Malaria is the single most important cause of illness and deaths in Nigerian children especially in rural areas where effective case management and prevention are compromised by delayed recognition of the disease and poor treatment decisions poor access to integrated malaria vector control and therapeutic intervention strategies. To design efficacious and cost-effective malaria control activity with potentials for optimal social benefits in a rural area an understanding of perception of malaria and health seeking behaviors of caregivers is highly imperative. This study was carried out to characterize Takwa-Bay for malaria risk factors and document existing knowledge attitudes and practices related to malaria recognition control and treatment in the area. This cross-sectional descriptive study enrolled 112 respondents from 47 households of 171 under 5 years of age children that were selected by multistage random sampling method from 11 clusters drawn from the 4 major settlements in Takwa-Bay: Takwa-Bay Ebute-Oko Abagbo and Ogogoro in Lagos Nigeria. The respondents who were caregivers were administered open/close-ended pilot tested questionnaire that was designed based on key informant interviews to capture demographic and socio-economic variables coupled with their knowledge of malaria and health seeking behavior. The area was also environmentally assessed to capture malaria transmission indicators. Data were analyzed statistically using SPSS software version 11.0. A total of 112 respondents aged 21 - 53 years (mean + SD age = 32.9+8.7 years).were studied. Of the 112 respondents 59 (52.7%) were females (P >0.05) 76.8% had formal education predominated by primary school attendance (50.9%; P <0.05) 27.7% were traders 13.4% were artisans 18.8% were housewives and 8% were unemployed. The respondents (88.5%) were ranked within the 1st and 2nd quartiles of wealth index suggesting poor to moderately poor socio-economic status. The respondents had good knowledge of malaria aetiology (77.7 – 100%) and classical symptoms of uncomplicated malaria such as fever malaise headache and loss of appetite (87.5 - 96.4 %). But knowledge of danger signs seen in severe malaria such as convulsion coma jaundice and respiratory distress (28.6 – 57.6%) were significantly low (P < 0.05) Community members and the health post were mentioned as the major sources of information by the respondents compared to radio television and traditional medicine practitioners (4.5 – 11.6 vs. 19.6 – 58%; P <0.05). Data on health seeking behavior indicated that the respondents employed allopathic medicines (71.4%) traditional medicines (20.5%) or both (8%) to treat their sick children. Self medication was practiced by 57.1% of the respondents. Reasons given for self medication included timeliness knowledge about treatment of malaria non-availability of doctors in the health post poor attitude of health workers and lack of drugs at the health post while the use of traditional medicines was based on cultural belief of efficacy of natural products and the free to low cost associated with their procurement. Western medicines used were CQ (32.5%) SP (42.5%) artemisinin monotherapy (13.8%) and ACT (3.8%) analgesics (75%) antibiotics (46.3%) and haematinnics (51.3%). The use of allopathic medicine was associated with having a formal education (OR (95%CI) = 11.6 (3.8-36.4) and younger age [OR (95%CI) = 5.0 (1.5-16.3)] while self medication was favorably practiced by the male gender [(OR (95%CI) = 5.4 (2.2-13.4)]. Leaves of Vernonia amygdalina Morinda lucida and Azadirachta indica were among the plants used for malaria treatments. More than 60% of the households' survey were located < 400 m to water bodies and surrounded by mosquito breeding promoting factors. We conclude that Takwa-Bay is a malaria prone and poor rural area that is currently characterized by poor home management of the disease despite good awareness of malaria among the caregivers. Therefore there is a need to improve perception of malaria and bridge the existing gap between knowledge and health seeking behaviour in Takwa-Bay through provision of health education with emphasis on danger signs of malaria and training of health care providers with emphasis on the procurement and sales of ACTs as nationally approved therapies for malaria in Nigeria. Home management of malaria (HMM) by caregivers should also be improved through provision of key messages regarding malaria treatment using information education and communication (IEC) materials. The formal health system in Takwa-Bay should also be strengthened through regular supply of ACT to avert stock outs provision of doctors and training of health personnel on the treatment guidelines and client friendliness. Ownership and use of long lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) should also be improved in the area.


This paper proposes methods to enable autonomous operation, specifically for localization and motion planning, of net grooming robots in aquaculture net pens and validates the proposed methods in both simulations and experimental fieldwork. Moreover, this paper suggests enabling uninterrupted operation by investigating the use of data from an inertial measurements unit that is a common sensor in underwater vehicles, rather than investing and upgrading to costly sensory systems that often require additional installation and calibration. In particular, the presented work consists of a localization method capable of estimating a robotic system's cylindrical position in an aquaculture net pen, a 3 DOF cylindrical robotic model, a method for path planning and collision avoidance, and a heading guidance and control system. The simulations demonstrate successful localization of the robotic system, while simultaneously planning and following collision-free trajectories in an environment obstructed by obstacles. Furthermore, the field trials successfully demonstrate that the system, when applied to net crawling robots, is capable of localization, path planning, and collision avoidance in an aquaculture setting. As follows, the presented work contributes to establishing net grooming robots as competitive candidates for biofouling management.


Images obtained in g′, r′, and i′ with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini North are used to investigate the metallicity and stellar content of the M31 dwarf spheroidal companion galaxy Andromeda V. Red giant branch (RGB) stars are traced out to radii in excess of 126″ from the galaxy center, indicating that And V extends over a diameter approaching 1 kpc. The mean g′-i′ color of the RGB does not change with radius. Based on the slope of the RGB in the (i′, g′-i′) color-magnitude diagram, we conclude that the metallicity of And V is [Fe/H] = -2.2 ± 0.1. This is lower than earlier estimates and places And V squarely on the relation between metallicity and integrated brightness defined by other dwarf spheroidal and dwarf elliptical galaxies. In contrast to many of the Galaxy's dwarf spheroidal companions, there is no evidence for a statistically significant population of luminous asymptotic giant branch stars near the center of the galaxy.


In order to conquer uncertainty and disturbance, a reduced robust control strategy based on linear matrix inequality (LMI) was proposed for a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system. And then the structure singular value (SSV) μ analysis method was utilized to testify the robust stability of proposed controller. The simulation results demonstrated that the control method could maintain the oxygen excess ratio (OER) better at the desired value and guarantee stable operation of the system when the vehicle running process was simulated. The comparison with other control strategies verified that the proposed method had superiority and valuable robust stability margin was obtained by μ analysis.


A model for analyzing the reliability of gracefully degrading and standby-sparing computer systems is developed. The basis of the model is the identification of four distinct causes of crashes: time-domain multiple faults, resource exhaustion, space-domain multiple faults, and solitary faults. Expressions are developed for each of these crash-causing mechanisms and for their interrelationship. The model is then demonstrated by using it to analyze the reliability of a gracefully degrading computer system called PRIME.


Introduction The decriminalization and legalization of cannabis (i.e. marijuana) is a highly debated topic in the U.S. State and local policies on cannabis possession and distribution have been continuously changing since the 1970s, and the patchwork of different approaches across states raises questions about how these policies are impacting criminal justice system resources and outcomes. This paper summarizes the research on the impacts of cannabis decriminalization and legalization on the criminal justice system, specifically focusing on six impacts: 1) cannabis and other drug possession arrests, 2) racial disparities in cannabis-related arrests, 3) broader crime rates, 4) criminal justice system resources, 5) impacts on border states, and 6) the experiences of law enforcement.


This article presents a new approach of integrating tangible user feedback in todays virtual TV studio productions. We describe a tangible multitouch planning system, enabling multiple users to prepare and customize scene flow and settings. Users can collaboratively view and interact with virtual objects by using a tangible user interface on a shared multitouch surface. The in a 2D setting created TV scenes are simultaneously rendered on an external monitor, using a production/target renderer in 3D. Thereby the user experiences a closer reproduction of a final production. Subsequently, users are able to join together the scenes into one complex plot. Within the developing process, a video prototype of the system shows the user interaction and enables early reviews and evaluations. The requirement analysis is based on expert interviews.


easy. Annotation: Emerging technologies in the global world are posing new challenges to education in all degrees. Especially relevant is the challenge posed by the competency approach. The development presents an understanding of the dependency summative-competencies underlying the TREAM strategy.


The experiments of Brown, Woolhouse & Valdrè (1968) on coherency loss induced by fast neutron irradiation have been extended by varying the precipitate size distribution, the fast neutron dose and the mismatch of the precipitate. When the integrated dose and the mean precipitate size are large, coherency loss is extensive during irradiation. Otherwise thermal activation is required for coherency loss. This is shown to be consistent with a process involving the unfaulting of in terstitial dislocation loops and their subsequent glide and climb to the precipitate interfaces. Closer agreement is found with the theoretically predicted critical size for coherency loss of Brown et al. (1968). Experiments involving coherency loss by electron irradiation in a high voltage electron microscope are also described. It is found that in this case, coherency loss occurs by the migration of free interstitial atoms produced by the irradiation and very close agreement with the theoretically predicted size is found.


