We report the development of a chemotherapeutic nanoformulation made of polyvinylpyrrolidone-stabilized magnetofluorescent nanoparticles (Fl-PMNPs) loaded with anticancer drugs as a promising drug carrier homing to human breast cancer cells, primary tumors, and solid tumors. First, nanoparticle uptake and cell death were evaluated in three types of human breast cells: two metastatic cancerous MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells and nontumorigenic MCF-10A cells. While Fl-PMNPs were not toxic to cells even at the highest concentrations used, Dox-loaded Fl-PMNPs showed significant potency, effectively killing the different breast cancer cells, albeit at different affinities. Interestingly and superior to free Dox, Dox-loaded Fl-PMNPs were found to be more effective in killing the metastatic cells (2- to 3-fold enhanced cytotoxicities for MDA-MB-231 compared to MCF-7), compared to the normal noncancerous MCF-10A cells (up to 8-fold), suggesting huge potentials as selective anticancer agents. Electron and live confocal microscopy imaging mechanistically confirmed that the nanoparticles were successfully endocytosed and packaged into vesicles inside the cytoplasm, where Dox is released and then translocated to the nucleus exerting its cytotoxic action and causing apoptotic cell death. Furthermore, commendable and enhanced penetration in 3D multilayered primary tumor cells derived from primary lesions as well as in patient breast tumor biopsies was observed, killing the tumor cells inside. The designed nanocarriers described here can potentially open new opportunities for breast cancer patients, especially in theranostic imaging and hyperthermia. While many prior studies have focused on targeting ligands to specific receptors to improve efficacies, we discovered that even with passive-targeted tailored delivery system enhanced toxic responses can be attained.


Isthmic-cervical insufficiency (ICI), which results in the failure of the circular muscles of the internal os, isthmus and cervix of the uterus is important in the pathogenesis of preterm birth. The existing types are anatomical, functional and congenital ICI. ICI is a pathological condition of the cervix and the isthmus, in which they are unable to withstand the intrauterine pressure and keep a fertilized egg in the uterine cavity until birth. ICI is a serious complication of pregnancy. Genetic, hormonal, inflammatory-infectious, immunological, traumatic factors play a role in the occurrence of ICI. The aim of the study is to study the peculiarities of reproductive health and gestational process of pregnant women with ICI, according to the literature. For the study, we analyzed domestic and foreign publications on this topic in professional journals, as well as data from Internet resources. Results of the research show that ICI plays a special role among many causes that lead to preterm termination of pregnancy and premature birth in the II-III trimesters. The properties of the cervix depend on the ratio of connective and muscle tissue. Today, most authors distinguish between congenital, acquired, organic and functional isthmic-cervical insufficiency.Organic (post-traumatic, secondary) ICI occurs due to mechanical damage to the cervix. Functional ICI is the result of a violation of the relationship between the muscular and connective tissues of the cervix, as well as the result of changes in the response of its structural elements to neurohumoral stimuli. Functional ICI most often occurs as a consequence of a violation of the hormonal background of women (ovarian hypofunction, hyperandrogenism). Congenital ICI occurs in malformations of the uterus, genital infantilism. Histological examination of cervical tissue in women with ICI reveals an increase in muscle tissue up to 50%, which leads to early softening of the cervix of the uterus and development of its functional insufficiency.  According to Kaufman KP (2021), the role of connective tissue in the development of ICI is confirmed by the fact, that this pathological condition of the cervix is found in women with Marfan syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The role of undifferentiated connective tissue dysplasia (UCTD) as a risk factor for complicated pregnancy, including ICI.Research of Huang J and co-authors (2021) found the presence of nutritional imbalance in patients with UCTD, which was manifested by changes in serum concentrations of magnesium, calcium, zinc, iron, copper, selenium, inorganic phosphorus. The relationship between changes in the microcirculation system, tissue perfusion and cervical condition is currently being actively discussed and confirmed in numerous studies.Fettweis JM (2019) believes that the mechanism of abortion at different stages of gestation is not the same in pregnant women with ICI. At the same time, all pregnant women with ICI at all stages of gestation have increased cytokine levels. However, an important factor in the premature termination of pregnancy in ICI is assigned to the infectious factor. The results of the study of the pathogenetic role of local immune responses in women with habitual miscarriage are often contradictory and dictate the need for further researches.Eventually, isthmic-cervical insufficiency is a multifactorial complication of pregnancy, in which genetic, hormonal, inflammatory-infectious, immunological or traumatic factors play a role.


Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs), a class of cells with proliferative, immunomodulatory, and reparative functions, have shown therapeutic potential in a variety of systemic diseases, including metabolic syndrome (MetS). The cluster of morbidities that constitute MetS might be particularly amenable for the application of MSCs, which employ an arsenal of reparative actions to target multiple pathogenic pathways simultaneously. Preclinical studies have shown that MSCs can reverse pathological changes in MetS mainly by inhibiting inflammation, improving insulin resistance, regulating glycolipid metabolism, and protecting organ function. However, several challenges remain to overcome before MSCs can be applied for treating MetS. For example, the merits of autologous versus allogeneic MSCs sources remain unclear, particularly with autologous MSCs obtained from the noxious MetS milieu. The distinct characteristics and relative efficacy of MSCs harvested from different tissue sources also require clarification. Moreover, to improve the therapeutic efficacy of MSCs, investigators have explored several approaches that improved therapeutic efficacy but may involve potential safety concerns. This review summarized the potentially useful MSCs strategy for treating MetS, as well as some hurdles that remain to be overcome. In particular, larger scale studies are needed to determine the therapeutic efficacy and safety of MSCs for clinical application.


ABSTRACT The Himalayan region is renowned with its complex topography and active tectonic movement, which causes accumulation and sudden release of strain energy instigating changes in the in-situ stress state. This paper evaluates in-situ stress state at the Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectric Project where shotcrete lined headrace tunnel with considerable hydrostatic head is being implemented. Start of the pressure tunnel at the downstream-end was proposed inside slope topography of about 300 m above valley bottom based on in-situ stresses measured by 3D overcoring at the test tunnel located at valley level. It was believed that pressure tunnel start location with a hydrostatic head of 420 m was inferred to have almost similar in-situ stress state measured at the test tunnel. However, minimum principal stresses measured by hydraulic fracturing were found insufficient to avoid hydraulic jacking. This manuscript evaluates in-situ stress state of the area and explores reasons behind much lower stresses than expected. Detailed assessment of the stress state using both measured data and 3D numerical analysis is performed, which revealed that the stress state has high degree of spatial variation even at similar overburden conditions. The analysis further demonstrates that presence of local shear zone has considerable de-stressing effect.


The relative infrequency of chondrodermatitis nodularis chronica helicis, or painful nodule of the ear, in members of the female sex has been commented on by various writers. Sutton and Sutton cited Poth's 1 examination of the literature in 1937. He collected 73 cases, in only 7 of which the lesion was in women. MacKenna, 2 describing this entity, stated that he had "never seen these nodules on a woman's ear." The vast clinical material at his disposal emphasizes the rarity of the condition among females. I should like to add the report of a typical case which has recently come under my observation. REPORT OF A CASE History.— Sister B. M., a white nun aged 30, in September 1940 sought advice for a growth on the ear which had been causing her much annoyance for the previous four months. At that time she noticed the development of a small "pimple"


Background: The comprehensive knowledge of the normal and variant arterial anatomy of the upper extremity is of great significance to the vascular radiologist and surgeons for accurate diagnostic interpretation as well as in the smooth conduct of interventional and surgical procedures on the upper extremity.
Anatomical knowledge of the anomalous branching pattern of the brachial artery is critical during percutaneous arterial catheterization to prevent issues from accidental damage to the anomalous blood vessel, and knowledge of the variations is critical for plastic surgeons who use flaps for reconstructive surgery. Knowledge of higher division of brachial artery is also important for all cases of traumatic amputation and revascularization techniques. It has to be remembered that the bifurcation of the brachial artery is the commonest site for embolism and a higher bifurcation would result in a larger area of ischemia than expected and the higher division seeks a greater clinical significance.
Materials and Methods: The current investigation involved 50 upper limbs of both sexes from an embalmed adult human cadaver used for undergraduate dissection at Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences in Mandya.
Results: The normal brachial artery was discovered in 42 specimens, accounting for 84 percent of the total.
Variations were found in 8 specimens (16%); five of these had trifurcation of the brachial artery into the radial, ulnar, and radial recurrent arteries (10%); one specimen had double profunda brachii artery (2%); one specimen had high origin of the radial artery (2%); and one specimen had high division of the brachial artery in the proximal third of arm (2%).
Conclusion: Physicians, cardiologists, vascular surgeons, and interventional radiologists need accurate anatomical knowledge of the brachial artery and its branching pattern, as well as their variations.  The study of these variations and their awareness aids in the prevention of iatrogenic blood vessel injuries, the management of accidental/traumatic injuries to arteries in the upper limb, and during diagnostic procedures (like arteriograms).


There are two important factors to overcome spinal tuberculosis, i.e. killing and preventing the Mycobacterium tuberculosis to spread, also replacing and reconstructing the damaged bone. This study focused on an innovation to overcome the spinal tuberculosis problem by combining the IBS and 3D printed bone scaffold. This innovation could provide a local drug delivery system along with tissue regeneration and bone reconstruction. In this study, 3D printed bone scaffold which have been injected with IBS were tested its physical characterizations. The bone scaffold was fabricated from Polylactide acid (PLA) filament using FDM method through an ordinary commercial 3D printer. The IBS was synthesized from nanohydroxyapatite, gelatin, streptomycin, and HPMC. The physical characterization performed in this study were porosity test functional group test, and degradation test. From those characterizations, it could be concluded that the IBS associated-3D printed bone scaffold is a potential alternative to overcome spinal tuberculosis.


