INTRODUCTION
The survival rate of chemotherapy treatments of malignant cancer or non-malignant conditions are continuously improving. As a result, there is an increased number of patients who received a gonadotoxic treatment during childhood and who later face fertility issues. Depending on the extent of the damage to the ovaries, acute or late complications may occur. Acute ovarian failure is defined by permanent amenorrhea after a high-risk treatment. When the drugs used are less gonadotoxic, ovarian insufficiency might appear later. This literature review will review both the current solutions for management of high-risk patients and the care options for low and medium risk patients.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION
For each patient the risk of premature ovarian insufficiency should be evaluated individually before treatment. Guidelines clearly recommend to preserve fertility of high-risk group before treatment, but questions remain about the future counselling of patients with low or moderate risk.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
Demand for fertility preservation methods has greatly increased. In this context, studies focusing on the best fertility preservation methods for patients, either before chemotherapy for the high-risk group or during the follow-up for the others, are essential. For the high-risk group, ovarian tissue cryopreservation is the only option for prepubertal girls. For postpubertal girls, oocytes vitrification could also be offered.

CONCLUSIONS
The risk of premature ovarian failure must be evaluated for each patient treated with gonadotoxic therapies. Fertility preservation must be offered in high-risk patients and appropriate follow-up should be proposed to anticipate later fertility issue in low and medium risk patients.


Understanding the Heat transfer performance of refrigerant for convective boiling in horizontal microfin tube and smooth tube is place an importance role on the designing of evaporator, the main equipment on refrigeration system. Reviewing the general concept especially the theory of boiling in the tube, the formation of the flow pattern map, the calculating procedure for heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop during boiling process of refrigerant in microfin tube. Besides, a typical example will be presented more detail in step by step to define the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop for one working condition to estimate the data results without doing experiments.


In radar target detection, an optimum processor needs to automatically adapt its weights to the environment change. Conventionally, the optimum weights are obtained by substantial independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.) interference samplings, which is not always realistic in an inhomogeneous clutter background of airborne radar. The lack of i.i.d, samplings will inevitably lead to performance deterioration for optimum processing. In this paper, a novel parametric adaptive processing method is proposed for airborne radar target detection based on the modified Doppler distributed clutter (DDC) model with contribution of clutter's internal motion. It is different from the conventional methods in that the adaptive weights are determined by two parameters of DDC model, i.e., angular center and spread. A low-complexity nonlinear operators approach is also proposed to estimate these parameters. Simulation and performance analysis are also provided to show that the proposed method can remarkably reduce the dependence of i.i.d, samplings and it is computationally efficient for practical use.


Cases of Landry's paralysis are so unusual and in the past have been so indifferently reported that the recent occurrence of three cases in our practice, of one case kindly reported to us by Dr. H. W. Kirby, Georgetown, Colo., and of a fifth case by Dr. C. F. Wolfer, Louisville, Colo., leads us to report them, with a review of the literature for the past year. There seems to be no general agreement as to just what cases should be included under the term acute ascending paralysis. In the literature we have found a number of cases reported under this head that were obviously myelitis, poliomyelitis, or multiple neuritis. In our report we shall consider as typical only those cases characterized by acute onset, motor paralysis, ascending in character, without material involvement of sensation, and with loss of the deep and superficial reflexes, with or without involvement of the


Most developing countries especially Sub-Sahara Africa often lacks financial resources to provide solid waste management in urban areas. Despite this, little has been done in the region to investigate the amount of income which can be collected from households to support provision of proper solid waste management. This paper estimated the amount which can be raised from households to support delivery of sustainable solid waste management. The study identified solid waste recovery alternatives which can help to turn the generated solid waste into useful resources. The findings revealed an estimate of about TZS 4, 555, 582, 529 (1 USD = 2140.65 TZS) can be collected per month from the households that can serve to purchase equipment including collection trucks and covering materials, as well as to pay for operational costs. The purchased solid waste equipment can collect and dispose up to 36% of the total solid waste generated by all households per day. Recycling of plastic, paper and metal scraps from households' solid waste stream can transform about 25% of the total solid waste generated by households into useful products. Composting and bio fuels generation can convert 70.06% of the biodegradable waste such as food and garden wastes into useful products. Solid waste recovery alternatives have a great potential to turn waste into values thereby increasing the economic value of wastes, saving landfill space needed to dispose solid waste, encourage establishment of solid waste recovery industries or projects and create employment opportunities to people.


Abstract A metanalysis identified regulator of G-protein signaling 6 (RGS6) as one of 23 loci with pleiotropic effects on four or more human psychiatric disorders. This finding is significant as it confirms/extends the findings of numerous other studies implicating RGS6 in CNS function and pathology. RGS6 is a highly conserved member of the RGS protein family whose cellular roles are likely affected by mRNA splicing and alternative domain inclusion/exclusion. Indeed, we previously identified multiple RGS6 splice variants predicted to produce 36 distinct protein isoforms containing either long (RGS6L) or short (RGS6S) N-terminal domains, an incomplete or intact GGL domain, and nine alternative C termini. Unfortunately, sequence similarities between the isoforms have made it difficult to confirm their individual existence and/or to determine their unique functions. Here, we developed three RGS6-specific antibodies that recognize all RGS6 protein isoforms (RGS6-fl), the N-terminus of RGS6L isoforms (RGS6-L), and an 18-amino acid alternate C-terminal sequence (RGS6-18). Using these antibodies, we demonstrate that RGS6L(+GGL) isoforms, predominating in both mouse (both sexes) CNS and peripheral tissues, are most highly expressed in the CNS. We further identify three novel RGS6 protein bands that are larger (61, 65, and 69-kDa) than the ubiquitously expressed 53- to 57-kDa RGS6L(+GGL) proteins. Importantly, we show that the 69-kDa protein is a brain-specific dephospho form of the 65-kDa band, the first identified phosphorylated RGS6 isoform. Together, these data begin to define the functional significance behind the complexity of RGS6 gene processing and further clarifies RGS6's physiological roles by resolving tissue-specific RGS6 protein expression.


The invention pertains to a method, a system and an agent for sending information over a communication network. In the vicinity of a server in the communication network, there is an agent functionality that helps serve one or more clients or users by providing relevant information from a cache containing up-to-date information. The agent can be operated by the user and can also learn the usage behavior of the client.


Class E circuit has the advantages of less components, high reliability and soft switching, hut the traditional Class E circuit can only he used in low power condition because of the unidirectional excitation. In order to extend the power range, this paper proposes a novel hybrid Class E circuit, which can be operated at high power. Moreover, the proposed topology can achieve constant current (CC) and constant voltage (CV) output by switching the branch once without changing the switching frequency or compensation network. Compared with the existing CC and CV scheme, it has the advantages of less components, simple control and high stability. In this paper, the working principle of the circuit is analyzed, and the variable zero-voltage switching (ZVS) margin is introduced to make the calculation of parameters design method more accurate. Subsequently, the influence of higher order harmonics on the circuit and the sensitivity of parameters is analyzed. Finally, an 180W experimental platform with CC and CV characteristics is built to verify the feasibility of the circuit and the accuracy of theoretical analysis.


We examine the buoyancy-driven rise of a bubble in a Newtonian or a viscoplastic fluid assuming axial symmetry and steady flow. Bubble pressure and rise velocity are determined, respectively, by requiring that its volume remains constant and its centre of mass remains fixed at the centre of the coordinate system. The continuous constitutive model suggested by Papanastasiou is used to describe the viscoplastic behaviour of the material. The flow equations are solved numerically using the mixed finite-element/Galerkin method. The nodal points of the computational mesh are determined by solving a set of elliptic differential equations to follow the often large deformations of the bubble surface. The accuracy of solutions is ascertained by mesh refinement and predictions are in very good agreement with previous experimental and theoretical results for Newtonian fluids. We determine the bubble shape and velocity and the shape of the yield surfaces for a wide range of material properties, expressed in terms of the Bingham Bn=$\tau_y^{\ast}/\rho^{\ast}g^{\ast} R_b^{\ast}$ Bond Bo =$\rho^{\ast}g^{\ast} R_b^{\ast 2}/\gamma^{\ast}$ and Archimedes Ar=$\rho^{\ast2}g^{\ast} R_b^{\ast3}/\mu_o^{\ast2}$ numbers, where ρ* is the density, μ*o the viscosity, γ* the surface tension and τ*y the yield stress of the material, g* the gravitational acceleration and R*b the radius of a spherical bubble of the same volume. If the fluid is viscoplastic, the material will not be deforming outside a finite region around the bubble and, under certain conditions, it will not be deforming either behind it or around its equatorial plane in contact with the bubble. As Bn increases, the yield surfaces at the bubble equatorial plane and away from the bubble merge and the bubble becomes entrapped. When Bo is small and the bubble cannot deform from the spherical shape the critical Bn is 0.143, i.e. it is a factor of 3/2 higher than the critical Bn for the entrapment of a solid sphere in a Bingham fluid, in direct correspondence with the 3/2 higher terminal velocity of a bubble over that of a sphere under the same buoyancy force in Stokes flow. As Bo increases allowing the bubble to squeeze through the material more easily, the critical Bingham number increases as well, but eventually it reaches an asymptotic value. Ar affects the critical Bn value much less.


talks about the development of surgery, ways to peek inside the body and its processes from stethoscopes to MRIs, and vaccines. The Body Parts section is an interesting overview of human ingenuity and engineering, exploring developments from thousands of years ago through today and hypothesizing about the future. Subsequent sections are less successful, though; they're briefly summarizing ground that's often better trodden elsewhere, and the attitude of uncritical celebration is disappointingly superficial given topics that can result in considerable negative consequences and provoke some intense discussions of ethics. Nonetheless, the chronicle of invention is inspiring, and the short chapters will allow readers to cherry-pick the most useful parts. Reproductions of period and contemporary images, sometimes adding a gross and/or a cool factor, enliven the pages; a list of web and print resources and an index are included. DS


