Vertebral fractures are a consequence of osteoporosis, with significant health implications for affected patients. Unfortunately, grading their severity using CT exams is hard and subjective, motivating automated grading methods. However, current approaches are hindered by imbalance and scarcity of data and a lack of interpretability. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a novel approach that leverages unlabelled data to train a generative Diffusion Autoencoder (DAE) model as an unsupervised feature extractor. We model fracture grading as a continuous regression, which is more reflective of the smooth progression of fractures. Specifically, we use a binary, supervised fracture classifier to construct a hyperplane in the DAE's latent space. We then regress the severity of the fracture as a function of the distance to this hyperplane, calibrating the results to the Genant scale. Importantly, the generative nature of our method allows us to visualize different grades of a given vertebra, providing interpretability and insight into the features that contribute to automated grading.


Fifteen young (47-81 days old) and 5 adult (360 days old) Rowett nude rats (rnu/rnu) and 12 euthymic littermates (rnu/+) (56 days old) were infected with Mycoplasma (M.) arthritidis ISR1. The polyarthritis developing after the infection was more severe in the athymic than in the euthymic rats. In the nude rats the disease was progressive and led to the death of 6 animals whereas in the euthymic littermates the disease was resolved within 70 days after infection. In contrast to euthymic rats athymic animals did not develop antibodies against M. arthritidis within 6 weeks (young nude rats) or 23 weeks (adult nude rats) after infection, indicating that M. arthritidis is a thymus dependent antigen. However, low antibody titers were found in the nude rats infected at an age between 47 and 81 days at 340 days after infection, probably due to the development of T-cells which occur in older nude rats. The euthymic as well as the young athymic rats showed an increase in antibody titers after a challenge infection 345 days after the first infection and both were resistant to challenge infection. On the contrary the adult nude rats infected with M. arthritidis did not develop antibodies against the mycoplasmas and were highly susceptible to a second infection after 198 days. This indicates that antibodies play an important role in the defence of the M. arthritidis infection in rats.


Various new nonembeddability results (mainly into L1) are proved via Fourier analysis. In particular, it is shown that the Edit Distance on {0, 1} d has L1 distortion (log d) 1 2 −o(1) . We also give new lower bounds on the L1 distortion of quotients of the discrete hypercube under group actions, and the transportation cost (Earthmover) metric.


Recent climatic trends in Europe have been examined in the context of longer term variations and vegetation zonation. The most recent computer models of future climatic changes resulting from increasing carbon dioxide emissions are discussed in relation to the possible impacts that the predicted climatic shifts may have on the distribution and abundance of the main allergenic pollen types. The probable repercussions of these changes on the patterns and incidences of seasonal allergic rhinitis are considered. This study focuses on pollen from Betula, the Poaceae, Ambrosia, Parietaria and Olea, but also examines the implications of climatic change for other aeroallergens, including those from various crops such as Brassica species (oil‐seed rape) and Helianthemum (sunflowers). In the case of natural distributions, the response of the plants to climatic changes are viewed in relation to the potential migration rates of the species. For agricultural crops, shifts in the location of productive areas involve agricultural economics both at the national and European community levels. In addition to broad regional impacts, this study examines the influence of increasing ultraviolet radiation on pollen production over various areas of Europe, and considers the effect of changing airflow trajectories on the long‐range transport of pollen with pollution from central and northern Europe into Scandinavia.


Gay people in Indonesia are still a minority. The low population of gays causes jealousy and possessiveness to be the gay nature feeling of gay with each other. They will be very angry if their partner see theyre dating someone else (Aditya, 2009). Based on the above phenomenon can be concluded that gays also experience conflict in the relationship they live. Conflict experienced by gay is different from one another. Some show conflict-related issues of jealousy, usually higher sexual jealousy compared to emotional jealousy. The goal to be achieved from this research is to know how the management of the relationship conflict romance gay couple.
The research was conducted using qualitative method which refer to phenomenological interpretation assisted by Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis (AFI) or IPA in Smith and Osborn (2009: 97-99) aims to reveal in detail how participants interpret the personal and social world.
The results showed that the pattern of interpersonal communication and maintenace relationship gay couples play an important role in self-actualization as an inauguration of gay identity. either to oneself or to the community. The research informants were chosen using purposive sampling (snowball technique), where the data collected using interview, observation, and diary record. Through this research the authors hope people understand the conditions and situations of the gay, so it will be more to give a better attitude that can be accepted by the gay as part of harmony in society. In gay couples, aspects of interpersonal communication are very important such as trust, intimacy, closeness, relative positive affect and communication. Interpersonal communication about openness in courtship is considered very important for the continuation of relationships. Couples in this study solve conflicts that occur in a relationship with a way to always meet when the head is cold and speak openly to find the best solution of the conflict that occurred.


In Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) nodes often change their location independently where neither fixed nor centralized infrastructure is present. Nodes communicate with each other directly or via intermediate nodes. The advantages of the MANET layout lead to self-structure and compatibility to most important functions such as traffic distribution and load balancing. Whenever the host moves rapidly in the network the topology becomes updated due to which the structure of MANET varies accordingly. In the literature, different routing protocols have been studied and compared by researchers. Still, there are queries regarding the performance of these protocols under different scenarios. MANETs are not based on a predesigned structure. In this paper, the performance assessment of the Quality of Services (QoS) for different protocols such as Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) and Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) in the existence of the various number of communicating nodes is studied. The performance matrices throughput, end – to – end delay and packet delivery ratio are considered for simulations. Ns 2.35 simulator is used for carrying out these simulations. Results are compared for AODV, TORA, and ZRP routing protocols. The results show that AODV and TORA perform well in end – to – end delay as compared to zone routing protocol. Zone routing protocol performs well in packet delivery ratio and throughput as compared to both the other protocols.


This paper deals with the problem of allowing a user to record and replay a specific portion of a window application session in order to build an efficient and scalable asynchronous interaction. Our approach is based on a method that enables a latecomer to dynamically join a conference and share applications used in the conference. We propose to extend this method by archiving the state modifications to the window system as consistent revival points that can be stored with the user's recorded application session. Later, in a replaying step we can impose a specific revival point to a remote window system and start replaying from this point. We propose two mechanisms applied in the recording step to allow later the displaying of the contents of all windows generated by the recorded application. The first is based on simulated window system events, and the second applies window system requests to get and store the contents of all application's windows contents.


Marina Larionova, Dr. of Political Science, Head of the International Organisations Research Institute, University - Higher School of Economics; Head of International Programmes, National Training Foundation; E-mail: email@example.com, email@example.com Rakhmangulov, Deputy Director of the G8 Research Centre of the International Organisations Research Institute of the University - Higher School of Economics; E-mail: email@example.com paper analyses efforts made by the G8 and G20 in the sphere of international development assistance. The assessment of the G8 and G20 agendas on development, the capabilities of two institutions to respond to and address the changes occurring in global agenda for development is implemented on the basis of the commitments made and compliance performance. The commitments database covers the G8 pledges made during the period of 1975 - 2009, and the G20 commitments on development made since its first summit in 2008. The paper examines the capacities for cooperation of two institutions and possible division of labor between them. Given the forthcoming chairmanship of Russia in the G8 summitry in 2014, the recommendations presented aim to define priorities for the agenda and facilitate the promotion of Russia's national interests in international development assistance at the G8 forum.


Polymer films can be tailored for a specific application by modifying their surface properties. In this study, linear and branched architectures were grafted to ethylene-acrylic acid (EAA) copolymer films using the so-called grafting from approach. Dicyclohexylcarbodiimide was used to activate the carboxylic acid functionality on the surface of the EAA copolymer film before reacting it with selected di- and tri-amine compounds. The carboxylic acid functionality was subsequently regenerated by reacting the amine-grafted film with succinic anhydride. These reaction steps were then repeated to create the linear and branched architectures on the EAA film surface. The film surface resulting from each reaction step was analyzed using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and contact angle measurements. A systematic analysis of the ATR-FTIR results was performed to estimate the average conversion of the reaction schemes and to explain the observed contact angle results. A significant reduction in water contact angle for the EAA film grafted with a branched architecture was observed. The EAA film grafted with a linear architecture showed a marginal reduction in water contact angle when ethanol was used as a solvent for ethylenediamine. When the solvent for ethylenediamine was changed to water, the contact angle decreased noticeably. However, analysis of control films showed that the reduction in the contact angles was due to the solvent treatment. In the case of branched architectures, such reduction in contact angle due to the solvent treatment was not observed. Several control experiments were performed to ensure that the reduction in the contact angles was in fact due to the grafted species and not due to exposure to various solvents used in the reaction scheme.


We report the experimental demonstration of bunch length measurements using a corrugated metallic beam pipe as a passive deflector. The corrugated beam pipe has been adopted for reducing longitudinal chirping after the bunch compressors in several XFEL facilities worldwide. In the meantime, there have been attempts to measure the electron bunch's longitudinal current profile using the dipole wakefields generated in the corrugated pipe. Nevertheless, the bunch shape reconstructed from the nonlinearly deflected beam suffers from significant distortion, particularly near the head of the bunch. In this paper, we introduce an iterative process to improve the resolution of the bunch shape reconstruction. The ASTRA and ELEGANT simulations have been performed for pencil beam and cigar beam cases, in order to verify the effectiveness of the reconstruction process. To overcome the undesirable effects of transverse beam spreads, a measurement scheme involving both the corrugated beam pipe and the spectrometer magnet has been employed, both of which do not require a dedicated (and likely very expensive) rf system. A proof-ofprinciple experiment was carried out at Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PAL) Injector Test Facility (ITF), and its results are discussed together with a comparison with the rf deflector measurement.


