Menstruation often cause many problem. A lot of women suffer obstruction pain menstruation. Pain menstruation is generally symptom happen in woman. There is many way to decrease pain menstruation such as distraction using Mozart music. Mozart music is  soft music, that can give intonation alpha wave. Mozart music can make listener more calm, and relax. Aim this research to know about effect giving therapy Mozart music with pain level menstruation  in woman nursing student Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta.
Type of this research was observational experiment, with true design, pre-post test design with control group. Number sample was 35 respondent. It divided 17 respondent in control group and 18 respondent experiment that taken by purposive. Instrument CD Mozart music and pain scale observation according to Mankoski. Result this research was tested by Mann-Whitney aided by application of SPSS for Window Released 11,0 used certain degree 95% or α=0,05.
Prevalence pain menstruation in  woman nursing student MUY at the years 2007 high 79%. Modus pain level in control group beginning in level 5 (34%), after 15 minutes increase to level 7 (40%). Nothing different pain level menstruation beginning and 15 minutes after without any intervention (α = 0,609).   Modus pain level in experimental group beginning in level 4 (32%), after listen Mozart music 15 minutes decrease to level 3 (27%). Giving Mozart therapy in 15 minutes for experiment group make decrease significant pain level menstruation (α = 0,002). Next crosswise test pain level menstruation beginning control and experiment group is not different, its mean beginning condition before intervention is not different (α = 0,274). Pain level menstruation after giving Mozart music therapy for 15 minutes in experiment group  can decrease with significant than without any intervention in control group (α = 0,01). The conclusion, therapy Mozart music in 15 minute can decrease with significance pain level menstruation.


Salvia miltiorrhiza has exhibited various bioactive functions due to the existence of polysaccharides, hydrophilic phenolic acids, diterpenoid quinones, and essential oils. However, little research has reported the glycoprotein preparation and corresponding bioactivities. In this study, the water-soluble glycoprotein from S. miltiorrhiza roots was firstly isolated with the extraction process optimized by response surface methodology, and then, the preliminary structural properties, and the antioxidant and immunoregulatory activities were investigated. Results showed that the extraction conditions for higher extraction yields were identified as follows: ultrasonic power of 220 W, ultrasonic time of 2.0 h, extraction temperature of 60 °C, liquid/solid ratio of 20 mL/g, and the glycoprotein yields of 1.63 ± 0.04%. Structural analysis showed that the glycoprotein comprised protein and polysaccharide (contents of 76.96% and 20.62%, respectively), with an average molecular weight of 1.55 × 105 Da. Besides, bioactivities analysis showed that the glycoprotein presented strong scavenging effects on multiple free radicals, and effectively enhanced the antioxidant enzyme activities and immunological indicators in cyclophosphamide-induced immunocompromised mice dose-dependently. These data demonstrated that S. miltiorrhiza glycoprotein presented the potential to be a novel edible functional compound, and could be practically applied in the food industry.


Decision making usually involves choosing among different courses of action over a broad range of time scales. For instance, a person planning a trip to a distant location makes high-level decisions regarding what means of transportation to use, but also chooses low-level actions, such as the movements for getting into a car. The problem of picking an appropriate time scale for reasoning and learning has been explored in artificial intelligence, control theory and robotics. In this dissertation we develop a framework that allows novel solutions to this problem, in the context of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and reinforcement learning.
In this dissertation, we present a general framework for prediction, control and learning at multiple temporal scales. In this framework, temporally extended actions are represented by a way of behaving (a policy) together with a termination condition. An action represented in this way is called an option. Options can be easily incorporated in MDPs, allowing an agent to use existing controllers, heuristics for picking actions, or learned courses of action.
The effects of behaving according to an option can be predicted using multi-time models, learned by interacting with the environment. In this dissertation we develop multi-time models, and we illustrate the way in which they can be used to produce plans of behavior very quickly, using classical dynamic programming or reinforcement learning techniques.
The most interesting feature of our framework is that it allows an agent to work simultaneously with high-level and low-level temporal representations. The interplay of these levels can be exploited in order to learn and plan more efficiently and more accurately. We develop new algorithms that take advantage of this structure to improve the quality of plans, and to learn in parallel about the effects of many different options.


This is a correlational research designed to establish the relationship between personality traits and work efficiency of oil company workers in Rivers State of Nigeria. The population covered all the one thousand, two hundred and twelve (1212) staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and ELF Petroleum of Nigeria Limited, comprising seven hundred and forty-three (743) staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company and four hundred and sixty-nine (469) staff of ELF Petroleum of Nigeria Limited. The sample was made up of 528 staff drawn using disproportionate stratified sampling technique. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. The instruments used for data collection were adopted from The Conscientiousness and Agreeableness Inventory (CAI) with validity coefficient of 0.85 and reliability co-efficient of 0.85 and Job Performance Appraisal (JPA) from Oliver, 1999 and University of Houston (2005) respectively. The Pearson's product moment correlation statistics was used to answer the research questions, while z-test was used to test the null hypotheses. Results indicate that there is a very strong relationship between conscientiousness of workers and their work efficiency in oil companies and conscientiousness is significantly related to work efficiency. Also, agreeableness of workers and work efficiency of workers in oil companies was found to be relatively high and agreeableness of workers is significantly related to work efficiency. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations were made on assigning individual workers to critical or unique task based on their personality trait to ensure optimum performance of every worker in the oil companies. Also recommendation was made for the use of counselling psychologists in secondary schools and should serve and prerequisite for guiding student to choosing their future career.


ABSTRACT The relationship between stallion fertility and oxidative stress remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to identify criteria for thoroughbred fertility assessment by performing a logistical regression analysis using "dismount" sperm parameters as predictors and weekly per-cycle conception rate as the dependent variable. Paradoxically, positive relationships between fertility and oxidative stress were revealed, such that samples that produced pregnancies exhibited higher rates of 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine release (1490.2% vs. 705.5 pg/ml/24 h) and lower vitality (60.5% vs. 69.6%) and acrosome integrity (40.2% vs. 50.1%) than those that did not. We hypothesized that the most fertile spermatozoa exhibited the highest levels of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), with oxidative stress simply being a by-product of intense mitochondrial activity. Accordingly, an experiment to investigate the relationship between oxidative stress and motility was conducted and revealed positive correlations between mitochondrial ROS and total motility (R2 = 0.90), rapid motility (R2 = 0.89), average path velocity (VAP; R2 = 0.59), and curvilinear velocity (VCL; R2 = 0.66). Similarly, lipid peroxidation was positively correlated with total motility (R2 = 0.46), rapid motility (R2 = 0.51), average path velocity (R2 = 0.62), and VCL (R2 = 0.56), supporting the aforementioned hypothesis. The relative importance of OXPHOS in supporting the motility of equine spermatozoa was contrasted with human spermatozoa, which primarily utilize glycolysis. In this study, mitochondrial inhibition significantly reduced the velocity (P < 0.01) and ATP (P < 0.05) content of equine, but not human, spermatozoa, emphasizing the former's relative dependence on OXPHOS. The equine is the first mammal in which such a positive relationship between oxidative stress and functionality has been observed, with implications for the management of stallion fertility in vitro and in vivo.


With the demand for tooth/gum aesthetics in implant-supported rehabilitations, the surgeon, whether an implant specialist or not, increasingly needs to be mindful of proper care for socket preservation following extraction. The paper presented here reports the case of a male patient who manifested dental impairment of the Upper Left First Molar (tooth #26) [in FDI notation]; following tomographic analysis and after reaching a consensus with the patient, the decision was made to extract said tooth and preserve the socket for subsequent implant placement. The aim of the case report is to present a clinical case of alveolar ridge preservation through the "Double Layer Socket Preservation" technique, a technique created by Barry Barthee, whereby a xenogenous graft under an xenogenous type III collagen membrane was combined with a polypropylene barrier. Following research and study results on the subject, it was concluded that by applying this technique, the alveolar ridge is greatly preserved and bone volume is maintained, both of which are very important factors for good health of the tissues surrounding the implant and consequent increase in the survival of the implant itself.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNA molecules produced from hairpin structures and involved in gene expression regulation with major roles in plant development and stress response. Although each annotated miRNA in miRBase (www.mirbase.org) is a single defined sequence with no further details on possible variable sequence length, isomiRs – namely the population of variants of miRNAs coming from the same precursors – have been identified in several species and could represent a way of broadening the regulatory network of the cell. Next-gen-based sequencing makes it possible to comprehensively and accurately assess the entire miRNA repertoire including isomiRs. The aim of this work was to survey the complexity of the peach miRNome by carrying out Illumina high-throughput sequencing of miRNAs in three replicates of five biological samples arising from a set of different peach organs and/or phenological stages. Three hundred-ninety-two isomiRs (miRNA and miRNA*-related) corresponding to 26 putative miRNA coding loci, have been highlighted by mirDeep-P and analyzed. The presence of the same isomiRs in different biological replicates of a sample and in different tissues demonstrates that the generation of most of the detected isomiRs is not random. The degree of mature sequence heterogeneity is very different for each individual locus. Results obtained in the present work can thus contribute to a deeper view of the miRNome complexity and to better explore the mechanism of action of these tiny regulators.


