When a new diagnostic procedure is developed, it is important to assess whether the diagnostic accuracy of the new procedure is different from that of the standard procedure. For paired‐sample ordinal data, this paper develops two test statistics for testing equality of the diagnostic accuracy between two procedures without assuming any parametric models. One is derived on the basis of the probability of correctly identifying the case for a randomly selected pair of a case and a non‐case over all possible cutoff points, and the other is derived on the basis of the sensitivity and specificity directly. To illustrate the practical use of the proposed test procedures, this paper includes an example regarding the use of digitized and plain films for screening breast cancer. This paper also applies Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the finite sample performance of the two statistics developed here and notes that they can perform well in a variety of situations. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


COVID-19 is a major health issue, and patients with underlying conditions are more susceptible to catastrophic outcomes. Toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) is a severe systemic disease caused by an immune system hypersensitive reaction. We present a case of TEN induced following sulfasalazine administration that later on complicated with COVID-19, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary emboli, and eventually death.


Hypokalemia with hyperkaliuresis was diagnosed in a 10 1/4-year-old boy, who presented with spontaneously disappearing abdominal pain. The diagnosis of Gitelman-Syndrome (asymptomatic chronic hypokalemia and -magnesemia) was established after detection of hypomagnesemia, renal magnesium losing but normal renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and glomerular filtration rate. After oral supplementation of potassium hypokalemia persisted and hyperkaliuresis increased. The substitution was discontinued, the hyperkaliuresis diminished and the child remained asymptomatic during a 24 months follow-up. The substitution of potassium and magnesium can be avoided in children with Gitelman-Syndrome as long as they remain asymptomatic.


Dihydropyrimidines are one of the most important heterocyclic ring systems having a serious place in medicinal and organic synthesis

In this paper, a new series of dihydropyrimidines consisting of sulfur atoms were synthesized using inorganic base K2CO3 and TBAB as an organic salt to make high polarity in reaction media. Interestingly, different 3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2(1H)-thiones reacted smoothly with various acrylic esters to afford adducts via highly regioselective N3-Michael addition reaction was carried out at 100 oC in 12 h.

Unfortunately, the reaction failed with fumaric esters owing steric effects. Avoiding organic solvents during this reaction effectively led to the development of an economic approach.

Structures of the new compounds were established on the basis of 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and IR spectral data.


This article undertakes a critical analysis of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, to determine if it properly balances the competing goals of protecting individual rights and promoting social welfare. It uses the same contrasting analysis that Professor George Fletcher applied to torts generally in his celebrated 1972 Harvard Law Review article, Fairness and Utility in Tort Theory. While Fletcher's article is used as a template, his paradigm of reciprocity proves to be unworkable when applied to bargained-for exchanges such as those that occur between manufacturers and consumers in products liability. The "autonomy paradigm" is proposed as a modification that retains reciprocity's goal of protecting equal liberty but broadens the test of equal freedom to include the express and implied consent to risks in exchange for express and implied benefits. The autonomy paradigm also makes modest utilitarian concessions in order to create a balanced and practical conceptual model that can be applied to the full range of tort law. The contrasting autonomy paradigm and reasonableness paradigm are applied to the three primary categories of product defects as described in the Third Restatement: manufacturing, warning, and design defects. The analysis provides the reader with markedly differing views of the same legal landscape. In doing so it reveals that in most respects individual fairness and social utility are balanced by and embodied in the Third Restatement. This balancing, as in torts generally, is achieved through the use of several tests based upon distinct concerns rather than the application of a single mega theory of liability applied to all cases and claims. Part VI discusses the one area where fairness is unnecessarily sacrificed for utility: claims brought by bystanders (strangers to the product rather than consumers) injured by dangers inherent in useful product design. Finally, it advances several strict liability proposals to restore the balance between fairness and utility with regard to bystanders injured by dangerous but socially useful product designs.


We study the performance of neural network models on random geometric transformations and adversarial perturbations. Invariance means that the model's prediction remains unchanged when a geometric transformation is applied to an input. Adversarial robustness means that the model's prediction remains unchanged after small adversarial perturbations of an input. In this paper, we show a quantitative trade-off between rotation invariance and robustness. We empirically study the following two cases: (a) change in adversarial robustness as we improve only the invariance of equivariant models via training augmentation, (b) change in invariance as we improve only the adversarial robustness using adversarial training. We observe that the rotation invariance of equivariant models (StdCNNs and GCNNs) improves by training augmentation with progressively larger random rotations but while doing so, their adversarial robustness drops progressively, and very significantly on MNIST. We take adversarially trained LeNet and ResNet models which have good $L_\infty$ adversarial robustness on MNIST and CIFAR-10, respectively, and observe that adversarial training with progressively larger perturbations results in a progressive drop in their rotation invariance profiles. Similar to the trade-off between accuracy and robustness known in previous work, we give a theoretical justification for the invariance vs. robustness trade-off observed in our experiments. We also give additional empirical evidence for claim (a). We observe that the average distance of the test points to the decision boundary reduces when models are trained with larger rotations.


We review the relations between the full counting statistics and the field theory of electric circuits. We demonstrate that for large conductances the counting statistics is determined by non‐trivial saddle‐point of the field. Coulomb effects in this limit are presented as quantum corrections that can strongly renormalize the action at low energies.


Abstract. A seismic risk assessment is conducted for cultural heritage sites in Gyeongju, the capital of Korea's ancient Silla Kingdom. Gyeongju, home to UNESCO World Heritage sites, contains remarkable artifacts of Korean Buddhist art. An extensive geotechnical survey including a series of in situ tests is presented, providing pertinent soil profiles for site response analyses on thirty cultural heritage sites. After the shear wave velocity profiles and dynamic material properties were obtained, site response analyses were carried out at each historical site and the amplification characteristics, site period, and response spectrum of the site were determined for the earthquake levels of 2400 yr and 1000 yr return periods based on the Korean seismic hazard map. Response spectrum and corresponding site coefficients obtained from site response analyses considering geologic conditions differ significantly from the current Korean seismic code. This study confirms the importance of site-specific ground response analyses considering local geological conditions. Results are given in the form of the spatial distribution of bedrock depth, site period, and site amplification coefficients, which are particularly valuable in the context of a seismic vulnerability study. This study presents the potential amplification of hazard maps and provides primary data on the seismic risk assessment of each cultural heritage.


A patient was admitted with a clinical suspicion of left sural thrombophlebitis. Analysis of the clinical features and the results of rheoplethysmography, phlebography, arteriography and, most importantly, ultrasonography led to the diagnosis of popliteal synovial cyst and demonstrated the vascular repercussions of this lesions responsible for the swollen leg. A review of the literature confirms the frequently misleading clinical features of popliteal cysts. The authors present a strategy for the investigation of these cases, based on vascular functional investigations and in particular ultrasonography.


Carbohydrate-binding proteins (lectins) play vital roles in cell recognition and signaling, including pathogen binding and innate immunity. Thus, targeting lectins, especially those on the surface of immune cells, could advance immunology and drug discovery. Lectins are typically oligomeric; therefore, many of the most potent ligands are multivalent. An effective strategy for lectin targeting is to display multiple copies of a single glycan epitope on a polymer backbone; however, a drawback to such multivalent ligands is they cannot distinguish between lectins that share monosaccharide binding selectivity (e.g., mannose-binding lectins) as they often lack molecular precision. Here, we describe the development of an iterative exponential growth (IEG) synthetic strategy that enables facile access to synthetic glycomacromolecules with precisely defined and tunable sizes up to 22.5 kDa, compositions, topologies, and absolute configurations. Twelve discrete mannosylated "glyco-IEGmers" are synthesized and screened for binding to a panel of mannoside-binding immune lectins (DC-SIGN, DC-SIGNR, MBL, SP-D, langerin, dectin-2, mincle, and DEC-205). In many cases, the glyco-IEGmers had distinct length, stereochemistry, and topology-dependent lectin-binding preferences. To understand these differences, we used molecular dynamics and density functional theory simulations of octameric glyco-IEGmers, which revealed dramatic effects of glyco-IEGmer stereochemistry and topology on solution structure and reveal an interplay between conformational diversity and chiral recognition in selective lectin binding. Ligand function also could be controlled by chemical substitution: by tuning the side chains of glyco-IEGmers that bind DC-SIGN, we could alter their cellular trafficking through alteration of their aggregation state. These results highlight the power of precision synthetic oligomer/polymer synthesis for selective biological targeting, motivating the development of next-generation glycomacromolecules tailored for specific immunological or other therapeutic applications.


An international symposium on "Medical and Surgical Problems of the Esophagus" was held in Rome, May 7-9, 1980, at the Cavalieri Hilton Hotel under the presidency of Prof Sergio Stipa of Rome and world traveler, Mr Ronald H. R. Belsey. The meeting was sponsored by a number of Italian organizations and was designed to provide a podium for physicians and surgeons from all parts of the world interested in esophageal problems to discuss problems of mutual interest. In this effort, the meeting succeeded extraordinarily well. In contrast to other Italian meetings that I have attended, this one was well organized and skillfully conducted. The moderators did their best to keep the speakers within their time limits and, in general, the meetings went off much as they were planned. To be sure, the sessions were unusually long, running from 9amto 8:30pmor later each day. This was the result


We measured the serum concentration of iron, zinc, copper and bromine in fifty malnourished children and twenty one healthy controls using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. The mean ages for the study group and controls were 27.06 and 29 months respectively. The mean weights of the study and control groups were 7.32 and 12.05 +/- 3.07 kilogrammes respectively. The serum iron, zinc, copper and bromine mean levels in the study and control groups were Fe 14.6 (9.9) Zn 12.5 (11.9) Cu 16.5 (21.2) and Br 59.1 (63.0) micromoles per litre. Analysis of variance between the study group and controls showed a significant fall in copper levels even when adjusted for age sex and weight differences (F = 4.6586 p < 0.05). The wide distribution of concentrations of Iron noted in the malnourished children is probably due to haemolysis and rapid catabolism. The role of bromine in nutrition is yet to be established.