Objectives: The purpose of the study was to describe the influence of contralateral forced eyelid closure on intraocular pressure (IOP). Methods: Twenty-one healthy volunteers with no ophthalmic history had their IOP measured in the supine position to simulate the intraoperative environment. Intraocular pressure was measured with a handheld tonometer over three scenarios: (1) both eyes in a relaxed state, (2) eyelid speculum in the right eye with both eyes open and relaxed, (3) eyelid speculum in the right eye with the fellow eye squeezing tightly. Results: Intraocular pressure significantly increased with forced contralateral eyelid squeezing compared with the relaxed state by a mean of 7.71±5.08 mm Hg (95% Confidence Interval of 5.40–7.37), P<0.001. Conclusions: Contralateral eyelid squeezing can significantly increase intraoperative IOP measurements.


Modulation recognition is the key problems in noncooperative communication, communication etection and communication surveillance. Non-cooperate communication is commonly used in civilian and military applications, where it is required to monitor the activities of communication signals in space and intercept the signal information content with little prior knowledge. The paper describes the principium of the automatic modulation recognition of communictional signal based on statistical model, then analyses automatic modulation recognition of analog communicational signals and shows a method to achieve.


SUMMARY This study compares the thermoregulatory ability of three species of burying beetle (Coleoptera: Silphidae: Nicrophorus hybridus, Nicrophorus guttula and Nicrophorus investigator) that vary significantly in body size. It also explores possible mechanisms for temperature regulation in burying beetles, including physiological and behavioral thermoregulatory strategies, and the influence of environmental temperatures on body temperature and activity times. We measured beetle thoracic and abdominal temperatures before and after short (<5 s) flights, and thoracic temperature during sustained, tethered flights and following flight in the field. We calculated two measures of thermoregulatory ability: the slope of post-flight thoracic temperature against ambient air temperature and the slope of post-flight thoracic temperature against operative flight temperature. Thoracic temperatures following flight were significantly higher than abdominal temperatures, and the largest species, N. hybridus, was determined to be the better thermoregulator, with regression slopes closer to zero (0.315–0.370) than N. guttula (0.636–0.771) or N. investigator (0.575–0.610). We also examined the roles that insulation, wing loading, physiological heat transfer, basking and perceived environmental temperature play on temperature regulation and activity times in Nicrophorus. This study shows that body size, morphological features, such as wing loading and insulation, and perceived environmental temperatures affect thermoregulation and activity times in burying beetles.


This letter advocates the performance of a multiuser relay network (MRN) equipped with a single amplify-and-forward (AaF) relay over Rayleigh fading environments. We derive new expressions for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) taking into consideration the two cases of fixed gain relays and variable gain relays. Relying on these statistical results, we derive new expressions for the outage probability and symbol error rate (SER), both of which are obtained in exact closed form. Furthermore, we derive simple asymptotic outage probability and SER. Our asymptotic results confirm that opportunistic scheduling has no impact on the diversity order. We further prove that the array gain is what determines the SNR advantage of opportunistic scheduling over the single user scenario.


In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee asserts that all civilizations rise and fall according to how they respond to challenges. (1) The political, economic and military balance of power between nations shifts over time, and the fate of countries depends on the ability of their leaders to understand the changes that are taking place in the international order and chart the best course to deal with the problems and obstacles they face. Typically, as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger points out in his book Diplomacy, nations will judge their leaders on how they manage during times of change, and on their ability to preserve the peace. (2) Skillful diplomacy is an essential component of international leadership. Diplomacy "is the method by which nation-states, through authorized agents, maintain mutual relations, communicate with each other, and carry out political, economic and legal transactions." (3) Diplomats convey information, ideas, and the wants and needs of their countries to other countries. They need to be flexible, to deal with the unexpected, to know the policies and needs of the nations they deal with, and to have the resolve to stand by the actions their countries have taken. Perhaps the main tool in the repertoire of a diplomat is negotiation. Diplomats need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their own country and the country they are negotiating with. Negotiation is a give-and-take process in which the important question facing the diplomat is: how do I achieve my wants and needs while balancing the wants and needs of others? Because of the importance of diplomacy, it is a valuable subject for the social studies classroom. In a crowded curriculum, however, the art of international diplomacy can easily get less attention than it deserves. One way of teaching it is to focus on the diplomacy associated with a major event that is part of the typical history curriculum. The activity presented here seeks to accomplish this by introducing students to diplomacy as part of the study of World War I, which marked the creation of modern warfare with the effective and efficient use of technology, the use of vast economic resources, and the mass mobilization of men and material. In the five weeks after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914, diplomacy and communication broke down all over Europe. Ultimatums and threats became the norm. Europe became embroiled in the inferno known as World War I. Students can achieve a greater understanding of history--and attempt to "change" it--through this diplomatic simulation, in which they play the roles of the leaders of key European powers as they move toward the precipice in 1914. Simulating an International Crisis For the role-playing activity, students must formulate a diplomatic strategy and attempt to prevent World War I. When students begin to construct their diplomatic strategy they should take into account the need to do the following: (1) identify and analyze their countries' wants and needs; (2) identify and analyze the wants and needs of the other countries; (3) assess possible threats to their country's national survival; (4) identify and pursue possible economic, social, and political alliances; and (5) identify possible economic, social, and political alliances against them. Most critical in formulating a diplomatic strategy is first to assess the wants and needs of the students' own country. For example, in July 1934, what were the priorities of France's diplomatic strategy: to maintain the status quo? Conquer other countries? Flourish economically? Or, make peace? It is of paramount importance for students to have a rudimentary outline of what goals the country wanted to achieve. Second, when constructing a strategy, student diplomats need to be aware of the wants and needs of potential allies and adversaries. As Sun Tzu stated, "know yourself and know your enemy. …


A spectrophotometric procedure for standardizing red blood cell suspensions for use in viral hemagglutination tests is described. The procedure is based on highly reproducible cyanmethemoglobin absorbance readings at 540 nm on any suitable spectrophotometer. Target values for milligrams of cyanmethemoglobin per 100 ml are given for the red cell suspensions of all mammalian and avian species employed in viral hemagglutination tests. By use of these values and a cyanmethemoglobin standard curve for a particular photometer, approximate 4% erythrocyte suspensions can be diluted to any lesser concentration. Coefficients of variation for the various diluted suspensions range from 4 to 7%.


A critical feature of diagnostic testing is correctly classifying subjects based upon specified thresholds of some measure. The commonly employed Youden index determines a test's optimal thresholds by maximizing the correct classification rates for a diagnostic scenario. An alternative to the Youden index is the cost function, Bayes Cost (BC). BC determines a test's optimal setting by minimizing the sum of all misclassification rates from the test. Unlike the Youden index, BC can consider a priori costs of all the diagnostic outcomes including class specific misclassifications regardless of the number of classes. Delta method approximate confidence intervals around BC are derived under the assumption of normally distributed classes as a means for quantifying a test's performance and comparing classifiers at their optimal settings in a multi‐state diagnostic framework. A simulation study is conducted to demonstrate the performance of the derived confidence intervals that are found to perform well, especially for sample sizes of 50 or larger in each diagnostic class. Finally, the proposed methods are applied to a four‐class breast tissue classification problem, where four possible discriminatory features are compared under varying decision cost structures. Using the confidence intervals around BC, the best feature for classification is selected, and the optimal thresholds and their 95% confidence intervals are determined. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.


Abstract Previous studies have shown that the growth hormone (GH) axis is important for timing the later stages of puberty in female monkeys. However, it is not clear whether these growth-related signals are important for the initiation of puberty and early pubertal events. The present study, using female rhesus monkeys, used two approaches to answer this question. Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that reduced GH secretion would blunt the rise in nocturnal LH secretion in young (17 mo; n = 7) but not older adolescent ovariectomized females (29 mo; n = 6). Reduced GH secretion was induced by treating females with the sustained release somatostatin analogue formulation, Sandostatin LAR (625 μg/kg). Morning (0900–0930 h) and evening (2200–2230 h) concentrations of bioactive LH were higher in older adolescent compared to young adolescent females. However, diurnal concentrations were not affected by the inhibition of GH secretion in either age group when compared to the placebo-treated, control condition. Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that reduced GH secretion induced in young juvenile females would delay the initial increase in nocturnal LH secretion and subsequent early signs of puberty. In order to examine this hypothesis, puberty in control females (n = 7) was compared to those in which puberty had been experimentally arrested until a late adolescent age (29 mo) by the use of a depot GnRH analogue, Lupron (750 μg kg−1 mo−1; n = 7). Once the analogue treatment was discontinued, the progression of puberty was compared to a group treated in a similar fashion but made GH deficient by continuous treatment with Sandostatin LAR (n = 6). Puberty occurred as expected in control females with the initial rise in evening LH at 21 mo, menarche at 22 mo, and first ovulation at 30 mo. As expected, Lupron arrested reproductive maturation, but elevations in morning and evening LH and menarche occurred within 2 mo of the cessation of Lupron in both Lupron and Lupron-GH-suppressed females. In contrast, first ovulation was delayed significantly in the Lupron-GH-suppressed females (41 mo) compared to the Lupron-only females (36 mo). These data indicate that within this experimental model, reduced GH secretion does not perturb the early stages of puberty but supports previous observations that the GH axis is important for timing the later stages of puberty and attainment of fertility. Taken together, the data indicate that factors that reduce GH secretion may have a deleterious effect on the completion of puberty.