: The present study focuses on migrant women from Albania in Greece, who are employed in the sector of domestic work. The aim of the paper is to unravel the multiple effects of domestic work on the living conditions and integration of these women in the host country. The study implements the tool of research literature review. This method was chosen as it includes an objective approach and evaluation of the body of qualitative/quantitative research literature, in order to answer focused questions about the effects of domestic work on migrant women from Albania in Greece, using appropriate keywords in two databases. A review of the literature reveals that the low wages and precarious working conditions that characterise domestic work and care, allow for physical and moral exploitation, while at a social level there is marginalization and difficulty of access of domestic workers to social security, healthcare, community organization and labor representation.


The audit rules are necessary, they being able to be useful as much for the auditors and for the audit beneficiaries. For the auditors, the rules make first of all a support item, a guide or a support in applying the methods, techniques, procedures and second of all a support and justification item, for the case where difficulties show up. In what regards third-parties, these will be assured that the audit is made by unitary criteria, no matter by whom it is made. Even if solicited by various firms, in order to raise the credibility of the financial situations they published, the audit process cannot take place at random, without the existence of legal regulations. Due to the increasing importance the audit gets in developing any business, in time imposing the necessity to make professional specific standards, that are to insure a minimum quality of the audit process an a certain performance to the auditor profession.


India is the second most populous country in the world, whose rapidly developing economy, is widening the gap between rich and poor. Microfinance allows the poor to get the loans, they need to save, invest, and create a sustainable lifestyle of financial independence and growth. These loans are used productively by the poor to create their own business, grow their assets and get out of poverty once and for all. Microfinance is gathering momentum to become a significant force in India. In the last two decades, substantial progress has been made in developing techniques to deliver financial services to the poor on a sustainable basis. These loans are aimed to empowering the impoverished the people to start their own business and to grow their money so that they can achieve long term financial independence. Microfinance is one of the effective ways for poverty alleviation economic growth and development in emerging economies. This paper will focus the importance, challenges, obstacles, opportunities and outcome of microfinance in India context.
Keywords-Microfinance, Sustainable, Challenges, Growth, Opportunities.


Ammonia is a prospective hydrogen transport intermediate due to its high volumetric and gravimetric H2 densities, and existing production and distribution infrastructure. However, its ultimate use in mobile proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells necessitates decomposition and purification at or near the point of use. In this study, the production of high purity H2 from NH3 using a two-stage process has been demonstrated by coupling separate decomposition (150 g of 1 wt % Ru on Al2O3 catalyst) and purification (a single 150 cm2, Pd-coated tubular vanadium membrane) stages. Equilibrium NH3 decomposition and >90% H2 recovery was demonstrated with a catalyst temperature of 450 °C and membrane temperature of 340 °C, with an overall H2 production rate of 0.75 kg/day. Mass spectrometry showed that levels of N2 and NH3 impurities were below detection limits. This configuration is readily scalable by increasing the catalyst loading and membrane area (through use of multiple tubes in parallel), and could enable ...


Mechanical heart valve (MHV) prostheses present a risk of thromboembolic complications despite antithrombotic therapy. Further steps in the development of more hemocompatible MHVs and new anticoagulants are impeded due to the lack of adequate in-vitro models. With the development of a novel in-vitro model (MarioHeart), a pulsatile flow similar to the arterial circulation is emulated. The MarioHeart design owns unique features as 1) a single MHV within a torus with low surface/volume ratio, 2) a closed loop system, and 3) a dedicated external control system driving the oscillating rotational motion of the torus. For verification purposes, a blood analog fluid seeded with particles was used to assess fluid velocity and flow rate using a speckle tracking method on high-speed video recordings of the rotating model. The flow rate resembled the physiological flow rate in the aortic root, in both shape and amplitude. Additional in-vitro runs with porcine blood showed thrombi on the MHV associated with the suture ring, which is similar to the in-vivo situation. MarioHeart is a simple design which induces well-defined fluid dynamics resulting in physiologically nonturbulent flow without stasis of the blood. MarioHeart seems suitable for testing the thrombogenicity of MHVs and the potential of new anticoagulants.


Background: Dementia is an increasing public health threat worldwide. The pathogenesis of dementia has not been fully elucidated yet. Inflammatory processes are hypothesized to play an important role as a driver for cognitive decline but the origin of inflammation is not clear. We hypothesize that disturbances in gut microbiome composition, gut barrier dysfunction, bacterial translocation and resulting inflammation are associated with cognitive dysfunction in dementia. Methods: To test this hypothesis, a cohort of 23 patients with dementia and 18 age and sex matched controls without cognitive impairments were studied. Gut microbiome composition, gut barrier dysfunction, bacterial translocation and inflammation were assessed from stool and serum samples. Malnutrition was assessed by Mini Nutritional Assessment Short Form (MNA-SF), detailed information on drug use was collected. Microbiome composition was assessed by 16s sequencing, QIIME 2 and Calypso 7.14 tools. Results: Dementia was associated with dysbiosis characterized by differences in beta diversity and changes in taxonomic composition. Gut permeability was increased as evidenced by increased serum diamine oxidase levels and systemic inflammation was confirmed by increased soluble cluster of differentiation 14 levels (sCD14). BMI and statin use use had the strongest impact on microbiome composition.Conclusion: Dementia is associated with changes in gut microbiome composition and increased biomarkers of gut permeability and inflammation. Lachnospiraceae NK4A136 group as a potentially butyrate producing bacterial strain was reduced in dementia. Malnutrition and drug intake were factors, that impact on microbiome composition and function. Increasing butyrate producing bacteria and targeting malnutrition may be promising therapeutic targets in dementia.Trial Registration: NCT03167983


C56 Arsenic trioxide (ATO) has shown substantial efficacy in treating patients with acute myelocytic leukemia as well as solid tumors. However, its side effects to human health have significantly limited its applicable dose range in clinical application. Alternatives such as combination with other drugs might provide a useful strategy for the sustainable use of ATO in cancer therapy. Previously, we have described the synergistic effect of ATO with green tea extract, EGCG, to human cancer cell lines. In this report we are going to present the results on the mechanism elucidation of this synergistic action. In our investigation, ATO and EGCG, when applied jointly, induced oxidative stress and apoptosis significantly, whereas did not so when treated each by itself. The deprivation of ferrous iron decreased while that of ferric iron increased the synergistic effect, indicating the involvement of Fenton reaction, probably through the reacting with EGCG-induced peroxide species. Inhibition of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) also decreased the synergistic effect significantly. This revealed that ferrous iron probably was provided by the HO-1-catalyzed heme degradation induced by ATO. Confirmation also came from the Western analysis showing that EGCG inhibited the ferritin, which has been known to play a vital role in ferrous iron degradation. Based on those observations, we tentatively proposed hypotheses to explain the synergistic effect of ATO and EGCG as follows:
 (1) ATO provided ferrous iron through the mediation of heme degradation;
 (2) The degradation of transient ferrous iron was retarded due to the inhibition of ferritin by EGCG;
 (3) Ferrous irons thereby react with EGCG-produced hydrogen peroxide to process Fenton reaction and induced the cytotoxicity.


Introduction The identification of molecular defects in haemophilia is essential for the optimization of patient treatment and the formal characterization of female carriers. The Sanger method is the gold standard for sequencing F8 and F9 genes but is time-consuming and expensive. We aimed to develop a high-throughput method to genotype haemophilia A (HA) and B (HB) patients using the Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology for an exhaustive and less expensive analysis of F8 and F9 genes. Material & Methods We developed a small panel containing F8 and F9 for exons and introns/exons junctions sequencing. We used two different methods for library preparation (AmpliSeq™, Life Technologies™ and HaloPlex™, Agilent™), performed in the same PCR emulsion system (Ion One Touch 2™, Life Technologies™) and sequenced with a Ion 316™ chip in a PGM™ Ion Torrent sequencer, or a Ion PI™ chip in a Proton™ sequencer (Life Technologies™) respectively. The promoter and 39 regions of F8 and F9 were always studied by Sanger. NGS analysis was first performed in 62 samples (HA: n= 42; HB: n=13; carriers: n=7) previously characterized for F8 or F9 mutations by Sanger method or Multiplex Ligation-Probe Amplification (MLPA). All types of mutations were studied (nonsense, missense, splice, small insertion/deletion and exons deletion/duplication) and were distributed in all exons of F8 and F9 . NGS analysis was further performed in 42 haemophilia patients (HA: n=31, HB: n=11; of which 36 presented a mild phenotype), with unknown mutation status. All patients were included by the local Comprehensive Care Haemophilia Center of Lille University Hospital after written informed consent. Data were analyzed with SeqNext™ software (JCI Medical System™). A Normalized Reads Depth (NRD) ratio was used to detect exons deletion/duplication. Results All exons were well covered by AmpliSeq™ (average number of reads, ANR = 300) and overall by HaloPlex™ (ANR = 15000, except small parts of exons 14 and 19 in F8 ). The average quality value for mutation detection was 60 (risk of false result In previously-genotyped patients, 92% (57/62) of F8 and F9 mutations were detected by AmpliSeq™ and 85% (53/62) by HaloPlex™. The detection rate of small insertion/deletion in homopolymers of exon 14 in F8 was only 20% (1/5) with both methods and 71% (5/7) in other exons of F8. Four deletions and one duplication of exons accounting for a severe haemophilia phenotype were identified (3 HA, 1 HB and 1 HA-carrier). In 5 uncharacterized patients by Sanger method, neither AmpliSeq™ nor HaloPlex™ were able to find a mutation suggesting that the molecular defect is located in introns of F8 or F9. In never-genotyped patients, a mutation was detected in 90% (38/42) of cases (including 34 missense, 2 nonsense and 2 splice mutations in both F8 and F9) . A duplication of exons 10 to 14 was also detected in a severe HA patient and was confirmed by MLPA. In NGS negative patients, no mutation was found in promoter or 39 regions. Of the ten candidate mutations identified in our cohort, seven were predicted to be deleterious by in silico analysis and/or co-segregation studies. No mutation was found in 10% (4/42) of never-genotyped patients with mild haemophilia A, in consistence with the available data for the mild phenotype. The technical development and laboratory protocol was easier and less expensive ($530 vs $602 including reagents and technical/medical staff) with AmpliSeq™ than HaloPlex™. Conclusion We confirmed that NGS is able to detect the main types of mutations in F8 and F9 genes, albeit with a lower mutation detection rate with HaloPlex™ compared to AmpliSeq™. These detections were associated with an important depth of reads and high Quality Values, except for exons 14 and 19 in F8 with HaloPlex™. AmpliSeq™ seems also an interesting screening method for the detection of exons deletion/duplication using the NRD ratio. However, both strategies fail to detect small insertion/deletion located in homopolymers of exon 14 in F8 , whom identification will still rely on Sanger sequencing. AmpliSeq™ protocol performed in the PGM™ sequencer appears as a new interesting tool in genotyping of HA and HB patients of the Lille University Hospital. Disclosures Zawadzki: Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company: Research Funding.


