Certain gouty subjects with excessive de novo purine synthesis are deficient in hypoxanthineguanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HG-PRTase [EC 18.104.22.168]). The mechanism of accelerated uric acid formation in these patients was explored by measuring the incorporation of glycine-(14)C into various urinary purine bases of normal and enzyme-deficient subjects during treatment with the xanthine oxidase inhibitor, allopurinol. In the presence of normal HG-PRTase activity, allopurinol reduced purine biosynthesis as demonstrated by diminished excretion of total urinary purine or by reduction of glycine-(14)C incorporation into hypoxanthine, xanthine, and uric acid to less than one-half of control values. A boy with the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome was resistant to this effect of allopurinol while a patient with 12.5% of normal enzyme activity had an equivocal response. Three patients with normal HG-PRTase activity had a mean molar ratio of hypoxanthine to xanthine in the urine of 0.28, whereas two subjects who were deficient in HG-PRTase had reversal of this ratio (1.01 and 1.04). The patterns of (14)C-labeling observed in HG-PRTase deficiency reflected the role of hypoxanthine as precursor of xanthine. The data indicate that excessive uric acid in HG-PRTase deficiency is derived from hypoxanthine which is insufficiently reutilized and, as a consequence thereof, catabolized inordinately to uric acid. The data provide evidence for cyclic interconversion of adenine and hypoxanthine derivatives. Cleavage of inosinic acid to hypoxanthine via inosine does not contribute significantly to the formation of uric acid in either normal man or in patients with HG-PRTase deficiency.HG-PRTase was not completely absent in red blood cells from a boy with the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome; with hypoxanthine as substrate, the activity in erythrocyte hemolysates was 0.64% of normal values.


A 20 wt% Co-0.05 wt% Pt/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was investigated to obtain a fundamental understanding of the effect of CO partial pressure (constant H2 partial pressure) on important kinetic parameters of the methanation reaction (x vol% CO/25 vol% H2, x = 3, 5 and 7) by performing advanced transient isotopic and operando diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy–mass spectrometry (DRIFTS-MS) experiments. Steady State Isotopic Transient Kinetic Analysis (SSITKA) experiments conducted at 1.2 bar, 230 °C after 5 h in CO/H2 revealed that the surface coverages, θCO and θCHx and the mean residence times, τCO, and τCHx (s) of the reversibly adsorbed CO-s and active CHx-s (Cα) intermediates leading to CH4, respectively, increased with increasing CO partial pressure. On the contrary, the apparent activity (keff, s−1) of CHx-s intermediates, turnover frequency (TOF, s−1) of methanation reaction, and the CH4-selectivity (SCH4, %) were found to decrease. Transient isothermal hydrogenation (TIH) following the SSITKA step-gas switch provided important information regarding the reactivity and concentration of active (Cα) and inactive -CxHy (Cβ) carbonaceous species formed after 5 h in the CO/H2 reaction. The latter Cβ species were readily hydrogenated at 230 °C in 50%H2/Ar. The surface coverage of Cβ was found to vary only slightly with increasing CO partial pressure. Temperature-programmed hydrogenation (TPH) following SSITKA and TIH revealed that other types of inactive carbonaceous species (Cγ) were formed during Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis (FTS) and hydrogenated at elevated temperatures (250–550 °C). The amount of Cγ was found to significantly increase with increasing CO partial pressure. All carbonaceous species hydrogenated during TIH and TPH revealed large differences in their kinetics of hydrogenation with respect to the CO partial pressure in the CO/H2 reaction mixture. Operando DRIFTS-MS transient isothermal hydrogenation of adsorbed CO-s formed after 2 h in 5 vol% CO/25 vol% H2/Ar at 200 °C coupled with kinetic modeling (H-assisted CO hydrogenation) provided information regarding the relative reactivity (keff) for CH4 formation of the two kinds of linear-type adsorbed CO-s on the cobalt surface.


Conclusions: Our very preliminary results support the hypothesis that MASPIN expression in primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) may be a valuable parameter for predicting patients' responses to a treatment based on carboplatin plus vinorelbine combined with radiotherapy. Objectives: The roles of induction chemotherapy and combined chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced unresectable HNSCCs have evolved rapidly. MASPIN has a unique tumour-suppressing activity. Experimental evidence has shown that MASPIN suppresses tumour growth, angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis. We investigated the potential prognostic roles of MASPIN and p53 in a series of HNSCCs treated with carboplatin plus vinorelbine combined with radiotherapy. Patients and methods: Nineteen consecutive stage III or IV HNSCC patients were recruited. The treatment plan consisted of the administration of carboplatin on day 1 and vinorelbine on days 1 and 8. Four weeks later, carboplatin was administered concomitantly with radiation therapy. Expression of MASPIN and p53 was determined immunohistochemically in HNSCC diagnostic biopsies. Results: A significant inverse relation was found between MASPIN expression and cN staging (p=0.003). From a prognostic viewpoint, MASPIN expression was directly correlated with chemoradiotherapy response (p=0.041). Moreover, the log-rank test showed a significant relationship between higher MASPIN expression and longer disease-free survival (p=0.03), overall survival (p=0.006) and disease-specific survival (p=0.007).


The northeast region of Argentina is characterized by fast-growing forest plantations, Pinus taeda among them. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of pruning and stand structure on the morphometric characteristics of tree tracheids. We evaluated 18 trees of 16 years old, from a silvicultural stand essay, with 1660 plants/ha as initial density, without thinning, three pruning treatments 0%, 50% and 70% removal of the green crown belong to the dominant, codominant and suppressed strata. Tree slices were taken at 1.3 m height, the conditioned samples were observed and measured with a microscope with digital camera. The data was analyzed using mixed linear models. Pruning did not have effect on the width and length of tracheids, but it affected to the cell wall thickness, which decreased with increasing pruning intensity. While the social position (stratum) had significant influences on the length of tracheids, given greater for individual in dominant stratum, followed by codominant and suppressed stratum. The cell wall width and thickness were not affected by the stratum. Regardless of the social position in the stand, the tracheid's length showed an increasing pattern from pith to bark with the lower values near to the pith.


This study aims to evaluate Zakat and Infaq/Shodaqoh (ZIS) accounting practices at Badan Amil Zakat Nasional (BAZNAS) of East Java Province. Data collecting technique was done by using open questionnaire and analyzed by using comparative descriptive technique. Based on the analysis result, it can be concluded that ZIS accounting practice in BAZNAS East Java Province has been referring to PSAK 109 but not yet fully applied. Matters not yet implemented include accounting for impairment of zakat and infaq/shodaqoh, non-refundable receipts, non-cash receipts, and ZIS disclosures Kata Kunci: Akuntansi, ZIS, BAZNAS, PSAK 109


This paper considers world wide experience with a restricted range of the spectrum of options for private participation in the supply of transport infrastructure and services. That range, which is termed 'concessions,' covers situations where the government retains ultimate ownership of either the physical assets or the right to supply, but grants exploitation rights to a concessionaire. The concessionaire takes a large part of the commercial risk during the period of the concession. These 'concessions' include leasing, franchising, and BOT (build, operate, transfer) arrangements. One major concern in selecting an appropriate structure for private participation is the importance of securing effective competition. Another is the selection of the concession structure. The fundamentals of the concession process considered in this paper include prequalification requirements, performance specifications, bid evaluation methods, the treatment of public service obligations and termination arrangements. The role of the government in the process is analyzed, with particular emphasis given to means of ensuring that the limited duration of the concession does not produce inefficiencies in operations or interruptions in the continuity of service or investment supply.


Imino proton and 31P NMR studies were conducted on the binding of actinomycin D (ActD) to self-complementary oligodeoxyribonucleotides with adjacent 5'-GC-3' sites. ActD showed very high specificity for binding to GC sites regardless of oligomer length and surrounding sequence. For a first class of duplexes with a central GCGC sequence, a mixture of 1:1 complexes was observed due to the two different orientations of the ActD phenoxazone ring system. Analysis of 1H chemical shifts suggested that the favored 1:1 complex had the benzenoid side of the phenoxazone ring over the G base in the central base pair of the GCGC sequence. This is the first case in which an unsymmetrical intercalator has been shown to bind to DNA in both possible orientations. A unique 2:1 complex, with significantly different 1H and 31P chemical shifts relative to those of the 1:1 complexes, was formed with these same oligomers, again with the benzenoid side of the ActD molecule over the G base of the central GC base pair. There is considerable anticooperativity to binding of the second ActD in a GCGC sequence. In titrations of oligomers with the GCGC sequence, only the two 1:1 complexes are found up to ratios of one ActD per oligomer. Increasing the ActD concentration, however, resulted in stoichiometric formation of the unique 2:1 adduct. Spectrophotometric binding studies indicated that the apparent binding equilibrium constant for a GC site adjacent to a bound site is reduced by approximately a factor of 20 relative to the ActD binding constant to an isolated GC site.


In this paper 56 species, 15 infra-specific taxa (13 varieties and 2 subspecies) and one interspecific hybrid of Aristida from Australia are revised taxonomically. Three new sections, Calycinae, Perniciosae and Macrocladae, are recognised and described. A. borealis is placed in synonymy with A. sciuroides, and A. ramosa var. speciosa and A. ramosa var. scaberula are placed in synonymy with A. personata and A. echinata respectively. The classification of Aristida, both internally and relative to its allied genera, is discussed fully. The DELTA system has been used to generate descriptions of all taxa and a complete list of all characters used is given. The methods used in the compilation of data and characters found to be the most diagnostic are discussed and brief entries are given under the headings of ecology, anatomy and phylogeny. There is a key to all species and infra-specific taxa and these are all grouped in the key within sections. The descriptions are grouped into their constituent sections. Illustrations of the spikelets and distribution maps of all Australian entities are given as well as world distribution maps of Aristida sections previously recognised. An accompanying microfiche contains information on approximately 9000 exsiccatae examined.