Despite T-cell based immunotherapy having shown promising efficacy in various advanced cancers, only a small subset of patients can benefit from this strategy. Boosting cancer immunotherapy via an effective strategy to increase response rate in cancer patients is imperatively desired. Combining checkpoint inhibitor-based immunotherapy with translational nanoparticle-mediated photothermal therapy (PTT) may provide a solution. Using a murine breast cancer model, we demonstrate that an enhanced tumor-specific immune response is achieved by combining CTLA-4 inhibitor with PTT mediated by stealthy and biodegradable iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs). Our data shows that the biodegradable IONPs coated with an antifouling polymer grants stealth to enhance tumor accumulation (5.3% of the injection dose) following systemic administration (20 mg Fe/Kg mouse body weight), and such MRI imaging capable IONPs are effective nanomediators for PTT under the near-infrared light (885 nm) irradiation in vivo. Using an orthotopic 4T1 mouse xenograft model we demonstrate that IONP-mediated PTT (0.5 Watts, 10 minute irradiation at 24 h and 48 h post IONP administration) plus anti-CTLA-4 antibody (60 μg/mouse for each injection, systemic administration, 3 doses) could completely eliminate 5−6 mm-sized tumors, while control treatments including IONP-mediated PTT alone, anti-CTLA-4 antibody alone, and mock-treatment fail to do so. The dramatic differences between single agents and combination therapy suggest that the observed response is synergistic. Furthermore, our data shows that mice treated with PTT, alone or in combinations, can significantly inhibit distal tumor growth, when a secondary inoculation is performed at a distal site one day prior to primary tumor treatment to mimic metastases. Eight days following primary therapy all distal tumors form in both control and anti-CTLA-4 treated mice with no significant difference in size. However, at the same time in mice treated with either IONP-mediated PTT plus anti-CTLA-4 antibody or IONP-mediated PTT only against primary tumors 50% of secondary tumors do not form and those which do are significantly smaller than those of control treated mice. Further, the duration of response was significantly longer for combination therapy. We speculate that this enhanced anticancer efficacy is a product of simultaneously increasing intratumoral T-cell trafficking toward primary tumor and enhanced T-cell activation in situ triggered by released tumor-specific antigens during PTT. In conclusion, our work demonstrates that T-cell-based cancer immunotherapy to eliminate both primary and metastatic cancer cells can be enhanced when combined with PTT mediated by systemic administered IONPs. The current work will pioneer a translational nanomedicine-based approach to boost T-cell cancer immunotherapy. Citation Format: Hongwei Chen, Xin Luan, Nicholas Stevers, Kanokwan Sansanaphongpricha, Joseph Burnett, Hayley Paholak, Duxin Sun. Boosting immunotherapy via stealthy nanoparticle-mediated photothermal therapy. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4912.


Thi~ paper is baaed on the working principle of scroll compressor and after investigating the ga~ flow condition, in especial analysis the gas leaking situation between two scroll parts mutual gearing, which influence the compressor performance very much. The working process calculating model is set up, employ the soroll compressor geometric parameter, size~ error of parts manufactured as well ae compressor operating condition, the main performance parameter of scroll compressor can be calculated. The results of computer simulation model compare with e%perimental 1 the results are satisfied, INTRODUCTION In recent years the high efficiency compressors are required as the technology development and the energy shortage, although more ef£orts have been made to improve the efficiency and reliability of the traditional reciprocating compressor. The scroll compressor ha~ inherent advantages, such as high effic~nc~ quiet operation, liffht weight and small size. So it is popular for the refrigerating applications and the other small size compressor increasingly. In this paper, the character of gas flowing in scroll compres~or is analyzed on the basi~ of the principle of scroll operating, and the method of calculating the tangential leak in the mesh position of scroll vane profile is given, then a mathematical model of describing the working process is established, by means of computer, the performance parameters are calculated, at last, the experiment on air compressor is made, the calculation results are consistent w~th the experimental data very well. The results of this paper are useful for optimization design of scroll compressor. WORKING PROCESS ANALYSES The main components of the scroll compressor are the fixed scroll, orbiting scroll, anti-rotation ooupling, crankshaft and crankcase. There are the outside suction port and the outside discharge port in fixed scroll as shown in Fig. 1, the inside suction ports are located at the vane profile termination,the ins~de dischar~e ports are located at the vane profile start.The area of the inside suction ports varies with the crakshaft rotation periodically.The compression pockets begin to discharge after the discharge angle,the area of inside discharge ports increases unt~l the inside discharge process completing. The gas ~s i~ from the outside suction port,then it gets into the suction pookets tangentially through the inside suction ports, after compressed,it gets out of the displacement volume tangentially through the inside discharge ports, then enters the central pocket,at laat,it gets out of the compressor axially through the outside discharge port. In order to analyzing clearly we divide the working process into five st?ges: the steady suction,suction closing,compress~on,initial discharge , steady discharge stage. In steady suction stage,the displacement volume increases from zeroto the maximum~he crank angle range is broad and the suction time is long. In suction closing stage,the volume begins to decrease gradually, but the inside suction ports are not closed off, so the gas return~ng phenomenon arises and the pressure of the closed pockets is hieher than the nom~nal suction pressure, this makes the volumetric efficiency increase. In compression stage, the leakage has main influence on the compressor efficiency. In initial discharge stage, the compressor starts to discharge forcedly, the gas scurries through the inside discharge ports when the pocket pressure is different from the central pocket's. In steady discharge stage, the gas gets out of the compressor, the effective area of the outs~de discharge port decreases because of the orbiting scroll interference, so the discharge velocity increases.


With the rapid development of the times, various industries have undergone earth-shaking changes in the face of development trends. The education industry is also making progress in development. Art design and new media technology can be better presented to the public, and it is also convenient for designers. This paper investigates the local art design and art design education. (1) The new media art design and the traditional art design are compared, and the advantages and disadvantages are analyzed. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and they should learn from each other and improve the disadvantages. (2) Conducted an investigation and analysis on art and design education, and the analysis results showed the defects of today's art and design education, and analyzed the methods of improving art and design education through the school's investigation and applied it to art and design education. (3) Artists and designers are very important for local art. This paper analyzes the genealogical relationship of art designers and the composition of local art designers, taking Yunnan as an example.


ABSTRACT The article presents a review and analysis of cybersecurity policy and strategic initiatives by the Obama Administration, and an argument for continuity and improvement of initiatives already in motion through the Trump Administration that will allow for growth of critical cybersecurity strategies that will improve critical infrastructure protection, modernize and defend the U.S. federal IT enterprise, and secure U.S. and allied investments in cyberspace. A discussion on key strategic efforts of the Obama Administration from 2008 to 2016 is presented, as well as challenges and potential improvements that could be made in the Trump Administration. We conclude by making several recommendations for U.S. policymakers that would provide continuity and iterative improvement to President Obama's cybersecurity policy strategy: deepen the federal cybersecurity bench, accept recent bipartisan recommendations for policy improvement and strategic direction, and continue U.S. leadership in public-private and international partnerships.


The effect of chronic (CCR) and intermittent (ICR) caloric restriction on serum insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I levels and mammary tumor (MT) development was investigated. Ten-week-old MMTV-TGF-α female mice were assigned to ad libitum–fed (AL; AIN-93M diet), ICR [3-week 50% caloric restriction using AIN-93M-mod diet, 2× protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals followed by 3 weeks of daily 100% AL consumption of AIN-93M (∼75% of AL for each 6-week cycle)], and CCR (calorie and nutrient intake matched for each 6-week ICR cycle) groups. Half of the mice from each group were sacrificed at 79 (end of restriction) or 82 (end of refeeding) weeks of age. Serum was obtained at euthanasia and in cycles 1, 3, 5, 8, and 11. MT incidence was 71.0%, 35.4%, and 9.1% for AL, CCR, and ICR mice. ICR-Restricted mice had significantly lower terminal serum IGF-I and IGF-I/IGF binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) ratio than CCR, ICR-Refed, and AL mice. There were no differences in terminal IGFBP-3. Final body, internal, and mammary fat pad weights correlated positively with IGF-I and negatively with IGFBP-3. Few changes were found for protein expression of IGF-IRα and IGFBP-3 in mammary tissue and MTs. During the study, IGF-I levels of ICR-Restricted mice were reduced, whereas refeeding allowed partial recovery. For all groups, elevated IGF-I levels preceded MT detection, although not all values were significant versus mice without MTs. However, the specific role of IGF-I in the protective effect of calorie restriction remains to be determined. These results confirm that ICR prevents MT development to a greater extent than CCR.


The Hough Transform (HT) has been shown to be an effective method to detect parameterized curves in images by mapping image edge points into manifolds in the parameter space and then finding "peaks" in the parameter space (P.V.C. Hough, 1962; R.O. Duda and P.E. Hart, 1972). In this paper, the application of the HT to ultrasound images of the peri-esophageal region for the localization of the aorta is discussed. The proposed algorithm has the important feature of integrating a priori knowledge as well as two types of uncertainties through the accumulation process. The first uncertainty type is related to the imprecise estimation of the gradient direction. The second, concerns the ambiguity due to the lack of a precise aorta radius determination.


Pregnancy requires adaptation of maternal physiology to enable normal fetal development. These adaptations are driven, in part, by the production of placental hormones. Failures in maternal adaptation and placental function lead to pregnancy complications including abnormal birthweight and gestational diabetes. However, we lack information on the full identity of hormones secreted by the placenta that mediate changes in maternal physiology. This study used an unbiased approach to characterise the secretory output of mouse placental endocrine cells and examined whether these data could identify placental hormones that are important for determining pregnancy outcome in humans. Secretome and cell peptidome analyses were performed using mass spectrometry on cultured primary trophoblast and fluorescence-activated sorted endocrine cells from pregnant mouse dams, and a placenta secretome map containing 319 proteins was generated. Gene ontology analyses showed that a high proportion of placental secretome proteins are involved in metabolic and immune modulation, signalling and growth. The majority of proteins identified are also expressed by human placenta and several have been reported to be dysregulated in pregnancy complications. Moreover, in proof of concept studies, we found that the relative abundance of secreted placental proteins (sFLT1/MIF and ANGPT2/MIF ratios) was increased in women at 12 weeks of pregnancy, prior to diagnosis of gestational diabetes. Finally, we identified several transcription factors that may be important for controlling hormone production by the placenta and associate with pregnancy outcome. Thus, our observations suggest that analysis of the placental secretome could lead to the identification of new placental biomarkers of pregnancy complications.


