In this one-year certificate program you will learn the theory necessary to work in the field of natural gas and propane installation, studying codes-of-practice, electrical controls and devices, fuel gas piping, metering devices, and heating systems.


AIMS To estimate the incidence of corneal melting or necrotising keratitis in association with systemic disease in the Yorkshire Region and to determine the type and duration of the systemic association. METHODS In a prospective study, vigorous attempts were made to identify all patients presenting with newly diagnosed corneal melting over a 3 year period. RESULTS 27 patients were identified during the study period. Rheumatoid arthritis and Wegener's granulomatosis were the most common disease associations. Corneal melting was a late complication of rheumatoid arthritis, but usually occurred during early and overt systemic disease in patients with Wegener's granulomatosis. CONCLUSION The annual incidence of corneal melting in the Yorkshire Region is 3.01/million/year (95% CI = 0.7–9.6).


Content-based publish / subscribe (CBPS) systems are a natural substrate for context-aware applications because they provide the right separation of concerns, efficient event distribution, extensibility, and scalability. However, the separation of concerns afforded by CBPS middleware precludes publishers from collaborating with each other to efficiently detect context-aware conditions for publication as events. We overcome this problem with an open implementation approach, which enables subscribers to attach a domain-specific implementation strategy to their context-aware subscriptions. Strategies are supported by first-class active subscriptions that can deploy lower-order dynamic publisher / publisher cross-subscriptions where events enter the CBPS system. By exchanging data on an as-needed basis, event traffic can be dramatically reduced. Our algorithm for detecting the proximity of mobile buddies reduces event traffic from O( |events| ) to O( |movement| ) worst case, O( lg₂|movement| ) expected. Experiments reveal an 81% reduction with current positioning technologies.


ABSTRACT This paper focuses on time-space characterization of drought conditions in the São Francisco River catchment, on the basis of wavelet analysis of Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) time series. In order to improve SPI estimation, the procedures for regional analysis with L-moments were employed for defining statistically homogeneous regions. The continuous wavelet transform was then utilized for extracting time-frequency information from the resulting SPI time series in a multiresolution framework and for investigating possible teleconnections of these signals with those obtained from samples of the large-scale climate indexes ENSO and PDO. The use of regional frequency analysis with L-moments resulted in improvements in the estimation of SPI time series. It was observed that by aggregating regional information more reliable estimates of low frequency rainfall amounts were obtained. The wavelet analysis of climate indexes suggests that the more extreme dry periods in the study area are observed when the cold phase of both ENSO and the PDO coincides. While not constituting a strict cause effect relationship, it was clear that the more extreme droughts are consistently observed in this situation. However, further investigation is necessary for identifying particularities in rainfall patterns that are not associated to large-scale climate anomalies.


With General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced, many online advertising practices were affected as data-driven techniques were inhibited by missing user consents. Meanwhile, the IAB Europe introduced the Transparency and Consent Framework to adapt the GDPR requirements into the online advertising ecosystem and provide support in handling consent management for involved actors. In this paper, the impact of the new framework from a programmatic advertising campaign perspective is reflected from a practitioner point of view and implications of missing user consent in five typical techniques which are applied in programmatic campaigns (targeting, retargeting, frequency capping, frequency tracking and cross-device targeting) are addressed and also viewed from an e-commerce perspective. The discussion indicates potential losses in the effectiveness of the applied techniques as well as a potential shift in the market towards walledgarden DSPs such as Google or Facebook. It further provides awareness to raise the potential implications addressed and open future work in this regard.


Abstract The effect of high temperatures on growth, yield and dry-matter production of rice growing in the paddy field was examined during the whole growth period in a temperature gradient chamber (TGC) from 2002 to 2006. Experimental plots, TG1 (control), TG2, TG3 and TG4, were arranged along the temperature gradient (from low to high temperature) in TGC. The mean and maximum air-temperatures in TG4 were 2.0 –3.6ºC and 4.0º7.0ºC higher, respectively, than those in TG1. The plant height was taller and the maximum tillering stage was earlier in TG2, TG3 and TG4 than in TG1. Plant dry weight at maturity in TG2 and TG3 was 12.8−16.4% heavier than that in TG1. In TG4, the increase in the panicle dry weight during the ripening period was smallest and plant dry weight at maturity was 11–16% heavier than that in TG1. The increase in plant dry-matter during the ripening period was smallest in TG4. The decrease in the dry weight of stem and leaf during the ripening period, which represents the amount of assimilate translocation to the panicle, was also larger in TG2-4 than in TG1. The increase in the dry weight of stem in TG2-4 at maturity was also larger than that in TG1. The photosynthetic rate in TG2-4 was up to 35.6% lower than that in TG1 because of the acceleration of leaf senescence. Brown rice yield in TG4 was 6.6−39.1% lower than that in TG1. This yield decline was due to the decrease in the percentage of ripened grains and increase in the percentage of sterile spikelets. The relation between brown rice yield and mean air-temperature during 20 days after heading showed that the brown rice yield declined when mean air-temperature exceeded 28ºC.


BACKGROUND
Gianotti-Crosti syndrome (GCS) or infantile papular acrodermatitis presents as a symmetric erythematous lichenoid papular and papulovesicular eruption of the face, extremities, and buttocks, usually occurring in young children. GCS has been associated with hepatitis B and enteroviruses, as well as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and, rarely, cytomegalovirus.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to use immunohistochemical studies to determine the pattern of the lymphoid infiltrate and evidence for viral antigens in cases of EBV-associated GCS.

METHODS
Routine histologic and immunohistochemical stains were evaluated in 3 patients with typical GCS. All 3 patients showed serologic evidence of an acute EBV infection. The immunohistochemical studies included monoclonal antibodies for CD3, CD4, CD8, CD20, TIA, S-100 protein, KP-1, EBV latent membrane antigen-1, and EBV-encoded nuclear antigen-2.

RESULTS
All biopsy specimens showed minimal epidermal spongiosis with marked papillary dermal edema. The associated inflammatory infiltrate showed a mixed mononuclear cell infiltrate with rare eosinophils. Immunohistochemical stains for latent membrane antigen-1 and EBV-encoded nuclear antigen-2 were negative for EBV. The majority of mononuclear cells showed membrane staining for CD3, 30% to 40% of the CD3 mononuclear cells showed positive staining for CD4, and 50% to 60% showed positive staining with CD8. TIA(+) cells appeared to correspond to the CD8(+) cells.

CONCLUSION
Although papillary dermal edema has been reported within the spectrum of histologic findings in GCS, it was marked and a consistent finding in the 3 cases in which EBV was the most likely etiologic agent. The presence of large numbers of cytotoxic T cells in the inflammatory infiltrate may have accentuated this histologic finding and may be a relatively distinctive histologic finding with GCS associated with EBV.


AIMS
The molecular mechanisms of triptolide responsible for its antitumor properties are not yet fully understood. The ubiquitin/proteasome system is an important pathway of protein degradation in cells. This study investigated whether triptolide may inhibit proteasomal activity and induce apoptosis in human cancer cells.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In vitro proteasome inhibition was measured by incubation of a purified 20S proteasome with triptolide. Human breast and prostate cancer cell lines were also treated with different doses of triptolide for different times, followed by measurement of proteasome inhibition (levels of the chymotrypsin-like activity, ubiquitinated proteins and three well-known proteasome target proteins, p27, IκB-α and Bax) and apoptosis induction (caspase-3 activity and PARP cleavage).

RESULTS
Triptolide did not inhibit the chymotrypsin-like activity of purified 20S proteasome. However, treatment of triptolide was able to cause decreased levels of cellular proteasomal chymotrypsin-like activity and accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins and three well-known proteasome target proteins in human breast and prostate cancer cells, associated with apoptosis induction.

CONCLUSION
It is possible that at least one of metabolites of triptolide has proteasome-inhibitory activity.


Purpose: We describe surgical outcomes in a single-surgeon, consecutive series of patients who received scleral buckle placement for primary retinal detachment using a modified external needle drainage technique. Methods: Eighty-two eyes of 80 patients with primary retinal detachment underwent scleral buckle placement with modified external needle drainage. Preoperative, postoperative, and surgical data were collected. Regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between preoperative clinical data and number of surgeries. Results: The retinal detachment most commonly involved 41% to 50% of the retina. Seventy-six eyes (92.7%) were repaired after 1 surgical procedure, 98.8%, after 2 procedures, and 100%, after 3 procedures. No preoperative clinical variables were found to be significantly correlated with the number of surgeries performed. Vision improved an average of 0.3 logarithm of the minimal angle of resolution or 3 lines of vision (P < 0.001). One eye (1.2%) developed a localized subretinal hemorrhage at the drainage site that resolved spontaneously. Conclusions: The modified external needle drainage technique used during scleral buckle placement appears to be safe and effective in patients with primary retinal detachment.


There is a general acceptance that global changes associated with natural hazards and socioeconomic processes are occurring at a faster pace than ever, with deep implications in terms of risk exposure and environmental impact. The capacity of coastal areas to adapt and react to these changes will be a key factor in the future preservation of life standards and represents a great challenge for politicians, scientists and professionals at any level. Within the large scope of Theseus Project (EU 7th Framework Program), one of the main objectives is to design a tool to help decision makers in defining optimal strategies to minimize risks within a certain city or coastal area in a three-fold sense: economic losses, human damages and environmental impacts. The resulting software, the Theseus-DSS, links the most relevant physical processes (waves, sea-levels, hard and soft structures, coastal erosion and inland flooding) with the potential impact zones (marine and inland), considering their functions (ecosystems) and uses (economic units), and the dependence of this functions and uses upon the prevailing physical conditions. The new software tries to fill a gap among the existing tools, based on the following pillars: • Seamless integration of disciplines: physics, engineering, ecology, social sciences and economy. • Intermediate spatial scales (1- 10 km) and medium-to- long time spans (1-10 years). • Decision-making based on a balance between deterministic models and expert, discussion-based assumptions. The user of the Theseus-DSS will be able either to check the consequences of predefined scenarios at a particular study site, or to create user-defined scenarios, run them and compare the results with other scenarios. The results are expressed, locally and at an aggregate level, in the three aforementioned dimensions: economic losses (Cyear), mean annual expected live losses (persons/year) and impact on habitats (null, low, medium and high).