In textile industry many processes required speed synchronization of more than one motors involved in the process. Speed control of motor is very important especially in the fields including industrial applications, robotics, textile mills, etc. In all these application motor speed synchronization is invigorate in conveyor belt driven by multiple motors. Sudden changes in load cause hunting and oscillatory behaviour in DC machine. This behaviour can be harmful to the process. There are so many methods which is used for controlling the DC machines. Among all these method master-slave synchronization is a widely used technique. So, speed control of DC motors at different load conditions is essential to achieve a robust system. The synchronization is done by using microcontroller chip which controls the master slave whose speed is followed by the other motors which all have to be synchronized. For PWM generation PIC microcontroller is used. The ADC is available in microcontroller chip which create feedback loop. This ADC checks the voltage level of the motor and accordingly the voltage level of the motor can be maintained at a fixed level. A driver circuit is used to drive the motor. Hence, a closed loop motor speed control circuit is designed and the total amount of power delivered to the motor is varied depending on load conditions. In this technique, the regulation of motor's speed is achieved by changing the voltage of the motor which is adjusted by the duty cycle of PWM.


This article deals with one of the least examined aspects of smuggling along the U.S./Mexico border: the role of the Mexican army as a major player in the traffic of drugs into the United States. It is hoped that this study will help to eliminate a lacuna in our understanding of organized criminal activity south of the border. It will do this by examining the chaotic conditions obtaining along the Mexican side of the border due to the breakup of the Matamoros cartel and the consequent functional necessity of the Mexican Army's stepping in to assure safe and unimpeded drug shipments into the United States. In addition, it will be demonstrated that the antidrug role of the military in combating the drug trade is a necessary adjunct to its role as a major trafficker in drugs. Finally, it will be argued that the administration's policy of ignoring Mexican military corruption as well as its incursions into U.S. territory is counterproductive in terms of effectively curtailing the drug trade, that it lends itself to the militarization of Mexican society, and that ultimately it threatens harmonious international relations with Mexico by encouraging an increasingly aggressive military presence along the U.S. border.


Abstract:One of the most contentious struggles related to body politics in Latin America centers on abortion. Restrictive abortion legislation predominates in the region. In Argentina—the focus of this article—abortion was largely illegal until recently. In December 2020, the Argentine National Congress approved a bill to legalize voluntary abortion through the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy. Activists had long advocated for abortion decriminalization and legalization, pointing to the state as responsible for preventable harm to people undergoing clandestine abortions. They demanded abortion that is legal, safe, and gratuito (free of charge). Implicitly and explicitly, activists reclaimed the body from state and societal control, while also demanding the social conditions that would make choice possible. Based primarily on thirty interviews with activists variously associated with the abortion rights cause and building on longer-term research on body politics and women's and feminist movements in Argentina, this article explores how the body is relevant to abortion rights activism in at least two ways: the discursive framing of the demand and the activist practices that propel and sustain the demand. Activists' reclamation of the body took place not only through efforts to prevent the risks of unsafe abortions, but also by increasingly emphasizing the right to bodily self-determination as well as embodied joy, pleasure, and desire.


In this study is made an ecological analysis of the species composition, structure of the helminth community and the invasion degree of Ranidae and Bufonidae families in different habitats in Moldova. As a result, it has been established the presence of 17 helminths species. It was found that the diversity of helminth fauna of the studied amphibians is structured depending on the host species, biotop, biotic factors, gender and depending of the host onthogenesis. Thus, the greatest diversity of helminthes in amphibians in the family Ranidae was established in Rana ridibunda and Rana lessonae with 17 species, and for the species from the Bufonidae family, no different values were established, so each host species being infested with 3 species of helminthes.


This research has developed a complete map of the structure of social networks accepted by the companies in the IBEX 35 index. From an exploratory perspective, the way in which these companies include social networks in their communication policy was investigated from their presentation on official web pages to the possible correlation between economic size and channel selection. The main conclusion indicates that the marketing function is predominant for these companies and that the economic size has a positive correlation with the selection of more informative social networks to the detriment of the most conversational ones.


The behavior of electrolytically deposited Pb and Zn in 40% perchloric acid at temperatures ranging from 30°C – +55°C. It is established that the electrochemical system Zn/HClO4/PbO2 has a higher discharge voltage and specific capacity compared to the system РЬ/НClO4/РЬO2. It is shown that in the temperature range from 0°C to +55°C the specific capacitance of the investigated electrochemical systems vary slightly.


A new programmable trigger board and digital mean-timer modules using complex programmable logic device have been introduced to the trigger system of the BNL-E949 experiment. The online dead time was reduced from 4.0% to 1.7% by introducing an on-chip prescaler to the programmable trigger board. The acceptance loss of the online photon veto was reduced from 4.9% to 1.8% by introducing the mean-timer modules.


PURPOSE
We aimed to study the relationship between thrombocytosis and clinical features of gastric cancer focussing on platelet counts and gastric cancer progression through different TNM stages.

METHODS
According to the normal range of platelet count in our institution, 1,596 patients were divided to two groups: a thrombocytosis group (120 patients, >400?1000/μL) and a control group (1,476 patients, ≤400?1000/μL).

RESULTS
The incidence of thrombocytosis was 7.5%. Higher platelet counts were observed in patients with older age, larger tumor size, deeper invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and advanced TNM stage. In multivariate logistic regression, tumor size, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage were independent risk factors for thrombocytosis of gastric cancer patients. On prognostic analysis, age, tumor size, tumor location, histologic type, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and TNM stage and platelet count were important factors. Tumor size, invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, TNM stage and the platelet count were independent prognostic factors.

CONCLUSION
Thrombocytosis is associated with clinical features of gastric cancer patients and correlates with a poor prognosis.


A total of 600 freshly caught fish samples (200 each of Nile tilapia, flathead grey mullet, and African catfish) were collected from Manzala Lake, Egypt, and analyzed for determination of heavy metal residues using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Metal concentrations (µg/g wet weight) were detected in all examined samples in quantities of 0.045, 0.0145, and 0.017 µg/g for Hg; 0.511, 0.621, and 0.568 µg/g for As; 0.704, 0.635, and 0.64 µg/g for Pb; and 0.024, 0.006, and 0.020 µg/g for Cd in Nile tilapia, flathead grey mullet, and African catfish, respectively. The mean concentrations of Hg, Pb, and Cd among the three fish species tested followed the order Nile tilapia > African catfish > flathead grey mullet; meanwhile, As concentration followed the order flathead grey mullet > African catfish > Nile tilapia. The contamination levels of Hg and Cd showed significant differences between summer and winter in the three different fish species examined. Both the mullet and catfish tested revealed significant negative correlations between fish size and their residual levels of Hg, Pb, and Cd. Health-risk assessment indices suggesting that consuming such fishes from Manzala Lake could have a potential health hazard to consumers.


As ebooks become mainstream and the percentage of academic publications delivered as ebooks rises steadily, this report is a primer to help academic librarians, managers and members of faculty prepare for the increasing adoption and use of ebooks in education. Specifically, this report: 1) introduces the historical and present context of ebooks; 2) reviews the basics of ebook technologies; 3) considers scenarios for ebook adoption and usage; 4) addresses current challenges; and 5) considers the future. This report also provides a glossary and a 'References' section.


Background Most lymphatic imaging examinations of the lower limb require intradermal or subcutaneous injection of tracer material into the foot to demonstrate the lymphatic vessels; however, no standard protocol exists, and single or multiple injections are applied at different sites. Purpose To determine the three-dimensional relationships between each lymphatic group of the lower limb and corresponding regional lymph nodes. Materials and Methods A total of 130 lower limbs (55 from men and 75 from women) from 83 fresh human cadavers were studied. Lymphatic vessels were first visualized by using indocyanine green fluorescent lymphography with 19 injection sites in the foot, classified into four distinct lymphatic groups (anteromedial, anterolateral, posteromedial, and posterolateral); dilute oil-based contrast material was then injected. Next, specimens were scanned with CT and three-dimensional images were analyzed. Results The anteromedial and anterolateral lymphatic groups of the lower-leg lymphatic vessels were independent of each other and connected to different regional lymph nodes in the inguinal region. The posteromedial group and the anteromedial group in the lower leg drained to the same inguinal lymph nodes. Only the posterolateral group of lymphatic vessels in the lower leg drained to the popliteal lymph nodes. Leg lymphatic drainage pathways were independent of genital pathways. Conclusion Standard injection sites at the web spaces between the toes did not help visualize some lymph nodes of the lower leg. Additional injection sites in the medial, lateral, and posterior aspect of the foot would be better for evaluating the whole lymphatic pathways and regional lymph nodes and for improving understanding of leg lymphedema. © RSNA, 2019 Online supplemental material is available for this article. See also the editorial by Weiss in this issue.