In this project, for analysing the performance of 3Ф induction motor drive which is having its previous methodologies to obtain the performance parameters such as speed regulation and optimization of stator flux and torque ripples of a three phase induction motor drive for it to achieve its high efficiency. Initialising with control techniques as Direct Torque Control (DTC) implementing the controller strategies like Proportional Integral controller and Fuzzy logic controller combined, demanding a minimisation of torque ripples and its co – factors that which influence the performance prediction of an induction motor.Comparing the modules where PI controller and Field Oriented control method included, it permits an independent control of torque and flux by decoupling the stator current into two orthogonal components. However is very sensitive to flux which is mainly affected by parameter variations. Whereas in case of Direct Torque Control method the voltage vectors are selected based on the difference between the reference, actual torque and stator flux linkage. The proposed DTC technique gives better performance in the threephase IMD than conventional DTC technique


This article examines energy stocks in the context of a diversified investment portfolio. Several factors—the importance of the energy sector, energy stocks' potential to hedge energy risks, growing interest in real assets, as well as anecdotes of sophisticated investors focusing on energy investments—motivate this look at energy stocks. The author demonstrates that a separate allocation to energy stocks enhances portfolio efficiency and potentially hedges against inflation and inflation surprises.


Fossils are the recognisable remains or traces of activity of prehistoric life, typically defined as >10 000 years old. Pseudofossils are nonorganic objects that bear false resemblance to organism remains. The fossil record is strongly biased toward organisms with hard parts, such as mineralised skeletons of calcite, aragonite, phosphate, silica or refractory organic materials such as wood, that live in areas prone to pulses of sediment accumulation. Hence, preservation is not only particularly favoured in shallow offshore, storm-affected and marine environments but also to a lesser extent, in the deep sea, lakes and river point bars. Occasionally, rapid burial in anoxic setting coupled with early mineralisation leads to extraordinarily preserved fossil Lagerstatten. The study of fossil preservation – taphonomy – is subdivided into biostratinomy and fossil diagenesis. Biostratinomic processes affect potential fossil remains between death and final burial, including decay of organic parts, disarticulation, fragmentation, abrasion, bioerosion and dissolution. Fossil diagenesis constitutes processes that affect organic remains subsequent to burial such as dissolution, compaction and early and late mineralisation. Taphonomy reveals biases of the fossil record and also provides insights into depositional rates and processes.

Key Concepts:

Fossils are prehistoric (>10 000 years), discrete remains or traces of behaviour of once-living organisms.

Preservation in the fossil record is a rare event that generally requires organisms with 'hard parts' (mineralised or resistant organic skeletons) and entombment within sediments.

Extraordinary preservation of articulated skeletons and even soft parts requires very rapid burial, often associated with mass mortalities, in low oxygen sediments and various types of early diagenetic mineralisation.

A variety of settings may favour exceptional preservation, including storm-influenced continental shelves, deeper marine environments and stagnant lagoons, freshwater lakes, including maars or volcanic lakes, caves, tar pits and permafrost.

The study of fossil preservation, taphonomy, is subdivided into biostratinomy and fossil diagenesis.

Biostratinomy comprises the study of all processes that affect potential fossils from the time of death, or production of a trace or sheddable structures (leaves, seed and exoskeletal parts), to final burial.

Biostratinomic processes include decay of soft parts, infilling by disarticulation of bivalved or multielement skeletons, breakage, bioerosion, abrasion, transport and chemical corrosion.

Fossil diagenesis includes compaction, early mineralisation of various sorts including infillings and/or replacements of pyrite, phosphate, and silica and late-stage mineralisation including overgrowth of earlier-formed minerals and major episodes of (sometimes selective) dissolution.

A combination of biostratinomic and diagenetic characteristics can aid in identifying taphonomically defined assemblages or taphofacies that may provide a 'fingerprint' of particular depositional environments.

Keywords:

taphonomy;
preservation;
fossils;
depositional environment;
biostratinomy;
burial;
diagenesis;
time-averaging;
palaeoecology


We (Pierre et al. 2003) have designed a medium deep large area X-ray survey with XMM - the XMM Large Scale Structure survey, XMM-LSS - with the scope of extending the cosmological tests attempted using ROSAT cluster samples to two redshift bins between 0<z<1 while maintaining the precision of earlier studies. The optimal survey design was found to be an 8x8 deg2 area, paved with 10 ks XMM pointing separated by 20 arcmin. This area is the target of several complementary surveys, from the ultraviolet to the radio wavelengths, allowing, beside cosmological studies, detailed studies of the objects included in our area.


The experimental study of the CO_{2} phase diagram is hampered by strong kinetic effects leading to wide regions of metastability and to large uncertainties in the location of some phase boundaries. Here, we determine CO_{2}'s thermodynamic phase boundaries by means of ab initio calculations of the Gibbs free energy of several solid phases of CO_{2} up to 50 Gigapascals. Temperature effects are included in the quasiharmonic approximation. Contrary to previous suggestions, we find that the boundary between molecular forms and the nonmolecular phase V has, indeed, a positive slope and starts at 21.5 GPa at T=0  K. A triple point between phase IV, V, and the liquid phase is found at 35 GPa and 1600 K, indicating a broader region of stability for the nonmolecular form than previously thought. The experimentally determined boundary line between CO_{2}-II and CO_{2}-IV phases is reproduced by our calculations, indicating that kinetic effects do not play a major role in that particular transition. Our results also show that CO_{2}-III is stabilized at high temperature and its stability region coincides with the P-T conditions where phase VII has been reported experimentally; instead, phase II is the most stable molecular phase at low temperatures, extending its region of stability to every P-T condition where phase III is reported experimentally.


The paper shows a comparative analysis of the performances of two typologies of solar assisted cooling systems for building applications. In particular, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to assess the energy and environmental impacts of solar-assisted, heat-driven chillers and conventional compression chillers driven by grid-connected and stand-alone photovoltaic configurations. LCA is applied in compliance with the international standards of ISO 14040. System boundaries are defined following a "cradle to grave" approach, taking into account all the life-cycle phases including the raw materials supply, the production of the components of the plant, the operation and maintenance, and the end-of-life. The operation step of the assessed systems is simulated with TRNSYS models. Two reference buildings are modeled for two different sites, Palermo (Italy) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), according to local practices and regulations. The building models are normalized to have the same peak cooling demand (12 kW). The results show that the assessed energy and environmental performances of the grid-connected systems are usually better than the others for both climates, while the manufacturing process of storages in the stand-alone configurations does not allow these solutions to be competitive yet. Furthermore, the impact of the high average national electricity conversion efficiency in Brazil on the results is analyzed and discussed.


We propose heuristics for the construction of variable-stride one-dimensional as well as fixed and variable-stride two- dimensional multibit tries. These multibit tries are suitable for the classification of Internet packets using a pipelined architecture. The variable-stride one-dimensional tries constructed by our heuristic require significantly less per-stage memory than what is required by optimal pipelined fixed-stride tries. In addition, the pipelined two-dimensional multibit tries constructed by our proposed heuristics are superior, for pipelined architectures, to two-dimensional multibit tries constructed by the best algorithms proposed for nonpipelined architectures.


1. A liquid preparation of diallyl-barbituric acid, known by the trade name "Dial," is a satisfactory anaesthetic for major surgical operations on monkeys, cats and dogs. In monkeys there is a large margin of safety between the anaesthetic and the lethal dose. 2. For cats and dogs 0.5 cc. per kilogram intraperitoneally is adequate in the great majority of animals, but this may be increased to 0.65 without danger, and with any degree of anaesthesia ether can safely be used as a supplementary anaesthetic. 3. With monkeys 0.4 cc. per kilogram is adequate, but a dose of 0.6 can be used with safety. 4. Cats and dogs recover within thirty-six to forty-eight hours, monkeys within twenty to twenty-four hours. 5. The motor cortex in monkeys reacts to electrical stimulation even under profound "Dial" narcosis (e.g., 0.6 cc. per kilogram), and the anesthetic may therefore be used for class demonstration of the motor cortex. 6. "Dial" produces a state akin to normal sleep. 7. The site of action of "Dial" appears to be in the deep nuclei, chiefly in the hypothalamus and medulla. 8. In 100 surgical operations under "Dial" we have had only one fatality attributable to the anaesthetic.


Background : Laparoscopic Ovarian Drilling (LOD) is an effective and a well evaluated surgical Treatment of Clomiphene Citrate resistant Polycystic ovarian syndrome. Transvaginal hydrolaparoscopy (TVHL) is a relatively new simple method of exploring the pelvis and has recently been introduced as a transvaginal approach to ovarian capsular drilling and it seems promising. Objective : To explore whether the newly introduced Transvaginal Hydrolaparoscopy (TVHL) will have a significant advantage over the standard laparoscopy (SL) for Laparoscopic Ovarian Drilling (LOD) in Women with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Methods : Published literature in English language was retrieved through searches of Pubmed, Highwire and Google using appropriate controlled vocabulary and key words. The articles that met the review criteria were selected and the relevant references screened. Results : All the studies agreed that Transvaginal Hydrolaparoscopy (TVHL) is as effective as Standard Laparoscopy (SL) for ovarian drilling in polycystic ovarian syndrome. Unlike Standard laparoscopy, TVHL can be performed under local anesthesia as an office procedure. Postoperative adhesions are less in TVHL than SL and pregnancy rate is slightly higher. However, incomplete view of the pelvic structures and the requirement of ultrasound guidance were some setback when compared to the standard laparoscopy. Conclusions : In experienced hands, TVHL is a good alternative to SL. TVHL has the possibility of replacing SL as more Minimal Access Surgeons become more comfortable with the technique. Key words : Transvaginal Hydrolaparoscopy, Standard Laparoscopy, Ovarian Drilling


Abstract. Synthetic pyrethroid (SP) resistance has developed in Australian field populations of the sheep body louse, Bovicola (Damalinia) ovis. Laboratory bioassays were used to measure the susceptibility of lice to cypermethrin and the other registered SPs. Results of these bioassays indicated resistance to cypermethrin, deltamethrin, cyhalothrin and alphacypermethrin. So far, high‐level resistance has been diagnosed in only a few strains. The toxicological responses of these strains were clearly separated from those of the majority of louse strains tested. Furthermore, these strains had survived immersion in commercial SP dips. The level of resistance described in some strains was sufficient to cause pour‐on products to fail despite the fact that the LC50s of these strains fell within the normal range of field responses.