For sales and marketing organizations within large enterprises, identifying and understanding new markets, customers and partners is a key challenge. Intel's Sales and Marketing Group (SMG) faces similar challenges while growing in new markets and domains and evolving its existing business. In today's complex technological and commercial landscape, there is need for intelligent automation supporting a fine-grained understanding of businesses in order to help SMG sift through millions of companies across many geographies and languages and identify relevant directions. We present a system developed in our company that mines millions of public business web pages, and extracts a faceted customer representation. We focus on two key customer aspects that are essential for finding relevant opportunities: industry segments (ranging from broad verticals such as healthcare, to more specific fields such as "video analytics") and functional roles (e.g., "manufacturer" or "retail"). To address the challenge of labeled data collection, we enrich our data with external information gleaned from Wikipedia, and develop a semi-supervised multi-label, multi-lingual deep learning model that parses customer website texts and classifies them into their respective facets. Our system scans and indexes companies as part of a large-scale knowledge graph that currently holds tens of millions of connected entities with thousands being fetched, enriched and connected to the graph by the hour in real time, and also supports knowledge and insight discovery. In experiments conducted in our company, we are able to significantly boost the performance of sales personnel in the task of discovering new customers and commercial partnership opportunities.


Hyperhomocysteinemia is an established cause of defective vasorelaxation. Gene expression screening of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) treated with homocysteine (Hcy) revealed that connexin43 (Cx43) was upregulated. Expression of Cx43 was increased more than twofold in Hcy-treated HUVEC. Gap junctional communication (Lucifer yellow and whole cell patch clamp) was not enhanced in Hcy-treated HUVEC. HUVEC expressing chimeric Cx43-green fluorescent protein exhibited it at cell-cell contacts in control but showed redistribution to the intracellular compartment(s) in Hcy-treated cells. Confocal microscopy of HUVEC stained with anti-Cx43, mitochondrial, and endoplasmic reticulum fluorescent markers showed the localization of Cx43 to the plasma membrane of control cells and its colocalization with the mitochondrial marker in Hcy-treated HUVEC. Studies of isolated mitochondria confirmed overexpression of Cx43 in the mitochondria of Hcy-treated HUVEC. Microdissected renal interlobar arteries, which normally exhibit endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor-induced vasorelaxation, showed reduced nitric oxide synthase- and cyclooxygenase-independent vasorelaxation to acetylcholine after pretreatment with Hcy. In summary, Hcy-induced upregulation of Cx43 transcript and protein expression are associated with unaltered intercellular communication, redistribution of Cx43 in HUVEC, and reduced nitric oxide- and prostanoid-independent vascular responses to acetylcholine in Hcy-treated arteries.


Entities may have complex interactions in a knowledge graph (KG), such as multi-step relationships, which can be viewed as graph contextual information of the entities. Traditional knowledge representation learning (KRL) methods usually treat a single triple as a training unit, and neglect most of the graph contextual information exists in the topological structure of KGs. In this study, we propose a Path-based Pre-training model to learn Knowledge Embeddings, called PPKE, which aims to integrate more graph contextual information between entities into the KRL model. Experiments demonstrate that our model achieves state-of-the-art results on several benchmark datasets for link prediction and relation prediction tasks, indicating that our model provides a feasible way to take advantage of graph contextual information in KGs.


Abstract: Genistein (4,5,7trihydroxyisoflavone), a natural isoflavone phytoestrogen found in soybeans and chickpea. The isoflavone genistein has been identified as having antipoliferative and apoptosis effects on various malignant cell types derived. Genistein is a potent agent in both prophylaxis and treatment of cancer as well as other chronic diseases. Chicken egg white lysozyme is one of the major egg white proteins with well demonstrated antimicrobial activity. Lysozyme has different physiological and pharmaceutical functions, so studies on the interaction of drugs and bioactive compounds with lysozyme are important for elucidation the relation of structure and function of lysozyme and also therapeutic effectiveness of drugs. In this study, we aimed to investigate the interaction of genistein as a natural isofalvone with chicken egg white lysozyme.


Generative approaches powered by large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated emergent abilities in tasks that require complex reasoning abilities. Yet the generative nature still makes the generated content suffer from hallucinations, thus unsuitable for entity-centric tasks like entity linking (EL) requiring precise entity predictions over a large knowledge base. We present Instructed Generative Entity Linker (INSGENEL), the first approach that enables casual language models to perform entity linking over knowledge bases. Several methods to equip language models with EL capability were proposed in this work, including (i) a sequence-to-sequence training EL objective with instruction-tuning, (ii) a novel generative EL framework based on a light-weight potential mention retriever that frees the model from heavy and non-parallelizable decoding, achieving 4$\times$ speedup without compromise on linking metrics. INSGENEL outperforms previous generative alternatives with +6.8 F1 points gain on average, also with a huge advantage in training data efficiency and training compute consumption. In addition, our skillfully engineered in-context learning (ICL) framework for EL still lags behind INSGENEL significantly, reaffirming that the EL task remains a persistent hurdle for general LLMs.


ABSTRACT Little is known about the factors associated with active aging during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. This study aims to examine the perception of Malaysians with regard to active aging during the period of Movement Control Orders (MCOs) in Malaysia. The variables, namely financial planning, daily living activities, social support and networking, psychological well-being and quality of life were investigated. Two hundred and twenty-three individuals took part in this cross-sectional online study, and data were analyzed using the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to examine the posited research hypotheses. The results revealed that psychological well-being is the leading factor that positively affects quality of life, followed by social support and networking, daily living activities and financial planning. When a comparison was made between the pre-elderly and elderly participants, some differences were observed. In the pre-elderly, financial planning and daily living activities were positively associated with social support and networking, and financial planning was also associated with quality of life. However, these observations were not apparent in the elderly group. During the economic recovery period, plans made on healthy aging should consider the importance of psychological well-being, as well as financial planning in the pre-elderly.


Hydraulic conductivity (Lp), volumetric elastic modulus (e) and reflection coefficients (δ) have been determined for cells from isolated strips of the lower epidermis of leaves of Tradescantia virginiana using the pressure probe. Lp was (6.4 ± 4.5) × 10-8 ms-1 Mpa-1 [(6.4 ± 4.5) × 10-7 cm s-1 bar-1; mean ± s.d., n = 15 cells] and was independent of the cell turgor pressure (P) and of osmotic pressure of the bathing medium. P in Johnson's solution (π° = 0.09 MPa) was 0.42-0.67 MPa (4.2-6.7 bar), which was somewhat larger than in the intact tissue. e increased linearly with increasing P in the pressure range from zero to full turgor. Reflection coefficients of some non-electrolytes were determined by measuring the ΔP in response to a change in external osmotic pressure (Δπ°) after the addition of the solutes. The data were corrected for solute flow. For sucrose, mannitol, urea, acetamide, formamide, glycerol and ethylene glycol, δ was close to unity and the cells behaved like ideal osmometers. For the monohydroxyalcohols n-propanol ( δ = -0.58), isopropanol (δ = 0.26), ethanol (δ = 0.25) and methanol (δ = 0.15), rather low reflection coefficients were found which were even negative for some solutes and cells. Values of δ obtained from measuring the inital water (volume) flow were in agreement with those determined from the ΔP/Δπ° ratios. For the rapidly permeating substances, the changes in turgor after the addition of solute were transient and the equilibration of solutes between cell and medium could be measured using the probe. Although unstirred layers may affect the equilibration of solute it should, in principle, be possible to use the technique for the determination of permeability coefficients of membranes of higher plant cells.


The question is addressed in how far current modelling strategies are capable of modelling dynamic phenomena in realistic nanostructured materials at operating conditions. Nanostructured materials used in applications are far from perfect; they possess a broad range of heterogeneities in space and time extending over several orders of magnitude. Spatial heterogeneities from the subnanometre to the micrometre scale in crystal particles with a finite size and specific morphology, impact the material's dynamics. Furthermore, the material's functional behaviour is largely determined by the operating conditions. Currently, there exists a huge length–time scale gap between attainable theoretical length–time scales and experimentally relevant scales. Within this perspective, three key challenges are highlighted within the molecular modelling chain to bridge this length–time scale gap. Methods are needed that enable (i) building structural models for realistic crystal particles having mesoscale dimensions with isolated defects, correlated nanoregions, mesoporosity, internal and external surfaces; (ii) the evaluation of interatomic forces with quantum mechanical accuracy albeit at much lower computational cost than the currently used density functional theory methods and (iii) derivation of the kinetics of phenomena taking place in a multi-length–time scale window to obtain an overall view of the dynamics of the process. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Supercomputing simulations of advanced materials'.


Dealing with two major challenges, climate change mitigation and biodiversity loss, under the same management program, is more noteworthy than addressing these two separately. Homegardens, a sustainable agroforestry system and a home of diverse species, can be a possible choice to address these two issues. In this study, we assessed tree coverage, and the direct and indirect effects of tree diversity on carbon storage in different carbon pools through stand structure in homegardens of southwestern Bangladesh, using Sentinel 2 and field inventory data from 40 homesteads in eight villages. An unsupervised classification method was followed to assess homegardens' tree coverage. We found a high tree coverage (24.34% of total area of Dighalia) in homesteads, with a high overall accuracy of 96.52%. The biomass and soil organic carbon (p < 0.05) varied significantly among the eight villages, while total carbon stock did not vary significantly (p > 0.05). Shannon diversity had both direct and indirect effects on biomass carbon, upper layer soil organic carbon and total carbon storage, while basal area mediated the indirect effect. Both basal area and tree height had positive effects on biomass carbon and total carbon storage, with basal area having the strongest effect. These findings suggest that we must maintain higher diversity and tree height in order to maximize and sustain carbon storage, where tree diversity increases stand basal area and improves total carbon storage (including soil organic) in homegardens. Therefore, privately managed homegardens could be a potential nature-based solution for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation in Bangladesh.