ABSTRACT The fusion (F) glycoproteins of measles virus strains Edmonston (MV-Edm) and wtF (MV-wtF) confer distinct cytopathic effects and strengths of hemagglutinin (H) interaction on a recombinant MV-Edm virus. They differ in just two amino acids, V94 and V101 in F-Edm versus M94 and F101 in F-wtF, both of which lie in the relatively uncharacterized F2 domain. By comparing the sequence of MV F with those of the parainfluenza virus SV5 and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) F proteins, the structures of which are known, we show that MV F2 also possesses a potential heptad repeat (HR) C domain. In NDV, the N-terminal half of HR-C interacts with HR-A in F1 while the C-terminal half is induced to kink outward by a central proline residue. We found that this proline is part of an LXP motif conserved in all three viruses. Folding and transport of MV F require this motif to be intact and also require covalent interaction of cysteine residues that probably support the potential HR-A-HR-C interaction. Amino acids 94 and 101, both located in "d" positions of the HR-C helical wheel, lie in the potentially outwardly kinked region. We demonstrate that their effect on MV fusogenicity and glycoprotein interaction is mediated solely by amino acid 94. Substitutions at position 94 with polar or charged amino acids are tolerated poorly or not at all, while changes to smaller and more hydrophilic amino acids are tolerated in both transiently expressed F protein and recombinant virus. MV F V94A and MV F V94G viruses induce extensive syncytium formation and are relatively, or almost completely, resistant to a known inhibitor of MV glycoprotein-induced fusion. We propose that the conformational changes in MV F protein required to expose the fusion peptide involve the C-terminal half of the HR-C helix, specifically amino acid 94.


The concept of decompressive surgery for treatment of elevated intracranial pressure has been developed already in the beginning of the 20th century.1 The rationale of this treatment modality consists of opening of the skull and removal of a bone flap to allow the edematous brain to swell outward, thereby preventing intracranial tissue shifts and life-threatening downward herniation. The use of decompressive hemicraniectomy (DHC) in the context of ischemic brain edema had been reported already in 1956.2 Since that time, DHC has been increasingly studied in the setting of different conditions, including traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and malignant middle cerebral artery (MCA) infarction.

Depending on the location of the affected area, different surgical decompression techniques have been developed. In the presence of diffuse brain edema without a midline shift, as commonly seen in traumatic brain injury, bilateral (eg, bifrontal) craniectomy has been advocated. Hemicraniectomy, or removal of a frontotemporoparietal bone flap, is suitable in patients with unilateral hemisphere swelling as seen after ischemic stroke.3 Accumulating experience with DHC over the years has led to increasing refinement of the surgical technique. The size of the removed bone fragment has been recognized as a factor of crucial importance for generation of a sufficient decompressive effect.4 Hemicraniectomy with a diameter of ≤10 cm, especially in combination with sharp trepanation edges, has been associated with an increased incidence of shearing injury to the herniated brain.4 Furthermore, dural opening, usually followed by insertion of a dural graft (duraplasty), has meanwhile become an integral part of the decompressive surgery technique.3

### Predictors of Malignant Cerebral Edema

Early identification of patients who are most likely to develop malignant edema after MCA infarction based on clinical, radiographic, anatomic, and laboratory values can aid the clinician in offering DHC early. Previously published predictors of a National Institutes of Health …


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Biological economics is the interdisciplinary research field in which the interaction between human biology and economics is investigated and in which human beings are primarily seen as biological organisms. This thesis adopts a perspective in which certain individual economic choices and outcomes are connected to individual biological characteristics. The value of biological economics is at least threefold. First, knowledge about biological predispositions to economic choices and outcomes improves our understanding of the causes and consequences of individual differences. Second, biological measures known to be associated with economic choices and outcomes could be used in (otherwise non-biological) empirical work as control variables or instrumental variables. Third, information about economic predisposition to biological states and outcomes may result in targeted interventions to prevent undesired outcomes. Although it has been known for already quite some time that many economic choices and outcomes are heritable, no robust, replicable genetic predisposition to them had been found. This thesis shows that it is possible to find such associations, robustly and replicable, with relatively crude methods in combination with statistical rigor. This thesis also presents evidence that self-employed individuals are generally healthier than wage workers and that the selection of comparatively healthier individuals into self-employment accounts for the cross-sectional association. It presents tentative evidence that, if anything, engaging in self-employment is bad for one's health. In addition, popular ideas that entrepreneurship is a particular good occupation for dyslectic and left-handed individuals could not be substantiated.


We investigate the plausibility of aging versus cohort interpretations of cohort-linked differences in vocabulary knowledge using data from 13 GSS surveys over a 22–year period, 1974 to 1996. We argue that one way to assess the effects of aging in these surveys is to examine the diachronic data within cohorts and to assume minimal period effects. Holding cohort constant in this fashion reveals detectable effects of aging that are not likely to be due to period influences between 1974 and 1996. Aging, however, explains only a tiny portion of the variation in the data, and aging effects are of insufficient magnitude to account for the larger intercohort patterns in the GSS vocabulary test data. Even when taking into account the effects of aging, the results of a cohort analysis support the argument that unique cohort experiences make important contributions to variation in GSS vocabulary test scores, especially among cohorts educated in the post-World War II era.


In this thesis, we investigate unsupervised and semi-supervised methods to construct anatomical atlases and segment medical images. We propose an integrated registration and clustering algorithm to compute an anatomical atlas of fiber-bundles as well as deep gray matter structures from a population of diffusion tensor MR images (DT-MRI).
We refer to this algorithm as "Consistency Clustering" since the outputs of the algorithm include population-wise consistent segmentations and correspondence between the subjects. The consistency is ensured through using a single anatomical model for the whole population, which is similar to the atlases used by experts for manual labeling. We experiment with both parametric and non-parametric models for the gray matter and white matter segmentation problems, each model resulting in a different kind of atlas.
Consistent population-wise segmentations require development of several integrated algorithms for clustering, registration, atlas-building and outlier rejection. In this thesis we develop, implement and evaluate these tools individually and together as a population-wise segmentation tool. Together, Consistency Clustering enables automatic atlas construction in DT-MRI for a population, either normal or affected by a neural disorder. Consistency Clustering also provides the user the choice to include prior knowledge through a few labeled subjects (semi-supervised) or compute an anatomical atlas in a completely data-driven manner (unsupervised). Furthermore, resulting anatomical models are compact representations of populations and can be used for population-wise morphometry.
We implement and evaluate these methods using in vivo DT-MRI datasets. We investigate the benefits of population-wise segmentation as opposed to individually segmenting subjects, as well as effects of noise and initialization on the segmentations. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)


Although less distinct than those of the endometrium the Fallopian tubes show definite changes due to ovarian hormones. The effect of the hormones on the tubes determines certain modifications in their secretions and activities. The estrogens increase the secretions but progesterone decreases the effect of the estrogens. In the study a single dose of 200 mgm of norethisterone enanthate was given im on the 6th day of the cycle to 10 patients of fertile age. The effects were studied using conventional histological methods. During the first 6 weeks there was a definite decrease in growth and differentiation of the epithelial cells and gradual recovery toward the end of the 12 weeks of observation. The salpingian mucus in the first 6 weeks indicated a state of rest similar to that of menopause. This aspect gradually modified itself with the increase in the volume of cells and the appearance of cellular secretions. In the last 2 weeks cellular hypertrophy and the appearance of intercalary cells indicated the anatomical and functional recovery of the epithelium. As a possible explanation it was suggested that during the first 6 weeks the action of the estrogens was inhibited but by the 7th week their proliferative effects became dominant. It is implied that the changes were due to the contraceptive action of norethindrone enanthate.


Insulin-like growth factor-II (IGF-II) is an embryonic growth promoter and cell survival factor. IGF-II supply is normally limited by gene expression because transcription occurs predominantly from the paternal allele in mouse and man (maternal imprinting). Excess IGF-II has detrimental systemic and local effects in vivo , promoting somatic overgrowth and an increased frequency of tumors. IGF2 mRNA is overexpressed in colorectal and many other human cancers. In this paper, we show that altered IGF-II supply modifies intestinal tumor growth. Mice genetically altered in the IGF-II system were combined in crosses with Apc Min/+, a murine model of human familial adenomatous polyposis. Depending on genetic background, Apc Min/+ acquires multiple small intestinal adenoma before becoming moribund with anemia. Mice that express excess IGF-II delivered using a bovine keratin 10 promoter ( k10Igf2/+ ) develop a disproportionate overgrowth of colon, uterus, and skin. Combination with Apc Min/+ leads to a 10-fold increase in the number and the diameter of colon adenoma ( P < 0.0001) compared to Apc Min/+ littermate controls (postnatal day 80), an increased susceptibility to rectal prolapse (41%), and a histological progression to carcinoma. Mice with reduced IGF-II supply, secondary to the disruption of the paternal Igf2 allele ( Igf2 +m/−p), are 60% the weight of wild-type littermates. Combination with Apc Min/+ leads to a 3-fold reduction in small intestinal adenoma number ( P < 0.0001) compared to Apc Min/+ littermate controls (postnatal day 150), and a significant decrease in adenoma diameter ( P < 0.001). With in situ hybridization, we show that Igf2 was expressed in all adenoma irrespective of IGF-II supply. This suggests that there is an increased maternal allele expression of Igf2 (loss of imprinting) in adenoma which form, despite paternal Igf2 allele disruption. We conclude that IGF-II supply is a modifier of intestinal adenoma growth, and we provide genetic evidence for its functional role in colorectal cancer progression.