Ice roads and ice pads provide a cost-effective means of oil and gas exploration on Alaska's North Slope with minimal impact to the sensitive underlying tundra. Consequently, such ice structures have become integral to oil and gas exploration. Their widespread use represents a challenge to water resource managers, however, due to the large volume of water necessary to construct and maintain them. As the proximity of available fresh water sources has a significant impact on the planned location of ice roads and ice pads, changes in water resource management strategies could significantly impact oil and gas exploration activities. This paper will describe the technological aspects of the North Slope Decision Support System (NSDSS) a project currently underway to develop a water resources management solution in support of oil and gas exploration on the North Slope. Sponsored by the Department of Energy, the NSDSS will consist of an information system, software tools for decisions support, and methodologies for facilitating stakeholder involvement in the decision making process. Envisioned as a framework for general water resources planning on the North Slope, the NSDSS will not only apply to the water management issues considered here, but will also be applicable to broader environmental management issues and industry development applications. The NSDSS will consist of 1) a service oriented architecture (SOA) based cyberinfrastructure composed of a node-link network of federated databases at Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Barrow Alaska, 2) a desktop-based workbench tool, which is an extension to ESRI's ArcMap software, and 3) a virtual globe-based web browser tool. The cyberinfrastructure will contain databases of GIS data, time series of meteorological and hydrological data at points and as gridded products, and papers describing scientific findings relevant to the North Slope. Using the workbench, users will be able to assess the impact of proposed management alternatives vis-a-vis important stakeholder criteria by simulating the implemented alternative in an integrated model of the physical systems on the North Slope (hydrologic, meteorological, ecological, etc). The web browser will provide an intuitive view of the North Slope, the data available, and indeed the data gaps to be filled.


Between 1959 and 1960 the mean scores obtained by all candidates on the Advanced Placement Examinations in Literature and English Composition, American History, Chemistry, and Mathematics declined from .2 to .6 points on a five-point grading scale. The primary purpose of the study was to determine if the observed decrease in mean scores was due simply to an influx of candidates from schools new to the program or if the decrease was also characteristic of the level of performance of candidates from schools which have been in the program for some time. The basic data consist of the scores obtained on the 1959 and 1960 examinations by samples of candidates drawn from schools which have been in the program for varying lengths of time. Three groups of schools are considered, (1) those which have been in the program since 1956, (2) those which entered the program in 1957 or 1958, and (3) those which supplied candidates for the first time in 1960. Separate analyses are made for schools in New York State and for schools in all states other than New York. The data indicate that (1) candidates from the new schools did less well on the average on the 1960 examinations than did candidates from the older schools, (2) candidates from the older schools did less well on the 1960 than on the 1959 examinations. In an effort to account for the decline in the mean performance of candidates from the older schools between 1959 and 1960, the SAT scores of spaced samples of students from these schools were obtained for the years in question. The observed declines in scores cannot be accounted for in terms of changes in the scholastic aptitude of candidates.


Timetabling data are important in supporting decision-making process in higher education institutions in Tanzania. However, Tanzanian higher education institutions have for long been using off-the-shelf timetable software, whose inherent limitations are more likely to constrain decision-making process. It is in this light that this study was conducted to explore challenges faced by higher education institutions in the Tanzanian context on the use of the timetabling data for decision making support while ensuring manageable timetabling process for improved decision making. A mixed method strategy was adopted, in which a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire and semi-structured interview were used for data collection. The interview data were analyzed thematically and different themes were formed, whereas, quantitative data were analyzed for descriptive statistics and a t-test. The analyses show that most of the respondents considered timetable data very important in proper timetabling process and decision-making. Furthermore, the t-test shows that both students and lecturers think that the integration of timetabling software to their information system will solve most of their timetabling problems $(\mathrm{p}\gt0.001)$. As a result, this study proposes a timetabling architecture to aid higher education institutions in Tanzanian context in improving their timetabling process for better decision-making.


In this paper, we study the feasibility of obtaining near-infrared spectra of bright extrasolar planets with the 2nd generation VLTI Spectro-Imager instrument (VSI), which has the required angular resolution to resolve nearby hot Extrasolar Giant Planets (EGPs) from their host stars. Taking into account fundamental noises, we simulate closure phase measurements of several extrasolar systems using four 8-m telescopes at the VLT and a low spectral resolution (R = 100). Synthetic planetary spectra from T. Barman are used as an input. Standard χ2-fitting methods are then used to reconstruct planetary spectra from the simulated data. These simulations show that low-resolution spectra in the H and K bands can be retrieved with a good fidelity for half a dozen targets in a reasonable observing time (about 10 hours, spread over a few nights). Such observations would strongly constrain the planetary temperature and albedo, the energy redistribution mechanisms, as well as the chemical composition of their atmospheres. Systematic errors, not included in our simulations, could be a serious limitation to these performance estimations. The use of integrated optics is however expected to provide the required instrumental stability (around 10-4 on the closure phase) to enable the first thorough characterisation of extrasolar planetary emission spectra in the near-infrared.


Winter climate is prone to induce cutaneous and systemic alterations mediated by cold. Xerosis due to the impairment of the desquamation process is not rare on the limbs. Chilbain results from reversible alterations of the dermal vasculature. Cold panniculitis is the consequence of lipid crystallization within adipocytes. More dramatic issues occur when cold exposure extends beyond skin. They are represented by frostbite and body hypothermia. Intensity and duration of cold exposure combined with wind speed, altitude and environmental hygrometric value govern the potential type of low temperature-dependent pathology. Ultraviolet irradiation can also induce cutaneous lesions during winter time.


Scheduling the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) requires modeling and minimizing the buildup of angular momentum of the spacecraft. Accounting for momentum management is expected to be a major driver of spacecraft efficiency and lifetime. We develop a heuristic that reduces momentum buildup and show how the heuristic can be used in a simulation of the operations concept for JWST scheduling. Through experimental data we show how the heuristic improves momentum usage while maintaining high spacecraft efficiency on a representative science mission for JWST. Finally, we explore how the momentum heuristic closely mirrors the strategies required to efficiently schedule the Hubble Space Telescope.


The role of cyclic AMP in the process of germ tube formation in Candida albicans was investigated. The exogenous supply of the nucleotide or of agents that raise its intracellular levels stimulated germination induced by N-acetyl-D-glucosamine; glucagon showed this same stimulatory effect on yeast cell transition to the hyphal form. Compounds, included glucagon, that stimulated hyphal formation, also notably enhanced the development of hyphae. The stimulatory effect of glucagon on germination was blocked by the specific antagonist des His1 [Glu9] glucagon amide, probably indicating an interaction of the hormone with a glucagon-like receptor on the membrane of the cells. Indirect immunofluorescence experiments showed that glucagon binds to the yeast cell surface. When N-acetyl-D-glucosamine was replaced by serum as inducing agent of germination, the stimulatory effect of glucagon was substantially augmented, the resulting of germination being more than 2.5-fold greater than that attained in the presence of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine; moreover, the glucagon concentration needed for half maximal stimulatory activity with serum as inducing agent was at least 50-fold lower than with N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. Monoclonal and polyclonal anti-glucagon antibodies blocked the effect of the hormone. An interesting result observed during these experiments was the fact that a definite period of incubation of C. albicans yeast cells with N-acetyl-D-glucosamine as inducer commits them to hyphal development. When serum was used as inducer, only yeast cells evaginated during the initial incubation period evolved to the hyphal form upon further incubation in the absence of serum.


The purpose of this study was to determine the location of neuronal cell bodies with projections to the cervical or lumbar spinal cord in the adult duck and goose. Bilateral or unilateral injections (5‐10 μl) of the retrograde tracer dye True Blue (TB:5%) were made into the high cervical or high lumbar levels of the spinal cord. Similar results were obtained in both species. First, we found no evidence of retrogradely labelled cells in the telencephalon. In the brainstem, the distribution of TB cells was similar to those previously reported for the pigeon; however, the present study now demonstrates that some of these descending pathways project as far as the lumbar cord. We also discovered that there is a topographical representation of spinal projecting neurons within the avian medullary‐pontine reticular formation.


On the basis of the pulse-pressure model of the velocity-induced de-formation of metal pipes proposed by the authors [1] the expanding plas-ma channel of an electric spark, the influence of the collision angle and the contact point speed on the quality of welding of pipes with a tube grid of a heat exchanger were investigated. An algorithm for estimating welding zones is proposed. The applicability of the algorithm is tested on pairs of pipe made of alloy AD1 + tube made of alloy AMg6.


In a prevention-of-infection phase 2 trial conducted in Worcester and Cape Town, South Africa, revaccination with the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine significantly reduced sustained TB infections in adolescents. An experimental vaccine candidate, H4:IC31, also appeared to reduce sustained infections, although not at statistically significant levels. However, the trend observed for H4:IC31 is the first time a subunit vaccine has shown any indication of ability to protect against TB infection or disease in humans.


Events that have been unfolding in Zimbabwe in the past decade beginning 1998 to be precise to the present are reminiscent of a nation that has become sick and in need of moral therapy. The malaise or decay has been so constant and perpetual that there appears to be no immediate end in sight. This work focuses on the normative dimension of politics in Zimbabwe over the last decade and draws special interest to the post March 2008 historic harmonised elections, that is, the presidential runoff between president Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front( ZANU PF) and winner of the first round of ballot, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic change (MDC). The work draws on theoretical consideration of morality and politics in general and African morality in particular to argue for the need for moral rearmament within the country as part of the important process of national healing and reconstruction. The work argues that the blatant disregard for humanity in its diverse manifestations shown over the past decade calls for moral reorientation across the whole country. A regime change in and of itself would never guarantee the peace and tranquillity that once characterised the nation.


Abstract Sheep sorrel is an invasive, creeping perennial weed of lowbush blueberry fields that decreases yields and hinders harvest. Much of the basic phenology of sheep sorrel in blueberry fields is unknown and not documented in peer-reviewed journals. Three levels of fertilizer (0, 20, and 40 kg N ha−1) and two levels of hexazinone (0 and 1.92 kg ai ha−1) were applied to three vegetative-year blueberry fields to determine their effects on root and shoot growth, biomass allocation, and seed production of sheep sorrel plants. Hexazinone efficacy varied widely between sites, but suppressed shoot biomass, achene number and weight, and reproductive biomass, as well as the reproductive ∶ shoot biomass ratio. Fertilizer tended to increase achene number and increased sheep sorrel shoot biomass in the absence of hexazinone, but had no effect on achene weight, root biomass, or reproductive biomass. When fertilizer was applied, sheep sorrel allocated resources to sexual reproduction at the expense of vegetative growth. Nomenclature: Hexazinone; Velpar; sheep sorrel, Rumex acetosella L.; lowbush blueberry, Vaccinium angustifolium Ait. and Vaccinium myrtilloides Michx.