Magnetic helicity has risen to be a major player in dynamo theory, with the helicity of the small-scale field being linked to the dynamo saturation process for the large-scale field. It is a nearly conserved quantity, which allows its evolution equation to be written in terms of production and flux terms. The flux term can be decomposed in a variety of fashions. One particular contribution that has been expected to play a significant role in dynamos in the presence of mean shear was isolated by Vishniac & Cho. Magnetic helicity fluxes are explicitly gauge dependent however, and the correlations that have come to be called the Vishniac–Cho flux were determined in the Coulomb gauge, which turns out to be fraught with complications in shearing systems. While the fluxes of small-scale helicity are explicitly gauge dependent, their divergences can be gauge independent. We use this property to investigate magnetic helicity fluxes of the small-scale field through direct numerical simulations in a shearing-box system and find that in a numerically usable gauge the divergence of the small-scale helicity flux vanishes, while the divergence of the Vishniac–Cho flux remains finite. We attribute this seeming contradiction to the existence of horizontal fluxes of small-scale magnetic helicity with finite divergences.


Molecular imprinting is one of few general, nonbiological methods for creating molecular receptors, but the progress in molecular imprinting calls for the predictive tools capable of understanding molecular level complexities of these processes. Thus, computational chemistry which predicts the suitability of functional monomer in designing the sensor for a particular analyte was attempted to design an amino acid (L-serine) sensor based on the molecular imprinting approach using density functional theory (DFT). Here, the computations were carried out to check the feasibility of best suited monomers for imprinting an amino acid (L-serine) in water and allied solvents. DFT method was utilized at B3LYP/6-31++G(d,p) level to optimize template, monomers and template-monomer complexes and basis set superposition error (BSSE) was corrected by means of the counterpoise (CP) method for complexes in gas phase. All monomers can be utilized for imprinting. 2-vinyl pyridine and acrylamide were found to be good for imprinting serine in water but toluene was found to be good porogen for imprinting serine with functional monomer acrylamide. This study will aid in designing a water-compatible MIP sensor for serine molecules, which could be a biomarker for certain neurological disorders.


Backgrounds and Aims: Loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) is widely accepted for diagnosis and treatment of high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (HGCIN). Positive margins of conization specimen have been reported to be the most important predictor of residual disease and disease recurrence in these patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate appropriate cone depth for predicting margin status and risk of recurrent disease after LEEP treatment.


The growing need for energy (oil and gas) has led to offshore resource development. As a reflection of this trend, there have been many advances in the technologies used for the subsea production systems that make offshore resource development possible. As the technologies for subsea production systems continue to grow, a subsea X-mas tree, the core equipment in a subsea production system, is required to have more functions than before. Generally, these complex functions lead to a change in its configuration. Therefore, this paper investigates a change in a subsea X-mas tree system to enhance system understanding, and conducts a leakage path analysis of a subsea X-mas tree system. Utilizing the recent configuration of the subsea X-mas tree, an identification of the leakage path and a quantitative risk analysis for the leakage using an FTA (fault tree analysis) are conducted.


Abstract Shagina, N. B., Tolstykh, E. I., Zalyapin, V. I., Degteva, M. O., Kozheurov, V. P., Tokareva, E. E., Anspaugh, L. R. and Napier, B. A. Evaluation of Age and Gender Dependences of the Rate of Strontium Elimination 25–45 Years after Intake: Analysis of Data from Residents Living along the Techa River. Radiat. Res. 159, 239–246 (2003). The Mayak Production Association released large amounts of 90Sr into the Techa River with peak amounts in 1950–1951. Residents near the Techa River ingested an average of ∼3,000 kBq of 90Sr. The affected people have been followed by scientists at the Urals Research Center for Radiation Medicine. The whole-body content of 90Sr of ∼15,000 individuals has been measured over a period of 24 years (1974–1997) using a special whole-body counter. This report evaluates the gender and age dependences of individual rates of strontium elimination. Data on persons who had been measured 12 or more times were selected for study. There were 108 men and 81 women older than 30 years who met this criterion. Individual measurement results were fitted to an exponential function and grouped mean averages of the rate of strontium elimination as a function of age for each sex were derived. For men, a significant increase (from 2.8% year–1 to 3.2% year–1) in the rate of strontium elimination after age 55 years is seen. For women, the increase in the rate of elimination was significant at age 45 and reached 5.8% year–1 after the age of 60. The results may be used to develop a gender- and age-dependent model of strontium metabolism.


On-device speech recognition requires training models of different sizes for deploying on devices with various computational budgets. When building such different models, we can benefit from training them jointly to take advantage of the knowledge shared between them. Joint training is also efficient since it reduces the redundancy in the training procedure's data handling operations. We propose a method for collaboratively training acoustic encoders of different sizes for speech recognition. We use a sequence transducer setup where different acoustic encoders share a common predictor and joiner modules. The acoustic encoders are also trained using co-distillation through an auxiliary task for frame level chenone prediction, along with the transducer loss. We perform experiments using the LibriSpeech corpus and demonstrate that the collaboratively trained acoustic encoders can provide up to a 11% relative improvement in the word error rate on both the test partitions.


The occurrence of obesity and overweight status in the population has caught public attention. This is in line with the World Health Organization's concern (2013). The present study aimed to determine factors associated with body weight status among students in Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was conducted to asses physical activity level, environmental factors affecting physical activity level and their association with body weight status among 280 students in Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The mean of respondent's total physical activity per week was 3988.50 ± 6758.45 METs minute/week. This was significantly higher (t = 3.020, p = 0.003) among male respondents (5496.37 ± 7860.26 METs minute/week) compared to females (3032.93 ± 5779.55 METs minutes/week). The overall environmental supports for physical activity among the respondents were at moderate level (2.17 ± 0.72), although the total environmental supports for physical activity among female is slightly higher compared to male (2.17 ± 0.77 vs 2.15 ± 0.63), no significant different was observed (t = - 0.25; p = 0.805). In general over weight / obese status was highly prevalent among those with low involvement with neighbourhood environment for physical activity (28%) (the lowest quartile). Although adjusted crude analysis of support to neighbourhood environment for physical activity showed reverse associations with overweight / obese status, no significant trend was observed.


UV-absorbing organic chemicals (UV filters) are being increasingly used in sunscreens, personal care products and in the protection of materials against UV irradiation. Environmental contamination originates from direct input from recreational activities and wastewaters. Concentrations in treated wastewaters are in the lower μg/l range, whereas in rivers and lakes they are in the range of a few up to hundreds of ng/l. It is known that lipophilic UV filters accumulate in aquatic biota, but only little is known about their environmental fate. A large number of UV filters elicit hormonal effects in vitro. Estrogenic activity has also been demonstrated for some UV filters in fish in vivo. Benzophenone-1 (BP1), benzophenone-2 (BP2), 3-benzylidene camphor (3BC) and ethyl-4-aminobenzoate (Et-PABA) lead to induction of vitellogenin. 3BC and BP2 cause feminization in secondary sex characteristics of male fish, alteration of gonads in male and female fish and decrease in fertility and reproduction. The lowest observed effect concentrations for 3BC and BP2 were 3 μg/l and 1.2 mg/l, respectively. UV filter mixtures show mainly a synergistic activity in vitro, whether this is also reflected by the in vivo activity is under investigation. In conclusion, a hazard and risk for aquatic ecosystems cannot be ruled out for the UV filter 3BC, where histological and reproductive effects occurred in fish at low concentrations. However for BP1, BP2 and Et-PABA an environmental risk is rather low based on current knowledge.


Transcranial infrared laser stimulation (TILS) is a noninvasive form of brain photobiomulation. Cytochrome-c-oxidase (CCO), the terminal enzyme in the mitochondrial electron transport chain, is hypothesized to be the primary intracellular photoacceptor. We hypothesized that TILS up-regulates cerebral CCO and causes hemodynamic changes. We delivered 1064-nm laser stimulation to the forehead of healthy participants (n = 11), while broadband near-infrared spectroscopy was utilized to acquire light reflectance from the TILS-treated cortical region before, during, and after TILS. Placebo experiments were also performed for accurate comparison. Time course of spectroscopic readings were analyzed and fitted to the modified Beer–Lambert law. With respect to the placebo readings, we observed (1) significant increases in cerebral concentrations of oxidized CCO (Δ[CCO]; >0.08 µM; p < 0.01), oxygenated hemoglobin (Δ[HbO]; >0.8 µM; p < 0.01), and total hemoglobin (Δ[HbT]; >0.5 µM; p < 0.01) during and after TILS, and (2) linear interplays between Δ[CCO] versus Δ[HbO] and between Δ[CCO] versus Δ[HbT]. Ratios of Δ[CCO]/Δ[HbO] and Δ[CCO]/Δ[HbT] were introduced as TILS-induced metabolic-hemodynamic coupling indices to quantify the coupling strength between TILS-enhanced cerebral metabolism and blood oxygen supply. This study provides the first demonstration that TILS causes up-regulation of oxidized CCO in the human brain, and contributes important insight into the physiological mechanisms.