Activated protein C (APC) resistance, often associated with the factor V (FV) Leiden mutation, is the most common risk factor for venous thrombosis. We observed increased APC resistance in carriers of fibrinogen γ gene (FGG) haplotype 2, which is associated with reduced levels of the alternatively spliced fibrinogen γ' chain. This finding prompted us to study the effects of fibrinogen and its γ' chain on APC resistance. Fibrinogen, and particularly the γA/γ' isoform, improved the response of plasma to added APC in the thrombin generation-based assay. Similarly, a synthetic peptide mimicking the C-terminus of the fibrinogen γ' chain, which binds thrombin and inhibits its activities, greatly increased the APC sensitivity of normal and FV Leiden plasma, likely due to its ability to inhibit thrombin-mediated activation of FV and FVIII. Although the fibrinogen γ' peptide also inhibited protein C activation by the thrombin/thrombomodulin complex, it still increased the sensitivity of plasma to endogenously formed APC when thrombin generation was measured in the presence of soluble thrombomodulin. We conclude that fibrinogen, and particularly fibrinogen γ', increases plasma APC sensitivity. The fibrinogen γ' peptide might form the basis for pharmacologic interventions to counteract APC resistance.


Pulsars are rapidly spinning, strongly magnetized neutron stars. Their electromagnetic dipole radiation is usually assumed to be at the expense of the rotational energy. In this work, we consider a new channel through which rotational energy could be radiated away directly via neutrinos. With this new energy conversion channel, we can improve the chemical heating mechanism that originates in the deviation from β equilibrium due to spin-down compression. The improved chemical and thermal evolution equations with different magnetic field strengths are solved numerically. The results show that the new energy conversion channel could raise the surface temperature of neutron stars, especially for weak field stars at later stages of their evolution. Moreover, our results indicate that the new energy conversion channel induced by the non-equilibrium reaction processes should be taken into account in the study of thermal evolution.


Speed management is a set of measures to limit negative effects of speed in a transport system. One of the solutions to solve speeding is making the road transport system more intelligent by implementing intelligent speed assistance (ISA). This thesis provides more insight in the factors that can determine the acceptability of ISA by (potential) drivers, which can be beneficial in the construction of better implementation strategies. (Author/publisher)


Intra prediction is an important component of modern video codecs, which is able to efficiently squeeze out the spatial redundancy in video frames. With preceding pixels as the context, traditional intra prediction schemes generate linear predictions based on several predefined directions (i.e., modes) for blocks to be encoded. However, these modes are relatively simple and their predictions may fail when facing blocks with complex textures, which leads to additional bits encoding the residue. In this paper, we design a progressive spatial recurrent neural network (PS-RNN) that learns to conduct intra prediction. Specifically, our PS-RNN consists of three spatial recurrent units and progressively generates predictions by passing information along from preceding contents to blocks to be encoded. To make our network generate predictions considering both distortion and bit rate, we propose using sum of absolute transformed difference (SATD) as the loss function to train PS-RNN since SATD is able to measure rate-distortion cost of encoding a residue block. Moreover, our method supports variable-block-size for intra prediction, which is more practical in real coding conditions. The proposed intra prediction scheme achieves on average 2.5% bit-rate reduction on variable-block-size settings under the same reconstruction quality compared with HEVC.


Soil organic carbon (SOC) stock is the carbon proportion that is of biological origin stored with respect to soil depth. It is more prone to loss than soil inorganic carbon. High sequestration of SOC in soil is germane to the improvement of soil quality and mitigating impact of climate change. Thus, this study was carried out to evaluate soil properties affecting SOC stock in the two agro-ecological zones, namely Upland Rainforest (Ado-Ekiti) and southern Guinea Savanna (Kabba) agro-ecological zones of Nigeria, with respect to three selected land use types; arable, oil palm and wetland. Random collection of soil samples was carried out at four varying depths (0-15, 15-30, 30-45, and 45-60 cm) for evaluation of soil properties. The SOC stock regression models for the two agro-ecological zones showed that land use, SOC, pH, SOM (soil organic matter), Ex-K, Ex-Ca, Ex-Mg (exchangeable potassium, calcium, magnesium, respectively), BD (bulk density), and gravel content would predict variation in SOC stock in the two agro-ecological zones with coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.952 and 0.996 for Kabba and Ado-Ekiti respectively. Principal component analysis identified that in the soil of the southern Guinea Savanna agro-ecological zone, SOC, CEC, EA, Ex-Na, land use, clay content, and soil depth with Eigenvalues > 1 explained 80.58% of sample variance while in the soil of the Upland Rainforest agro-ecological zone, Ex-Ca, SOC, Ex-Na, EA, sand and silt contents with Eigenvalues > 1 explained 78.81% of sample variance as potential determinants of SOC stock.


In this work, the effects of electrical double layer (EDL) near the solid/ liquid interface, on three dimensional heat transfer characteristic and pressure drop of water flow through a rectangular microchannel numerically are investigated. An additional body force originating from the existence of EDL is considered to modify the conventional Navier-stokes and energy equations. These modified equations are solved numerically for steady laminar flow on the basis of control volume approaches. Fluid velocity distribution and temperature with presence and absence of EDL effects are presented for various geometric cases and different boundary conditions. The results illustrate that, the liquid flow in rectangular microchannels is influenced significantly by the EDL, particularly in the high electric potentials, and hence deviates from flow characteristics described by classical fluid mechanics.


5294 Attenuated replication-competent Edmonston lineage strains of measles virus (MV-Edm) have proven anti-tumor activity against xenograft models of human multiple myeloma, ovarian cancer, lymphoma and glioma. The virus is selectively oncolytic, causing extensive lethal cell to cell fusion via CD46, which is more highly expressed on tumor cells than normal cells. However, MV-Edm retains the capacity to infect a variety of nontransformed cell types via its native receptors, CD46 and SLAM. CD46 is a ubiquitous regulator of complement activation, which is found on all human nucleated cells. SLAM (signaling lymphocyte activation molecule) is expressed only on activated T and B cells, dendritic cells and macrophages. Therefore, there is a chance that oncolytic MV-Edm may cause immunosupression, or other unwanted damage to normal tissues. One approach to avoid this risk is to engineer the viral attachment protein to ablate its natural tropisms and at the same time, redirect its specificity to interact with alternative tumor specific receptors. The measles Hemagglutinin (H) protein recognizes CD46 or SLAM, and this leads to membrane fusion triggered by the viral Fusion protein (F). We previously engineered the H protein of measles virus to restrict and retarget membrane fusion through various antibody-receptor interactions (Nakamura T. et. al., Nature Biotechnology, 2004). However, ablation of the native receptor interactions makes it difficult to grow the virus on Vero cells. To address this limitation, we have developed pseudoreceptor system "STAR", which allows rescue and propagation of fully retargeted viruses with modified H proteins that no longer bind to the native measles receptors. The H proteins of the fully retargeted viruses are tagged with a C-terminal peptide tag comprising six histidine residues (H6). The recombinant viruses can then be grown on a Vero-αHis cell line that expresses a membrane-anchored single-chain antibody recognizing the H6 peptide. For validation of the system we rescued three fully retargeted viruses incorporating single chain antibodies against CD38, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), or EGFR mutant vIII, each one tagged with the H6 peptide and displayed at the C-terminus of an ablated H protein. These retargeted viruses propagated efficiently on Vero-αHis cells (but not on parental Vero cells) and efficiently entered target cells through their respective targeted receptors in vitro and in vivo, but not through CD46 and SLAM. When administered intratumorally or intravenously to mice bearing human CD38 or EGFR-positive human tumor xenografts, the targeted viruses demonstrated specific receptor-mediated anti-tumor activity. Fully retargeted MV-Edms may prove to be more selective and safer oncolytic agents than wild-type MV-Edm. Also, our data suggest that receptor choice is not a significant limitation for targeting oncolytic measles viruses and that it should therefore be possible to target a variety of tumors.


Background—Computed tomography (CT) is increasingly used to detect coronary artery disease, but the evaluation of stenoses is often uncertain. Perfusion imaging has an established role in detecting ischemia and guiding therapy. Hybrid positron emission tomography (PET)/CT allows combination angiography and perfusion imaging in short, quantitative, low-radiation-dose protocols. Methods and Results—We enrolled 107 patients with an intermediate (30% to 70%) pretest likelihood of coronary artery disease. All patients underwent PET/CT (quantitative PET with O-water and CT angiography), and the results were compared with the gold standard, invasive angiography, including measurement of fractional flow reserve when appropriate. Although PET and CT angiography alone both demonstrated 97% negative predictive value, CT angiography alone was suboptimal in assessing the severity of stenosis (positive predictive value, 81%). Perfusion imaging alone could not always separate microvascular disease from epicardial stenoses, but hybrid PET/CT significantly improved this accuracy to 98%. The radiation dose of the combined PET and CT protocols was 9.3 mSv (86 patients) with prospective triggering and 21.8 mSv (21 patients) with spiral CT. Conclusion—Cardiac hybrid PET/CT imaging allows accurate noninvasive detection of coronary artery disease in a symptomatic population. The method is feasible and can be performed routinely with 10 mSv in most patients. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00627172. (Circulation. 2010;122:603-613.)


Recent reports have shown that sperm cells incubated with foreign DNA in vitro are able to transfer the DNA into eggs at fertilization. The present study examined if an injection of DNA into the testis in vivo could generate transgenic animals via sperm ejaculated. We prepared 3 gene constructs; human growth hormone (hGH), hGH receptor (hGHR) and mouse leptin (mOB) genes fused to the promoter regions of the mouse genes for whey acidic protein (WAP), metallothionein-I (MT) and mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), respectively. Each gene construct mixed with cationic liposome was injected into bilateral testes of male rats or mice, and the males mated with females 3 or 4 days later. A female rat mated with a male treated with MT/hGHR gene gave birth to 17 pups, 3 of which were found to carry the transgene. The expression of hGHR mRNA was demonstrated in the liver, kidney, muscle and brain after treating with zinc in drinking water. At present, the transmission of the exogenous gene to the descendants was confirmed up to the F4 generation. Three female rats mated with 3 different males injected with MMTV/mOB fusion gene produced 10, 14 and 12 pups, respectively. The genome of 2 out of these 36 pups harbored MMTV-mOB gene, though expression of mOB mRNA was not detected. Two female mice were mated with 2 male mice injected with WAP/hGH gene and produced 15 and 16 pups, 3 of which incorporated the gene. The expression of hGH mRNA in the mammary gland in these mice was confirmed. These results indicate that exogenous DNA injected into the testis as a liposome-complex can be transferred into eggs via sperm and expressed in the postpartum progeny.