The prevalence of overweight and obesity in young people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) now parallels that of the general population. Excess adiposity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, which is already elevated up to 10-fold in T1D, underscoring a compelling need to address weight management as part of routine T1D care. Sustainable weight management requires both diet and physical activity (PA). Diet and PA approaches must be optimized towards the underlying metabolic and behavioral challenges unique to T1D to support glycemic control throughout the day. Diet strategies for people with T1D need to take into consideration glycemic management, metabolic status, clinical goals, personal preferences, and sociocultural considerations. A major barrier to weight management in this high-risk population is the challenge of integrating regular PA with day-to-day management of T1D. Specifically, exercise poses a substantial challenge due to the increased risk of hypoglycemia and/or hyperglycemia. Indeed, about two-thirds of individuals with T1D do not engage in the recommended amount of PA. Hypoglycemia presents a serious health risk, yet prevention and treatment often necessitates the consumption of additional calories, which may prohibit weight loss over time. Exercising safely is a concern and challenge with weight management and maintaining cardiometabolic health for individuals living with T1D and many healthcare professionals. Thus, a tremendous opportunity exists to improve exercise participation and cardiometabolic outcomes in this population. This article will review dietary strategies, the role of combined PA and diet for weight management, current resources for PA and glucose management, barriers to PA adherence in adults with T1D, as well as findings and lessons learned from the Advancing Care for Type 1 Diabetes and Obesity Network (ACT1ON).


BACKGROUND
Bone metastasis is one of the most common complications of Prostate cancer (PCa). The detection of distal bone metastasis at the time of initial PCa diagnosis is valuable for the determination of therapeutic methods and for the prognosis of PCa. Many current therapeutic methods target PCa bone metastasis, but no uniform evaluation standard for therapeutic efficacy has been established; in addition, traditional therapeutic evaluation standards that rely on changes in the measured tumor volume are quite controversial. In clinical practice, the volumes of some tumors often change nonsignificantly at the early stage of therapy (especially targeted therapy),while the volumes of other tumors, such as metastatic bone lesions, are difficult to measure. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) not only reflects the diffusion characteristics of tissues but can also allow the analysis of microstructural and functional changes in tissues. Therefore, DWI is suitable for evaluations of early responses to tumor therapy.

OBJECTIVE
This study mainly reviews the principle of DWI and its progress in the detection and therapy evaluation of PCa bone metastasis.

METHODS
PubMed was searched to identify eligible articles up to December 26, 2020. The keywords of the analysis included DWI, PCa, bone metastasis, therapeutic response, targeted therapy, bone scintigraphy (BS), positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

RESULTS
This review based on collected articles achieved an imaging biomarker for detection and therapy evaluation of PCa bone metastasis.

CONCLUSION
DWI is a promising imaging method for the detection and therapeutic evaluation of PCa bone metastases.


The NE Atlantic Ocean opened progressively between Greenland and NW Europe during the Cenozoic. Seafloor spreading occurred along three ridge systems: the Reykjanes Ridge south of Iceland, the Mohns Ridge north of the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone (JMFZ), and the Aegir and Kolbeinsey Ridges between Iceland and the JMFZ. At the same time, compressional structures developed along the continental margin of NW Europe. We investigate how these compressional structures may have resulted from variations in the amount and direction of seafloor spreading along the ridge system. Assuming that Greenland is rigid and stationary, we have used a least squares method of palinspastic restoration to calculate differences in direction and rate of spreading along the Reykjanes, Kolbeinsey/Aegir and Mohns Ridges. The restoration generates relative rotations and displacements between the oceanic segments and predicts two main periods of left‐lateral strike slip along the main oceanic fracture zones: (1) early Eocene to late Oligocene, along the Faeroe Fracture Zone and (2) late Eocene to early Oligocene and during the Miocene, along the JMFZ. Such left‐lateral motion and relative rotation between the oceanic segments are compatible with the development of inversion structures on the Faeroe‐Rockall Plateau and Norwegian Margin at those times and probably with the initiation of the Fugløy Ridge in the Faeroe‐Shetland Basin during the Eocene and Oligocene. The Iceland Mantle Plume appears to have been in a position to generate differential seafloor spreading along the NE Atlantic and resulting deformation of the European margin.


Combining dynamic renormalization with equation-free computational tools, we study the apparently asymptotically self-similar evolution of void distribution dynamics in the diffusion-deposition problem proposed by Stinchcombe and Depken [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 125701 (2002)]. We illustrate fixed point and dynamic approaches, forward as well as backward in time; these can be used to accelerate simulators of glassy dynamic phenomena.


In order to evaluate the effect of nitrogen and herbicide management on distribution patterns of lambsquarters seed bank, an experiment was conducted in a grain corn field at the Agricultural Research Station, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad 2006 growing season.Treatments consisted of application of: 25 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting with 2,4-D+MCPA herbicide(533 g. ai./ha 2.4.D+467 g. ai./ha MCPA), 25 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting without herbicide, 25 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting and six-leaf stage with herbicide, 25 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting and six-leaf stage without herbicide, 120 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting with herbicide, 120 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting without herbicide 120 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting and six-leaf stage with herbicide and 120 kg/ha nitrogen fertilizer at the time of corn planting and six-leaf stage without herbicide. Application of herbicide was useful in reducing the amount of lambsquaters seed bank. Semivariograms of seeds were fitted with spherical and exponential models.Semivariogram analysis in the levels of treatments indicated a range of influence of 0.88m to 45.12 m . The highest spatial correlation was 0.093% and the lowest was 28.81%. Weed seed bank patches was obvious in maps. Although the nitrogen fertilizer had no strong effect on reducing the amount of seed bank , the application of 2,4-D+MCPA was a useful practice in reducing weed seed bank.


OBJECTIVE
We present a retrospective histopathological study of 345 liver biopsies over a 12-year period. The study sought to record the frequencies of the range of histopathological changes observed in liver biopsy specimens.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
the materials consisted of slides and paraffin embedded blocks of all liver biopsy specimens received from within and outside the hospital. The clinical data such as the age, sex, and clinical summary were extracted from the request forms.

RESULTS
there were 222 males and 123 females; M: F=1.8:1; peak age incidence of 41-50 years. The three common histopathological diagnoses were hepatocellular carcinoma-33%, chronic hepatitis-17.7%, and liver cirrhosis-17.7%. Thirty per cent of hepatocellular carcinoma was post-cirrhotic. The peak age incidence of chronic hepatitis precedes that of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma by one decade.

CONCLUSION
the common forms of liver disease diagnosed histologically are hepatocellular carcinoma, chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis. The age and sex distribution are similar to those already established in the African literature.


Following a rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia, it was noted that the peak airway pressure was 30cmHlO. A thoracic epidural was then sited with the patient in the left lateral position. On returning to the supine position, the peak airway pressure had increased to 35 cmH?O, the abdomen was notably more distended and venous congestion was present in the upper thorax, arms, head and neck. The peak airway pressure rose further.to 40 cmH20. The tracheal tube was confirmed to be patent and the trachea further deviated to the right. There was air entry throughout the right side of the chest and at the left apex. Bowel sounds were still audible in the left hemithorax. A diagnosis of acute superior vena cava obstruction was made. It was considered that intra-abdominal pressure should be reduced as quickly as possible to reduce diaphragmatic splinting and the mediastinal shift. A 14 guage intravenous cannula was introduced through the abdominal wall by the surgeon. This resulted in an audible hiss and immediate release of a tension pneumoperitoneum. Peak airway pressure decreased to 25 cmH20, venous congestion resolved and tracheal deviation reduced. A Hartmann's resection was performed. Histological examination confirmed Hirschsprungs disease of the distal colon. Tension pneumoperitoneum as a cause of superior vena cava obstruction has not previously been reported and in this patient occurred following a critical increase in mediastinal shift. The presence of gas under the diaphragm confirmed that there was a bowel perforation. The large bowel was extremely distended with gas under pressure. Nitrous oxide was avoided. It appeared that the act of turning the patient for insertion of the epidural catheter allowed further release of intraluminal bowel gas which caused further rise in the intraperitoneal pressure. This was transmitted to the chest and caused a critical mediastinal shift and suprior vena cava obstruction which both resolved on abdominal decompression.


I Propose to consider two kinds of determination and differentiation which have been studied in the hemipteron Rhodnius prolixus . (i) The determination of the cell or group of cells, with their subsequent differentiation to produce a given part of the body, (ii) The determination or control of the characters of that part—whether these are to be juvenile (larval) or adult (imaginal). Discussion of this second type of determination will require consideration of the role of hormones in controlling differentiation in insects. The integument of the abdomen in the Rhodnius larva consists of a single layer of epidermal cells and the overlying cuticle. At regular intervals the cuticle is modified to form little plaques each of which bears an innervated bristle (Wigglesworth, 1933). The cuticle is pierced at intervals by the ducts of dermal glands: these form a cluster of 4 or 5 around each plaque, with occasional single glands in the clear space between (Wigglesworth, 1947) (Fig. 3, A).