Rat livers perfused backward are less susceptible to taurolithocholate (TLC) cholestasis than livers perfused forward. To understand this phenomenon, the uptake, metabolism, and excretion of TLC were studied in rat livers perfused forward and backward with TLC. Bolus injections of [3H]TLC were administered 20 minutes after the onset of unlabeled TLC infusion. Biliary bile acids were measured enzymatically and bile acid species were separated and quantified by thin-layer chromatography. Determination of radioactivity in each spot yielded the percentage distribution of various biliary bile acid metabolites. After perfusion, livers were examined by light and transmission electron microscopy. TLC infusion at 32 nmoles/minute/gm of liver reduced bile flow by 80% or more within 30 minutes of forward perfusion but not at all during backward perfusion. TLC uptake was over 95% regardless of perfusion direction. Although the distribution of biliary metabolites of TLC was the same during forward and backward perfusion, maximal rate of total biliary bile acid excretion was four-fold higher and total recovery of radioactivity in bile was six-fold higher during backward perfusion. Less than 6% of excreted radioactivity was in the form of unmetabolized TLC. Severe cholestasis induced by forward TLC perfusion was associated with extensive structural distortion of bile canalicular membranes almost exclusively in the periportal zone but with little hepatocellular necrosis. Livers perfused backward manifested no cholestasis. They showed cell necrosis in the pericentral zone which became extensive (10%) by 60 minutes, but the canalicular changes occurred only in a small proportion of canaliculi in the pericentral region. Bile canalicular membrane changes developed extensively only when very high doses of TLC were perfused backward. Even then, bile flow fell only 60%. We conclude: the lesser susceptibility to TLC cholestasis of livers perfused backward is in part related to the greater biotransformation and consequent excretion of TLC by pericentral hepatocytes. TLC-induced cholestasis is associated more closely with bile canalicular membrane changes than with extent of hepatocellular necrosis. The greater reduction of bile flow with periportal than with pericentral canalicular change is compatible with current concepts of biliary microanatomy which postulate a flow of bile from pericentral through periportal regions of the lobule into the bile ductules.


Introduction: Brain iron homeostasis dysregulation has been widely related to neurodegeneration. In particular, human haemochromatosis protein (HFE) is involved in iron metabolism, and HFE H63D polymorphism has been related to the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. Recently, iron accumulation in the basal ganglia of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) patients has been described. Objective: To explore the relationship between HFE genetic variation and demographic, clinical and imaging characteristics in a large cohort of FTLD patients. Methods: A total of 110 FTLD patients underwent neuropsychological and imaging evaluation and blood sampling for HFE polymorphism determination. HFE H63D polymorphism was considered in the present study. Two imaging approaches were applied to evaluate the effect of HFE genetic variation on brain atrophy, namely voxel-based morphometry and region of interest-based probabilistic approach (SPM8; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging). Results: FTLD patients carrying the D* genotype (H/D or D/D) showed greater atrophy in the basal ganglia, bilaterally, compared to H/H carriers (x, y, z: -22, -4, 0; T = 3.45; cluster size: 33 voxels, x, y, z: 24, 4, -2; T = 3.38; cluster size: 36 voxels). The former group had even more pronounced behavioural symptoms, as defined by the Frontal Behavioural Inventory total scores. Conclusions: Our data suggest that H63D polymorphism could represent a disease-modifying gene in FTLD, fostering iron deposition in the basal ganglia. This suggests a new possible mechanism of FTLD-associated neurodegeneration.


Purpose The aim of this study is to examine the effect Klorhex and Fittydent, which are used as cleaning agents on the adhesion of Candida on the surfaces of acrylic denture and palatal mucosa. In addition, ability of yeasts to adhere to acrylic strips was evaluated after applying these agents in vitro. Materials and Methods Each group of 15 patients cleaned their dentures with either Klorhex or with Fittydent. The control group cleaned their dentures with water. Results It was found that 62.2% of the patients had colonies of Candida species on their palatal mucosa which was reduced to 51.1% after using these cleaning agents. The colonization rate with Candida spp on their dentures was reduces from 82.2% to 68.8% using these cleaning agents. The mean adhesion value of the Candida strains isolated from the acrylic strips were found to be 75 cell/strip prior to applying the Klorhex and Fittydent and 37.5 cell/strip and 15 cell/strip after applying these agents, respectively. Conclusion These results showed that Klorhex and Fittydent have a certain preventive effect on the colonization rate of Candida spp on the surface of these dentures, the palatal mucosa, as well as on the acrylic strips in vitro.


Mothers' mental-state references predict individual differences in preschoolers' false-belief (FB) understanding; less is known about the origins of corresponding variation in school-age children. To address this gap, 105 children completed observations with their mothers at child ages 2 and 6, three FB tasks and a verbal comprehension test at age 3, and five FB tasks at age 6. Seventy-seven of these children completed five Strange Stories at age 10. Individual differences in mothers' cognitive references at child age 2 predicted variation in children's FB understanding at age 6 and Strange Stories scores at age 10 (controlling for number of mothers' turns and children's mental-state references, verbal comprehension and FB understanding at age 3, and mothers' cognitive references at child age 6).


AIM
The authors analyze the short and long-term results of surgical treatment in 70 consecutive patients operated on from for secondary Hyperparathyroidism (2HPT) of chronic kidney disease (CKD).

MATERIAL OF STUDY
Seventy patients affected by 2HPT of CKD, in hemodialytic treatment, were observed from January 1999 to January 2009. Twenty-seven patients were submitted to total parathyroidectomy (TP), 36 pts were submitted to total parathyroidectomy plus subcutaneous autoimplantation (TP ai), 7 pts were submitted to subtotal parathyroidectomy (SP).

RESULTS
An improvement of the typical clinical symptoms was found in every patient undergoing surgery, and a significant reduction in intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) serum levels was achieved TP determined a lower incidence of one year relapse. After TPai 9/36 pts successfully underwent renal transplantation.

DISCUSSION
To date surgical treatment of 2HPT is still controversial. SP and TPai are the most commonly adopted surgical interventions while TP had been previously been confined to patients with advanced dialytic vintage or for the treatment of recurrence, for the risks arising from aparathyroidism. TP allows a lower long-term relapse incidence and managing the resulting hypoparathyroidism appears straightforward with medical treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
The Authors are in favour of early surgical intervention to prevent cardiovascular complications. TPai may be the operation of choice in patients eligible for kidney transplantation while TP carachterized by a lower incidence of long term relapse, is reserved to patients not eligible for transplantation and affected by a more "aggressive" forms of 2HPT.


Abstract Repeated Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) observations were carried out at 50 surface markers in the Vostok Subglacial Lake (East Antarctica) region between 2001 and 2011. The horizontal ice flow velocity vectors were derived with accuracies of 1 cm a−1 and 0.5°, representing the first reliable information on ice flow kinematics in the northern part of the lake. Within the lake area, ice flow velocities do not exceed 2 m a−1. The ice flow azimuth is southeast in the southern part of the lake and turns gradually to east-northeast in the northern part. In the northern part, as the ice flow enters the lake at the western shore, the velocity decreases towards the central lake axis, then increases slightly past the central axis. In the southern part, a continued acceleration is observed from the central lake axis across the downstream grounding line. Based on the observed flow velocity vectors and ice thickness data, mean surface accumulation rates are inferred for four surface segments between Ridge B and Vostok Subglacial Lake and show a steady increase towards the north.


The fatigue performance of powder forged parts can be better than that of similar components which have been cast or drop-forged. To achieve such properties, close control must be exercised over the powders from which the parts are fabricated and also over the process used to consolidate them. This paper discusses some of the property requirements for powders intended for forging applications. Consideration is given to both the physical and chemical characteristics of the powders. Emphasis is placed on powder cleanliness and an automated image analysis technique for non-metallic inclusion assessment is described. Process control requirements during preform compaction and powder forging are also covered and a magnetic bridge sorting technique for assessing the microstructural integrity of the forgings is also outlined.


The production and transportation of fluorescent light produced in wavelength-shifting fibers (WSFs) coupled to YAP scintillation crystal is simulated using the GEANT4 codes. An advantage of the wavelength-shifting fiber readout technique over a direct readout with a position-sensitive photo-sensor is the reduced requirement for position sensitive photomultiplier tube photocathode area. With this gamma-ray detector, the gamma camera is small and flexible and has larger effective field of view and low cost. Simulation results show that a) a mean 12 of photons per 59.5 keV gamma ray interaction is produced in the WSF located nearest to the incident gamma ray, and a spatial resolution of 3.6 mm FWHM is obtained, b) a mean 27 of photons per 140 keV gamma ray interaction is produced and a spatial resolution of 3.1 mm FWHM is obtained. Results demonstrate the feasibility of this concept of a compact gamma-ray detector based on wavelength-shifting fibers readout. However, since the very low photoelectron levels, it is very important to use a photon counting device with good single photo-electron response to readout the WSFs.


ABSTRACT: Omental transposition (OT) to revascularize the brain was first performed in animals in the late 1960s, where it was shown that blood vessels originating from the omentum crossed through the omental‐cerebral interface prior to developing into large‐sized vessels that penetrated directly and deeply into the underlying brain. The additional cerebral blood flow coming from the omentum was of sufficient volume to protect an animal's brain from cerebral infarction even in the presence of middle cerebral artery ligation. It was also learned that the omentum was a rich source for neurotransmitters and omentum‐derived nerve growth substance. OT to the brain is now being done for a variety of conditions which include strokes, TIAs, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease. Of recent interest is the published information that OT may play some role in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The placement of the omentum on an AD brain has led to a profound decrease in senile plaque formation. The omentum may ultimately prove to be beneficial in reversing or at least stabilizing the dementia associated with the devastation of AD.


The potential of the Internet-of-Medical-Things (IoMT) technology for interconnecting the biomedical sensors in e-health has ameliorated the people's living standards. Another technology recognized in the recent e-healthcare is outsourcing the medical data to the cloud. There are, however, several stipulations for adopting these two technologies. The most difficult is the privacy of medical data and the challenge resulting from the resource constraint environment of sensor devices. In this article, we present the state-of-the-art secure and efficient cloud-centric IoMT-enabled smart healthcare system with public verifiability. The system novelty implements an escrow-free identity-based aggregate signcryption (EF-IDASC) scheme to secure data transmission, which is also proposed in this article. The proposed smart healthcare system fetches the medical data from multiple sensors implanted on the patient's body, signcrypts and aggregates them under the proposed EF-IDASC scheme, and outsources the data on the medical cloud server via smartphone. The system does not reveal any information about the identity and medical data of the patient. We further analyze the performance of the proposed smart healthcare system in terms of energy consumption. Moreover, we compare the performance of the proposed EF-IDASC scheme with other related schemes.