The largest study to date of both syndromic and nonsyndromic congenital heart defects (S-CHDs and NS-CHDs) confi rms that NSCHDs can be caused by inherited gene variants. Writing in Nature Genetics, an international team of researchers describes how it sequenced exomes of 1,891 children with both forms of CHD and found that those with NS-CHD were more likely to have inherited mutations from their parents, whereas patients with S-CHD were more likely to have genetic mutations that developed spontaneously. The researchers also identifi ed three new syndromes involving CHD caused by spontaneous, or de novo, mutations in CHD4, CDK13, and PRKD1. Previous studies by Zaidi et al (2013) and Homsy et al (2015) have also pointed to a greater likelihood that children with NS-CHD inherit damaging variants from seemingly healthy parents, but neither was as large as the current study. Investigators in the current study did not specify the damaging variants inherited from parents or note those that were most serious. Doing so with reasonable statistical certainty would require sample sizes of at least 20,000, says Alejandro Sifrim, MsC, one of the study's fi rst authors and a postdoctorate fellow at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, United Kingdom. "We're progressing slowly toward understanding CHD," says Mr. Sifrim. "We're still far away from having a good grasp. With our fi ndings on the three genes, we can increase diagnostic rates for some kids suffering from syndromic CHD, but we're not at a level where we can have big impact on genetic counseling for nonsyndromic cases."


Background: Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) permit to study neuronal specialization during reading acquisition. The N170 wave was previously shown to be a surrogate of the fine tuning of reading in adults and adolescents as well. Aim: We analyzed and described the variations of the N170 wave as a function of French words with visual or phonetical similarities in 12 to 14 yearold dyslexic patients. We tested the validity and modulation of this effect by comparing different populations of normal and dyslexic patients of various severity. Methods: ERPs were recorded in seventeen dyslexic children with the same method as in normative populations in lexical decision. Stimuli consisted of frequent words chosen on the basis of near or far visemes and morphemes. Dyslexic children were compared to two control (i.e. normal readers) groups, one group of the same age (N=15) and one group of adults (N=17). N170 and P100 waves were analyzed, as well as interactions between both (i.e. P1N1) searched. Psychometric and language tests were also performed. Results were analyzed by ANOVA. Results: The results of sixteen patients are presented. All sixteen showed significant differences on all psycholinguistic items when compared to the two control groups. All groups (patients and controls) significantly differed from each other for all tests (F'(4;42)=119, 2; p<0.001). However, the heterogeneity of the ERP patterns in the dyslexic group rendered group averaging irrelevant. The N170 wave sometimes overlapped with the P100 wavelength, but was also found to be negative or absent in some patients. In the course of development, N170 variations seem dependent on characteristics of the P100. No correlation was found between the variations of the N170 and clinical measures. Analysis of the P1-N1 temporal course showed a tendency to correlate with reading speed for the entire study population, yet not reaching statistical significance. Interpretation: N170 variations during development and dyslexic pathologies are associated with P100 variations. The P1-N1 time course could reflect silent reading speed. The P1-N1 temporal course was linked with clinical measures in all three groups, which could reflect neurodevelopmentalyrelated variations of the heterogeneity of the N170 as well as a developmental pathology. Verbal stimuli permit us to test the N170 physiological heterogeneity during development but variations in response to easy tasks show low sensitivity of N170 as a marker of dyslexia.


In contrast to the accepted general assumption that polyethylene glycol (PEG) is non-immunogenic and non-antigenic, animal studies clearly showed that uricase, ovalbumin and some other PEGylated agents can elicit antibody formation against PEG (anti-PEG). In humans, anti-PEG may limit therapeutic efficacy and/or reduce tolerance of PEG-asparaginase (PEG-ASNase) in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and of pegloticase in patients with chronic gout, but did not impair hyposensitization of allergic patients with mPEG-modified ragweed extract or honeybee venom or the response to PEG-IFN in patients with hepatitis C. Of major importance is the recent finding of a 22 – 25% occurrence of anti-PEG in healthy blood donors, compared with a very low 0.2% occurrence two decades earlier. This increase may be due to an improvement of the limit of detection of antibodies during the years and to greater exposure to PEG and PEG-containing compounds in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and processed food products. These results raise obvious concerns regarding the efficacy of PEG-conjugated drugs for a subset of patients. To address these concerns, the immunogenicity and antigenicity of approved PEGylated compounds should be carefully examined in humans. With all these data in hand, patients should be pre-screened and monitored for anti-PEG prior to and throughout a course of treatment with a PEGylated compound. Finally, protein conjugates with the poorly immunogenic hydroxy-PEG sequence or other hydrophilic polymers are in early phases of development and may represent an alternative to immunogenic PEGylated proteins.


Using the scholarship of James Berger, David Hogsettte, and other academics, this paper explores various contemporary issues seen throughout Bruce Miller's TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale. Investigating the Hulu series through the lens of post- apocalyptic and feminist theory, this paper examines the way that the series portrays female oppression, focuses on the power of storytelling in resistance struggles, and acts as a call for action to modern society to end the oppression of women. Examining the relevance of The Handmaid's Tale in the time of the #TimesUP and #MeToo Movements, the essay provides a new context in which to view women's oppression in modern society.


Offering strong data protection to cloud users while enabling rich applications is a challenging task. We explore a new cloud platform architecture called Data Protection as a Service, which dramatically reduces the per application development effort required to offer data protection, while still allowing rapid development and maintenance.


This survey is on forward-looking, emerging security concerns in post-quantum era, i.e., the implementation attacks for 2022 winners of NIST post-quantum cryptography (PQC) competition and thus the visions, insights, and discussions can be used as a step forward towards scrutinizing the new standards for applications ranging from Metaverse, Web 3.0 to deeply-embedded systems. The rapid advances in quantum computing have brought immense opportunities for scientific discovery and technological progress; however, it poses a major risk to today's security since advanced quantum computers are believed to break all traditional public-key cryptographic algorithms. This has led to active research on PQC algorithms that are believed to be secure against classical and powerful quantum computers. However, algorithmic security is unfortunately insufficient, and many cryptographic algorithms are vulnerable to side-channel attacks (SCA), where an attacker passively or actively gets side-channel data to compromise the security properties that are assumed to be safe theoretically. In this survey, we explore such imminent threats and their countermeasures with respect to PQC. We provide the respective, latest advancements in PQC research, as well as assessments and providing visions on the different types of SCAs.


Background Cardiomyocytes that differentiate from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) provide a crucial cellular resource for cardiac regeneration. The mechanisms of mitochondrial metabolic and redox regulation for efficient cardiomyocyte differentiation are, however, still poorly understood. Here, we show that inhibition of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) by Cyclosporin A (CsA) promotes cardiomyocyte differentiation from PSCs. Methods and Results We induced cardiomyocyte differentiation from mouse and human PSCs and examined the effect of CsA on the differentiation process. The cardiomyogenic effect of CsA mainly resulted from mPTP inhibition rather than from calcineurin inhibition. The mPTP inhibitor NIM811, which does not have an inhibitory effect on calcineurin, promoted cardiomyocyte differentiation as much as CsA did, but calcineurin inhibitor FK506 only slightly increased cardiomyocyte differentiation. CsA‐treated cells showed an increase in mitochondrial calcium, mitochondrial membrane potential, oxygen consumption rate, ATP level, and expression of genes related to mitochondrial function. Furthermore, inhibition of mitochondrial oxidative metabolism reduced the cardiomyogenic effect of CsA while antioxidant treatment augmented the cardiomyogenic effect of CsA. Conclusions Our data show that mPTP inhibition by CsA alters mitochondrial oxidative metabolism and redox signaling, which leads to differentiation of functional cardiomyocytes from PSCs.


In an attempt to demonstrate the efficacy of Bacillus subtilis PB6, isolated from the gut of a healthy chicken, on broiler performance, an experimental trial was conducted in which broilers, infected or uninfected with a pathogenic strain of Escherichia coli , were supplemented with B. subtilis PB6 (CloSTAT) or zinc bacitracin-colistin sulfate and compared against negative controls given no antibiotic supplementation. We observed 10- and 8-point improvements in feed conversion ratio (FCR) in 42-d-old uninfected broilers treated with B. subtilis PB6 when compared with the negative and antibiotic controls, respectively. However, infected birds supplemented with B. subtilis PB6 registered a significant 15-point FCR improvement over those in the negative control group ( P < 0.05). Compared with the negative control, the increase in body weights of uninfected and infected 42-d-old broilers receiving B. subtilis PB6 were 97 and 152 g, respectively ( P < 0.05). The growth-promoting and protective results from this study indicated that B. subtilis PB6 not only helped in the maintenance of beneficial bacteria but also could act as a replacement for antimicrobial growth promoters in broilers. The percentages of mortality of infected birds within antibiotic-treated groups and B. subtilis PB6-treated groups were reduced from 14% to 6 and 8%, respectively. Numerically, uninfected birds supplemented with B. subtilis PB6 had elevated levels of lactobacilli (1.4 to 4.5 × 10 7 cfu/g) in their intestinal tracts (32- and 42-d-old broilers) compared with the controls. Even after being challenged with a pathogenic strain of E. coli , the lactobacilli counts in the B. subtilis PB6-treated birds tended to remain the same as those receiving antibiotic and were considerably higher than those of the untreated birds.