The simulation of N-body systems has been used extensively in biophysics and chemistry to investigate the dynamics of biomolecules, and in astrophysics to study the chaotic characteristics of the galactic system. However, the long-range force calculation has a time complexity of O(N/sup 2/), where N is the number of particles in the system. The fast multipole algorithm (FMA), proposed by Greengard and Rokhlin (1987), reduces the time complexity to O(N). Our goal is to build a parallel FMA library which is portable, scalable and efficient. We use the Message Passing Interface (MPI) as the communication back-end. Also, an effective communication scheme to reduce the communication overhead and a partitioning technique to obtain good load balancing among the processors were implemented into the library.


This paper presents the first programmable Lattice- Reduction Aided (LRA) symbol detector for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). The detector proposed is implemented using 65 nm ASIC technologies. Owing to the programmability, the detector can be dynamically switched between linear (e.g. MMSE) and lattice-reduction aided (e.g. LRA-MMSE) detectors by simply running another software subroutine. Therefore, it allows a good trade-off between performance and computational latency to be achieved under various scenarios. Along with the hardware, two algorithm simplifications (SCNT-LR and SOT-LR) are proposed for finding subcarriers with ill- conditioned channel matrices. And in the end, interpolated LR (I- LR) is proposed to further reduce the computational complexity for real-time implementations.


This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurs' personal income tax situations on their capital investment decisions. We examine the income tax returns of a sample of sole proprietors before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and determine how the substantial reductions in marginal tax rates for the relatively affluent associated with that law affected their decisions to invest in physical capital. We find that individual income taxes exert a statistically and quantitatively significant influence on investment decisions. In our sample increase in marginal tax rates would reduce the proportion of entrepreneurs who make new capital investments by 10.4 percent, and decrease mean investment expenditures by 9.9 percent.


Geometrically continuous splines are piecewise polynomial functions defined on a collection of patches which are stitched together through transition maps. They are called $G^{r}$-splines if, after composition with the transition maps, they are continuously differentiable functions to order $r$ on each pair of patches with stitched boundaries. This type of splines has been used to represent smooth shapes with complex topology for which (parametric) spline functions on fixed partitions are not sufficient. In this article, we develop new algebraic tools to analyze $G^r$-spline spaces. We define $G^{r}$-domains and transition maps using an algebraic approach, and establish an algebraic criterion to determine whether a piecewise function is $G^r$-continuous on the given domain. In the proposed framework, we construct a chain complex whose top homology is isomorphic to the $G^{r}$-spline space. This complex generalizes Billera-Schenck-Stillman homological complex used to study parametric splines. Additionally, we show how previous constructions of $G^r$-splines fit into this new algebraic framework, and present an algorithm to construct a bases for $G^r$-spline spaces. We illustrate how our algebraic approach works with concrete examples, and prove a dimension formula for the $G^r$-spline space in terms of invariants to the chain complex. In some special cases, explicit dimension formulas in terms of the degree of splines are also given.


We describe a massive polymorphism for shell colour and pattern in Donmilla cornea, a shallow-burrowing bivalve which inhabits the mid-littoral of sandy and stony beaches in southern and western Europe. Of the four sites studied, the one where the substrate was a mixture of small stones and sand contained the highest densities of Donadla. At this site the densities of stones and animals and the frequencies of shell and stone colour phenotypes are both highly correlated. Although the four populations sampled comprise a similar range of phenotypes, the frequencies of most morphs and population diversity indices differ siwcantly between sites. At two sites the similar range of colour and pattern variation between shells and substrate suggests selection for crypsis and masquerade. On the other hand, at two other sites, one or two common phenotypes (and a number of rare ones at all sites) fail to mimic any aspect of the background. We therefore suggest that if frequency-dependent selection by predators is responsible for the maintenance of polymorphism in Donmilla, then the mechanisms involved include crypsis and masquerade in some cases and selective advantages from being different in others.


Primary care physicians rely on specialists. Specialists are too expensive to be located at every clinical site requiring a practical means for specialists to help without requiring patients or specialists to travel for consultation. To address the challenge of providing primary care physician access to specialists, we are developing a clinical prototype system for the high-speed access and transfer of patient data and images within Radiology Departments, Medical Centers and Health Care Networks. The key components of the system are: a high-bandwidth network (100 Mbit/s upgradeable to ATM); an image server system with a 30-60 day patient image on-line archive ( < 10 sec. recall) coupled with a long term archive; viewing consoles matching existing film display paradigms located within the medical center and clinics providing rapid access to patient data and diagnostic images for house staff (OR/ER/ICU); clinician access to the image archive on a consultation basis in office computers; and image review applications which closely follow the established paradigms used by clinicians. Using our system primary care physicians can rapidly review patient data locally obtaining additional consultation from tertiary sites while the patient is present. Clinics and outlying medical centers gain rapid access to specialists with physicians in different cities discussing patient diagnostic and management issues in a shared environment leading to instantaneous data analysis and diagnosis further reducing health care costs and enhancing patient care.


The Superconducting Submillimeter‐Wave Limb‐Emission Sounder (SMILES) onboard the International Space Station provided global measurements of ozone profiles in the middle atmosphere from 12 October 2009 to 21 April 2010. We present validation studies of the SMILES version 2.1 ozone product based on coincidence statistics with satellite observations and outputs of chemistry and transport models (CTMs). Comparisons of the stratospheric ozone with correlative data show agreements that are generally within 10%. In the mesosphere, the agreement is also good and better than 30% even at a high altitude of 73 km, and the SMILES measurements with their local time coverage also capture the diurnal variability very well. The recommended altitude range for scientific use is from 16 to 73 km. We note that the SMILES ozone values for altitude above 26 km are smaller than some of the correlative satellite datasets; conversely the SMILES values in the lower stratosphere tend to be larger than correlative data, particularly in the tropics, with less than 8% difference below ~24 km. The larger values in the lower stratosphere are probably due to departure of retrieval results between two detection bands at altitudes below 28 km; it is ~3% at 24 km and is increasing rapidly down below.


We use a Monte Carlo technique together with a simple model for the distribution of dust in M31 to investigate the observability and spatial distribution of classical novae in M31. By comparing our model positions of novae to the observed positions, we conclude that most M31 novae come from the disk population, rather than from the bulge population as has been thought. Our results indicate that the M31 bulge–to–disk nova ratio is as low as, or lower than, the M31 bulge–to–disk mass ratio. Subject headings: dust, extinction — galaxies: individual (M31) — novae, cataclysmic variables


Despite the acknowledged importance of frugivores as seed dispersal agents we still lack a general understanding of the mechanisms by which these animals could shape plant populations and communities. We used a spatially explicit stochastic simulation to explore how frugivore movement decisions interact with landscape properties, thus affecting plant population dynamics through dispersal. The model simulated bird movement, foraging, seed deposition and plant recruitment. We assumed that plants lived only for one season and that recruitment was a function of local seed density. We also considered the effect of perches as non-food landscape features. Our simulation experiments consisted in varying the parameters governing bird foraging decisions in relation to 1) how fruit abundance biased their movement, and 2) how the willingness to visit a plant or perch decreased with distance to current location. Simulated plant population dynamics was strongly influenced by bird behavior. The scale of foraging decisions had a much stronger effect on plant dynamics than biases due to fruit abundance. Birds tended to concentrate their activities in the center of the landscape where plants became more abundant, increasing local competition. The presence of perches reduced this tendency resulting in larger population sizes. The importance of perches highlights the fact that behaviors other than foraging can have a strong impact on the patterns of seed deposition and hence on plant population dynamics. Several recent studies have combined animal movement data with seed retention time in order to predict seed dispersal kernels. These studies usually emphasize the ecological implications of the scale and shape of such kernels. However, our simulation results reveal that movement directionality and the fact that birds moved mostly among plants and perches can have a major impact on plant population dynamics.


THE PROBLEM OF WEAKNESS IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL EDUCATION The problem of moral weakness is not only among the most ancient and intractable problems of moral philosophy and psychology, but is also one which would seem to have considerable significance for the theory and practice of moral education; after all, no moral education which enabled young people to reason effectively to correct moral decisions or conclusions, but left them ill-equipped to act appropriately, could be considered entirely successful. The commonly acknowledged difficulties of weakness also clearly have their original source in the Socratic identification of virtue with knowledge, and are seriously exacerbated by Plato's subsequent dualist separation of the intelligible realm of mind and cognition from the sensible realm of body and sense experience. Nearer our own time, however, a similar separation of reason from experience in the moral sphere was to occur in the wake of the Cartesian restatement of dualism; Hume's general denial of the motivational power of human reason and his corresponding claim that the springs of moral action must therefore be affective rather than rational, was met by Kant's equally dualistic insistence that moral motives must be entirely untainted by natural inclination and grounded in the nature of practical reason alone.


A series of silicon-containing arylacetylene resins containing polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (PS resins) were synthesized by the hydrosilylation reaction between poly(dimethylsilyleneethynylenephenyleneethynylene) (PMSEPE) and octakis(dimethylsiloxy)octasilsesquoixane ( ) in the presence of a platinum catalyst (Pt-dvs). The chemical structures and properties of PS resins were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, rheological analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, dielectric measurement, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy. The results show that PS resins can be crosslinked to form thermosets at temperatures less than 260°C. With the increment of , the dielectric constants of the thermosets gradually decrease from 2.91 to 2.73. The thermooxidative stabilities of PMSEPE thermosets are obviously improved with the incorporation of . POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:316–321, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers


A series of novel dual-responsive BN-embedded phenacenes were designed and synthesized, via N-directed borylation of donor–acceptor–donor (D–A–D) precursors as the key step. Their crystal structures, and photophysical and electrical properties were systematically studied, which were found to be highly dependent on the incorporated BN units and fused aromatic rings with varied electron density. For the first time, mechanochromic luminescent (MCL) properties of BN-embedded phenacenes were realized, which are regulated jointly by inter- and intra-molecular effects at the molecular level. In the solid state, their emission colors can be tuned reversibly by external force, and interestingly, they exhibit an unusual hypochromic shift after grinding. Furthermore, in solution, these BN-containing phenacenes enable colorimetric and fluorometric detection of fluoride ions with high selectivity and a low detection limit of down to 1.8 × 10−8 M. The dual-responsive properties of these compounds highlight the widespread applications of BN containing conjugated materials in optical sensors.


Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal forms of cancer with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. PDAC is highly resistant to chemotherapy, which impels search for novel approaches for treatment. Our group has previously shown in PDAC models that the angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) blocker losartan decreases desmoplasia and solid stress, which enhances blood flow, and improves the delivery and effectiveness of cytotoxic agents (Chauhan et al, Nature Comm 2013). In contrast to losartan, which had no effects on the growth of primary PDAC, we recently found that the AT1R blocker telmisartan significantly reduces the growth of PDAC. In addition to inhibiting AT1R activity telmisartan is also a partial agonist of Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor γ (PPARγ). We determined in a panel of PDAC cell lines the effects of telmisartan on cellular viability. Our findings suggest that the sensitivity to telmisartan treatment correlates with low steady-state expression of PPARγ and a mesenchymal morphology. Furthermore, telmisartan induced a transcriptional profile distinct from the response to the direct PPARγ agonist pioglitazone. In support of our correlative results, the genetic knockdown of PPARγ increased the sensitivity to telmisartan and stimulated epithelial to mesenchymal transition (e.g. decreased expression of E-cadherin, increased expression of the mesenchymal markers Snail and N-cadherin). We also tested the effects of telmisartan in orthotopically implanted and genetically engineered mouse models of PDAC. Telmisartan inhibited the growth of primary tumors, decreased the incidence of metastasis and improved mice survival. In summary, our findings show that telmisartan reduces the viability of PDAC cells with a mesenchymal morphology and low expression of PPARγ, inhibits PDAC growth and improves the survival of mice. Citation Format: Jelena Grahovac, Shiwei Han, Hao Liu, Rakesh Jain, Yves Boucher.{Authors}. The angiotensin receptor blocker telmisartan inhibits the growth of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and improves survival. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer: Advances in Science and Clinical Care; 2016 May 12-15; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(24 Suppl):Abstract nr B41.


R G Gidadhubli AFTER the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, Russia is in the process of formulating its own foreign policy. While the policy parameters of the former Soviet Union with regard to political and economic external relations have been discarded, a stable (specific and identifiable) policy framework of the post-Soviet Russian government is yet to lake shape, External economic relations of Russia under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin are characterised by de-ideologisation, keen desire to integrate with international economic institutions, interest to use good will and gains in external relations for achieving politico-economic objectives in domestic sphere and so on. In this background it is important to understand where does Asia stand in Russia's foreign policy and, particularly, in its economic policy? Is there a continuity or change in policy towards India after the disintegration of the Soviet Union which was a major partner of India in economic relations? What are the prospects for Russia' s economic relations with Asia in general and India in particular in the short and medium term? An effort has been made in this article 'to analyse these issues.


Background: Studies investigating the association between genetic polymorphisms of glutathione S-transferases (GST) and risk of adult brain tumors have reported conflicting results. The rationale of this meta-analysis was to determine whether GST variants increase the susceptibility of adult brain tumors by pooling data. Methods: Two investigators independently searched the HuGENet database, MEDLINE, EMBASE, conference articles, and manually reviewed bibliographies of retrieved articles. Papers were included if they were observational studies investigating the influence of GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTP1 I105V, or GSTP1 A114V on the development of adult brain cancers. Potential sources of heterogeneity between studies were explored in a meta-regression. Results: We identified eight eligible studies, which included 1,630 cases of glioma, 245 cases of meningioma, and 7,151 controls. Using the random effects model, there was no association between any of the GST variants and the risk of glioma [overall odds ratio (OR), 1.08; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.95-1.22]. Subgroup analyses also showed no relationship between GST variants and histopathologic groups; the overall ORs were 1.13 (95% CI, 0.88-1.43) for high-grade glioma and 1.08 (95% CI, 0.76-1.55) for low-grade glioma. A random effects meta-regression suggested that the use of in-hospital controls produced larger effect estimates in glioma than the use of population controls (overall OR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.03-1.65). The T1 null genotype was significantly associated with a risk of meningioma (OR, 1.95; 95% CI, 1.02-3.76), but the M1 variant was not. Conclusion: This study did not suggest any relationship between GST variants and risks of glioma; the T1 null genotype may influence the susceptibility of meningioma, but larger studies are needed to substantiate this relationship.


The article features a method of evaluation of individual fitness of children aged 10-14 at football classes involving the use of the "E-journal Football" computer program, taking into consideration children's health condition, age, gender, morpho-functional and mental health characteristics. «E-journal Football" computer program has been described in terms of evaluation of academic progress efficiency during football lessons. Additionally, the program may also assess technical aspects of children' activities based on their anthropometric, psychophysical and musculoskeletal characteristics. In total, 212 children aged 10–14 took part in the study. They were subdivided into two groups – the experimental group (EG) with 53 boys and 53 girls and the control group (CG) with 54 boys and 52 girls. The traditional methods based on the average indices of preliminary qualification used to teach movements in football have been applied in CG, while the other group employed the methods based on "E-journal Football" computer program considering the children's age, gender and physical characteristics. The implementation of the developed method of evaluation of children's individual physical preparedness at football classes based on the use of "E-journal Football" computer program resulted in improvement of the children's psycho-emotional health and motor functions. It was concluded that according to all performance indicators of children's physical fitness during football classes, there was a clear increase in certain indicators in the experimental group compared with those in the control group (p<0.05): for example, keeping the ball indicators among the boys in EG rose by 7% against those of 4.5% in CG; similarly, the girls in EG showed a 7.3% increase in keeping the ball compared with only 5.5% in CG. Stopping the ball performance showed the improvement of 23.5% and 12.3% among the boys in EG and CG correspondingly, while the girls demonstrated 32% and 12.2% in EG and CG correspondingly. The application of the experimental method of evaluation of children's individual fitness at football classes with the use of informational-communication technologies (ICT) resulted in children's increased motivation to physical education regardless age and gender, which improved general performance in football classes.


Abstract Bloms, LP, Fitzgerald, JS, Short, MW, and Whitehead, JR. The effects of caffeine on vertical jump height and execution in collegiate athletes. J Strength Cond Res 30(7): 1855–1861, 2016—Caffeine ingestion elicits a variety of physiological effects that may be beneficial to maximal-intensity exercise performance, although its effectiveness and physical mechanism of action enhancing ballistic task performance are unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of caffeine ingestion on vertical jump height and jump execution in Division I collegiate athletes. The study used a single-blind, randomized, crossover design. Athletes (n = 25) consumed either caffeine (5 mg·kg−1) or placebo. After a 60-minute waiting period, athletes performed 3 squat jumps (SJ) and 3 countermovement jumps (CMJ) while standing on a force platform. Jump height and execution variables were calculated from mechanography data. In comparison with placebo, caffeine increased SJ height (32.8 ± 6.2 vs. 34.5 ± 6.7 cm; p = 0.001) and CMJ height (36.4 ± 6.9 vs. 37.9 ± 7.4 cm; p = 0.001). Peak force (p = 0.032) and average rate of force development (p = 0.037) were increased during the CMJ in the caffeine trail compared with the control. Time to half peak force was the only execution variable improved with caffeine (p = 0.019) during the SJ. It seems that caffeine affects both height and execution of jumping. Our data indicate that the physical mechanism of jump enhancement is increased peak force production or rate of force development during jumping depending on technique. The physical mechanism of jump enhancement suggests that the ergogenic effects of caffeine may transfer to other ballistic tasks involving the lower-body musculature in collegiate athletes.


From the perspective of surface science, only the topmost atomic layers usually exhibit physical properties that are different to those of the bulk material, whereas the deeper layers are assumed to be bulk-like and remain largely unexplored. Going beyond conventional diffraction and imaging techniques, we have determined the depth dependence of the full 3D spin structure of magnetic skyrmions below the surface of a bulk Cu2OSeO3 sample using the polarization dependence of resonant elastic x-ray scattering (REXS). While the bulk spin configuration showed the anticipated Bloch type structure, it was found that the skyrmion lattice changes to a Neel twisting (i.e., with a different helicity angle) at the surface within a distance of several hundred nm. The exact surface helicity angle and penetration length of this twist have been determined, revealing the detailed internal structure of the skyrmion tube. It was found that the experimental penetration length of the Neel twisting is 7× longer than the theoretical value given by the ratio of J/D. This indicates that apart from the considered spin interactions, i.e., the Heisenberg exchange interaction J and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction D, as well as the Zeeman interaction, other effects must play an important role. The findings suggest that the surface reconstruction of the skyrmion lattice is a universal phenomenon, stemming from the breaking of translational symmetry at the interface.


Due to climate change, different soil stresses are increasing continuously and they threat the world food security as they limit crop productivity. Therefore, this chapter aims at integrate information about the interaction between legumes and endophytes which will help to: deep understanding of the endophytes-legume relationship, draw attention to the possibilities to exploit this relationship in soil stress mitigation and unraveling what is need to be addressed in the future. The study reviewed the most recent previous scientific works in the field. For legumes tissue colonization, endophytes almost use the same routs which results in their presence in the same niches. Co-inoculation of these bacteria enhances plant growth directly and indirectly. Some endophytes characterized by stress tolerance which interact with legumes and mitigate the adverse effect of soil stresses like salinity, acidity/alkalinity, drought and heavy metal contamination. To reduce stress and enhance plant growth, legume-associated bacteria produce ACC deaminase and other compounds. The interaction process involves induction and expression of many legume-associated bacteria chromosomal and plasmid genes which indicates that this process is a genetic based. So isolation of stress tolerant legume-associated microbes and identification of the gene related to stress tolerance will aid in production of genetic engineered endophytes adaptive to different stresses. It is concluded that all soil stresses can be addressed by application of stress tolerant endophytes to the soil affected with environmental stresses which is sustainable and low cost approach. To maximize the benefit, searching for indigenous stress tolerant endophytes is recommended.