Thermal effects in n-channel enhancement-mode MOSFET's operated at cryogenic temperatures are discussed. Device heating is identified as the cause of drain current transients and the origin of this phenomenon is considered. Experimental results are presented in which thermal effects are studied as functions of temperature for various gate and drain biases. Drain current is found to be a monitor of device temperature, From an understanding of the thermal behavior of devices, the channel electron mobility can be examined as a function of temperature and gate bias. The observed thermal effects are explained in terms of material and device properties. The implications for future low-temperature CMOS VLSI development are discussed.


An examination of the prey size of 101 altricial bird species showed large interspecific differences in the gross energetic content of the prey items. These differences in prey size were related to variation in reproductive strategies of this group. In accordance with the argument presented by the English ecologist C. Elton, a lesser amount of food was brought to the nest in taxa of altricial birds specializing on small prey items. However, this relation disappeared after controlling for the effects of body weight. Two changes are likely to evolve as a response to a reduced ability by the parents to provision their offspring. A decrease can occur either in the clutch size or in the growth rate of the nestlings. The comparative analyses showed, after controlling for the effects of body weight and phylogeny, that in altricial birds a smaller clutch size was found in those species specializing on small prey items, whereas growth varied independently of prey weight.


'Accountability' is the international legal term du jour. The concept is omnipresent in contemporary discussions about the UN Security Council in particular. From the lack of due process guarantees for individuals implicated in its counter-terrorism sanctions regime, to the (in)compatibility of Council authorized uses of force with international human rights and humanitarian law, no aspect of the Council's recent practice has been immune from an accountability critique. Driven by the context in which it has emerged, the turn to accountability is seemingly prompted by a felt desire among international lawyers to constrain the arbitrary use of the Council's considerable powers. However, beyond this felt desire, the concept lacks a robust theoretical foregrounding, both on its own terms and in relation to existential developments in international law. In an attempt to remedy this, this article situates the turn to accountability as a product of the broader turn to 'constitutionalist' thinking in international law. Specifically, it suggests that mainstream approaches resonate with a particular 'liberal-legalist style' of global constitutionalism. From both an etymological and epistemological perspective, however, I argue that this prevailing style offers an incomplete sense of accountability. The article introduces the dichotomy of 'liberal-legal' and more overtly 'political' styles of global constitutionalism as a heuristic device in order to offer a broader conception of accountability in the Security Council context. Political constitutionalism, I believe, offers important insights that will allow us to perceive and critique the Security Council in new ways.


Abstract Electrical conduction through cardiac muscle fibres separated from the main myocardial wall by layers of interposed adipose tissue are notoriously difficult to target by endocardial ablation alone. They are a recognised important cause for procedural failure due to the difficulties of delivering sufficient energy via the endocardial radiofrequency catheter to reach the outer epicardial layer without risking adverse events of the otherwise thin walled atria. Left atrial ablations for atrial fibrillation (AF) and tachycardia are commonly affected by the presence of several epicardial structures, with the septo-pulmonary bundle (SPB), Bachmann's bundle, and the ligament of Marshall all posing substantial challenges for endocardial procedures. Delivery of a transmural lesion set is essential for sustained pulmonary vein isolation and for conduction block across linear atrial lines which in turn has been described to translate into a reduced AF/atrial tachycardia recurrence rate. To overcome the limitations of endocardial-only approaches, surgical ablation techniques for epicardial or combined hybrid endo-epicardial ablations have been described to successfully target these connections. Yet, these techniques confer an increase in procedure complexity, duration, cost, and morbidity. Alternatively, coronary venous system ethanol ablation has been successfully employed by sub-selecting the vein of Marshall to facilitate mitral isthmus line block, although this approach is naturally limited to this area by the coronary venous anatomy. Increased awareness of the pathophysiological relevance of these epicardial structures and their intracardiac conduction patterns in the era of high-resolution 3D electro-anatomical mapping technology has allowed greater understanding of their contribution to the persistence of AF as well as failure to achieve transmural block by traditional ablation approaches. This might translate into novel catheter ablation strategies with procedural success rates comparable to surgical 'cut-and-sew' techniques. This review aims to give an overview of percutaneous catheter ablation strategies to target the SPB, an important cause of failed block across the roof line and isolation of the left atrial posterior wall and/or the pulmonary veins. Existing and investigational technologies will be discussed and an outlook of future approaches provided.


Abstract Tow new arylalkenyl α,β-unsaturated δ-lactones named cryptoconcatones K (1) and L (2) were obtained from the leaves and twigs of Cryptocarya concinna. Their structures were established on the basis of spectroscopic data (MS, 1D and 2D NMR). Compounds 1 and 2 showed cytotoxic activities with IC50 values of 4.5 and 3.9 μM against Huh7 cancer cell line, respectively.


An oral glucose tolerance test (O-GTT) was conducted in 96 non-obese healthy children (7 to approximately 11 years old) and adolescents (12 to approximately 16 years old) to obtain the index of insulin resistance from the insulin (IRI) and C-peptide (CPR) values of fasting. 2-hour postload conditions and the sigma values, and the homeostasis model assessment ratio (HOMA-R) by assuming the value of the mean + 2SD to be the upper limit of the normal value for each clinical variable. The results show that the adolescents, whose insulin resistance is thought to increase, showed higher IRI and CPR values of the 2-hour postload condition and sigma values compared to those of the children, but there were no differences between the 2 age groups in the values of the fasting condition, as well as in the HOMA-R values which were calculated from the fasting values. These findings indicate that there is a limitation in using fasting values to judge insulin resistance. Instead, using the 2-hour postload values and/or the sigma values is more appropriate.


UNLABELLED
A comprehensive neurobehavioral and neurophysiological study was performed to evaluate the adverse effect of low level lead-exposure, and to compare the sensibility, easiness of the test methods utilized. The tests were: WHO recommended Neurobehavioral Core Test Battery (NCTB), Autonomic Nouvers System Function (ANS) Test Battery, Brain Electricity Active Mapping (BEAM), and Nerve Conduction Velocity. 44 lead-exposed workers were selected, with 34 age, education degree, family economic level, smoking and drinking matched referents.

RESULT
The mean blood lead concentration of lead-exposed workers was 1.3870 mumol/L, whereas that of referents was 0.6080 mumol/L, the difference was very significant. The negative Profile of Mood State (POMS) score of lead-expose workers was higher than that of referents, whereas the positive POMS score of the referents was higher than that of lead-exposed group, with a covariance analysis. The lead-exposure affected some NCTB test items, such as simple reaction time (SRT), digital symbol (DSY), correct dots (PAC) and total dots (PA). The heart-rate response to Valsalva manoeuvre (HR-V), heart-rate response to deep breathing (HR-DB), and blood-pressure response to immediate standing (BP-IS) were lowered in lead-exposed workers significantly. Some abnormal brain electric waves (dominant beta frequency, semetry-diffuse abnormal and non semetry-diffuse abnormal wave distribution, dominant low wave amplitude) appeared in lead-exposed workers. Left ulnar nerve maximal conduction velocity was significantly lowered in lead-exposed group.

CONCLUSION
The NCTB (including POMS), and ANS function test should be the regular screening battery for low level lead-exposed workers. The threshold blood lead concentration for health surveillance should be 30 micrograms/dL, or 1.4 mumol/L.


Incomplete and composite internal moulds, formed by the partial filling of shells by the enclosing sediments at the time of burial, contain a plane, the plane of composition, which shows the horizontal plane at the time the partial filling of the shell hardened. An angular relationship between the common plane parallel to all the planes of composition and the horizontal plane indicates tilting of the formation. Angular relationships between planes of composition indicate a reworking of the sediments. An angular relationship between the common plane and the bedding plane indicates primary structure.


INTRODUCTION: This study aims to develop a method to assess the changes in palatal and lingual cross-sectional areas in patients submitted to rapid maxillary expansion (RME). METHODS: The sample comprised 31 Class I malocclusion individuals submitted to RME and divided into two groups treated with Haas (17 patients) and Hyrax (14 patients) expanders. Cone-beam computed tomography scans were acquired at T0 (before expansion ) and T1 (six months after screw stabilization). Maxillary and mandibular cross-sectional areas were assessed at first permanent molars and first premolars regions and compared at T0 and T1. Mandibular occlusal area was also analyzed. RESULTS: Maxillary cross-sectional areas increased in 56.18 mm2 and 44.32 mm2 for the posterior and anterior regions. These values were smaller for the mandible, representing augmentation of 40.32 mm2 and 39.91 mm2 for posterior and anterior sections. No differences were found when comparing both expanders. Mandibular occlusal area increased 43.99mm2 and mandibular incisors proclined. Increments of 1.74 mm and 1.7 mm occurred in mandibular intermolar and interpremolar distances. These same distances presented increments of 5.5 mm and 5.57 mm for the maxillary arch. CONCLUSION: Occlusal and cross-sectional areas increased significantly after RME. The method described seems to be reliable and precise to assess intraoral area changes.


Summary: The strictly aerobic bacterium Micrococcus luteus was grown in the presence of lactate as sole carbon source under conditions of excess substrates (in batch culture) or under strict lactate (C) or ammonium (N) limitation (in a chemostat, D = 0·02 h-1). KCN (2mM) stimulated the respiration of batch-grown and N-limited cells, and inhibited the oxidase activity of C-limited cells by 40-60%. The content and composition of cytochromes and the KCN-dependences of the oxidase activities were found to be the same for the membranes of C-limited and batchgrown cells. The KCN sensitivity of the oxidase activities of isolated membranes decreased in the order NADH > malate > lactate. NAD-dependent lactate and malate dehydrogenase activities were observed in the cytoplasm of C-limited cells but not in that of batch-grown cells. The stimulation of cell respiration by lactate, maiate, pyruvate or ethanol caused a marked increase of the steady-state level of NAD+ reduction only in C-limited cells. It is assumed that the slow growth of C-limited cells is accompanied by an increase in the formation of NADH, which is oxidized by the KCN-sensitive, tightly-coupled, main branch of the M. luteus respiratory chain. Under non-limited conditions of growth the respiration is due mainly to the direct oxidation of lactate via the weakly coupled alternative branch. The role of this switching of the electron flow from one pathway to the other during the adaptation of the bateria to the slow C- and energy-limited growth is discussed.