Emerging evidence has highlighted the pivotal role of the immune system in neurodegenerative diseases. This study investigated the impact of progressive neurodegeneration on the differentiation and development of hematopoietic stem cells in the peripheral blood of Parkinson's patients. Methods: A colony‐forming cell assay was established to study hematopoietic stem cells from venous blood of Parkinson's patients, and flow cytometry was used to analyze the expression of chemokine receptors on monocytes.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the equality between author key words used in the Journal of the Korean Orthopaedic Association and controlled vocabulary or medical subject headings (MeSH). Materials and Methods: A total of 1,058 English key words in 320 papers (average 3.3 words in a paper) from 2009 to 2012 were eligible for this study. We classified them according to matched, partially matched, and non-matched terms. The partially matched terms were further dissected into entry terms, qualifiers, anteriorly or posteriorly matched, abbreviations, and pleurals. After descriptive analysis, we assayed patterns of errors in using MeSH, and reviewed frequently used non-MeSH terms. Results: The rate of matched terms was 23.5% for an average of four years, and 34.8% for 2013, which is on the rise by year. The rate of partially matched terms was 34.8%, and that of non-matched terms was 41.7% for an average of four years. The most frequently used key words were Knee and Total knee arthroplasty (17 times), followed by Osteoarthritis (9), Femur, Hip, and Total hip arthroplasty (8). Conclusion: Use of proper keywords aligned with the international standards such as MeSH is important to be properly cited. The authors should pay attention and be educated on correct use of MeSH as key words.


In this paper, we rethink how an OS supports virtual memory. Classical VM is an opaque abstraction of RAM, backed by demand paging. However, most systems today (from phones to data-centers) do not page, and indeed may require the performance benefits of non-paged physical memory, precise NUMA allocation, etc. Moreover, MMU hardware is now useful for other purposes, such as detecting page access or providing large page translation. Accordingly, the venerable VM abstraction in OSes like Windows and Linux has acquired a plethora of extra APIs to poke at the policy behind the illusion of a virtual address space.
Instead, we present Cichlid, a memory system which inverts this model. Applications explicitly manage their physical RAM of different types, and directly (though safely) program the translation hardware. Cichlid is implemented in Barrelfish, requires no virtualization support, and outperforms VMM-based approaches for all but the smallest working sets. We show that Cichlid enables use-cases for virtual memory not possible in Linux today, and other use-cases are simple to program and significantly faster.


Gower's primary concern in the Confessio Amantis was with politics, specifically right kingship and governance, prompted in large part, in McKinley's view, by his growing dissatisfaction with Richard II. Ovid, McKinley argues, was particularly useful to Gower in presenting both his views of right rule and his critique of Richard, who, McKinley believes, was among the Confessio's readers. "Throughout the Confessio Gower engages Ovid to effect metamorphosis within the understanding of his royal reader or his counselors. The most important transformation in Gower occurs when Genius interprets the tale for Amans, and thus for the king: what results is metamorphosis in hermeneutical terms" (p. 108). Following David Wallace's identification (in "Chaucerian Polity") of husband and wife as stand-ins in late medieval discourse for king and realm, McKinley provides close readings of two tale from Book V of the Confessio: "Jason and Medea" (3247-4229) and "Tereus" (5550-6074). After comparing each to Ovid's version and, as relevant, in other sources (Ovide moralise," "Ovidius moralizatus," "Roman de Troie"), McKinley concludes that "In rendering the Jason and Tereus tales, Gower seems to follow Ovid's emphases much more strongly that those of the medieval moralising tradition . . . . Gower's political readings are finally similar to the classical uses of such characters and dissimilar to medieval moralising versions that then read such characters as emblematic of sinful spiritual states. By following closely Ovid's own emphases, Gower in this section of Book Five presents negative illustrations of rulers who violate oaths of various kinds. When one considers the various versions of these stories available to Gower and examines his departures from them, on can see both the independence of his judgment and his determination to recreate a more truly 'Ovidian' telling of each tale. In the Confession Amantis, Gower is concerned not just with the larger rubric of Amans' confession of sins to Genius; he intends above all to employ this larger framework to mediate his own reflections on proper governance and self-rule" (p. 127). [RFY. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 27.1]


Organizational communication scholars define conflict as interaction among interdependent people who perceive opposition in their goals, aims, and /or values, and who see the other(s) as potentially interfering with the realization of these goals, aims, or values. Given that organizations consist of interaction among interdependent people, conflict is inherent to organizational communication. Organizational conflict scholarship includes a rich and diverse body of literature that spans theoretical and disciplinary perspectives as well as methodological approaches and disparate goals, ranging from describing to understanding and predicting conflict behavior, impacts, and outcomes. Scholars conceptualize conflict as both a challenge to the status quo and an opportunity for innovation, creativity, and improved understanding and communication.
 Research on conflict in organizations has often focused on conflict styles to examine common approaches to resolving or managing conflict. Styles are often defined as predispositions, with the recognition that people also choose a conflict style based on characteristics of a specific conflict situation. The five styles are described as competing, collaborating, cooperating, accommodating, and avoiding. While there are hundreds of studies examining these styles, virtually all of them conclude that collaborating and cooperating styles are considered most appropriate and effective, while competing and avoiding styles are perceived as inappropriate and least effective, especially in the long term. Nonetheless, each style may be appropriate under specific circumstances.
 Other important dimensions of organizational conflict include how it is managed by leaders and members (supervisors and subordinates), intercultural conflict, and conflict within and across groups. Research has found a relationship between how organizational leaders manage conflict, their openness to the related phenomenon of employee dissent, and employee satisfaction with the organization, leadership, and their perceptions of organizational justice. An important consideration in all conflict contexts is attention to face concerns. In conflict with superiors, in intercultural conflict, and in conflict in work groups, communication that attempts to protect, rather than threaten, each party's image is most likely to be collaborative, meet all parties' interests, and maintain relationships. Because it can be especially difficult to manage conflict when there are power differences, it is helpful when organizations create a conflict management system (CMS) to assist organizational members. A CMS often includes a third party who can help organizational members better understand their conflict and assess their options, such as an ombudsperson or an employee relations advisor. CMSs may also provide an array of less costly alternatives to the formal grievance process or litigation, such as mediation and conflict coaching. An important arena in conflict scholarship focuses on conflict education, which examines curricula and programs for all levels, from K-12 to higher education, with the goals of creating communities grounded in shared responsibility and social justice. Research on the development of conflict education and training at all levels is necessary to help foster the innovative and transformational potential of conflict and its management.


Background: Prolonged post-operative analgesic effect of intrathecal morphine is often limited by its adverse effects. This study was conducted to know the effect of three different doses of intrathecal nalbuphine in reducing adverse effects related with intrathecal morphine. Methods: The study was performed in a prospective, randomized, observer-blind manner. Total of 120 patients were divided randomly into four groups (n=30) to receive 100 micrograms of morphine alone (Group A), 0.5mg(Group B), 1.0mg(Group C), 1.5mg(Group D) of nalbuphine with 100 micrograms morphine. Post operatively patients were monitored for vital signs, SpO2, sedation, pain (VAS), presence of pruritus, nausea and vomiting, respiratory depression and urinary retention for 24 hours. Results: Addition of nalbuphine decreases pruritus, nausea and vomiting in dose dependent manner with maximum effect at 1.5mg. No significant differences observed in vital signs, SpO2, sedation score, pain (VAS) score, duration of analgesia and total dose of analgesia required. None of the patients developed respiratory depression and urinary retention. Conclusion: Present study provides evidence that addition of 1.5mg of intrathecal nalbuphine with 100micrograms of intrathecal morphine completely abolishes opioid induced pruritus and significantly reduces nausea and vomiting without reducing analgesic effect of morphine.


Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the antifungal effect of bee venom (BV) and sweet bee venom (SBV) against Candida albicans (C. albicans) clinical isolates. Methods: In this study, BV and SBV were examined for antifungal activities against the Korean Collection for Type Cultures (KCTC) strain and 10 clinical isolates of C. albicans. The disk diffusion method was used to measure the antifungal activity and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assays were performed by using a broth microdilution method. Also, a killing curve assay was conducted to investigate the kinetics of the anti- fungal action. Results: BV and SBV showed antifungal activity against 10 clinical isolates of C. albicans that were cultured from blood and the vagina by using disk diffusion method. The MIC values obtained for clinical isolates by using the broth microdilution method varied from 62.5 μg/ mL to 125 μg/mL for BV and from 15.63 μg/mL to 62.5 μg/mL for SBV. In the killing-curve assay, SBV behaved as amphotericin B, which was used as positive control, did. The antifungal efficacy of SBV was much higher than that of BV. Conclusion: BV and SBV showed antifungal activity against C. albicans clinical strains that were isolated from blood and the vagina. Especially, SBV might be a candidate for a new antifungal agent against C. albicans clinical isolates.