In her 1992 account of the genre Life Writing, Marlene Kadar suggests that writing is personal, even if it is not autobiographical; a writer will leave behind hints of themselves in the piece no matter their intention. The same can be said about film. This paper is interested in interrogating the relationship between celebrity and film reception. Looking closely at the impact of celebrity interviews in the affective understanding of film, this paper will examine the ways in which personal narratives interact with the marketing production of horror films. How might these stories aid in the production of empathy, sympathy, or compassion in relation to the violent narratives on screen? Within the context of film, the autobiographical elements are scattered across those who conceptualized, produced, directed, edited, and acted in the finished product we see on screen. Auteur theory has traced the connection between directors and writers of films to their overall reception and perception. As well, the connection of celebrity to the success of a film is mostly conceptualized within the financial success of the feature. This paper explores instead the connection of the actors in the writing of the films' story. The experience of actors is often highlighted during promotional interviews before and after the release of the film. These interviews are highly structured based on how the production team has designed the ways in which the film should be marketed. However, oftentimes these interviews reveal personal connections to the finished screen product that resonate within the experiences of those who see the film. This paper questions the compelling nature of these narratives. Further, how are the personal narratives upheld by celebrity important in not only the selling of the film and the creation of a fan culture – but also become inseparable from our ability to read the film?


Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) is a data decomposition technique enabling to discover meaningful latent nonnegative components. Since, however, the objective function of NMF is non-convex, the performance of the source separation can degrade when the iterative update of the basis matrix in the training procedure is stuck to a poor local minimum. In most of the previous studies, the whole basis matrix for a specific source is iteratively updated to minimize a certain objective function with random initialization although a few approaches have been proposed for the systematic initialization of the basis matrix such as the singular value decomposition and k-means clustering. In this paper, we propose an approach to robust bases estimation in which an incremental strategy is adopted. Based on an analogy between clustering and NMF analysis, we estimate the NMF bases in a similar way to the global k-means algorithm popular in the data clustering area. Experiments on audio source separation showed that the proposed methods outperformed the conventional NMF technique using random initialization by about 1.93 dB and 2.34 dB in signal-to-distortion ratio when the target source was speech and violin, respectively.


According to modern concepts based on results of examination of the gene expression profile examination, there are several subtypes of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL): germinal center B-cell-like (GCB) and activated B-cell-like (ABC) lymphomas. Genes c-MYC, BCL6, and BCL2 are key regulators of B-cell germinal (follicular) differentiation. Genetic abnormalities with their participation are most common in molecular pathogenesis of DLBCL. A total level of activity as well as mechanisms that lead to overexpression each of these genes and production of corresponding proteins have an impact on a disease prognosis. We assume that identification of c-MYC, BCL6, and BCL2 genes abnormalities as well as expression levels evalution of encoded proteins can allow to determine high risk DLBCL patients with great accuracy.


This article explores moral injury, a concept from military mental health professionals, which refers to the emotional effects on soldiers of actions taken as part of their military obligations that violate the dictates of their moral compass (Boudreau, 2011; Shay, 2011). This article will trace the history and current knowledge of moral injury and apply a social cognitive model of understanding the concept (Litz et al., 2009) to vignettes from the authors' civilian clinical practice, in the hope of raising awareness within clinical social work and other mental health professions of the complexities of moral injury. By brining the concept of moral injury into the mainstream social work arena, it is the authors' hope that clinicians will be able to distinguish it from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and understand the role of shame in the experience of moral injury in their own clients.


Injury of nerves of the lower extremity is the most prevalent complication associated with invasive treatment of varicose veins. These adverse events are particularly frequent after traditional surgical stripping and thermal ablative procedures. The most frequently injured nerves comprise the saphenous nerve, the sural nerve, and the anterior cutaneous branch of the femoral nerve. The high rate of injury to these nerves is primarily related to their close anatomical relationship with major trunks of the superficial venous system. The great saphenous vein is accompanied by two groups of sensory nerves. In its proximal part it runs along the anterior cutaneous branch of the femoral nerve. In some individuals, also the cutaneous branch of the obturator nerve is situated close to the proximal part of the great saphenous vein. The distal part of the great saphenous vein is accompanied by the saphenous nerve, a branch of the femoral nerve. The sural nerve, which typically consists of its medial and lateral branches, runs along the small saphenous vein. Also, during thermal ablation of the small saphenous vein the branches of the sciatic nerve containing motor fibres, the tibial and/or common peroneal nerves can also be injured. In this review the topographic anatomy of nerves accompanying the veins of the lower extremity is described. It is also discussed how to minimise the risk of these neurologic complications, knowing the topography, embryological development, and anatomical variability of veins and nerves in this part of the human body.


Prognosis in Patients With Transient Ischemic A ttacks • The prognosis on 144 patients with transient ischemic attacks was determined over a minimum period of three years by quantitating, at intervals, the number of attacks and also the neurological disability by means of a disability score. No patients had neurological disability at the initiation of the study. Total cervicocephalic angiography was performed on 93 patients. Seven of the 144 patients were deceased at the end of the three-year period, five of them due to strokes. Seventeen patients (15.6%) developed persistent neurological disability during the three years, with the mean disability score being much higher for the patients with carotid attacks than those with basilar attacks. The cumulative number of attacks in both carotid and basilar groups rose steadily in the first 18 months, with a much larger number of attacks occurring in the basilar group. The attack rate leveled off after 18 months in the carotid group. Attacks tended to be consistent in nature over a period of time. Twenty-eight percent of those patients with basilar attacks and 12.5% of those patients with carotid attacks showed carotid stenosis on angiography. Study of carotid stenosis associated with subsequent neurological disability revealed that increased risk occurred only when carotid stenosis was more than 70%. Additional


Interstitial pneumopathy (IP) usually appears in patients with systemic sclerosis (SS) and causes significant morbidity and mortality. A descriptive and prospective study was conducted among 46 patients that fulfilled the criteria of the American Rheumatology College to identify the forms of expression and detection of IP. Percentages were estimated, and the univariable analysis for centralization and dispersion measurements and the chi square tests (X2) of statistical significance were used. A mean age of 50.4 years old was found. A prevalence of females (88 %) and of white individuals (66 %) was observed. 20 patients (43.4%) had interstitial pneumopathy, whereas 100 % of the cases presented effort dyspnea, which was statistically significant (p=0.02). The respiratory function was affected in 75 % of the sick. According to high resolution computerized tomography of the lung, 50 % had ground glass pattern and 50 % honeycomb pattern, 66 % of the patients with IP had active bronchoalveolar lavage and of them, 88 % corresponded to those with ground glass pattern. It was concluded that interstitial pneumopathy was expressed in a high percentage of patients. Effort dyspnea was the most frequent symptom and the restrictive pattern predominated. CAT and the cytological study of bronchoalveolar lavage were key tools for the early diagnosis of IP.


The Monte Carlo particle numbering scheme presented here is intended to facilitate interfacing between event generators, detector simulators, and analysis packages used in particle physics. The numbering scheme was introduced in 1988 [1] and a revised version [2,3] was adopted in 1998 in order to allow systematic inclusion of quark model states which are as yet undiscovered and hypothetical particles such as SUSY particles. The numbering scheme is used in several event generators, e.g. HERWIG, PYTHIA, and SHERPA, and interfaces, e.g. /HEPEVT/ and HepMC. The general form is a 7–digit number: ±n nr nL nq1 nq2 nq3 nJ . This encodes information about the particle's spin, flavor content, and internal quantum numbers. The details are as follows:


Purpose: This study was done to examine the effects of lidocaine patch application to decrease pain and fear during blood sugar testing in elderly patients with DM. Methods: The participants were 56 elderly patients admitted to J geriatric hospital in G city, Korea. Of the elderly patient, 27 were assigned to the experimental group and 29 to the control group. Participants in the experimental group applied a lidocaine patch on the fingertip for 30 minutes before a blood sugar test. The control group applied a plaster on the fingertip. Pain was evaluated using a visual analogue scale and fear using the Procedure Behaviour Check List. The results were compared using paired t-test and t-test. Results: The scores for pain and fear were significantly lower in the experimental group compared to the control group. Conclusion: The lidocaine patch was found to be an effective local anesthetic to relieve pain and fear during blood sugar test in elderly patients with DM without any severe adverse events.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To elucidate whether a simple walking aid may improve physical performance in COPD patients with chronic respiratory insufficiency who usually carry their own heavy oxygen canister.

DESIGN
Randomized crossover trial.

SETTING
Physiopathology laboratory of three rehabilitation centers.

PATIENTS AND INTERVENTIONS
We studied 60 stable COPD patients (mean age, 70.6 +/- 7.9 years; FEV(1), 44.8 +/- 14.3% of predicted [+/- SD]) with chronic respiratory insufficiency who randomly performed, on 2 consecutive days, a standardized 6-min walking test using two different modalities: a full-weight oxygen canister transported using a small wheeled cart and pulled by the patient (Aid modality) or full-weight oxygen canister carried on the patient's shoulder (No-Aid modality).