Dynamic baroreflex sensitivity for increasing arterial pressure (DBSI) was used to quantitatively assess the effects of anesthesia on the heart rate/arterial pressure relationship during rapid (less than or equal to 2 minutes) pressure changes in the horse. Anesthesia was induced with IV administration of xylazine and ketamine and maintained with halothane at a constant end-tidal concentration of 1.1 to 1.2% (1.25 to 1.3 minimal alveolar concentration). Systolic arterial pressure (SAP) was increased a minimum of 30 mm of Hg in response to an IV bolus injection of phenylephrine HCl. Linear regression was used to determine the slope of the R-R interval/SAP relationship. During dynamic increases in SAP, a significant correlation between R-R interval and SAP was observed in 8 of 8 halothane-anesthetized horses. Correlation coefficients between R-R interval and SAP were greater than 0.80 in 5 of 8 horses. Mean (+/- SD) DBSI was 4.8 +/- 3.4 ms/mm of Hg in anesthetized horses. A significant correlation between R-R interval and SAP was observed in only 3 of 6 awake horses during dynamic increases in SAP. Lack of correlation between R-R interval and SAP in 3 of 6 awake horses indicated that rapidly increasing SAP with an IV phenylephrine bolus is a poor method to evaluate baroreceptor-mediated heart rate changes in awake horses. Reflex slowing of heart rate in response to a rising arterial pressure appeared to have been overridden by the effects of excitement. Mean (+/- SD) DBSI (3 horses) was 7.3 +/- 3.3 ms/mm of Hg in awake horses.


Relatively few investigations have previously been made on the effects of surface conditions on corona-generated audible noise for the long-term aged ac conductors. In the present work these were investigated by means of comparing audible noise on typical aged conductors with that on new ones. The aged conductors from the ac power transmission lines had been in service for 12, 15 and 20 years, and their surface morphology, composition and roughness had been analyzed in our previous paper. A microphone and sound level meter was employed to measure the audible noise of the aged conductors in a small corona cage. As a result of the much intense corona discharge on the surfaces of the aged conductors, the audible noise of the aged conductors was much higher than the new conductors in dry condition. In wet condition, the corona discharge was found to be become more serious than the conductor in dry condition; hence, the audible noise was about 3 to 5dB stronger than that in dry condition.


The CRISPR-associated protein 6, Cas6 protein, is an endoribonuclease that cleaves precursor CRISPR RNAs within the repeat sequence to release specific invader-targeting RNAs. Cas6 protein can recognize different sequences by their specific scaffold. To investigate its binding mode, we purified and crystallized a His-tagged Cas6 protein from Methanocaldococcus jannaschii (MjCas6) using the sitting-drop vapor-diffusion method. The crystals diffracted to a resolution of 1.85 Å and belonged to monoclinic space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 200.84 Å, b = 85.26 Å, c = 100.06 Å, β = 118.47◦. The crystals of MjCas6 contain four molecules in the asymmetric unit. The protein fold is similar to the other Cas6 homologues, such as Pyrococcus furiosus Cas6, suggesting functional similarity. Moreover, in the C2 crystal the MjCas6 monomers formed a tandem array, which we hypothesize to possibly correlate with repetitive RNA precursors.


Multimedia applications are often associated with cross-domain knowledge transfer, where Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) can be used to reduce the domain shifts. Open Set Domain Adaptation (OSDA) aims to transfer knowledge from a well-labeled source domain to an unlabeled target domain under the assumption that the target domain contains unknown classes. Existing OSDA methods consistently lay stress on the covariate shift, ignoring the potential label shift problem. The performance of OSDA methods degrades drastically under intra-domain class imbalance and inter-domain label shift. However, little attention has been paid to this issue in the community. In this paper, the Imbalanced Open Set Domain Adaptation (IOSDA) is explored where the covariate shift, label shift and category mismatch exist simultaneously. To alleviate the negative effects raised by label shift in OSDA, we propose Open-set Moving-threshold Estimation and Gradual Alignment (OMEGA) - a novel architecture that improves existing OSDA methods on class-imbalanced data. Specifically, a novel unknown-aware target clustering scheme is proposed to form tight clusters in the target domain to reduce the negative effects of label shift and intra-domain class imbalance. Furthermore, moving-threshold estimation is designed to generate specific thresholds for each target sample rather than using one for all. Extensive experiments on IOSDA, OSDA and OPDA benchmarks demonstrate that our method could significantly outperform existing state-of-the-arts. Code and data are available at https://github.com/mendicant04/OMEGA.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of both protein and radionuclide in the accumulation of 111In-labeled human immunoglobulin G (IgG) in infectious foci. In rats with a calf muscle infection, biodistribution was determined 2, 6, 24, and 48 hr after injection of a radiopharmaceutical. For IgG, human serum albumin (HSA) and human immunoglobulin A (IgA), all labeled with 111In, target-to-background (T/B) ratios were similar throughout the study. However, absolute abscess uptake of 111In-IgA was significantly lower. For IgG labeled with 111In, 123I, or 99mTc, similar T/B ratios were found up to 24 hr. After 48 hr, the T/B ratio of 111In-IgG was significantly higher than the T/B ratio of 123I-IgG. The absolute abscess uptake of 111In-IgG was higher than that of 99mTc-IgG at 24 hr and 123I-IgG at 48 hr. In conclusion, the radionuclide appears to be of major importance in the accumulation of radiolabeled proteins in infectious foci. Protein mainly influences blood clearance and distribution in organs. The Fc-gamma receptor is not crucial for accumulation in infectious foci.


An ion of mass-to-charge ratio, m/q, moving under the combined influence of a static magnetic field, B, and an axial quadrupolar electrostatic potential field undergo three "natural" ("normal mode") motions: cyclotron rotation at frequency ω+, magnetron rotation at frequency ω−, and an axial "trapping" oscillation at frequency ωT. Ordinarily, magnetron motion is unobserved, and considered to be undesirable, because ion-neutral collisions result in radial diffusive loss of ions as they roll "downhill" on the magnetron potential surface. However, azimuthal quadrupolar excitation at the ion cyclotron frequency, ωc = qB/m, converts magnetron motion into cyclotron motion, and (for heavy ions) ion-neutral collisions then shrink the cyclotron orbit, leaving a compact ion packet at or near the center of the ICR ion trap. In this paper, we describe briefly the formal basis for such ion axialization, visualization of magnetron motion, the effect of quadrupolar rf excitation amplitude and duration, and how to achieve ion axialization over a wide range of ion m/q values. Applications of the axialization process include ion remeasurement with high (up to 99%) efficiency; prolonged and efficient ion trapping at high collision gas pressure for cooling of electronically, vibrationally, and/or rotationally "hot" ions; enhanced mass resolving power and peak height-to-noise ratio; and enhanced parent ion selectivity (first stage of MS/MS) and enhanced product ion S/N ratio and mass resolving power (second stage of MS/MS). Moreover, because ions may now be axialized, they need not be formed or injected on-axis, thereby making possible continuous injection of externally formed ions, and/or separation between ion and optical axes for photoionization, photodissociation, photodetachment, and optical spectroscopy of trapped ions.


In this work another perturbation estimation sliding mode based control algorithm is introduced for a class of robotic systems in the presence of structured and unstructured uncertainties and external disturbances. The effects of these uncertainties are combined into a single quantity. A full order device with the actuator voltages as control inputs is assumed in control design. The decentralized control scheme with only a partial state feedback is applied. A modification of the switching functions with perturbation estimation is introduced. The salient features of this approach is that the perturbations are effectively treated by a computationally straightforward procedure. The proposed controller is applied to a minimal configuration direct drive robot mechanism.


Dielectric polarization P of a geometrically frustrated spin system MnWO4 has been examined for B || x and E || b* in pulsed magnetic fields up to 52 T. We have observed two new phased IV (38 ≤ B ≤ 48 T) and V (B ≥ 48 T). Moreover, we found that the IV-phase also exhibits ferroelectricity, in addition to the AF2-phase already known. Interestingly, the sign of P of the IV-phase is found to be always opposite to that of AF2 irrespective of the direction aof a poling electric field. The results implied that the ferroelectric domain is preserved between the AF2 and IV phases.


The article is devoted to the problem of classification of the verbal idioms. The comparative analyses conducted by the author in three languages results in identifying three categories of the verbal idioms expressing feelings. A special attention is devoted to the category of idioms-bearers of positive feelings, which is illustrated by examples from the literature.


On the basis of the Norwegian Arthroplasty Register, which has recorded nearly all primary hip prostheses and revisions in Norway since 1987, we studied risk factors for prosthesis luxation leading to revision. 7 prosthesis brand combinations used in 42,987 primary operations were included from 1987-2000. We found that femoral head size was an important risk factor; 28 mm heads led to revision more often than 32 mm ones (failure rate ratio (FRR) 4.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.2-7.3). Charnley (22 mm head) performed equally well or better than the 28 mm heads. The Exeter stem and cup is the type of prosthesis on the Norwegian market with more than two femoral head sizes (26, 28, 30, 32 mm) and 26 mm heads led to revision due to luxation significantly more often than 30 mm heads (FRR 4.1, 95%CI 2.2-8.1). Old age, preoperative diagnosis, and choice of prosthesis brand combination were also important factors affecting the revision rate due to luxation. A posterior approach increased the risk of revision more than a lateral one (FRR 1.9, 95%CI 1.4-2.5). Gender, trochanteric osteotomy and duration of the operation did not affect the results.