Abstract Background and Objective: Although reports of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections without healthcare exposure are increasing, population-based data regarding nasal colonization are lacking. We assessed the prevalence of and risk factors for community-associated MRSA nasal carriage in patients of a rural outpatient clinic. Design: A cross-sectional population survey was conducted through random sample and stratification by community of residence. Recent healthcare exposure (ie, hospitalization, dialysis, or healthcare occupation) and other risk factors for MRSA carriage were assessed. Cultures of the nares were performed. Community-associated MRSA was defined as MRSA carriage without healthcare exposure. Setting: A predominantly American Indian community in Washington. Patients: Those receiving healthcare from an Indian Health Service clinic. Results: Of 1,311 individuals identified for study, 475 (36%) participated. Unsatisfactory culture specimens resulted in exclusion of 6 participants. In all, 128 (27.3%) of 469 participants had S. aureus. Nine (1.9%) of 469 had MRSA carriage; of these, 5 had community-associated MRSA (5 of 469; overall community-associated MRSA carriage rate, 1.1%). MRSA carriage was associated with antimicrobial use in the previous year (risk ratio [RR], 7.2; P = .04) and residence in a household of more than 7 individuals (RR, 4.5; P= .03). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis indicated that 5 (55%) of 9 MRSA carriage isolates were closely related, including 3 (60%) of 5 that were community associated. Conclusions: Prevalence of community-associated MRSA colonization was approximately 1% in this rural, American Indian population. Community-associated MRSA colonization was associated with recent antimicrobial use and larger household.


We present soft x-ray fluorescence measurements of skutterudite compounds (CoAs3 and CoSb3). Our results are compared with x-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and band structure calculations. The occupancy of d states is found to increase in transition metal antimonides with respect to that of pure metals. The experimental spectra are interpreted in terms of our LDA band structure calculations and we find that electron correlation does not have to be taken into account. The intensity ratio of the Co L2 to L3 emission lines is found to be 0.20 and 0.15 for CoAs3 and CoSb3, respectively, which we attribute to the decrease in Coster–Kronig processes in CoAs3 compared to CoSb3 with its smaller carrier density. The calculated values of the thermoelectric figures of merit show that CoSb3 is the most promising thermoelectric material, which is in accordance with experimental measurements of the electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient.


Objective: The paper aims to seek strategies to improve the quality of universities' scientific publications in Indonesia. Design/ methodology/ approach: The present research uses both quantitative and qualitative approach to establish conceptual models and strategies to improve the quality of universities' scientific publications in Indonesia through hypotheses testing. Variables subjected to analysis include learning organizations, knowledge sharing, research climate, organizational/ institutional support, and quality of universities' scientific publications. Findings: Based on the empirical research results, it is found that there is significant relationship among learning organizations, research climate, knowledge sharing, institutional supports, and the quality of universities' scientific publications. Research limitations/ implications: The research samples of 200 private universities were obtained from a minimum sample of studies using structural equation models. Practical implications: The findings of the study are beneficial for university management and lecturers in improving the quality of scientific publications; thus, improving the quality of Indonesian scientific publications to be the first rank in ASEAN region. Originality/ value: This research provides a meaningful contribution since there lack studies on strategies to improve the quality of scientific publications in Indonesia.


This research was studied about professionals in the field of music education students, with musical perception levels and some variable to reveal the differences that occur in this dimension. 50 students from Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory, 39 students from Istanbul University State Conservatory and 38 students from Karadeniz Technique University State Conservatory (N=127). Conservatory students, who are the students of the 2nd, 3 rd and 4th class in 2014-2015 academic year, have been participated which is a field research done by survey method. In this survey, two basic data collection tools were used. First data collection tool is "Student Information Form" which is aimed to obtain individual knowledge, second data collection tool is "Musical Perception Inventory" developed by G.Otacioglu and Aslan in 2007 to measure musical perception skills of students. Statistical analysis techniques were used to demonstrate the differences between the variables in the study. As a result of the study, there were statistically significant differences between demographic variables and the scores of musical perception


In Eos, September 29, p. 770, Editor in Chief A. F. Spilhaus Jr., invited readers to respond to the Forum piece Space Station? by L. H. Meredith. Meredith observed that most space station discussion has been about its design and cost, arguing that objectives and use also merit discussion. He asserted "that the only basis on which the Space Station can be justified is that of reasserting U.S. pre-eminence in space by creating a permanent manned presence and of providing a required step toward the manned exploration of the Solar System." Letters in this Forum are replies to Meredith's opinions.

After 3 years of service on a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Advisory Committee devoted to studying the U.S./International space Station in the context of scientific uses, I have come to the following conclusions that may be of interest to the geophysics research community.


Spatial data processing in general involves large-scale distributed computing resources across multiple data centers and distributed massive data sets. Task scheduling of spatial data processing across distributed data centers brings new research issues and calls for novel scheduling mechanisms and frameworks. This paper analyzes the features of spatial data processing, identifies the research issues of task scheduling in massive spatial data processing, and proposes task model & scheduling mechanisms for task scheduling in spatial data processing.


Thirty-nine women and their strategies of survival are the central focus of Aysan Sev'er's newest study on women who have left abusive situations. Through a mainly feminist orientation, Sev'er analyzes abuse, its many definitions, and existing theories surrounding violence against women, and incorporates an extensive literature review of Canadian and American sources that investigates feminist, non-feminist, and social-psychological theories of abuse. She then proceeds to relate the intimate stories of women who survived. These interviews, from women outside institutional settings, candidly reveal the women's strengths and weaknesses. Some successful, some eventually destructive, the detailed stories allow Sev'er to analyse positive and negative social support systems, women's own aggression, and finally to develop a new model for post-violence adjustment. Erudite, revealing and ultimately affirming, Sev'er's study provides a new look and new hope to the issue of violence against women, and will be indispensable to anyone who is involved in women's issues.


Dose in radiation therapy is traditionally reported as the water-equivalent dose, or dose to water. Monte Carlo dose calculations report dose to medium and thus a methodology is needed to convert dose to medium into dose to water (or vice versa) for comparison of Monte Carlo results with results from planning systems. This paper describes the development of a formalism to convert dose to medium into dose to water for proton fields when simulating the dose with Monte Carlo techniques. The conversion is based on relative stopping power but also considers energy transferred via nuclear interactions. The influence of different interaction mechanisms of proton beams (electromagnetic versus nuclear) is demonstrated. Further, an approximate method for converting doses retroactively is presented. Based on the outlined formalism, five proton therapy patients with a total of 33 fields were analyzed. Dose distributions, dose volume histograms and absolute doses to assess the clinical significance of differences between dose to medium and dose to water are presented. We found that the difference between the two dose reporting definitions can be up to 10% for high CT numbers if analyzing the mean dose to the target. The difference is clinically insignificant for soft tissues. For the structures analyzed, the mean dose to water could be converted to dose to medium by applying a correction factor increasing linearly with increasing average CT number in the volume. We determined that an approximate conversion method, done retroactively with an energy-independent stopping power ratio and without considering nuclear interaction events separately (as compared to on-the-fly conversion during simulation), is sufficiently accurate to compute mean doses. It is insufficient, however, when analyzing the beam range. For proton beams stopping in bony anatomy, the predicted beam range can differ by 2–3 mm when comparing dose to tissue and dose to water.


Purpose

This paper aims to provide an annotated bibliography of literature on diversity initiatives for 2010-2015 in academic libraries, both in USA and internationally. It aims to help librarians interested in fostering a welcoming and supporting environment for all individuals and engaging library community in discussions about diversity.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted literature review using EBSCOhost multidisciplinary databases and Google Scholar, using the terms "divers*" and "academic librar*" and limiting search results to 2010-2015 dates.

Findings

The literature reviewed in this annotated bibliography is a solid start to assist librarians with diversity initiatives from planning collections to wider organization planning purposes.

Originality/value

No other annotated bibliography currently exists for those interested in conducting vital work of ensuring a respectful and inclusive library environment.


His devotion won the admiration of Napoleon and the deep affection of the soldiers. They saved him from being crushed to death in the crossing of the Beresina after the Russian tragedy, but it was typical of Larrey that, though the fuses had been lighted to blow up the bridge, he rushed back to save a case of instruments which had been forgotten. His writings on war wounds and on frostbite are classical, and he may be regarded as the father of modern military surgery. The authors rightly say, " In this field we are all his pupils." These brief notes may give some idea of the broad foundations upon which modern surgery has slowly been built and of the part played by many European centres in its development. But they are only chance items from a mass of detail of absorbing interest, the collection of which must have cost years of labour.


Although hash function learning algorithms have achieved great success in recent years, most existing hash models are off-line, which are not suitable for processing sequential or online data. To address this problem, this paper proposes an online hash model to accommodate data coming in stream for online learning. Specifically, a new loss function is proposed to measure the similarity loss between a pair of data samples in hamming space. Then, a structured hash model is derived and optimized in a passive-aggressive way. Theoretical analysis on the upper bound of the cumulative loss for the proposed online hash model is provided. Furthermore, we extend our online hashing (OH) from a single model to a multimodel OH that trains multiple models so as to retain diverse OH models in order to avoid biased update. The competitive efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed online hash models are verified through extensive experiments on several large-scale data sets as compared with related hashing methods.


