This review summarizes recent applications of ionic liquids (ILs) as 'green' solvents and extractants in the extraction and separation of Rare Earths (REs), which are widely used in a variety of high-tech products in mining, separation, and smelting can greatly damage the environment. Conventional imidazolium-based ILs as diluents are more active than non-coordinating solvents such as kerosene and n-heptane in the extraction of REs including the co-existing thorium. Imidazolium cations can be involved in REs cation exchange or in forming new complexes with REs(III) ions. Quaternary ammonium- and phosphonium-based ILs with functional anions could be considered as bifunctional IL extractants (Bif-ILEs) for the separation of REs due to their following properties: the capacity to undergo facile synthesis route, high extraction ability and selectivity, low acid-base consumption, and easy stripping. The inner synergistic neutral complex extraction of Bif-ILEs will effectively avoid the production of ammonia-nitrogen or high content of Na+ or Ca2+ in wastewater, which is partly caused by the "saponification" of acidity extractant, such as P507, during the REs industrial separation process. The large amount of wastewater production must be prohibited because of "Emission Standards of Pollutants from Rare Earths Industry" promulgated by China's Ministry of Environment Protection (MOP) in 2011. Serving as extractants, additives, and templates, ILs are likewise used in the preparation of functionalized adsorption materials (i.e., sol-gel silica, Amberlite XAD series resins, IL modified Merrifield resin). These adsorption materials also show high efficiency in the enrichment of dilute leach liquor of the weathered crust elution-deposited REs ore and the enhanced separation of high-value adding heavy REs. The huge environmental challenges from highly polluted REs hydrometallurgy in China require the greener separation technique to solve these issues, and the novel ILs-based separation materials and techniques in both liquid/liquid and liquid/solid extraction and separation of various REs resources are expected to demonstrate the potential practical applications in the future.


Chatterjee, B. R. (Baylor University College of Medicine, Houston, Tex.) and Robert P. Williams. Cytological observations on the chromatin bodies of two Bacillus species. J. Bacteriol. 83:1112–1118. 1962.—The nature of the chromatin bodies in Bacillus anthracis and B. megaterium has been studied intracellularly as well as after isolation from the bacilli. Preparations were examined by phase-contrast microscopy in the living state and by acid-Giemsa and Feulgen staining. In cells from young cultures, chromatin bodies occupy a continuous, long, central area in the bacteria. As the cells mature, the bodies lose their continuity and divide into two halves. In cells grown for 24 hr or longer, the chromatin bodies become more complex, and appear as multiple, spherical, interconnected constellations. Nuclear staining reveals that only the peripheral area, whether in cells from young or older cultures, takes up the stain, leaving a clear, central core. Discrete chromatin bodies are liberated from cells grown for longer periods after disintegration of the bacterial cell wall. These discrete bodies have been isolated from whole bacteria by treating washed, buffered saline suspensions of old cells with high concentrations of lysozyme followed by digestion with purified pancreatic lipase. The isolated chromatin bodies retain the same structure and appearance as inside the cells and show the same staining characteristics. Observations suggest that the chromatin bodies are discrete and circumscribed in nondividing, resting-phase bacteria.


Usefulness of a new continuous intra-arterial blood gas monitoring system (PB3300, Puritan-Bennett, Carlsbad, California) was evaluated in a patient with tracheal cancer who was undergoing tracheal transection and reconstruction. The PB3300 detected continuous changes in pH, PaCO2, and PaO2 during the surgical intervention and provided reliable information to take appropriate therapeutic measures. PB3300 was superior to pulse oximetry because the latter can not detect changes in PaO2 more than 100 mmHg accompanying pulmonary dysfunction caused by surgical procedures. We conclude that the PB3300 is a useful monitor when used during anesthetic management of the patient who needs frequent arterial blood gas analyses.


In the 17th and 18th centuries, people, objects, and texts travelled around the world aboard Dutch ships. This book explores how these circulations transformed the knowledge in Asian and European societies. It focuses on epistemic changes in historiography, geography, religion, philosophy as well as in everyday life. Emphasizing transformations, the volume reconstructs semantic shifts of knowledge as well as adjustments to new cultural contexts


Background: The management modalities for gunshot injuries differ slightly from conventional trauma. The purpose of this study was to document the pattern, mechanism and management outcome of gunshot injuries seen in our center. Method: Information regarding patients' demographics, site and type of injury, tissue involved as well as presence of associated injuries was documented. Patients were categorized into two groups; those that sustained soft and hard tissue Injuries and those with only soft tissue injuries. Soft tissue injuries were classified as laceration, penetrating, perforating or avulsions. The presence of either entry and exit wounds or only entry wound was also examined. The investigations, treatment done and outcome of treatment were also documented. Result: A total of 20 patients presented with gunshot injuries within this period of study out of 132 patients with craniofacial trauma. Of the 20, 15 (75%) were males and females were 5(25%), 9(45%) had both soft and hard tissue injuries, 11(55%) cases had only soft tissue injuries. Age range was 8-55 years with mean (SD) of 29.7 (10.7) years. All injuries were confined either to the midface or the lower face. The bones of the midfacial region (zygomatic bone and, medial wall of the orbit, ethmoidal and nasal bones) were involved in 2(10%) patients and the lower jaw (mandible) was affected in 7(35%).The outcome of treatment was successful in 18(90%) and satisfactory in 17(85%) cases. Conclusion: Secondary repair is more relevant than delayed repair in portions of the face that have less sufficient blood supply that sustain gunshot injuries. Keywords: Gunshot, Injury, repair, Maxillofacial Nigerian Journal of Plastic Surgery Vol. 9, No 2, September 2013


Background Several oncoplastic approaches have been implemented in recent years to enhance cosmetic results and to reduce complications. The round block technique is a volume displacement technique for breast reconstruction after breast-conserving surgery (BCS). However, its indications are currently limited according to tumor location, and its cosmetic results and complications have not been clearly established. We hypothesized that the round block technique could produce favorable cosmetic results without major complications regardless of tumor location or nipple-tumor distance, below a certain resected tumor volume and tumor-breast volume ratio. Methods All breast reconstructions using the round block technique after BCS were included in this analysis. Patients' data were reviewed retrospectively to investigate complications during follow-up, and clinical photos were used to evaluate cosmetic results. The relationships of tumor location, nipple-tumor distance, tumor volume, and the tumor-breast volume ratio with cosmetic results were investigated. Results In total, 108 breasts were reconstructed. The mean resected tumor volume was 30.2±15.0 mL. The cosmetic score was 4.5±0.6 out of 5. Tumor location, nipple-tumor distance, tumor volume, tumor-breast volume ratio, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy had no significant effects on cosmetic results or complications. There were no major complications requiring reoperation. Conclusions Breast reconstruction using the round block technique after BCS can lead to good cosmetic results without major complications regardless of the tumor location, nipple-tumor distance, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy. Below the maximum tumor volume (79.2 mL) and the maximum tumor-breast volume ratio (14%), favorable results were consistently obtained.


Consumer behavior knowledge is essential to designing successful products. However, measuring subjective perceptions affecting this behavior is a complex issue that depends on many factors. Identifying visual cues elicited by the product's appearance is key in many cases. Marketing research on this topic has produced different approaches to the question. This paper proposes the use of Noise-Based Reverse Correlation techniques in the identification of product form features carrying a particular semantic message. This technique has been successfully utilized in social sciences to obtain prototypical images of faces representing social stereotypes from different judgements. In this work, an exploratory study on subcompact cars is performed by applying Noise-Based Reverse Correlation to identify relevant form features conveying a sports car image. The results provide meaningful information about the car attributes involved in communicating this idea, thus validating the use of the technique in this particular case. More research is needed to generalize and adapt Noise-Based Reverse Correlation procedures to different product scenarios and semantic concepts.


A standardised antibiotic surveillance system is an essential requirement of all antibiotic control strategies. Antibiotic use can be quantified accurately using patient-level surveillance, although this is not feasible for most hospitals. Instead, population-level surveillance is a more realistic alternative for ongoing and systematic monitoring of antibiotic use. Monitoring of aggregate, ward-supply data on a monthly basis, stratification by patient care area, and analysis by the anatomical therapeutic chemical/defined daily dose (ATC/DDD) system, adjusting for bed-occupancy, provides a clear picture of antibiotic consumption density and time-trends within a hospital. When usage rates are supplemented and interpreted according to changes in hospital resource indicators, benchmarking is facilitated. This provides an efficient tool for triggering and targeting antibiotic control interventions.


The leachate quality from the two major dumpsites in Port Harcourt (Eliozu and Buscare) was assessed for its physiochemical parameters. Standard methods for analysis of physiochemical parameters were employed in this assessment. It was observed that leachate from both dumpsites had high Biological Oxygen Demand (1002.35mg/l), ammonia (693.15mg/l), chlorides (1907.50mg/l), sulphates (182.05mg/l), Total Dissolved Solids (4882.5mg/l) etc. However, leachate from Buscare dumpsite showed 11.89% higher concentrations of these pollutants. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test was carried out for the various parameters obtained from the two dumpsites to establish if the variation observed between the leachate qualities was significantly different from each other. A calculated Fvalue of 0.070936 which was less than the critical F-value of 4.061706 indicated no difference in the data obtained from both dumpsites. The high BOD, ammonia, sulphate and chloride levels possibly suggest that both dumpsites receive wastes that are basically organic in nature.