Fifty-six inpatients with unipolar depression completed treatment with isocarboxazid. In comparing the differences between responders and nonresponders, it was found that psychomotor retardation, pathological guilt, daily persistence of unremitting symptoms, phobic anxiety, dexamethasone suppression test nonsuppression, and neuroticism were significantly more common among nonresponders. Reactivity of mood, blaming others, and extraversion were more common in responders. Total endogenous depression scores on the Newcastle 1, Newcastle 2, and Michigan scales were also significantly higher in nonresponders. Attained platelet monoamine oxidase inhibition was similar in both groups.


We present the design and experimental results of a novel overmoded slow-wave high-power microwave (HPM) generator that is featured by its compactness, low-operation magnetic field, and potentially high power and high efficiency. The device includes two slow-wave structure (SWS) sections, a resonant cavity, and a tapered waveguide. The resonant cavity was well designed and was used to achieve the axial mode selection and to decrease the length of the SWS sections. The radial mode selection is achieved using the property of "surface wave" of the device to excite the TM/sub 01/ mode while making the higher TM/sub 0n/ modes unexcited. The physical mechanisms of axial and radial mode selections ensure that the microwave is produced with a single mode and a narrow band. The feasibility of low magnetic field operation is also investigated based on the characteristics of the overmoded slow-wave devices. Experiments were carried out at the Spark-2 accelerator. At diode voltage of 474 kV, beam current of 5.2 kA, and guiding magnetic field strength of 0.6 T, a microwave was generated with power of 510 MW, mode of TM/sub 01/, and frequency of 9.54 GHz. The relative half width of the frequency spectrum is /spl Delta/f/f= 0.6%, and the beam-to-microwave efficiency is about 21% in our experiment.


With the increasing applications of thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (TPU), the fire risk and smoke hazard caused by TPU have aroused wide attention. At the same time, with the promotion of aramid fiber in industry, the waste and pollution caused by aramid fiber is becoming worse. Herein, para-aramid fiber (AF) is recycled and modified by melamine polyphosphate (MP), and then applied as a flame retardant for TPU. The flame retardant and smoke suppression properties of the TPU composites are determined using the limiting oxygen index (LOI), cone calorimeter test (CCT), smoke density test (SDT) and thermogravimetric/Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-IR). The LOI test shows that the thermal stability of TPU is further improved by AF-MP. The CCT test shows that AF-MP has a better flame retardant and smoke suppression effect on TPU than pure AF. Remarkably, the pHRR and THR value for the sample with 1.00 wt% content of AF-MP decreased by 38.1% and 24.5% compared with that of the pure AF sample, where the residual mass of AF-MP was more than that of the AF sample. The SDT test shows that AF-MP has a better smoke suppression property in TPU than pure AF, particularly in the absence of a flame. The TG-IR test reveals that AF-MP further promotes the char forming process during combustion. Thus, this investigation presents great insight into the study of reusing fibers and efficient flame retardant polymers.


A generate and test algorithm is described which parses a surface form into one or more lexical entries using linearly ordered phonological rules. This algorithm avoids the exponential expansion of search space which a naive parsing algorithm would face by encoding into the form being parsed the ambiguities which arise during parsing. The algorithm has been implemented and tested on real language data, and its speed compares favorably with that of a KIMMO-type parser.


The Honduran dwarf mistletoe, Arceuthobium hondurense Hawksw. & Wiens (Viscaceae), is one of the rarest dwarf mistletoes known in Central America (1,2). It is only known from four general areas in Honduras, but has also been reported from three locations in southern Mexico (2,3). At one time, A. hondurense was thought to be in danger of extinction (1). During March 2006, we found three new populations of this rare dwarf mistletoe in the Cordillera Dipilto in northern Nicaragua (Department Nueva Segovia). One population was approximately 11 km northeast of San Fernando (13°44'55″N, 86°19'07″W; elevation 1,130 m), the second population was approximately 9 km north of Mozonte (13°44'09″N, 86°24'54″W; elevation 1,415 m), and the third population was approximately 6 km southwest of Depilto (13°42'51″N, 86°32'22″W; elevation 1,340 m). Honduran dwarf mistletoe was parasitizing Pinus tecunumanii Equiluz & J.P. Perry at each of these locations, and at the Mozonte population, it was also infecting P. oocarpa Schiede ex Schlecht. Only a few pines were infected at each of these localities and no pine mortality associated with dwarf mistletoe infection was observed. However, even lightly infected trees had large witches' brooms and some trees were severely broomed. These populations are 50 to 65 km southeast of the nearest population of Honduran dwarf mistletoe in Honduras and they represent the southern most populations of Arceuthobium spp. in the New World (1). The mistletoe, Struthanthus deppeanus (Cham. & Schlecht.) Bl. (Loranthaceae), also parasitizes pines in Central America and southern Mexico (3). We observed this mistletoe parasitizing P. tecunumanii at the San Fernando location described above, on P. oocarpa approximately 7 km north of Mozonte (13°43'57″N, 86°24'49″W; elevation 1,490 m), and on P. oocarpa approximately 3 km southwest of Dipilto (13°43'40″N, 86°31'56″W; elevation 1,170 m). Again, only a few pines were infected at each of these locations, and we did not observe pine mortality associated with infection by S. deppeanus. S. deppeanus does not cause the formation of witches' brooms on infected pines, but the mistletoe plants are often greater than 1 m long so they are easily observed. This mistletoe was most common southwest of Depilto. To our knowledge, this is the first report of A. hondurense and S. deppeanus in Nicaragua. Specimens of A. hondurense and S. deppeanus from Nicaragua have been deposited at the Deaver Herbarium, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff (Accession Nos. 81561-81567). References: (1) F. Hawksworth and D. Wiens. Dwarf mistletoes: Biology, pathology, and systematics. USDA For. Serv. Agric. Handb. 709, 1996; (2) R. Mathiasen and J. Melgar, Plant Disease 90:685, 2006; (3) R. Mathiasen et al. Madrono 50:115, 2003.


We study the temperature sensitivity of the differential gain in InGaAsP-InP strained-layer (SL) quantum-well (QW) lasers operating at a wavelength of 1.55 /spl mu/m. Electrostatic deformation in conduction-band and valence-band profiles is taken into account by solving Poisson's equation and the effective-mass equations for conduction and valence bands in a self-consistent manner. We demonstrate that electrostatic deformation in both band profiles plays a significant role in determining the temperature sensitivity of the differential gain in 1.55-/spl mu/m InGaAsP-InP SL QW lasers. The physical mechanism for limiting the differential gain at elevated temperatures is also discussed.<<ETX>>


Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is one of the most serious cyanotic congenital heart diseases and is characterized by common systemic and oral findings. This study was carried out on 30 patients (3−13 years old) with TOF and 30 subjects as a control group. The patients were examined for oral hygiene, mucous membrane, gingivae, dental caries and any hypoplasia. There appeared to be an increase in dental caries, hypoplasia and periodontal disease in the patients with TOF compared with controls. The dental aspects of TOF patients are highlighted and their dental management is discussed.


Habitat loss and fragmentation are leading causes of species extinctions in terrestrial, aquatic and marine systems. Along coastlines, natural habitats support high biodiversity and valuable ecosystem services but are often replaced with engineered structures for coastal protection or erosion control. We coupled high-resolution shoreline condition data with an eleven-year time series of fish community structure to examine how coastal protection structures impact community stability. Our analyses revealed that the most stable fish communities were nearest natural shorelines. Structurally complex engineered shorelines appeared to promote greater stability than simpler alternatives as communities nearest vertical walls, which are among the most prevalent structures, were most dissimilar from natural shorelines and had the lowest stability. We conclude that conserving and restoring natural habitats is essential for promoting ecological stability. However, in scenarios when natural habitats are not viable, engineered landscapes designed to mimic the complexity of natural habitats may provide similar ecological functions.


Groundwater at fuel release sites often contains nonpolar hydrocarbons that originate from both the fuel release and other environmental sources, as well as polar metabolites of petroleum biodegradation. These compounds, along with other polar artifacts, can be quantified as "total petroleum hydrocarbons" using USEPA Methods 3510/8015B, unless a silica gel cleanup step is used to separate nonpolar hydrocarbons from polar compounds prior to analysis. Only a limited number of these metabolites have been identified by traditional GC-MS methods, because they are difficult to resolve using single-column configurations. Additionally, the targeted use of derivatization limits the detection of many potential metabolites of interest. The objective of this research was to develop a nontargeted GC×GC-TOFMS approach to characterize petroleum metabolites in environmental samples gathered from fuel release sites. The method tentatively identified more than 760 unique polar compounds, including acids/esters, alcohols, phenols, ketones, and aldehydes, from 22 groundwater samples collected at five sites. Standards for 28 polar compounds indicate that effective limits of quantitation for most of these compounds in the groundwater samples range from 1 to 11 μg/L.


One of the major challenges in printable electronics fabrication is the print resolution and accuracy for high precision applications such as printable displays. In this paper, the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is used for the direct numerical simulation of an inkjet-printed colloidal drop wetting on a patterned substrate for confined deposition. The two-dimensional multiphase particle suspension LBM model previously developed by the authors is extended to three-dimensional with the addition of the particle rotational dynamics and an improved treatment of particle-particle forces. The model is used to study the contact angle hysteresis and the stick-slip behavior of the contact line motion as a liquid drop wetting and evaporating on a patterned substrate. Finally, the dynamics of a colloidal drop containing many suspended particles are examined with and without evaporation. Results show that colloidal jamming occurs at the liquid-vapor interface as the drop preferentially wets and evaporates on a patterned substrate. This model development is an important first step towards understanding the complex transport phenomena present in an inkjet-printed evaporating drop for printable electronics fabrication.