The ALICE Silicon Pixel Detector (SPD) is the innermost detector of the ALICE experiment at LHC. It includes 1200 front-end chips, with a total of ~10 pixel channels. The pixel size is 50 x 425 μm. Each front-end chip transmits a Fast-OR signal upon registration of at least one hit in its pixel matrix. The signals are extracted every 100 ns and processed by the Pixel Trigger (PIT) system, to generate trigger primitives. Results are then sent within a latency of 800 ns to the Central Trigger Processor (CTP) to be included in the first Level 0 trigger decision. This paper describes the commissioning of the PIT, the tuning procedure of the front-end chips Fast-OR circuit, and the results of operation with cosmic muons and in tests with LHC beam. I. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is one of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, optimized to study the properties of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions [1][2]. The ALICE experiment is designed to identify and track particles with high precision over a wide transverse momentum range (100 MeV/c to 100 GeV/c). ALICE will also take data with proton beams, in order to collect reference data for heavy ion collisions and to address specific stronginteraction topics for which ALICE is complementary to the other LHC detectors. The Silicon Pixel Detector (SPD) is the innermost detector of the ALICE experiment, providing vertexing and tracking capabilities [5][6][7]. As shown in Figure 1, the SPD is a barrel detector with two layers at radii of 3.9 cm and 7.6 cm, respectively, from the beam axis. The minimum distance between the beam pipe and the inner layer is ~5 mm. The SPD consists of 120 detector modules, called half-staves. Each of them includes two silicon pixel sensors, flip chip bump bonded to 10 front-end readout chips realized in a commercial 0.25 μm CMOS process. One front-end chip contains 8192 pixel cells organized in 32 columns and 256 rows. The pixel dimensions are 425 × 50 μm (z × rφ); in total there are 9.83 × 10 pixels in the SPD. In order to maintain the material budget constraint of 1% X0 per layer, the sensor chosen thickness is 200 μm and the pixel chips are thinned to 150 μm. Signal and power connections for the chips are provided by an aluminium multilayer bus, glued on top of the ladders. The 10 front-end chips of each half-stave are connected to a Multi Chip Module (MCM). The MCM contains 4 ASICs and one optical transceiver module: they provide timing, control and trigger signals to the chips. The MCM performs the readout of the front-end chips sending the data to the offdetector electronics in the control room [8]. The MCM is connected to 3 single mode optical fibers; two of them are used to receive the serial control and the LHC clock at 40.08 MHz, and the third is used to send the data to the offdetector electronics. Figure 1: SPD (right) and one half-stave (left) Each of the 1200 front-end chips of the SPD may activate its Fast-OR output every 100 ns when at least one pixel inside the chip is hit by a particle. The 1200 Fast-OR bits are sampled and transmitted to the off detector electronics by the MCM. The Fast-OR generation capability is a unique feature among the vertex detectors of the LHC experiments. It allows the SPD to act also as a low latency pad detector that can be added to the first level trigger decision of the ALICE experiment. The Pixel Trigger (PIT) system [9] was designed to process the Fast-OR bits and produce a trigger output for the Level 0 trigger decision. It is composed of 10 OPTIN boards that receive the data streams coming from the 120 modules of the SPD and extract the Fast-OR bits; the OPTIN boards are mounted on a 9U board, called BRAIN, with a large FPGA (called Processing FPGA, type Xilinx Virtex4) that can apply


We show that MALDI mass spectrometry, suitable for mixtures, is an indispensable tool in probing the mechanism of nanocluster synthesis enabling positive identification of nanoclusters. The size evolution of the mixture of larger clusters (Au(102), Au(68), Au(38)) to form highly monodisperse Au(25) nanoclusters is demonstrated and probably includes the participation of Au(I) thiolate. The size evolution via structural reconstruction of the larger cores such as 38, approximately 44, 68, and 102 to a Au(25) nanocluster has been discussed.


This paper aims to provide task-based activities for teaching intercultural communication to students of the Arabic world. Students from Saudi Arabia, United Emigrates Arabs, and Qatar were among the students that participated in the business writing, and discussions on intercultural communication courses. Based on Islamic religious believes, people think of religion before doing businesses nationally and internationally.?Islam is often perceived to be an impediment to business, with the economies of most Muslim states underdeveloped and only five out of the FT Global 500 leading companies by market capitalization based in the Islamic world. Legal uncertainties arising at the interface of traditional Islamic shariah jurisprudence and Western contract law deter foreign direct investment in predominately Muslim states (Ballantyne, 1997). Islamist political movements are usually viewed negatively by business, as they are perceived to be a threat to security and stability, and add to country risk? (Wilson, 2006). Task-based activities for intercultural communication will be discusses to improve their competence doing business nationally and internationally. Problem solving, critical thinking, role playing, group discussion, and debate are some of the learning strategies that will be discussed to examine the effectiveness in improving Arabian university students? language proficiency and the effectiveness of class management in a Japanese private university. Teachers and professors are constantly looking for strategies, techniques, and practices to better the learning environment. Providing the right balance of theory and practice can fully engage students to improve their performance in classroom. Examples of the learning skills shared with students will be discussed. Task-based activities represent important keys for developing intercultural communication competence and improving second language acquisition for courses like business writing, interactive English, and discussions on intercultural communication. Students had access to professionals? analytical skills to understand the behavior, attitudes, body language, and know-how of western cultures compared to Arabian cultures.


Abstract Eogystia hippophaecolus Hua, Chou, Fang et Chen (Lepidoptera: Cossidae) is a notorious carpenterworm pest of sea buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides L. (Elaeagnaceae). Chemosensory proteins (CSPs) are thought to be responsible for initial biochemical recognition during olfactory perception by the insect. We examined the structure, function, and expression profiles of these proteins in four structures (e.g., antennae, labipalp, legs, and external genitalia) of male adults. Molecular weight, isoelectric point, hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity of proteins, and signal peptide prediction of 18 E. hippophaecolus CSPs (EhipCSPs) were investigated via software. Expression profiles in the four male structures were analyzed by fluorescence quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Bioinformatics analysis showed that most EhipCSPs are low-molecular-weight proteins with hydrophobic regions and a high proportion of alpha-helices, consistent with the general characteristics of insect CSPs. Eight EhipCSPs (EhipCSP2, EhipCSP5, EhipCSP7, and EhipCSP13–17) were predominantly expressed in the labipalp (P < 0.01), and three (EhipCSP6, EhipCSP8, and EhipCSP9) were predominantly expressed in legs (P < 0.01). We speculate that these proteins may be related to contact sensations, host recognition, and other functions. Two EhipCSPs (EhipCSP4 and EhipCSP11) were highly expressed in the external genitalia (P < 0.01), suggesting that they may be involved in spousal positioning or mating activities. Most EhipCSPs were differentially expressed in the four structures, with wide overall expression, indicating an important role in olfactory recognition in multiple tissues. Our findings establish the foundation for further investigation of EhipCSPs and potential development of nonpesticide control measures.


Abstract Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) is commonly used in modern design of the various types of structures. There are two main issues/aspects that should be consider while using CAE in Geotechnics: the basic theory and material model. The paper deals with a problem of choosing the proper constitutive relationships which according to the authors are equally important in obtaining correct and reasonable results. This problem is illustrated by an example of dynamic calculations of fully saturated non-cohesive soils where liquefaction phenomenon is most likely to occur.


Mindfulness, an old Buddhist practice, has gained an importance in psychotherapy such as in Hakomi, cognitive therapy or in 'Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction'.

Mindfulness is described as being composed of four essential components: (1) attention, concentration, meta-awareness, (2) the internal observer and disidentification, (3) attention to the present moment and beginner's mind, (4) acceptance, equanimity and nonjudging. Hypnosis and mindfulness relate to each other in a complementary way in many dimensions and create spectrums between: (1) absorption – open awareness, (2) dissociation – disidentification, (3) suggestibility – consensus consciousness – awakening, (4) goal- and change-orientation – exploration – equanimity and acceptance, (5) lack of consciousness – hidden observer – internal observer, (6) regression – progression – experiencing the present moment, (7) top-down-interventions – bottom-up-interventions, (8) doing-mode – being-mode. In hypnosis these full spectrums can be used. Moreover, in the dimension of the therapeutic relationship, a mindful therapist can be beneficial for the therapeutic process, for example to support mindfulness and the internal observer and acceptance in the client and for the creation of corrective experiences. Aspects of interpersonal neurobiology of mindfulness and difficulties in making a comparison between hypnosis and mindfulness at the neurophysiological level are discussed. Copyright © 2009 British Society of Experimental & Clinical Hypnosis. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The variability of the internal geometry parameters, such as the waviness of yarns, cross sections of yarns and local fibre volume fraction of 3-dimensional (3D) integrated woven core sandwich composites affects their mechanical properties. The objective of this study was to define the geometrical and structural parameters of 3D integrated woven core sandwich composites, including the fold ratio of pile threads, the fabric areal weight and the fibre volume fraction by changing the core thickness of 3D sandwich core fabric. 3D fabrics with different core thicknesses were used for reinforcement. It was confirmed that the pile fold ratio, slope angle and pile length increase with an increase in the core thickness of the fabric. The difference between the calculated and experimental areal weights of fabrics was in the range of 5-13%. A novel approach was also presented to define the fibre volume fraction of 3D woven core sandwich composites.


The endothelium responds to a multitude of chemical and mechanical factors in regulating vascular tone, angiogenesis, blood pressure and blood flow. The endothelial volume regulatory anion channel (VRAC) has been proposed to be mechano-sensitive, to activate in response to fluid flow/hydrostatic pressure and putatively regulate vascular reactivity and angiogenesis. Here, we show that the Leucine Rich Repeat Containing Protein 8a, LRRC8a (SWELL1) functionally encodes VRAC in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Endothelial SWELL1 (SWELL1) expression positively regulates AKT-eNOS signaling while negatively regulating mTOR signaling, via a SWELL1-GRB2-Cav1-eNOS signaling complex. Endothelium-restricted SWELL1 KO (SWELL1 KO) mice exhibit enhanced tube formation from ex-vivo aortic ring explants in matrigel angiogenesis assays, develop hypertension in response to chronic angiotensin II infusion and have impaired retinal blood flow with both diffuse and focal blood vessel narrowing in the setting of Type 2 diabetes (T2D). These data demonstrate that SWELL1 antithetically regulates AKT-eNOS and mTOR signaling in endothelium and is required for maintaining vascular function, particularly in the setting of T2D.