The World Health Organization (WHO) has established a system of collaborating centers known as the Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network (REMPAN) to promote radiation emergency medical preparedness, assistance, and advice to countries in cases of overexposure of populations from any source of radiation. This network consists of 13 specialized institutions located in 10 countries. Within the REMPAN there are three separate but linked activities. The first is aimed at strengthening radiation emergency medical preparedness and assistance to treat and monitor acutely exposed individuals. The second activity is directed toward improving public health advice to mitigate long-term effects of exposure to low and protracted doses that might accrue in populations living in the affected territories. This involves giving advice on protecting public health, e.g., iodine prophylaxis, psychosocial risks associated with countermeasures, and public information strategies. In addition, the REMPAN develops activities aimed at improving long-term follow-up studies and preparedness for epidemiologic investigations in territories contaminated by radionuclides from a nuclear accident. The WHO's response in a radiation emergency depends on the type of accident and its time phase. This includes a wide range of actions from studying the situation to providing medical and public health assistance through the network of collaborating centers and relevant institutions within the REMPAN. The process of creating a reliable international system for radiation emergency medical preparedness and assistance has not yet been completed. Deficiencies in this system are outlined in this paper to attract the attention of specialists in the field of radiation protection and potential donors of the WHO program.


Context: Branching and merging are common activities in large-scale software development projects. Isolated development with branching enables developers to focus their effort on their specific tasks without wasting time on the problems caused by other developers' changes. After the completion of tasks in branches, such branches should be integrated into common branches by merging. When conflicts occur in merging, developers need to resolve the conflicts, which are troublesome. Goal: To support conflict resolution in merging, we aim to understand how conflicts are resolved in practice from large-scale study. Method: We present techniques for identifying conflicts and detecting conflict resolution in method level. Result: From the analysis of 10 OSS projects written in Java, we found that (1) 44% (339/779) of conflicts are caused by changing concurrently the same positions of methods, 48% (375/779) are by deleting methods, 8% (65/779) are by renaming methods, and that (2) 99% (771/779) of conflicts are resolved by adopting one method directly. Conclusions: Our results suggest that most of conflicts are resolved by simple way. One of our future works is developing methods for supporting conflict resolution.


Background: Distance assessment and evaluation(E-assessment) has recently regained popularity with the widespread use of distance education due to the pandemic. Emergency medicine education has developed theoretical and practical models on online learning and accelerated the studies on E-assessment of competencies on emergency care. While the educatiors and trainees are promptly adapting to the distance learning platforms, several factors can affect these adoptions to e-assessment models. Our study aimed to find these factors affecting the perspectives and attitudes on the practice among emergency medicine educators. Results: A survey was conducted on ninety participants of emergency medicine educators regarding self-efficacy, self-confidence, and attitudes towards E-assessment technologies. There was a statistically significant difference between computer use skills and scores, especially regarding self-confidence (p=0.02) and self-efficacy (p=0.01). We found no significant difference in terms of attitude (p=0.877). We found that those with very good computer skills had higher self-confidence and self-efficacy for distance exams. The participants' computer use skills affected self-confidence and self-efficacy for e-assessments. There was a significant difference in self-confidence (p=0.000) and self-efficacy (p=0.001) between those with and without e-assessment experience. Furthermore, the thought that it is an effective assessment and evaluation. Regarding screen sharing, 44.4% of the participants have ethical concerns; 30% were not concerned about this issue, and 25.6% were partially concerned. There was no statistically significant difference in ethical anxiety regarding e-assessment experiencing (p=0.914).Conclusion: The proficiency in using computers, experience in teaching, and the need for training on e-assessments are the key factors that affect e-assessments in emergency medicine education. Encouragement should be necessary to achieve the goal to spread the use of e-assessments in the era of the pandemic.


Fecal fistulas are fairly frequently encountered by those engaged in the practice of surgery. Usually they arise as an unexpected and distressing complication of abdominal operations. Sometimes they heal spontaneously and all that is required of the surgeon is "masterly inactivity." The eradication of others, however, may be an extremely difficult task—one that will tax the skill of the most resourceful operator. There are certain well founded principles which may be used as a guide in the treatment of fecal fistulas and which may expedite the task of the physician and the recovery of the patient. To ignore these rules is often to invite poor results or disaster and, as many of them have not been clearly elucidated before, we will set them forth in the following paragraphs. The few statistical deductions of this report are based on an analysis of data on 65 consecutive cases of persistent external fecal


OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the central (transpatellar tendon) portal technique for the treatment of isolated medial bucket-handle type meniscal tears with the arthroscopic menisectomy procedure.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In this study, fifty patients with isolated medial bucket-handle type meniscal tears were evaluated. They were divided into two groups with 25 patients in each group. In the first group, the three portal (including central portal) technique was used and in the second group, the two portal technique was used. The results of the two groups were compared in terms of (i) operation times; (ii) changes in Insall-Salvati ratios postoperatively; (iii) postoperative Cincinatti scores; (iv) quadriceps muscle strengths; (v) the presence of anterior knee pain and; (vi) complication rates, in order to determine the significance of adding a central portal to the standard anterolateral and anteromedial portals in the menisectomy procedure.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of Cincinnati clinical scores, quadriceps muscle strenghts and complication rates. However, the operation time values of the first group were significantly shorter than the second group (p<0.001). The postoperative changes in Insall-Salvati ratio values were significantly higher in the first group than the second group (p<0.002). This results show us that the first group had a significant decrease in patellar tendon length whereas the second group had no change in size postoperatively.

CONCLUSION
We suggest that the use of the central portal for viewing and instrumentation is a safe and quick technique in the menisectomy procedure for medial bucket-handle type meniscal tears, due to its unexpected lower complication rates and shorter operation times. While it causes patellar tendon shortening, this does not effect the clinical outcomes.


Neutrophils (PMN) are the most abundant leukocytes in the blood. PMN migrate from the circulation to sites of infection, where they are responsible for antimicrobial functions. PMN use phagocytosis, degranulation, and formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) to kill microbes. NETs are fibers composed of chromatin and neutrophil-granule proteins. Several pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, and parasites, and also some pharmacological stimuli such as phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) are efficient inducers of NETs. Antigen-antibody complexes are also capable of inducing NET formation. However the particular Fcγ receptor involved in triggering this function is a matter of controversy. In order to provide some insight into what Fcγ receptor is responsible for NET formation, each of the two human Fcγ receptors was stimulated individually by specific monoclonal antibodies and NET formation was evaluated. FcγRIIa cross-linking did not promote NET formation. Cross-linking other receptors such as integrins also did not promote NET formation. In contrast FcγRIIIb cross-linking induced NET formation similarly to PMA stimulation. NET formation was dependent on NADPH-oxidase, PKC, and ERK activation. These data show that cross-linking FcγRIIIb is responsible for NET formation by the human neutrophil.


Abstract In urban China, the social welfare system and the family structure have changed dramatically, while gender norms are still deep-rooted, particularly among older adults. Under this social, demographic and cultural context, this study aims to take a gender-specific perspective to investigate whether and how gender moderates the roles of pensions, social support and self-care ability on older adults' life satisfaction. Based on the survey data collected from 2,047 older adults aged 65 years and over in urban China in 2018, multiple linear regressions were applied to explore the moderation effects. The results show that the pension is important to older adults' life satisfaction regardless of gender. For social support, the association between family support and life satisfaction is stronger for older men than for older women; interdependent social support, especially being a confidant, matters more to women than to men. The interaction between self-care ability and gender reveals some interesting patterns: self-care ability is found to have a positive association with women's life satisfaction but a negative association with men's. This study contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating how gender intertwines with the most important factors of older adult's life satisfaction in China – a society with strong gender norms and a patriarchal culture. These findings could be relevant to other Asian societies.


Individuals provide deceptive information in many contexts and for many reasons. We explore the phenomenon of medical patients providing deceptive information to their healthcare providers via both face-to-face and online interactions. We will employ the scenario-based factorial survey method to present research respondents with various situations in which they may consider whether or not to provide accurate or deceptive information. This method has been demonstrated to yield valid data for investigations of norm-violating behaviors. Results will be presented at the conference.


In a review of 213 cases of acromegaly it was found that 10 patients had complained of a periodic pain in the hands and 8 had complained of a similar disturbance in the feet. Usually the discomfort had been associated with paresthesias and had been present in both hands and feet. Different observers have reported that a more or less general increase in connective tissue occurs in cases of acromegaly, and this has also been observed to occur in the peripheral nerves. These observations led to the inference that the pain and paresthesia are the result of interstitial neuritis. One might ask, however, since these phenomena are usually transitory, whether they may not be of vascular origin. The enlargement of the hands and feet that takes place in acromegaly may justifiably lead to the assumption that there is a concomitant increase in the circulation which may not be unattended by


The paper describes the authors' work of applying active network technology to videoconferencing (VC) research. They present the architecture and features of an application-level facility, called active gateway, for videoconferencing traffic and quality of service (QoS) control. It is shown through experiments that this facility enables more control functions that are not seen in conventional videoconferencing tools.


This study is focused to airflow and heat transfer analyses in an air-cooled room. Three-dimensional numerical results of a rectangular room considering three different inlet configurations are presented. The study was carried out considering turbulent flow and the radiative exchange between the walls. A vertical wall receives a constant heat flux, and the opposite wall is maintained at a uniform and constant temperature; the remaining walls are adiabatic. The air inlet velocity was 0.5 m/s and the emissivity of the walls was considered as 0.8. The mathematical model was solved numerically with Computational Fluid Dynamics software. The temperature fields, flow patterns, heat transfer coefficients, and temperature distribution effectiveness are presented and discussed. It was found that the heat transfer due to the radiative effect is around 50% for the three cases studied; besides, the heat transfer coefficients and temperature distribution effectiveness are highly dependent on the inlet position.