There are more than fifty women in the United States Congress and nearly one-fourth of foreign service posts are held by women. Nevertheless, the United States has yet to entrust a senior foreign policy job, outside of the United Nations, to a woman. Beneath these statistics lurk central myths that Jeffreys-Jones cogently identifies and describes: the "Iron Lady" - too masculine; the "lover of peace" - too "pink"; the weak or the promiscuous. These are to name only a few. With an eye to the feminist foreign policy leaders of the future, the author traces the successes and failures of collectivities such as Women Strike for Peace and individuals who were influential in international politics since World War I, including Alice Paul, Jane Addams, Jeannette Rankin, Dorothy Detzer, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Bella Abzug, Margaret Thatcher, and many others. These women often found ways to employ the myths to their own and to their country's benefit, and more recently have had the freedom to defy the stereotypes altogether.


This paper presents a new on-line planner for dynamic environments that is based on the concept of Velocity Obstacles (VO). It addresses the issue of motion safety, i.e. avoiding states of inevitable collision, by selecting a proper time horizon for the velocity obstacle. The proper choice of the time horizon ensures that the boundary of the velocity obstacle coincides with the boundary of the set of inevitable collision states. This time horizon is determined by the minimum time it would take the robot to avoid collision, either by stopping or by passing the respective obstacle. The planner generates a near-time optimal trajectory to the goal by selecting at each time step the velocity that minimizes the time-to-go and is out of the velocity obstacle. The planner takes into account the shape, velocity, and path curvature of the obstacle's trajectory. It is demonstrated for on-line motion planning in very crowded static and dynamic environments.


The creep behavior of the Ti–40Al–16Nb alloy and the effect of the minor addition of Sc are investigated by creep tests at 1073 K under constant load from 200 to 280 MPa. The creep curve of the alloy with high Nb contents does not exhibit a steady-state region, and the minor addition of Sc added to the alloy has no effect on minimum creep rate. The creep responses of the alloys with high Nb contents are strongly correlated with tertiary creep behavior. The effects of Sc addition are apparent on the properties of tertiary creep rate and rupture life. The tertiary creep rate of the Sc containing alloy is reduced and the creep fracture life is increased. Subgrain structures of dislocations are absent in the alloys with high Nb contents during secondary creep, and the deformation of creep converges mainly at the B2 phase. A stress exponent of 4.5 estimated indicates that the mechanism of controlling creep behavior is dislocation climb. The creep fracture of the alloys is dominated by cleavage fracture over the entire fracture surface. Sc2O3 particles are an effective obstacle to the propagation of cracks and the motion of dislocations.


Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ) exerts multiple functions in determination of cell fate, tissue metabolism, and host immunity. Two synthetic PPARγ ligands (rosiglitazone and pioglitazone) were approved for the therapy of type-2 diabetes mellitus and are expected to serve as novel cures for inflammatory diseases and cancer. However, PPARγ and its ligands exhibit a janus-face behaviour as tumor modulators in various systems, resulting in either tumor suppression or tumor promotion. This may be in part due to signaling crosstalk to the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades. The genomic activity of PPARγ is modulated, in addition to ligand binding, by phosphorylation of a serine residue by MAPKs, such as extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases-1/2 (ERK-1/2), or by nucleocytoplasmic compartmentalization through the ERK activators MAPK kinases-1/2 (MEK-1/2). PPARγ ligands themselves activate the ERK cascade through nongenomic and often PPARγ-independent signaling. In the current review, we discuss the molecular mechanisms and physiological implications of the crosstalk of PPARγ with MEK-ERK signaling and its potential as a novel drug target for cancer therapy in patients.


The contribution of each sample during model training varies across training iterations and the model's parameters. We define the concept of sample importance as the change in parameters induced by a sample. In this paper, we explored the sample importance in training deep neural networks using stochastic gradient descent. We found that "easy" samples -- samples that are correctly and confidently classified at the end of the training -- shape parameters closer to the output, while the "hard" samples impact parameters closer to the input to the network. Further, "easy" samples are relevant in the early training stages, and "hard" in the late training stage. Further, we show that constructing batches which contain samples of comparable difficulties tends to be a poor strategy compared to maintaining a mix of both hard and easy samples in all of the batches. Interestingly, this contradicts some of the results on curriculum learning which suggest that ordering training examples in terms of difficulty can lead to better performance.


Abstract Surveyed caregivers of children in Denver, Colorado, with acute otitis media (AOM) preferred immediate antibiotics over delayed antibiotics or observation. Overall, 77% stated that they would immediately fill a prescription written as delayed. In contrast, 86% of caregivers favored whichever duration was recommended by the provider or the shortest duration necessary.


Frequent utilization of herbicides has caused ecological and health complications for human beings as well as for animals. Moreover, its unwise application also developed resistance in some weed species against the herbicides. Therefore, a field investigation was planned to assess the effect of multi-approached weed suppression in wheat at Reclamation Research Station, 7/3-L Ahmad Pur Sial District Jhang during Rabi 2019-20. Experimental treatment was comprised of two wheat cultivars i.e. Ujala 2016 and Faisalabad 2008 and seven weeds control approaches i.e. hand weeding, organic mulching, eucalyptus extract, neem extract, clodinafop, bromoxynil + MCPA and clodinafop + bromoxynil + MCPA including control. Results of the experiment showed that hand weedings, combined application of clodinafop + bromoxynil + MCPA and mulching significantly reduced the weeds density, fresh and dry weight of weeds. However, covering the soil surface with the organic mulch may have a great impact on the growth and yield-contributing attributes, hence produced maximum grain yield.


1.1 Alternatives to fossil fuels biomass For the past 150 years, coal, natural gas and petroleum functioned as our main sources of energy and chemicals. They provide an estimated 86% of energy and 96% of organic chemicals [1]. However, these natural resources will be depleted in the near future as studies has predicted that the global energy demand will grow over 50% by 2030 as shown in Figure 1 [2]. In addition, problem concerning global warming brought about from the emission of fossil fuels remains a major concern. Hence, there is an urgent need for us to seek alternative renewable and greener energy sources; the answer lies in biomass which possesses huge amounts of stored chemical energy. The stored chemical energy in biomass has the potential to be tapped to meet the rising energy demand. Biomass is one of the most valuable products from living things where simple molecules such as H2O, CO2, N2 are transformed into complex substances activated or catalyzed by biochemical processes (e.g. photosynthesis). Trees trap approximately 1% of solar energy and transform them into biomass. This energy is stored in the form of complex molecules such as lignin, carbohydrates, proteins, glycerides and others. Carbohydrates or saccharides (cellulose, hemicelluloses and starch) constitute 75% of the plant biomass, with 40% of the carbohydrate fraction of biomass being cellulose and 25% being hemicelluloses. Biomass energy is derived from five distinct energy sources: garbage, wood, waste, landfill gases, and alcohol fuels. Being the most abundant renewable resource as described in Figure 2, with approximately production of 1.0 x 1011 tons annually, biomass was recognized as the best candidate to replace fossil fuels [3]. The transformation of biomass into value added chemicals gives little or no harmful side products which address the pressing issue for greener alternatives to fossil fuels. Other than being renewable and abundant, biomass is a cost effective feedstock. Cellulose, the major component of the carbohydrate fraction of biomass is hard to deal with. It is insoluble in most conventional organic solvent and water, which hinders the ease of


Accurate load forecasting play a key role in economical use of energy and real time security analysis of system. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model have been extensively implemented to produce accurate results for short-term load forecasting with time lead ranging from an hour to a week. In this paper a practical case of the small load area of a town getting supplied by 19 distribution feeders is considered with dominant residential-type of load. Historical load and temperature data is collected from January-2010 to December-2010. Four weather seasons are defined by the Meteorological Department, India. Each season includes the group of month .Representative months are selected from each season by observing the variation in load behavior patterns. An input vector composed of load and temperature values at previous instants, is employed to train ANN designed for each selected month by using Back-Propagation algorithm with Momentum learning rule. ANN testing is carried out and their performance is evaluated using mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) criterion. Finally, error values are compared for each month and hence the deviation in forecasting ability of ANN is observed for each month and season. (4 pages)


The constructed wetland is a low-cost technology to control environmental pollution. The system is especially suitable for small settlements. An innovative constructed wetland technology is described in this paper. A pilot plant was used to assess the performance of the system. The experimental system consists of two serial connected tanks that settled up with fillers and Cyperus as treatment media. Wastewater is recycled periodically upward and downward between the two tanks. The treatment performance was monitored in different loading conditions in a one-year period. The average COD removal efficiency of 90% was observed at 122 g COD/m2.day average loading conditions. Other average removal values in the same conditions are as follows: suspended solid 95%, TKN 77%, total nitrogen 61%, PO4-P 39%. The land requirement for this system will be 0.82 m2 per capita when applying as full-scale system.


ABSTRACT La Crosse Virus (LACV) is an arbovirus found in Eastern Appalachia and can cause pediatric encephalitis in prepubescent children. To assess the risk and transmission of this disease, it is particularly important to understand the average population of Aedes mosquitoes, which are the vectors of this virus. We use a deterministic compartmental model to study the effects of environmental factors on the population dynamics of Aedes mosquitoes in the Knox County area. We use locally-collected mosquito population data to adjust our model outputs and find that model transitions are heavily dependent on the fluctuations of both temperature and accumulated precipitation. These findings should be considered for mosquito management in Southern Appalachia, as well as in other regions with slight modifications to our model.


