneity is balanced out, thus violating the essential requirement on a genuine memristor, the so-called "no energy discharge property". Moreover, the dynamical state equation for the HP-memristor device must fail as this relation violates by itself Landauer's principle of the minimum energy costs for information processing. Maybe, such an approach might be upheld if one introduces an additional prerequisite by specifying the minimum amount of electric power input to the device which is required to continuously change internal, physical states of the considered system. However, we have reasonable doubts with regard to this.


Oil shale is an unconventional energy source, and it is also a potential petroleum substitute. Nowadays, the energy shortage is becoming more and more prominent, oil shale has attracted the attention of energy researchers all over the world. Borehole hydraulic mining is an effective method to exploit the underground oil shale which has more prominent advantages than other conventional mining methods. Jet devices are the key component of borehole hydraulic mining, which include the straight cone nozzle, organ pipe nozzle and self-excited oscillation pulsed jet nozzle. Also, the reasonable mining parameters are also crucial in mining underground oil shale efficiency. The jet characteristics of the non-submerged water jet, submerged water jet, direct water jet, cavitating water jet, and pulsed water jet are also explained and compared based on theoretical analysis. The jet performance of the non-submerged water jet is better than the submerged water jet. Each type of jet devices has its own basic principles and optimal structural parameters. The best operating scheme of borehole hydraulic mining for underground oil shale is to use the pulsed water jet which is produced by the self-excited oscillation pulsed jet nozzle to break underground oil shale under the non-submerged condition. Moreover, the pulsed water jet should be placed parallel to the oil shale bedding. In addition, under the preconditions of ensuring the safety and reliability of the hydraulic mining equipment and pipelines connection, the jet pressure and jet flow should be raised as much as possible, so as to obtain the much higher mining efficiency. These results and conclusions can provide very valuable guidance for borehole hydraulic mining of underground oil shale.


Differences in purine metabolism produced by three preservation solutions were studied by determining the adenine nucleotide (ATP, ADP, AMP, and IMP) and nucleoside (adenosine, inosine, and hypoxanthine) levels in human kidney cortical biopsies. Forty kidney allografts were studied using University of Wisconsin (UW) solution (n=20), Euro-Collins (EC) solution (n=12), and modified EC solution with mannitol (M;n=8). No significant differences were found between the three solutions studied with regard to ATP, ADP, or AMP changes. The mean ATP level (nmol/mg prot±SEM) at the end of preservation in the UW group was 2.7±0.3 nmol/mg, in the EC group 3.8±0.7 nmol/mg, and in the M group 2.3±0.4 nmol/mg. ATP 30 min after reperfusion in the UW, EC, and M groups was 5.7±0.8 nmol/mg, 6.4±1.0 nmol/mg, and 4.6±0.5 nmol/mg, respectively. However, an important difference appeared in the catabolic products determined. Kidneys perfused with UW solution had a significantly higher level of adenosine (2.6±0.6 nmol/mg), inosine (11.8±2.2 nmol/mg), and hypoxanthine (18.1±2.1 nmol/mg) at hypoxanthine of cold storage than those perfused with EC (0.4±0.1 nmol/mg, 2.0±0.8 nmol/mg, and 7.1±1.4 nmol/mg) and M solutions (0.2±0.05 nmol/mg, 0.5±0.1 nmol/mg, and 5.2±0.6 nmol/mg; P<0.05). These levels returned to initial values 30 min postreperfusion and there were no differences with the EC or M solution groups at that time. Thus, the adenosine present in UW solution does not appear to be useful in recovering the adenine nucleotide pool at reperfusion. Moreover, it produces a marked increase in degradation products. Our findings do not support the beneficial metabolic effect of UW solution in terms of adenine nucleotide metabolism in comparison with simpler and less expensive preservation solutions like EC.


By using the bilinear technique of soliton theory, a pfaffian version of the SU(2) self-dual Yang-Mills equation and its solution is constructed.


Neurosecretory hormone formation by atrial ganglionic cells plays a major role in self-regulation of the heart and its coronary circulation, as well as in integration of the atrium with endocrinal hypothalamus. New data on polypeptide hormones and their precursors is presented. Some atrial glycopeptides play the role of the liberins of hypothalamic cardio-active neurohormones thus carrying out the function of integration of endocrinal hypothalamus with the neuroendocrine heart. The problem of neural and humoral ways of the integration are discussed.