As Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) become increasingly accountable for the quality and value for money of their teaching and learning, universities need to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the way that they operate. Strategic Management is viewed as one of the major sources of sustainable competitive advantage for these institutions. Though strategic management has gained prominence in the private and public sector organisations, evidence suggests gaps in strategy formulation and implementation in HEIs in Malawi that have led to failure to achieve superior performance. This study aims at developing a framework for strategy formulation and implementation in HEIs which can be adapted to any situation.
The study takes a systematic approach to investigating strategy formulation and implementation in Higher Education Institutions. Informed by an interpretivist epistemology and ontology, a qualitatitive methodology is employed to inform the researcher's perspective where in-depth case studies were conducted at four universities, a commercial bank and a multinational telecommunications company, to investigate the process of strategy formulation and implementation. Semi-structured interviews were administered with senior, managers and operational staff who play significant roles in strategic management, and selected operational personnel involved in strategy implementation. A review of the extant literature and a range of internal organisational documents provided a basis for the empirical analysis.
An analysis of the findings of the study has led to the identification of Twenty One (21) factors influencing strategy formulation and implementation in HEIs. These factors include leadership, resource allocation, simplicity and undue complexity, organisational culture, organisational structure, communication, human resources management, organisational learning and development, performance management, strategy formulation planning and strategy implementation planning, change management, total quality management, systems and procedures. Consequently, a strategic management framework has been developed by combining the identified SM factors into four dimensions
namely: Planning, Organisation, Managerial and Individual (POMI) based on Alashloo's (2005) framework. The POMI framework integrates the findings of this study with current literature in the SM subject arena. Since strategic management is an important process in organisations, improving formulation and implementation processes contributes to the overall performance of an organisation.
The POMI framework will provide HEI Managers in Malawi and other similar sub-Sahara African countries with tools and techniques that will help improve performance through provision of a useful visualization of the key components which they must have to consider in formulating and implementing strategy.


The second most active site of high-mass star formation next to R136 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is N44. We carried out a detailed analysis of H i at 60″ resolution by using the ATCA and Parkes data. We presented decomposition of the H i emission into two velocity components (the L and D components) with a velocity separation of ∼60 km s−1. In addition, we newly defined the I component whose velocity is intermediate between the L and D components. The D component was used to derive the rotation curve of the LMC disk, which is consistent with the stellar rotation curve. Toward the active cluster-forming region of LHA 120-N 44, the three velocity components of H i gas show signatures of dynamical interaction, including bridges and complementary spatial distributions. We hypothesize that the L and D components have been colliding with each other since 5 Myr ago, and the interaction triggered formation of the O and early-B stars ionizing N44. In the hypothesis, the I component is interpreted as decelerated gas in terms of momentum exchange in the collisional interaction of the L and D components. In the N44 region, the Planck submillimeter dust optical depth is correlated with the H i intensity, which is well approximated by a linear regression. We found that the N44 region shows a significantly steeper regression line than in the bar region, indicating less dust abundance in the N44 region, which is ascribed to the tidal interaction between the LMC and the SMC 0.2 Gyr ago.


We introduce a new localization principle, which is a generalized canonical transformation. It unifies BRST localization, the non-Abelian localization principle and a special case of the conformal Duistermaat–Heckman integration formula of Paniak, Semenoff, and Szabo. The heat kernel on compact Lie groups is localized in two ways. First, using a non-Abelian generalization of the derivative expansion localization of Palo and Niemi and second, using the BRST localization principle and a configuration space path integral. In addition, we present some new formulas on homogeneous spaces, which might be useful in a possible localization of Selberg's trace formula on locally homogeneous spaces.


Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) encompass a group of complex entities of tumours affecting the aerodigestive upper tract. The main risk factors are strongly related to tobacco and alcohol consumption, but also HPV infection is often associated. Surgery, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy are the standard treatments, though the 5-year overall survival is less than 50%. The advances in genomics, molecular medicine, immunology, and nanotechnology have shed a light on tumour biology which helps clinical researchers to obtain more efficacious and less toxic therapies. Head and neck tumours possess different immune escape mechanisms including diminishing the immune response through modulating immune checkpoints, in addition to the recruitment and differentiation of suppressive immune cells. The insights into the HNSCC biology and its strong interaction with the tumour microenvironment highlights the role of immunomodulating agents. Recently, the knowledge of the immunological features of these tumours has paved the way for the discovery of effective biomarkers that allow a better selection of patients with odds of improving overall survival through immunotherapy. Specially biomarkers regarding immune checkpoint inhibitors antibodies, such as anti-PD-1/PD-L1 and anti-CTLA-4 in combination with standard therapy or as monotherapy. New immunotherapies to treat head and neck cancer carcinomas, such as CAR T cells and nanoparticles have been the center of attention and in this review, we discuss the necessity of finding targets for the T cell in the cancer cells to generate CAR T cells, but also the relevance of evaluating specificity and safety of those therapies.


Several studies have shown that access to finance is critical for firm growth, but scant research has demonstrated the impact of human capital constraints on firm performance. This study analyzes the impact of labor constraints on firm growth with an emphasis on small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). In Peru, SMEs play a critical role in the economy, accounting for nearly all businesses and employing over half of the active working population. According to the 2010 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, over one-third of all Peruvian firms cite an inadequately trained workforce as the major obstacle to growth. Using OLS regression analyses, this study investigates how human capital constraints affect firm performance and whether these effects vary by firm size. The findings of this analysis indicate the importance of looking beyond credit constraints to help fuel small business growth in developing countries. Complex labor regulations are found to have a negative impact on firm growth, with a larger effect on small businesses. These results have important policy implications for incentivizing governments to invest in long-term policies that benefit both the firm and the worker.


Motivation A common class of behaviour encountered in the biological sciences involves branching and recombination. During branching, a statistical process bifurcates resulting in two or more potentially correlated processes that may under-go further branching; the contrary is true during recombination, where two or more statistical processes converge into one. A key objective is to identify the time of this bifurcation (branch time) from time series measurements e.g., comparing a control time series with a perturbed time series. Whilst statistical treatments for the two branch (control versus treatment) case exists, the ability to infer more complex branching structure from time series data remains open. Gaussian processes (GPs) represents an ideal framework for such analysis, allowing for nonlinear regression that includes a rigorous treatment of uncertainty. Currently, however, GP models only exist for two-branch systems. Here we highlight how arbitrarily complex branching processes can be built using the correct composition of covariance functions within a GP framework, thus outlining a general framework for the treatment of branching and recombination in the form of branch-recombinant Gaussian processes (B-RGPs). We first demonstrate the performance of B-RGPs compared to a variety of existing regression approaches, and demonstrate robustness to model misspecification. B-RGPs are then used to investigate the branching patterns of Arabidopsis thaliana gene expression following inoculation with the hemibotrophic bacteria, Pseudomonas syringae DC3000, and a disarmed mutant strain, hrpA. By grouping genes according to the number of branches, we could naturally separate out genes involved in basal immune response from those subverted by the virulent strain, and show enrichment for targets of pathogen protein effectors. Finally, we identify two early branching genes WRKY11 and WRKY17, and showed that groups of genes that branched at similar times to WRKY11/17 were enriched for W-box binding motifs, and overrepresented for genes differentially expressed in WRKY11/17 knockouts, suggesting that branch time could be used for identifying direct and indirect binding targets of key transcription factors. Software is available from: https://github.com/cap76/BranchingGPs.