The incidence of elderly patients who come to the emergency room is progressively increasing. The specialization of the physician units might not be adequate for the evaluation of this complexity. The present study aimed to present a standard procedure, called 'The Geriatric Frailty Network', operating at the Policlinico Gemelli IRCCS Foundation, which is configured specifically for the level II assessment of frail elderly patients. This was a retrospective study in 1191 patients aged over 65, who were evaluated by the Geriatric Frailty Unit directly after emergency department admission for one year. All patients underwent multidimensional geriatric evaluation. Data were collected on demographics, co-morbidity, disease severity, and Clinical Frailty Scale. Among all patients, 723 were discharged directly from the emergency room with early identification of continuity of care path. Globally, 468 patients were hospitalized with an early assessment of frailty that facilitated the discharge process. The geriatric frailty network model aims to assist the emergency room and ward doctor in the prevention of the most common geriatric syndromes and reduce the number of incongruous hospitalizations.


Climate change perceptions and perceived risk in the United States has become increasingly partisan, with increased belief in and support for climate change and regulation among democrats, but decreased belief and support among republicans. These divergences are partly attributable to increasingly partisan news outlet viewership and coverage. We inhabited a game theory model to recognize optimal climate change communication strategy through news media outlets. Actor strategies included whether to converse with pro-and/or anti-climate change new outlets, and to emphasize regulation, renewable energy, whether climate change is real, man-made, and/or causes harm to the United States Payoffs consisted of change in public opinion for each of the candidate topics actors can chose to emphasize. Solutions to games where players have a continuous choice about how much to pollute, games where players make decisions about treaty participation, and games where players make decisions about treaty ratification, are examined. The implications of linking cooperation on climate change with cooperation on other issues, such as trade, are examined. Cooperative and non-cooperative approaches to coalition formation are investigated in order to examine the behavior of coalitions cooperating on climate change. One approach to accomplish assistance is to design a game, known as an apparatus, whose equilibrium corresponds to an optimal outcome.


Light emission from interface plasmons and molecular excitons induced by the tunneling current of a scanning tunneling microscope is theoretically investigated using the nonequilibrium Green's function method. Luminescence property of the system is found to be well interpreted in terms of superposition of two coupled modes that form due to coupling between a molecular excitonic mode and an interface plasmon mode. The coupled mode whose energy is closer to the energy of the molecular excitonic mode (the interface plasmon mode) leads to a sharp (broad) peak structure in luminescence spectra of interface plasmon. Interference between these coupled modes gives rise to suppression or enhancement of luminescence intensity depending on the energy region. Especially, in the energy region near the molecular excitonic mode, the interference leads to strong suppression of luminescence from interface plasmons. Thus novel aspects of interpretation of the luminescence spectra of the system are obtained by using the analytical approach presented here. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2015.385]


The problem of H∞ control design for vibration reduction of a base isolated structure with limited wireless communication capacity is studied in this paper. The network under consideration is subjected to measurement quantization, signal transmission delay, and data packet dropout, which appear typically in a network environment. Based on Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) theory, some delay-range-dependent conditions are established for the existence of desired controllers such that the resulting closed-loop system is asymptotically stable and its performance is kept within a prescribed level. Finally, some simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of our method.


The latency associated transcripts (LATs) are the only abundant viral gene products detected during latent herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection of peripheral nerves in animals and people. A LAT promoter has been identified and mutant viruses with lesions removing the promoter and surrounding region have been observed to reactivate slowly from trigeminal ganglia (TG) explanted from latently infected mice. Previous work has shown that most mutants with lesions limited to regions downstream of the LAT promoter reactivate normally. Therefore, to help map the boundaries of the slow reactivation phenotype, a mutant virus with lesions located immediately upstream of the LAT promoter was constructed and called 17 delta S/N. 17 delta S/N contains a 437 nucleotide (nt) deletion 332 nts upstream of the TATAA box of the LAT promoter. In productively infected cells, 17 delta S/N failed to synthesize detectable amounts of the 1.1 and 1.8 kb transcripts which are produced during wild-type infections and are specified by a region just upstream of the LAT promoter. However, 17 delta S/N did produce normal amounts of LAT in tissue culture as well as in neurons derived from latently infected cells, as ascertained by Northern blot and in situ hybridization analysis. Moreover, in latently infected mice, 17 delta S/N established and maintained infection in as many neurons as did wild type virus, as determined by in situ polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect viral DNA. Finally, the virus reactivated from TG derived from latently infected mice with kinetics indistinguishable from those of wild-type virus. Therefore, reactivation from latency, in this model system, does not appear to require function from the viral genomic region located immediately upstream of the LAT promoter.


Inclusive education is an ideology, system and or educational strategy where all children from various conditions can attend education in an educational environment together, with an educational service system that is tailored to the needs of each child. This study aims to describe the curriculum and evaluation in inclusive education in elementary schools. This type of research is qualitative research. Through the use of data collection techniques of observation, interviews and documentation. The samples of this study were special assistant teachers (GPK) and students with special needs at SDN Pondok Bahar 03. The results of this study were . The process of implementing inclusive education at SDN Pondok Bahar 03 is in accordance with the indicators of success in implementing inclusive education. The curriculum used at SDN Pondok Bahar 03 uses the inclusive curriculum and the K 13 curriculum in the learning process in the regular class. The evaluation in inclusive education at SDN Pondok Bahar 03 is carried out like evaluations in regular schools, such as daily tests, Mid-Semester Assessments (PTS) and Final Semester Assessments (PAS). The evaluation that runs at SDN Pondok Bahar 03 is appropriate because if there is a program that is not suitable, it will add a program or plan a reprogram all depending on mutual agreement


Due to the intermittent power generation, wind farms integrated into the grid may cause a problem of large frequency fluctuation, when the capacity of load frequency control (LFC) is not enough to compensate the unbalance between the generation and the load demand. In this study, a new robust LFC strategy against load disturbance and wind power fluctuation is proposed to improve the disturbance-resistant performance of the power system with wind farms. First, a simplified model of the power system with wind farms is established without considering the accurate model information. Then, a control scheme based on the compensation of equivalent input disturbance (EID) is introduced, and a method of EID estimation is presented. The robust LFC design addresses various disturbances and internal/external uncertainties of power systems. Finally, to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, two case studies are carried out and the performance comparisons with the classical proportional–integral–derivative control scheme are used to confirm the proposed method.


We study wormhole routed networks and their suitability for real-time traffic in a priority-driven paradigm. A traditional blocking flow control in wormhole routing may lead to a priority inversion in the sense that high priority packets are blocked by low priority packets for unlimited time. This uncontrolled priority inversion causes the frequent deadline missing. This paper therefore proposes a new flow control called throttle and preempt flow control, where high priority packets can preempt network resources held by low priority packets, if necessary. As a result, this flow control does not cause priority inversion. Our simulations show that the throttle and preempt flow control dramatically reduces deadline miss ratio without extra virtual channels. It is also observed that the throttle and preempt flow control offers shorter delay for non-real-time traffic than existing real-time flow control does.


Anemic stress induces the proliferation of stress erythroid progenitors in the murine spleen that subsequently differentiate to generate erythrocytes to maintain homeostasis. This process relies on the interaction between stress erythroid progenitors and the signals generated in the splenic erythroid niche. In this study, we demonstrate that although growth-differentiation factor 15 (Gdf15) is not required for steady-state erythropoiesis, it plays an essential role in stress erythropoiesis. Gdf15 acts at 2 levels. In the splenic niche, Gdf15-/- mice exhibit defects in the monocyte-derived expansion of the splenic niche, resulting in impaired proliferation of stress erythroid progenitors and production of stress burst forming unit-erythroid cells. Furthermore, Gdf15 signaling maintains the hypoxia-dependent expression of the niche signal, Bmp4, whereas in stress erythroid progenitors, Gdf15 signaling regulates the expression of metabolic enzymes, which contribute to the rapid proliferation of stress erythroid progenitors. Thus, Gdf15 functions as a comprehensive regulator that coordinates the stress erythroid microenvironment with the metabolic status of progenitors to promote stress erythropoiesis.


Prognosi of Aseptics Meningitis SIR-1 read with great interest the article by Dr. Fee and his colleagues in the June issue of D.M.C.N. (p. 321). In the Aomori district of northern Honshu (Japan proper), aseptic meningitis occurs every summer. In 1961, there was a large-scale epidemic of aseptic meningitis caused by Coxsackie B5 and A9 viruses (Nakao et al. 1964, Hinuma et al. 1964). Since then, I have examined 618 cases of aseptic meningitis one to eight years after discharge from the hospital. There were some changes in 171 (27.6 per cent) out of the 618 cases, the main changes being inattentiveness (93 cases), irritability (87 cases), restlessness (86 cases), recurrent headache (54 cases), lowering in scholarship (3 1 cases) and occasional convulsions (7 cases). There was no relationship between the postmeningitic changes and age at onset of illness, causative agent, duration of fever, pleocytosis in CSF or degree of pleocytosis in CSF.