We have examined the regulation of GH secretion from monolayer cultures of prepubertal male lamb anterior pituitary cells. Growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF 1-44) stimulated GH release in a dose-related manner: the maximal effective dose was 10(-10) M, which caused a 500% increase in basal GH secretion, while the half-maximal effect was reached with a dose of 2.5 x 10(-11) M (ED50). Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) also elicited a dose-dependent stimulation of GH secretion, although it was approximately 1000 times less potent than GRF. GRF and TRH did not have additive or synergistic effects on GH secretion. Somatostatin (SRIF) at a concentration of 10(-7) M maximally inhibited basal GH release to 40% of that of the control; the ED50 was 2.0 x 10(-9) M. Moreover, 10(-7) M SRIF blocked the stimulation of GH secretion induced by 10(-8) M GRF. However, when the cells were incubated with these two peptides at an identical concentration (10(-8) M), GH secretion was stimulated significantly above control values. When added at the same concentration (10(-7) M, TRH ans SRIF nullified their respective effects. A dose of 100 ng/ml of synthetic IGF-I was without effect on basal GH release, but significantly decreased 10(-9) M GRF-induced stimulation of GH secretion. these data indicate that in prepubertal male lambs: the stimulatory effect of GRF is predominant over the inhibitory effect of SRIF, somatostatin inhibits TRH stimulation of GH secretion in vitro, and IGF-I may control GH secretion by modulating GRF effects at the pituitary level.


A numerical study is performed to simulate the cavitating flow, evaluating the applicability of different flow fluctuation pressure (FFP) models such as the Singhai FFT model, the modified Singhal FFT model, the shear strain model, and the present shear strain-vorticity model. The axisymmetric blunt-body with the availability of experimental data is selected for the simulation purpose. According to the results, the first three FFP models produce nearly similar pressure coefficient Cp distribution on the blunt-body. On the other hand, the numerical results indicate the influence of both turbulent shear strain rate and the vorticity in the flow. A slightly better prediction of the cavitation mechanisms such as the flow parameter Cp and cavity length is thus produced with the present shear strain-vorticity model. Keywords: Cavitation, turbulent fluctuation, shear strain, voticity, homogeneous model.


Concomitant idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis and disseminated myocardial bridging is an uncommon clinical entity with poor prognosis. We describe a symptomatic 19-year-old girl who had myocardial debridging and transaortic and transmitral extended septal myectomy in the same surgical session. An early and simultaneous surgical approach may prevent sudden cardiac death in these high-risk patients.


Abstract Surveys of freshwater mussel populations are used frequently to inform conservation decisions by providing information about the status and distribution of species. It is generally accepted that not all mussels or species are collected during surveys, and incomplete detection of individuals and species can bias data and can affect inferences. However, considerably less attention has been given to the potential effects of species misidentification. To evaluate the prevalence of and potential reasons for species misidentification, we conducted a laboratory-based identification exercise and quantified the relationships between mussel species characteristics, observer experience, and misidentification rate. We estimated that misidentification was fairly common, with rates averaging 27% across all species and ranging from 0 to 56%, and was related to mussel shell characteristics and observer experience. Most notably, species with shell texturing were 6.09× less likely than smooth-shelled species to be misidentified. Misidentification rates declined with observer experience, but for many species the risk of misidentification averaged >10% even for observers with moderate levels of experience (5–6 y). In addition, misidentification rates among observers showed substantial variability after controlling for experience. Our results suggest that species misidentification may be common in field surveys of freshwater mussels and could potentially bias estimates of population status and trends. Misidentification rates possibly could be reduced through use of regional workshops, testing and certification programs, and the availability of archived specimens and tissue samples in museum collections.


Goat farming has a great role in generating household income. Ampel Gading Sub-district of Malang regency has great Etawa Crossbred goat (CR) population to meet the demand from many areas of Indonesia and even foreign countries such as Malaysia. Since many goats have gone from this area, it may require a technology to improve breeding method to sustain its goat population. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of single-dose and double-dose of hormone PGF2 to improve estrus quality and increase pregnancy success rate in the CR at Ampel Gading Sub-District, Malang Regency. Seventy three CR doe were divided into three groups, i.e. group 1 Consited of 20 goats without hormone treatment, group 2 consisted of 33 goats and group 3consisted of 20 goats injected with hormone PGF2 each with singleand multiple-doses to synchronize estrus. Pregnancy evaluation was observed by non-return rate to estrous method (NRR). Results showed a single dose of PGF2 induced estrus in goats (96.97%) in 17 hours after injection. However, the high rate of estrus did not conceived in goats after given artificial insemination. The success rate of pregnancy in goats without treatment was higher (90%) compared to those with hormone treatment either single dose (87.87%)or double doses (75%).


This review focuses on the structure and function of the branchial chloride cell in freshwater fishes. The mitochondria-rich chloride cell is believed to be the principal site of trans-epithelial Ca2+ and Cl- influxes. Though currently debated, there is accruing evidence that the pavement cell is the site of Na+ uptake via channels linked electrically to an apical membrane vacuolar H(+)-ATPase (proton pump). Chloride cells perform an integral role in acid-base regulation. During conditions of alkalosis, the surface area of exposed chloride cells is increased, which serves to enhance base equivalent excretion as the rate of Cl-/HCO3- exchange is increased. Conversely, during acidosis, the chloride cell surface area is diminished by an expansion of the adjacent pavement cells. This response reduces the number of functional Cl-/HCO3- exchangers. Under certain conditions that challenge ion regulation, chloride cells proliferate on the lamellae. This response, while optimizing the Ca2+ and Cl- transport capacity of the gill, causes a thickening of the blood-to-water diffusion barrier and thus impedes respiratory gas transfer.


We study the relation between support vector machines (SVMs) for regression (SVMR) and SVM for classication (SVMC). We show that for a given SVMC solution there exists a SVMR solution which is equivalent for a certain choice of the parameters. In particular our result is that for suciently close to one, the optimal hyperplane and threshold for the SVMC problem with regularization parameter Cc are equal to 1 1 times the optimal hyperplane and threshold for SVMR with regularization parameter Cr =( 1 )Cc. A direct consequence of this result is that SVMC can be seen as a special case of SVMR.


Skin computed tomography (CT) image based on improved marching cubes (MC) algorithm was explored to evaluate the therapeutic effect of internal administration of Liangxue Xiaoyin decoction combined with medicated bath in the treatment of psoriasis vulgaris. 712 patients with psoriasis vulgaris blood heat syndrome in hospital were recruited as the research object, which were randomly divided into observation group (TCM oral therapy combined with medicinal bath) and control group (TCM oral therapy), each with 356 cases. Psoriasis area and severity index (PASI), pruritus degree, and clinical treatment effect were compared. The results showed that the reconstruction time of median method was greatly shorter, and the algorithm efficiency was improved by 40.6290%. After treatment, the psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) score of the observation group was 5.61 ± 1.15, ΔPASI = (22.64 ± 2.15). ΔPASI% = 80.14%, which were greatly higher than the control group ((9.41 + 1.56) points, ΔPASI = (18.84 + 1.65) points, ΔPASI% = 66.69%) (P < 0.05). After treatment, the itching degree of the observation group was 3.03 ± 1.01 points, which was lower than that of the control group ((3.71 ± 1.06) points), and the itching degree of the observation group was greater than that of the control group, with substantial difference (P < 0.05). The total effective rate of observation group (88.76%) was higher than that of control group (71.07%) (P < 0.05). Therefore, skin CT image based on the improved MC algorithm can evaluate the therapeutic effect of internal administration of Liangxue Xiaoyin decoction combined with medicated bath in the treatment of psoriasis vulgaris. The internal administration of Liangxue Xiaoyin decoction combined with medicated bath had a good effect on the treatment of psoriasis vulgaris and was of certain clinical application value.


This paper deals with one of the most outstanding advantages of continuous-time (CT) sigma-delta modulators compared to their discrete-time counterparts: the implicit anti-aliasing feature (AAF). Although inherent in any CT architecture, analysis of anti-aliasing properties has mostly been restricted to single-stage modulators in the past. In this contribution, extensions on analysis methods for the study of the AAF of CT multistage noise-shaping architectures are covered. A theoretical model is introduced and confirmed through simulation results. Contrary to previous belief, the results indicate that usually all stages of a cascaded architecture are involved in the anti-aliasing behaviour and hence that it is not solely determined by the first stage.


This paper describes the modeling and analysis of an elastic tongue mechanism of a talking robot WT-2 and the development of an acoustic simulator for the construction of the computational model of human speech production. WT-2 consists of lungs, vocal cords and articulators. It is essential to accurately estimate and analyze the shapes of these organs to develop an acoustic simulator. However, it was difficult to estimate and analyze the mechanisms, because they were composed of an elastic rubber to make various shapes and to seal the air and sound. Therefore, we constructed a modeling method to simulate the shape of the elastic mechanisms. This method is applicable to all the elastic body. We developed an acoustic simulator using this modeling method in the process of constructing the speech production model.