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS
The distance walked, peak effort dyspnea, and leg fatigue scores as primary outcomes, and other cardiorespiratory parameters as secondary outcomes were recorded during both tests. A significant difference (p < 0.05) between the two tests occurred for all the measured outcomes in favor of the Aid modality. Most importantly, significant changes for distance (+ 43 m, p < 0.001), peak effort dyspnea (- 2.0 points, p < 0.001), leg fatigue (- 1.4 points, p < 0.001), as well as for mean and nadir oxygen saturation and heart rate with the Aid modality (but not with the No-Aid modality) were recorded in the subgroup of patients walking < 300 m at baseline.

CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that a simple walking aid may be helpful in COPD patients receiving long-term oxygen therapy, particularly in those with lower residual exercise capacity.


The paper deals with the impact of mining and processing operations on degradation of surrounding environment of one of the oldest lead-zinc mining complexes in India. It has been observed that the qualities of air, water and soil are influenced by mining and processing activities. Although the control system adopted in the mine seems to be effective in mitigating environmental pollution in most of the area but still there are few places where the control system is inadequate and requires improvement for restoration of the environmental quality.


The aim of this study is to explain the cooperative learning model supported with dynamic mathematics software which can be used in the teaching and learning of numbers and algebra learning area. For that purpose, the fundamentals of cooperative learning model and dynamic mathematics software were examined within the framework of relevant literature. The model was considered and evaluated within the framework of high school mathematics curriculum. In the model, GeoGebra, one of the dynamic mathematics software, was used as information and communication technology and student teams-achievement divisions was utilised as cooperative learning model. Considering the evaluations carried out, it was believed that using cooperative learning model supported with dynamic mathematics software in the teaching of numbers and algebra learning area would provide an active learning environment for students where conceptual learning is at the forefront, offer opportunities for students to study the multiple representations of algebraic concepts, and make contributions to students' affective development.


Abstract Current study was to evaluate the prevalence of guideline recommended medications adherence in myocardial infarction (MI) patients postpercutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and the association of medication nonadherence and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs). MI patients who underwent PCI in the last 12 months were enrolled. Demographic and clinical characteristics were collected and guideline recommended medications were evaluated. Patients were divided into with and without MACEs groups. Compared to patients without MACEs, those with MACEs were older (54.8 ± 16.4 vs 51.1 ± 15.2 years), more likely to be smoker (40.2% vs 31.9%), have higher body mass index (BMI; 25.0 ± 6.1 vs 23.8 ± 5.7 kg/m2), diabetes (47.5% vs 37.8%), ischemic stroke (34.4% vs 25.6%), and estimated lower glomerular filtration rate (85.4 ± 9.6 vs 92.6 ± 10.7 mL/minute/1.73 m2). Patients with MACEs were also more likely to present with ST-elevation MI (STEMI; 54.1% vs 48.4%) and to undergo urgent PCI (62.3% vs 56.3%). Furthermore, patients with MACEs were less likely to adhere to dual antiplatelet therapy (77.9% vs 85.9%), renin−angiotensin system inhibitor (62.3% vs 69.7%), and beta-blocker (69.7% vs 72.8%) treatment. In unadjusted model, medication nonadherence was associated with 2-fold higher odds of MACEs. After adjustment for demographics, risk factors, comorbidities, and peri-PCI characteristics, medications nonadherence remained independently associated with MACEs, with odds ratio of 1.40 (95% confidence interval: 1.29–1.87). Medications adherence rate among MI patients post-PCI is suboptimal in China, which is independently associated with MACEs.


Reducing poverty and social exclusion is one of the main challenges for ensuring social cohesion in Europe. The research project COPE – Combating Poverty in Europe: Re-organising Active Inclusion through Participatory and Integrated Modes of Multilevel Governance' – analyses trends of poverty and social exclusion in Europe, and examines the dynamics of minimum income protection policies that potentially help alleviate the risk of poverty in Europe. A particular focus is on the situation of single mothers, long-term unemployed and the working poor, who face particular risks of poverty and social exclusion. To what extent have minimum income policies functioned as last resort social security for these three groups, and in what sense can 'active inclusion' policies credited with protecting them from poverty and social exclusion? The present report is part of COPE's effort to uncover the dynamics of local level policy reforms in the area 'active inclusion', namely reforms affecting local policies that specify the adequacy of minimum income benefits, the provision of employment services, as well as the organisation of access to social services in Malmo. It focuses particularly on the three groups' single mothers, long-term unemployed persons, as well as the working poor. (Less)


This paper examines how personality factors influence attitudes towards counterfeiting of luxury brands and purchase intention. Attitudes towards counterfeiting of luxury brands is found to influence purchase intention. A factor analysis of the scale "attitudes towards counterfeiting of luxury brands" revealed two factors, which are "perceptions of counterfeits" and "social consequences". Status consumption and integrity are strong influencers of purchase intention, whereas personal gratification, value consciousness, and novelty seeking had weaker influencing relationships. The research findings can be used to formulate strategies to better counter counterfeiting.


Initial yields are used by institutional investors and investment managers to assess the pricing conditions of real estate markets. In contrast to commercial real estate, initial yields in the residential sector are hard to quantify, especially due to the lack of comparables. In the era of digitalisation and big data residential assets are mostly brought to the market via digital multiple listing systems. The paper develops semiparametric hedonic models for extracting the implicit information to calculate residential net initial yields for both a buyto-hold and rental investment strategy based on more than 3 million observations. The results are robust and confirm that the pricing conditions of residential markets are captured by the hedonic approach, enhancing the transparency in real estate markets.


This study aims to identify the influence of intellectual capital on product and process innovation. To do so, we have administered a survey to 68 firms that belong to the auto components sector, located in Northern Spain and Northern Portugal. In our study, we identified three dimensions within the intellectual capital components. Human capital: formation and knowledge creation, innovative attitude and innovate incentive; structural capital: culture of innovation, the trust and creation and knowledge development, finally, relational capital: collaboration networks, clients and alliances. The elements of intellectual capital with a direct and positive influence in the product-process innovativeness were the human capital and the relational capital. However, not all dimensions of these components have a direct and positive influence. Concerning human capital, only the innovative attitude and innovation incentive dimensions seem to directly and positively influence the product-process innovativeness. The relational capital has influence in the product-process innovativeness; only through clients and collaboration networks.


Abstract. In this paper, a modified genetic algorithm based on greedy sequential algorithm is presented to solve combinatorial optimization problem. The algorithm proposed here is a hybrid of heuristic and computational intelligence algorithm where greedy sequential algorithm is used as operator inside genetic algorithm like crossover and mutation. The greedy sequential function is used to correct non realizable solution after crossover and mutation which contribute to increase the rate of convergence and upgrade the population by improving the quality of chromosomes toward the chromatic number. Experiments on a set of 6 well-known DIMACS benchmark instances of graph coloring problem to test this approach show that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive results in comparison with three states of art algorithms in terms of either success rate and solution quality.


Nonstate actors exploit and, hence, challenge two basic assumptions that have grounded jus in bello since its inception: that it is possible to compartmentalize the battlefield and isolate with sufficient clarity, military from civilian targets and that there are clear objectives to any military campaign, such as gaining control over territory. With no tangible military objectives, regular armies are often tempted to simply capture or kill as many of their opponents as possible or to intimidate their opponents' non-combatant constituency. The essay argues that those concerned with the protection of non-combatants in such asymmetric conflicts should consider introducing jus ad bellum considerations in assessing compliance with jus in bello obligations.


Studies have examined how individual risk factors affect unmet health needs, but few have assessed how factors combine to create compounded risk. Using administrative and survey data from 1,897 publicly insured individuals in Minnesota, this study examines how diagnosed depression—a condition with established functional morbidity—moderates the association between seven common access barriers (e.g., transportation problems, lack of child care, clinic hours) and self-reported unmet health needs. Depression and access barriers were independently, positively associated with unmet need. Depression moderated barriers' effects: Number of barriers reported had a stronger association with unmet need for individuals with depression. Depressed individuals reporting all barriers had a 70 percent chance of unmet need. Subgroup differences for individual barriers suggest that depressed individuals' utilization patterns and functional limitations may shape their reactions to access barriers. Findings may inform improvements in public benefit designs and target the unique vulnerabilities associated with depression.


This study investigated the pharmacokinetics of thiamphenicol glycinate (TG) and thiamphenicol (TAP) in beagles (n = 6) after intravenous administration of 50 mg/kg TG hydrochloride. Plasma concentrations of TG and TAP were measured by a HPLC-UV method. Two-compartment model was selected to describe the pharmacokinetic characteristics of TG and TAP in vivo. Main parameters were as follows: AUC0–∞ of TAP and TG were 16,328 ± 1682 µg·min/mL and 3943 ± 546 µg·min/mL, respectively. The total plasma clearance (CL) of TG and TAP were 12.7 ± 2.0 mL/min/kg and 2.5 ± 0.3 mL/min/kg, respectively. Mean residence time (MRT) of TG and TAP were 27.5 ± 3.5 and 207.2 ± 20.2 min, respectively. The transformative rate constant (k1M) from TG to TAP was 0.0477 ± 0.0028 min−1. The elimination rate constant (kM10) from TAP was 0.0238 ± 0.0044 min−1. Coefficients of variation (CV) between observed values and predicted ones were 5.9% and 18.2%, respectively. The volume of distribution of the central compartment for TG (VC) and TAP (VCM) were 0.264 ± 0.022 L/kg and 0.127 ± 0.023 L/kg, respectively. Pharmacokinetic parameters suggested that TG was presumably cleaved quickly by tissue esterase to release TAP for effectiveness in beagles after administration.