Background:Introducing tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for treating chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has changed the prognosis of this disease from an incurable malignancy to a manageable chronic condition. The need for life-long treatment with TKIs however, requires detailed knowledge of factors that could affect therapy efficacy and toxicity. TKIs are generally well tolerated, nevertheless they may be associated with the so called "off-target" effects causing specific adverse events (AEs). It has been shown that some co-morbidities may predispose towards developing certain TKIs9 "off-target" AEs, which includes cardiovascular complications or pleural effusion. Furthermore, TKIs are metabolized by the CYP3A4 isoenzyme and have been reported to be substrates of ABCB1 (MDR1) and ABCG2 (BCRP) transporters. Drug interactions should therefore be considered when administering inhibitors or inducers of CYP3A4, ABCB1 and ABCG2 in combination with TKIs. Objective:The aim of this study was a retrospective assessment of the prevalence of both comorbid conditions and use of concomitant medications in a large cohort of newly diagnosed CML patients within a real-world setting. Patients and methods:Data from medical records were retrospectively analyzed on newly diagnosed adult CML patients referred to nine Polish hematological tertiary care centers. Inclusion criteria were as follows: 1) age ≥ 18 years; 2) diagnosis of chronic phase CML between January 1st 2005 and December 31st 2014. Results:Study subjects were 470 consecutive patients diagnosed with CML as per above. Patients9 median age was 53.0 years (range 18.0 - 88.9 years). Two hundred sixty-one patients (55.5%) were found to have at least one comorbid condition at CML diagnosis and 268 (57.0 %) received at least one concomitant medication. The median number of concomitant therapies was one (range 0-12). In the analyzed patients cohort the most frequent comorbidities that are of importance regarding the risk of TKI9 "off target" AEs included: hypertension (31%), hypercholesterolemia (11%), ischemic heart disease (10%), diabetes (9%), cardiac insufficiency (5%), history of myocardial infarction (4.5%) significant pulmonary diseases including bronchial asthma, COPD or sarcoidosis (4%) and ischemic stroke (2%). Moreover, 55 patients (11.6%) were cigarette smokers. The median body mass index (BMI) was 25, where 134/392 patients (34%) were qualified as being overweight and 86/392 patients (22%) were obese. Conclusions: Our analysis shows that more than 50% of newly diagnosed CML patients suffer comorbid conditions, and take concomitant medication at the time of CML diagnosis. Because the presence of certain comorbidities increases the risk of TKIs9 "off-target" AEs, it is vital to assess and take into account these co-morbidities when selecting TKI for individual CML patients. Furthermore, potential pharmacokinetic interactions between specific TKIs and concomitant medications, as well as their overlapping toxicities have to be also considered. Disclosures Gora-Tybor:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Incyte: Consultancy, Honoraria; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Consultancy, Honoraria. Sacha:BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Incyte: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Adamed: Consultancy, Honoraria; Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Grzybowska-Izydorczyk:BMS: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria. Seferynska:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria. Lewandowski:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Incyte: Consultancy, Honoraria; Pfizer: Consultancy, Honoraria; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Warzocha:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria. Jamroziak:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria.


Background: As the fourth most common malignant tumors in women, uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) requires novel and reliable biomarkers for prognosis prediction to improve the overall survival. Oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) is found to be strongly correlated with the progression of tumor. Here, we aimed to construct an OXPHOS-related and immune microenvironment prognostic signature to stratify UCEC patients for optimization of treatment strategies. Method: Prognosis-associated OXPHOS-related differentially expressed genes were identified by multivariable Cox regression from TCGA–UCEC cohort. Based on the candidate genes, an OXPHOS-related prognostic signature was constructed by the train set data and verified by the entire set. When integrated with relevant clinical characteristics, a nomogram was also created for clinical application. Through comparison of tumor microenvironment between different risk groups, the underlying mechanism of the model and the inner correlation between immune microenvironment and energy metabolism were further investigated. Results: An OXPHOS-related signature containing ATP5IF1, COX6B1, FOXP3, and NDUFB11 was constructed and had better predictive ability compared with other recently published signatures in UCEC. Patients with lower risk score showed higher immune cell infiltration, higher ESTIMATE score (p = 2.808E−18), lower tumor purity (p = 2.808E−18), higher immunophenoscores (IPSs) (p < 0.05), lower expression of mismatch repair (MMR) proteins (p < 0.05), higher microsatellite instability (MSI), lower expression of markers of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) mRNA methylation regulators, higher tumor mutation burden (TMB) (p = 1.278E−9), and more sensitivity to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) (p < 0.001) and chemotherapy drugs, thus, possessing improved prognosis. Conclusion: An OXPHOS-related and immune microenvironment prognostic signature classifying EC patients into different risk subsets was constructed in our study, which could be used to predict the prognosis of patients and help to select a specific subset of patients who might benefit from immunotherapy and chemotherapy, thus, improving the overall survival rate of UCEC. These findings may contribute to the discovery of novel and robust biomarkers or target therapy in UCEC and give new insights into the molecular mechanism of tumorigenesis and progression of UCEC.


Historically, the priority in disinfection reactor design has been microbial inactivation with a high factor of safety, neglecting other processes such as disinfection byproduct (DBP) formation and chemical use minimization. With heightened awareness and regulation of DBPs, advanced chemical engineering principles and practices are being employed in disinfection process analysis and design in order to minimize DBP production while ensuring sufficient microbial inactivation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is increasingly popular as a tool to evaluate reactor performance and assess design concepts. This study presents the results of CFD analyses of two disinfection reactors with very different aspect ratios and design, but being characterized by the same theoretical hydraulic residence time (i.e., 30 minutes). Both reactors were used to inactivate E. coli with the novel disinfectant peroxyacetic acid (PAA). CFD calculations were performed for inactivation of E. coli (10000 CFU/100 mL) with PAA concentrations of 4 and 8 mg/L. Calculations were carried out for two serpentine reactors with aspect ratios (channel width to water depth) of 2:1 and 1:3. In the second reactor, perforated baffle plates were placed at the end of each channel in an attempt to promote uniform flow. Both reactors achieved adequate removal of organisms, but displayed non-ideal hydrodynamics, with significant recirculation regions that reduced the volume available for reaction and promoted short-circuiting. CFD simulations emphasized that reactor hydrodynamics impacts on the specific disinfection performances inducing different ratio of reactor volume active during the disinfection process.


This study proposes a distributed model predictive control (MPC) strategy to achieve consensus of sampled-data multi-agent systems with double-integrator dynamics. On the basis of the error of state between each agent and the centre of its subsystem, a novel distributed MPC strategy (Algorithm 1) is obtained with the exchange of current states only. Then, a reverse iterative algorithm (Algorithm 2) is specially designed for the receding horizon optimisation of sampled-data double-integrator dynamics. Illustrative examples are finally displayed to verify the effectiveness and advantage of the distributed MPC consensus strategy and the impact of sampling period on consensus.


The present study aimed to examine the effects of FcγRIIB on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and to investigate the underlying mechanisms. For this purpose, lentiviral vector carrying the membrane-bound type FcγRIIB gene (mFcγRIIB lentivirus) and soluble FcγRIIB (sFcγRIIB) protein were used to treat B cells from patients with SLE. The B cells were treated with calf thymus DNA (ctDNA) and anti-calf thymus DNA-immune complexes (anti-ctDNA-IC). mFcγRIIB lentivirus and sFcγRIIB protein were also injected into MRL/lpr SLE mice. The results revealed that anti-ctDNA-IC treatment significantly downregulated the IgG antibody secretion of B cells treated with mFcγRIIB lentivirus. mFcγRIIB and sFcγRIIB decreased the phosphorylation level of Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) in B cells, and increased the phosphorylation level of Lyn proto-oncogene (Lyn), docking protein 1 (DOK1) and inositol polyphosphate-5-phospha-tase D (SHIP). mFcγRIIB promoted the apoptosis of B cells. Following the treatment of MRL/lpr SLE mice with mFcγRIIB lentivirus, the levels of urinary protein, serum anti-nuclear and anti-dsDNA antibodies were decreased, while the levels of mFcγRIIB in B cells were increased. mFcγRIIB ameliorated the pathologies of the kidneys, liver and lymph node tissues of the MRL/lpr SLE mice. Following treatment of the MRL/lpr SLE mice with sFcγRIIB, the levels of urinary protein, serum anti-dsDNA antibody and BTK and SHIP phosphorylation levels in B cells were decreased, while the serum sFcγRIIB and sFcγRIIB-IgG levels were increased. On the whole, the findings of the present study demonstrate that recombinant FcγRIIB inhibits the secretion of IgG antibody by B cells from patients with SLE, ameliorates the symptoms of SLE in mice, and alters the phosphorylation levels of downstream proteins of the FcγRIIB signaling pathway in B cells. These results suggest that FcγRIIB may play preventive and therapeutic roles in SLE by inhibiting B cell activation via the FcγRIIB signaling pathway, which provides a novel theory and strategy for the prevention and treatment of SLE.


Studies were carried out to determine the underlying reasons for the phenotypic heterogeneity of Bacillus brevis Migula 1900. DNA reassociation measurements demonstrated that 31 of 37 strains segregated into seven groups of genetically related organisms. The members of the seven groups were not related genetically to selected presently recognized Bacillus species that are strictly aerobic and form oval spores. The results of the DNA relatedness studies and phenotypic comparisons suggested that two of these groups have not been described previously and that the five other groups probably represent previously, but inadequately, described species. Two of the five groups are proposed as new species and are given the revived names Bacillus agri and Bacillus centrosporus. Thus, the phenotypic heterogeneity of B. brevis sensu lato results from the inclusion of genetically unrelated organisms in the taxon and not from the inherent variability of genetically related strains.