This is the first of two volumes on the genesis of quantum mechanics. It covers the key developments in the period 1900–1923 that provided the scaffold on which the arch of modern quantum mechanics was built in the period 1923–1927 (covered in the second volume). After tracing the early contributions by Planck, Einstein, and Bohr to the theories of black‐body radiation, specific heats, and spectroscopy, all showing the need for drastic changes to the physics of their day, the book tackles the efforts by Sommerfeld and others to provide a new theory, now known as the old quantum theory. After some striking initial successes (explaining the fine structure of hydrogen, X‐ray spectra, and the Stark effect), the old quantum theory ran into serious difficulties (failing to provide consistent models for helium and the Zeeman effect) and eventually gave way to matrix and wave mechanics. Constructing Quantum Mechanics is based on the best and latest scholarship in the field, to which the authors have made significant contributions themselves. It breaks new ground, especially in its treatment of the work of Sommerfeld and his associates, but also offers new perspectives on classic papers by Planck, Einstein, and Bohr. Throughout the book, the authors provide detailed reconstructions (at the level of an upper‐level undergraduate physics course) of the cental arguments and derivations of the physicists involved. All in all, Constructing Quantum Mechanics promises to take the place of older books as the standard source on the genesis of quantum mechanics.


AIM
The aim of the study is to assess epidemiological situation of yersiniosis in Poland in 2017 in comparison
to previous years.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The evaluation is based on analysis of data from the annual bulletins "Infectious diseases and poisoning in Poland", information from individual yersiniosis case reports entered and shared by local sanitary-epidemiological stations through Electronic Registry of Epidemiologic Forms (SRWE), information from individual extraintestinal case reports fulfilled by local sanitary-epidemiological station and sent to the Departments of Epidemiology, National Institute of Public Health - National Institute of Hygiene by regional sanitary-epidemiological stations, information on outbreaks shared through the Electronic Registry of Epidemic Outbreaks (ROE) and data on deaths from the Department of Demographic Studies of the Central Statistical Office.

RESULTS
In 2017 255 cases of yersiniosis, including 191 intestinal and 64 extraintestinal were registered.
Incidence in 2017 was 0.66/100 000 population. Number of cases registered in 2017 was higher than in 2015 and 2016 (for both years 205 cases with incidence 0.53/100 000 was observed) and similar to the one in 2014 (244 cases, incidence 0.63/100 000). In 2017 all intestinal yersiniosis cases met criteria for confirmed case. Around 35% of cases were registered in mazowieckie voivodship where incidence was similar to the one in European Union. Among Y. enterocolitica isolates, serotype was determined in 62 cases what stands for only 28.7% of all cases. Predominant serotype was 03, it was identified in 81% of serotyped cases. Most of intestinal yersiniosis cases occurred among children under 4 years (54.5% of all registered cases).

CONCLUSIONS
In 2017 increase in number of cases was observed. Yersiniosis in Poland is rarely diagnosed, incidence in Poland is more than twice time lower than in European Union.


This paper presents a Support Vector Machine predictive model to determine if prior programming knowledge and completion of in-class and take home formative assessment tasks might be suitable predictors of examination performance. Student data from the academic years 2012 - 2016 for an introductory programming course was captured via ViLLE e-learning tool for analysis. The results revealed that student prior programming knowledge and assessment scores captured in a predictive model, is a good fit of the data. However, while overall success of the model is significant, predictions on identifying at-risk students is neither high nor low and that persuaded us to include two more research questions. However, our preliminary post analysis on these test results show that on average students who secured less than 70% in formative assessment scores with little or basic prior programming knowledge in programming may fail in the final programming exam and increase the prediction accuracy in identifying at-risk students from 46% to nearly 63%. Hence, these results provide immediate information for programming course instructors and students to enhance teaching and learning process.


The paper discusses the use and effects on traditional music by the introduction of the technologies of music notation and music recording. Both of these technologies imply fixation and, therefore, also the possibility of recreation of a (musical) event split from its origin. Reference is made to Lord's discussion of orality vs. literacy, and also to Schafer's concept of schizophonia. Both these authors see the technologies in a perspective of cultural pessimism that is not shared by this author. The aim of the article is, therefore, not to argue for caution on the use of technologies nor to argue that traditional music becomes less 'authentic' through the use of technology, but to describe in more detail possible views of the co-development of use of technology and change in aesthetic focus. Specifically it is argued that there might be a shift from a predominantly art-of-work orientation in the mid 19th century to a more performance-focused contemporary orientation.


Describing the diplomatic service of the Russian consul, M.M. Bakunin, in the Netherlands East Indies in the 1890s, the article focuses on two themes – on the peculiarities of Bakunin's perception of the colony's life and his understanding of the Russian imperial identity. The main source of the paper is Bakunin's book «Tropical Holland» (1902). Looking at Bakunin's descriptions of the nature of Java and various parts of the settlement of Batavia, the author identifies the characteristic features of Bakunin's narrative in comparison with earlier orientalists texts. This peculiarity manifests itself in the use of gloomy decadent aesthetics, in deliberate attention to the pictures of decline and decay, in the images of empty spaces and morbidity of everything around. Bakunin's description of various aspects of Dutch everyday life, such as food, clothing, leisure activities, bodily practices, etc., suggests that in his thinking on colonial politics the Russian consul was under the influence of M. Nordau's theory of degeneration. The theme of degeneration in Bakunin's book is also compared to its presentation in the Dutch texts of the time, studied by A.L. Stoler, and the Russian reception of degeneration ideas, explored by R. Nicolosi. Particular attention is paid to the way Bakunin defined the place of the Russian observer in the colony, this place being opposed both to the natives and the local Dutch, but also to the British with their colonial practices. What's also noteworthy is that, along with the hierarchies of non-Europeans usual for colonies, Bakunin attempted to define the local hierarchies of Europeans, in which the Russian official comes very close to a standard of Europeanness. By this token, concludes the author, the Russian diplomat constructed the image of Russian culture as a European one.


Sequential Recommendation is a widely studied paradigm for learning users' dynamic interests from historical interactions for predicting the next potential item. Although lots of research work has achieved remarkable progress, they are still plagued by the common issues: data sparsity of limited supervised signals and data noise of accidentally clicking. To this end, several works have attempted to address these issues, which ignored the complex association of items across several sequences. Along this line, with the aim of learning representative item embedding to alleviate this dilemma, we propose GUESR, from the view of graph contrastive learning. Specifically, we first construct the Global Item Relationship Graph (GIRG) from all interaction sequences and present the Bucket-Cluster Sampling (BCS) method to conduct the sub-graphs. Then, graph contrastive learning on this reduced graph is developed to enhance item representations with complex associations from the global view. We subsequently extend the CapsNet module with the elaborately introduced target-attention mechanism to derive users' dynamic preferences. Extensive experimental results have demonstrated our proposed GUESR could not only achieve significant improvements but also could be regarded as a general enhancement strategy to improve the performance in combination with other sequential recommendation methods.


Shell-and-tube heat exchangers (STHEs) are one of the most popular heat exchanger due its flexibility to allow wide range pressure and temperature. The shell-sideperforms very complex flow which result in the difficult of analysis. This paper examines the characteristic of shell-side which obtained by adjusting vary of mass flow rates to gain laminar flow condition. A certain STHE with single segmental baffle used in this analysis that run by the stream analysis method developed by Heat Transfer Research Inc. (HTRI). The result shows that the increase value of mass flow rate will increase the shell-side heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, and heat exchanger effectiveness. The increase value of mass flow rate from 0.1065 kg/s to 0.1775 kg/s will increase the shell-side heat transfer coefficient about 37.56% where minimum and maximum values are 1557.58 and 2142.76 W/m 2 .K. The shell-side pressure drop also increase from 0.325 kPa to 0.898 kPa or up to 176.31% increase. The heat exchanger effectiveness increase with the lower number of 7.02% from 0.276 to 0.295. From this experiment, it can be inferred that the increase value of mass flow rate in shell-side will be good to the heat exchanger performance, but the increase value of pressure drop must be in consideration too.


A common failure mode of density models trained as variational autoencoders is to model the data without relying on their latent variables, rendering these variables useless. Two contributing factors, the underspecification of the model and the looseness of the variational lower bound, have been studied separately in the literature. We weave these two strands of research together, specifically the tighter bounds of Monte-Carlo objectives and constraints on the mutual information between the observable and the latent variables. Estimating the mutual information as the average Kullback-Leibler divergence between the easily available variational posterior $q(z|x)$ and the prior does not work with Monte-Carlo objectives because $q(z|x)$ is no longer a direct approximation to the model's true posterior $p(z|x)$. Hence, we construct estimators of the Kullback-Leibler divergence of the true posterior from the prior by recycling samples used in the objective, with which we train models of continuous and discrete latents at much improved rate-distortion and no posterior collapse. While alleviated, the tradeoff between modelling the data and using the latents still remains, and we urge for evaluating inference methods across a range of mutual information values.


Summary Objective: To assess the geometry of canine humeri as seen on radiographs in chondrodystrophic dogs (CD) and brachycephalic dogs (BD) compared to non-chondrodystrophic dogs (NCD). Methods: Mediolateral (ML) and craniocaudal (CC) radiographs of skeletally mature humeri were used (CD [n = 5], BD [n = 9], NCD [n = 48]) to evaluate general dimensions (length, width, canal flare, cortical thickness), curvature (shaft, humeral head, and glenoid), and angulation (humeral head and condyle). Measurements from CD, BD, and NCD were compared. Results: Mean humeral length was shorter in CD (108 mm) compared to BD (184 mm, p = 0.001) and NCD (183 mm, p <0.001). Craniocaudal cortical thickness at 70% of humeral length and ML cortical thickness at 30%, 50%, and 70% of humeral length were less in CD compared to BD and NCD. Humeral shaft curvature was greater in CD (9.9°) compared to BD (6.7°, p = 0.023). The ratio of glenoid radius of curvature / humeral length was greater for CD (11.1%) compared to NCD (9.7%, p = 0.013). The ratio of humeral width / humeral length was greater for BD (29.4%) compared to NCD (26.2%, p = 0.043). The ratio of glenoid length / humeral length was greater in CD (18.0%) than BD (16.4%, p = 0.048) and NCD (15.6%, p <0.001). Clinical significance: Bone proportions and curvature in CD differ from BD and NCD. Differences are minor and unlikely to have clinical significance.