Aim: To evaluate the visual outcomes for high myopic patients aged 40 years and older with or without myopic maculopathy. Methods: 552 high myopic (spherical equivalent ⩽−6.0D or axial length ⩾26.5 mm) patients were enrolled in the study, 230 cases with myopic maculopathy (at least lacquer cracks were identified) and 322 cases without maculopathy. The initial and final visual acuity (VA) (after 10 years) was compared between two groups. Additionally, the relation between sex, age, refraction, and axial length was analysed to find out the possible risk factors associated with visual outcome in myopic maculopathy. Results: In 92% of patients aged 40–49, final VA was better than 20/40 after 10 years of follow up. However, it was less than 40% in those older than 60 years. For more than 50% of patients older than 40 years of age with maculopathy, their vision had decreased more than two lines in Snellen VA after 10 years of follow up, compared to only 4.3% of analogues without myopic maculopathy. Patchy atrophy and choroidal neovascularisation in myopic macular degeneration groups showed poorer visual outcome than lacquer cracks in the macular lesion group. Other prognostic factors of visual outcomes were myopic refraction, axial length, and ageing. Conclusions: Clearly, prognosis for patients with maculopathy is poorer than for those without maculopathy. Refractive status, axial length, and ageing are the main factors involved in determining the visual outcomes. The macular grading also affects the visual outcome for high myopic patients.


BACKGROUND
Torsional deformities of the lower extremity are common in children and are often corrected with rotational osteotomy. The effects of torsional abnormalities, and the effects of corrective osteotomy, are not well understood. A study of children with isolated idiopathic tibial torsional pathology undergoing a single corrective procedure may assist in understanding the biomechanics of torsional deformities and the effect of surgical correction.

METHODS
Preoperative and postoperative gait analyses were performed for eight subjects (eleven sides) with idiopathic excessive inward tibial torsion and ten subjects (fourteen sides) with excessive outward tibial torsion. Sagittal ankle and frontal knee moments were assessed and compared with those for age-matched controls.

RESULTS
Preoperatively, subjects exhibited abnormal frontal knee moments at push-off. Subjects with inward tibial torsion demonstrated excessive internal valgus moments, and subjects with outward tibial torsion demonstrated reduced internal valgus or relative internal varus moments compared with the control subjects. Ankle power was significantly reduced in the inward torsion group but not in the outward torsion group. Surgical correction of the torsional deformities normalized frontal plane knee moments in both inward and outward torsion groups and restored ankle power in the inward torsion group.

CONCLUSIONS
In the present study, excessive tibial torsion adversely affected frontal knee moments and was associated with other kinematic and kinetic abnormalities. Corrective osteotomies improved all variables studied here and restored many to the values found in the control group.


The success rates for root canal therapy, when done under acceptable clinical guidelines and aseptic conditions are generally high. The microbial etiology of periradicular periodontitis is such that it sometimes requires great effort to eliminate the infection from the peri-radicular tissues and the root canal system. Majority of the pariapical radiolucent lesions heal after endodontic treatment uneventfully. However, there may be some cases that require periradicular surgical procedures so that the pathological tissues from the per-apical areas could be removed which could not have been removed by orthograde root canal treatment. In clinical endodontics, such decisions are very important especially when surgical and non-surgical retreatment has to be provided. The aim of the current paper is to briefly discuss the different factors responsible for failures in endodontics, the prognosis and decision making, and to further evaluate the retreatment of surgical and non surgical endodontic procedures as a whole. The factors responsible for success and failure of different treatment modalities have also been addressed in the current descriptive review.


A simplified protocol for in vitro fertilization treatment was developed using low-dose clomiphene for ovarian stimulation, timing of human chorionic gonadotropin administration based solely on sonographic criteria, in-office egg retrieval and use of a simplified culture medium for embryo culture. Twenty-six infertile women underwent 39 treatment cycles, with 33 egg retrievals resulting in 29 embryo transfers. Clinical pregnancy was obtained in six patients (20.7% per embryo transfer), for a rate comparable to that achieved with conventional in vitro fertilization treatment in an age-matched control group. This simplification of in vitro fertilization treatment protocols can lead to decreased patient stress and costs without a substantially lower success rate.


BACKGROUND
The physical and mental health of a population is based, in particular, on its quality of life and its access to health care. Given these determinants, Greece's population has greatly suffered due to the sharp cuts in the budget for social benefits and health care (some measurable evidence is the recent increase in the suicide rate). Starting January, the 1st of 2015, unemployment benefits in Belgium have been eliminated for all recipients who do not have a full-time year of work over the last three years. Therefore, we must ask whether there will be similar psycho-medical consequences for Belgium's population.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Open study over a year (01/07/14 - 30/06/15) of emergencies admitted to the University Hospital Center of Mont-Godinne including a psychopathological motif. In addition to general socio-demographic data, psychic disorders are measured, as well as different types of crises (familial, professional or couple crisis), familial support and its dynamic (FACES III of Olson) and finally social integration (social isolation scale from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP)). These patients are compared with those admitted during the six months preceding the Act modifying the unemployment benefits.

RESULTS
Between July the 1st of 2014 and June the 30th of 2015, we saw an increase in the number of admissions to the psychiatric emergency department by 2.5% in six months, despite a decrease in the number of admissions to all-cause emergencies. Our study also shows a degradation of social network quality characterized by a more pronounced social isolation of our patients. At last, an alteration of cohesion in the patient's origin family was highlighted.

CONCLUSION
Although we cannot establish a direct causal link between this law and the results of this study, these may suggest a weakening of the population mental health due to difficult socio-economic context. As a result, we are faced not only with a public health problem but also with one concerning health care organization.


This study investigated the effects of 40-weeks training in swimming, cycling and running on performances in swimming, running and triathlon competitions in four elite triathletes. The training stimulus was calculated using the exercise heart rate. The level of performance was measured in running by a submaximal 30 min run, in swimming by a 5 x 400 m all-out test and subjectively in triathlon competitions. A mathematical model using one to three first order transfer functions linked actual and modelled performances by minimizing the residual sum of squares between them. The relationships between training and performances were significant in running (tau(1) = 20; tau(2) = 10; r = 0.74; p < 0.001) and in swimming (tau(1) = 31; r = 0.37; p = 0.03), supporting the principle of specificity of the training loads. Cross-transfer training effects were identified between cycling and running (tau(1 = )42; r = 0.56; p < 0.001), but not with swimming performances. In addition, the training loads completed in running were shown to have a major effect on performances in triathlon competition (tau(1 = )52; tau(2 = )4; r = 0.52; p < 0.001), indicating that running training is an essential part of triathlon performance. Swimming appears to be a highly specific activity, which does not gain nor provide benefits from/to other activities (i. e. cycling and running). The present study shows that cross-transfer training effects occur between cycling training and running performance in elite triathletes. A similar cross-training effect does not seem to occur for swimming performance.


AIM
The aim of the present study is to evaluate the relationship between coronary collateral circulation (CCC) grade and serum IGF-1 levels in patients diagnosed with stable coronary artery disease.

METHODS
Totally, 190 consecutive patients with stable coronary artery disease who underwent coronary angiography were included in this study.

RESULTS
The patients with good CCC had significantly higher IGF-1 levels compared with the poor ones. On the contrary, hs-CRP was significantly lower in the good CCC group. We also demonstrated that IGF-1 level was significantly related with the grade of CCC.

CONCLUSION
We believe that measurement of IGF-1 level may help clinicians for predicting CCC development.


Abstract This article draws upon a neo-Gramscian analysis of world order to critically assess the relationship between neo-liberal globalization and socioeconomic rights. It argues that, notwithstanding the well-documented discursive tensions that appear to exist between neo-liberalism and socioeconomic rights, the latter have been reconceptualized in a manner that is congruent with the hegemonic framework of the former in a number of international institutional settings. This has been achieved in part through three discursive framing devices which will be termed 'socioeconomic rights as aspirations', 'socioeconomic rights as compensation', and 'socioeconomic rights as market outcomes'. The article will conclude by arguing that, despite such appropriation, there are still fruitful possibilities for counterhegemonic articulations of socioeconomic rights to contest neo-liberal globalization.


Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often do not acquire language naturally within ecological systems (i.e., parent-child interaction in daily routines); therefore some of these children have significant delays in social communication skills. Language interventions such as discrete-trial teaching procedures, the verbal behavior approach, and naturalistic language teaching approaches have been developed to improve language use among children with ASD. However, few research studies have examined the generalization and maintenance effects of language intervention implemented by parents on child's communication skills across natural family routines. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a language intervention model that synthesizes three theoretical frameworks, enhanced milieu language teaching (EMT), general case programming principles, and the activity setting (i.e., daily or weekly routine) as a unit of analysis and intervention for promoting generalized language use by young children with ASD. The study employed an empirical case study design with one parentchild dyad. Parent training was presented in a two-day workshop. Results showed improvements in parent use of EMT and in child use of language in indirectly trained and non-trained (i.e., generalization) family routines in the home. These improvements maintained at one and two months post-intervention. The results are discussed with reference to previous research, contributes, future directions, and implications for practitioners and researchers who are involved in language promotion interventions.