Syahid SF, Heryanto R. 2017. Short Communication: Morpho-agronomic characteristics of twelve accessions of white turmeric (Curcuma zedoaria) germplasm. Biodiversitas 18: 269-274. White turmeric (Curcuma zedoaria Rosc.) is a potential medicinal plant belong to the family Zingiberaceae. This plant has a good market because of its high demand as raw material for herbal medicine, such as to cure cancer. A germplasm collection of white turmeric collected from different areas of Indonesia is available at Cicurug Research Station of Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia. Information on characteristics of the accessions, however, are not available yet. This study aimed to determine morphological characters, growth, and yield of 12 accessions of white turmeric. The research was conducted at the Cicurug Research Station from January 2014 to March 2015. Rhizome section of each accession was grown in a 2.5 m x 3.5 m plot at 50 cm x 50 cm plant spacing. The experiment was arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Parameters observed were morphological characters (type of stem, leaf tip, leaf base, leaf shape, stem color, blade color), growth (number of tillers, plant height, number of leaf/stem, leaf length, leaf width, leaf thickness) and yield (rhizome weight, rhizome length, rhizome width, and rhizome thickness) respectively. The results showed that morphological characters, growth, and yields of the 12 accessions observed were varied. All of the characters observed could be evaluated further to determine the important traits.


Background We included tumor necrosis (TN) and tumor viability (TV) in our prognostic assessment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and investigated their clinical significance. Methods Medical records of all consecutive subjects who underwent a lobectomy with standard mediastinal lymph node dissection for NSCLC between 2015 to 2016, were reviewed retrospectively. We analyzed the associations of TN and TV with various parameters associated with prognosis as well as survival in NSCLC patients. All analyses were performed regarding neoadjuvant therapy status [the group without neoadjuvant therapy (WON) vs. the group with neoadjuvant therapy (WN)]. Results A consecutive 154 patients (mean age: 65.0±10.1 years) were included into the present study. Fifteen patients underwent neoadjuvant therapy. Final pathologic stages were IA1 (n=13), IA2 (n=30), IA3 (n=32), IB (n=40), IIA (n=9), IIB (n=18), and IIIA (n=12). WN significantly showed higher TN (P=0.005) and lower TV (P<0.001) than WON. Tumors with vascular, lymphatic, and perineural invasion showed significantly lower TV and higher TN than cases without these features (P=0.014, P=0.019, and P=0.012 for TV; P=0.001, P<0.001, and P<0.001 for TN, respectively). Tumors with poorer differentiation had lower TV (P<0.001) and higher TN (P<0.001) than more differentiated tumors. There was a positive correlation between TN and tumor size (P<0.001) and a negative correlation between TV and tumor size (P=0.031). TN significantly increased as pathologic stage increased (P=0.001), and TV significantly decreased as pathologic stage increased (P=0.038). The group without TN survived significantly longer than the group with TN (P=0.016) in N0 disease and presence of TN and pT stage were independent prognostic factors for survival in N0 disease (P=0.037 and P=0.021, respectively). There was a positive correlation between TN and Ki-67 level (P=0.027). In WN, TN was significantly associated with differentiation (P=0.035), tumor size (P=0.008), and pT stage (P=0.031) but not overall pathologic stage or survival. Conclusions Presence of histological TN was associated with prognosis of NSCLC, especially in N0 disease, and its usage as a diagnostic or prognostic tool and determination of resection extent could potentially provide prognostic information that can facilitate better management of NSCLC.


BACKGROUND
Domestic violence is endemic in PNG accounting for 90% of female trauma. It is a significant cause of morbity in the country and a drain on already scarce healthcare resources. Few studies have assessed the scale of the problem in rural areas.

AIM
To assess the scale of the problem in the Western Province and the views of the victims to try and identify the underlying causes.

METHODS
Trauma presentations to the outpatient department and trauma admissions to Kiunga hospital were audited over a four week period in September 2009. Patients admitted with domestic violence-related injuries were then asked a short questionnaire.

RESULTS
16 patients (15 females, 1 male) presented to Kiunga hospital with domestic violence-related injuries. 13 of these patients were admitted. In this time only one other female was admitted for acute trauma thus over 90% of female trauma admissions were due to domestic violence. The victims were not as accepting of the problem as other studies have suggested. Victims all reported that the police failed to act when they reported an incident.

CONCLUSIONS
Domestic violence is a major public health problem in PNG. Increasing the presence of women in law enforcement agencies and law reform to offer more support to victims is needed to improve the problem.


INTRODUCTION
Besides the diffusion of breast reconstructive techniques, several "conservative" approaches in mastectomy have been developed, in order to perform an immediate reconstruction with better aesthetic results: the skin-sparing mastectomy (SSM), the nipple-areola complex (NAC)-sparing mastectomy (NSM) and the skin-reducing mastectomy (SRM). During the last decade, SSMs and NSMs have gained widespread acceptance and are currently considered standard treatment for early breast cancer. We would like to investigate the evidence behind this radical shift towards conservative mastectomies, where there has been a renewed interest worldwide.

METHODS
We reviewed English literature by consulting the following databases: Medline, Embase, Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) search portal and Clinicaltrials.gov. The objective is to include any randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing a "conservative mastectomy" technique to breast conservative surgery or modified radical mastectomy (MRM) for the treatment of early-stage breast cancer. In the absence of randomized trials, we took into account prospective cohorts and retrospective series for a narrative description of available evidence.

RESULTS
Our review included 58 studies [19 prospective cohorts (34%) and 39 retrospective series (66%)] considering NSM and immediate reconstruction and ten studies [1 prospective cohort (10%) and 9 (90%) retrospective series] considering SSM and immediate reconstruction. In the NSM group, 29 studies reported data about complication rates and 42 studies presented data on NAC partial or complete necrosis. In the NSM group 45 studies and all the studies in the SSM group presented data on local and NAC recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS
In order to achieve higher levels of evidence, RCTs comparing conservative mastectomies to traditional mastectomy and breast conservative surgery would be desirable. However we can conclude that conservative mastectomies offer the psychological advantages of good cosmetics and maintenance of woman body image without compromising the oncological safety of mastectomy.


Lake Erie has a long and storied history with water quality impairment and conservation. Following the passing of the Clean Water Act in the 1970s, total phosphorus (P) loading to the lake substantially decreased through permitting of point sources and through conservation efforts to decrease sediment loss from agricultural fields. While total P losses to Lake Erie have remained relatively stable since the 1990s, dissolved P has increased and resulted in increases in the extent and severity of algal blooms over the past two decades (Smith et al. 2015b). Both agricultural industry and environmental quality are vital to local and regional economies. To achieve a balance between these important resources, there is a critical need to better understand the effect of agricultural practices on crop production and water quality in the national priority Lake Erie watershed.


Although thrombopenic purpura has been reported as a complication of other diseases, such as varicella and rubella, 1 in reviewing the literature of the past thirty years we have not found a case on record similar to the one we are about to report. REPORT OF A CASE History .—A boy 7½ years of age was admitted to the hospital on May 27, 1935, suffering from acute pain in his right ear, profuse aural discharge and a temperature of 102 F. Seven days prior to admission the child had a rash over his entire body, which lasted only one day. The family physician was called and made a diagnosis of rubella. Twenty-four hours later the child began to complain of pain in the right ear and the temperature mounted to 104 F. A diagnosis of purulent otitis media was made, and the tympanum was incised. The ear continued to drain, the temperature


We describe some more recent developments of the SPoC system. We describe a new module in the occam compiler which performs substantial simplifications of the run-time demands made by the compiled code. This has been used successfully both to target a simple PIC microcontroller and to generate input for the SMV model checker.


Purpose
Considering the case study presented, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of the pandemic in local services for homeless people. Drawing from the concept of ontological security, it will be discussed how different services' levels of "housing adequacy" shaped remarkably different experiences of the pandemic for homeless people and social workers in terms of health protection and agency.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper focuses on a case study concerning homeless services for people during the COVID-19 pandemic in the metropolitan and suburban area of Turin, in Northern Italy. In-depth interviews with social workers and participant observation during online meetings of workers from the shelters constitute the empirical data that have been collected during the first wave of the pandemic in Italy.

Findings
According to the findings, the pandemic showed shelters as unsafe places that reduce homeless people's decision power and separate them from the rest of the citizenship. Instead, Housing First projects emerged as imore inclusive and safermore inclusive and safer spaces, able to enhance people's power over their own lives. The pandemic did not create emerging issues in the homeless services system or discontinuities: rather, it amplified pre-existing problematic aspects.

Originality/value
The case study presented provides empirical insights to recognise at the political and organisational level the importance of housing as a measure of individual and collective security, calling for an intervention to tackle homelessness in terms of housing policies rather than exclusively social and emergency treatment.


We generated a monoclonal antibody (MAb), designated LN-6, directed against human vimentin, which retains its immunoreactivity in B5-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues. Like other anti-vimentin MAb, LN-6 was found to be reactive with a wide spectrum of human sarcomas and normal cells of mesenchymal derivation. However, unlike other similar reagents, LN-6 was unreactive with normal and malignant human lymphoid cells and therefore displays a more restricted immunoreactivity. Because of its ability to stain routinely processed pathological tissues and its marked reactivity with human sarcomas, LN-6 is a unique reagent for the immunohistochemical diagnosis of human cancer.


The management of midfacial fractures includes the treatment of facial fractures, dentoalveolar trauma, and soft-tissue injuries, as well as associated injuries, mainly of the head and neck [1]. The management of fractures of the maxillofacial complex remains a challenge for the oral maxillofacial surgeon, demanding both skill and expertise [2]. The success of treatment and implementation of preventive measures are more specifically dependent on epidemiologic assessments [3].Midfacial fractures can occur in isolation or in combination with other serious injuries, including mandibular, ophthalmologic, cranial, spinal, thoracic, and abdominal trauma, as well as upper and lower orthopedic injuries [4].The epidemiology of facial fractures varies in type, severity, and cause depending on the population studied. Differences among populations in the causes of maxillofacial fractures may be the result of differences in risk and cultural factors among countries, but are more likely to be influenced by the severity of injury [1,5]. The causes of maxillofacial fractures have changed over the past three decades, and they continue to do so. The main causes worldwide are traffic accidents, assaults, falls, sport-related injuries, and warfare [6-8]. Many articles pertaining to the incidence and causes of maxillofacial injuries have been published [1,4,7-10]. In 2003, Motamedi [7] reported the distribution of facial fractures as 72.9% mandibular, 13.9% maxillary, 13.5% zygomatic, 24.0% zygomatico-orbital, 2.1% cranial, 2.1% nasal, and 1.6% frontal injuries [Figure 1].