Aerosol particles in the atmosphere exert a strong influence on climate by interacting with sunlight and by initiating cloud formation. Because the tropospheric aerosol is a heterogeneous mixture of various particle types, its climate effects can only be fully understood through detailed knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of individual particles. Here we review the results of individual-particle studies that use microscopy-based techniques, emphasizing transmission electron microscopy and focusing on achievements of the past ten years. We discuss the techniques that are best suited for studying distinct particle properties and provide a brief overview of major particle types, their identification, and their sources. The majority of this review is concerned with the optical properties and hygroscopic behavior of aerosol particles; we discuss recent results and highlight the potential of emerging microscopy techniques for analyzing the particle properties that contribute most to climate effects.


The world's chemical industries face formidable environmental regulatory challenges in treating their wastewater effluents. The present work aims at highlighting the various industrial wastewater treatment technologies currently available including physico-chemical and biological processes as well as constructed wetland and conventional or advanced oxidation processes. Activated carbon prepared from low cost material, Agricultural by-product materials or modified natural polymers, which is considerably efficient for removal of direct dyes from wastewater, is also discussed. Combinations of anaerobic and aerobic treatment processes are found to be efficient in the removal of soluble biodegradable organic pollutants. The use of membrane in final stage of industrial wastewater treatments is increasing. The chemical oxidation techniques to treat wastewater, classical chemical treatment and advanced oxidation processes, is discussed.


OBJECTIVE
Orofacial esthetics raises psychosocial issues. The purpose was to create and validate new short instrument for psychosocial impacts of altered smile esthetics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A team of an orthodontist, two prosthodontists, psychologist, and a dental student generated items that could draw up specific hypothetical psychosocial dimensions (69 items initially, 39 in final analysis). The sample consisted of 261 Caucasian subjects attending local high schools and university (26% male) aged 14 to 28 years that have self-administrated the designed questionnaire. Factorial analysis, Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlation, paired samples t-test and analysis of variance were used for analyses of internal consistency, construct validity, responsiveness, and test-retest.

RESULTS
Three dimensions of psychosocial impacts of altered smile esthetics were identified: dental self-consciousness, dental self-confidence and social contacts that can be best fitted by 12 items, 4 items in each dimension. Internal consistency was good (α in range 0.85-0.89). Good stability in test-retest was confirmed. In responsiveness testing, tooth whitening induced increase in dental self-confidence (P = 0.002), but no significant changes in other dimensions.

CONCLUSION
The new instrument, Smile Esthetics-Related Quality of Life (SERQoL), is short and has proven to be a good indicator of psychosocial dimensions related to perception of smile esthetics.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Smile Esthetics-Related Quality of Life questionnaire might have practical validity when applied in esthetic dental clinical procedures.


PURPOSES : Low visibility caused by dark surroundings at nighttime affects the likelihood of accidents, and various efforts, such as installing road safety facilities, have been made to reduce accidents at night. Despite these efforts, the nighttime severity index (SI) in Korea was higher than the daytime SI during 2011-2014. This study determined the factors affecting daytime and nighttime accident severity through a discriminant analysis. METHODS: Discriminant analysis. RESULTS: First, drowsiness, lack of attention, and lighting facilities affected both daytime and nighttime accident severity. Accidents were found to be caused by a low ability to recognize the driving conditions and a low obstacle avoidance capability. Second, road conditions and speeding affected only the daytime accident severity. Third, failure to maintain a safe distance significantly affected daytime accident severity and nonsignificantly affected nighttime accident severity. The majority of such accidents were caused by rear-end collisions of vehicles driving in the same direction; given the low relative speed difference in such cases, the shock imparted by the accidents was minimal. CONCLUSIONS: Accidents caused by a failure to maintain a safe distance has lower severity than do accidents caused by other factors.


Introduction. Both auditory and non-auditory health can be affected by exposure to occupational noise. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of high occupational noise (at three levels) with systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and salivary cortisol concentration in an automotive factory. Methods. This study was carried out on 78 male workers from a factory who worked in the warehouse unit (control group: 60–70 dB(A)) and assembly units (two test groups: 75–85 and 85–95 dB(A)). Data were collected through questionnaires and measurement of SBP, DBP, saliva cortisol concentration and body mass index (BMI), prior to and post occupational noise exposure. The measurements were performed twice/day and repeated after 10 days. Results. For each occupational noise level group, there was no significant association between cortisol level with age and BMI. The SBP and DBP in all groups increased significantly. Also, the average cortisol levels were similar in different groups before noise exposure, but were statistically different after occupational noise exposure. Conclusions. High occupational noise exposure increases the cortisol level and blood pressure, which are the major risk factors of cardiovascular disease.


Desymmetrization of a p-quinone monoacetal by organocatalytic sulfa-Michael addition provided rapid access to a C-ring building block for a formal synthesis of (-)-codeine. By means of a diastereoselective 1,2-addition for A/C-ring union, an intramolecular nitrone cycloaddition for construction of the phenanthrene core, and a sulfoxide elimination, an enantiopure key intermediate of the authors' previous synthesis of racemic codeine was available in 12 steps from isovanillin.


The Frontiers in Medicinal Chemistry (FiMC) is the largest international Medicinal Chemistry conference in the German speaking area and took place from April 3rd to 5th 2023 in Vienna (Austria). Fortunately, after being cancelled in 2020 and two years (2021–2022) of entirely virtual meetings, due to the COVID‐19 pandemic, the FiMC could be held in a face‐to‐face format again. Organized by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), the Division of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry of the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG), together with the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the Austrian Chemical Society (GÖCH), the Austrian Pharmaceutical Society (ÖPhG), and a local organization committee from the University of Vienna headed by Thierry Langer, the meeting brought together 260 participants from 21 countries. The program included 38 lectures by leading scientists from industry and academia as well as early career investigators. Moreover, 102 posters were presented in two highly interactive poster sessions.


A preference test was conducted to investigate whether rats could distinguish among three iso-energetic and iso-nitrogeneous human diets prepared with ingredients cultivated by each of three different farming strategies: LIminusP: low input of feritlizer without pesticides, LIplusP: lowinput of fertilicer and high input of pesticides and LHplusP: high input of fertilizer and high input of pesticides. The experimental diets were formulated to meet the NRC requirements for growing rats by mixing potatoes, carrots, peas, green kales, apples, and rapeseed oil. For five days, rats (N=27) had free access to each of the three diets, and consumption of each of the diets was recorded daily. Thereafter, rats were offered a standard laboratory chow until the test was repeated. The results indicated that the majority of the rats showed individual preference for the diets and behaved similarly on different experimental days (ρ = 0.63 in repetition 1 and ρ = 0.73 in repetition 2) and in the two repetitions (τ = 0.79). However, no clear difference among the dietary treatments could be obtained.


This paper reviews literature on the impacts, costs, and benefits of infrastructure in the United States and developing countries, focusing on studies published since the early 1990s. A review of 28 econometric studies of productivity impacts of public capital in the United States found a wide range of estimates of the output elasticity of public capital (a measure of the percent increase in the value of output associated with a one percent increase in the value of the public capital stock) – ranging from -0.49 to +0.56, with a mean value of 0.12. The range of estimates depends on the unit of analysis, the type of public capital, and the method of analysis. Generally larger productivity impacts were found in national than in state-level studies and for water and sewer capital than for highway capital. Smaller impacts were found in studies that controlled for state-level fixed factors that affect productivity. These estimates imply an even wider range of estimates of the marginal rate of return to public capital stocks, ranging from close to zero for highway stocks to nearly 90 percent for water and sewer capital. Similarly large ranges of rates of return were estimated by studies investigating impacts of public capital on the costs or profits of firms. A few studies estimated the benefits of public capital stocks in U.S. cities including amenity benefits, and found that such benefits can be larger than the productivity benefits. The benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) of public capital stocks estimated in these studies ranged from about 0.3 to greater than 2.0, depending on the assumptions of the econometric framework. Many econometric studies have investigated impacts of particular types of infrastructure in the U.S. and in developing countries, though few have estimated rates of return implied by the estimates. Model-based estimates of BCRs of infrastructure investments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration suggest that BCRs greater than 1.0 are common for water and highway infrastructure projects, but no evidence was found in the literature reviewed that these have been validated using econometric approaches. Rigorous econometric impact evaluation methods to assess the causal impacts of infrastructure investments have been used by the Millennium Challenge Corporation and multilateral development banks to validate and improve the results of predictive models in some developing country contexts and have found some statistically significant impacts on railroads, roads, rural electrification, water and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Such an approach could be useful to apply in more contexts.


By summarization of small and medium scale software development process practices to propose a CMM best practice in component-based system construction. This best practice not only ensures fast, reasonable, low cost software development process control, but also has distinct process control, can be rechecked and be understood. Adaptability adjustment is allowed during software process. By real case statistics and analysis, we confirm that this software development process best practice will contribute to engineering project management.


A study is made of the behavior of solutions of nonlinear (as well as linear with discontinuous coefficients) elliptic equations and systems in a neighborhood of an isolated singular point. Under growth restrictions on the solution that depend on the index of the Cordes property of the system, it is established that the order of the singularity coincides with the order of the singularity of one of the singular solutions of the poly-Laplacian. Also considered are systems with a nonlinear potential, for which a complete classification of possible orders of the singularity is obtained, and conditions for the nonexistence of isolated singular points are determined.Bibliography: 10 titles.