Infectious disease is the type of disease that most people suffer from in developing countries, including Indonesia. One of the causes of infectious diseases is Candida albicans. Lingzhi mushroom (Ganoderma Lucidum) is one of the plants in Indonesia which has potential as an antimicrobial. This study aims to determine the antimicrobial ability of lingzhi mushrooms (Ganoderma lucidum) ethanol extract against Candida albicans. The research method uses soxhlet methods. The results showed bacterial inhibition zones at concentrations of 20 μg/ml (8.3 mm) in the inactive category, 40 μg/ml (9.3 mm) with the inactive category, 60 μg/ml (10.5 mm) with the category less active, 80 μg / ml (11.4 mm) with the active category, and 100 μg/ml (12.6 mm) in the very active category. It can be concluded that the extract of Ganoderma Lucidum has an effect to Candida albicans bacteria. Based on observational data analyzed with the Oneway Anova test, it obtained a significant value of .000. This showed that there were differences in inhibition zones formed from various concentrations. Based on research antimicrobial activity of lingzhi mushroom ethanol extract (Ganoderma lucidum) used soxhlet method had an effect to inhibitory zone of Candida albicans.


This paper examines the effect of "news" or advance information about future production on competitive storage behavior and prices using a structural model of commodity markets. In particular, it generalizes the neo-classical storage model to incorporate information on future harvests, while allowing for seasonal production, two features important to African and other developing country grain markets. The model is first developed to suit the case of Ethiopian grain markets, and a general model is then stated. The effects on welfare and price variability of the addition of news are discussed, as well as changes in key demand and uncertainty parameters. The model is shown to replicate some features of the data better than the model without news, particularly the high autocorrelation in price, and performs better in formal estimation. However, it appears that the incorporation of news still fails to explain the extreme seasonal price movements observed.


Objective: Improvements in the application of cardio protective methods in open-heart surgery have been associated with decreased operative mortality, lowered incidence of perioperative myocardial infarction and improved cardiac functions. Material and Methods: One hundred consecutive patients undergoing their first elective coronary artery bypass grafting were prospectively randomized to receive either cold crystalloid cardioplegia (Group A, n: 50) or cold blood cardioplegia (Group B, n: 50). Patients in group A received initial cold crystalloid cardioplegia, patients in group B received initial cold blood cardioplegia that was a mixture (4:1) of the oxygenated blood of the patient and hyperkalemic crystalloid concentration. In both groups, following the inital cardioplegia, cold blood cardioplegia every 20 minutes and finally warm blood cardioplegia (37°C) was performed before the removal of the aortic cross clamp. Results: In both groups, the baseline patient characteristics did not differ. During the cardiopulmonary bypass, blood transfusion was applied to the bypass circuit 11 patients in group A and 2 patients in group B because of low hemoglobin level (p<0.001). Following removal of the aortic cross clamp, the incidence of spontaneous defibrillation in group A was lower than in group B (p<0.001). Creatin kinase isoenzyme MB level at the 12th hour postoperatively was significantly higher in group A than in group B (p<0.01). Perioperative Ml was in three patients in group A and 1 patient in group B, (p: not significant). The incidence of atrial fibrillation, ventricular extrasystole and low cardiac out-put was similar in both groups. Conclusion: Cold blood induction performs better myocardial protection and faster myocardial recovery than the cold crystalloid induction cardioplegia in low-risk patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting. Key Words: Cardioplegia, Antegrade, Protection, CABG


The generic transition in the boson Hubbard model, occurring at an incommensurate chemical potential, is studied in the link-current representation using the recently developed directed geometrical worm algorithm. We find clear evidence for a multipeak structure in the energy distribution for finite lattices, usually indicative of a first-order phase transition. However, this multipeak structure is shown to disappear in the thermodynamic limit, revealing that the true phase transition is second order. These findings cast doubts over the conclusion drawn in a number of previous works considering the relevance of disorder at this transition.


Background and aims: E-selectin is a cell adhesion molecule of the vascular endothelium that mediates leukocyte rolling in the early inflammatory responses in many diseases including Kawasaki disease (KD). Previous studies have demonstrated that the expression levels of E-selectin was significantly increased in the sera of KD patients and in endothelial cells of KD patient's autopsy. In this study, we aimed to examine E-selectin levels in endothelial cells treated with sera from KD patients and explore the underlying mechanisms. Methods: Human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAECs) were randomly incubated with sera from either healthy children [healthy control (HC group)] or pediatric KD patients [assigned as KD with coronary artery lesion (KD-CAL+ group) and KD without coronary artery lesion (KD-CAL– group)]. E-selectin levels were determined by RT-qPCR, Western blotting, and immunofluorescence. Cell adhesion assay was performed to quantify the role of E-selectin in intercellular adhesion. High-throughput cell RNA sequencing followed by functional validation was performed to explore the underlying mechanism. Results: E-selectin levels were significantly increased in KD-CAL+ group vs. HC group and KD-CAL– group. Compared with the KD-CAL– group, endothelia–monocyte adhesion was increased in the KD-CAL+ group, while E-selectin-specific siRNA could significantly rescue it. High-throughput cell RNA sequencing analysis also found a significant difference in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) levels between KD-CAL+ group and KD-CAL– group. Functional validation results further confirmed that the OXPHOS was upregulated in the KD-CAL+ group and KD-CAL– group compared to that in the HC group, while the KD-CAL+ group exhibited a higher OXPHOS than the KD-CAL– group. We also found that the E-selectin levels and endothelia–monocyte adhesion were significantly decreased by OXPHOS inhibitor oligomycin in the KD-CAL+ group and KD-CAL– group, respectively. Conclusion: Sera from KD patients stimulate OXPHOS levels and enhance E-selectin expression in HCAECs, which may contribute to the development of CAL in KD patients.


Premise of research. Heterospecific pollen deposition on stigmas can impact plant reproduction by decreasing seed set or inducing fruit abortion. Pollinating bats often carry pollen from many species on their fur, and thus bat-pollinated flowers may exhibit tolerance to heterospecific pollen deposition, but to our knowledge this has never been studied. We investigated the relative impact of increasing heterospecific pollen deposition on female reproduction of two sympatric species of Burmeistera that experience pollen transfer between them by their shared bat pollinators. Methodology. We simulated heterospecific pollen deposition by applying pollen mixtures that differed in the ratio of heterospecific to conspecific flowers used to make them (3∶1; 2∶2, and 1∶3) and measured female reproduction by quantifying fruit abortion, seed number, and seed mass. Pivotal results. For Burmeistera borjensis, applying a higher relative amount of heterospecific pollen led to decreased seed production and lighter seed mass, whereas no significant effect of increasing heterospecific pollen was detected in Burmeistera ceratocarpa. Burmeistera borjensis aborted more fruits than B. ceratocarpa (44.1% vs. 18.8%); however, in both species the probability of fruit abortion was not affected by pollination treatment. Conclusions. We detected asymmetric impacts on female reproduction between this pair of sympatric Burmeistera: while increasing heterospecific pollen deposition decreased seed production and seed mass for B. borjensis, it had no detectable effect on B. ceratocarpa. Prior work shows that in nature B. borjensis receives much lower amounts of heterospecific pollen than B. ceratocarpa, and thus results suggest that B. ceratocarpa may have stronger gametic or postzygotic isolating barriers to be able to tolerate heterospecific pollen deposition. Future work should explore how different isolation mechanisms contribute to the asymmetric effects on female reproduction that we report here and whether tolerance to heterospecific pollen deposition is a common response among bat-pollinated plants and other plant taxa relying on low-fidelity pollinators.


Background/Aim: The present study examined the resistance to cyclic fatigue of three different rotary Ni-Ti instruments: K3XF (Kerr, Orange, CA), HyFlex CM (Coltene/Whaledent, Altstätten, Switzerland) and X7 EdgeFile (EdgeEndo, Albuquerque, New Mexico).Material and Methods: Thirty instruments (n=30) of each type were used with tip size 25 and 0.04 taper. All instruments were constrained to 600 of curvature with a radius of 5 mm by the use of two grooved stainless steel rods and rotated at a speed of 300 rpm and 3.0 Ncm of torque. The time until separation was recorded for each of the instruments and the number of cycles to fracture (NCF) was calculated. Statistical analysis was performed using R Programming language.Results: The X7 EdgeFile instrument showed significantly greater resistance to cyclic fatigue when compared to the HyFlex CM and the K3XF with mean NCF for each instrument 1046 ± 311, 707 ± 219 and 360 ± 96 respectively. HyFlex CM performed significantly better than K3XF.Conclusions: The X7 EdgeFile Ni-Ti file appears to be significantly more resistant to fracture, due to flexural fatigue, than the HyFlex CM and the K3XF.


Cryptococcosis causes disseminated disease in AIDS patients. In contrast to what occurs in laboratory conditions, a large capsule is produced by Cryptococcus neoformans in vivo during infection. The aim of this study was to compare the in vitro activity of different antifungal agents against 34 clinical isolates of C. neoformans var. grubii without or with capsule induction (CLSI, CLSI-C, respectively), following the CLSI M27A3 document. Capsule induction was obtained by addition of NaHCO(3) and incubation with CO(2). The geometric means of the MICs, in µg ml(-1), for CLSI and CLSI-C cultures, respectively, were 1.9 and 9.8 for fluconazole; 0.04 and 0.08 for itraconazole; 0.04 and 0.05 for voriconazole; 0.16 and 0.38 for amphotericin B; and 1.6 and 5.6 for 5-flucytosine. Thus fluconazole showed the highest MICs after capsule induction. Determination of antifungal activity after capsule induction may be clinically relevant and could be used to evaluate the correlation between in vitro results and clinical outcome.