Raindrops adhered to camera lens or windshield are inevitable in rainy scenes and can become an issue for many computer vision systems such as autonomous driving. Because raindrop appearance is affected by too many parameters, therefore it is unlikely to find an effective model based solution. Learning based methods are also problematic, because traditional learning method cannot properly model the complex appearance. Whereas deep learning method lacks sufficiently large and realistic training data. To solve it, in our work, we propose the first photo-realistic dataset of synthetic adherent raindrops for training. The rendering is physics based with consideration of the water dynamic, geometric and photometry. The dataset contains various types of rainy scenes and particularly the rainy driving scenes. Based on the modeling of raindrop imagery, we introduce a detection network which has the awareness of the raindrop refraction as well as its blurring. Based on that, we propose the removal network that can well recover the image structure. Rigorous experiments demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of our proposed framework.


In the present study, the relative photosynthetic performance and antioxidative activities of four Pennisetum glaucum genotypes, viz., IP14599, IP35451, IP14222 and Gero were analysed under simulated drought condition. The photosynthetic performance was estimated using chlorophyll a fluorescence method and tt was observed that among the selected genotypes, the genotype IP14599 reached the highest emitted PSII photon reaction and apparent electron transport rate (ETRmax) and thus showed the optimal adjustment to the arid climate of Rajasthan (India). In contrast, the genotype Gero displayed the minimum adaptation to the same climatic conditions owing to its low PPFDsat, ΔF/Fm' and ETRmax values. Furthermore, the activities of Malondialdehyde (MDA) and anti-oxidative enzymes were  also examined  in these two contrasting genotypes IP14599 and Gero in terms of the objectives taken for this study. The antioxidative activities also showed an increase in the genotype IP14599 which mitigated the oxidative damage of the cell membrane and conferred better adaptation in comparison to the genotype Gero. The results revealed that the genotype IP14599 possesses best tolerance mechanism to water deficit conditions and best suited for semi-arid environment.


Gene trapping in embryonic stem (ES) cells is a proven method for large‐scale random insertional mutagenesis in the mouse genome. We have established an exchangeable gene trap system, in which a reporter gene can be exchanged for any other DNA of interest through Cre/mutant lox‐mediated recombination. We isolated trap clones, analyzed trapped genes, and constructed the database for Exchangeable Gene Trap Clones (EGTC) [http://egtc.jp]. The number of registered ES cell lines was 1162 on 31 August 2013. We also established 454 mouse lines from trap ES clones and deposited them in the mouse embryo bank at the Center for Animal Resources and Development, Kumamoto University, Japan. The EGTC database is the most extensive academic resource for gene‐trap mouse lines. Because we used a promoter‐trap strategy, all trapped genes were expressed in ES cells. To understand the general characteristics of the trapped genes in the EGTC library, we used Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) for pathway analysis and found that the EGTC ES clones covered a broad range of pathways. We also used Gene Ontology (GO) classification data provided by Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) to compare the functional distribution of genes in each GO term between trapped genes in the EGTC mouse lines and total genes annotated in MGI. We found the functional distributions for the trapped genes in the EGTC mouse lines and for the RefSeq genes for the whole mouse genome were similar, indicating that the EGTC mouse lines had trapped a wide range of mouse genes.


The Cherves-de-Cognac site (Charente, France) has yielded a diverse continental microvertebrate fauna of Berriasian (earliest Cretaceous) age. Dinosaur remains are rare, but include three teeth that are referrable to an indeterminate sauropod, which might represent either a titanosauriform, a non-titanosauriform macronarian or a non-neosauropod. The small size of these teeth (with a maximum length of 3 mm, as preserved) and the almost complete absence of emanel wrinkling suggests that they pertained to embryonic or hatchling individuals. The Cherves-de-Cognac sauropod represents a rare occurrence of sauropod embryos/ hatchlings, a new sauropod record from the poorly-known terrestrial Berriasian and another possible instance of the persistence of non-diplodocoid, non-titanosauriform sauropods into the Cretaceous.


Purpose: Arthroscopy offers a view of intra-articular pathology, but its use in the treatment of intra-articular distal radius fractures remains controversial. This study compares functional and radiologic outcomes of arthroscopically assisted (AA) versus fluoroscopically assisted (FA) reduction and external fixation (EF) of distal radius fractures. Type of study: double randomised prospective, comparison of 2 different procedures. Methods: Between January 2000 and December 2003, 20 patients with comminuted intra-articular distal radius fractures underwent AA EF and percutaneous pinning and 20 patients underwent and FA EF reduction and pinning. Results: Follow-up period was 9–27 months. Evaluation was clinical (grip strength, range of motion) and radiographic (palmar tilt, radial shortening, stepoff). The Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand (DASH) questionnaire and the MAYO wrist score were used 3-9-12 months postoperatively. In 9/20 patients of AA group the subchodral pins were changed after artrhroscopic view because of stepoff. The following tears were found: TFCC (12 of 20 patients), SL (9/20), LT (4/20). Patients who underwent AA surgery had significantly better supination; wrist extension; and flexion compared with the FA surgery group (86 vs 75; 76 vs 65; and 76 vs 63 degrees respectively). Radial shortening and DASH scores were better for the AA group compared to the FA group (AA:12, FA:25) the 3rd and 6th postoperative month but the difference decreased after the 12th month. Conclusions: A reduction and fixation of intra-articular distal radius fractures provides improved inspection of the ulnarsided components of the injury. Long term evaluation revealed that patients with AA procedures returned in decreased periods to their previous activities (based on DASH score) and had better of supination, flexion, and extension than patients with FA surgery.


Rank-deficient multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay interference channel (IC) is investigated in which K source-destination pairs communicate with the help of N relays. For the K-user rank-deficient MIMO IC with no relays, an achievable sum degrees of freedom (DoF) is upper bounded by Krds, where rds denotes the rank of each point-to-point channel matrix. However, if relays assist the communication, we show that there can be significant improvement on the DoF compared to the case where there is no relay. The proposed cooperative relaying uses relays not only for increasing ranks of desired channel matrices but also nullifying inter-user interference.


Despite advances in radiology, the chest X-ray (CXR) has survived as the most frequently requested examination. About 6.7 million are performed each year in the UK.1 The radiation dose of a frontal CXR is equivalent to only three days' exposure to natural background radiation (effective dose 0.02 mSv.2 The lateral CXR is less frequently requested and more difficult to interpret. Nevertheless it contains much information on the thoracic cage, pleura, lungs, pericardium, heart, mediastinum and upper abdomen. Many junior doctors, at ease with the frontal CXR, seem intimidated by the lateral film. Uncertain when to request or how to interpret, they may retreat expensively and unnecessarily into computerized tomography.

The lateral CXR is performed with the side of interest closer to the X-ray film, giving an effective dose of 0.05 mSv. If the side is not specified, a left lateral is usually taken. In this paper we offer a brief guide to demystify and clarify this cheap and useful investigation. Essentially there are four indications and four main abnormalities to interpret.


An extensive review is given of the results from literature on electron beam induced deposition. Electron beam induced deposition is a complex process, where many and often mutually dependent factors are involved. The process has been studied by many over many years in many different experimental setups, so it is not surprising that there is a great variety of experimental results. To come to a better understanding of the process, it is important to see to which extent the experimental results are consistent with each other and with the existing model. All results from literature were categorized by sorting the data according to the specific parameter that was varied current density, acceleration voltage, scan patterns, etc. . Each of these parameters can have an effect on the final deposit properties, such as the physical dimensions, the composition, the morphology, or the conductivity. For each parameter-property combination, the available data are discussed and as far as possible interpreted. By combining models for electron scattering in a solid, two different growth regimes, and electron beam induced heating, the majority of the experimental results were explained qualitatively. This indicates that the physical processes are well understood, although quantitatively speaking the models can still be improved. The review makes clear that several major issues remain. One issue encountered when interpreting results from literature is the lack of data. Often, important parameters such as the local precursor pressure are not reported, which can complicate interpretation of the results. Another issue is the fact that the cross section for electron induced dissociation is unknown. In a number of cases, a correlation between the vertical growth rate and the secondary electron yield was found, which suggests that the secondary electrons dominate the dissociation rather than the primary electrons. Conclusive evidence for this hypothesis has not been found. Finally, there is a limited understanding of the mechanism of electron induced precursor dissociation. In many cases, the deposit composition is not directly dependent on the stoichiometric composition of the precursor and the electron induced decomposition paths can be very different from those expected from calculations or thermal decomposition. The dissociation mechanism is one of the key factors determining the purity of the deposits and a better understanding of this process will help develop electron beam induced deposition into a viable nanofabrication technique. © 2008 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2977587


Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a heterogenous and incurable disease marked by varying degrees of pulmonary vascular remodeling. This vascular remodeling, which includes thickening of the smooth muscle layer (an early finding) and formation of occlusive neointimal lesions (a late finding) in the pulmonary arteries, is a major driver of morbidity and mortality in PH. Available PH therapies consist of vasodilators that do not specifically target lesion formation or expansion and neither prevent progression nor reverse disease. This paucity of curative treatments highlights the need for new drug discovery targeting crucial steps of artery remodeling in PH. The cell dynamics and molecular signals driving neointimal lesion formation have been difficult to elucidate as classic mouse models of PH do not develop neointima. Here, we detail the methods to generate a robust and non-genetic mouse model of PH with medial thickening and neointimal lesion formation in the pulmonary arteries, through chronic exposure to an inflammatory stimulus-house dust mite (HDM). This model rapidly generates human-like pulmonary arterial lesions following a reproducible time course, allowing scrutiny of the cellular and molecular mechanisms controlling each stage of artery remodeling. Further, we outline optimal tissue handling, sectioning, and staining methodologies for detailed quantitative analysis of artery medial thickening and neointimal lesion formation and expansion. Finally, we present a method for staged pharmacologic intervention to identify molecules and pathways required at each step of the pulmonary arterial remodeling process. The advantages of this mouse model of PH over currently available animal models are five-fold. (i) It allows the use of the full range of genetic and single cell tools available in mice to manipulate and study the process of vascular remodeling seen in human disease, including the formation of neointimal lesions in a controlled and cell specific manner. (ii) The vascular lesions develop in a stereotyped manner with predictable timing, allowing for pharmacologic manipulation at discrete stages of vessel remodeling. (iii) It is rapid, with development of PH and vascular remodeling in a timeframe of two to eight weeks. (iv) It uses simple techniques and requires neither surgery, unusual equipment, or extensive personnel training. (v) The staining and quantitation methodologies we present are a significant improvement over those currently in use in the field. We hope that dissemination of this model and the associated detailed methods will speed up the development of novel and more effective PH therapeutics. Graphic abstract: Chronic perivascular inflammation induces medial thickening and neointima formation in pulmonary arteries, following a stereotyped time course, and allowing staged pharmacologic intervention during specific remodeling events, as well as quantitative assessment of vascular changes.