Objective To provide a comprehensive review of intra-arterial cerebral infusions of chemotherapeutics in glioblastoma multiforme treatment and discuss potential research aims. We describe technical aspects of the intra-arterial delivery, methods of blood-brain barrier disruption, the role of intraoperative imaging and clinical trials involving intra-arterial cerebral infusions of chemotherapeutics in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme. Method 159 articles in English were reviewed and used as the foundation for this paper. The Medline/Pubmed, Cochrane databases, Google Scholar, Scielo and PEDro databases have been used to select the most relevant and influential papers on the intra-arterial cerebral infusions of chemotherapeutics in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme. Additionally, we have included some relevant clinical trials involving intra-arterial delivery of chemotherapeutics to other than GBM brain tumours. Conclusion Considering that conventional treatments for glioblastoma multiforme fall short of providing a significant therapeutic benefit, with a majority of patients relapsing, the neuro-oncological community has considered intra-arterial administration of chemotherapeutics as an alternative to oral or intravenous administration. Numerous studies have proven the safety of IA delivery of chemotherapy and its ability to ensure higher drug concentrations in targeted areas, simultaneously limiting systemic toxicity. Nonetheless, the scarcity of phase III trials prevents any declaration of a therapeutic benefit. Given that the likelihood of a single therapeutic agent which will be effective for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme is extremely low, it is paramount to establish an adequate multimodal therapy which will have a synergistic effect on the diverse pathogenesis of GBM. Precise quantitative and spatial monitoring is necessary to guarantee the accurate delivery of the therapeutic to the tumour. New and comprehensive pharmacokinetic models, a more elaborate understanding of glioblastoma biology and effective methods of diminishing treatment-related neurotoxicity are paramount for intra-arterial cerebral infusion of chemotherapeutics to become a mainstay treatment for glioblastoma multiforme. Additional use of other imaging methods like MRI guidance during the procedure could have an edge over X-ray alone and aid in selecting proper arteries as well as infusion parameters of chemotherapeutics making the procedure safer and more effective.


Context: Congenital hydrocephalus is one of the common neurological problems in infants, characterized by excessive accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the central nervous system. Numerous babies delivered every day with this anomaly all over the world most of them in the developing countries. There are several forms of treatment; the commonest one is ventriculo-peritoneal shunt that transfers the CSF to the peritoneal cavity. It is associated with relatively low morbidity and mortality rates. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the ventriculo-peritoneal shunt therapy outcomes for congenital hydrocephalus and find its complications. Patients and methods: In this research, an observational case series study design had been adopted in Ibn-Sina teaching hospital applied on a convenient sample of 52 infants of both sexes with congenital hydrocephalus over a period of three years. Ethical consents were obtained from their parents. Then, clinical evaluation was done through head circumference and fontanel examinations followed by CT-scan and ultrasonic testing to confirm the diagnosis. All patients were subjected to the ventriculo-peritoneal shunt (VP) surgery with full coverage of appropriate antibiotics, and then they were followed for 6 months to assess the effectiveness of VP shunt in the treatment of hydrocephalus and to identify any complication associated with this surgery. Results: Most cases (79%) were below 3 months of age and 55.5% of them were males. Only 13.5% of cases developed complications including upper and lower shunt obstruction, shunt infection (28.6% for each), and skin laceration in 14.2% of those 13.5% complicated cases. Most of these complications happened to infants older than 3 months of age. Conclusion and recommendation: The study concluded that Ventriculo-peritoneal shunt was associated with low complication rate especially among young infants. Thus, it is recommended to adopt this procedure for the treatment of infantile hydrocephalus particularly among infants below 3 months of age.


Background and Objectives: This paper explores effects of Gandharva Veda music--traditional North Indian music-- on emotional and physical well-being. Hypothesis: Gandharva Veda music balances the mind and body. Materials and Methods: A professional Gandharvan performed 16 live and two online concerts.  Mood states were assessed with the Profile of Mood states (POMS) at the live concerts, emotional and physiological balance were assessed during the online concerts using a traditional Ayurveda diagnostic technique called "pulse diagnosis," and the EEG of a single Gandharvan was recorded while she played a raga. Results: In the first study (n=1,800), Gandharva Veda music led to significant decreases of negative emotions and significant increases of positive emotions. In the second study, 78 Ayurveda students reported significantly higher levels of vibrant health and significant lowers level of physiological blockages after the ragas. In the last study, high theta1 and alpha1 coherence patterns were seen both during  meditation practice and when the Gandharvan played the ragas, along with higher 12 – 50 Hz coherence during the ragas. Discussion: The responses on the POMS and pulse reading support the prediction that Gandharva Veda music creates a healthy influence for the listener. Also, the coexistence of higher alpha1 coherence, a marker of inner silence, and higher 12-50 Hz coherence, a marker of goal-oriented performance suggests that playing Gandharva Veda music may culture inner silence as the performer plays complex musical passages. Conclusion: Future research is warranted to explore the application of Gandharva Veda music across a wider population of healthy and clinical patients.


Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in both men and women worldwide. The nucleic acid G4 structures have been implicated in the transcriptional programmes of cancer-related genes in some cancers such as lung cancer. However, the role of the dominant G4 resolvase DHX36 in the progression of lung cancer remains unknown. In this study, by bioinformatic analysis of public datasets (TCGA and GEO), we find DHX36 is an independent prognosis indicator in non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) with subtype dependence. The stable lentiviral knockdown of the DHX36 results in accelerated migration and aggregation of the S-phase subpopulation in lung cancer cells. The reduction of DHX36 level de-sensitises the proliferation response of lung cancer cells to chemotherapeutic drugs such as paclitaxel with cell dependence. The knockdown of this helicase leads to promoted tumour growth, demonstrated by a 3D fluorescence spheroid lung cancer model, and the stimulation of cell colony formation as shown by single-cell cultivation. High throughput proteomic array indicates that DHX36 functions in lung cancer cells through regulating multiple signalling pathways including activation of protein activity, protein autophosphorylation, Fc-receptor signalling pathway, response to peptide hormone and stress-activated protein kinase signalling cascade. A causal transcriptomic analysis suggests that DHX36 is significantly associated with mRNA surveillance, RNA degradation, DNA replication and Myc targets. Therefore, we unveil that DHX36 presents clinical significance and plays a role in tumour suppression in lung cancer, and propose a potentially new concept for an anti-cancer therapy based on helicase-specific targeting.


The recurrent hamstring strain is a problem that is dealt with at all levels of athletics. The complex action of the hamstrings, as evident by EMG data, as well as a poor understanding of the mechanism of injury, are possible reasons for this high rate of reinjury. Another possible cause deals with the rehabilitation protocol utilized in treating this injury. Early controlled motion and specific exercises designed to apply to the unique characteristics of the hamstring muscles are necessary to completely rehabilitate the athlete and successfully prevent a recurrence. This program must include a progressive resumption of activity with an emphasis on high speed movements. A model hamstring rehabilitation program is proposed. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 1987;9(2):77-85.


The dissertation provides a contribution to the field of spatial-temporal data mining, which is a response to the enormous amount of data collected in operational and research databases worldwide. The advantage of spatial-temporal data mining compared to traditional methods is the appropriate treatment of spatial and temporal attributes and consequently the ability to discover hidden information which is contained in databases.
The dissertation is limited to spatial-temporal data mining in the earth sciences, or more precisely, we have developed a methodology that upgrades methods of the Lagrangian particle tracking of moving virtual water parcels in the ocean. By using classic Lagrangian analysis, we examine paths or trajectories of simulated water parcels by visual inspection or by using various statistical methods as well as other approaches (i.e. dynamic system theory, stochastic modeling etc.). In the field of oceanography, which is the primary data source for the dissertation, high-quality numerical modeling is becoming increasingly important. Based on the velocity fields in the results of such a model, we first produce a number of trajectories of virtual particles (typically around 100,000). In the next step, we subdivide the model domain into smaller areas and search for spatial-temporal association rules that enable us to obtain the probability of the transition of virtual particles from individual sea areas to neighboring ones within the specified time interval. We visualize the resulting rules in the form of multi-level directed graphs with different granulation in space and time. We can add any attributes to the edges and vertices in such graphs, which represent aggregated or statistical information, or oceanographic or other material.
The resulting multi-level directed graphs are open to numerous algorithms that are used for graph mining. Our contribution is the algorithms for searching significant structures (paths and cycles) in these graphs. First we uncover simple cycles that occur in short periods of time (one month) within one graph, though more realistic paths and cycles occur over longer periods, that is, several months or even years. In the dissertation, we deal with paths and cycles that extend into periods of several months but less than one year. We deal with simulations which are too short to detect longer term processes and this results in dynamic paths. For the construction of these paths and cycles, we must take into account that the weights of graphs change over time, so the resulting paths and cycles are called dynamic. We perform hierarchical clustering of the resulting dynamic paths and cycles based on the distance between them and obtain dynamic fuzzy paths and cycles and compare them with the structures that are known from oceanographic observations provided by domain experts. The results in the dissertation show the significant similarity of obtained dynamic fuzzy paths and cycles with the observations and prior knowledge of oceanographic experts.
The methodology, described in the dissertation, is a solid basis for the development of applications that upgrade the established methods used by oceanographic experts. In chapter 6 of the dissertation, we present some examples of successful applications of multi-level directed graphs. Thus, we show that the movement of water masses in the Mediterranean Sea has a seasonal nature with a period of 12 months. In addition, by using multi-level directed graphs we present long-term transient phenomena such as the circulation reversal in the Ionian Sea, which occurs approximately every 10 years. By using additional attributes (e.g. wind power) in multi-level directed graphs, we show the correlation of the probability of movements of water masses with these attributes. Finally, multi-level directed graphs are a solid basis for modeling the dispersal of biological species.