Introduction One of the difficulties met by beginners in crystallography is the determination of the class to which a given crystal belongs. With a view to lessening this difficulty, the writer about two years ago prepared separate keys for the determination of the different classes belonging to each crystal system, and later a more comprehensive single key, including all the crystal classes. As this key has proved very satisfactory in use in the writer's classes, it is presented here in the hope that it may be of service to others. Various forms of the key have been worked out from time to time in the effort to find the simplest and most satisfactory arrangement, the two tables given here being those which have seemed the best in practice. The first of these tables makes use of a center of symmetry as a basis for its main divisions, adopting the simpler . . .


The fluorescence properties of alpha-tocopherol in a range of solvents and in micelles and membrane vesicles have been measured. In solvents the fluorescence decay was fitted by a single exponential. In bilayer membranes of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine or egg phosphatidylcholine the fluorescence decay was more accurately fitted as a double exponential. This may indicate that alpha-tocopherol occupies two or more sites in such membranes. Depth-dependent quenching of alpha-tocopherol fluorescence by acrylamide and some doxyl stearates has also been studied. The results confirm that in gel-phase lipid the chromanol group has a transverse distribution close to the head-group region of the lipid. In fluid phase lipid in the presence of buffer the results indicate there is more penetration of the chromanol group into the bilayer.


The thesis that low grades cause college students to give up receives some support from early psychological research and from current reinforcement theories. In the present study the effects on subsequent grades of low, average, and high first exam grades were investigated for 192 students in a traditional grading system and fifty-four students in a pass-fail grading system. When regression effects were eliminated, it was found that students receiving D's and F's dropped out significantly more than other students, but low graded students who continued the course did better on a later exam. Relative to others, students receiving A's on the first exam did significantly better on a second exam. Students on the pass-fail system did not show any significant effects from first exam grades, but overall they received significantly lower grades than those on the traditional grading sys tem. The results, though inconclusive, support grading systems which minimize low grades and maximize high grades.


To investigate the effects of enhanced nutrient loading in estuarine waters on phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing, we conducted monthly dilution experiments at 2 stations in Hong Kong coastal waters with contrasting trophic conditions. The western estuarine station (WE) near the Pearl River estuary is strongly influenced by freshwater discharge, while the eastern oceanic station (EO) is mostly affected by the South China Sea. Growth rates of phytoplankton were often limited by nutrients at EO, while nutrient limitation of phytoplankton growth seldom Occurred at WE due to the high level of nutrients delivered by the Pearl River, especially in the summer rainy season. Higher chlorophyll a, microzooplankton biomass, phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing rates were found at WE than at EO. However, the increase in chlorophyll greatly exceeded the increase in phytoplankton growth rate, reflecting different response relationships to nutrient availability. Strong seasonality was observed at both stations, with temperature being an important factor affecting both phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing rates. Picophytoplankton, especially Synechococcus, also exhibited great seasonality at EO, with summer abundances being 2 or 3 orders of magnitude higher than those during winter, Our results confirm that in eutrophic coastal environments, microzooplankton grazing is a dominant loss pathway for phytoplankton, accounting for the utilization of >50%, of primary production on average.


Like Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Steinbeck's East of Eden centers around choices and responsibility, and he bases his story on a most memorable human choice: the biblical story of Cain and his deliberate choice to murder his brother, Abel. Robert DeMott states that "Steinbeck used Genesis (4:1–16) for the action, characterization, and title of his novel." At its core and always in its backdrop, then, Steinbeck's Cain-and-Abel story in East of Eden sets forth a paradigm of right choice and right behavior for his two young sons. In truth, Steinbeck states clearly his intention to elucidate this biblical passage with greater scrutiny than it had ever undergone before, exploring its fuller meaning: "Certainly I do not think that the Cain-Abel story has ever been subjected to such scrutiny. Nor has any story been so fruitful of meaning."


Optimization plays a key role in MEMS design. However, most MEMS design optimization (exploration) methods either depend on ad-hoc analytical / behavioural models or time consuming numerical simulations. Surrogate modeling techniques have been introduced to integrate generality and efficiency, but the number of design variables which can be handled by most existing efficient MEMS design optimization methods is often less than 5. To address the above challenges, a new method, called Adaptive Gaussian Process-Assisted Differential Evolution for MEMS Design Optimization (AGDEMO) is proposed. The key idea is the proposed ON-LINE adaptive surrogate model assisted optimization framework. In particular, AGDEMO performs global optimization of MEMS using numerical simulation and the differential evolution (DE) algorithm, and a Gaussian process surrogate model is constructed ONLINE to predict the results of expensive numerical simulations. AGDEMO is tested by two actuators (both with 9 design variables). Comparisons with state-of-the-art methods verify advantages of AGDEMO in terms of efficiency, optimization capacity and scalability.


Background - Poor adherence to regular inhaled steroids is a cause of poor asthma control. Aim –To assess adherence to treatment, factors of poor adherence, perception on inhaled steroids among asthmatics in Kuwait Design - Observational study Subjects-150 asthmatics (95 m,55f) 15-60 years, were recruited and followed up for 12 consecutive months from January 2009 to December and asked to fill in a questionnaire of adherence, beliefs about asthma,treatment and reasons for non adherence. Results –First 3 months, 66 (44%) were adherent to twice daily dosage,but at 12 months only 25%. More males were adherent at 3 months (63.6% vs. 36.4% p Logistic regression analysis of the beliefs for non adherence showed 52 % did not consider asthma as a serious disease. 82% stopped medicine because of fear of side effects (p Conclusion:- Adherence to inhaled steroids was poor. Factors were, females, fear of side effects, influence of friends and relatives with wrong information on steroids and poor understanding about asthma. Since the employed and educated patients showed good adherence, asthma education is important in asthma management.In non-adherence, the clinician should find methods to overcome the barriers of non adherence.


The windup phenomenon appears and results in performance degradation when the proportonal-integral (PI) con- troller output is saturated. A new antiwindup PI controller is proposed to improve the control performance of variable- speed motor drives, and it is experimentally applied to the speed control of a vector-controlled induction motor driven by a pulsewidth modulated (PWM) voltage-source inverter (VSI). The integral state is separately controlled, corresponding to whether the PI controller output is saturated or not. The experimental results show that the speed response has much improved per- formance, such as small overshoot and fast settling time, over the conventional antiwindup technique. Although the operating speed command is changed, similar control performance can be obtained by using the PI gains selected in the linear region.


. In Analytic mappings on hyperfinite sets [Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 2 (1993), 587-596] Henson and Ross asked for what hyperfinite sets S and T does there exists a bijection f from 5 onto T whose graph is a projective subset of S x r? In particular, when is there a nj bijection from S onto 77 In this paper we prove that given an internal, bounded measure p, any nj function is L(p) a.e. equal to an internal function, where L(p) is the Loeb measure associated with p. It follows that if two nj subsets S and T of a hyperfinite set X are nj bijective, then S and T have the same measure for every uniformly distributed counting measure p.. When 5 and T are internal it turns out that any nj bijection between them must already be Borel. We also prove that if a nj graph in the product of two hyperfinite sets X and Y is universal for all internal subsets of Y , then \X\ > 2lyl , which is a partial answer to Henson and Ross's Problem 1.5. At the end we prove some standard results about the projections and a structure of co-proper if-analytic subsets of the product of two completely regular HausdorfF topological spaces with open vertical sections. We were able to prove the above results by revealing the structure of n! subsets of the products X x Y of two internal sets X and y, all of whose F-sections are Z?(íc) sets.


Abstract Staphylococcal protein-A (SpA) is known to bind the Fc fragment of immunoglobin G in vitro and induce a myriad of immunogenic responses in vivo. The latter is ascribed to be due to the interaction of Fc and SpA. It has also been proposed that in vivo proteolytically cleaved fragments of SpA may be functioning in the same manner. One such fragment (EQQNAFYEILHLPNLNEEQR), fragment 8–27 of the B-domain (SpA-B), was recently shown to exhibit in vivo immunogenic response [Sinha, P., Sengupta, J., and Ray, P. K. (1999) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 258, 141–147]. As a first step towards understanding the mode of interaction of this peptide with the Fc fragment, we have studied the solution conformation of this isolated peptide by CD and NMR. The peptide, with 7 contact residues in the crystal structure of the SpA-B/Fc complex and comprising of mostly helixI and part of helixII of the 3-helix bundle of SpA-B, was found to be present predominantly in extended structure. However it showed nascent turn/helix like conformations around F14 & Y15. These two residues are known to play a vital role in SpA-B/Fc interaction as deciphered from crystal structure and NMR studies of SpA-B/Fc complex and mutational studies. The implications of our results, especially the nascent conformations found around F14 & Y15, in design of SpA-B mimetic small molecules are discussed.


In tablet compression, a force, F, is exerted on a punch penetrating into a tablet die. For a stationary bottom punch, the force on the upper punch is a function, F = f(x), of penetration and this value was previously determined empirically. Since differential energy is force, f(x), multiplied by distance, dx, the integral of f(x)dx between limits should give the energy input into the tablet. The integral yields an expression where energy input is a linear function of the logarithm of the maximally applied pressure, F*, a fact substantiated by the data presented.


OBJECTIVE
to describe seasonal mosquito distribution and the incidence of dengue cases in Barreiras, Bahia, Brazil.

METHODS
this is a descriptive study using primary data on mosquito distribution in ovitraps from April 2012 to March 2013, as well as secondary data from the Notifiable Diseases Information System, Epidemiological Surveillance and the Zoonosis Control Center about dengue cases and Aedes aegypti infestation rates from January 2007 to March 2013.

RESULTS
16,512 mosquito specimens were collected, 62.0% were Culex quinquefasciatus (most frequent in the dry season) and 38.0% were Aedes aegypti (most frequent in the rainy season); 8,373 dengue cases were recorded, with highest incidence per 100,000 inhabitants in 2009 (n=704.5), 2011 (n=429.3) and 2013 (n=247.2), between January and June.