ABSTRACT Radiation-inducible promoters are being used in many viral vector systems to obtain spatial and temporal control of gene expression. It was previously proven that radiation-induced gene expression can also be obtained in a bacterial vector system using anaerobic apathogenic clostridia. The effect of radiation inducibility was detected using mouse tumor necrosis factor alpha (mTNF-α) as a model protein under regulation of the radiation-induciblerecA promoter. In this report, experiments are described in which this recA promoter was modified in order to increase radiation responsiveness. Incorporation of an extra Cheo box in the recA promoter region resulted in an increase in mTNF-α secretion from 44% for the wild-type promoter to 412% for the promoter with an extra Cheo box after a single irradiation dose of 2 Gy. Deletion of the Cheo box in the promoter region eliminated radiation inducibility. These results prove that the Cheo box in therecA promoter is indeed the radiation-responsive element. We also tested whether we could induce the constitutive endo-β-1,4-glucanase promoter (eglA) via ionizing irradiation by introducing a Cheo box in the promoter region. While the use of the constitutive promoter did not lead to an increase in mTNF-α secretion after irradiation, the introduction of a Cheo box resulted in a 242% increase in mTNF-α secretion. Reverse transcriptase PCR of RNA samples isolated from irradiated and nonirradiated bacterial cultures demonstrated that the increase in secretion was the result of enhanced transcription of the mTNF-α gene.


Triggered vacuum switch (TVS) has found fast growing applications in the fields of pulse power system. However, its popularization is still limited due to the trigger stability and accuracy. Research on the trigger process of TVS is one of valid ways to enhance the TVS performances. A sample of TVS was fabricated in this paper. A test circuit was set up with an inductance of 46.4 muH and a group of capacitances of 236.4 mF connected in series. The trigger pulse parameters were adjustable and trigger processes were stored by digital oscilloscope and high-speed camera. Experimental tests were made in three different kinds of trigger power according to the numerical degree. The different trigger power leads to different trigger plasma, i.e. sufficient trigger plasma, insufficient trigger plasma and the transition stage between them. The trigger process and its stability are discussed based on the waveforms and photographs. Field emission causes the point discharge of trigger pin, and leads to the initial stage of trigger plasma. The development of trigger plasma is analyzed by theoretical analysis and experimental data. The results show that the initial constriction of the vacuum arc is unavoidable during the trigger process. Sufficient trigger plasma is a prerequisite for the stability of turning-on TVS, while insufficient trigger plasma leading to chopping both in trigger current and voltage when triggering TVS. Sufficient trigger plasma can also promote the trigger lifetime and accuracy, with trigger delay limited in hundreds of nanoseconds.


The article proposes a scheme for on-line fault detection and diagnosis using an expert system. This approach is being tested at a beet-sugar factory in Spain. A great deal of critical situations may arise in the normal operation of such a process. They are now managed by plant operators and cover both cases: faulty equipment diagnosis, which requires module substitution, as well as the detection of major improper control actions that may cause plant problems in the long run. This prototype not only comprises aspects related with fault detection and diagnosis but also is responsible for supervisory tasks to improve the whole process performance. The paper includes a description of the system architecture, a detailed presentation of the fault detection and diagnosis modules, and some evaluation of the results obtained by the system operation at the factory.<<ETX>>


The way the Natural Sciences has been conventionally taught in school, i.e., by means of lecture-based methods, has been shown ineffective. For this reason, many alternative methods of teaching and learning have been proposed. This study focuses on the teaching of the Natural Sciences by the employ of ludic investigative activities in the context of forensic science. It proposes an alternative way of teaching the Natural Sciences associated with issues relevant to students and society at large. To this end, a case of femicide was used to teach topics of the Natural Sciences while addressing an important social issue, i.e., gender-based violence. This research, a case study of a qualitative nature, was carried out at Colégio de Aplicação in Macaé (CAp), RJ, Brazil. Its proposed teaching-learning activities were conducted over three consecutive 90-minute classes. The participating students answered pre- and post-intervention questionnaires on the scientific concepts addressed by the activities and the social issue in question, i.e., femicide. The students also participated in a discussion about the social issue at hand at the end of the intervention. The analysis of the collected data suggests that the teaching-learning method employed in this research is a viable way of teaching the Natural Sciences, especially Chemistry, in an interdisciplinary and contextualized fashion.