Background & Objective:- BCL-G is a novel protein of Bax (BCL-G associated protein X) that induces caspase-mediated apoptosis. These proteins play important roles in regulating apoptosis in both normal or neoplastic cells, however their cellular and tissue distribution remains to be determined. Thus, the current study objective was to elucidate the distribution and expression pattern of BCL-G in normal and malignant gastrointestinal human tissues. Methods:- The distribution and expression of BCL-G was measured by immunohistochemistry using a rabbit monoclonal antibody against BCL-G in formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded, benign or malignant human tissue. Results :- A variable pattern of positive expression of BCL-G was observed within all the tissues studied. BCL-G expression was found to be localized to the cytoplasmic paranuclear granules of the epithelialium in the majority of organs examined. Intensity of BCL-G staining was associated withthe maturation state of benign tissue. Conclusion: - Here we demonstrate that BCL-G exhibits a specific tissue distribution pattern that appears to correlate with cellular differentiation. While such distribution patterns are complex they provide an intriguing insight into overall function that would require further investigation to fully elucidate their physiological/pathological significance. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.16(3) 2017 p.433-438


Growth factors in the tumor environment are key regulators of cell survival and metastasis. Here we reveal, dichotomy between TGF-β superfamily growth factors BMP and TGF-β/activin, and their downstream SMAD effectors. Gene expression profiling uncovered Sox2 as a key signaling node regulated in an opposing manner by anoikis-promoting BMP2, 4 and 9, and anoikis-suppressing TGF-β and activin A. We find that Sox2 repression by BMPs robustly inhibits intraperitoneal tumor burden and increases survival in multiple ovarian cancer models. Repression of Sox2 is driven by SMAD1 dependent histone H3K27me3 recruitment and DNA methylation at SOX2's promoter. Conversely, TGF-β and activin A promote Sox2 expression, and anoikis resistance by SMAD3 mediated histone H3K4me3 recruitment. We find that balancing Sox2 levels is critical for anoikis, as transcriptomics reveals regulation of key cell death pathways. Moreover, BMP-driven SMAD1 signaling can override TGF-β and activin's effect on Sox2, which has clinical significance due to the high levels of TGF-β we find in ovarian cancer patients. Together, our findings identify Sox2 as a contextual and contrastingly regulated key node, downstream of TGF-β superfamily members controlling anoikis and metastasis in ovarian cancers. Highlights Sox2 is a key node for anoikis resistance in cancer Sox2 is differentially regulated by TGF-β/activin and BMPs in broad cancers BMP9 is a robust metastasis suppressor by lowering Sox2 Sox2 regulation is contextual, epigenetic and at the transcriptional level


Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important species for food production worldwide, besides being an excellent genetic model among the grasses. Cold is one of the major abiotic factors reducing rice yield, primarily affecting germination and reproduction phases. Currently, the RNAseq technique allows the identification of differential expressed genes in response to a given treatment, such as cold stress. In the present work, a transcriptome (RNAseq) analysis was performed in the V3 phase for contrasting genotypes Oro (tolerant) and Tio Taka (sensitive), in response to cold (13°C). A total of 241 and 244M readings were obtained, resulting in the alignment of 25.703 and 26.963 genes in genotypes Oro and Tio Taka respectively. The analyses revealed 259 and 5579 differential expressed genes in response to cold in the genotypes Oro and Tio Taka respectively. Ontology classes with larger changes were metabolic process ~27%, cellular process ~21%, binding ~30% and catalytic activity ~22%. In the genotype Oro, 141 unique genes were identified, 118 were common between Oro and Tio Taka and 5461 were unique to Tio Taka. Genes involved in metabolic routes of signal transduction, phytohormones, antioxidant system and biotic stress were identified. These results provide an understanding that breeding for a quantitative trait, such as cold tolerance at germination, several gene loci must be simultaneously selected. In general, few genes were identified, but it was not possible to associate only one gene function as responsible for the cultivar tolerance; since different genes from different metabolic routes were identified. The genes described in the present work will be useful for future investigations and for the detailed validation in marker assisted selection projects for cold tolerance in the germination of rice.


Food security is becoming an increasingly important issue worldwide, and in this respect, urban agriculture has a substantial role. Nonetheless, pressure for agricultural land conversion and fragmentation is highest in peri-urban areas. In order to respond to these challenges, urban farmers use different adaptation strategies and business models, including product differentiation based on geographical indications (GIs). The paper considers land take (LT) issues in Futog, the settlement of the City of Novi Sad, registered as the GI of Futog cabbage, as an illustrative example which reflects the attitude of land use policy and planning in Serbia towards the specific conditions and requirements that growers of GIs have to meet. The purpose of this study is to identify the role of urban land use planning within LT processes and the implications this has on urban agriculture, accordingly. The supporting framework used for quantifying LT in the period 2000–2018 was CORINE Land Cover (CLC), specifically Urban Atlas (UA) datasets for two time series between 2012 and 2018. Since a significant part of agricultural land registered as a GI in Futog was planned for conversion into construction land, the authors conclude that current forms of land use planning in Serbia are not adequate to ensure the protection of either urban agriculture or GIs. Given that there is a clear correlation between GI products and their place of origin, this study recognized the necessary inclusion of all protected agricultural areas, as well as areas with GIs, into legislation binding for land use planning in Serbia, with limitations in terms of new LT.


The gas-phase reaction of CCl+ with acetonitrile (CH3CN) is studied using a linear Paul ion trap coupled to a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. This work builds on a previous study of the reaction of CCl+ with acetylene [K. J. Catani et al., J. Chem. Phys. 152, 234310 (2020)] and further explores the reactivity of CCl+ with organic neutral molecules. Both of the reactant species are relevant in observations and models of chemistry in the interstellar medium. Nitriles, in particular, are noted for their relevance in prebiotic chemistry and are found in the atmosphere of Titan, one of Saturn's moons. This work represents one of the first studied reactions of a halogenated carbocation with a nitrile and the first exploration of CCl+ with a nitrile. Reactant isotopologues are used to unambiguously assign ionic primary products from this reaction: HNCCl+ and C2H3 +. Branching ratios are measured, and both primary products are determined to be equally probable. Quantum chemical and statistical reaction rate theory calculations illuminate pertinent information for interpreting the reaction data, including reaction thermodynamics and a potential energy surface for the reaction, as well as rate constants and branching ratios for the observed products. In particular, the reaction products and potential energy surface stimulate questions regarding the strength and role of the nitrile functional group, which can be further explored with more reactions of this class.


Background: The obesity epidemic is a challenge for health systems globally. There has been a focus on obesity in health systems, but it is also important to understand how people describe their weight and their motivation to lose weight. Objective: To describe the desire to lose weight and beliefs about the causes and treatment of obesity in a representative sample of the Norwegian population. Design: In a cross-sectional survey, 1019 men and women aged 30-60 years took part in a computer-assisted telephone interview conducted in April 2005. The interview was part of an omnibus questionnaire. Results: Of all respondents, 76% describing themselves as overweight and 27% of normal-weight respondents wished to lose weight. The main reason for weight loss was better health among men (40%) and better wellbeing among women (37%). Almost 82% of men and 87% of women believed that heredity is important for obesity. Less than 10% believed that obesity is a disease, while 24
 % believed that obesity is a disease and has other causes. In answer to the question of what would be the best treatment for overweight and obesity (with more than one response being possible), the majority (91%) believed that a change of diet and exercise is best, while less than 5% believed that treatment by medical specialists, family physicians, dietitians, commercial groups, prescription medication or surgery is best. Only 7% believed that weight loss after a successful weightloss programme would be completely maintained 2 years later. These percentages did not vary much with age, geographical location, gender or income. Conclusions: The desire to lose weight was motivated primarily by the desire for better health and well-being. A dichotomy exists in the perceptions of obesity: while the role of heredity was widely recognized, very few believed in the effectiveness of medical treatments. Keywords: heredity; obesity treatment; survey; weight loss


Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder with a significant genetic component. The prevalence of autism has been increasing globally, though exact statistics for India are not available. Several genetic markers for autism have been studied. These include chromosomal abnormalities, copy number variations, submicroscopic cytogenetic anomalies, single nucleotide polymorphisms and other point mutations. This review gives details on the current data available on these genetic markers of autism, with a focus on single nucleotide polymorphisms. Studies on SNPs within candidate genes on each chromosome are dealt with, including some details on which populations show which variation. Methodology involved in analysis of SNPs, i.e. techniques in SNP genotyping are also reviewed, focusing on those techniques that are simple and economically feasible in the Indian scenario.


This article concerns the Bayesian estimation of interest rate models based on Euler-Maruyama approximation. Assume the short term interest rate follows the CIR model, an iterative method of Bayesian estimation is proposed. Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation based on Gibbs sampler is used for the posterior estimation of the parameters. The maximum A-posteriori estimation using the genetic algorithm is employed for finding the Bayesian estimates of the parameters. The method and the algorithm are calibrated with the historical data of US Treasury bills.


This chapter examines the lawmaking powers of the European Union (EU) in the context of its Treaties. It explains that the EU has the competence to make law of various types (including secondary legislation, soft law, delegated acts and implementing acts) in a broad range of areas and that the amendments to the lawmaking procedures have affected the institutional balance, giving an increased role to the European Parliament. It discusses the changes made to improve the level of democracy at EU level, to address concerns that EU law-making has a 'democratic deficit' and lacks transparency and proportionality. The chapter also considers the different aspects of EU competence, describes the lawmaking process and sources of EU law and also addresses questions concerning the determination of exclusive, shared and concurrent competence, particularly in the context of subsidiarity. Furthermore, it examines the rules on the EU adopting legislation without all Member States participating (closer cooperation).