The enhancement of primary treatment efficiency through the coagulation process may yield several advantages, including lower aeration energy in the subsequent biological unit and higher recovery of biogas from sludge digestion. In this work sewage coagulation with lime was studied at pilot plant level, using degritted sewage from the city of Rome. The work aimed at optimising the operating conditions (coagulant dosage or treatment pH, and mixing conditions in the coagulation and flocculation tanks), in order to maximise the efficiency of suspended Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal and to minimise sludge production. Lime dosage optimisation resulted in an optimal treatment pH of 9. Lime addition up to pH 9 may increase COD removal rate in the primary treatment from typical 30-35% of plain sedimentation up to 55-70%. Within the velocity gradients experimented in this work (314-795 s(-1) for the coagulation tank and 13-46 s(-1) for the flocculation tank), mixing conditions did not significantly affect the lime-enhanced process, which seems to be controlled by slow lime dissolution. Sludge produced in the lime-enhanced process settled and compacted easily, inducing an average 36% decrease in sludge volume with respect to plain settling. However excess sludge was produced, which was not accounted for by the amount of suspended solids removed. This is probably due to incomplete dissolution of lime, which may be partially incorporated in the sludge.


It is known since a long time that the hippocampus is sensitive to aging. Thus, there is a reduction in the hippocampal volume during aging. This age-related volume reduction is paralleled by behavioral and functional deficits in hippocampus-dependent learning and memory tasks. This age-related volume reduction of the hippocampus is not a consequence of an age-related loss of hippocampal neurons. The morphological changes associated with aging include reductions in the branching pattern of dendrites, as well as reductions in spine densities, reductions in the densities of fibers projecting into the hippocampus as well as declines in the rate of neurogenesis. It is very unlikely that a single factor or a single class of molecules is responsible for all these age-related morphological changes in the hippocampus. Nevertheless, it would be of advantage to identify possible neuromodulators or neuropeptides that may contribute to these age-related changes. In this context, growth factors may play an important role in the maintenance of the postnatal hippocampal architecture. In this review it is hypothesized that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a factor critically involved in the regulation of age-related processes in the hippocampus. Moreover, evidences suggest that disturbances in the BDNF-system also affect hippocampal dysfunctions, as e.g. seen in major depression or in Alzheimer disease.


The epigenetic machinery deputed to control histone post-translational modifications is frequently dysregulated in cancer cells. With epigenetics being naturally reversible, it represents a good target for therapies directed to restore normal gene expression. Since the discovery of Bromodomain and Extra Terminal (BET) inhibitors, a great effort has been spent investigating the effects of chromatin readers' inhibition, specifically the class of proteins assigned to bind acetylated and methylated residues. So far, focused studies have been produced on epigenetic regulation, dissecting a specific class of epigenetic-related proteins or investigating epigenetic therapy in a specific tumor type. In this review, recent steps toward drug discovery on the different classes of chromatin readers have been outlined, highlighting the pros and cons of current therapeutic approaches.


Precision medicine aims to better individualize healthcare. It requires that biomaterials be designed for the physiological characteristics of a specific patient. To make this a reality, biomaterials research and development must address differences of biological sex. More specifically, biomaterials should be designed with properties optimized and appropriate for male and female patients. In analyzing research articles from seven prominent biomaterials journals, sex as a biological variable is missing from an overwhelming majority of in vitro biomaterial studies. From the survey, the reporting of the sex of primary cell cultures happened only 10.3% of the time. Contributing to this trend is that commercial vendors bias cell lines toward one sex or another by not disclosing information of cell line sex at the time of purchase; researchers do not communicate this pertinent information in published studies; and many journal policies have little to no requirements for reporting cell line characteristics. Omitting this valuable information leads to a gap in the understanding of sex‐specific cell‐biomaterial interactions and it creates a bias in research findings towards one sex or another. To curb this concerning trend and make precision biomaterials a reality will require the biomaterials field to "talk about sex" by reporting cell sex more broadly.


The emergence of massive datasets exploring the multiple levels of molecular biology has made their analysis and knowledge transfer more complex. Flexible tools to manage big biological datasets could be of great help for standardizing the usage of developed data visualizations and integration methods. Business intelligence (BI) tools have been used in many fields as exploratory tools. They have numerous connectors to link numerous data repositories with a unified graphic interface, offering an overview of data and facilitating interpretation for decision makers. BI tools could be a flexible and user-friendly way of handling molecular biological data with interactive visualizations. However, it is rather uncommon to see such tools used for the exploration of massive and complex datasets in biological fields. We believe that two main obstacles could be the reason. Firstly, we posit that the way to import data into BI tools are not compatible with biological databases. Secondly, BI tools may not be adapted to certain particularities of complex biological data, namely, the size, the variability of datasets and the availability of specialized visualizations. This paper highlights the use of five BI tools (Elastic Kibana, Siren Investigate, Microsoft Power BI, Salesforce Tableau and Apache Superset) onto which the massive data management repository engine called Elasticsearch is compatible. Four case studies will be discussed in which these BI tools were applied on biological datasets with different characteristics. We conclude that the performance of the tools depends on the complexity of the biological questions and the size of the datasets.


This study examines the local response of a Black Sea town (Tirebolu) to the regional change occurring since the late 1980s from a historical-anthropological perspective. It seeks to understand how economic and political changes brought about in the last decades resonates at the level of localities and their people, who experienced a strong nation-building process in Turkey since the 1930s, through such Republican institutions as public schools or People's Houses. (2) The principal hypothesis is that the local perception of "regionality" deviated from centuries-long traditions of regional communication mainly in the 20th century, and completely changed how a particular town situates itself on the national and regional grounds. The objective of this study is to analyze the dynamics between regionalism, nation-building and locality focusing on the case of Tirebolu in Turkey. Interest in the study of "locality" followed the upsurge of interest in the studies on nationalism during the 1980s by such scholars as Anderson (1983), Gellner (1983), Smith (11983) and Hobsbawm (1990). As a unit of analysis, "the local" received more attention in the 1990s, where the works of Gupta and Ferguson (1992), Appadurai (1995) and Feld and Basso (1996) approached the issue of locality with reference to its relation to the "national" and the "global." The works of Edward Casey (1993, 1997), however, brought a deconstructive framework to the analysis of such terms as "place," "region," "local," "zone" and "boundary"--very useful in the rethinking of these terms in their geographical and historical contexts. The issue of locality was often associated with issues of identity and the sense of belonging in anthropological surveys of the concept of locality. The approach developed by Borneman (1992) and Lovell (1998) provide clear examples of such an anthropological perspective. Locality has also been a central subject matter in the literature in the field of oral history as illustrated in the works of Danielson (1980), Glassie (1982), Portelli (1991), Kammen (1995), and Kyvig and Marty (1996), who focused on the importance of local perceptions of historical events using oral narratives. It is within the framework of this interdisciplinary approach to the issue of locality that Tirebolu's stance can be evaluated vis-a-vis its relation to the national center and the region at large. Such a local perspective requires a close look at the historical development of Tirebolu and its relation to both the national center and the surrounding region at large. The research adopts an oral history and ethnographic survey approach to reveal the past memory of the experience related to nation-building and regionalism, with a focus on the social and economic transformation of the town. Integrating the concepts of "nation-building" and "regionalism," it will hopefully have a contribution of an applied nature for establishing future policies in similar localities in Turkey. Research Methodology The research benefited mainly from two methodologies: (1) an ethnographic survey of the town, and (2) an oral history approach to collect narratives of the regional and national memory. The focus during the ethnographic observation was on how the local economy operated within the town, with an eye to the organization of material life. Preliminary research was conducted in order to establish the necessary network of narrators, who were chosen from a variety of professions in Tirebolu's main market place where the effect of social change was most strongly experienced. This included 10 in-depth interviews with street vendors from the bazaar, small-scale shopkeepers and owners of newly developing businesses in the town. Other interviews (with 30 people) were also collected as a narrative of life-story, but focused on the geographical and social mobility of the informants to access narratives of popular memory. The oral history research provided data about those aspects of past experiences of Tirebolu's local economy which were not visible in today's practices. …


Abstract This paper argues that there are areas of political behavior for which the usual assumption of wealth maximizing homo economicus is to narrow to generate convincing explanation of behavior. In particular, it is argued that for many political decisions, people choose according to some set of moral preconceptions while for others, people have insufficient information to make economic choices even if they were inclined to do so. This implies that normative public choice can only be part of a political decision process in which non-pecuniary concerns influence choices . Finally, constitutional economics insofar as it is conceptually conceived, must presume some set of moral and informational properties of the parties to the social contract.


Studying specialty preference can help provide important information to aid in planning educational programs, set priorities, and plan for the provision of adequate health care for our different countries. This study aims to identify the career preferences among medical students in a tertiary educational institution and also to explore factors that affect their choice of specialty and differences that may arise in preferences of male and female students. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional design carried out between September and October 2011. A total of 160 medical students from 400 to 600 levels studying at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Medical School were recruited for the study using stratified sampling method. A set of semi-structured self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain data from the respondents. Surgery was the most preferred specialty among male respondents (30.4%), while Obstetrics and Gynecology was the most preferred (26.7%) among female respondents. Some of the reasons proffered by the respondents for specialty preference include interest in research (10%), focus on urgent care (10%), reputation of the specialty (8.8%), and diversity of patients (8.8%).  Logistic regression model was able to explain between 42.7% (Cox & Snell R Square) and 43.2% (Nagelkerke R Square) of variance in specialty preference of respondents with .respondents' sex, and fathers education level) contributing significantly to the model.

 Key words: Specialty preference, medical students, career, Nigeria.