Purpose To verify whether deep learning can be used to differentiate between carcinosarcomas (CSs) and endometrial carcinomas (ECs) using several magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences. Material and methods This retrospective study included 52 patients with CS and 279 patients with EC. A deep-learning model that uses convolutional neural networks (CNN) was trained with 572 T2-weighted images (T2WI) from 42 patients, 488 apparent diffusion coefficient of water maps from 33 patients, and 539 fat-saturated contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images from 40 patients with CS, as well as 1612 images from 223 patients with EC for each sequence. These were tested with 9-10 images of 9-10 patients with CS and 56 images of 56 patients with EC for each sequence, respectively. Three experienced radiologists independently interpreted these test images. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for each sequence were compared between the CNN models and the radiologists. Results The CNN model of each sequence had sensitivity 0.89-0.93, specificity 0.44-0.70, accuracy 0.83-0.89, and AUC 0.80-0.94. It also showed an equivalent or better diagnostic performance than the 3 readers (sensitivity 0.43-0.91, specificity 0.30-0.78, accuracy 0.45-0.88, and AUC 0.49-0.92). The CNN model displayed the highest diagnostic performance on T2WI (sensitivity 0.93, specificity 0.70, accuracy 0.89, and AUC 0.94). Conclusions Deep learning provided diagnostic performance comparable to or better than experienced radiologists when distinguishing between CS and EC on MRI.


Recent publications have again drawn attention to long bone fractures in newborn infants with severe vitamin D deficiency due to maternal subnutrition.  This is a reminder of the complete dependence of an infant on maternal nutrition; the bones that fracture in early infancy are formed during gestation.

This review covers previous reports of congenital rickets including the difficulties in diagnosis, not least because there may be none of the usual radiological hallmarks of rickets.  It also outlines ways of making a retrospective diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency after the infant's biochemical findings have become normal.

It is likely that similar considerations apply to vitamin C deficiency.  Although overt scurvy is uncommon it is clear that vitamin C subnutrition is widespread even in Western countries.  Vitamin C has many roles but among them is its requirement in the formation of collagen.  Thus it is not surprising that fractures and intracranial bleeding are well-recognised features of vitamin C deficiency.

Maternal subnutrition of vitamin D and vitamin C are important conditions in the wide differential diagnosis of unexplained fractures and fracture-like lesions in infancy.


Using a combination of H2 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods, we study internal rotational dynamics of the perdeuterated protein C-phycocyanin (CPC) in dry and hydrated states over broad temperature and dynamic ranges with high angular resolution. Separating H2 NMR signals from methyl deuterons, we show that basically all backbone deuterons exhibit highly restricted motion occurring on time scales faster than microseconds. The amplitude of this motion increases when a hydration shell exists, while it decreases upon cooling and vanishes near 175 K. We conclude that the vanishing of the highly restricted motion marks a dynamical transition, which is independent of the time window and of a fundamental importance. This conclusion is supported by results from experimental and computational studies of the proteins myoglobin and elastin. In particular, we argue based on findings in molecular dynamics simulations that the behavior of the highly restricted motion of proteins at the dynamical transition resembles that of a characteristic secondary relaxation of liquids at the glass transition, namely the nearly constant loss. Furthermore, H2 NMR studies on perdeuterated CPC reveal that, in addition to highly restricted motion, small fractions of backbone segments exhibit weakly restricted dynamics when temperature and hydration are sufficiently high.


The first palladium-catalyzed oxidative alkenylation of (1H)- and (2H)-indazole derivatives with various olefins is described. The use of Pd(OAc)2 as the catalyst and Ag2CO3 as the oxidant promoted the selective C3-monoalkenylation of (1H)-indazoles and (2H)-indazoles, affording the desired products in good yields. An original oxidative C7-alkenylation of 3-substituted (1H)-indazoles was also developed. The oxidative alkenylation of (1H)-indazole was successfully applied to the total synthesis of the drug candidate gamendazole in a step- and atom-economical fashion.