Abstract Leaf epidermal characteristics are important for phylogenetic and taxonomic studies of many plants, but there is currently insufficient such data for this application in Zingiber species. Therefore, the leaf epidermal micromorphology of 22 species in three sections of Zingiber was investigated by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Differences between various taxonomic groups of Zingiberaceae were also compared to assess their phylogenetic and taxonomic significance. As in other genera of Zingiberaceae, the epidermal cells in both the adaxial and abaxial epidermis of Zingiber species were found to be hexagonal or polygonal, with non-sinuous anticlinal walls that are arranged parallel to leaf veins. Tetracytic stomata are mostly randomly distributed in the intercostal regions of both surfaces and are more common on the abaxial surface. The stomatal density of the species in sect. Pleuranthesis is significantly lower than that in sects. Zingiber and Cryptanthium. There are two types of trichome in Zingiber: so-called "delicate" trichomes are present in most species, while "stout" trichomes with a swollen base are only found in Z.corallinum and Z.montanum. Oil cells occur in both epidermal layers of some species in sects. Zingiber and Cryptanthium, but only in the abaxial epidermis of Z.ellipticum in sect. Pleuranthesis. Crystals are found in the abaxial epidermis only in all species, but are present in both epidermal layers of Z.corallinum and Z.montanum. Although the epidermal morphology is similar in most Zingiber species, stomatal density, type of trichome and distribution of oil cells and crystals offer valuable information for the systematic and taxonomic studies in this genus.


This paper offers some observations on employee crime, economic theories of crime, limits on bonding, and the efficiency wage hypothesis. We demonstrate that the simplest economic theories of crime predict that profit-maximizing firms should follow strategies of minimal monitoring and large penalties for employee crime. Finding overwhelming empirical evidence that firms expend considerable resources trying to detect employee malfeasance and do not impose extremely large penalties, we investigate a number of possible reasons why the simple model's predictions fail. It turns out that plausible explanations for firms large outlays on monitoring of employees also justify the payment of premium wages in some circumstances. There is no legitimate a priori argument that firms should not pay efficiency wages once it is recognized that they expend significant resources on monitoring.


The aim of this work was to research a bioprocess for bioethanol production at laboratory scale from raw sweet potato using Saccharomyces cerevisiae MTCC-170. In order to obtain maximum conversion of starch into fermentable sugar, optimum parameters for the liquefaction were determined as 104 to 105°C, 0.15% v/w of α-amylase enzyme solution (300 U/ml) and 30 g dry-weight sweet potato mash/100 ml distilled water, respectively with a 74.38% loss in dry weight during the process. For saccharification process, the optimum dose of amyloglucosidase was 0.25% v/w (300 U/ml) with 16.82% glucose production at pH 5.0 and temperature 60°C after 1 h. The fermentation parameters like inoculum size, temperature, pH and different concentrations of nutrients were also determined. The maximum ethanol concentration, that is, 7.95% (v/v) was obtained with 10% inoculum size at pH 6.0 after 48 h. Furthermore, out of the three nitrogen sources (yeast extract, peptone and ammonium sulphate) tested for ethanol production, peptone at a concentration of 1.5 g/L was found to be best (7.93%). From the present study, it may be concluded that sweet potato can be an attractive feedstock for bioethanol production from both the economic stand points and environment friendly. Keywords:  Sweet potato starch, ethanol, liquefaction, saccharification, Saccharomyces cerevisiae MTCC-170 African Journal of Biotechnology , Vol 13(28) 2874-2883


We study aqueous suspensions of charged gibbsite platelets that show the isotropic (I) to nematic (N) phase transition. This is the first case where the I-N transition in a dispersion of charged colloidal platelets is not impeded by gelation since Langmuir's classic work on dispersions of clay particles more than sixty years ago (J. Chem. Phys., 6 (1938) 873). On increasing particle concentration, our dispersions subsequently show an isotropic, nematic and gel phase. We attribute the shift of the gelation boundary from below to above the I-N transition to the surface modification of the gibbsite platelets with aluminium polycations, which are known to enhance the stability of gibbsite colloids significantly.


Abstract 2997 Background: Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) is a potentially curative treatment for patients with hematological malignancies. However, its success is limited by a life-threatening complication: the graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). Although numerous studies have described immunosuppression protocols to mitigate acute GVHD (aGvHD), novel approaches are needed. Chemokines are well known inducers of leukocyte trafficking and activation. Stimulation of the chemokine receptor signaling pathway leads to initiation of the Janus Kinase (JAK)/Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (STAT) pathway that contributes to the pathogenesis of GvHD. The key role of JAK signaling in normal and abnormal lymphocyte development and function, along with the cytotoxic effects of its inhibitor INCB18424 (Ruxolitinib) on leukemia cells, prompted us to hypothesize that this selective JAK1 and 2 inhibitor could be useful as anti-GvHD agent while maintaining antitumor activity. Since CP-690550, a more selective JAK3 inhibitor, was recently shown to protect against GvHD in mouse models, we also tested whether blocking the JAK1/JAK2 pathway could be more effective in preventing GvHD. Methods: To assess the therapeutic effect of pharmacologic modulation of JAK1 and 2 on GvHD, a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) mismatched HSCT mouse model was used. Recipient BALB/c mice were lethally irradiated and treated either with spleen and bone marrow (BM) cells from C57BL/6 (B6) donors (GvHD cohort, n=8), or with spleen and BM cells from B6 donors along with INCB18424 90mg/kg/day at days -1 to 13 (INCB18424 cohort, n=10) or with CP-690550 15mg/kg/day (CP-690550 cohort, n=8) at days -1 to 13. Syngeneic transplants (B6-B6, n=6) and BALB/c recipients treated with B6 BM cells only (control cohort, n=8) were also included as controls. Mice were characterized for GvHD by monitoring overall survival and weight loss. Recipient mice were sacrificed and tissues harvested on day 14 and 30 post transplant and GvHD confirmed by histology. Results: All mice in the GvHD cohort had clinical evidence of GvHD (weight loss, generalized erythema of the skin and poor fur quality) by day 14. The INCB18424 treated mice showed markedly reduced weight loss along the time of observation when compared to the GvHD cohort. Animals in the CP-690550 cohort tended to gain weight during the time of treatment (day-1 to 13), but thereafter they exhibited reduced body weight similar to that observed in the GvHD cohort. The histological examination of the stomach, liver, skin and intestine obtained at day 14 revealed no sign of GvHD in the control group as well as in the INCB18424 group. On the other hand, mild to moderate signs of GvHD were present in the tissues of CP-690550 treated mice and extensive inflammation and disruption of the normal architecture of the tissues was observed in the GvHD group. To determine whether INCB18424 treatment affected alloreactive CD4+ T cells, total spleen T cells were harvested at day 14 from the GvHD cohort and from recipients either of INCB18424 or CP-690550. Total spleen T cells were co-cultured with BM derived BALB/c (recipient-derived) or C57BL/6 (donor-derived) dendritic cells (DCs). After 24h, T cells alloreactivity was determined by IFN-γ production assessed by intracellular staining. As expected, T cells from GvHD mice showed significantly higher alloreactivity against BALB/c DCs compared to the reactivity observed against syngeneic B6 DCs (5.24% and 0.84% respectively, p Conclusions: The inhibition of Jak/STAT signaling using the sensitive and specific inhibitor of Jak1/Jak2, INCB18424, conferred effective protection from aGvHD in a HSCT mouse model. INCB18424 treatment was more effective than the targeting of JAK3 with CP-690550. In fact, CP-690550 administered during GvHD induction was not completely sufficient to restore the normal weight and to prevent the histological appearance of GvHD whereas INCB18424 was. INCB18424 protected mice against acute GvHD by significantly decreasing alloreactive CD4 T cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Abstract The challenges facing water resources world-wide stém from a multitude of factors, including the steady increase in population, urbanization, environmental degradation, and industrialization. Those challenges are compounding water shortages, and in turn, resulting in steadily increasing international disputes over water. Such disputes are getting more complex and novel, involving not only states, but also legal entities, corporations, and individuals against other states. The claims now go beyond the traditional water quantity issues, and involve water quality, border lines across boundary rivers, and water rights issues. The settlement institutions have expanded considerably and now include varied international and national tribunals, as well as third and fourth parties. This article reviews and discusses those novel claims, claimants and dispute settlement institutions, and analyzes emerging trends in this area.


The development of systems biology is revolutionizing the way we are studying and learning about human health. It is a way of thinking and a systematic attempt to integrate information from several fields of study (physical, biological, chemical, engineering, etc) to develop a more kinetic and real-time understanding of complex biological processes. It uses mathematical modeling tools to chart dynamic interactions between the components of a biological system, eg, genes, transcripts, proteins, metabolites, and cells, to simulate and analyze networks and pathways and the spatial and temporal relations that exist in biological systems. The term -omics represents the rigorous study of various collections of molecules, biological processes, or physiologic functions and structures as systems, represented most prominently by genomics. In the field of nutrition, had a systems approach been applied to evaluating the effect of vitamin A status on mortality rates in young children in developing countries, it might not have taken 20 y to go from the initial epidemiologic observations to global vitamin A supplementation programs. Better understanding of the functional biology of retinoids on different tissues that mediate host resistance to infection, and their synergistic interactions in biological, metabolic, and functional terms, could have provided a plausible mechanism for the observed effect on mortality. There are 3 policy take-home messages: 1) When controversies exist, invest in the science needed to sort them out. 2) Increase the amounts of money available for health research and interventions relevant to developing countries. 3) Ensure that policymakers understand the issues and why they are important and understand the science and its relevance.