The physical relation between the properties of Type Ia supernovae and their host galaxies is investigated. Such supernovae are used to constrain the properties of dark energy, making it crucial to understand their physical properties and to check for systematic effects relating to the stellar populations of the progenitor stars from which these supernovae arose. This grant found strong evidence for two distinct populations of supernovae, and correlations between the progenitor stellar populations and the nature of the supernova light curves.


This study aims to look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on divorce rates in Indonesia. Few months after the outbreak, the media reported the increasing rate of divorce. Some authorities and researchers have taken this information for granted; therefore, their responses can be misleading. This socio-legal study confronts the media reports with the statistical data on divorce case numbers received by the Religious (Islamic) Courts and the Religious Courts judges' explanation about the issue. This study finds out that the one-year period (2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic has not influenced the rates of divorce cases submitted to the court. Social mobility restrictions and the inadequate use of the E-Court facility to enhance courts' performance are among the causes of the crowding of divorce applicants. This implies that the current COVID-19 pandemic has little impact on divorce dynamics despite its significant influence on households' economic instability and the increasing of domestic violence cases. With a more careful response to the media report, the authorities will be able to address the real issues faced by many households and the judiciary.


straitened than before. Then pregnancy, and, with childbirth, possibly lowered health, even infection. Rapidly succeeding pregnancies (and it is to be noted that rheumatoid arthritis nearly always picks out the slender type of woman-that is to say, the most active sexually), lactation, the anxiety of bringing up a family, well or sick-all are stresses which the male does not experience. As the family grows, life is often harder and more costly, and the mother bears the chief brunt. The result is a sum total of long-drawn-out strainmental, emotional, physical, sympathetic, endocrinal, what you will-to which the male is in no wise subject to a comparable degree. To it some will add infection as the precipitating cause. Is it not possible that here we have the key to the problem of the sex incidence? But, after all, it goes little further than saying that women are more subject because they are females. However, if to carry it in mind helps to emphasize the factor of fatigue, depletion, and so forth, in the causation of the disease, it may help toward more timely preventive measures, and, in treatment, insistence on the all-importance of sufficient rest.-I am, etc.,


Conclusions: In this study, all CP cases complicated co-twin death were monochorionic twin and eight cases (66.7%) were caused by monochorionic-twin-related complications such as TTTS and sIUGR. When occurring co-twin death in monochorionic twin during pregnancy, the unique hemodynamics which characterised the blood flow from surviving twin to the dead twin according to the vascular anastomose of placenta may lead neurological damage in the surviving twin. This result may suggest that we still need to improve the management of monochorionic twins.


A country's competitiveness could be translated as its ability to successfully compete within international comparison also as a prosperity which is expressed by productivity growth of economy and living standards. Is Slovakia competitive? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What are the leading countries of the European Union in competitiveness ranking? In what aspects is Slovakia falling behind countries of V4? Strengthening of which competitive advantages is perspective for the Slovak Republic? We will try to find answers to these questions in an analysis of competitiveness based on the Global Competitiveness Reports. This thesis focuses on definition of the competitiveness in general, apprises of measuring methodology based on multicriterial evaluation and summarises pros and cons of this benchmark. The main focus is on the Slovak Republic and its position in the international ranking. In detail we will focus on comparison of the Slovak Republic with countries of V4 region. It is the authors' ambition to bring critical view on position of the Slovak Republic in the international comparison and to formulate recommendations for the future that could contribute to strengthening of competitiveness and success of our country.


The nonlinear propagation of the electron-acoustic shock waves (EASWs) in an unmagnetized, collisionless degenerate quantum plasma system has been investigated theoretically. The plasma system is assumed to contain two distinct groups of electrons (one inertial non-relativistic cold electrons and other inertialess ultra-relativistic hot electrons) and positively charged static ions. The Burgers equation has been derived by employing the reductive perturbation method and numerically examined to identify the basic features (speed, amplitude, width, etc.) of EASWs. It is shown that only rarefactive shock waves can propagate in such a quantum plasma system. It is found that the effect of degenerate pressure and number density of hot and cold electron fluids, and positively charged static ions significantly modify the basic features of EASWs. It is also noted that the inertial cold electron fluid is the source of dissipation for EA waves and is responsible for the formation of shock structures. The implications of this investigation in astrophysical compact objects (viz. non-rotating white dwarfs, neutron stars, etc.) are briefly mentioned.


We study unsupervised multi-hop reranking for multi-hop QA (MQA) with open-domain questions. Since MQA requires piecing information from multiple documents, the main challenge thus resides in retrieving and reranking chains of passages that support the reasoning process. Our approach relies on LargE models with Prompt-Utilizing reranking Strategy (LEPUS): we construct an instruction-like prompt based on a candidate document path and compute a relevance score of the path as the probability of generating a given question, according to a pre-trained language model. Though unsupervised, LEPUS yields competitive reranking performance against state-of-the-art methods that are trained on thousands of examples. Adding a small number of samples (e.g., 2 ), we demonstrate further performance gain using in-context learning. Finally, we show that when integrated with a reader module, LEPUS can obtain competitive multi-hop QA performance, e.g., out-performing fully-supervised QA systems. 1


A possibility of classifying traumatic objects from the standpoint of the mechanics of deformable bodies has been considered. Two groups of traumatizing objects (indenters) based on the geometry of the contact surface – acute and obtuse have been singled out. A possibility and a need to apply theoretical principles of destructive mechanics in forensic medicine has been established.


Vineyards are agricultural surfaces that present a unique structural perturbation to the mean wind flow. As part of the Grape Remote Sensing Atmospheric Profiling and Evapotranspiration Experiment (GRAPEX) a 10-m profile tower of three sonic anemometers at 2, 3.75 and 8 m above ground level in in a mature vineyard having was deployed to measure high frequency diurnal variations of 3-dimensional velocity components (u, v, w) and temperature (T) throughout the growing season. Previous work has been published involving eddy covariance measurements in vineyards but these mostly represented convective daytime unstable conditions. Significantly less has been published about turbulence in vineyards during stable nocturnal periods. Hence, in this study we focused on the nocturnal stable periods under clear skies and relatively light winds typical of the northern portion of California's Central Valley. Our objective was to characterize and evaluate turbulent exchange processes in the layer near the top of a vine canopy during nocturnal periods which are often characterized by weak and intermittent turbulence. Spectra, cospectra and coherence plots were evaluated for nocturnal periods. The spectra suggest there are periods of intermittent turbulence with features indicative of local and regional scale processes. Additionally the impact of the vine structure and spacing on slow meandering flows enhance the decomposition of organized turbulent eddies resulting in intricate mechanical turbulence generated by intermittent eddies that are rapidly decomposed as eddies interact with the vine structure and spacing. Preliminary results will be discussed that provide insight into turbulence characteristics at several heights above a canopy vineyard as affected by vine structure and spacing, wind speed, direction and stable conditions.


Facial expressions of emotion (FEEs) have been portrayed as potent (dis-) incentives for power-motivated perceivers, because they signal the strength of a sender's dominance (Stanton, Hall, & Schultheiss, 2010). Here, we tested the hypothesis that individuals with a high implicit power motive (nPower), who have a disposition to seek (emotional) impact on others, would be faster at recognizing FEEs than individuals low in nPower. In a task employing videos of morphed FEEs, which are gradually changing from neutral to either anger, joy or surprise, higher nPower predicted faster recognition of the displayed emotion as well as a tendency to misidentify joy as anger. Our findings suggest that one way through which people high in nPower are socially influential is their enhanced sensitivity to emotional signals in their social environment.


The incidence of varicocele in the male population is 15-20% and its contribution to infertility is 30-50%. In this study, the treatment of varicocele included high spermatic vein ligation. Fifty male patients were treated and checked up postoperatively. Their sperm density increased postoperatively from 27.35 million per ml to 50.30 million per ml, while after the scleroembolization it increased from 27.25 to 49.68 million per ml. A statistically significant increase was not noticed in both of the examined groups. Very little motile sperm was evident in both groups preoperatively. A statistically significant increase in sperm motility in the postoperative period, in comparison with the previous values, was recorded in both examined groups at every postoperative checkup over a period of 9 months, and 12 months after the scleroembolization. The high pregnancy rate (66% and 62%, respectively) indicates the necessity of treating male infertility caused by varicocele.


This paper focuses on the theory of eugenics and how it was adopted and subverted by black intellectual figures when institutionalized sterilizations were based upon class. The cornerstone of the eugenics theory was based in biological determinism and assumptions of genetic heritability. For black leaders, W.E.B. Du Bois in particular, the early plight for racial legitimacy rested on eugenics and, while morally questionable, strengthening the black community was an attempt to counteract white assumptions. Thus,'black eugenics' should not immediately be condemned as an outright failure but should be regarded as an earnest attempt for civil rights. As such, it should not be forgotten and should be recognized as part of the broader framework for African American liberation.