Papaya milk, a mixture of papaya pulp and dairy milk, is one of the most popular beverages in Taiwan. However, the enzymes present in papaya can cause accumulation of hydrophobic amino acids, resulting in a bitter taste of papaya milk. Thus, it is important to select papaya cultivars without the potential to form the bitter taste, but it is difficult to select these papaya cultivars using a sensory test. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between the intensity of the bitterness with the contents of proteins and free amino acids. The results indicated that neither milk nor papaya alone tastes bitter. Heating the milk or the papaya before mixing and mixing only papaya latex with milk confirmed that an enzyme in papaya causes the bitter taste in papaya milk. The intensity of bitterness positively correlated with the contents of total soluble protein, free amino acids and the phenylalanine and tyrosine/tryptophan contents. Analyses using different papaya accessions in different seasons showed that tyrosine/tryptophan (r = 0.613***) and phenylalanine (r = 0.612***) correlate more strongly with bitterness intensity than the total soluble protein (r = 0.258*) or free amino acids (r = 0.38**). In this drink, milk provides the substrates to form the bitter substances, but the enzymes in the papaya are needed for the reaction to occur. The levels of the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine/tryptophan showed the highest correlation with the intensity of bitterness.


With the increasing importance of information both as a lifeline of organizational administration and decision-making and as a product in its own right, office automation systems have become a paramount management concern. Choosing the appropriate system from the many types available and getting the most out it requires a degree of specialized knowledge that is seldom available to busy managers and executives. This volume, the first in a series of handbooks on office automation systems planning and implementation, is designed for the planner who needs to know how to evaluate an organization's system requirements, develop an overall systems strategy, and choose and work with consultants and systems vendors.


No figure in American public life has had such great expectations thrust upon him, or has responded so poorly. But Ted Kennedy -- the youngest of the Kennedy children and the son who felt the least pressure to satisfy his father's enormous ambitions -- would go on to live a life that no one could have predicted: dismissed as a spent force in politics by the time he reached middle age, Ted became the most powerful senator of the last half century and the nation's keeper of traditional liberalism. As Peter S. Canellos and his team of Boston Globe reporters show in this revealing and intimate biography, the gregarious and least academically successful of the Kennedy boys has witnessed greater tragedy and suffered greater pressure than any of his siblings. Late one night in the summer of 1969, he left the scene of a fatal automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island. The death there of a young woman from his brother's campaign would haunt and ultimately doom his presidential ambitions. Political rivals turned his all-too-human failings -- drinking, philandering, and divorce -- into a condemnation of his liberal politics. But as the presidency eluded his grasp, Kennedy was finally liberated from the expectations of others, free to become his own man. Once a symbol of youthful folly and nepotism, he transformed himself in his later years into a symbol of wisdom and perseverance. And as his health failed, he anointed the young and ambitious presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom many commentators compared to his brother Jack. The Kennedy brand of liberalism was rediscovered by a new generation of Americans.


The Board of Governors presented its report on the Agency's work during its seventh year, covering the period from July 1, 1963, to June 30, 1964, to the eighth General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Noting that the membership of the Agency had increased from 82 to 87 during the year under review, the report listed the five new members: Algeria, Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Libya, and Nigeria. In its introduction, the report stated that the year had been marked by further notable improvement in the prospects for economically competitive nuclear power and by interesting developments with regard to the use of nuclear energy for desalinization. In accordance with a request of the General Conference, the Board had considered the question of financing IAEA's activities but had not been able to make any further recommendations.


This paper introduces a method to compute a sparse lattice planner control set that is suited to a particular task by learning from a representative dataset of vehicle paths. To do this, we use a scoring measure similar to the Fréchet distance and propose an algorithm for evaluating a given control set according to the scoring measure. Control actions are then selected from a dense control set according to an objective function that rewards improvements in matching the dataset while also encouraging sparsity. This method is evaluated across several experiments involving real and synthetic datasets, and it is shown to generate smaller control sets when compared to the previous state-of-the-art lattice control set computation technique, with these smaller control sets maintaining a high degree of manoeuvrability in the required task. This results in a planning time speedup of up to 4.31x when using the learned control set over the state-of-the-art computed control set. In addition, we show the learned control sets are better able to capture the driving style of the dataset in terms of path curvature.


It is important for paediatricians and neonatologists to keep in mind inborn errors of metabolism (IEMs) as a cause of illness in the neonatal period, as many disorders are treatable and, in most cases, successful outcome is dependent on a rapid diagnosis and early instigation of therapy. Even with untreatable disorders, it is important to establish the diagnosis in the index case in order to allow prenatal diagnosis in subsequent pregnancies. In desperately sick neonates for whom no diagnosis is readily available, IEMs are near the top of the list of differential diagnoses.

IEMs can present in the newborn in a variety of ways. Typically, an IEM is suspected as a result of a suggestive combination of acute clinical symptoms without any prior warning. However, sometimes non-specific clues exist, such as a previous unexplained neonatal death and, in some families, the risk of an IEM is already highlighted by the presence of a previously affected child. IEMs may be detected through the newborn screening programme, though at present phenylketonuria is the only disorder for which mass screening is accepted in the UK. Some IEMs result in dysmorphism, and the investigation of these cases is not complete without considering metabolic causes. Finally, disorders that normally manifest in older children may sometimes cause abnormalities in the newborn period.

Like all genetic disorders, IEMs are present from conception, and most defective enzymes are active in fetal life. Nevertheless, most conditions have no adverse consequences on the fetus, as the placenta provides an effective dialysis system for the removal of toxic metabolites. Thus most babies with an IEM are born in good condition and of normal birth weight. Some IEMs, such as galactosaemia, manifest only after the substrate for the deficient enzyme becomes available in the form of feeds. There are some exceptions to …


Chitinase-like proteins (CLPs) are associated with tissue-remodeling and inflammation but also with several disorders, including fibrosis, atherosclerosis, allergies, and cancer. However, CLP's role in tumors is far from clear. Here, we utilize Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the function of CLPs (imaginal disc growth factors; Idgf's) in RasV12 dysplastic salivary glands. We find one of the Idgf's members, Idgf3, is transcriptionally induced in a JNK-dependent manner via a positive feedback loop mediated by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Moreover, Idgf3 accumulates in enlarged endosomal vesicles (EnVs) that promote tumor progression by disrupting cytoskeletal organization. The process is mediated via the downstream component, αSpectrin, which localizes to the EnVs. Our data provide new insight into CLP function in tumors and identifies specific targets for tumor control.


The management targets of modern forestry are often dictated by a desire to restore natural conditions, largely considered to be those found in contemporary reference sites. Beech reference sites are usually subjectively placed plots located in old‐growth reserves. Given the inherent variability in old‐growth, the validity of using a single such plot to guide restoration efforts is questionable. We therefore applied 3 methods to assess the representativeness of a 10 ha research plot in an old‐growth European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forest in Ukraine compared to an inventory of the entire 10,282 ha forest reserve. We compared the research plot to the 500‐m2 inventory plots using (1) permutation tests of structure metrics, (2) synthetic multivariate structural condition, and (3) functional condition via the proportion of area assigned to 8 forest development phases. Despite up to 82% distributional overlap for some metrics, both the averages and distributions of individual structural metrics (e.g. basal area, tree diameters) differed significantly between the RP and the inventory, as did the synthetic structural condition and the proportion of late optimal and decay phases. Extrapolations from this subjectively placed plot to the surrounding old‐growth matrix would overestimate several stereotypical "old‐growth" structures. These results support the need to draw on multiple reference sites and metrics and to select restoration target conditions that account for the variability associated with naturally dynamic ecosystems. A lack of absolute representativeness does not, however, necessarily preclude the generalizability of process‐based dynamics from old‐growth remnants.


Introduction:
 Multiple myeloma (MM) is a progressive, rarely curable, B-cell malignancy (McCachren et al. 2021). The incidence is increasing, with the greatest acceleration in emerging markets (Cowan et al. 2016). Optimal management amidst emerging treatments is challenging (Bruno et al. 2020; Mohty et al. 2020). This study aimed to obtain real-world data on treatment, toxicity and healthcare utilization in patients with MM in emerging markets.
 Methods:
 INTEGRATE is an international, multi-center, retrospective, observational study of the medical records of alive or deceased patients aged ≥18 years with newly diagnosed (NDMM) or relapsed/refractory (RRMM) disease between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2011 (Figure 1). The primary objective was to describe the time to next treatment (TTNT) at each line of therapy.
 Results:
 Patient records were screened at 45 centers across Argentina, China, Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan and Turkey. In the NDMM group (N=1,511), patients were followed up for a median 56.9 months, 50.6% were male and predominantly White (50.2%) or Asian (37.9%). The mean age at diagnosis was 59.6 years (range 24.4-97.3 years). Most patients (51.4%) had immunoglobulin G (IgG) myeloma, and 32.0% had IgG kappa and were staged using International Staging System criteria (49.6%). Many patients had bone lesions in 1-3 sites (43.3%) and a majority had no fluorescence in situ hybridization data reported. There were 481 (31.8%) patients who underwent frontline stem-cell transplantation (SCT), of the 987 patients who did not, 121 (12.3%) were eligible for transplant.
 In the RRMM group (N=621), patients were followed up for a median 62.2 months, 50.1% were male, 57.0% White and 32.2% Asian. The mean age at diagnosis was 57.9 years (range 17.7-86.4 years). Most patients (52.5%) had IgG myeloma, 33.5% had IgG kappa, and 44.1% had bone lesions in more than three sites. Of the 144 patients eligible for SCT at the relapsed/refractory diagnosis, 98 (68.1%) underwent transplantation.
 The median time on first-line therapy was 6.0 months (interquartile range [IQR] 3.7-10.4), 6.4 months (IQR 3.2-11.9) at second line and 6.6 months (IQR 3.3-9.6) at third line for NDMM patients. In the RRMM group, the median time on first-line therapy was 5.7 months (IQR 3.5-9.0), 6.0 months (IQR 3.3-9.5) at second line and 6.0 months (IQR 3.1-10.9) at third line. The most common first-line therapies are shown in Table 1. The median TTNT for patients with NDMM was 39.5 months (95% confidence interval [CI] 37.6-42.6) at first line, 33.9 months (95% CI 28.8-37.0) at second line and 20.9 months (95% CI 17.1-27.1) at third line (Figure 2).
 In the non-SCT NDMM subgroup, 44% of patients had documented relapse or disease progression after first-line treatment and the 5-year OS rate was 64.6% (95% CI 61.2-67.9). In the SCT NDMM subgroup, 43.2% of patients had documented relapse or progression after first-line treatment and the 5-year OS rate was 73.5% (95% CI 69.1-77.4). In a risk factor analysis, Asian ethnicity (p<0.001), bone marrow plasma cells at diagnosis (p<0.001), no SCT performed frontline for NDMM (p=0.001), ISS stage II/III and the presence of either t(4;14), t(14;16) or del 17p13 (p=0.022) were associated with shorter TTNT in the NDMM patients.
 Conclusions:
 INTEGRATE is the largest real-world study to describe the management of MM across these eight emerging markets that remains reflective of the treatments currently available in these countries. We found time on therapy not dissimilar to cohorts in Europe and the US (Mohty et al. 2020; Hari et al. 2018) although the real-world OS appears longer than previous reports from Japan (Akizuki et al. 2020) and the US (Bruno et al. 2020). In addition, median duration of treatment during the first 3 lines of therapy are also very similar to that reported by Kwee et al. 2016. The INTEGRATE study highlights a wide variation between the TTNT and duration of treatment and has the potential to inform screening and management decisions based on available treatments to maximize lines of therapy.
 Figure 1 Figure 1.