Air dispersion models have been widely used to investigate air dispersion patterns, to predict emissions behaviour, to estimate potential risks to human health, to develop environmental policies and to evaluate their impact on air quality. This paper considers gaseous pollutants emitted by a petrochemical complex and presents an air dispersion case study using the AERMOD model and the OZIPR trajectory model along with the SAPRC chemical mechanism to evaluate tropospheric ozone formation. The petrochemical complex considered is being installed in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area and is planned to start operations in 2016. The present work indicates that nitrogen oxides (NOx) concentrations will likely exceed the primary and secondary Brazilian national standards in some areas. As a result high levels of NOx in the presence of high VOC emissions would contribute to high levels of


This book provides an innovative analysis of the complex issue of judicial convergence and fragmentation in international human rights law, moving the conversation forward from the assessment of the two phenomena and investigating their triggering factors. With a wide geographical focus that include the most up-to-date case-law from the three main regional systems (the African, European and Inter-American) and the UN Human Rights Committee, the book confirms the predominant judicial convergence across international human rights law. On this basis, the book engages with an interdisciplinary investigation into the legal and non-legal factors that could explain both convergence and fragmentation, ranging from the use of judicial dialogue and the notions of necessity and proportionality to the composition of the courts and the role of NGOs. The aim is to provide the tools to understand the dynamics between human rights adjudicatory bodies and possibly foresee future instances of judicial fragmentation.


Genetic Programming (GP), an evolutionary learning technique, has multiple applications in machine learning such as curve fitting, data modelling, feature selection, classification etc. GP has several inherent parallel steps, making it an ideal candidate for GPU based parallelization. This paper describes a GPU accelerated stack-based variant of the generational GP algorithm which can be used for symbolic regression and binary classification. The selection and evaluation steps of the generational GP algorithm are parallelized using CUDA. We introduce representing candidate solution expressions as prefix lists, which enables evaluation using a fixed-length stack in GPU memory. CUDA based matrix vector operations are also used for computation of the fitness of population programs. We evaluate our algorithm on synthetic datasets for the Pagie Polynomial (ranging in size from $4096$ to $16$ million points), profiling training times of our algorithm with other standard symbolic regression libraries viz. gplearn, TensorGP and KarooGP. In addition, using $6$ large-scale regression and classification datasets usually used for comparing gradient boosting algorithms, we run performance benchmarks on our algorithm and gplearn, profiling the training time, test accuracy, and loss. On an NVIDIA DGX-A100 GPU, our algorithm outperforms all the previously listed frameworks, and in particular, achieves average speedups of $119\times$ and $40\times$ against gplearn on the synthetic and large scale datasets respectively.


Cancer-initiating cells (CICs) are specialized cells that have the ability to self-renew and are multipotent. We recently demonstrated that Forkhead box O3a (FoxO3a)-expressing cells exhibited a CIC-like potential in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL). A proportion of HL patients are infected with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). EBV-encoded latent membrane protein (LMP) 1 downregulates FoxO3a, suggesting that FoxO3a expression may be abolished in EBV-positive HL. Inhibitors of DNA-binding (ID) proteins are highly conserved transcription factors mediating stem cell functions. To the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated possible associations among ID1, FoxO3a and LMP1 expression in HL to date. We immunohistochemically evaluated the expression of the three abovementioned factors in HL patients. The ID1 expression level was inversely correlated with that of FoxO3a (P=0.00035). LMP1-positive HL cells abundantly expressed ID1 (P=0.029), but not FoxO3a (P=0.00085). Thus, our previous observation that FoxO3a may serve as a marker of CICs may not be applicable in EBV-positive HL patients, but rather ID1 may be a candidate CIC marker in this type of HL.


Background: Along with lack of studies that systematically address the transfusion requirements and triggers in acute leukemia, no study to date has addressed the blood product use with respect to ongoing chemotherapy (CT) in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. Objectives: This study was therefore designed to evaluate total erythrocyte, random platelet and apheresis platelet suspension requirement in pediatric ALL patients in relation to ongoing CT protocols. Methods: A total of 146 pediatric patients with ALL were included in this retrospective study. Data on patient demographics, CT protocol, amount and efficacy of blood product use (erythrocytes, apheresis platelet and random platelet), and survival during CT were retrieved from hospital records. Results: The average amount of erythrocytes, apheresis platelets and random platelets received by 146 ALL patients from the date of diagnosis were 14 (3 - 78) bags, 9 (1 - 97 bags and 11 (1 - 83) bags, respectively. Protocol 1b augmented was associated with the highest amount of erythrocyte use (P < 0.001), while no significant difference was noted in apheresis platelet and random platelet use with respect to CT regimens. Erythrocyte transfusion was associated with a more marked increase in hemoglobin (Hb), erythrocyte (RBC), leukocyte (WBC), lymphocyte and neutrophil counts as compared with apheresis platelet and random platelet infusions, while protocol 2 was associated with higher Hb (P = 0.017) levels after erythrocyte transfusion. Conclusions: Our findings indicate a great amount of blood product transfusion to be required in children with ALL under CT and emphasize the likelihood of transfusion need and efficacy of transfusion to alter with respect to ongoing CT regimen. The need in patients using augmented BFM protocol 1 b was highest, and albeit the need of blood and blood product transfusions vary within patients, the anticipated median need for blood products at diagnosis and at various blocks of treatment may be helpful for the blood banks, doctors of the respective pediatric hematology-oncology centers to plan as patients are treated.


Introduction : Among B-lineage ALL, BCR/ABL1 -like cases have clearly emerged as a subgroup with peculiar features. By gene expression profiling (GEP), they have a transcriptional signature similar to that of BCR/ABL1 + cases. Moreover, these cases often have IKZF1 deletions and CRLF2 deregulation, and harbor several lesions involving tyrosine kinases (TKs) that may be patient specific. The incidence varies with age (from 10% of B-lineage ALL in children, to 27% in adolescents/young adults, with a decrease in adults) and they are usually characterized by an inferior outcome, though risk-directed therapy based on minimal residual disease levels has improved prognosis in childhood. Even if GEP promptly recognizes these patients, this technique is expensive, not readily available and not applicable to all centers.

Aims : To generate a simple and reliable tool, based on a Q-RT-PCR approach, aimed at the rapid identification of BCR/ABL1 -like cases, and to build a statistical predictive model. Finally, to correlate the results obtained with the clinico-biologic features and outcome.

Methods and patients : Through a meta-analysis of previously published GEP data focused on BCR/ABL1 -like cases, and on our in house results, 9 commonly overexpressed genes were selected and evaluated by Q-RT-PCR; CRLF2 was also included, because of its association with this signature (total=10 genes). Q-RT-PCR was performed using the ABI PRISM 7300 Sequence Detection System and FastStart Universal SYBR Green Master (Rox). Overall, 149 B-lineage ALL cases, negative for known major rearrangements, i.e. BCR/ABL1, ETV6/RUNX1, E2A/PBX1 and ALL1 (B-NEG ALL), were tested. Median age was 28.8 years (range 1-78), 59 were females and 90 males. To generate a predictive model for BCR/ABL1 -like identification, one round of cross-validation was performed; the full dataset was divided into two panels (discovery and screening). The discovery panel included 52 cases previously evaluated for GEP analysis and comprised 26 BCR/ABL1 -like and 26 B-NEG ALL samples, while the screening panel (n=97) was based on 81 cases including 16 B-NEG ALL samples harboring JAK2 , IL7R or CRLF2 mutations, tested as internal control, given their association with a BCR/ABL1 -like signature.

Results : The statistical model was built on the discovery panel and was validated, in terms of sensitivity and specificity, on the screening panel. Q-RT-PCR values of the 10 genes were grouped in the discovery panel according to principal component analysis to reduce multicollinearity and a logistic regression model was used to examine the association among the first three principal components (accounting for more than 80% of the total variance) and BCR/ABL1 -like cases. Finally, a score was computed and validated in the screening panel. The model had a sensitivity and specificity of 93.8% and 93.8%, respectively, with a positive predictive value of 75%. Within the screening panel, 10/81 (12.3%) and 6/16 JAK2 , IL7R or CRLF2 mutated cases (37.5%) were predicted as BCR/ABL1- like (total=16.5%). GEP was performed on 14/16 BCR/ABL1- like samples and confirmed the similarity with BCR/ABL1 + ALL cases by unsupervised and supervised analysis. Molecular screening, comprising the screening of JAK1/2 , CRLF2 , IL7R (JAK/STAT pathway) mutations and IKZF1 deletions, confirmed a significant enrichment of the JAK/STAT pathway (48% vs 15%, p=0.001) and of IKZF1 deletions (82 vs 46%, p=0.006) in BCR-ABL1 -like cases as opposed to the other B-NEG ALL cases. Finally, BCR-ABL1 -like patients showed a significantly higher white blood cells (WBC) count (46x109/l vs 12.8x109/l, p=0.003) and poorer prognosis compared to the other B-NEG ALL patients, in terms of complete remission achievement (70.3 vs 87%, p=0.07), overall survival (41.1% vs 59.1%, p=0.06) and disease-free survival (DFS) (31.1 % vs 46%, p=0.008).

Conclusions : We describe a Q-RT-PCR approach and a statistical model capable of rapidly identifying BCR-ABL1 -like cases. We confirm a significant association with JAK/STAT mutations, IKZF1 deletions and poorer outcome. The prompt recognition of BCR-ABL1 -like ALL at presentation can: i) identify cases in which additional lesion/s involving a TK - that might sustain the BCR/ABL1-like signature - should be further investigated; ii) drive therapeutic decisions, since these patients might benefit by the addition of targeted therapies, particularly TK inhibitors.

Disclosures Foa: Roche: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau.


251 Cesarean-scar-defects after uterine closure by barbed or smooth suture: a prospectivecomparative study Barra, F; Ferrero, S; Grazia Centurioni, M; Evangelisti, G; Gustavino, C; Giovanni Vitale, S; Alessandri, F Academic Unit of Obstetrics and Gynecology, IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy; Unit of Obstetrics and Gynecology, IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy; Department of General Surgery and Medical Surgical Specialties, Obstetrics and Gynecology Unit, University of Catania, Catania, Italy


We derive amplitude equations for interface dynamics in pattern forming systems with long-range interactions. The basic condition for the applicability of the method developed here is that the bulk equations are linear and solvable by integral transforms. We arrive at the interface equation via long-wave asymptotics. As an example, we treat the Grinfeld instability, and we also give a result for the Saffman-Taylor instability. It turns out that the long-range interaction survives the long-wave limit and shows up in the final equation as a nonlocal and nonlinear term, a feature that to our knowledge is not shared by any other known long-wave equation. The form of this particular equation will then allow us to draw conclusions regarding the universal dynamics of systems in which nonlocal effects persist at the level of the amplitude description.