We present Bonfire, a self-contained mobile computing system that uses two laptop-mounted laser micro-projectors to project an interactive display space to either side of a laptop keyboard. Coupled with each micro-projector is a camera to enable hand gesture tracking, object recognition, and information transfer within the projected space. Thus, Bonfire is neither a pure laptop system nor a pure tabletop system, but an integration of the two into one new nomadic computing platform. This integration (1) enables observing the periphery and responding appropriately, e.g., to the casual placement of objects within its field of view, (2) enables integration between physical and digital objects via computer vision, (3) provides a horizontal surface in tandem with the usual vertical laptop display, allowing direct pointing and gestures, and (4) enlarges the input/output space to enrich existing applications. We describe Bonfire's architecture, and offer scenarios that highlight Bonfire's advantages. We also include lessons learned and insights for further development and use.


This paper studies the performance of existing receive antenna selection algorithms in spatially correlated fading MIMO channels. The antenna subset is selected based on maximizing the channel capacity. First the most recently proposed algorithms, which are dedicated to i.i.d channel, are revisited and investigated. Then, we apply these algorithms to the case of correlated fading channel. The performance of each algorithm is evaluated and compared in terms of the outage characteristics for different scenarios regarding the angle spread and the required number of antenna elements. Finally, we compare between our results and another algorithm dedicated to correlated channels, namely the correlation selection algorithm


The study suggests using a software platform for multidimensional data cubes in automated active phased array control stands. The application of the platform greatly facilitates and accelerates the display and analysis of very large volumes of data coming from large-aperture active phased arrays during the measurement process, so that the end user can make spontaneous data requests. The study shows the prospects of using this platform for radar systems as a whole.


Scene recognition and content-based procedures are of great interest for image indexing applications processing very large databases. Knowing the context of a scene, a retrieval system may compute its semantic category in advance and filter out scenes belonging to irrelevant classes.

In this paper, we introduce a computational approach which classifies and organises real-world scenes along broad semantic axes. Fundamental to our approach is the computation of global spectral templates providing a continuous organisation of scenes between two categories. These templates encode the structure which is discriminant between two categories. We propose a hierarchical procedure of two stages, that organises images along three semantic axis. Firstly, all the scenes are classified according to an Artificial to Natural axis. Then, natural scenes are organised along the Open to Closed axis whereas artificial environments are classified according to the Expanded to Enclosed scenes axis.


AbstractEngaging students in active learning lies at the center of effective higher education. In medical schools, students' engagement in learning and research has come under increasing attention. The objective of this study was to synthesize evidence on medical students' perspectives on the engagement in research. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis.Relevant studies were searched in electronic databases. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed. Overall, 14 observational studies (with 17 data sets) were included. In general, many studies did not use the same questionnaires and the outcome measurements were not consistently reported; these presented some difficulties in pooling the results. Whenever data permitted, we performed pooled analysis for the 4 education outcomes. A Bayesian meta-analytical approach was supplemented as a measure of uncertainty.A pooled analysis showed that 74% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.57%–11.07%; I2: 95.2%) of those students who engaged in research (while at the medical school) had positive attitudes toward their research experiences, whereas 49.5% (95% CI: 36.4%–62.7%; I2: 93.4%) had positive attitudes toward the study of medical sciences, 62.3% (95% CI: 46.7%–77.9%; I2: 96.3%) had self-reported changes in their practices, and 64% (95% CI: 30.8%–96.6%; I2: 98.5%) could have published their work. There was substantial heterogeneity among studies. We acknowledged the caveats and the merit of the current review.Findings showed that engagement in research resulted in favorable reactions toward research and academic learning. Future well-designed studies using standardized research tools on how to engage students in research are recommended.


Melanoma diagnosis poses tremendous challenges in dermatopathology; recent studies show discordance rates in pathology as high as one in seven[1], and the severe consequences of missing a melanoma diagnosis has increased the number of biopsies taken and lowered the threshold for diagnosis of early melanoma[2]. This leads to unknown but likely significant societal costs and morbidity from associated unnecessary treatments.