CONCLUSION
Culex quinquefasciatus and Aedes aegypti occurred in all months; dengue incidence was higher in the rainy season and in alternating years.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by neuronal loss, extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques, and intracellular neurofibrillary tau tangles. A diagnosis is currently made from the presenting symptoms, and the only definitive diagnosis can be done post-mortem. Over recent years, significant advances have been made in using ocular biomarkers to diagnose various neurodegenerative diseases, including AD. As the eye is an extension of the central nervous system (CNS), reviewing changes in the eye's biology could lead to developing a series of non-invasive, differential diagnostic tests for AD that could be further applied to other diseases. Significant changes have been identified in the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), cornea, ocular vasculature, and retina. In the present paper, we review current research and assess some ocular biomarkers' accuracy and reliability that could potentially be used for diagnostic purposes. Additionally, we review the various imaging techniques used in the measurement of these biomarkers.


The morphology of PE/CL nanocomposite samples subjected to convergent flows is studied. Elongational flow – the typical flow involved in spinning and film-blowing processing operations – significantly increases with the reduction of the capillary diameter. The values of the convergent extensional stress (calculated by Cogswell's formula) for the PE/CL systems, for all the adopted capillary geometries, are greater than the calculated values for pure polyethylene. The applied convergent flow, at the entrance of the capillary, is able to change the clay morphology and consequently the final material properties on the PE/CL system with limited affinity between the matrix and organo-modified clay particles.


The role of work-related causal attributions in occupational crisis states was examined. Participants were 66 Finnish women (25-45 years old) attending vocational counseling. Measures for occupational crisis and work-related causal attributions were developed. The locus, stability, controllability, and recurrence of the causes were examined in seven positive and seven negative work-related events. Participants in a state of occupational crisis emphasized stable-external and recurrent-external attributions in negative events, whereas participants not in crisis used nonrecurrent attributions combined with internal, unstable, and controllable attributions. Attributions were activated regardless of occupation, age, or education level. Among the background variables, non-person-centered occupations and organizational changes were related to occupational crises.


Abstract : Complete experimental results are presented from tests of an axial compressor with casing vortex generators. The design objectives were for a flow per unit frontal area of 39.7 lb/sec/ sq ft, a total pressure ratio of 1.912 and a tip speed of 1500 ft/sec. These experimental results were achieved with one of a series of minor parametric modifications to the baseline compressor stage. No conclusions concerning the effects of these modifications will be drawn until the complete series of tests has been reported. (Author)


Perceptual learning mechanisms derived from Hebb's theory of cell assemblies can generate prototypic representations capable of extending the representational power of TEC event codes. The extended capability includes categorization that accommodates "family resemblances" and problem solving that uses cognitive maps. It was almost 60 years ago that the brilliant Cambridge psychologist K. J. W. Craik (1943, p. 61) observed: If the organism carries a "small-scale model" of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the present and future, and in every way to reach in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it. Craik's description is clearly based on the assumption that actions and objects share space in the internal model. Comparably, Tolman's (1948) cognitive map concept implicitly incorporated both action and objects. In fact, MacCorquodale and Meehl (1954) provided a translation of Tolman's concept in their S1-R1-S2 framework. Their formulation of the cognitive map codes the following information: if the organism were to take some action, R1, in the context of a given situation S1, a new situation S2 would result. This suggests that there is a close kinship between the theory of event coding and the world of cognitive maps and internal models. A cognitive map is an internal representation of an environment that is used in much the same way that Craik proposes. Cognitive maps are representations of navigable environments. These representations must also be navigable if they are to be useful as tools for planning or reacting to events. It is difficult to imagine, for example, how one would model a world for navigation if one did not explicitly include a model of movement. Fortunately, one of the simplest, most efficient ways to model experience also naturally encodes actions. The PLAN cognitive mapping model (Chown, et al., 1995), for example, stores schematic visual scenes capturing information in analogous fashion to how it was originally processed. Representations of this type have been called 'semantically transparent' by Smolensky (1988) who argues that such representations are efficient because they do not require extra processing to convert them from one form to another. Cognitive mapping models such as PLAN are based on the notion that experience is sequential, with each transition in the sequence arising as the result of an action (locomoting in the case of a cognitive map for navigation). With subsequent experience, such sequences are overlayed forming a kind of network. Planning with such structures, therefore, is a matter of finding an appropriate sequence from start to goal in the network structure. Since the actions are implicitly a part of the representation, they will be naturally extracted as part of the plan. Such structures take the TEC construct a step further by explicitly proposing the form of the internal representation at the cognitive map level. This kind of network structure derived from experienced sequences of actions is also the basis for the internal representation of the constituent elements of a cognitive map: the representations of percepts, actions, and their relationships. A key issue at this level of representation is perceptual generalization, the process that allows diverse stimulus patterns to be placed in the same category. The event codes proposed in TEC rely on common features and hierarchical abstractions to achieve this important capability. While this approach is a useful beginning, it does not provide all of the necessary functionality. Humans are capable of learning prototypes or "natural categories" in which no fixed subset of features is necessary and sufficient for category membership. In fact, some members in a category may share no common features at all, having only a "family resemblance" as the basis for category membership (Rosch, 1978). These observations apply to perceptual categories, action categories, and event categories integrating perceptions and actions. The key to handling the challenges posed by natural categories and family resemblance is to look carefully at the process of perceptual learning. The authors make a key observation along these lines by noting that "perceiving the world is a process of actively acquiring information about the perceiver-environment relationship, including all sorts of movements of eye, hands, feet, and body..."(p. 34). Perceptual learning mechanisms derived from Hebb's (1949) theory of cell assemblies can generate prototypic representations capable of handling family resemblances (Posner, 1973, 1986). Moreover, related control mechanisms ensure that the activation of overlapping or alternative representations will result in a single, definite perceptual outcome (Kinsbourne, 1982; Kaplan et al., 1990). For these reasons, the cell assembly framework appears to provide a natural way to extend the representational power of TEC event codes, both intrinsically and as elements of a cognitive map. Note that cognitive maps are not limited to navigation in the traditional sense of the word, merely to navigable environments, and it is of course an action space that makes an environment navigable. Any semantically transparent structure with an implicit model of actions will naturally provide a basis for problem solving using the same idea of extracting a sequence from a starting location to a goal location inherent in navigation domains. Models of this type, notably using reinforcement learning (Kaelbling, et al., 1996), have begun to supplant more traditional planners in AI systems because generic structures and uniform methodology can be applied and easily learned in virtually any problem solving environment. These observations also apply to cognitive maps and environments that require explicit models of actions. The same mechanisms that generate explicit prototypes for perceptual categories will also produce explicit prototypes for action categories. The same mechanisms that provide for flexible navigation and wayfinding can also be used for opportunistic problem solving using explicit action models. In this sense, cognitive maps and the mechanisms that generate and use them are truly generic. The ability to create such generic structures and methods will necessarily be an important step in the development of the TEC model.


Accuracy of calculation of the absorbed dose spatial distribution into patient body is an important task in the radiation treatment of cancer. The correct calculation determines radiotherapy effectiveness. Thus, researches are improving calculation methods permanently to achieve running speed and accuracy increasing of used algorithms of calculation routines. The algorithms of routines for calculations of absorbed dose radial distributions into homo- and heterogeneous medium irradiated by directional source of photons are described in the presented work [1, 2].


According to the theory of relativity, the relativistic Coulomb's force between an electron pair is composed of two parts, the main part is repulsive, while the rest part can be attractive in certain situations. Thus the relativistic attraction of an electron pair provides an insight into the mechanism of superconductivity. In superconductor, there are, probably at least, two kinds of collective motions which can eliminate the repulsion between two electrons and let the attraction being dominant , the first is the combination of lattice and electron gas, accounting for traditional superconductivity; the second is the electron gas themselves, accounting for high Tc superconductivity. In usual materials, there is a good balance between the repulsion and attraction of an electron pair, the electrons are regarded as free electrons so that Fermi gas theory plays very well. But in some materials, when the repulsion dominates electron pairs, the electron gas will has a behavior opposite to superconductivity. In the present paper the superconducting states are discussed in terms of relativistic quantum theory in details, some significant results are obtained including quantized magnetic flux, London equation, Meissner effect and Josephson effect.


Millets are in the family of cereals grown globally with differential importance across continents and within regions of the world. Cereals are staple foods for a large proportion of the world population. The present investigation was carried out to find out the effect of different retail packaging material on the shelf-life of dehusked foxtail millet. The foxtail millet was procured at local Raichur market. Physical properties of dehusked foxtail millet viz., Particle density, Bulk density, Angle of repose, Coefficient of internal friction, Coefficient of external friction, Length, Breadth, Thickness, size and Spherecity were found to be 1.34 g/cc , 0.87 g/cc, 27.26°, 0.34, 0.27, 2.02 mm, 1.28 mm, 1.12 mm, 1.43 mm and 70.78% respectively. Biochemical properties of dehusked foxtail millet viz., fat, fibre, carbohydrate, ash, protein, moisture content were determined initially to be 5.68%, 4.76%, 64.77%, 1.64%, 13.80% and 9.35%, respectively and there was no insect infestation before storing the commodity. Three types of packaging materials were used for retail packaging (1 kg) namely polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terapthalate (PET). The dehusked foxtail millet packed in different packaging material was kept for storage studies for 6 months. Quality analysis and insect infestation were checked regularly at the interval of 1 month. Finally it was concluded that for retail packaging PET was found to be best, based on its improved quality parameters and minimized insect infestation and also to prevent the damages due to insects and nutrient losses.