Uncertainty was quantified for an inventory estimating change in soil organic carbon (SOC) storage resulting from modifications in land use and management across US agricultural lands between 1982 and 1997. This inventory was conducted using a modified version of a carbon (C) accounting method developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Probability density functions (PDFs) were derived for each input to the IPCC model, including reference SOC stocks, land use/management activity data, and management factors. Change in C storage was estimated using a Monte‐Carlo approach with 50 000 iterations, by randomly selecting values from the PDFs after accounting for dependencies in the model inputs. Over the inventory period, mineral soils had a net gain of 10.8 Tg C yr−1, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 6.5 to 15.3 Tg C yr−1. Most of this gain was due to setting‐aside lands in the Conservation Reserve Program. In contrast, managed organic soils lost 9.4 Tg C yr−1, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 6.4 to 13.3 Tg C yr−1. Combining these gains and losses in SOC, US agricultural soils accrued 1.3 Tg C yr−1 due to land use and management change, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from a loss of 4.4 Tg C yr−1 to a gain of 6.9 Tg C yr−1. Most of the uncertainty was attributed to management factors for tillage, land use change between cultivated and uncultivated conditions, and C loss rates from managed organic soils. Based on the uncertainty, we are not able to conclude with 95% confidence that change in US agricultural land use and management between 1982 and 1997 created a net C sink for atmospheric CO2.


In recent years, over a hundred studies have analysed the efficiency of financial institutions, mostly centering on costs. However, the few available studies that estimate profit frontier functions report efficiency levels that are much lower than cost efficiency levels, implying that the most important inefficiencies are on the revenue side. There are also few studies that run comparisons at an international level, and none of these deals with profit efficiency. This paper analyses, by means of alternative techniques, both cost and profit efficiency in a sample of 10 countries of the European Union for the period 1993-1996, again obtaining profit efficiency levels lower than cost efficiency levels. The paper also examines several possible sources of the differences in measured efficiency, including differences in size, specialisation, other bank characteristics, and market characteristics.


The McNemar test for correlated proportions has been generalized to test for marginal homogeneity of either a 2c or an m2 contingency table. The tests for 2(3) and 3(2) tables turn out to be equivalent since each involves six non-diagonal elements; equal numbers of degrees of freedom in the associated chi square tests, m - 1 = c - 1 = 2; identical constraints on the fits to the non-diagonal elements; and identical measures of discrepancy between observed and fitted values to be optimized.


Targeting neoangiogenesis is a well‐established anticancer strategy, however, one of the major problems in angiogenesis research, both at the basic and applied levels, remains the development of suitable in vivo methods for assessing and quantifying the systemic angiogenic response. Therefore, there is an urgent need to adopt technically simple and reproducible methodologies which allow to easily quantify neoangiogenesis independently of morphological parameters. Recently, a reproducible and quantitative method was developed, the directed in vivo angiogenesis assay (DIVAA) consisting of the subcutaneous implantation of surgical grade silicone cylinders closed at one end, called angioreactors, into the dorsal flanks of nude mice. In the past few years, DIVAA has been successfully used in evaluating the inhibition and or enhancement of systemic perturbation of angiogenesis by several molecules. Thus, DIVAA studies systemic angiogenesis and its therapeutic modulation associated to cancer progression and metastasis.


Grief is a universal human experience, painful and inevitable. In this wise and compassionate book, a psychiatrist who has done extensive work and research with the bereaved shares her broad experience, revealing how people cope with, understand, and eventually adapt to many different bereavements in the course of human life. Those first few hours and days after a loved one has died may seem to pass like a dream, and only afterward does the real work of grieving and healing begin. In this comprehensive book, Beverley Raphael describes all the stages of mourning and healing, and analyzes how the effects of loss differ at each stage of life. Starting with the infant's loss of a parent, taking up the effects on adolescents of death in the family, and moving on to the losses people face in adult life and in old age, Raphael, with sensitivity and grace, shows how the dynamics of grief and recovery vary over the course of time. In describing the experience of loss, the author provides the reader with a rich understanding of how different people at different ages cope with grief, loss, and pain. The most thorough book on the subject ever written, The Anatomy of Bereavement is the standard work.


In the proposed non-Aristotelian finitary logic (NAFL), truths for formal propositions can exist only with respect to axiomatic theories, essentially as temporary axiomatic declarations in the human mind. An undecidable proposition $P$ in a consistent NAFL theory T is true/false with respect to T if and only if it has been axiomatically declared as true/false by virtue of its provability/refutability in an interpretation T* of T. In the absence of any such axiomatic declarations, $P$ is in a superposed state of "neither true nor false" and consistency of T requires the existence of a non-classical model for T in which $P \& \neg P$ is the case. Here T* is an axiomatic NAFL theory that, like T, resides in the human mind and acts as the "truth-maker" for (a model of) T. Quantum superposition is justified by identifying "axiomatic declarations" for the truth/falsity of $P$ (by virtue of its provability/refutability in T*) with "measurement" in the real world. NAFL also explains and de-mystifies the phenomenon of entanglement. NAFL severely restricts classical infinitary reasoning, but possibly provides sufficient machinery for a consistent axiomatization of quantum mechanics.


This paper evaluates six sustainable agricultural production practices (crop-livestock integration, cereal-legume intercropping, organic plus inorganic fertilizer combination, improved crop germplasm, improved livestock breeds and soil|water conservation) being promoted in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), using data from 160 farmers from northern Nigeria. The aim was to determine the missing links that have prevented increase in food production, poverty reduction and household food security expected from these practices. Results indicate weak crop-livestock integration (due to low manure production, inadequate ruminants, low production of cowpea and groundnut and low adoption of improved strip cropping), labor allocation bias against livestock production, cereal crop domination, low cereal-legume intercropping and use of fertilizers, limited combination of organic and inorganic fertilizer, low adoption of improved crop germplasm and absence of improved livestock. The paper concludes with recommendations to harness benefits from improved agricultural practices in the study area and similar ecologies in SSA. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.


Background and Objectives : The effect of diseases on the quality of life (QOL) of patients is due to the resulting temporary or permanent disability among patients. In this study, the effect of the myocardial infarction on the (QOL) of patients was measured and compared to the general population of Rafsanjan in order to recognize the most important aspects of patients life affected by the disease. Material and Mthods: In this historical cohort study, a group of people who were matched based on age, gender, educational status, social class, living place, occupation and marital status in two different groups of MI (n=50) and healthy (n=50) people were studied. The level of quality of life was measured using SF-36 scale. Parametric (t-test) and non-parametric (Mann-Whitney U and X2 ) tests were used to compare groups where appropriate. Results Proportion of people with undesirable quality of life among patients group was significantly greater than this value among the other group (P=0.001). Relative risk showed that suffering from MI significantly increases the probability of undesirable quality of life among people as 2.7 times greater (95%CI= 1.2-6.0). Conclusion: Our findings showed that MI decreased the quality of life significantly. It seems that providing adequate interventions for most patients suffering from MI can improve the vital aspects of their lives. Key words: Quality of life, Myocardial Infarction, Relative risk, Attributable risk Funding: This research was funded by Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences. Conflict of intrest: None declared. Ethical approval: The Ethics Comittee of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, approved the study. How to cite this article : Vazirinejad R, Esmaeili Nadimi A, Parvaresh Y, Rezaeian M . A Survey on the Most Important Life Aspects of Patients Suffering from Myocardial Infarction In Rafsanjan: A Historical Cohort Study Assessing Quality of Life . J Rafsanjan Univ Med Scie 2012 11(3): 219-30. [Farsi]


The relationship between Sjögren's syndrome (SS) and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) is not completely understood. We report two patients with both conditions and review 47 other previously reported cases meeting currently accepted diagnostic criteria, from 17 articles extracted from PubMed. Out of 44 patients whose gender was informed, 42 were females. Mean age at onset of neurological manifestation was 36.2 years (10-74). Serum anti-AQP4-IgG was positive in 32 patients, borderline in 1, and negative in 4. Our Case 1 was seronegative for AQP4-IgG and had no non-organ-specific autoantibodies other than anti-SSB antibodies. Our Case 2 had serum anti-AQP4, anti-SSA/SSB, anti-thyreoglobulin and anti-acethylcholine-receptor antibodies, as well as clinical hypothyreoidism, but no evidence of myasthenia gravis. Our Cases and others, as previously reported in literature, with similar heterogeneous autoimmune response to aquaporin-4, suggest that SS and NMO co-exist in a common autoimmune milieu which is not dependent on aquaporin-4 autoimmunity.


Higher education systems featuring intense competition have developed world-class universities, capable of attracting top professors and students and considerable public–private funding. This does not occur in non-competitive systems, where highly talented faculty and students are dispersed across all institutions. In such systems, the authors propose the budding of spin-off universities, staffed by the migration of top scientists from the entire public research system. This article illustrates the proposal through an example: the spin-off of a new university in Rome, Italy staffed with the best professors from the three current public city universities. Such a faculty would offer top national research productivity, a magnet to attract the other critical ingredients of a world-class university: talented students, abundant resources and visionary governance.