Introduction: The most preferred route of drug administration is orally using tablets however when administering BCS Class II drugs current technologies can be limited. Injection Moulding is a technique to produce solid oral dosage forms and can combine drug with polymers increasing drug dissolution due to the drug-polymer interactions and stabilisation of the amorphous form. (1) However using polymers on their own often leads to sustained release so additional excipients are required to produce immediate release dosage forms. Methods: Dosage forms were produced using HAAKE Minijet Pro Injection Moulder, ThermoScientific. The formulations chosen were pre-extruded by the 11mm Hot Melt Extruder, ThermoScientific. Pressure studies were carried out using 3200C Arburg All-rounder Injection Moulder. Analysis carried out: HPLC, XRD, DSC and Dissolution testing. Results: High drug doses can be achieved using IM however when the ratio of drug to polymer reaches 50:50 some stability issues occur as the amorphous drug recrystallizes. From a selection of disintegrating agents analysed, one compound showed the most potential for disintegration and dissolution capabilities. However, sustained released was still observed. The pressure study showed that pressure is lost in the system. Conclusion: The dissolution results show that in order to obtain a more immediate release the concentration of disintegrating requires further exploration. However, a varied range of high drug doses can be achieved using Injection Moulding.


Generalized aggressive periodontitis (GAP) is a subgroup of periodontal diseases among 20-35 years age group adults. Several studies have reported the association of interleukin-1β gene polymorphism with periodontal diseases among different populations. The present study aimed at investigating the presence of IL-1β polymorphism in GAP patients in Iran. Further, the presence of IL-1β(+3954) gene polymorphism was evaluated in the GAP patients (n=26) and healthy individuals (n=26). All three genotypes (A1A1 [56%], A1A2 [28%], and A2A2 [16%]) were observed in healthy individuals, whereas only A1A1 (38.5%) and A2A2 (61.5%) were the genotypes observed in the patients. There was a significant positive association between distribution of IL-1β genotypes and the risk of periodontitis disease (p=0.017). Further, there was a significant positive association between probing pocket depth and IL-1β genotypes of patients (p=0.014). However, no meaningful correlation between genotype-clinical attachment loss and genotype bleeding on probing with the risk of GAP (p=0.418, p=0.819, respectively) was found. In conclusion, findings of the present study demonstrate a positive association between IL-1β gene polymorphism and risk of periodontitis disease.


We introduce the I-prior methodology as a unifying framework for estimating a variety of regression models, including varying coefficient, multilevel, longitudinal models, and models with functional covariates and responses. It can also be used for multi-class classification, with low or high dimensional covariates.
The I-prior is generally defined as a maximum entropy prior. For a regression function, the I-prior is Gaussian with covariance kernel proportional to the Fisher information on the regression function, which is estimated by its posterior distribution under the I-prior. The I-prior has the intuitively appealing property that the more information is available on a linear functional of the regression function, the larger the prior variance, and the smaller the influence of the prior mean on the posterior distribution.
Advantages compared to competing methods, such as Gaussian process regression or Tikhonov regularization, are ease of estimation and model comparison. In particular, we develop an EM algorithm with a simple E and M step for estimating hyperparameters, facilitating estimation for complex models. We also propose a novel parsimonious model formulation, requiring a single scale parameter for each (possibly multidimensional) covariate and no further parameters for interaction effects. This simplifies estimation because fewer hyperparameters need to be estimated, and also simplifies model comparison of models with the same covariates but different interaction effects; in this case, the model with the highest estimated likelihood can be selected.
Using a number of widely analyzed real data sets we show that predictive performance of our methodology is competitive. An R-package implementing the methodology is available (Jamil, 2019).


This research has been done to respond the lower range of students' cognitive ability in group A to recognize shape of geometry in Al Irsyad kindergarten Pemalang. The main question in this research was is there any influence in using the educational games tools on the cognitive ability in geometry of students in kindergarten A? This research aimed to find out is there any influence of Educational Games Tools (APE) on students 'ability in recognizing the shape of geometry. The subjects of this research are students in group A in Al-Irsyad kindergarten, Pemalang. This research used quantitative approach with the types of pre-experiment and research design one group pre-post test where the researcher observed before and after the treatment.. The researcher chooses the samples with purposive sampling, there are 30 students. This study find out the average of pre-test score 1,83  lower than the average of post-test score 3,07. Statistic examined with normality test using one sample kolmogorov smirnov test find out the score 0,200 > α = 0,05, with the normal distributional data. From the Paired T-test program SPSS 24.0 version find out the result score Sig as 0,00 < 0,05 and score -thitung <-ttabel (-28,358 < -2,0452). Therefore, Ho refused and Ha accepted. We can conclude that APE influence on the students' cognitive ability in to recognize students geometry group A.


Past research has shown that mindfulness as a long-term treatment can reduce clinical anxiety, but less is known about the efficacy of short-term mindfulness interventions for subclinical anxiety. The current study investigated the efficacy of a brief mindfulness intervention in an unselected college sample. We hypothesized that our mindfulness intervention would reduce anxiety, and that this effect would be mediated by improvement in attentional control. In addition, we hypothesized that personality would impact the efficacy of mindfulness training. Specifically, we expected that neuroticism would moderate the effect of mindfulness training on changes in anxiety, whereas conscientiousness would reduce anxiety by increasing improvements in mindfulness. Thirty-six college students completed a week of at-home mindfulness training. Before and after training, participants completed a laboratory session involving assessment of state anxiety, anxious reactivity to an auditory stressor, mindfulness, and attentional control. The short-term mindfulness training appeared efficacious, as participants showed increases in mindfulness and reductions in anxious reactivity from preto posttraining. Further, there was a dose-response relationship between improvements in mindfulness and reductions in anxiety that was partially mediated by improvements in attentional control. No significant effects of personality on the effectiveness of training were found. Results imply that short-term mindfulness treatment may be beneficial for everyday anxiety in college students. Findings are also discussed in terms of possible implications for prophylactic mindfulness treatments on college campuses.


Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute self-limiting inflammatory disease associated with vasculities, affecting predominantly medium sized vessels and encountered these cases infrequently in clinical practice. The most concerning complication is coronary artery aneurysm (CAA) leading to myocardial infarction or sudden death. Fever is the essential feature. Kawasaki disease is invariably associated with an inflammatory process with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and white blood cell count. Early recognition and treatment with IVIG (Intravenous venous immunoglobulin), and Aspirin showed highest protection against development of coronary artery disease. Incidence of KD is more in East Asia or in Asian ancestry living in other countries. The reason for high incidence in developing country is still unknown. Recently a significant number of cases attended in day to day practice which led conducting this study to assess the pattern of presentation, management and outcome after treatment and to aware the health care providers about the nature of the disease. This observational study conducted during September 2014 to March 2016. All the cases reported to the department of paediatric echocardiography for coronary artery analysis and suspected as KD were included in the study. History, clinical examination and investigation reports were analyzed from records. Age, gender, clinical feature, management, follow-up, echocardiography findings and outcome were analyzed. Data were collected from records of Echocardiography Department and Paediatric Cardiology Department of Lab Aid Cardiac Hospital and Combined Military Hospital, Dhaka. Among 27 cases, 16 were male (49.25%) and 11 were female (40.75%). Age distribution showed 8 (29.63%) were under one year of age, 13(48.14%) were in 1-5 years age group, 6 (22.23%) were in more than 5 years age group. All 27 cases were presented with fever, strawberry tongue, conjunctivitis, skin rash with peeling. Raised ESR, CRP and neutrophilic leukocytosis were found in all 27 cases. Cervical lymphadenopathy was found in 15 (55.52%) cases. Coronary artery changes were observed in 24 cases (88.89%). IVIG was given in 25 (92.60%) cases and Aspirin was given in 27 cases. Complete cure was achieved in 25 (92.59%) cases and one case died from thrombo-embolic event of radial artery and amputation of hand. The outcome of KD depends on the severity of coronary artery involvement. Patients with aneurysm larger than 08 mm are at highest risk of myocardial infarction. Less than 08 mm aneurismal dilatation regress with time. In this series outcome was excellent due to timely diagnosis and proper intervention.


OBJECTIVE
To search for a method for increasing clinical therapeutic effect of acute large area cerebral infarction.

METHODS
Ninety-six cases were randomly divided into a comprehensive treatment group and a western medicine group, 48 cases in each group. The western medicine group were treated with routine western methods, dehydration for decreasing intracranial pressure, brain-protection, anti-platelet agglutination, improving circulation and expectant treatment, etc.; the comprehensive treatment group were treated with the routine treatment of western medicine combined with acupuncture, moxibustion and enema of Chinese drugs. The therapeutic effect was observed after treatment for 28 days.

RESULTS
The total effective rate was 68.8% in the comprehensive treatment group and 39.6% in the western medicine group with a very significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.01), and the score of the National Institute of Health's Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and the score of the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) in the comprehensive treatment group were better than those in the western medicine group (P < 0.001, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
Combined treatment of Chinese medicine and western medicine for large area cerebral infarction is better than simple western medicine, and it can significantly improve neurological defect of the patient and decrease death rate.


The paper presents a high-frequency (monthly) forecast for six macroeconomic indicators: industrial output, inflation, unemployment rate, monetary base, households' savings and exchange rate.