We propose a hierarchical approach to document categorization that requires no pre-configuration and maps the semantic document space to a predefined taxonomy. The utilization of search engines to train a hierarchical classifier makes our approach more flexible than existing solutions which rely on (human) labeled data and are bound to a specific domain. We show that the structural information given by the taxonomy allows for a context aware construction of search queries and leads to higher tagging accuracy. We test our approach on different benchmark datasets and evaluate its performance on the single- and multi-tag assignment tasks. The experimental results show that our solution is as accurate as supervised classifiers for web page classification and still performs well when categorizing domain specific documents.


This chapter presents an edited transcript of an interview held inAugust 1993 with Brian Slater, a vice-president in the Global Bank atChemical Bank. Slater is responsible for the firm's U.S.-based tradingand global risk management systems. The interview was conducted inthe context of Project 1990s -- the U.S. Council for InternationalBanking's Study on Information Technology Investment and InternationalBanking Performance. The purpose of the discussion was to developbackground information on the issues the bank's senior managementteam faced in merging the trading and treasury functions of ChemicalBank and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. The new Global Bank faceschallenges in the areas of global risk management, cost-effectivedelivery of in formation technology-based products, trading infrastructureapplication functionality gaps, and human resource management that can be best addressed by a shift to a new paradigm for trading andtreasury application software development: reuse of object-orientedrepresentations of the bank's systems. We now turn to the details ofthe discussion that develops these themes.


This article discusses the importance of understanding immersive, interactive and participatory performances as environments of potential witnessed thirdness between actors and spectators. It draws on the dynamic interconnection between my teaching experience as somatic movement educator at East 15 Acting School in London and my practice research on the modification of somatic practices into contemporary actor-training and performance contexts. Situating my practice in the lineage of modern somatically informed and embodied actor-training pedagogies, the article outlines how we can revisit actor‒spectator intercorporeal dynamics based upon principles of witnessing in the practice of Authentic Movement and Jessica Benjamin's concept of thirdness. The last part of this article considers practical examples in relation to the discussed witnessed thirdness, integrating my classroom experience with material from my recent piece Monotime (Performing Architectures, Ugly Duck, London, 18‒19 June 2016). The discussion ultimately suggests a methodological expansion of intercorporeal actor-training practices through the acknowledged third co-presence between diverse actor-witnesses and spectator-witnesses.


Anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder among women in the postpartum period are understudied and their impact upon maternal functioning is poorly understood. There is evidence that individuals with greater levels of psychological flexibility (the ability to persist in valued domains of living despite the presence of negative emotions/thoughts/sensations) and higher levels of social support may moderate the effects of emotional and physical disorders on overall functioning and quality of life (QoL). The aims of the present study were three-fold. First, to assess the incidence of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms in a large sample of postpartum women. Second, to examine the impact of anxiety and OC symptoms on parenting stress and quality of life (QoL). Third, to explore whether the relationship between symptoms and parenting stress/QoL was mediated by psychological flexibility and social support. Consistent with expectations, anxiety and OC symptoms were common, particularly in women with a history of mental health problems. Likewise, women with higher levels of anxiety and OC reported higher levels of parental stress and lower quality of life. Preliminary analyses suggest that psychological flexibility, but not social support, mediates the relationship between anxiety/OC symptoms and parenting stress/QoL. These findings underlie the importance of screening postpartum women for symptoms of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The findings further suggest that interventions aimed at increasing psychological flexibility may help improve parenting and quality of life in postpartum women with high levels of anxiety and OC symptoms.