Long-Term Evolution (LTE) allows operators to use new and wider spectrum and complements 3G networks with higher data rates, lower latency and a flat IP-based architecture. To further improve broadband user experience in a ubiquitous and cost effective manner, 3GPP has been working on various aspects in the framework of LTE Advanced. Since radio link performance is approaching theoretical limits with 3G enhancements and LTE, the next performance leap in wireless networks will come from the network topology. LTE Advanced is about improving spectral efficiency per unit area. Using a mix of macro, pico, femto and relay base-stations, heterogeneous networks enable flexible and low-cost deployments and provide a uniform broadband experience to users anywhere in the network. This paper discusses the need for an alternative deployment model or topology using heterogeneous networks. To enhance the performance of these networks, advanced techniques are described which are needed to manage and control interference and deliver the full benefits of such networks. Range extension allows more user terminals to benefit directly from low-power base-stations such as picos, femtos, and relays. Adaptive inter-cell interference coordination provides smart resource allocation amongst interfering cells and improves inter-cell fairness in a heterogeneous network. In addition, the performance gains with heterogeneous networks using an example macro/pico network are shown.


Alexithymia is usually described by three main dimensions difficulty identifying feelings (DIF), difficulty describing feelings (DDF), and externally oriented thinking (EOT). The most commonly used questionnaire investigating alexithymia, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), supports this three-factor structure. One important assumption is that alexithymia severity is associated to vulnerability to somatic diseases, among them gastrointestinal disorders. However, the association between alexithymia and gastrointestinal disorders is not systematic, thus questioning the role of alexithymia as a vulnerability factor for those illnesses. A recent factor analysis suggested another four-factor structure for the TAS-20: difficulties in awareness of feelings (DAF), difficulties in interoceptive abilities (DIA), externally oriented thinking (EOT), and poor affective sharing (PAS). We assume that DIA and DAF might be more relevant to investigate the association between alexithymia and gastrointestinal disorders. The rationale is that DIA and DAF reflect impairments in emotion regulation that could contribute to an inappropriate autonomic and HPA axis homeostasis in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), ulcerative colitis (UC), or Crohn's disease (CD). The aim of this study was to investigate whether DIA and DAF are associated with the presence of IBS, UC or CD, while checking for anxiety, depression, parasympathetic (vagus nerve) activity and cortisol levels. We recruited control participants (n=26), and patients in remission who were diagnosed with IBS (n=24), UC (n=18), or CD (n=21). Participants completed questionnaires to assess anxiety, depression, and alexithymia. A blood sample and an electrocardiogram were used to measure the level of cortisol and parasympathetic activity, respectively. Logistic regressions with the four-factor structure of the TAS-20 revealed that DIA was a significant predictor of IBS (W(1)=6.27, p=.01). Conversely, DIA and DAF were not significant predictors in CD and UC patients. However, low cortisol level was a significant predictor of UC (W(1)=4.67, p=.035). Additional logistic regressions based on the original 3-factor structure of TAS-20 (DIF, DDF, and EOT) showed that only DDF was a significant predictor of CD [W(1)=6.16, p < .001]. The present study suggests that DIA is an important dimension for assessing potential risk for gastrointestinal diseases, in particular for IBS.


Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) can serve as a valuable adjunct for patient care. This study aimed to investigate the clinical integration of PoCUS of the first post-graduate year (PGY-1) residents after a PoCUS curriculum.Methods: The prospective study was conducted at the emergency department (ED) of the National Taiwan University Hospital between July 2015 and October 2017. Every PGY-1 resident had one-month ED training and a PoCUS curriculum was implemented during the first week. The post-training objective structured clinical examination global ratings were obtained, as well as the sonographic examinations the residents performed on shifts. Four groups could be identified: group 1 performed PoCUS before and after the curriculum; group 2 performed only after the curriculum; group 3 performed only before the curriculum; the last did not perform any examinations.Results: 239 residents participated. The median global rating was 4 (interquartile ranges, 4-5). After the curriculum, an increasing number of residents integrated PoCUS into patient care (64 vs. 170, p=0.037) with acceptable image quality. No differences existed in the global ratings between 4 groups, however, nearly 30% of residents did not use PoCUS during their shifts. Group 1 performed more cases with better image quality and using ≥2 US applications (8/100 vs. 82/359, p=0.0009), compared with those before the curriculum. Comparing with those in groups 1 and 2, group 1 performed more cases (p<0.0001) with better image quality (p=0.03). "No suitable cases" (25/69), and "choosing other imaging priorities" (43/69) were the main feedbacks in groups 3 and 4.Conclusions: A short focused US training had an immediate positive impact on OSCE global ratings and integration of PoCUS of PGY-1 residents in the ED. The global ratings could not predict whether to use PoCUS in the ED practice. Although the working climate was designated to be friendly for utilizing US, a substantial percentage of residents did not use PoCUS. Further longitudinal studies would be needed for the sustained effects of the curriculum.Trial registration: NCT03738033.


Summary. Fifty‐four patients with advanced ovarian cancer have been treated with combination chemotherapy using cyclophosphamide, adriamycin and cis‐platinum. The toxicity of the regimen was manageable but few patients were prepared to tolerate more than 6 months of treatment. Those in complete clinical remission at that time were offered second‐look laparotomy and if apparently free of disease, therapy was discontinued. Forty‐seven patients could be assessed of whom 33 had had no previous therapy. Twenty‐two of these were clinically free of disease after completion of chemotherapy of whom 12 had no detectable disease at second‐look laparotomy. Of 14 patients who had failed previous therapy only one remains clinically free of disease. The results in the untreated patients demonstrate the primary importance of bulk reduction at initial laparotomy. The use of the regimen in patients who have failed on previous treatment or in patients with bulk disease seems to be palliative and the toxicity should be assessed in this context.


Ab initio quantum mechanical calculations are used to study the interactions of the aldehydic group of methylglyoxal with the NH2 groups of protein side-chains, using methylamine as a representative molecule. The hydrogen-bonding interaction, C = O...H - N, results in an electronic charge transfer from methylglyoxal to methylamine in both the ground and first excited triplet states. In this latter state a slight possibility is found for the H atom in the hydrogen bond to tunnel from methylglyoxal to methylamine, leading to the possible formation of two free radical fragments. The approach of methylamine to methylglyoxal in the stacked conformation C...N to form a hemiacetal, associated with electron charge transfer from methylamine to methylglyoxal, is energetically unfavourable in vacuum. The concomitant tunnelling of a proton from a proton-donating solvent molecule to the aldehydic oxygen of methylglyoxal is shown to make this approach favourable. The relative stability of the keto and enol forms of methylglyoxal is also investigated, the keto form being found the more stable in vacuum.


Information theoretic tools lead to the design and analysis of new blind data hiding methods. A novel quantization-based blind method, which uses trellis coded quantization, is proposed in this manuscript. The redundancy in initial state selection during trellis coded quantization is exploited to hide information as the index of this initial state. This index is recovered at the receiver by Viterbi decoding after comparison with all initial states. The performance of the proposed method is compared against other well-known approaches via simulations and promising results are obtained. Based on these results, the proposed method can be preferred in certain applications with high distortion attacks.


How exactly does the display location of a sale price relative to the original price affect consumers' evaluations? Across multiple studies, including field studies with actual choices and studies with nonstudent samples, this article shows that consumer evaluations are a function of the display location of the sale price, but such evaluations are moderated by discount depth. First, presenting the smaller number to the right (vs. left) makes it easier to initiate the subtraction task, a phenomenon the authors refer to as the "subtraction principle." Second, given that evaluating sale prices inherently involves a subtraction task, locating sale prices to the right (vs. left) of the original price facilitates calculation of discount depth, increasing evaluations for moderate discounts but not for low discounts. These effects are potentially reversed in cases of both very low discounts and exaggerated discounts. The findings in this article offer novel and nonintuitive insights into how sale price display locations and discount depth interact to influence numerical cognitions, processing of sale prices, and subsequent evaluations.


Purpose; This study was done to investigate the effect of foot reflexology on vital signs, general fatigue, foot fatigue, mood, and blood glucose levels in noninsulin dependent patients. Method: The Research design of this study was nonequivalent control group quasi-experimental design. 18 patients were assigned to the experimental group, 24 patients to the control group. The data were obtained diaberic patients with ambulatory endocrine outpatients clinic patients from 40 years old to 70 years old. Experimental groups received foot reflex massage for 30minutes three times/week every other days, and Control groups did not received foot reflex massage. The dependent variables were blood pressure, pulse rate, visual analogue scale for general fatigue, foot fatigue, mood, and blood sugar levels. Data were analyzed with test, t-test and repeated measure ANOVA at .0.05 level of significance. Results: There were significant difference in the pulse rate, general fatigue, foot fatigue and mood according to group and time between pre and post foot reflexology. But this research did not prove to decrease blood sugar levels. Conclusions : Foot reflexology can imorove pulse rate, general and foot fatigue, and mood status in diabetus patients. So further research need to explore the effect of decreasing of blood sugar levels.


Abstract:Socio-historical context and ideology are often overlooked in analyses of how social welfare policy is used to promote well-being. This paper uses the South African Child Support Grant (CSG) to illuminate how a policy may enhance or hinder well-being, not only for individuals but also for a society. Forged through a combination of the inherited apartheid state's architecture, the redistributive ideology of the ruling African National Congress, social development theory and the constraints of economic globalisation, the CSG has produced paradoxically positive material well-being outcomes for many poor South Africans and possibly reproduced problematic subjective and relational forms of well-being nationally. Analysing how the grant, as a social policy, is historically and ideologically situated illuminates some of the constraints imposed upon a twenty-first century democratic developmental state as it tries to find its way in a global market, redistribute wealth, satisfy different constituencies and promote individual and collective well-being. Grants are a necessary but insufficient strategy for a twenty-first century democratic developmental state like South Africa.