ABSTRACT Inkjet-printing amino acids has been suggested as a method to obtain pseudo latent fingermarks which are identical to each other and can therefore be used to compare different fingermark development techniques. This article outlines how this method of printing amino acids was utilized to obtain standardized fluorescent patterns that could be used to assess individual's dark adaptation. Shapes, letters and patterns were printed in alanine using a standard inkjet printer, then developed using DFO to provide fluorescent images when viewed under green light and through a red filter. Images were also printed and developed using ninhydrin to obtain the resultant developed image in Ruhemann's purple. The use of the fluorescent patterns to assess dark adaptation led to the confirmation that forensic examiners should dark adapt their eyes prior to looking for fluorescent evidence in the dark, as 16% more evidence was discoverable after waiting an average of 10 minutes in the dark prior to examination.


Background: While primary motor cortex (M1) has been demonstrated to be crucial for motor recovery in a recent meta-analysis including fMRI and TMS studies, other functional neuroimaging studies have found that activity in a broader sensorimotor cortical network correlate with motor recovery. The heterogeneity of stroke lesions and the small sample size characterizing many studies could account for these discrepancies.

Hypothesis : The strength of task-related activity in primary motor cortex predicts motor recovery in a clinically homogenous population of acute lacunar stroke patients.

Methods: We used fMRI to investigate the neural mechanisms of stroke recovery. We studied 18 stroke patient (4 females, 14 males) after their first single lacunar stroke (7 right , 11 left hemisphere). The lesions caused pure hemiparesia one week after stroke onset (mean 7.2 days; range 2 -15). Lesions were limited to the deep territory of the anterior choroid artery, involving the corticospinal tract at the level of the internal capsule or the corona radiata ([Figure 1][1]). Patients were matched to 18 healthy controls for age and sex. Motor impairment was assessed using the NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS), the Fugl-Meyer Scale (FMS), Finger Tapping Score (FTS), Purdue Pegboard and simple reaction times 7 days and 6 months after stroke. At 6 months, a global motor recovery score was computed using the FMS and the FTS to assess motor recovery. Functional MRI scans were obtained using a self-paced finger tapping (FT) task implemented as a block design alternating right FT, left FT and rest. Data were processed using SPM8. In the first level analysis "FT minus fixation" contrasts were computed for the impaired hand. At the second level, multiple regression was used to assess the effect of the motor recovery score on the FT-related motor activity (threshold p<0.05 FWE; extent threshold k=5). Age and FT rate recorded during the experiment were included as covariates in the second level model.

Results: As a group, the patients showed good recovery at 6 months. Both patients and controls exhibited a typical pattern of FT task-related activity. Activity in primary motor cortex predicted motor recovery at 6 months, after adjustment for age and FT rate. MNI coordinates = [-34,-14,48] See [Figure 1][1].

Conclusions: Primary motor cortex activity, measured soon after stroke onset, predicts motor recovery assessed at 6 months post-stroke. fMRI measurements made in the early phase of stroke recovery could be useful to derive prognostic biomarkers in both clinical practice and clinical trials investigating novel treatments, such as stem cell administration.

![Figure][2] [1]: #F1
 [2]: pending:yes


Real world uses of deep learning require predictable model behavior under distribution shifts. Models such as CLIP show emergent natural distributional robustness comparable to humans, but may require hundreds of millions of training samples. Can we train robust learners in a domain where data is limited? To rigorously address this question, we introduce JANuS (Joint Annotations and Names Set), a collection of four new training datasets with images, labels, and corresponding captions, and perform a series of carefully controlled investigations of factors contributing to robustness in image classification, then compare those results to findings derived from a large-scale meta-analysis. Using this approach, we show that standard ResNet-50 trained with the cross-entropy loss on 2.4 million image samples can attain comparable robustness to a CLIP ResNet-50 trained on 400 million samples. To our knowledge, this is the first result showing (near) state-of-the-art distributional robustness on limited data budgets. Our dataset is available at \url{https://huggingface.co/datasets/penfever/JANuS_dataset}, and the code used to reproduce our experiments can be found at \url{https://github.com/penfever/vlhub/}.


The use of information technology is a cross-cutting actively developing element in the method of investigating mass riots, which in modern conditions acts as a factor in the success of this work. The article reveals the features of the criminal prosecution of riots using information technology. The main areas of using automated data banks and information retrieval systems in the investigation of mass riots are determined. Domestic and foreign possibilities of using information technologies in the organization of investigative work, in accounting and control over the materials of criminal cases on mass riots, in fixing the circumstances of crimes and in proving them are shown. The structure of the program for making and supporting the decision to create a specialized investigative group designed to work in emergency conditions is determined. As part of such a group, it is proposed to immediately organize its own information center with its own databank of episodes and persons, taking into account the primary materials on the facts of riots using the programs intended for this. For the formation of information about the general situation of mass riots, special mathematical models for the study of space-time patterns are intended. Recommendations are formulated to survey a large area and recreate a unified picture of disturbances using quadcopters. To determine the involvement of a person in riots, it is recommended to compare data from various electronic sources, such as email correspondence, electronic documents and mobile communication log files, the history of search queries in web browsers, cards and payment systems, etc. The modern judicial practice of proving participation in mass riots using, along with photo and video materials, the corresponding fragments of records also placed in electronic means is assessed.


We investigate the effects of the convection in the hyperaccretion disc around a stellar-mass black hole, which is considered to be the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with simple analytical calculations. If the convective energy transfer in the vertical direction becomes efficient compared with the inward advective energy transport, the hyperaccretion disc is expected to be hotter and the neutrino emission due to the electron–positron annihilation becomes the most efficient cooling process. We find that the sequence of the thermal equilibrium solutions for the convective hyperaccretion disc would have a viscously unstable branch, especially when the viscosity parameter is relatively small (α≲ 0.01). This means that the sporadical mass accretion on to a black hole would occur in this disc. We propose that this process can be the origin of the highly variable light curves observed in the prompt emissions of GRBs.


Hormonal contraceptives are effective in preventing an unwanted pregnancy, but have side effects; among them stroke occupies an important place. The development of this serious disease may be associated with the hormonal drug components, but heavily dependent on additional risk factors for vascular and thrombotic complications such as smoking, arterial hypertension, genetically determined and acquired predisposition to thrombotic complications. This review presents an analysis of the most important risk factors for stroke such as genetic predisposition, hyperhomocysteinemia, thrombophilias in women using combined oral contraceptives.


This paper reports that the nanostructured β-FeSi2 bulk materials are prepared by a new synthesis process by combining melt spinning (MS) and subsequent spark plasma sintering (SPS). It investigates the influence of linear speed of the rolling copper wheel, injection pressure and SPS regime on microstructure and phase composition of the rapidly solidified ribbons after MS and bulk production respectively, and discusses the effects of the microstructure on thermal transport properties. There are two crystalline phases (α-Fe2Si5 and -FeSi) in the rapidly solidified ribbons; the crystal grains become smaller when the cooling rate increases (the 20 nm minimum crystal of e-FeSi is obtained). Having been sintered for 1 min above 1123 K and annealed for 5min at 923 K, the single-phase nanostructured β-FeSi2 bulk materials with 200–500 nm grain size and 98% relative density are obtained. The microstructure of β-FeSi2 has great effect on thermal transport properties. With decreasing sintering temperature, the grain size decreases, the thermal conductivity of β-FeSi2 is reduced remarkably. The thermal conductivity of β-FeSi2 decreases notably (reduced 72% at room temperature) in comparison with the β-FeSi2 prepared by traditional casting method.


Objective:To understand the infective status of pseudomonas aeruginosa with metallo-β-lactamase and its drug resistance in newborn infection.Methods:After cultivation,the samples were identified by VETEK-32 automatic bacteria system.The incidence of pseudomonas aeruginosa with metallo-β-lactamase was detected by synergy method,the drug resistance of pseudomonas aeruginosa was measured by K-B method.Results:Among 266 strains of pseudomonas aeruginosa,51 strains of pseudomonas aeruginosa were detected with metallo-β-lactamase,the positive rate was 19.17%.The drug resistance rates against piperacillin,ceftazidime,cefoperazone and levofloxacin of metallo-β-lactamase strains were higher than those of non-metallo-β-lactamase strains.The strains producing metallo-β-lactamase had a relative low drug resistance rate against amikacin and partly sensitive to cefoperazone/sulbactam,cefepime and ciprofloxacin.Conclusion:The drug resistance rate of pseudomonas aeruginosa with metallo-β-lactamase increases year by year in newborn infection,the drug resistance rates of metallo-β-lactamase strains and non-metallo-β-lactamase strains against the same drug are different,there is significant difference.More attention should be paid to the detection of pseudomonas aeruginosa with metallo-β-lactamase,which can promote rational use of drug and reduce the incidence of drug resistance.


The humidity of breath can serve as an important health indicator, providing crucial clinical information about human physiology. Significant progress had been made in the development of flexible humidity sensors. However, improving its humidity sensing performance (sensitivity and durability) is still facing many challenges. In this work, near-field electrohydrodynamic direct writing (NFEDW) was proposed to fabricate humidity sensors with high sensitivity and durability for respiration monitoring. Due to the applied electric field, dense carbon nanotube/cellulose nanofiber (CNT/CNF) networks formed during the printing process that enhance the sensitivity of the sensor. The prepared sensor showed excellent humidity responses, with a maximum response value of 61.5% (ΔR/R0) at 95% relative humidity (RH). Additionally, the sensitivity film prepared by the NFEDW method closely fits the poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrate, endowing the sensor with outstanding bending (with a maximum curvature of 4.7 cm-1) and folding durability (up to 50 times). The sensitivity of the prepared sensor under different simulated conditions, namely, nose breathing, mouth breathing, coughing, yawning, breath holding, and speaking, was excellent, demonstrating the potential of the sensor for the real-time monitoring of human breath humidity. Thus, the high-performance flexible humidity sensor is suitable for human respiration and health monitoring.