Abstract only given, as follows. Bit mapping has always been viewed as the best method to directly identify the defects that cause yield loss. Unfortunately, only array areas can be used to collect this information. With the adoption of Automatic Test Program Generation (ATPG) scans, yield engineers have a new tool to identify problems and improve yields on advanced logic parts. Porting this data into a defect database further enhances our ability to identify random and systematic yield issues. Not only can we overlay the electrical faults with known defect locations, but we can also analyze the data for spatial signatures, which can indicate a systematic design or process issue. This paper will explore the use of some of these methods on AMD's 0.18 um process technology.


Alpine skiing is a high-risk sport for injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). While descending a hill, a skier must resist large centrifugal forces at a high velocity, while the knees are positioned in postures that place the ACL at risk of injury. Skiers who undergo ACL reconstructive surgery are prone to a high rate of reinjury to the same knee and even ACL injury in the uninjured knee. A rehabilitation program that integrates the best current evidence of ACL rehabilitation and the science of skiing is essential to a successful return to alpine skiing. Unlike rehabilitation programs developed for court or field athletes, a skiing program must place a large emphasis on slow eccentric-loading and weight-bearing (closed-chain) power and endurance. The purpose of this clinical commentary is to provide the rehabilitation specialist such a program directed toward safely returning the athlete to alpine skiing.


Objective: Cataract surgery is performed by two methods; small incision cataract surgery (SICS) and topical phacoemulsification (TPE) with intraocular lens (IOL) implantation. SICS is a widely used method but technological advances have led to increasing use of TPE. Both procedures require different capital investment. Pharmacoeconomic evaluation tends to investigate the selection and use of treatment program to make the patient medication efficient, safe and economical. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the economics and effectiveness of SICS and TPE.
Materials and Method: Records of 800 patients in a private hospital over last 5 years were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were selected with inclusion and exclusion criteria and divided into two groups; SICS (n= 350) and TPE (n=450). Follow up was done after day 1; 1, 4, 8 weeks and 2 years. The cost was calculated including direct and indirect medical and non-medical costs. Outcomes were determined according to economical benefit, surgical benefits and humanistic outcomes as per SF-36 questionnaire with slight modifications. The cost effectiveness ratio (CER) was calculated with the help of QALY and utility values.
Results: Average cost of SICS and TPE over the period of 5 years was approximately Rs. 21220 and Rs. 30670 respectively. The QALY scores of patients in TPE group were significantly higher as compared to SICS group. CER was found to be lesser with TPE.
Conclusion: Retrospective pharmacoeconomic study revealed that TPE, although having higher cost, was clinically superior and cost effective than SICS as indicated from the analysis of consequences and CER.

Keywords: Pharmacoeconomic evaluation, small incision cataract surgery, topical phacoemulsification, cost effectiveness analysis


Site selection for a hospital location is one of the pivotal strategyrelated decisions taken by the government. The selection of a suitable site for a hospital requires consideration of multiple alternative solutions and assessment factors. The present study aims at determine the optimum site out of three alternative sites to build a new hospital in Kerbala city. The main sustainability factors are; urban factors (including size, accessibility, restrictions, availability), environmental factors (including geomorphology, hydrology, vegetation, climate, other environmental factors) and economic factors (including service and utilities, cost) factors. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a multi criteria decision support system was adopted to find the weights of each factor and reach to select the most suitable site from three alternative sites. The results showed the site number (2) was the most sustainable site to construct the hospital project, where the alternative site records a biggest normal index of 0.419.


Point-supervised Temporal Action Localization (PSTAL) is an emerging research direction for label-efficient learning. However, current methods mainly focus on optimizing the network either at the snippet-level or the instance-level, neglecting the inherent reliability of point annotations at both levels. In this paper, we propose a Hierarchical Reliability Propagation (HR-Pro) framework, which consists of two reliability-aware stages: Snippet-level Discrimination Learning and Instance-level Completeness Learning, both stages explore the efficient propagation of high-confidence cues in point annotations. For snippet-level learning, we introduce an online-updated memory to store reliable snippet prototypes for each class. We then employ a Reliability-aware Attention Block to capture both intra-video and inter-video dependencies of snippets, resulting in more discriminative and robust snippet representation. For instance-level learning, we propose a point-based proposal generation approach as a means of connecting snippets and instances, which produces high-confidence proposals for further optimization at the instance level. Through multi-level reliability-aware learning, we obtain more reliable confidence scores and more accurate temporal boundaries of predicted proposals. Our HR-Pro achieves state-of-the-art performance on multiple challenging benchmarks, including an impressive average mAP of 60.3% on THUMOS14. Notably, our HR-Pro largely surpasses all previous point-supervised methods, and even outperforms several competitive fully supervised methods. Code will be available at https://github.com/pipixin321/HR-Pro.


The urban street canyon has been widely recognized as a basic surface unit in urban micrometeorological studies. Urban canopy models (UCMs), which quantify the exchange of energy and momentum between the urban surface and the overlying atmosphere, often adopt this type of street canyon representation as the fundamental surface element. Since UCMs can be coupled to regional-scale weather and climate models such as the Weather Forecast and Research Model (WRF), parametrizations of the surface momentum and scalar fluxes in UCM are of paramount importance. However, many current single-layer UCMs rely on empirical relations that were obtained over 80 years ago and often invoke the exponential wind profile derived from the existing literature for vegetation canopy. In this study, we conducted wallmodeled large-eddy simulations (LES) to study the forced (very weak buoyancy) convective heat transfer over idealized two-dimensional street canyons. It shows that the transfer efficiency computed following commonly applied resistance formulations can be one order of magnitude lower than LES results. The main reasons for the deviation include inaccurate wind speed parameterization and the use of a log-law based formulation for turbulent heat exchange between canyon air and the flow above.


Previously, a maximum likelihood method was described to construct a support interval for the risk. This method is extended to incorporate genotype specific penetrance probabilities in the calculation of a risk support interval. As an empirical example, the support interval for the risk is calculated for a member of a published breast‐ovarian cancer kindred. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The theory of implicature propounded by Grice brings to linguistic enquiry the concept that speakers often say more than is semantically coded. This phenomenon, being pervasively employed in metaphoric language, engenders a semantic cum pragmatic symbiotic approach to the interpretation of tropes – a model that embellishes the sentence meaning, arising from its semantic structure, with appropriate contextual information and/or encyclopaedic knowledge of the world, derived from pragmatics. The paper investigates how metaphors in The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives are pragmatically deviant by infringing the maxims of the Cooperative Principle literally, and how AFRREV LALIGENS, Vol.3 (1), February, 2014 Copyright © IAARR 2014: www.afrrevjo.net/laligens 42 Indexed: African Journals Online: www.ajol.info readers can work out the implicature. The study shows that most metaphors in the text flout the Maxims of Quality, Manner and Relation. However, the utterance meaning derived from enriching the conventional content of the expressions with contextual details ultimately preserves the Cooperative Principle.


We investigated the ability of mutual nonlinear prediction methods to assess causal interactions in short-term cardiovascular variability during normal and impaired conditions. Directional interactions between heart period (RR interval of the ECG) and systolic arterial pressure (SAP) short-term variability series were quantified as the cross-predictability (CP) of one series given the other, and as the predictability improvement (PI) yielded by the inclusion of samples of one series into the prediction of the other series. Nonlinear prediction was performed through global approximation (GA), approximation with locally constant models (LA0) and approximation with locally linear models (LA1) of the nonlinear function linking the samples of the two series, on patients with neurally mediated syncope and control subjects. Causality measures were evaluated in the two directions (from SAP to RR and from RR to SAP) in the supine (SU) position, in the upright position after head-up tilt (early tilt, ET) and after prolonged upright posture (late tilt, LT). While the trends for the GA, LA0 and LA1 methods were substantially superimposable, PI elicited better than CP the prevalence of causal coupling from RR to SAP during SU. Both CP and PI noted a marked decrease in coupling in both causal directions in syncope subjects during LT, documenting the impairment of cardiovascular regulation in the minutes just preceding syncope.


From cars to kitchen appliances, computers and the Internet continue to pervade human life in everything. With the discovery of machines, the Internet has amplified human enslavement. Although we have achieved many benefits in terms of effectiveness and management, many detrimental consequences and drawbacks have also been brought to the forefront. Cyberspace may now be used by individuals or organizations to serve foreign governments, or to terrorize a nation's people. By hooking a person "Cracking" on a government or military-maintained website, the crime of "cracks" will accelerate into terrorism. Cyber-terrorism could be a hospital hack. As a retaliatory act, dose. Informatics is a double-edged sword that can be used both for negative and positive work. Therefore, the fate of many businesses depends on the benevolent or vice intentions of the individual working with and through the technology, as the case may be. A malevolent intention communicated in the form of hacking, data theft, virus attack, etc., for example, can only bring negative effects. However, these methods can also be used to search for the authenticity, protection and security of one's technical device, which has been mainly relied on and effective to provide a specific organization with security. The whole thing seems to be intolerable, for example, the train ticketing system, if we currently think of society without the machine. Airline Ticketing and Traffic Control as well. Bill for electricity. The Telephone Bill Office functions etc. Without the machine, it seems to be intolerable. The most important means of communication, information, trade and entertainment has become computers with the aid of the Internet today. The internet is like life being expanded and carrying on in the real world in another medium that cuts space, time, nationality, citizenship, across borders, Competence, gender, sexual orientation, and age. Likewise, each coin has two sides, the internet with all the advantages of obscurity, transparency, and convenience has become an ideal place for criminals involved in making the net for illicit lucrative purposes, either monetary or otherwise.