Constraining parameters such as the initial mass function high-mass slope and the frequency of Type Ia supernovae is of critical importance in the ongoing quest to understand galactic physics and create realistic hydrodynamical simulations. In this paper, we demonstrate a method for precisely determining these using individual chemical abundances from a large set of stars, coupled with some estimate of their ages. Inference is performed via the simple chemical evolution model Chempy in a Bayesian framework, marginalizing over each star's specific interstellar medium parameters, including an element-specific "model error" parameter to account for inadequacies in our model. Hamiltonian Monte Carlo methods are used to sample the posterior function, which is made possible by replacing Chempy with a trained neural network at negligible error. The approach is tested using data from both Chempy and the IllustrisTNG simulation, showing subpercent agreement between inferred and true parameters using data from up to 1600 individual stellar abundances. For IllustrisTNG, the strongest constraints are obtained from metal ratios, competitive with those from other methods including star counts. Analysis using a different set of nucleosynthetic yields shows that incorrectly assumed yield models can give non-negligible bias in the derived parameters; this is reduced by our model errors, which further show how well the yield tables match the data. We also find a significant bias from analyzing only a small set of stars, as is often done in current analyses. The method can be easily applied to observational data, giving tight bounds on key galactic parameters from chemical abundances alone.


This paper analyzes economies of scale for two municipal services by considering how per-household municipal costs are affected by a municipality's size. An econometric model is used to estimate costs associated with fire and police services using data for 445 municipalities in the Province of Ontario. The results show that the costs per household of fire services are minimized for municipalities with a population of about 20,000 residents. For police services, costs are minimized with a population of about 50,000 residents. Based on these results, implications are drawn for municipal amalgamation policy.


Oligomannosidic branch isomers (structures differing only in the branch location of a single residue) which are biosynthetic intermediates in yeast and higher eukaryotics have been separated using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on porous graphatized carbon (PGC) columns, a stationary phase of two-dimensional crystalline carbon. A mixture of two Man6GlcNAc isomers from IgM, which was determined from 1H NMR analysis, was completely separated by PGC-HPLC. Mixtures of larger yeast oligomannosidic branch isomers were also chromatographically resolved using PGC-HPLC. Man10GlcNAc and Man11GlcNAc species from invertase expressed in Pichia pastoris showed three and five peak fractions, respectively, by PGC-HPLC in agreement with the number of isomeric forms from one- and two-dimensional 1H NMR analyses of the individual sized fractions (Trimble, R. B., Atkinson, P. H., Tschopp, J. R., Townsend, R. R., and Maley, F. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266, 22807-22817). Selected peak fractions were further analyzed to confirm assignments using matrix- assisted laser-desorption mass spectrometry after digestion with an alpha(1 --> 2)-specific mannosidase (Aspergillus saitoi). PGC-HPLC should prove invaluable for the preparation of singular oligosaccharides to define exoglycosidase and glycosyl transferase branch specificity and for preparing standards to develop more sensitive methods for structural elucidation of oligosaccharides.


Pancreas sonography was performed on 171 patients with cystic fibrosis. The pancreas was visualized in 138 patients (81%) and could not be visualized in 33. 125 patients (90%) had abnormal echogenicity of the pancreas. Cysts were found in 5 patients. Two patients showed a dilatation of the pancreatic duct. The pancreas was abnormal in 98% of all patients aged more than 6 years.


Abstract –The individual tryptophanyl contributions to the near‐ultraviolet dichroic activity of apomyoglobin in its native conformation have been resolved. This was accomplished by comparing the spectra of two classes of apomyoglobin with different aromatic residue contents and observing the effect of a specific modification of indole residues. The circular dichroism (CD) spectra of apomyoglobins containing two tryptophanyl residues, i.e. Trp A‐5 and A‐12, show the presence of a positive peak centered at 292 nm, attributable to indolic chromophore, which is missing in the CD spectrum of tuna apomyoglobin possessing only Trp A‐12. Moreover, the specific modification of Trp A‐5 by 2‐hydroxy‐5‐nitrobenzyl bromide is shown by the lack of the 292 nm peak and the appearance of a positive band at longer wavelength. The pH dependence of the position of this band suggests that it arises from the 2‐hydroxy‐5‐nitrobenzyl moiety. The results suggest that Trp A‐12 does not substantially contribute to the optical activity in the near ultraviolet.


establishes and maintains the basic National horizontal and vertical networks of geodetic control and provides governmentwide leadership in the improvement of geodetic surveying methods and instrumentation, coordinates operations to assure network development, and provides specifications and criteria for survey operations by Federal, State, and other agencies. NGS engages in research and development for the improvement of knowledge of the figure of the Earth and its gravity field, and has the responsibility to procure geodetic data from all sources, process these data, and make them generally available to users through a central data base. NOAA Technical Memorandums and some special NOAA publications are sold by the National Technical In formation Service (NTIS) in paper copy and microfiche. Orders should be directed to NTIS, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161 (telephone: 703-487-4650). NTIS customer charge accounts are invited; some commercial charge accounts are accepted. When ordering, give the NTIS accession number (which begins with PB) shown in parentheses in the following citations. Paper copies of NOAA Technical Reports that are of general interest to the public are sold by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) , Washington, DC 20402 (telephone: 202-783-3238). For prompt service, please furnish the GPO stock number with your order. If a citation does not carry this number, then the publication is not sold by GPO. All NOAA Technical Reports may be purchased from NTIS in hard copy and microform. Prices for the same publication may vary between the two Government sales agents. Although both are nonprofit, GPO relies on some Federal support whereas NTIS is self-sustained. An excellent reference source for Government publications is the National Depository Library program, a network of about 1,300 designated libraries. Requests for borrowing Depository Library material may be made through your local library. A free listing of libraries currently in this system is available


Partially depleted silicon-on-insulator (PD-SOI) technology has garnered more attention recently with regards to replacing traditional bulk-silicon technology as the mainstream technology of choice for high-performance/low-power digital applications. The increase in performance is due to the buried oxide layer, which provides a dramatic decrease in the source and drain junction capacitance, as well as a reduction in the traditional back biasing resulting from the body effect. The reported performance increases have been between 20% and 35%. However, this increase in performance comes at a cost of complexity from a performance measurement and delay testing perspective. Where the SOI transistor is faster than the bulk transistor, there exists a variation in delay caused by threshold voltage shifts that must be accounted for during manufacturing test. This paper explores these issues and proposes new test techniques for this promising technology


References 1. Armstrong WF, Schilt BF, Helper DJ, Dillon JC, Feigenbaum H: Diastolic collapse of the right ventricle with cardiac tamponade: an echocardiographic study. Circulation 65: 1491, 1982 2. Gillam LD, Goyer D, King ME, Marshall J, Weyman AE: Hydrodynamiccompression of the right atrial free wall, a new highly sensitive echocardiographic sign of cardiac tamponade. (abstr) Am J Cardiol 49: 1010, 1982


Corporate and private hotel developers, appraisers, and consultants must make an assumption regarding the period of time it will take a new hotel to reach a stabilized occupancy level. Historically, most developers of future hotel occupancy estimates have assumed a three-year build-up period, although empirical research has not tested this assumption. This research project tests that assumption by analyzing the actual occupancy rates of 3,699 hotels that opened during the previous economic cycle. In addition, this project evaluates the stabilization period based on hotel type, location, size, and service level. This exploratory study develops guidance for analysts of hotel occupancies by evaluating the absolute level of stabilized occupancy by hotel type in an effort to assist with refining the accuracy of prospective financial analyses for new hotels. While this project finds support for the use of a three-year occupancy build-up, it concludes that certain hotel types and locations stabilize more slowly or more quickly, whereas hotel size and service level are not significant determinants of stabilization period. Also, this project finds that certain hotel types stabilize at significantly higher occupancy rates than others.


An L-amino acid oxidase (TM-LAO) from the venom of Hunan Trimeresurus mucrosquamatus was purified to homogeneity by three steps including DEAE Sephadex A-50 ion-exchange chromatography, Sephadex G-75 gel filtration and Resource Q ion-exchange chromatography. TM-LAO is composed of two identical subunits with a molecular weight of 55 kD by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The molecular weight was different with that of LAO purified from the same species distributed in Taiwan that was 70 kD. The 24 N-terminal amino acid sequence of TM-LAO is ADNKNPLEECFRETNYEEFLEIAR, which shares high similarity with other Viperid snake venom LAOs and has moderate similarity with Elapid snake venom LAOs. Further studies found that TM-LAO inhibited the growth of E. coli, S. aurues and B. dysenteriae. TM-LAO also showed cytotoxicity and platelet aggregation activity. All the biological activities were eliminated by catalase, a H(2)O(2) scavenger. It was shown that these biological effects were possibly due to the formation of H(2)O(2) produced by TM-LAO.


The rise of multidrug-resistant bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus, has highlighted global urgency for new classes of antibiotics. Biotin protein ligase (BPL), a critical metabolic regulatory enzyme, is an important target that shows significant promise in this context. Here we report the in silico docking, synthesis, and biological assay of a new series of N1-diphenylmethyl-1,2,3-triazole-based S. aureus BPL (SaBPL) inhibitors (8-19) designed to probe the adenine binding site and define whole-cell activity for this important class of inhibitor. Triazoles 13 and 14 with N1-propylamine and -butanamide substituents, respectively, were particularly potent with K i values of 10 ± 2 and 30 ± 6 nM, respectively, against SaBPL. A strong correlation was apparent between the K i values for 8-19 and the in silico docking, with hydrogen bonding to amino acid residues S128 and N212 of SaBPL likely contributing to potent inhibition.


It is known that vibratory feeders are the most versatile of all hopper feeding devices for small engineering parts and play a key role in assembly automation. This work develops a mathematical model of the part motion in vibratory feeding, from which how the part works can be better known. A computer simulation programmed with MATLAB has been made to predict the conveying velocity of the parts in vibration feeding system, and furthermore, experiments have been carried out for verification purpose. The experimental results show that the simulation results are reasonable, and hence can be used to improve the design of vibratory feeding system.