Even though a number of studies have focused on museum websites, specific studies about top Italian museums and the services provided online have not been found. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature and investigate the online services performed by top Italian museums. The objective is to determine whether these museums have developed their own website, and what kind of services they provide to their online visitors. The presence or lack of services provided was recorded with the adoption of a descriptive approach, based on qualitative content analysis principles. Results are shown in terms of three kinds of services provided (virtual visit opportunities, e-commerce services, and e-relation tools). Results provide managers a mapping of the services provided by their specific museum. Nevertheless, they need to be expanded with further primary research.


This paper presents a novel approach to locate corresponding regions between two views in urban environments despite the presence of repetitive structures and widely separated views. First we extract hypotheses of building facades, each defined by a rectangular region. The inputs from each pair of regions in two images derive a projective transformation model. Extracted lines and points are used to evaluate the transformation model by voting on the correctness of the model. For each region, we find its corresponding region with the highest votes. Thereafter, we have a set of most corresponding pairs of regions. We take those frequently occurred transformation models (1-3) as correct models since many of the regions in the set come from the same plane, or else they are outliers. We redo the finding most corresponding regions step with the correct transformation models for those outliers with higher votes than the best one among each correct model group. Lastly, we choose the best pair of most corresponding regions with the highest votes among each correct model group. Experimental results show that our approach is effective and reliable in the case of viewpoint, orientation and scale changes.


In this paper, an upsetting problem is analyzed by using a new meshless method called the overrange collocation method (ORCM). By introducing some collocation points, which are located at outside of domain of the analyzed body, unsatisfactory issue of the positivity conditions of boundary points in collocation methods can be avoided. Because the overrange points are used only in interpolating calculation, no over-constrain condition is imposed into solved boundary value problems.


A wireless sensor network of nodes with limited energy is considered. The problem of computing a routing flow that maximizes the network lifetime is formulated as a linear program. We consider a convex optimization problem with a separable objective function that computes an approximate solution to this linear program. Approximation bounds are given for the solution to this approximate problem. A distributed algorithm with a linear convergence is proposed to solve the approximate optimization problem. The approximation can be chosen such that the lifetime given by the approximate problem is arbitrarily close to the optimal lifetime given by the linear program. The main step of the algorithm can be implemented using the Bellman-Ford algorithm for computing the shortest path in a graph.


This thesis comprises of the following three papers: (1) a systematic literature review; (2) a qualitative empirical study; (3) contributions to theory and clinical practice.
The systematic literature review qualitatively summarises 17 papers dated 2013–2015, exploring possible gender differences in young individuals with autism aged 0–18 years old. The results, although mixed due to variability and limitations in study design and methodology, suggested that young individuals with autism may be more similar than
dissimilar in the severity of their core autism symptomatology. However, there may be autism-specific gender differences in the following areas: neurobiological abnormalities; sensory sensitivity; parental distress; the quality and nature of restrictive and repetitive behaviours, interests and activities; and the co-morbidity of other conditions. The clinical and research implications are discussed in detail.
The empirical paper presents an original qualitative exploration of 11 high-functioning autistic women's lived experiences, aged 19–60 years old, around their use or non-use of coping strategies in social situations. A thematic analysis of interview transcripts suggested
that the women used various methods to get by socially. The types of strategies reported were either to mask social skills difficulties and autistic behaviours, or, to compensate for certain social skills limitations. Alternatively some of the women had dropped previously used 'acts' and others had never wished to compensate or mask, preferring to be open and honest. Regardless of the coping approach used, the women experienced more negative outcomes
than positive ones from their social experiences. The clinical and research implications of these findings are explored.
The third paper discusses the theoretical, clinical, and research implications of the above papers in further detail.


In previous studies we have reported that patients with mild atopic eczema have enhanced lymphocyte mitogenesis while those with severe disease have markedly suppressed responses. Similarly, histamine in low concentrations enhanced mitogenesis while higher levels inhibit mitogen stimulated thymidine uptake. In the present study, we investigated the kinetics of this response and the interaction of histamine with its cell-surface receptors on lymphocytes. Histamine (10(-3) M) markedly inhibited [3H]-thymidine incorporation to 27% of control levels when added at the beginning of a 72 h culture period. When added after 24 and 48 h of culture, however, the suppression was much less (62 and 88% of control). Lymphocyte cultures pulsed for 1 h with histamine, washed free of the agent and then cultured with mitogen also showed marked suppression of [3H]-thymidine uptake. The kinetics of the response suggest that histamine acts to inhibit initial processing or recruitment steps in the mitogenic assay. Cimetidine, an H2-receptor blocking agent, prevented the suppressive effect of high levels of histamine while diphenhydramine, an H1 blocker, abolished the enhancement observed with low levels. Pre-incubation of mononuclear cell suspensions, which has been shown to decrease suppressor activity, resulted in a decreased response to added histamine. This change in histamine responsiveness was associated with an alteration in H1:H2 histamine binding as determined with a radiolabelled ligand-binding assay. Histamine suppression of mitogenesis was associated with an increase in cellular cAMP levels while enhancement was accompanied by a small increase in cGMP. These data suggest that lymphocyte function may be regulated, in part, by histamine receptor bearing cells with H1 stimulation having a role in enhancement of mitogenesis and H2 stimulation resulting in normal suppressor activity.


In this paper, we discuss the development of a generic suite of simulation models that can be parameterised to show the performance of general hospitals in England with respect to waiting times. The models can be parameterised to suit particular hospitals using both nationally available data and data collected at each hospital. The models are intended to allow hospital managers to experiment with different approaches to performance improvement and also regulators to assess the likely performance of hospitals. The aim is to add quantitative insights to the qualitative debate in which policy is often formed.


This interpretivist qualitative study used a life history method to analyze the foundational tenets of experiential learning in agricultural education and determine if the tenets are common to the components of authentic learning. The four tenets of experiential learning in agricultural education were: learning through real-life contexts (Dewey, 1938), learning by doing (Knapp, cited in Lever, 1952), learning through projects (Stimson, 1919), and learning through solving problems (Lancelot, 1944). The four tenets of experiential learning were conceptually aligned with the three criteria of authentic learning (Wehlage, Newmann, & Secada, 1996) because experiential learning engages students to solve problems inductively, actively use and explain knowledge through solving problems, and make connections and apply knowledge beyond the classroom and school, based on real-life problems. Teacher educators, preservice teachers, and in-service teachers of agriculture should base their instruction on an experiential learning model that is grounded on the philosophies of Dewey, Knapp, Stimson, and Lancelot, and aligned with Newmann and Associates (1996) authentic learning standards because it is likely to provide a sound psychological framework for learning.


PurposeThe adaptability of multi-functional industrial buildings can be an important factor in their reuse. This utility requires the evaluation of factors that are effective apart from physical interventions. Therefore, this study used a combined method to investigate the factors affecting the reuse of the case studies of Iran and their adaptation to the theories proposed in the field of industrial heritage. This study aims to achieve effective strategies in adaptive reuse of industrial heritage buildings.Design/methodology/approachHence, six factors in the economic, social, technological, environmental and legal sectors were analyzed based on PESTEL analysis and the interactions of the proposed matrix factors were evaluated. The results from this evaluation were integrated based on conceptual similarities and examined by SWOT technique as the main factors. Finally the criteria obtained from SWOT analysis has been approved by a Delphi survey.FindingsConsequently, the interaction of the findings to determine the strategy was multiplied in a matrix and the resulting concepts were identified. Finally, 23 strategies were extracted as the factors affecting the reuse of industrial heritage buildings and dealing with future issues. According to the results, the most important strategies are government policies and interventions. Also, the determination of the status of ownership, supervision by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage over the preservation and revitalization of industrial heritage buildings and intervention policies for defining the uses related to an industrial building fall into this category.Originality/valueThe findings of this study indicate that an adaptive view of the above strategies and the indicators of each factor could affect the adaptive reuse of the industrial heritage.


Introduction There is no standard methodology for outlining the intricacies of allied healthcare education (AHE) or its quality. The profound misconception is that quality assurance (QA) in AHE is used on a "voluntary" basis. Given the absence of statutory regulatory mechanisms such as accreditation, validation, and audit by the peripheral agencies concerning QA, adoption of QA measures in AHE is not consistent, and it results in producing a subpar allied health workforce. This paper analyzes the need to include QA measures as an essential domain in evaluating the effectiveness of allied health professional education programs. Method A large database search was performed using pertinent terms, and a blueprint was developed for a meticulous literature review published between 2015 and 2021. Five hundred eighty-two articles were found and screened; a critical appraisal was performed for 22 peer-reviewed articles for relevant information. Results The literature review identified the need to use academic domains such as leadership, planning, delivery, and feedback as QA criteria to evaluate the efficiency of education and training in allied health professional education programs. Instructors and facilitators for specific knowledge and skill development and a description of their roles should also be used in QA evaluation. Conclusion Resources for effective learning and teaching in the allied healthcare domain are limited. This review highlights the significant need to include a QA system in AHE, considering the pivotal role of these students in supporting humankind, now and in the future. The findings contribute to the research by providing essential insights into current trends and focusing on existing research in AHE quality.


Time-of-flight (TOF) depth cameras provide robust depth inference at low power requirements in a wide variety of consumer and industrial applications. These cameras reconstruct a single depth frame from a given set of infrared (IR) frames captured over a very short exposure period. Operating in this mode the camera essentially forgets all information previously captured - and performs depth inference from scratch for every frame. We challenge this practice and propose using previously captured information when inferring depth. An inherent problem we have to address is camera motion over this longer period of collecting observations. We derive a probabilistic framework combining a simple but robust model of camera and object motion, together with an observation model. This combination allows us to integrate information over multiple frames while remaining robust to rapid changes. Operating the camera in this manner has implications in terms of both computational efficiency and how information should be captured. We address these two issues and demonstrate a realtime TOF system with robust temporal integration that improves depth accuracy over strong baseline methods including adaptive spatio-temporal filters.