According to the peak hours of the day, the number of sensed primary users (PUs) and also requesting secondary users (RSUs) will be dramatically increased. Since the radio spectrum is a limited resource, efficient spectrum management techniques on cognitive radio is necessary to manage all PUs, active secondary users (ASUs) and RSUs where all three types of the users have unknown activity ratios. Instant Overbooking Framework for Cognitive Radio Networks (IOFCR) is used to maximize both spectrum utilization and the network revenue under several spectrum management policies. In this paper, dynamic switch system based on user activity is designed for IOFCR. Accordingly, IOFCR automatically switches to the convenient policy to minimize the elapsed time and to get high spectrum utilization with minimal policy complexity in peak hours. Simulation results show that a considerable amount of improvement is achieved through taking user activities into account.


Four chalcone glycosides (1-4), including three new natural products, and three flavanones (5-7) were isolated from the methanol extract of stem bark of Maclura tinctoria. The new compounds have been characterized as 4'-O-beta-D-(2' '-p-coumaroyl)glucopyranosyl-4,2',3'-trihydroxychalcone (1), 4'-O-beta-D-(2' '-p-coumaroyl-6' '-acetyl)glucopyranosyl-4,2',3'-trihydroxychalcone (2), and 3'-(3-methyl-2-butenyl)-4'-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-4,2'-dihydroxychalcone (3); the known derivatives were elucidated as 4'-O-beta-D-(2' '-acetyl-6' '-cinnamoyl)glucopyranosyl-4,2',3'-trihydroxychalcone (4), eriodictyol 7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (5), naringenin (6), and naringenin 4'-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (7). Their structures were determined by 1D and 2D NMR and ESIMS. The antioxidant activity of all the isolated compounds was determined by measuring free-radical-scavenging effects using two different assays, namely, the Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity (TEAC) assay and the coupled oxidation of beta-carotene and linoleic acid (autoxidation assay). The results showed that compound 3 was the most active in both antioxidant assays.


The economic stability of Chile since the end of the XX century has been supported by the execution of an effective monetary policy in the inflation control. The strategy chosen by the Central Bank of Chile is that of «Inflation Targeting». The present study explores the fundamentals that support the adoption of this strategy, how it works and the results found in Chile for the last years. This study shows how the monetary theory, the Central Bank's autonomy and the determination in the inflation control can be engaged to modify the inflationist process in the economy and finally to bring an optimal stability frame for the economic development. JEL Classification : E31, E52, E42, E58


Superhero Lapwing must utilize his bird-like qualities in order to stop the evil Dr. Curem from carrying out his dastardly plan to destroy the planet. But when he finds himself up a tree without a paddle Lapwing must also learn to accept help from the beautiful and aerially talented Mousegirl and discover that 99 times out of 10 it's better to be late, than sorry.


Intra-operative electron Radiation Therapy (IOeRT) as a partial-breast single high dose leads to decrease the local recurrence through tumor bed modification. With the aim of reduce received irradiation dose in patients. This study designed to investigate short-term effects of single high dose- dependent and -independent (12Gy; Boost vs 21Gy; Radical), molecular mechanisms of tumor bed modification induced by IOeRT using transcriptomics and proteomics approaches. Six random selected breast cancer patients were treated by IOeRT after breast-conserving surgery. mRNA sequencing and Isobaric Tag for Relative and Absolute Quantitation(iTRAQ) were performed to study the transcriptome and proteome profile of the margin. Using mRNA sequencing, ~6 Giga base clean data per individual samples and totally 125.3 million reads of transcriptome sequence were generated from the patient samples. Moreover, using iTRAQ for proteome quantification, in total, 1045410 spectrums were generated, 31572 peptides and 5860 proteins were identified (FDR <0.01). Functional annotation and Gene Ontology (GO) indicated that significant enrichment in biological pathways for local and systemic response to short-term effects of IOeRT have induced in tumor bed, independently to the Boost versus Radical doses. Generally, by modification of Radical dose, with the same effectiveness, it is possible to reduce received irradiation dose in breast cancer patients.


Abstract : Two sequential simulation studies were conducted to evaluate the usability and acceptability of pictorial format displays for fighter aircraft; to determine whether usability and acceptability were affected by display mode--color or monochrome; and to recommend format changes based on the simulations. Government-furnished formats were modified for dynamic display on CRTs in a simulator cockpit to support a representative mission scenario with surface and air threats. Objective performance data, subjective pilot ratings and comments were collected, and the formats were revised on the basis of this data. In the Basic Pictorial Display Evaluation study, pictorial formats were implemented and evaluated for flight, tactical situation, system status, engine, stores management and emergency status displays. In the Threat Warning Study, the number of threats, and the amount and type of threat information were increased. A total of thirty USAF and Navy pilots in the two studies flew mission simulations with color and monochrome versions of the displays. In general, the pilots found the pictorial format displays, and the specific implementation used in these studies quite acceptable, and preferred the color over the monochrome versions. Originator-supplied keywords include: Flight displays, Situation displays, Threat warning, Stores management displays, Engine displays, Airplane system displays, Advisory displays, and Human factors.


The reporting and evaluation of creep tests of concrete is complicated by the fact that creep is significant even for the shortest observable load durations. Compared to the strain after 0.1 s load duration, the strain at 2 hour duration is typically 53% greater. Most experimenters have for decades been unaware of this fact. Consequently, the reported creep curves require correction by a time shift, which ranges from 0 to 2 hours. This further implies a vertical shift of entire creep curve, important for all times up to structure lifetime. To filter out the errors, it is argued that, within an initial period during which the advance of hydration is negligible, which is normally about 1 day, the initial basic creep must follow a power law of the time. Creep test data from the literature are used to prove it. Corrections by time and deformation shifts are determined by minimization of the sum of squared deviations of the power law from the creep test data. For a fixed exponent n and time shift s, the optimization is reduced to linear regressions of two kinds, depending on whether the data are given in terms of either the compliance function or the creep coefficient. For both, the linear regression parameters depend nonlinearly on the chosen values of n and s. To avoid nonlinear optimization, which need not converge to the correct result, a set of many discrete values of n and s within their realistic ranges is selected and the (n,s) combination minimizing the objective function is obtained by a search. Enforcing a power law form of the initial creep curve is found to lead to better data fits. The optimum exponent n for the entire database is around 0.3, applicable to the time period cca (10 s, 1 day). After that, the exponent transits to about 0.1, and prior to that it is about 0.08.


The objective of this research is to develop a long term energy demand forecasting model that used hybrid optimization.To accomplish this goal, a hybrid algorithm that combined a genetic algorithm and a local search algorithm method has been developed to overcome premature convergence.Model performances of hybrid algorithm were compared with former single algorithm model in estimating parameter values of an objective function to measure the goodness-of-fit between the observed data and simulated results.Averages error between two models was adopt to select the proper model for future projection of energy demand.


Low-dose low molecular heparin inhibits T lymphocyte-mediated autoimmune disease and allograft reactions in mice in vivo and in vitro. High doses of heparin are not effective. The purpose of this preliminary study was to analyze the effect of low-dose, low molecular weight heparin (Enoxaparin, Clexane) on the expression of patch testing in patients with contact dermatitis. Eleven patients with allergic contact dermatitis, and positive patch tests reactions, were given a single subcutaneous injection of Clexane 3 mg (0.03 ml) and were reevaluated for positive reactions after the injection. Eight out of 21 positive reactions (38%) became negative after the injection and 4 out of 21 reactions (19%) changed from ++ before the injection to + after. An impressive improvement was observed in 3 patients with chronic allergic contact dermatitis. Low-dose low molecular weight heparin inhibits the elicitation of allergic contact dermatitis.


There are two articles in this week's issue ofThe Journalthat address the important question of what happens when demand for sophisticated medical services, in this case intensive care treatment, exceeds supply. If you haven't already done so, read the article by Strauss et al 1 first. These investigators were able to cleverly relate the number of available intensive care unit (ICU) beds to physicians' admitting and discharge decisions by matching the number of open beds to the characteristics of patients admitted. What happened when there were few or no empty beds? Medical and surgical patients who were not very ill—for example, patients with chest pain but with a low probability of having a myocardial infarction—the "too healthy," were excluded. This study is the first to directly link daily variations in ICU bed availability to physicians' decision making. Its theme, however, is one that I increasingly hear during conferences


Seeds of Acanthochlamys bracteata were applied to detect the effects of sterile water, liquid and solid MS media, and different kinds and concentrations of hormone on germination rate, and growth of seedlings was also studied. The results showed that the germination rate by seeds of A. bracteata cultured in sterile water could reach 95% after jarovization for 2 months at 4 ℃, much higher than those in liquid (25.1%) and solid (10.4%) MS media; 6-BA and GA3 could not promote the seed germination in sterile water, but 1.0 mg/L GA3 could hasten the germination rate in liquid MS medium and 0.5 mg/L 6-BA could promote the rate in solid MS medium as well. Furthermore, in solid MS medium fasciculate seedlings could be observed after 3 months, and in solid MS medium with 1.0 mg/L 6-BA the fasciculate seedlings were more than those with 0.5 mg/L 6-BA. The germinated seeds of A. bracteata in sterile water and liquid MS medium were transplanted into solid MS medium, and buds could grow up into seedlings after 3 months in the media with hormone at different concentrations.


Many object detectors, such as AdaBoost, SVM and deformable part-based models (DPM), compute additive scoring functions at a large number of windows scanned over image pyramid, thus computational efficiency is an important consideration beside accuracy performance. In this paper, we present a framework of learning cost-sensitive decision policy which is a sequence of two-sided thresholds to execute early rejection or early acceptance based on the accumulative scores at each step. A decision policy is said to be optimal if it minimizes an empirical global risk function that sums over the loss of false negatives (FN) and false positives (FP), and the cost of computation. While the risk function is very complex due to high-order connections among the two-sided thresholds, we find its upper bound can be optimized by dynamic programming (DP) efficiently and thus say the learned policy is near-optimal. Given the loss of FN and FP and the cost in three numbers, our method can produce a policy on-the-fly for Adaboost, SVM and DPM. In experiments, we show that our decision policy outperforms state-of-the-art cascade methods significantly in terms of speed with similar accuracy performance.


ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the relationship between depression and outcome of percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) in patients with lumbar disc herniation. We examined 268 patients who underwent PELD for lumbar disc herniation and were followed for five years. Patients were grouped according to mood: normal mood (159 patients) and continuous depression (109 patients). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory. Back and leg pain were assessed using the visual analogue scale. Subjective disability was measured using the Oswestry Disability Index. Neurological function and physical disability were assessed using the Japanese Orthopaedic Association score. Disc-height ratio and intervertebral instability were measured to assess lumbar stability. Clinical and radiological data were recorded before surgery and at the 3-month, 6-month, 1-year, 2-year, and 5-year follow-ups. Although the Japanese Orthopaedic Association, visual analogue scale, and Oswestry Disability Index scores did not significantly differ between groups before surgery, all three scores significantly differed between groups at all follow-up time points after PELD (p < 0.05). Measurements of disc-height ratio and intervertebral instability did not significantly differ between the groups before surgery nor at any point after surgery (P > 0.05). Patients with continuous depression exhibited less improvement in symptom severity and disability score after PELD at all time points in the five years after surgery. Depression had little effect on lumbar vertebral stability after PELD. Interventions to detect and treat depression should be performed before and after surgery.


Understanding the gene regulatory network of plants in response to different attackers are important to elicit unique and common mechanisms of plant defense. Until recently, accumulations of the massive gene-expression data brought an opportunity to reach this aim. In silico-based approaches offer exclusion of regulatory mechanisms of every single gene and/or gene clusters in the genome by analysis. Collecting valuable biological information by this approach can give us an opportunity to make profound experimental sets and it can speed up the process on our understanding of gene regulatory mechanisms. In this study, we used in silico analysis of published Arabidopsis thaliana gene expression data against four insect species; Pieris rapae, Frankliniella occidentalis, Myzus persicae, Brevicoryne brassicae. We identified and compared plant genes that are differentially regulated upon infection by these insects. According to our results, although a small number of gene numbers were commonly upregulated by four of these insects, each insect species uniquely induced plant gene regulatory network. Functional analysis of these genes and the gene regulatory sequences (promoters, motifs etc.), as well as analysis of metabolic and physiological networks, can help on understanding the gene regulation mechanisms of plant defense networks against insects.


The effect of fresh gas flow (FGF) on isoflurane concentrations at given vaporizer settings during low-flow anaesthesia was investigated. Ninety patients (American Society of Anaesthesiologists physical status I or II) were randomly allocated to three groups (FGF 1 l/min, FGF 2 l/min and FGF 4 l/min). Anaesthesia was maintained for 10 min with vaporizer setting isoflurane 2 vol% and FGF 4 l/min for full-tissue anaesthetic uptake in a semi-closed circle system. Low-flow anaesthesia was maintained for 20 min with end-tidal isoflurane 1.5 vol% and FGF 2 l/min. FGF was then changed to FGF 1 l/min, FGF 2 l/min or FGF 4 l/min. Measurements during the 20-min period showed that inspired and end-tidal isoflurane concentrations decreased in the FGF 1-l/min group but increased in the FGF 4-l/min group compared with baseline values. No haemodynamic changes were observed. Monitoring of anaesthetic concentrations and appropriate control of vaporizer settings are necessary during low-flow anaesthesia.


There are many drivers for change and innovation in adult social care and one of the most significant is the personalisation agenda; however, whilst resources are always limited, this does have its roots in a more relaxed financial climate than currently prevails. This article draws on findings from a scoping study which claimed to identify future areas for research to assist councils in developing and commissioning personalised services. Twenty local authorities were surveyed and in three case study areas, interviews and focus groups conducted with staff and service users to explore progress with personalisation and identify innovative practice. Although, at the time of the study, the impact of resource reductions had yet to be felt, budget cuts were seen as a potential impediment to future developments. The innovative practice identified demonstrated approaches to tackling some of the challenges of personalising social care and a commitment from practitioners and commissioners to find ways to do this. However, it remains to be seen whether the cold financial climate results in a top-down prescriptive approach to personalisation or leads to local innovation to enable people to make decisions about their needs.


Background and purpose: Bordetella pertussis is a gram negative and obligate aerobic bacteria that is cause of whooping cough and is exclusively a human pathogen. In the last decade increasing rate of pertussis was observed. Despite the importance of pertussis as a contagious disease enough information does not exist regarding its incidence rate in Iran. In this research pertussis suspicious specimens were collected from different provinces of Iran in 2009-2010 and then were studied. Materials and methods: A total of 1084 sample from nasopharyngeal secretion or nasal of patients with coughing more than two weeks were collected from different provinces of Iran and were sent to microbiology unit of pertussis reference laboratory in Pasteur institute of Iran. The isolation was done through culturing method. All samples were inoculated through swab on pertussis charcoal agar and Bordet-Gengou plates containing (40 µg/ml) cephalexin antibiotic and once without it. Then the suspected colonies were gram stained and complementary tests was done if colonies were identified as B. pertussis, B. parapertussis. Results: From the total of 1084 samples 12 inoculated samples were positive (1.1%) of which 11 samples were B. pertussis and one sample was B. parapertussis. Among positive cultures, three cases were the patients who were below 2 months, six cases related to individuals from two months to two years of age, two cases related to those aged between two and 10 years old and one patient was over 10 years of age. Nine cases of positive culture specimens were vaccinated and seven cases were the patients who used antibiotics. Conclusion: Results of this study indicated that most isolated strains in Iran were related to those aged between two months to two years old. According to clinical and paraclinical problems regarding whooping cough in Iran and also low sensitivity of culturing method to diagnose Bordotella, complementary methods such as Real-Time PCR should be used.


Tangible user interfaces enable the interaction with digital information through the physical world. For the binding of physical representations with the underlying digital information, technology-augmented artifacts and environments are used. Characteristic for tangible user interfaces is the use of physical artifacts which are either dedicated to or augmented for the purpose of serving as input devices. However, relying on special artifacts limits the widespread use of tangible user interfaces, as they are not suitable for many everyday situations in which we interact with arbitrary artifacts that are not part of the interface. In this paper, we present a novel prototype of a tabletop tangible user interface which is based on pressure imaging. It identifies physical artifacts that are placed on the table by their weight, shape and size, thus enabling the use of a wide range of technology-free artifacts as input devices. We describe the underlying technologies and methods, and discuss the results of a first experiment which shows the recognition accuracy of the presented tabletop interface. Among the positioning of artifacts, their identification is a prerequisite for further interaction modalities and applications. For the recognition of everyday artifacts, a score-based classifier and a set of shape- and weight-based features have been used. The determination of the position of an artifact is fairly simple, as it can be achieved directly from its pressure footprint.


We report on the dual detection of zinc ions (Zn 2+ ), using a novel coumarin-based fluorescent chemosensor 7-(diethylamino)-3-((2-hydroxy-4-methylphenylimino) methyl)-2H-chromen-2-one (DHMMC), by using electrochemical and fluorescence based spectroscopy techniques. An efficient electrochemical sensor which consists of gold (Au) interdigitated electrodes (IDE) on a glass substrate was used to perform electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) for quantitative detection of Zn 2+ . Picomolar level detection of Zn 2+ was made possible by EIS in the presence of DHMMC. Selective detection of Zn 2+ for concentrations as low as 1 µM was facilitated by fluorescence titration spectroscopy, based on the bathochromatic shift of the different optical signals produced in the emission spectra. The EIS and fluorescence based response were analyzed and is presented in this work.


Using the Internet to facilitate business-to-business commerce promises many benefits, such as dramatic cost reductions and greater access to buyers and sellers. Yet little is known about how B2B e-commerce will evolve. The authors argue that changes in the financial services industry over the past two decades provide important clues. Exchanges, they say, are not the primary source of value in information-intensive markets; value tends to accumulate among a diverse group of specialists that focus on such tasks as packaging, standard setting, arbitrage, and information management. Because scale and liquidity are vitally important to efficient trading, today's exchanges will consolidate into a relatively small set of mega-exchanges. Originators will handle the origination and aggregation of complex transactions before sending them on to mega-exchanges for execution. E-speculators, seeking to capitalize on an abundance of market information, will tend to concentrate where relatively standardized products can be transferred easily among a large group of buyers. In many markets, a handful of independent solution providers with well-known brand names and solid reputations will thrive alongside mega-exchanges. Sell-side asset exchanges will create the networks and provide the tools to allow suppliers to trade orders among themselves, sometimes after initial transactions with customers are made on the mega-exchanges. For many companies, traditional skills in such areas as product development, manufacturing, and marketing may become relatively less important, while the ability to understand and capitalize on market dynamics may become considerably more important.


Although it has long been recognized that seed production by many forest trees varies greatly from year to year, masting (along with 'mast fruiting', 'mast seeding' and 'masting behaviour') as a concept referring to such variability is a relatively recent development. Here, I provide a brief history of masting research, highlighting some of the early contributions by foresters, zoologists and others that paved the way for the burgeoning number of studies currently being conducted by researchers around the world. Of particular current interest is work attempting to understand the proximate mechanisms, evolutionary drivers and community effects of this important ecological phenomenon as well as the ways that climate change may influence masting behaviour in the future. This article is part of the theme issue 'The ecology and evolution of synchronized seed production in plants'.