 Kim: Janssen, BMS: Research Funding. Schutz: Takeda: Honoraria; Johnson & Johnson: Honoraria; Sanofi: Honoraria. Mitina: Takeda: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Chng: Novartis: Honoraria, Research Funding; Antengene: Honoraria; Pfizer: Honoraria; Sanofi: Honoraria; AbbVie: Honoraria; Amgen: Honoraria; BMS/Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; Johnson & Johnson: Honoraria, Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria; Aslan: Research Funding. Wu: Takeda: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Wan: Takeda: Current Employment. Huang: Takeda: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Beksac: BMS: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Sanofi: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Amgen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Oncopeptides: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Takeda: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau.


ABSTRACT This research analyzes the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Andorran cultural policy. The article contributes to the academic field of cultural sustainability and cultural policy, applying a mixed method on a country's case study. A content analysis of the White Paper on Culture, a survey addressed to the main Andorran cultural policymakers and a semi-structured interview with the Andorran Minister of Culture have been performed. A new model of analyzing the extent to which cultural policies comply with SDGs in cultural policies is proposed, with the aim that it might be implemented in other countries. The results show that, despite the fact that SDGs are not yet explicitly mentioned in Andorran cultural policy, experts aim to promote the UN 2030 Sustainable Agenda as a priority nationwide. The novelty of this research rests on the use of Sustainable Development Goals' indicators as a code of analysis and as a specific perspective and new approach to evaluating the alignment of cultural sustainability and cultural policies to the UN 2030 Sustainable Agenda.


Background Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease which is associated with a wide range of clinical, immunological and haematological manifestations. There is an inflammatory response which involves a number of auto antibodies directed at self antigens. The use of mycophenolate is currently becoming more widely used in the treatment of SLE.(1-3) Due to paucity of data in using mycophenolate sodium in SLE, we designed a prospective study to assess the efficacy and safety of this medication in active SLE patients without renal involvement (non-renal SLE). Objectives This study aimed to assess the efficacy of mycophenolate sodium in active SLE patients without renal involvement. Methods A total of 14 active SLE patients without renal involvement were randomised either to receive mycophenolate sodium or other immunosuppressive agents. Patients were assessed monthly from baseline until week 16. Assessment parameters included SLE Disease Activity Score (SLEDAI) score, other organ specific parameters and immunological parameters including anti-dsDNA and C3. Steroid-sparing effect of mycophenolate sodium was also evaluated. Results Mycophenolate sodium had a significant reduction in SLEDAI scores (p<0.05) after 16 weeks of treatment. Mixed responses were detected in terms of organ-specific clinical changes. A positive trend was observed in improvement of immunological parameters and steroid dose reduction. However, both of these results were not statistically significant. No major adverse events were reported in the study. Conclusions In conclusion, mycophenolate sodium can be considered as a safe alternative immunosuppressant in the treatment of SLE with extra renal manifestations. Due to the limitations in the study, a larger prospective study should be performed to explore its efficacy in SLE. References Bandelier C, Guerne PA, Genevay S, Finckh A, Gabay C. Clinical experience with mycophenolate mofetil in systemic autoimmune conditions refractory to common immunosuppressive therapies. Swiss medical weekly. 2009;139(3-4):41-6. Epub 2009/01/27. Fine DM. Pharmacological therapy of lupus nephritis. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. 2005;293(24):3053-60. Epub 2005/06/24. Gaubitz M, Schorat A, Schotte H, Kern P, Domschke W. Mycophenolate mofetil for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: an open pilot trial. Lupus. 1999;8(9):731-6. Epub 1999/12/22. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Novartis for supplying the medications and other healthcare staff who were involved in this study. Disclosure of Interest F. Yahya Grant/research support from: Novartis, R. Jasmin Grant/research support from: Novartis, T. E. Cheah Grant/research support from: Novartis, C. T. Ng Grant/research support from: Novartis, S. Sockalingam Grant/research support from: Novartis


Drawing upon Actor Network Theory (ANT), this paper presents a discussion on how ITG arrangements and IT infrastructure actor-networks achieve strategic alignment (i.e., alignment of interests). This is achieved by exploring how ITG arrangements and IT infrastructure are implemented, and how their interests become dynamically aligned. Considering both ITG arrangements and IT infrastructure as emergent phenomena, their dynamic relationships are analysed using a local/global network approach. The negotiation process towards achieving the alignment of interests is illustrated and explained by using a trajectory of ITG implementation at a Malaysian public listed company.


Fifteen spleens with hairy cell leukemia are studied with immunofluorescent (7 cases), electron microscopic (5 cases), and usual histologic methods. The findings are: enlargment of the spleen (weight always superior to 400 g), diffuse red pulp infiltration by ambiguous cells with regular repartition of nuclei and clear spaces between them, hairy aspects of the cytoplasmic membrane which are especially observed on semi-thin and ultra-thin sections, presence of particular cytoplasmic inclusion bodies (polysome lamellae complex). The cellular infiltration is accompanied by some vascular modifications: pseudo angiomatosis lesions, nodular formations ressembling splenomas. An important hypertrophy of the splenic macrophages with erythrophagocytosis and siderosis is also observed. These two phenomena partly explain the anemia.


This paper aims to suggest and demonstrate a method whereby very rapid scans for Hypocentre foci can take place in real-time or near real-time. These scans are executed by point-to-point (P2P) ray-tracers, which, for each depth-point in the scan construct rays from the depth-point in question to each of the active seismographs, which are in possession of a P-wave or S-wave onset timing. The P2P tracers may employ any of a set of 1-D (radial) Earth velocity models. Two methods are available to construct the set of segments that are to form the rays: varying the radius, or varying the subtended angle. The crux of the method is to use a conformal complex mapping from a disc on the z-plane to a rectangular area on the w-plane. The required ray-traces can take place in the w-plane. The geometry developed for any ray can be transformed back into discoid form in the z-plane and ray-path timings and path-lengths can be extracted. The indicators chosen here to define the possible depth coordinates of the Hypocentre foci, during and after scanning are the Fisher F-statistic and Fisher z-transform It can be suggested that a conformal mapping from the w-plane rectangular strip can proceed to an ellipse, (and hence encompass spheroidal Earth geometry), on a u-plane via the discoid on the z-plane. Otherwise, this suggested scanning system encompasses a spherical Earth model only.


Objective: IIn this paper, we investigate the use of Bayesian modeling and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation, via the software WinBUGS, to project future mortality for populations with limited data. In particular, we adapt some extensions of the Lee-Carter method under the Bayesian framework to allow for situations in which mortality data are scarce. Our approach would be useful for certain developing nations that have not been regularly collecting death counts and population statistics. Inferences of the model estimates and forecasts can readily be drawn from the simulated samples. Information on another population resembling the population under study can be exploited and incorporated into the prior distributions in order to facilitate the construction of probability intervals. The two sets of data can also be modeled in a joint manner. We demonstrate an application of this approach to some data from China and Taiwan.


Ginkgetin, isolated from herbal medicines, has been reported to play a role in antitumor activity. However, the relevant pathway integrating cell cycle regulation and signaling pathways involved in growth inhibition in cancer cells remains to be identified. In the present study, ginkgetin treatment of colon cancer cells resulted in significant dose-dependent growth inhibition together with apoptosis, G2-phase cell cycle arrest at a 5 μM (IC 50 ) dose in HCT116colon cancer cells and ginkgetin also inhibits tumor growth in a mouse xenograft model of HCT116 cells. We found that ginkgetin regulated the expression of genes which are critically involved in cell cycle, cell signaling transduction, and cell proliferation using DNA microarray analysis. Furthermore, we provided evidence that ginkgetin inhibited BUB3, cyclin B, CDC2, and b-Myb expression. Especially ginkgetin induced G2-phase arrest by down-regulates expression of b-Myb Our data have suggested that ginkgetin exerts its anticancer effects through induction of cell cycle arrest at G2 phase as well as inhibition cell proliferation. Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Byoung-Mog Kwon, Yu-Jin Lee. Ginkgetin inhibits the growth of cancer cells via the cell cycle arrest at G2-phase. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 4562. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-4562