Solvability is a key notion in the theory of call-by-name λ -calculus, used in particular to identify meaningful terms. However, adapting this notion to other call-by-name calculi, or extending it to different models of computation – such as call-by-value – , is not straightforward. In this paper, we study solvability for call-by-name and call-by-value λ -calculi with generalized applications, both variants inspired from von Plato's natural deduction with generalized elimination rules. We develop an operational as well as a logical theory of solvability for each of them. The operational characterization relies on a notion of solvable reduction for generalized applications, and the logical characterization is given in terms of typability in an appropriate non-idempotent intersection type system. Finally, we show that solvability in generalized applications and solvability in the λ -calculus are equivalent notions.


Capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements up to 800 VDC were made on a modified lead-zirconate (PbZrO/sub 3/) 20-layer multilayer ceramic (MLC) antiferroelectric power-electronic capacitor, with large energy-density storage capability. For these a precision impedance analyzer was used, in conjunction with a high-voltage capacitor dc-bias circuit configured for voltage-isolation from the analyzer input. A peak effective permittivity /spl epsiv/ /spl sim/ 4300 was derived at the capacitance peak of 133 nF at 400-V dc-bias, yielding an energy density storage of /spl sim/0.5 J/cc in the device volume of 0.022 cc. Modeling of the experimental C-V response was applied to three conceptual series-connected capacitance regions within each grain and grain-boundary region of the MLC. The equivalent capacitance component for the first region was derived from the voltage-dependent polarizations within a ferroelectric and/or antiferroelectric grain. This involved application of differing Langevin functions for modeling the ferroelectric and antiferroelectric polarizations. That for the second region related to the voltage and frequency dependence of the equivalent p-n junction capacitance at opposite sides of a grain-boundary and compensation-region, with Debye-type relaxation constants relating its frequency dependence. The third capacitance region was associated with the insulator-barrier region itself. Agreement between experimental and theoretical C-V-f responses was considered to be good, in view of the number of modeling parameters and variables employed.


The choice of consumer healthcare and wellbeing technologies has never been greater, and the introduction of consumer wearable technologies and inexpensive sensor kits means that developing bespoke personalized health devices is now possible. For example, there is a growing community making DIY diabetes technologies and the trend is spreading to other health areas where people want to design, customize, manufacture and disseminate their own DIY health and wellbeing technologies. Although the CHI community has started to investigate these trends, the pace that motivated open-source health 'makers' and 'hackers' are developing technologies means that there is a need to bring together researchers to discuss the HCI implications of this changing landscape.


The structural evolution of GeSe2 glass during aging is studied using Raman spectroscopy and density relaxation measurements. The Raman spectra indicate volume- and entropy-driven changes in the relative concentrations of the corner-sharing (CS) and edge-sharing (ES) GeSe4 tetrahedra and in the degree of chemical order of the tetrahedral network during aging at 65 °C below the nominal glass transition temperature. The attendant structural changes involve a progressive increase in the CS:ES ratio and in the chemical order that can be expressed in the form of a reaction Ge-Ge + Se-Se → 2 Ge-Se, which shifts to the right, with lowering of fictive temperature. The isothermal relaxation of both the structure and density during aging displays rather similar stretched exponential kinetics with a stretching exponent β ∼0.54 and an average relaxation time of ∼13.5 h. In situ high-temperature Raman spectroscopic measurements indicate that structural relaxation does not affect the anharmonicity of the vibrational potential wells in the energy landscape of GeSe2 glass.


"Medical knowledge and training have evolved dramatically over the centuries, but the tradition of dedicated physicians sharing their knowledge, skills, experience, and wisdom with the next generation of young medical students is still vital. Much of today's medical training is of a technical nature, but in reality physicians are as much artists as technicians, and the art of medicine is a skill that cannot be learned in a classroom. As Hippocrates put it a long time ago, the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients is foolish." -from the Foreword, by Stuart P. Embury, M.D. As medical education curricula continue to evolve, many medical schools are implementing programs that allow students to spend a portion of their time observing primary care physicians in their offices. Currently, more than 20,000 physicians are precepting medical students in this way, and the number will grow as more and more educational programs attempt to move medical student experiences into the community. In Precepting Medical Students in the Office, Paul M. Paulman, M.D., Jeffrey L. Susman, M.D., and Cheryl A. Abboud, M.P.A., bring together experts in the field of family medicine to provide a how-to guide to educating medical students in the patient-care setting. The contributors cover subjects that range from defining the scope of preceptorship to managing the costs, working with medical schools and local hospitals, integrating the student into the practice, providing feedback, problem learners, and teaching styles. Section topics: Introduction to Community-Based Precepting * Characteristics and Needs of Learners * Clinical Teaching * Organization of the Preceptorship Curriculum * Relationships to Medical Schools and Other Agencies * Legal and Ethical Aspects of Precepting * Faculty Benefits and Resources


Simulation is widely used to measure credit risk in portfolios of loans, bonds, and other instruments subject to possible default. This analysis requires performing the difficult modeling task of capturing the dependence between obligors adequately. Current methods assume a form for the joint distribution of the obligors and match its parameters to given dependence specifications, usually correlations. The value-at-risk risk measure (a function of its tail quantiles) is then evaluated. This procedure is naturally limited by the form assumed, and might not approximate well the "worst-case" possible over all joint distributions that match the given specification. We propose a procedure that approximates the joint distribution with chessboard distributions, and provides a sequence of improving estimates that asymptotically approach this "worst-case" value-at-risk. We use it to experimentally compare the quality of the estimates provided by the earlier procedures


We report the phase diagram for the superconducting system (7Li1−xFexOD)FeSe and contrast it with that of (Li1−xFexOH)FeSe both in single crystal and powder forms. Samples were prepared via hydrothermal methods and characterized by laboratory and synchrotron X-ray diffraction, high-resolution neutron powder diffraction (NPD), and high intensity NPD. We find a correlation between the tetragonality of the unit cell parameters and the critical temperature, Tc, which is indicative of the effects of charge doping on the lattice and formation of iron vacancies in the FeSe layer. We observe no appreciable isotope effect on the maximum Tc in substituting H by D. The NPD measurements definitively rule out an antiferromagnetic ordering in the non-superconducting (Li1−xFexOD)FeSe samples below 120 K, which has been reported in non-superconducting (Li1−xFexOH)FeSe. A likely explanation for the observed antiferromagnetic transition in (Li1−xFexOH)FeSe samples is the formation of impurities during their preparation such as Fe3O4 and LixFeO2, which express a charge ordering transition known as the Verwey transition near 120 K. The concentration of these oxide impurities is found to be dependent on the concentration of the lithium hydroxide reagent and the use of H2O vs. D2O as the solvent during synthesis. We also describe the reaction conditions that lead to some of our superconducting samples to exhibit ferromagnetism below Tc.


Background /Introduction : Learning is challenging, particularly for mature students undertaking part time courses whether in a face to face or online distance learning situation. These individuals may be returning to tertiary education after a long break or even starting out for the first time. The challenges these students face are numerous. They can quite often have significantly more demands on their time then other types of students. Engagement, whether inside or outside the classroom, and critical thinking are essential components for any learning experience. Making them feel part of the course by engaging with them in different ways can offer these types of students a support structure which helps them with their learning. Wikis and blogs are now being used in both assessment and teaching to promote student engagement and critical thinking (1, 2). Technological Implementation: To support the students in their wider learning activities a public blog was created - entitled LectureHub. Within the blog, material and questions were posted as a supplemental resource to the teaching. The posts were a mixture of rich multi-media, including text, audio, video and images. Posts were made on a weekly basis soon after lectures and acted as a prod and reminder for the students to review their own learning. The blog is accessible by smartphone, tablet or personal computer. It has been set up as open access and requires no authentication ensuring learners may access it at any time of the day to facilitate their learning. Additional functionality enabled the learners to collectively comment on the posts that they found interesting or those they wished to query or raise questions about. Some of the students sent information directly to the lecturer to create further posts which they thought might be helpful for their peers. Review: The feedback for the blog has been primarily excellent, with students saying they found it not only very useful but they also felt they would like to use it again in their future studies. The blog also allowed the lecturer to act as curator of information from across the web that was deemed relevant to the subjects provided by learners and facilitator/s. The focus now for the blog is to try encourage active participation by students in the comments section of the posts to create a more interactive learning experience.


The mechanisms that regulate the maintenance of stem cell self‐renewal versus differentiation are complex and remain mostly unknown. Understanding neurogenesis and neural cell differentiation presents a unique challenge for the treatment of nervous system disorders. To gain more insight into molecular mechanisms of the differentiation of neural cells, we combined the advantage of porcine fetal neural stem cells (NSCs) in vitro differentiation model and proteomic analysis. Using 2‐DE followed by MS, we profiled constituent proteins of NSCs and their differentiated progenies at first and then indicated protein species that were significantly up‐ or down‐regulated during the differentiation. The largest identified group of constituent proteins was related to RNA and protein metabolism and processing, including chaperones, and the second largest consisted of proteins involved in cell organization (cytoskeleton and annexins). Differentiation of neural cells was found to be accompanied by changes in the expression of proteins involved in DNA and RNA binding, mRNA processing and transport, stress responses, iron storage, and redox regulation. Additional immunoblot analysis verified the induction of α‐B crystallin and heterogenous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs) A1 and A2/B1. Furthermore, immunocytochemistry demonstrated specific localization of α‐B crystallin in the cytoplasm or nucleus of glial cells and confirmed cellular expression patterns of hnRNPs A1 and A2/B1. These findings represent a significant step towards understanding neural cell differentiation and identification of the regulatory proteins associated with this process.