Spectrum sensing is an essential capability that allows the cognitive radios (CRs) to detect spectral holes and opportunistically use underutilised frequency bands without causing deleterious interference to primary users. In this study the authors address two cooperative wideband spectrum sensing techniques for the frequency-selective and frequency-non-selective fading channels in which the primary user signals are detected over multiple frequency bands. The primary user signals, indices and the number of occupied subbands, the channels characteristics and the noise variance of the secondary receivers (SRs) are considered to be unknown. Thus, the problem of spectrum sensing in the fusion centre is modelled by a composite testing hypothesis in time domain and using generalised likelihood ratio (GLR) test the spectral holes are detected. In the frequency-selective case the authors have decreased the computational complexity using some approximations. Simulation results show that the proposed spectrum sensing schemes achieve satisfactory performance and also are robust against the SRs arrangement in the CR network.


Background The development of data-driven technology presents an opportunity to improve quality and efficiency of healthcare provision and patient experience. It is important to carefully evaluate current and planned future developments, to identify research priority areas and determine how resources should be best utilised. This project aimed to explore how digital technology can improve the care of people with palliative care needs by setting 'priority areas' for further research and development. Methods and objectives A scoping literature review was conducted. Two rounds of international Delphi questionnaires were completed, followed by a consensus meeting of experts and a public engagement event. Results One hundred and eight experts (from healthcare, academic and technology) from 11 countries participated in round 1 Delphi. The second round Delphi questionnaire was completed by 55 (53% of 1st round) participants in nine countries. Eleven experts attended the final consensus meeting. A total of 12 priorities were selected (from a list of 33) which were summarised into eight themes. These themes were: Big Data; mobile devices; ehealth/telehealth; virtual reality; smart homes; biotechnology and digital legacy. A public engagement meeting of six lay representative was conducted to discuss each priority area in depth and identify future research questions. Conclusion The identified priorities represent a wide range of important emerging areas in field of digital health, personalised medicine and data science. Collaborative studies are required to address these priority areas, which will aim to improve the care and experience for people with palliative care needs.


The new salt-field in the North of England occupies the low-lying country bordering the estuary of the Tees, situate partly in Yorkshire, partly in Durham, and bounded by the Magnesian Limestone district of Durham on the north, by the Jurassic hills of Cleveland on the south, and by the German Ocean on the east. At the present time this salt-field has a proved or fairly indicated area of at least twelve square miles. Of this area, however, more than half lies beneath the sea, and is therefore inaccessible by the only system of working at present in operation in the district. Beyond these limits, however, the Durham salt-field has probably a wide extension. Evidences of a limitation of the field in a northerly and also in a westerly direction have, indeed, been obtained; but what are its boundaries on the south and on the east we have not as yet, and perhaps never shall have, any means of determining. Discovery of the Rock-salt at Middlesborough and Origin and Progress of the Salt Industry in South Durham. In the year 1859, Messrs Bolckow and Vaughan, the celebrated ironmasters of Middlesborough-on-Tees, being in want of water at their Middlesborough Ironworks, had a borehole, 18 inches in diameter, put down to a depth of 1200 feet. Although large supplies of water were yielded by the more pervious strata passed through in this boring, this water was so highly charged with sulphate of lime as to be quite unfit for the purposes for which


Many signal processing systems, particularly in the multimedia and telecom domains, are synthesized to execute dataintensive applications: their cost related aspects – namely power consumption, performance, and chip area – are heavily influenced, if not dominated, by the data access and storage aspects. This paper presents a memory allocation methodology for multidimensional signal processing applications, focusing on the problem of mapping the signals from the algorithmic specification into the physical memory such that the overall amount of data storage be reduced. This mapping approach is formally modeled, which is advantageous from the point of view of computational efficiency. This algorithm is currently embedded in an energy-aware memory allocation framework [1], which also performs the assignment of the multidimensional signals to the memory layers, the ultimate goal of the entire framework being the reduction of the energy consumption in the memory subsystem.


Transportation problem (TP) is a special type of linear programming problem (LPP) where the objective is to minimize the cost of distributing a product from several sources (or origins) to some destinations. This paper addresses a transportation problem in which the costs, supplies, and demands are represented as heptagonal fuzzy numbers. After converting the problem into the corresponding crisp TP using the ranking method, a goal programming (GP) approach is applied for obtaining the optimal solution. The advantage of GP for the decision-maker is easy to explain and implement in real life transportation. The stability set of the first kind corresponding to the optimal solution is determined. A numerical example is given to highlight the solution approach.


Empirical evidence suggests that the distribution of earnings reports exhibits kinks. Managers manage earnings as if to meet exogenously pre-specified targets, such as avoiding losses and avoiding a decrease in earnings. This is puzzling because the compensation to managers at these pre-specified targets seems to be smooth. We propose a game theoretic model explaining this phenomenon. In our model, investors form expectations of such a manipulative behaviour by the manager. Given these expectations, the best response of the manager is to fulfill the investors' expectations, resulting in a discontinuity in the distribution of earnings reports. Our model generates several new empirical predictions regarding the existence of the kink, its size and its location relative to the distribution of earnings reports.


Background Mesothelin (MSLN) is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored membrane protein with high expression levels in an array of malignancies including mesothelioma, ovaria, non-small cell lung cancer, and pancreatic cancers and is an attractive target antigen for immune-based therapies. Early clinical evaluation of autologous MSLN-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies for malignant pleural mesothelioma has shown promising acceptable safety1 and have recently evolved with incorporation of next-generation CAR co-stimulatory domains and armoring with intrinsic checkpoint inhibition via expression of a PD-1 dominant negative receptor (PD1DNR).2 Despite the promise that MSLN CAR-T therapies hold, manufacturing and commercial challenges using an autologous approach may prove difficult for widespread application. EBV T cells represent a unique, non-gene edited approach toward an off-the-shelf, allogeneic T cell platform. EBV-specific T cells are currently being evaluated in phase 3 trials [NCT03394365] and, to-date, have demonstrated a favorable safety profile including limited risks for GvHD and cytokine release syndrome.3 4 Clinical proof-of-principle studies for CAR transduced allogeneic EBV T cell therapies have also been associated with acceptable safety and durable response in association with CD19 targeting.5 Here we describe the first preclinical evaluation of ATA3271, a next-generation allogeneic CAR EBV T cell therapy targeting MSLN and incorporating PD1DNR, designed for the treatment of solid tumor indications. Methods We generated allogeneic MSLN CAR+ EBV T cells (ATA3271) using retroviral transduction of EBV T cells. ATA3271 includes a novel 1XX CAR signaling domain, previously associated with improved signaling and decreased CAR-mediated exhaustion. It is also armored with PD1DNR to provide intrinsic checkpoint blockade and is designed to retain functional persistence. Results In this study, we characterized ATA3271 both in vitro and in vivo. ATA3271 show stable and proportional CAR and PD1DNR expression. Functional studies show potent antitumor activity of ATA3271 against MSLN-expressing cell lines, including PD-L1-high expressors. In an orthotopic mouse model of pleural mesothelioma, ATA3271 demonstrates potent antitumor activity and significant survival benefit (100% survival exceeding 50 days vs. 25 day median for control), without evident toxicities. ATA3271 maintains persistence and retains central memory phenotype in vivo through end-of-study. Additionally, ATA3271 retains endogenous EBV TCR function and reduced allotoxicity in the context of HLA mismatched targets. Conclusions Overall, ATA3271 shows potent anti-tumor activity without evidence of allotoxicity, both in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that allogeneic MSLN-CAR-engineered EBV T cells are a promising approach for the treatment of MSLN-positive cancers and warrant further clinical investigation. References Adusumilli PS, Zauderer MG, Rusch VW, et al. Abstract CT036: A phase I clinical trial of malignant pleural disease treated with regionally delivered autologous mesothelin-targeted CAR T cells: Safety and efficacy. Cancer Research 2019;79:CT036-CT036. Kiesgen S, Linot C, Quach HT, et al. Abstract LB-378: Regional delivery of clinical-grade mesothelin-targeted CAR T cells with cell-intrinsic PD-1 checkpoint blockade: Translation to a phase I trial. Cancer Research 2020;80:LB-378-LB-378. Prockop S, Doubrovina E, Suser S, et al. Off-the-shelf EBV-specific T cell immunotherapy for rituximab-refractory EBV-associated lymphoma following transplantation. J Clin Invest 2020;130:733–747. Prockop S, Hiremath M, Ye W, et al. A Multicenter, Open Label, Phase 3 Study of Tabelecleucel for Solid Organ Transplant Subjects with Epstein-Barr Virus-Driven Post-Transplant Lymphoproliferative Disease (EBV+PTLD) after Failure of Rituximab or Rituximab and Chemotherapy. Blood 2019; 134: 5326–5326. Curran KJ, Sauter CS, Kernan NA, et al. Durable remission following 'Off-the-Shelf' chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-Cells in patients with relapse/refractory (R/R) B-Cell malignancies. Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation 2020;26:S89.


We aimed to establish the profile of Irish patients with Hunter Syndrome (Mucopolysaccharidosis type II, MPS II) receiving weekly intravenous Enzyme Replacement Therapy (ERT) with recombinant iduronate-2-sulfatase and to assess the social impact and parental opinion of ERT through the use of a parental questionnaire. Nine patients aged 3.5- 14 years have received a mean of 2 (range 0.5-3.5) years of ERT. Treatment was associated with clinical improvements from baseline in hepatosplenomegaly in 6/7 (85%) respiratory manifestations in 4/6 (67%) and a mean reduction in urinary glycosaminoglycan excretion of 62%. Changes noted by parents included increased energy 3/9 (33%) and softening of skin, hair and facial features 8/9 (89%). Parents report that seven hours weekly were spent on hospitalizations for ERT. Parental employment was adversely affected in 8 (89%) families. One day of school/preschool (20%) was lost every week for 8 (89%) children. All parents believed the benefits of ERT out-weigh the difficulties involved. All families would welcome the introduction of home based therapy. In conclusion the social and educational burden of hospital-based ERT on these children and their families is significant. The introduction of home-based therapy is likely to improve overall quality of life for MPSII patients and their families.