ABSTRACT Watching television advertising can represent a significant decision in time allocation. Those who avoid advertising represent a threat to advertisers and to television companies who depend upon advertising revenue. Two factors central to time allocation theory are identified as relevant to an understanding of television advertising avoidance behavior: time pressure and time planning. Drawing from Reactance theory, their significance in predicting two different types of avoidance, mechanical and behavioral, is examined empirically. As attitudes to time allocation are culturally and contextually dependent, two studies are reported, one in the UNITED KINGDOM, the other in Chile. In the former, time planning is a significant predictor of mechanical avoidance, in the latter behavioral avoidance is predicted by time pressure. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.


Tracking of multiple objects is an important application in AI City geared towards solving salient problems related to safety and congestion in an urban environment. Frequent occlusion in traffic surveillance has been a major problem in this research field. In this challenge, we propose a model-based vehicle localization method, which builds a kernel at each patch of the 3D deformable vehicle model and associates them with constraints in 3D space. The proposed method utilizes shape fitness evaluation besides color information to track vehicle objects robustly and efficiently. To build 3D car models in a fully unsupervised manner, we also implement evolutionary camera self-calibration from tracking of walking humans to automatically compute camera parameters. Additionally, the segmented foreground masks which are crucial to 3D modeling and camera self-calibration are adaptively refined by multiple-kernel feedback from tracking. For object detection/classification, the state-of-the-art single shot multibox detector (SSD) is adopted to train and test on the NVIDIA AI City Dataset. To improve the accuracy on categories with only few objects, like bus, bicycle and motorcycle, we also employ the pretrained model from YOLO9000 with multi-scale testing. We combine the results from SSD and YOLO9000 based on ensemble learning. Experiments show that our proposed tracking system outperforms both state-of-the-art of tracking by segmentation and tracking by detection.


Background. To estimate repeatability and comparability of central corneal thickness (CCT) and keratometry measurements obtained by four different devices in healthy eyes. Methods. Fifty-five healthy eyes from 55 volunteers were enrolled in this study. CCT (IOLMaster 700, Pentacam HR, and Cirrus HD-OCT) and keratometry readings (IOLMaster 700, Pentacam HR, and iDesign) were measured. For statistical analysis, the corneal spherocylinder was converted into power vectors (J0, J45). Repeatability was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Agreement of measurements between the devices was evaluated by the Bland-Altman method. Results. The analysis of repeatability of CCT data of IOLMaster 700, Pentacam HR, and Cirrus HD-OCT showed high ICCs (range 0.995 to 0.999). The comparison of CCT measurements revealed statistically significant differences between Pentacam HR versus IOLMaster 700 (p < 0.0001) and Pentacam HR versus Cirrus HD-OCT (p < 0.0001), respectively. There was no difference in CCT measurements between IOLMaster 700 and Cirrus HD-OCT (p = 0.519). The repeatability of keratometry readings (J0 and J45) of IOLMaster 700, Pentacam HR, and iDesign was also high with ICCs ranging from 0.974 to 0.999. The Pentacam HR revealed significantly higher J0 in comparison to IOLMaster 700 (p = 0.009) and iDesign (p = 0.041); however, no significant difference was between IOLMaster 700 and iDesign (p = 0.426). Comparison of J45 showed no significant difference between IOLMaster 700, Pentacam HR, and iDesign. These results were in accordance with Bland-Altman plots. Conclusion. In clinical practice, the devices analyzed should not be used interchangeably due to low agreement regarding CCT as well as keratometry readings.


J. J. Salitros and R. Patarcity Atochem North America, Inc. With proper selection of anti-corrosive pigments, low VOC primers can be formulated that give excellent adhesion to cold rolled, surface treated and galvanized steel and aluminum. Hardness of 2 H; tolerance of 200 MEK double rubs; survival of over 1000 hr salt fog testing, and retention of properties after 20 day immersion in brine or xylene are easily obtained. Intercoat adhesion with a variety of topcoats is excellent.


Several species of the stem succulent Caralluma (Apocynaceae) are abundant perennials in arid regions of the Arabian Peninsula. These arid regions have a short wet season with erratic rainfall and are characterized by harsh climatic conditions of high temperature, high evaporation and sand storms. Work presented in this paper aimed at investigating importance of Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) for survival of three Caralluma species in their natural habitat. Investigations involved studying stomatal characteristics, stomatal diffusive conductance, chlorophyll fluorescence, and CAM in three species of Caralluma, namely C. acutangula (Decne.) N.E.Br., C. edulis (Edgew.) Benth. ex Hook.f., and C. subulata (Forssk.) Decne. Microscopic examination revealed a pattern of stomatal characteristics typical of CAM plants in these three Caralluma species. Results showed that these three Caralluma species were obligate CAM plants exhibiting this mode of photosynthesis during both the wet and the dry seasons. Under protracted water stress during the long dry season very low values of stomatal diffusive conductance and dampening of CAM acidification-deacidification cycles denoted the tendency of these three Caralluma species to shift from the obligate CAM physiotype to CAM-idling mode. Chlorophyll fluorescence measurements indicated that protracted water stress induced a reduction in Photosystem II (PSII) antenna efficiency and quantum yield in the three studied Caralluma species. This reduction of PSII activity occurred in concomitance with a marked rise in non-photochemical quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence denoting operation of non-photochemical energy dissipating mechanisms known to be important for photoprotection of the photosynthetic apparatus.


A technique is presented which yields a minimal-state machine satisfying a given set of behavioral specifications. The machine is constructed in the same manner as has commonly been done in the past in synthesizing a ``primitive flow table.'' This contribution consists, not in describing a new method of synthesizing machines, but in showing that a particular instance of an established method yields a minimal-state machine. It is shown that the basic synthesis technique may be slightly modified so as to be applicable to obtaining a minimal-state machine which has the stability condition desired when working with uncloked circuits.


SUMMARY The ICEO Project quantifies the thermal and electrical energy consumption in hospitals of an Italian region (Lazio Region). 26 out of the 57 (45,6%) hospitals of the region were selected for a questionnaire in order to acquire information about activities, structural characteristics, technologies and the energetic consumption during the years 2001-2003. Only 61,5% of the selected hospitals supplied the required information. The consumption data show a great variability between hospitals, not always explained by their technological level or by their complexity. In Italy the energy consumption for housing and other civilian uses is increasing and today it represents the third part of the total energetic consumption. To reduce consumption, economic solutions should be adopted such as effective maintenance programs. It could be also useful to increase the adoption of renewable energetic sources and of a strong training program for the hospital staff.


We consider a multi-hop wireless ad hoc network where all nodes share a common channel, and code division multiple access (CDMA) is used to facilitate concurrent transmissions. The network model consists of groups of nodes that may loosely be termed as clusters. We address the question of how to efficiently facilitate intra- and inter-cluster communications between multiple source-destination pairs. The performance metric considered is throughput per unit power. The concurrent transmissions employ distributed power control and are scheduled to resolve conflicts. We propose a dynamic forwarding mechanism in which forwarding nodes are used when it is energy-efficient, and the choice of forwarding node varies according to source-destination pairs. We observe that such a dynamic forwarding policy yields improved throughput per unit power as compared to previously proposed schemes which use either fixed forwarding nodes or cluster-heads to perform inter-cluster communications.


Circuit-breaker problems at very high voltages have been studied in Sweden to show what will happen to the circuit breakers on the new 380-kv line. A discussion of the tests and their results are presented here.


The observance of modesty of men and women and protecting privacy to the passers has had a particular importance, inasmuch as women veil is considered necessary in the religion of Islam. The holy Quran demonstrates to importance of chastity and modesty and not only asks women to cover their ornaments, but also recommends to walk dignified and to be modest in their verbal communication and even looking, to stop the ways of moral and sexual deviation in community. In the second decade of Islam emerging, Hijab verses have revealed (in Medina Al-Nnabi). Hijab was obligated to the Prophet's family firstly and then to whole faithful women. Therefore, the veil which was observed by some Arab tribes, were considered by Muslims seriously. So far all the Muslim leaders always have been consensus in Hijab so that all Islamic sects consider it as an obligatory action. After coming of the Omayyad, moral values got weak and changed the face of the Islamic government. (Zaidan) tendency of the Omayyad continued in Abbasid government. Images of dancers on wall's figures and ceramic jars of wine which has been found in the Josagh Alkhaqany House in Samarra in central Mesopotamia show these cultural changes. Apart from Samaritan paintings, drawings regarding to the women in the world of Islam during the 3-4 AH centuries (9-10 AD) is rare. The reason of the rarity of these image evidences in the Muslim world, despite of huge developments in sciences and arts and remaining the great works of architecture and art, was respecting to the public observance of the chastity and veil in the Muslim world and compliance of the artists in Islam world to its dignity. Investigating different kinds of women Hijabs in Islamic countries, using the Muslims and non-Muslims explorers's travelogues in the past centuries show that although there are so many varieties in model, design and color of clothing in Islamic cities, the element of simplicity and latency can be seen in whole of them (A. Dezy) The clothes history books have named different kinds of women Hijabs in Islamic countries: Jilbab, Ezar or Mezar, Hibra, Chador and Milhafa from the beginning of Islam was used in Islamic countries for a variety of dress and women Hijabs and was used in the meaning of the big cover which eastern women used to wear themselves with. For covering the head are used Khimar, Maghnaa, Marat and many types of helmets and some of the women have Burqa, Shaariyya, Yashmagh (or Yashmq), mask, Jenna, Robande, Picheh and Chashm avize in some cities and periods for wearing faces which are still using in some countries. Islamic world in the 20th century faces to the growth of phenomenon of feminism in which men and women clothes are getting similar to each other, and confront a phenomenon of bareness which takes women so far away of their dignity and special Hijab. There have been pointed out about this phenomenon's consequences and recommended to be avoided in Islam.