In the article, the author considers essential features of the Russian pension system as well as its development prospects. Several alternatives are studied and, consequently, the author has substantiated that it is necessary to create a domestic development concept based on the Russian values which would be aimed at strengthening the unity of the people and the harmony in society in the center of which an individual is placed.


In this paper, we present a comparison of the performance of a series of embedded atom method potentials for the evaluation of bulk and small aluminium cluster geometries and relative energies, against benchmark density functional theory calculations. In general, the non-pairwise potential-B (NP-B), which was parametrized against Al cluster data, performs the best.


MOTIVATION
With the rapid development of modern technologies, massive data are available for the systematic study of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Though many existing AD studies mainly focus on single-modality omics data, multi-omics datasets can provide a more comprehensive understanding of AD. To bridge this gap, we proposed a novel structural Bayesian factor analysis framework (SBFA) to extract the information shared by multi-omics data through the aggregation of genotyping data, gene expression data, neuroimaging phenotypes and prior biological network knowledge. Our approach can extract common information shared by different modalities and encourage biologically related features to be selected, guiding future AD research in a biologically meaningful way.

METHOD
Our SBFA model decomposes the mean parameters of the data into a sparse factor loading matrix and a factor matrix, where the factor matrix represents the common information extracted from multi-omics and imaging data. Our framework is designed to incorporate prior biological network information. Our simulation study demonstrated that our proposed SBFA framework could achieve the best performance compared with the other state-of-the-art factor-analysis-based integrative analysis methods.

RESULTS
We apply our proposed SBFA model together with several state-of-the-art factor analysis models to extract the latent common information from genotyping, gene expression and brain imaging data simultaneously from the ADNI biobank database. The latent information is then used to predict the functional activities questionnaire score, an important measurement for diagnosis of AD quantifying subjects' abilities in daily life. Our SBFA model shows the best prediction performance compared with the other factor analysis models.

AVAILABILITY
Code are publicly available at https://github.com/JingxuanBao/SBFA.

CONTACT
email@example.com.


Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a remarkably heterogeneous neurobiological disorder. This characteristic is aetiologically mediated by genetic and environmental factors. Numerous studies have shown that different genes play a moderate but complex role in the aetiology of ADHD. Significant associations have been identified with several candidate genes for this disorder, including DAT1, DRD4, DRD5, 5HTT, HTR1B or SNAP25. The neurocognitive models of ADHD have been largely based on the findings from neuroimaging studies conducted in patients with ADHD, when establishing hypotheses capable of explaining the clinical features that are observed. From a neurobiological point of view, the genetic architecture of these patients or the interaction of the above-mentioned genes should at least partially account for the neuroanatomical and neuropsychological findings observed, which explains the axiomatic antithesis in the title. Nevertheless, the results of studies into the relationship between the genotyping and the neuroimaging or psychological findings are scarce and contradictory. The methodological differences in the volumetric analyses, the sizes of the populations studied, the neuropsychological batteries that are used, the presence of previous pharmacological treatment or comorbidity could account for these results.


This paper presents a simple, straightforward analysis of a Foster-Seeley discriminator. Because this analysis differs from the classical approach, it can be seen that there are two distinct sources of distortion. These sources are the resonant circuit of the discriminator and the output portion of the circuit. An analytic proof of the linearity of the output portion is given. It is shown that the resonant circuit is the dominant source of distortion and that it may be minimized by proper selection of circuit components.


Lymphangioma is a benign tumour of lymphatic origin. Lymphangioma in peritoneal cavity is extremely rare (5%), particularly in adults. Hereby, we are reporting a case of a Malay gentleman with no co morbidity presented with sign and symptoms of intestinal obstruction. We proceeded with exploratory laparotomy with small bowel resection with primary anastomosis. Intraoperatively, revealed soft mesenteric mass measuring around 5X5 cm and it was 80 cm from duodenumjejunum flexure. Histopathological examination showed mesenteric cystic lymphangioma (MCL). Cystic intra-abdominal mass should be included MCL as a diagnosis although it's rare. Surgical management is still a mainstay of treatment due to its potential to invade vital structures and develop life threatening complication such as intestinal obstruction and bleeding. The surgical outcome after a complete clear margin resection can avoid recurrence.


Background FDG-PET has proven to be useful during the initial staging of several tumor types. The aim of the present study was to assess the accuracy of this test in the assessment of initial axillary status in patients referred to treatment with induction chemotherapy. Material and Methods: Women with stage II-IIIA (tumors measuring ≥3cm or positive-staged axillary involvement) to be treated with neoadjuvant Docetaxel-Doxorubicin-Cyclophosphamide (TAC scheme) were included. In every patient a physical exam, MRI, ultrasound-guided FNAB and FDG-PET were performed prior starting chemotherapy. The criteria to consider the axilla to be initially positive were positive surgical staging or type-D pathological response (Miller-Payne) in the axilla. The ability of FDG-PET to predict pathological response in patients with breast cancer was assessed and compared with other routine procedures. Results: 42 patients (p) were included. Median age was 45 years (30-66). 11p (26.2%) were triple-negative. 2p (4.8%) were Her-2 +. By clinical stage, 13p (30.9%) were IIA, 17p (40.4%) IIB and 12p (28.2%) IIIA. 41p (97.6%) underwent surgery after induction chemotherapy. According to surgical staging 31p (75.6%) were deemed to be N+ from the diagnosis (19p with pathologic N1-3a and 12p with type-D nodal response). PET scan positively detected deposits in the axilla in 26p (83.9%) of those patients compared to 22p (70.9%) with ultrasound-FNAB, 19p (61.3%) physical exam and 14p (45.2%) MRI. Conclusions: In this study FDG-PET could predict axillary involvement more precisely than other routine staging procedures in these patients submitted to be treated with induction chemotherapy. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-09-08.


This essay engages with the biographical picture Periyar (2007) to analyze how history is represented through the life of one of the most significant revolutionary figures in Indian politics of the last century. It explores the representation of Periyar through the persona of Sathyaraj, a leading star of Tamil cinema, and analyzes the episodic structure of the film to study the strength and weaknesses of making a biopic on the life and times of an iconic leader for a mainstream audience. On the one hand, such a project entails addressing all the significant events along with the key figures who played a major role in Periyar's revolutionary politics of dismantling caste and religion. On the other, the lengthy storyline based on Periyar's eventful life disallows the time for reflection and the focus on the deeper philosophy of Periyar's radicalism, for instance, his investment in public drama as a theater of protest.


Dry sliding friction and wear properties of A356/SiC composites against AISI D2 were analyzed by means of SEM,XRD and EDS.Results indicated that the wear rate of A356/SiC increased with increase of the applied load.Mild wear took place under lower load,transferring to severe wear at the load heavier than 400 N.Mechanical mixed layer(MML) formed on worn surface during dry sliding friction process,whose thickness became deeper with increasing load.Cracks formed easily in MML and spread transversely,resulting in peeling wear.The wear mechanism of the composite is that oxidation wear mechanism was dominant under low load,with the formation of tiny powdery debris.As the load enhanced,peeling wear was primary due to laminar debris detached from the MML,including oxidation and adhesive wear at the same time,with the load at 350-450 N,adhesive wear with irregular debris and peeling wear were predominant.


Structure computation can be carried out in the very early steps of architectural design thanks to the generalization of the use of computers. So, architects can be interested by specific computing tools dedicated to mechanical simulations in design process, especially using interactivity. Researches on these kinds of tools are developed by the ARIAM-LAREA team in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris La Villette, using graphic statics with a dynamic geometry software, finite element method and tensile structure software. The specificities of such tools are presented through historical examples and students projects.


The synthesis and characterization of air-stable palladium dioxygen complexes Pd(O2)L2 of basic phosphines L = P(1-Ad)2nBu, PtBu2nBu is described. Contrary to general belief, these dioxygen complexes are stable catalyst precursors for palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions. Specifically, palladium-catalyzed formylations and alkoxy carbonylations of aryl bromides proceed in high yield in air using commercial non-degassed solvents. It is shown that Pd(O2)L2 complexes are reduced back to the catalytically active palladium(0) species in the reductive atmosphere of CO or H2 at the onset of the carbonylation reaction.


Summary form only given. Pass-transistor based circuits such as complementary pass-transistor logic (CPL) have recently emerged as strong contenders for implementation of high-performance arithmetic operations (Yano et al, 1996). The single-ended version known as LEAP offers the advantage of lower power in addition to high performance. The nMOS pass-transistor based circuits with partially-depleted SOI devices offer significant performance improvement over bulk-CMOS due to the absence of reverse body effects in the floating body configuration (thus minimising the V/sub T/ loss in passing the "high" state and improving the driving capability). This paper examines the effect of hysteretic V/sub T/ variation on the performance of LEAP and CPL circuits. The device used in this study has L/sub eff/=0.12 /spl mu/m, t/sub ox/=3.5 nm, t/sub Si/=200 nm, t/sub BOX/=400 nm, and the supply voltage (V/sub DD/) is 1.8 V.


The reaction of trifluoromethylated tertiary bromides with isonitriles induced by visible light is reported. Defluorination was avoided in a radical process. This method provides an efficient approach to compounds containing a trifluoromethylated quaternary carbon center, most of which show excellent potential to be agrochemicals. In addition, the bromides were prepared from perfluoroisobutylene, which is a waste from industry, after several steps. This reaction shows a feasible transfer of harmful waste into useful compounds.