"Click" chemistry represents one of the most powerful approaches for linking molecules in chemistry and materials science. Triggering this reaction by mechanical force would enable site- and stress-specific "click" reactions--a hitherto unreported observation. We introduce the design and realization of a homogeneous Cu catalyst able to activate through mechanical force when attached to suitable polymer chains, acting as a lever to transmit the force to the central catalytic system. Activation of the subsequent copper-catalyzed "click" reaction (CuAAC) is achieved either by ultrasonication or mechanical pressing of a polymeric material, using a fluorogenic dye to detect the activation of the catalyst. Based on an N-heterocyclic copper(I) carbene with attached polymeric chains of different flexibility, the force is transmitted to the central catalyst, thereby activating a CuAAC in solution and in the solid state.


Purpose: To evaluate the long-term prognostic value of Tc-99m tetrofosmin myocardial gated-SPECT in asymptomatic patients after coronary artery stenting. Materials and Methods: We included 246 consecutive patients in the study. All patients underwent exercise gated-single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) myocardial imaging 5 to 7 months after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and were followed for a mean period of 8.3 years (SD = 2.9). Myocardial scintigrams were evaluated calculating the summed stress score (SSS), summed rest score, and summed difference score (SDS) indexes. Cardiovascular death and nonfatal myocardial infarction were considered hard cardiac events, whereas late revascularization (>3 months after myocardial SPECT) procedures were considered to be soft events. Cox proportional hazard models were applied to evaluate the association between several variables and the investigated outcome. Results: During the follow-up period, hard cardiac events occurred in 32 (13%) patients (cardiac death occurred in 12 patients and nonfatal myocardial infarction in 20 patients). In addition, 60 (24.4%) patients underwent a late revascularization procedure. When multiple Cox regression analysis was implied, the factors that remained significant in the final model for soft events were SSS, SDS, and angina during exercise testing. In addition, SSS, SDS, and left ventricular dilatation were independently associated with hard cardiac events as defined from the results of multiple analysis. However, SSS and SDS were the only independent predictors for both hard and soft events. Conclusions: Tc-99m tetrofosmin myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), performed 6 months post-percutaneous coronary intervention, has an independent and powerful clinical value to predict hard and soft cardiac events in asymptomatic patients after PCI.


The focus of this thesis is on the binary signal detection problem, i.e., if a signal or signals are present or not. Depending on the application, the signal to be detected can be either unknown or known. The detection is based on some function of the received samples which is compared to a threshold. If the threshold is exceeded, it is decided that signal(s) is (are) present. Energy detectors (radiometers) are often used due to their simplicity and good performance. The main goal here is to develop and analyze energy based detectors as well as power-law based detectors. Different possibilities for setting the detection threshold for a quantized total power radiometer are analyzed. The main emphasis is on methods that use reference samples. In particular, the cellaveraging (CA) constant false alarm rate (CFAR) threshold setting method is analyzed. Numerical examples show that the CA strategy offers the desired false alarm probability, whereas a more conventional strategy gives too high values, especially with a small number of reference samples. New performance analysis of a frequency sweeping channelized radiometer is presented. The total power radiometer outputs from different frequencies are combined using logical-OR, sum and maximum operations. An efficient method is presented for accurately calculating the likelihood ratio used in the optimal detection. Also the effects of fading are analyzed. Numerical results show that although sweeping increases probability of intercept (POI), the final probability of detection is not increased if the number of observed hops is large. The performance of a channelized radiometer is studied when different CFAR strategies are used to set the detection threshold. The proposed iterative methods for setting the detection threshold are the forward consecutive mean excision (FCME) method with the CA scaling factors in final detection decision (FCME+CA), the backward consecutive mean excision (BCME) method with the CA scaling factors in detection (BCME+CA) and a method that uses the CA scaling factors for both censoring and detection (CA+CA). Numerical results show that iterative CFAR methods may improve detection performance compared to baseline methods. Finally, a method to set the threshold of a power-law detector that uses a nonorthogonal transform is presented. The mean, variance and skewness of the decision variable in the noise-only case are derived and these are used to find a shifted log-normal approximation for the distribution of the decision variable. The accuracy of this method is verified through simulations.


Objective: To report our experience with the minipterional (MPT) craniotomy approach for anterior circulation aneurysms and to discuss the clinical outcomes as well as to evaluate the advantages of this unique approach. Materials and Methods: Single-center retrospective review of 57 cases involving anterior circulation aneurysms both ruptured and unruptured aneurysms treated with the MPT. We analyzed the clinical and patient demographic data, aneurysm characteristics, surgical outcomes, and complications in these individuals. Results: Between July 2008 and March 2014, of the 57 patients reviewed: 45 had middle cerebral artery (MCA), 6 had internal carotid artery terminus, and 7 had posterior communicating artery aneurysms. 20 of the 57 patients presented with a ruptured aneurysm. The average aneurysm size was 5.8 mm. The length of hospitalization for unruptured aneurysm cases ranged between 3 and 5 days. The average follow-up for all cases was 21.5 months. Successful clipping of the aneurysms was obtained in all patients. None of the cases required additional skin incisions or craniotomy extensions. The overall surgical outcomes were favorable. There was no postoperative facial nerve damage, temporalis muscle wasting, or symptoms of paresthesias around the incision line. Two patients developed a postoperative stroke manifested as symptoms of unilateral arm and facial weakness, receptive aphasia, and dysarthria. Conclusion: The MPT provides a reliable and less invasive alternative to the standard pterional craniotomy. Furthermore, ruptured and unruptured anterior circulation aneurysms can safely and effectively be treated with limited bone removal which provides better cosmetic outcomes and excellent postoperative temporalis muscle function.


In this paper I will take a look at how one can facilitate the change in consumption through social innovation, based on the subject of art and design in Norwegian general education. This paper will give a presentation of books, featured relevant articles and formal documents put into context to identify different causal mechanisms around our consumption. The discussion will be anchored around the resources and condition that must be provided to achieve and identify opportunities for action under the subject of Art and craft, a subject in Norwegian general education with designing at the core of the subject, ages 6–16. The question that this paper points toward is:
"How can we, based on the subject of Art and craft in primary schools, facilitate the change in consumption through social innovation?"


To the question: why there is so much novel coronavirus in wastewater worldwide is the general answer that it is because the body gets rid of the virus. Thus, as the virus leaves the body, the body cleanses and gradually gets rid of the virus. That would be a logical statement, but it is not true. Based on our results so far, part of the virus leaves the body, but the body does not get rid of it. The virus can settle in the intestinal tract and can remain in its carrier there for a very long time, even years. The presence of the virus in the intestinal tract can be confirmed by RT PCR for a new coronavirus from rectal swabs


Background Real life experience of early arthritis; remission or evolving to rheumatoid arthritis Objectives To assess long term outcome, drug free remission rates of patients with early arthritis and classification based on 1987 ACR1 or 2010 ACR/EULAR2 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) criteria. Methods Patients with arthritis with symptom duration within the first 3 months at first visit were assessed after disease age of at least 6 months. Patients with unclassified arthritis (UA) and classified as RA were included. Patients using drugs other than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) at first visit were excluded. Glucocorticoids were given if NSAIDs failed to induce remission. Patients were interviewed with telephone and those accepted were admitted to the outpatient clinic. Patients were telephoned for 3 times if first 2 call were missed. There were 135 patients. Among 92 patients interviewed only one refused to participate. 37 (27%) were admitted to outpatient clinics, 54 (40%) were interviewed with telephone. Patients were classified as RA according to either 1987 ACR or 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria. Results Demographic features were as follows: 66 (73%) were woman, mean age was 50 (19–85) (first admission). Mean swollen and tender joint count was 5 (1–22) and 8 (1–36) respectively. Most frequently affected joints were MCP (50%), wrist (48%), and PIP (32%). Morning stiffness was longer than 30 minutes in 67%. RF and anti-CCP were positive 20%, 17%, respectively. Mean age of disease at the last assessment was 4 years (6 months- 8 years). Patients were classified as RA according to 1987 ACR (8%) and 2010 ACR/EULAR (20%) criteria. Glucocorticoids were given 75%. Mean glucocorticoid dosage was 10 mg (5–50) and 8% patients were given 50 mg equivalent of prednisolon for 3 days in order to induce remission. Drug free remission was induced with NSAIDs and glucocorticoids in 18% and 20% patients respectively. DMARDS were given in 44 (48%) patients (HQ, 45%; MTX, 44%; SSZ 17%; LEF 11%; only 1 patient TNF inhibitors). 13 patients (14%) voiced that although they were given DMARD, they stopped to take DMARDs and they were symptom free for approximately 3 years. Conclusions Early arthritis patients with the diagnosis of unclassified arthritis or RA were assessed. Drug free remission was achieved in approximately 40% of the patients. These patients were still symptom free after about four years. Nearly half of the patients were given DMARD although only 20% of the patients fulfilled either 1987 or 2010 criteria. About 10% of the patients stopped taking DMARDs although given and they were symptom free. There are contradictory results about efficacy of MTX in probable RA and UA in disease progression. Along with these results, we are still in the need of criteria that would indicate the early arthritis patients to start with DMARDs so that we would neither be late nor avoid any unnecessary prescription. References Arnet FC, Edworhy SM, Bloch DA, et al. The American Rheumatism Association 1987 revised criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Rheum 1988; 31:315–24. Aletaha D. Neogi T, Silman AJ, et al. 2010 rheumatoid arthritis classification criteria: An American College of Rheumatology European League Against Rheumatism collaborative initiative. Ann Rheum Dis 2010:69;1580–8 Disclosure of Interest None declared


TO THE EDITOR: Spertus and colleagues (1) confirm the findings of many other studies that black patients with heart disease receive lower-quality care than white patients. The authors document major care disparities, with black patients getting statistically significantly fewer diagnostic catheterizations and revascularizations and less discharge counseling regarding smoking cessation and exercise. Contrary to current dogma, do Spertus and colleagues believe that these interventions have no value and that the differences in health outcomes in the black and white study populations were simply due to "cardiac risk factors"? If so, we must seriously reconsider our approach to all patients with myocardial infarction. In any case, 1 of the conclusions of their research should be that medical treatment is still unequal (2) in the United States.