Nine Latin American countries plan to use silvopastoral practices—incorporating trees into grazing lands—to mitigate climate change. However, the cumulative potential of scaling up silvopastoral systems at national levels is not well quantified. Here, we combined previously published tree cover data based on 250 m resolution MODIS satellite remote sensing imagery for 2000–2017 with ecofloristic zone carbon stock estimates to calculate historical and potential future tree biomass carbon storage in Colombian grasslands. Between 2000 and 2017, tree cover across all Colombian grasslands increased from 15% to 18%, with total biomass carbon (TBC) stocks increasing from 0.41 to 0.48 Pg. The range in 2017 carbon stock values in grasslands based on ecofloristic zones (5 to 122 Mg ha−1) suggests a potential for further increase. Increasing all carbon stocks to the current median and 75th percentile levels for the respective eco-floristic zone would increase TBC stocks by about 0.06 and 0.15 Pg, respectively. Incorporated into national C accounting, such Tier 2 estimates can set realistic targets for silvopastoral systems in nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) implementation plans in Colombia and other Latin American countries with similar contexts.


Summary The discovery of long-chain polyamines as biomolecules that are tightly associated to biosilica in diatom cell walls has inspired numerous in vitro studies aiming to characterize polyamine–silica interactions. The determination of these interactions at the molecular level is of fundamental interest on one hand for the understanding of cell wall biogenesis in diatoms and on the other hand for designing bioinspired materials synthesis approaches. The present contribution deals with the influence of amines and polyamines upon the initial self-assembly processes taking place during polyamine-mediated silica formation in solution. The influence of phosphate upon these processes is studied. For this purpose, sodium metasilicate solutions containing additives such as polyallylamine, allylamine and others in the presence/absence of phosphate were investigated. The analyses are based mainly on turbidity measurements yielding information about the early aggregation steps which finally give rise to the formation and precipitation of silica.


Image segmentation plays an important role in medical image processing. Fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering is one of the popular clustering algorithms for medical image segmentation. However, FCM has the problems of depending on initial clustering centers, falling into local optimal solution easily, and sensitivity to noise disturbance. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a hybrid artificial fish swarm algorithm (HAFSA). The proposed algorithm combines artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA) with FCM whose advantages of global optimization searching and parallel computing ability of AFSA are utilized to find a superior result. Meanwhile, Metropolis criterion and noise reduction mechanism are introduced to AFSA for enhancing the convergence rate and antinoise ability. The artificial grid graph and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are used in the experiments, and the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has stronger antinoise ability and higher precision. A number of evaluation indicators also demonstrate that the effect of HAFSA is more excellent than FCM and suppressed FCM (SFCM).


Abstract Cancer cells exhibit an altered redox balance and aberrant redox signaling due to genetic, metabolic, and microenvironment-associated reprogramming. Persistently elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contribute to many aspects of tumor development and progression. Emerging studies demonstrated the vital role of apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 or reduction/oxidation (redox) factor 1(APE1/Ref-1) in the oxidative stress response and survival of cancer cells. APE1/Ref-1 is a multifunctional enzyme involved in the DNA damage response and functions as a redox regulator of transcription factors. We herein demonstrated that basal hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and APE1/Ref-1 expression levels were markedly higher in cancer cell lines than in non-cancerous cells. Elevated APE1/Ref-1 levels were associated with shorter survival in liver cancer patients. Mechanistically, we showed that H2O2 activated nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB). RelA/p65 inhibited the expression of the E3 ubiquitin ligase Parkin, possibly by interfering with ATF4 activity. Parkin was responsible for the ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of APE1/Ref-1; therefore, the H2O2-induced suppression of Parkin expression increased APE1/Ref-1 levels. The probability of survival was lower in liver cancer patients with low Parkin and high RelA expression levels. Additionally, Parkin and RelA expression levels negatively and positively correlated with APE1/Ref-1 levels, respectively, in the TCGA liver cancer cohort. We concluded that increases in APE1/Ref-1 via the NF-κB and Parkin pathways are critical for cancer cell survival under oxidative stress. The present results show the potential of the NF-κB-Parkin-APE1/Ref-1 axis as a prognostic factor and therapeutic strategy to eradicate liver cancer.


8:30 AM – 5:00 PM Sunday Short Courses X10 – Cryo-Preparation for Biological EM B110 X11 – Immunolabeling Technology for Light and Electron Microscopy B111 X12 – Electron Tomography in Life and Materials Sciences B112 X13 – Imaging and Analysis with Variable Pressure or Environmental SEM B113 X14 – Advanced Focused Ion BeAM Methods B114 X15 – Practical Considerations for Image Analysis; ImageJ B115 X16 – Overview of Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM/AFM) for Nanoscale Morphological, Mechanical, and Optical Characterization of Materials B116


Bushmeat hunting and trade in Epe, Ikorodu and Oyingbo in Lagos State were investigated. Data were obtained by interview method using questionnaire administered separately to hunters in Epe and Ikorodu and traders in Epe, Ikorodu and Oyingbo. The hunters were all men, mostly young adults between age 21 and 40 years old hunted mainly for consumption. Similar pattern of hunting was observed in both Epe and Ikorodu with mammals constituting the highest population of hunted animals. Daily offtake of animals from the hunting site was between 1–10 animals with rodents being the highest. Hunting was significantly affected by season (P 0.05) in the various markets. Bushmeat prices from hunters ranged from ₦ 1000 to ₦ 20,000. Bushmeat traders were older adults of 41-60 years (52%) of which 78.3% were women. About 63.3% (38) of traders sold only mammals while 36.7% (22) sold all types including mammals, reptiles and birds. Significant differences (P<0.05) were observed in the trader's average bushmeat purchase price as well as the average sales price. Highest selling price of bushmeat was recorded in Ikorodu while the lowest selling price was recorded in Oyingbo. Highest profit was reported by traders selling mammalian species of bushmeat. Sales was significantly affected by seasons (P<0.001), with the highest sales during the rainy season. Measures that would ensure sustainable utilization of bushmeat species should be established. Furthermore, the participation of the indigenous communities, hunters and traders should be harnessed for the success of this objective. Keywords: Bushmeat, mammals, rodents, sustainable, indigenous


This paper want to discuss and to present reflections on human formation, on the matter of identity and difference, in a school curriculum that seeks not only professional training for the capitalist labor market, but also the socialization and subjectivation of the individual. This is a bibliographical study, a dialogue with the concepts of Cestari (2014), Severino (2006), Biesta (2012) and Silva, (2001; 2014). The provocations established in this work are not intended to elicit ready-made solutions, but rather to point out reflections on the educational objectives regarding the formation of the being, permeated by identity and difference. What is proposed in this space is to provoke cogitations that enable everyone involved in education to think and rethink their actions and practices at educational matter.


Various phenomena in biology, physics, and engineering are modeled by differential equations. These differential equations including partial differential equations and ordinary differential equations can be converted and represented as integral equations. In particular, Volterra–Fredholm–Hammerstein integral equations are the main type of these integral equations and researchers are interested in investigating and solving these equations. In this paper, we propose Legendre Deep Neural Network (LDNN) for solving nonlinear Volterra–Fredholm–Hammerstein integral equations (V-F-H-IEs). LDNN utilizes Legendre orthogonal polynomials as activation functions of the Deep structure. We present how LDNN can be used to solve nonlinear V-F-H-IEs. We show using the Gaussian quadrature collocation method in combination with LDNN results in a novel numerical solution for nonlinear V-F-H-IEs. Several examples are given to verify the performance and accuracy of LDNN.


The hydrothermal reaction of As2O3, V2O5, Co(Ac)2, H3PO4, en and H2O produces [CoII(en)3][{CoII(en)2}2AsIII6VIV15O42]·4H2O, which consists of a one-dimensional arsenic-vanadium cluster chain bridged by two different geometries of Co(en)2 groups. The interactions, which are established through hydrogen-bonding involving water molecules, the amine nitrogens, and terminal oxygen atoms, result in three-dimensional hydrogen-bonding network. Magnetic measurement indicates that the overall magnetic behavior is weakly antiferromagnetic.


Most applications for the control system EPICS are developed for UNIX and X-Windows. They are independent from each other, have a different look and feel, and it is difficult to exchange data. To solve these problems, the Control System Studio (CSS) is under development. CSS is a common platform for new control system applications and provides developers with management infrastructure and a centralised connection to external data sources like JDBC-databases, JMS-, LDAP-servers, etc. CSS defines interfaces to avoid dependencies on special implementations. This design makes sure that an application can easily be integrated or exchanged. Another important feature is the accessibility of data through all applications via CSS-data types defined in CSS. The Data Access Layer (DAL) assures the transparent access to any control system protocol. Thus CSS is not only a platform for EPICS but for any control system protocol that implements the DAL. The intention to modularise CSS and run it on any operating system led to the decision to use the Eclipse RCP based on the OSGi technology. Technically CSS is a set of essential core-plugins and application plugins selected by the user.


Learning object manipulation is a critical skill for robots to interact with their environment. Even though there has been significant progress in robotic manipulation of rigid objects, interacting with non-rigid objects remains challenging for robots. In this work, we introduce velcro peeling as a new application for robotic manipulation of non-rigid objects in complex environments. We present a method of learning force-based manipulation from noisy and incomplete sensor inputs in partially observable environments by modeling long term dependencies between measurements with a multi-step deep recurrent network. We present experiments on a real robot to show the necessity of modeling these long term dependencies and validate our approach in simulation and robot experiments. Our results show that using tactile input enables the robot to overcome geometric uncertainties present in the environment with high fidelity in ∼ 90% of all cases, outperforming the baselines by a large margin.