Named Data Networking (NDN), a clean-slate data oriented Internet architecture targeting on replacing IP, brings many potential benefits for content distribution. Real deployment of NDN is crucial to verify this new architecture and promote academic research, but work in this field is at an early stage. Due to the fundamental design paradigm difference between NDN and IP, Deploying NDN as IP overlay causes high overhead and inefficient transmission, typically in streaming applications. Aiming at achieving efficient NDN streaming distribution, this paper proposes a transitional architecture of NDN/IP hybrid network dubbed Centaur, which embodies both NDN's smartness, scalability and IP's transmission efficiency and deployment feasibility. In Centaur, the upper NDN module acts as the smart head while the lower IP module functions as the powerful feet. The head is intelligent in content retrieval and self-control, while the IP feet are able to transport large amount of media data faster than that if NDN directly overlaying on IP. To evaluate the performance of our proposal, we implement a real streaming prototype in ndnSIM and compare it with both NDN-Hippo and P2P under various experiment scenarios. The result shows that Centaur can achieve better load balance with lower overhead, which is close to the performance that ideal NDN can achieve. All of these validate that our proposal is a promising choice for the incremental and compatible deployment of NDN.


Background The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the type of inhaled medication, length of use, dosing, the inhaler use technique and the severity and duration of disease on the dental caries of asthmatic patients. Objectives In the present study, the frequency of dental caries in the asthmatic patients and control group was examined. In addition the possible association of dental caries with disease duration, disease severity, asthma symptoms, chest wheeze, PFT values, and dose of medication and inhalation use technique was evaluated. Materials and Methods 40 asthmatic patients of both sex (20-30 years old) and 40 age and sex matched controls were studied. In asthmatic patients, the type, dose, duration of medications, the technique of inhaler use and severity and duration of the disease were recorded. The dental health status including DT, MT, FT and DMFT (decay, missing, filling teeth) were examined. In addition, pulmonary function tests (PFTs) were performed for both groups. Results All PFT variables in asthmatic patients were significantly lower than those of control group except for FVC (P < 0.001 for all cases). All indices of dental caries in asthmatic group were higher than those of controls which was statistically significant for MT and DMFT (P < 0.005 for both cases). Only FT and DMFT in patients with 11-15 years asthma duration were significantly more than those of 6-10 years (P < 0.05 for both cases). There was no significant correlation between indices of dental caries and disease duration, PFT values; doses of medication or the technique of inhaler use; although the technique of inhaler use was relatively acceptable in all asthmatic patients. Conclusions These results showed that dental caries among asthmatic patients was more common than control group which can be due to using inhaler drugs or the technique of inhaler use.


Rodents are the most diverse order of extant mammals, and caviomorph rodents, or New World hystricognaths, have a remarkable morphological disparity and a long fossil record that begins in the Eocene. Chinchilloidea is a poorly understood clade within Caviomorpha, from an evolutionary and phylogenetic perspective. It includes the extant families Chinchillidae and Dinomyidae, the extinct Neoepiblemidae and Cephalomyidae, and several extinct chinchilloids without a clear phylogenetic position, like Eoincamys, Borikenomys, Chambiramys, Ucayalimys, Incamys, Saremmys, Garridomys and Scotamys. The family Chinchillidae includes the extant Chinchilla and Lagidium, grouped in Chinchillinae, and the only living Lagostominae, Lagostomus maximus. Among extinct chinchillids, Eoviscaccia (early Oligocene‐early Miocene of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile), Prolagostomus (early‐middle Miocene of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile) and Pliolagostomus (early‐middle Miocene of Argentina) are the only genera originally described as members of the family. Based on the study of specimens with unworn or little‐worn cheek teeth, belonging to extinct and extant taxa, we propose homologies of the cheek teeth structures and perform a combined molecular and morphological phylogenetic analysis including extinct and extant taxa of all families of Chinchilloidea and all genera of Chinchillidae. Our phylogenetic analysis recovered three major lineages in the evolutionary history of Chinchilloidea. The first major lineage is composed of the extant taxa Chinchilla, Lagidium and Lagostomus, and the extinct genera Eoviscaccia, Prolagostomus, Pliolagostomus, Garridomys, Incamys, Loncolicu and Saremmys. Cephalomyid (Banderomys, Cephalomys, Litodontomys, Soriamys) and neoepiblemid (Neoepiblema, Perimys, Phoberomys, Scotamys) genera are part of the second major lineage, while dinomyids such as Dinomys, Drytomomys, Scleromys, 'Scleromys' and Tetrastylus constitute the third major lineage within Chinchilloidea. The phylogenetic position of some taxa previously considered as incertae sedis chinchilloids or without a clear suprageneric group (i.e. Incamys, Saremmys, Garridomys and Loncolicu) show that they belong to pan‐Chinchillidae and conform the stem Chinchillidae along with Eoviscaccia. The euhypsodont crown Chinchillidae includes the living subfamilies Chinchillinae and Lagostominae. Dinomyidae and Eoincamys pascuali are recovered as the sisters of a major clade composed by 'Cephalomyidae'+Neopiblemidae and pan‐Chinchillidae, and Chambiramys sylvaticus occupies a basal position to the same clade. Four major radiation events are identified in the evolutionary history of Chinchilloidea. The analysis of new morphological characters linked with molecular evidence as well as the addition of taxa of uncertain or unstable phylogenetic position or not considered in previous studies allowed us resolve part of the relationships within Chinchilloidea, particularly that of Chinchillidae, supporting preceding morphological hypotheses.


A sensor network has been developed consisting of four RF nodes that automatically set up a network organization and synchronize wirelessly. In the system bistatic backscatter and forward scatter radar measurements are combined. For detection of small and slow targets, like humans, suppression of the background including the direct signals between the nodes is crucial. However, measurements have shown that the level of synchronization between the nodes is insufficient for full coherent background subtraction. As a result, detection of small and slow targets based on bistatic backscatter measurements is difficult particularly at short range. Faster moving targets such as cyclists or joggers can be detected. The forward scatter detection of persons traversing the baselines between the nodes is based on amplitude variations of the direct signals and therefore less sensitive to residual synchronization errors. Forward scatter detection of persons crossing the baselines works well even at short range.


The effects of relationship education aimed at individuals, rather than couples, have not yet been widely investigated. However, increasingly, relationship education is provided to large and diverse groups of individuals who may be in varying stages of relationships. Several programs have been developed to strengthen relationship competencies among single individuals as well as among partnered individuals who, for a variety of reasons, seek relationship education without their partners. The current study is an exploratory evaluation study that examined self-reported outcomes for 706 single and partnered individuals who attended Within My Reach classes delivered in community-based agencies. Participants were from diverse backgrounds and exhibited many of the risk factors for poor relationship outcomes including unemployment, low income, and childhood experience of abuse or neglect. Pre-post analyses indicated that the program was beneficial for both singles and partnered individuals. Singles reported increased belief in ability to obtain healthy relationships. Partnered individuals reported increased relationship quality, relationship confidence, and reduced conflict. Regardless of relationship status, participants also reported improvement in general relationship and communication skill. Results support the utility of individual-oriented relationship education for singles and partnered individuals with diverse background characteristics.


Abstract
Objective: To analysed the serum Testosterone in obese and Diabetes Mellitus Type-II Males individuals.
Study design: A Cross-Sectional Comparative Study.
Place and Duration of Study: The patients were recruited from Department of Medicine unit-II Liaquat hospital Jamshoro and analysis at Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, University of Sindh, Jamshoro during the period of April 2018 to September 2018.
Methodology: Total 150 males were included in this study and divided into three group, out of which Group A: n=50 were healthy normal males, Group B: n=50 were obese males(BMI>25) and Group C: n=50 were Type II- diabetic males ages 20-70 years old. Blood sample were collected from the all participants for performing various biochemical tests Fasting blood sugar (FBS)and Random blood sugar (RBS), HbA1c, Insulin, Testosterone by filling Performa and written consent by explaining them about study purpose. The ANOVA test was applied for the analysis of continuous variables. Statistical significance was defined as p-value of ≤ 0.05.
Results: We found significant results of FBS, RBS and HbA1c in T2DM patient as compared to control, but the fasting and HbA1c on upper limit in obese group (p


A multishot in situ pellet injection system has been constructed in the Institute of Plasma Physics. Single- and multi-pellet injection experiments were performed on the HT-6M and superconducting HT-7 tokamaks. The system proved to be convenient and reliable to operate. Pellets were fired into ohmically and LHCD and ICRF heated plasmas. Single pellet injection in ohmic discharge was found to increase the central density of HT-7 by about one half, while two pellet injection increased the central density in a step-like fashion by one half with each shot. Peaking of the electron density profile and a hollow electron temperature profile were obtained.


Cleome gynandra L. (cat whiskers) has traditionally been used for the treatment of rheumatic and other inflammatory conditions. In this work, the methanolic extract of the leaves of C. gynandra exhibited significant anti-inflammatory activity in adjuvant-induced arthritic rats. Phytochemical screening was carried out to ascertain the qualitative composition of the leaves. Arthritis was induced by Freund's complete adjuvant. A significant decrease in paw edema with a remarkable increase in body weight was observed following oral administration of the leaf extract (150 mg/kg of body weight). The alterations in hematological and other biochemical parameters were restored to near normal after a treatment period of 30 days. These results demonstrate that the plant extract has no harmful effect and exerts in vivo anti-inflammatory properties against adjuvant-induced arthritis.


The correlation between flow cytometric ploidy investigation and classic chromosome analysis was studied in 32 human colorectal tumors. Flow cytometry was performed by nuclei isolation and DNA staining with ethidium bromide. Chromosome analysis was done after incubation with colcemid. In 12 cases, chromosome identification was possible by grouping according to the Denver system or by Q-banding. Generally, the measured DNA content corresponded well with the content expected from chromosome analysis, giving an average difference of 4%. In nine tumors, the measured DNA content was 4-18% higher than expected. Some of these discrepancies could be due to difficulties in identifying the corresponding cell populations in heterogeneous tumors. However, in general the number of cell populations and their quantitative representation by the two methods were statistically well correlated. The results indicate that flow cytometric ploidy investigation of colorectal tumors with the present technique is a reliable method, but also that a combination of both techniques may yield additional information about tumor cytogenetics.


In 2005, the EBCTCG meta-analysis demonstrated for the first time that RT after either breast-conserving surgery (BCS) or mastectomy not only reduced local-regional recurrence (LRR), but also improved long-term survival. At the time, they (erroneously) postulated that for every 4 LRR9s avoid at 5 years, there was an additional survivor at 15 years. The EBCTCG subsequently adopted 9any first recurrence9 as the primary endpoint for the effect of RT based on 1 – RT9s established systemic effect in reducing both local and distant recurrence, 2 – that time to LRR is not strictly valid, and 3 – that the ratio between reduction in LRR and improvement in survival no longer held up. The new 9ratio9 is that for every 1.5 first recurrences avoided at 10 years, there is an additional survivor at 20 years. Over the last several decades, there has been a substantial reduction in local recurrence (LR) after BCS and RT. In series of patients treated in the 19709s, 5-year rate of LR was about 10% and in more recent series, it is about 2%. This decrease is attributable to 1 – improved mammographic evaluation, 2 – improved pathologic evaluation, and probably most importantly, 3 – the benefit seen with the addition of adjuvant systemic therapy. Also, over this time frame, risk factors for LR evolved with approximated subtype using ER, PR, HER2 status and either grade or Ki-67 now the main risk factor. 5-year LR is 6% for triple negative cancers and only about 1% for Luminal A cancers. Finally, hypofractionated breast irradiation has been established as at least equal to conventional fractionation. Updated EBCTCG results show consistent proportional benefits for RT after either BCS or mastectomy although the absolute benefit is quite small in many subgroups. The addition of RT to BCS improves 15-year mortality by 8.5% in node-positive patients, but only 3.3% in node-negative patients. Additionally, in the context of routine adjuvant systemic therapy, breast tangential irradiation (that treats much of the lower axilla) is sufficient to avoid regional recurrence if only 1 or 2 sentinel nodes are involved obviating the need for cALND. Also, there is evidence that internal mammary node and supraclavicular irradiation can improve 10-year disease-free survival in some patients treated with ALND. Critical issues currently include: 1. Which patients can be spared RT after BCS? The CALGB has established hormonal therapy alone as a reasonable option in patients aged > 70 years with largely low-grade, node-negative, ER+ breast cancer. Efforts are underway to identify additional ER+ patients who can be adequately managed by hormonal therapy alone. We are testing this approach in patients aged 50-75 with node-negative Luminal A cancers as determined by the Prosigna PAM-50 assay. 2. Which patients can be treated with hypofractionated RT? Available evidence is that it is nearly all patients getting breast tangents assuming adequate dose homogeneity. 3. In patients with 1 or 2 + SN9s, should they receive high tangents (per Z-11) or full axillary and SC irradiation (per MA.20)? No easy answer, but one can use MD Anderson nomogram to estimate likelihood of + nSN9s. If this is Citation Format: Harris JR. Critical Decision Making in Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer in 2015. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PL1.


Specialized dictionaries are used to understand concepts in specific domains, especially where those concepts are not part of the general vocabulary, or having meanings that differ from ordinary languages. The first step in creating a specialized dictionary involves detecting the characteristic vocabulary of the domain in question. Classical methods for detecting this vocabulary involve gathering a domain corpus, calculating statistics on the terms found there, and then comparing these statistics to a background or general language corpus. Terms which are found significantly more often in the specialized corpus than in the background corpus are candidates for the characteristic vocabulary of the domain. Here we present two tools, a directed crawler, and a distributional semantics package, that can be used together, circumventing the need of a background corpus. Both tools are available on the web.


Case of a 31 years old woman suffering from I and II type atrioventricular heart block, acute exogenic psychosis, intermittent type of fever and arthritis of right knee was described by the authors. The non typical clinical picture, the extremely elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and the exogenic type of psychosis caused differential diagnostic difficulties. Besides polysymptomatic autoimmune disorder, Lyme disease as emerged although there were no data of vector bite. In the consequence of steroid and combined antibiotic treatment the patient became immediately apyretic and the sedimentation rate returned to the normal limit. The psychotic symptoms have disappeared only two weeks following Ceftriaxon's and Doxycyclin's management. The high titer Borrelia seropositivity reserved to apply the diagnosis of Lyme disease.


The current discourse around gentrification has been primarily focused on an economic understanding of gentrification. That is, that the gentrification can be primarily viewed through changes in housing prices in an area. That this increase is the sole and primary cause of displacement. While this economic explanation is an important component, it is not the only cause. The image, or perception of, a neighborhood changes as its socio-demographic and socio-economic circumstances change. As these circumstances change a process of replacement occurs and the social ecosystem begins to shift. This leads to the experiential phenomenon of gentrification, where the richness of social life declines as differing views and experiences are removed. This paper proposes a methodology for using metadata, specifically data concerning the entropy, or level of uncertainty or disorder, in demographic data to try to detect these changes and then applies this method to the City of Atlanta, in particular the areas around the Atlanta Beltline Eastside Trail.


Amorphous silicon carbide films are deposited by the plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique, and optical emissions from the near-infrared to the visible are obtained. The optical band gap of the films increases from 1.91 eV to 2.92 eV by increasing the carbon content, and the photoluminescence (PL) peak shifts from 1.51 eV to 2.16 eV. The band tail state PL mechanism is confirmed by analysing the optical band gap, PL intensity, the Stocks shift of the PL, and the Urbach energy of the film. The PL decay times of the samples are in the nanosecond scale, and the dependence of the PL lifetime on the emission energy also supports that the optical emission is related to the radiative recombination in the band tail state.


We study the Pareto frontier of two archetypal objectives in stochastic bandits, namely, regret minimization (RM) and best arm identification (BAI) with a fixed horizon. It is folklore that the balance between exploitation and exploration is crucial for both RM and BAI, but exploration is more critical in achieving the optimal performance for the latter objective. To make this precise, we first design and analyze the BOBW-LIL'UCB(γ) algorithm, which achieves order-wise optimal performance for RM or BAI under different values of γ. Complementarily, we show that no algorithm can simultaneously perform optimally for both the RM and BAI objectives. More precisely, we establish non-trivial lower bounds on the regret achievable by any algorithm with a given BAI failure probability. This analysis shows that in some regimes BOBW-LIL'UCB(γ) achieves Pareto-optimality up to constant or small terms. Numerical experiments further demonstrate that when applied to difficult instances, BOBW-LIL'UCB outperforms a close competitor UCBα (Degenne et al., 2019), which is designed for RM and BAI with a fixed confidence.


The present study aimed to develop a nicotine microemulsion (NCT-ME) and incorporate it into a fast-dissolving film. The NCT-ME was prepared by mixing the specified proportions of nicotine (NCT), surfactant, co-solvent, and water. The NCT-ME was measured by its average droplet size, size distribution, zeta potential, and morphology. NCT-ME fast-dissolving films were prepared by the solvent casting technique. The films were characterized by morphology, weight, thickness, disintegration time, and mechanical strength properties and the determined NCT loading efficiency and in vitro drug release. The results showed that almost all NCT-MEs presented droplet sizes of less than 100 nm with a spherical form, narrow size distribution, and zeta potentials of −10.6 to −73.7 mV. There was no difference in weight and thickness between all NCT-ME films, but significant changes in the disintegration times were noticed in NCT40-Smix[PEG-40H(2:1)]10 film. The mechanical properties of films varied with changes in type of surfactant. About 80% of the drug release was observed to be between 3 and 30 min. The drug release kinetics were fitted with the Higuchi matrix model. The NCT40-Smix[P-80(1:1)]10 film showed the highest dissolution rate. It was concluded that the developed ME-loaded fast-dissolving film can increase drug release to a greater extent than the films without ME.


This article considers bargaining strategies used by government negotiators in the context of bilateral trade disputes. I argue that trade officials reach the most durable agreements by using an integrative, or value-creating, strategy and avoiding the use of threats. By contrast, a highly distributive, value-claiming strategy coupled with loud public threats is unlikely to result in a durable agreement and frequently leads to deadlocked negotiations. The irony, however, is that American officials use the latter approach more frequently than the former in bilateral trade disputes. These strategies are usually chosen unconsciously in response to perceptions of losses that drive negotiators to select risky approaches to resolve disputes.By examining bargaining strategies in the U.S. disputes with Japan and South Korea over automobiles and auto parts in the 1990s, this article identifies shifts in negotiation strategies. These shifts in approach closely track the outcomes in these two deeply contentious disputes. After protracted and contentious negotiations with Japan, the final outcome represented a failure to achieve the Americans' most important goals. A less confrontational strategy with South Korea ultimately resulted in greater market opening.


This paper addresses the professional development of Kuwaiti teachers in the use of concept maps to teach Family and Consumer Science. A key aim of the study was to evaluate the degree to which the use of concept maps would influence the way Kuwaiti teachers approach and teach Family and Consumer Studies (FCS) subjects and the degree to which concept maps empower students to critically identify and express their knowledge of the subject being taught.

A case study methodology was adopted to follow the implementation of lessons using concept maps by four teachers of middle years. An analysis of the data revealed the positive impact that student-centred teaching tools can have on the reformation of traditional teaching environments.

For all teachers, the primary strengths of using concept maps were the ability to generate student interest, to motivate student participation and to enhance student understanding of content. Although a case study design may limit the generalisation and comparative value of the study, the findings of this study remain important to the planning of future professional development programs and the use of concept maps within Kuwait's FCS curriculum area.


Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), a 286 KDa multi-domain protein, is strongly associated with familial Parkinson disease, Crone's disease, as well as Lupus in GWAS studies. However, the pathogenic mechanisms of LRRK2 are still unclear. In order to further study its functions, we developed a strain of GFP knockin knockout (KIKO) mice that replaced the exon2 of lrrk2 gene with gfp and eliminated endogenous LRRK2. Since it is highly expressed in different immune cells, especially B cells, we first determined that LRRK2 mainly expressed in T2, follicular, and marginal zone B cells, but not in pro-, pre-, immature, T1 or B1 B cells. After B cell activation by LPS or anti-IgM/ anti-CD40, there was no difference in proliferation as well as apoptosis between Wt and KIKO B cells. However, Wt and KIKO B cells showed statistically significant differences in cytokine production profiles. Re-stimulation of activated B cells by PMA and ionomycin showed KIKO B cells has differential cytokine productions. Meanwhile, activated KIKO B cells also showed impaired IgA and IgG3 secretion, though the Ig switching was normal. These indicate that LRRK2 may have a role in B cell effector functions, and further investigation is needed.


'My wife sat at home in floods of tears, in front of the television, the uncomprehending toddlers tugging at her, asking 'Mummy, what's wrong?'. If they'd only known: I was hanging out on a busy street corner trying to coax three 19-year-old waitresses into a taxi to take them to the biggest party the world had seen in four decades. All over the planet people were celebrating but the predominant thing on my mind was, 'Damn, all this is happening 24 hours too early'. The night was November 9th 1989, and the Berlin Wall was coming down. For perhaps the first time in a century the world was empathising with the Germans. Nobody had known it would. Least of all the intelligence agencies of the West, caught napping on the eve of their greatest 'victory' as they would be again on September 9th, 2001, their greatest embarrassment. But then not even the men who gave the orders in east Berlin knew it would happen. Not even as they gave them. The fall of the Berlin Wall was the triumphant vindication of the 'cock-up' theory of history.


The burden of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes have reached epidemic proportions since the last decade in India. An estimated 75 million people in India would become diabetic by 2025. However, the existing healthcare infrastructure is inadequate to meet the demands of this exploding population. Provisioning a web-based patient support system that helps in patient centered decision making and physician centered health monitoring would greatly help to reduce the treatment cost and improve the quality of life among patients. Extracting useful knowledge from very large web-based medical database and providing scientific decision-making is very difficult and yet critical. Applying Artificial Intelligence techniques for heterogeneous and large databases can deal with this problem. This paper explores the potential of artificial intelligence techniques particularly for web-based medical applications. In addition, a model for web-based medical diagnosis and prediction is proposed.


Background and Aims Breastfed newborn infants can develop significant weight loss in early postnatal period associated with hypernatremia. In our hospital, breastfeeding support is provided to mothers both in hospital and community. This breastfeeding care pathway is based on the UNICEF breastfeeding policy. In spite of this sontinuous effort, several newborn infants with significant weight loss need hospital re-admission in the early postnatal period. Methods A retrospective audit was performed over 6 months (Jan 2011– June 2011) period. Management of all breastfed infants admitted with weight loss (>7% of birth weight) with or without other clinical symptoms of dehydration were reviewed. Information was collected from infant clinical notes, discharge summaries, hospital pathology reporting system and maternal notes. Results 1908 infants were born during this period, 33 infants (1.73%) required readmissions. No risk factor was identified in 3 infants, 30 infants had one or more risk factors, commonest being caesarean section delivery (61%) followed by infants born to 'first time mother's (33%). 72% of the infants developed jaundice. Majority of the infants(59%) were managed with breast feeding support only whereas 15% needed intravenous fluid support. Most infants (69.6%) were discharged within 48 hrs of admission. Half of the infants developing hypernatremia had comparatively mild weight loss (≤10% of birth weight). Conclusions Weight loss and Hypernatremia continues to be a problem in neonates particularly in 'at risk' infants. Most of these infants responded well to enteral feeding only. Degree of hypernatremia was not always proportion to the degree of weight loss.


The increasing worldwide incidence of diabetes mellitus in adults constitutes a global public health burden. It is predicted that by 2030, largest number of people with diabetes. Although medicinal plants have been historically used for diabetes treatment throughout the world, few of them have been validated by scientific criteria. In recent times, an outsized multiplicity of animal models has been developed to enhanced understand the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus and new drugs have been introduced in the market to treat this disease. The aim of this work was to review the available animal models of diabetes and some in vitro models which have been used as tools to investigate the mechanism of action of drugs with potential Antidiabetic properties.


The International Renal Interest Society (IRIS; www.iris-kidney.com) was established in the 1990s with a primary mission of advancing our profession's approach to renal disease in general, and to chronic kidney disease (CKD) in particular. The IRIS Board's initial focus was the development of IRIS Guidelines for Staging of Canine and Feline CKD. Over the past decade, veterinary publications have increasingly utilized IRIS CKD Staging, with studies now routinely reporting the importance of differences in the characteristics and responses to treatment among these stages. Appreciating the importance of a similarly standardized approach to acute kidney injury (AKI), the IRIS Board has proposed an IRIS grading scheme for AKI. Recently, the IRIS Board recognized the potential benefits of developing a consensus approach to canine glomerular disease, with a primary goal of increasing patient outcomes. Members of the IRIS Board played a pivotal role in the establishment of the WSAVA Renal Standardization Project (www.wsava.org/educational/renal-standardization-project) with a vision of improving the diagnosis of glomerular disease in dogs. At the IRIS Board meeting in 2010, Drs David Polzin and Larry Cowgill proposed the formation of a study group to address the need for consensus recommendations for the management of dogs with glomerular disease. The present series of reports and recommendations represents the culmination of a large amount of work on the part of Larry and David, the IRIS Board, and the numerous outside experts who were invited to participate as members of this study group. This initiative utilized a standardized method for the development of consensus recommendations and will hopefully serve as model for future efforts in veterinary nephrology in particular, and veterinary medicine in general. The IRIS Board thanks the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine for their willingness to widely share the results of this work, Novartis Animal Health for their support of IRIS, and Larry and David for their innovative leadership.


Leukocytes from patients with acute granulocytic leukemia (AGL), acute monocytic leukemia (AMoL) and blastic crisis of chronic granulocytic leukemia (BC) were incubated with serine-U-C14 or aspartic acid-U-C14. The metabolism was followed by determination of radioactivity of CO2, lipids, proteins, organic acids, and nucleotides. Leukemic leukocytes in AGL, AMoL, and BC exhibit high serine utilization compared to lymphocytic leukemias. Significant changes in the metabolic pattern of the leukocytes from patients with chronic granulocytic leukemia (CGL) preceded the onset of blastic crisis. Serine utilization remained abnormal in two patients with AGL after complete remission was achieved. Low conversion of serine to CO2 in AMoL was associated with achievement of complete remission and long survival time. Aspartic acid was most actively metabolized by leukemic cells in BC. The results of these studies indicate that the metabolic pattern of serine and aspartic acid varies with the type of leukemic cell. There is evidence that mature polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocytes in the blood of leukemic patients may possess an abnormal metabolism.


Increasing the strength of members or enhancing the redundancy does not jeopardize the overall safety of the structure. This can be proved under static loads by the safe theorem, which is one of the fundamental theories of plastic analysis. Although this theorem has not been proved in the case of dynamic loads, it has been widely applied to the design of systems under dynamic loads. Therefore, this paper aims to make use of the results of this theorem in numerical analysis of structures subjected to dynamic loads. Since the structural instability mechanism and collapse do not occur under transient loads, an adequate level of ductility demand has been assigned to the structural components to ensure the safety of the structure. For this purpose, the plastic rotation of the members is determined after a minor variation in strength and stiffness of the beams in a 2D five-story steel moment-frame structure by performing dynamic analysis. In order to compare the ductility demand obtained by the dynamic analysis with the criteria values, the performance of the structure is also evaluated by conducting nonlinear static analysis. The analysis results show that the increase in the strength of the beam members generally leads to a lower ductility demand; however, in some cases, the maximum ductility demand increases by about 7.3%. With the increase in the stiffness of the beams, the ductility demand increases by up to 16%. It can be concluded that with the increase in the stiffness and strength of the beams, a lower ductility demand is obtained by the dynamic analysis compared to the static analysis, and thus the structural collapse has not occurred under dynamic loads.


This paper develops a formal model that allows research, development and evaluation from a functional point of view and attending to security needs, of the different parts in the process of creation of a linguistic steganographic system based on the lexical-semantic substitution of words by their synonyms. The advantages and drawbacks of this type of steganographic technique and the procedure to evaluate its usefulness in a given language are discussed. As a case study, the application of this model is carried out in the Spanish language based on the development of the tool Lexical Substitution in Spanish. This tool allows the testing of the substitution of words with their synonyms in Spanish. A hiding capacity of at least 0.1864bits/word, resulting in 68.33% of the stegotexts created being invisible to the attacks analysed. This hiding capacity is useful enough to send Internet addresses, GPS coordinates, brief mobility messages, signatures on text, control messages, and so forth. All these uses are in fact very practical within the area of telecommunication networks. From the point of view of corporate network security, stegotexts make possible, for example, the control of a botnet without any knowledge on the part of the network administrators. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


On nautical charts, undersea features are portrayed by sets of soundings (depth points) and isobaths (depth contours) from which map readers can interpret landforms. Different techniques were developed for automatic soundings selection and isobath generalisation from a sounding set. These methods are mainly used to generate a new chart from the bathymetric database or from a large scale chart through selection and simplification however a part of the process consists in selecting and emphasising undersea features on the chart according to their relevance to navigation. Its automation requires classification of the features from the set of isobaths and soundings and their generalisation through the selection and application of a set of operators according not only to geometrical constraints but also to semantic constraints. The objective of this paper is to define an ontology formalising undersea feature representation and the generalisation process achieving this representation on a nautical chart. The ontology is built in two parts addressing on one hand the definition of the features and on the other hand their generalisation. The central concept is the undersea feature around which other concepts are organised. The generalisation process is driven by the features where the objective is to select or emphasise information according to their meaning for a specific purpose. The ontologies were developed in Protege and a bathymetric database server integrating the ontology was implemented. A generalisation platform was also developed and examples of representations obtained by the platform are presented. Finally, current results and on-going research are discussed.


Extracts of human small intestine epithelium, liver, plasma and colonic micro˝ora (as a faecal sample) were prepared and esterase activity determined by incubation with chlorogenic acid and subsequent analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography. There was no evidence of enzymic hydrolysis by the intestine, liver or plasma extracts. However, esterase activity was observed in the faecal sample, and this activity was abolished if the extract was boiled prior to incubation. These results show that chlorogenic acid ingested by humans is most likely cleaved into ca˛ eic acid and quinic acid by an esterase enzyme(s) provided by the colonic micro˝ora. 1999 Society of Chemical Industry (


What is often abbreviated to GFC included three distinct crises: the 2007-8 North Atlantic financial crisis, a 2008-9 global economic crisis and public finance crises which became increasingly focussed on the eurozone in 2010-12. The relative weight of emerging market economies in the global economy, which had been increasing for several decades, grew even more rapidly in 2008-11 as the economies of the USA and Europe faltered, and other open economies recovered rapidly from the global economic crisis. This poses challenges for global economic governance, although there are constraints on Asia being a more assertive force. For the EU the greater dangers are, first, that if EU leaders see their economies as victims of a GFC then they will fail to address their economies' own shortcomings, and, second, that preoccupation with internal crises will distract EU leaders from rising to the challenges and opportunities associated with the evolving multipolar global economy.


Background and purpose: Metastasis is an important cause of death in breast cancer patients. Anti-metastatic agents are urgently needed since standard chemotherapeutics cannot diminish the metastatic rate. Actein, a cycloartane triterpenoid, has been demonstrated to exhibit anti-angiogenic and anti-cancer activities. Its anti-metastatic activity and underlying mechanisms were evaluated in the present study. Methods: The effects of actein on the proliferation, cell cycle phase distribution, migration, motility and adhesion were evaluated using two human breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231 (estrogen receptor-negative) and MCF-7 cells (estrogen receptor-positive) in vitro. Western blots and real-time PCR were employed to examine the protein and mRNA expression of relevant signaling pathways. A human metastatic breast cancer cell xenograft model was established in transparent zebrafish embryos to examine the anti-migration effect of actein in vivo. Results: In vitro results showed that actein treatment significantly decreased cell proliferation, migration and motility. Furthermore, actein significantly caused G1 phase cell cycle arrest and suppressed the protein expression of matrix metalloproteinases of MDA-MB-231 cells. In addition, actein inhibited breast cancer cell adhesion to collagen, also reduced the expression of integrins. Actein treatment down-regulated the protein expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), AKT and NF-κB signaling proteins. In vivo results demonstrated that actein (60 μM) significantly decreased the number of zebrafish embryos with migrated cells by 74% and reduced the number of migrated cells in embryos. Conclusion: Actein exhibited anti-proliferative, anti-adhesion and anti-migration activities, with the underlying mechanisms involved the EGFR/AKT and NF-kappaB signalings. These findings shed light for the development of actein as novel anti-migration natural compound for advanced breast cancer.


The periods of crises usually make visible the faults in number of businesses including tourism and hospitality ones. The lack of on time development drivers in their specific products makes the economic prosperity of enterprises harder. The entrepreneurs in Veliko Tarnovo destination that develop conference hospitality product also fall into this number. There are many lapses but many positive prerequisites simultaneously that would define the future development of this niche product. In the current paper, all of them are referred to the current unprecedented situation caused by COVID-19. The paper is based on analyses of the existing conference hospitality product in the destination.


Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is considered as a global health concern and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is the most immunogenic protein of HBV. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the expression of HBsAg on the cell surface of human embryonic kidney cell line (HEK293T). After transformation of expression vector pcDNA/HBsAg to E.coli TOP10F′, plasmid was extracted and digested with BglII. Afterwards, the linearized vector was transfected to cells and treated with hygromycin B for 5 weeks to expand the resulted clonies. The permanent expression of HBsAg followed by flow cytometry uptill now about one year. Genomic DNA was extracted from transfected cells and the existence of HBsAg gene was assessed by PCR. Real-time RT-PCR was utilized to measure the expression at the RNA level and flow cytometery was carried out to assess protein expression. Insertion of HBsAg cDNA in HEK293T genome was confirmed by PCR. The results of real-time RT-PCR illustrated that each cell expresses 2275 copies of mRNA molecule. Flow cytometry showed that compared with negative control cells, 99.9% of transfected cells express HBsAg on their surface. In conclusion, stable expression of hepatitis B surface antigen on the membrane of HEK293T provides an accurate post-translational modification, proper structure, and native folding in contrast with purified protein from prokaryotic expression systems. Therefore, these exposing HBsAg cells are practical in therapeutic, pharmaceutical, and biological sets of research.


The university course timetabling problem is hard and time-consuming to solve. Profits from full automatisation of this process can be invaluable. This paper describes architecture and operation of two automatic timetabling systems. Both are based on evolutionary algorithms, with specialised genetic operators and penalty-based evaluation function. The paper covers two problem variations (theorethical and real-world), with different sets of constraints and different representations. Moreover, specification of both solutions and a proposal of hybrid system architecture is included.


While a number of recent reports have documented the changing clinical and radiographic spectrum of parenchymal tuberculosis, relatively little attention has been paid to changes in the patterns of pleural tuberculosis. We therefore reviewed the clinical, laboratory, and radiographic characteristics of 26 adult patients with tuberculous pleural effusions. We found that pleural tuberculosis has become a disease of older adults (median age, 56 years) and that 19 percent (5/26) of the cases were due to postprimary (reactivation) disease. This shift in age led to problems in diagnosis, since many of these older patients had underlying or coexisting disease that could have caused a pleural effusion. Both specimens of pleural fluid and pleural biopsy were useful in establishing the diagnosis. Examination of sputum was less helpful. All patients who were not anergic had positive cutaneous reactions to first-strength purified protein derivative of tuberculin. Lymphocytosis of the pleural fluid was not a uniform finding; only 62 percent of our patients had greater than 50 percent lymphocytes on their initial examinations of pleural fluid, and four patients had greater than 90 percent polymorphonuclear cells. All of the effusions were exudates, and four had glucose levels in the pleural fluid that were less than 30 mg/dl. Pleural tuberculosis is an important diagnostic consideration in adult or elderly patients with exudative pleural effusions.


Helicobacter pylori are well known as the major gastro-duodenal pathogen of peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer. Recombinant H. pylori vaccine comprising a single subunit antigen can only induce immune response with limited protection efficiency. Development of oral vaccine would be a new effective strategy for the prevention of H. pylori infection. In this study, the protective effect of H. pylori multicomponent vaccine consisting of UreB and CagA subunit antigens was constructed and investigated in mice. The UreB and CagA gene of H. pylori were inserted into the plasmid pYA3493 and expressed in attenuated Salmonella choleraesuis C500 . The UreB and CagA producing strains were then administered orally to mice, contracting to Whole-cell vaccine against H. pylori SS1 infection, and the immune response was assessed by mice immunity IgG ELISA and H. pylori SS1 attack. Noticeable IgG response was induced in the sera of mice orally immunized with S. choleraesuis C500 strain consisting of UreB and CagA subunit antigens. Mice vaccinated orally were significantly protected against gastric Helicobacter infection following a challenge with H. pylori strain SS1. Orally vaccination with the expression of UreB-CagA could prevent gastric infection with H. pylori . Keywords: Helicobacter pylor , orally vaccination, UreB and CagA subunit antigens, mice


China is urbanizing at an unprecedented way. Along with the continuous urban expansion, comes out the urban conflicts between supply and demand and substantive value capture between rural and urban areas. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the open access of rural construction land market can mitigate the urban conflicts above. Taking Nanhai and Deqing, the typical areas of rural construction land transaction, as our study area, this work has gathered data both from transaction record and field investigation, estimated the supply and demand function and calculated the optimal supply allocation between governments and collectives based on the theoretical analysis of duopoly market and cournotnash equlibrum. The results indicates that (1) the admission for rural construction land market shifts the construction land market from monopoly to duopoly can improve the market efficiency theoretically.(2) the rural construction land market mitigates the constraint of urban conflict by providing more construction lands and sharing the land incremental value to rural areas.(3) there exists a substitution relationship between government and collective at cournot-nash equilibrium;(4) the local government with land coupon and rural-urban land transactions can occupy greater market share.


An accurate hybrid analytical method is proposed to determine the coupling of switching noise to signal traces in a multilayer power bus with embedded film capacitor. We used the induction equivalent theorem to derive the solution of noise coupling and the segmentation method to calculate the electric field of the noise in a power bus. The proposed method was verified by measurements of impedance parameters in the frequency domain