This book is a comprehensive introduction to the history of political thought, tracing the development of arguments and controversies from ancient Greece, through different forms of community, state and empire, to today's global concerns. Bruce Haddock highlights the bewildering variety of contexts that have framed political thinking, yet also displays structural features that have proved to be remarkably stable over time. An important theme in the book is the need to see political philosophy, even in its most abstract formulations, as a response to historically contingent circumstances, without limiting its relevance to those circumstances. The emphasis throughout is on political thinking as a response to hard choices. Major thinkers covered include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Grotius, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Hume, Kant, Rousseau, Burke, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Lenin, Schmitt, Nietzsche, Foucault, Oakeshott and Rawls.
The book treats political philosophy and theory as a tentative engagement with a fractured and controversial past. Yet political thinking remains the exercise of a burden of a responsibility that is inescapable for us. Haddock introduces a history that continues to shape our understanding of ourselves as political and historical creatures.
A History of Political Thought will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, history and philosophy.


As with the increase inmodernization everything is being getting cloud based. From a some firms to multinational organization everyone is using cloud for storage and management of their data that can be use further to create, distribute, storage manage analysis or for supporting decision making through a centralized computing infrastructure. FOG Computing is an extension of cloud computing that deals with the decentralized computing infrastructure. In fog computing the data in distributed among various logical places between cloud and data source. As the data in decentralized which results in security issues for the storage and usage of data. This paper deals with various kinds of security and privacy issue in context of fog computing that will be helpful for securing the data in cloud in a efficient manner.


Eleven cases of community-acquired Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia occurred between 1979 and 1981 and prompted clinical and immunologic evaluation of the patients. Young men who were drug abusers (seven patients), homosexuals (six), or both (two) presented with pneumonia. Immunologic testing revealed that absolute lymphocyte counts, T-cell counts, and lymphocyte proliferation were depressed, and that humoral immunity was intact. Of the 11 patients, one was found to have Kaposi's sarcoma, and another had angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy. Eight patients died. In the remaining three, no diagnosis of an immunosuppressive disease was established, despite persistence of immune defects. These cases of pneumocystosis suggest the importance of cell-mediated immune function in the defense against P. carinii. The occurrence of this infection among drug abusers and homosexuals indicates that these groups may be at high risk for this infection.


The direct material cost variance can be subdivided into a price variance, a quantity variance and a price-quantity interaction variance. The price-quantity interaction variance is rarely mentioned in the literature because the traditional price variance does not acknowledge an interaction variance. For a number of pragmatic reasons, this approach may be justified for the direct material price variance. The direct labor cost variance is conceptually similar to the direct material cost variance. Accordingly, the traditional direct labor rate variance also includes a rate-efficiency interaction variance. However, the justifications for incorporating the interaction variance into the direct material price variance do not apply to the direct labor rate variance. This paper explores the possibility of separating the rate-efficiency interaction variance from the direct labor rate variance. This approach may be more aligned with the concept of responsibility accounting than the traditional method of calculating the direct labor rate variance. Thus, it may provide more reliable information feedback for decision-making purposes.


Development of a robust method for the preparation of cell aggregates with different shapes is one of the urgent requirements in tissue engineering, since they can be used as building blocks to mimic complex architectures in tissues. Herein, we describe a microfluidic droplet-based approach that can easily produce different shapes of cell aggregates in Ca-alginate microparticles by changing alginate and CaCl2 concentrations. Using this approach, human cervical carcinoma, human hepatocellular liver carcinoma and human umbilical vein endothelial cell aggregates with spherical, spindle- and branch-like shapes were successfully obtained in a repeatable and controllable manner. Cytoskeletal analysis and SEM observation showed that the cell aggregates were densely packed and interconnected. Cell viability assays showed that the viabilities of the retrieved cells from the Ca-alginate microparticles were all more than 95% with good morphology and proliferation ability. Study on the formation mechanism revealed that the shape and size of the cell aggregates were mainly decided by the inner structures of Ca-alginate microparticles, which can be controlled by regulating their preparation conditions. This approach may possess great potential for the construction of various building blocks in tissue engineering with simplicity, controllability, applicability and practicality.


Ovine uterine serpin (OvUS) is the major progesterone‐induced protein in the uterus of the pregnant sheep. This protein is a member of the serine proteinase inhibitor superfamily and it has been proposed to down‐regulate uterine immune function during pregnancy to protect the fetus. In vitro experiments have shown that both the native and the recombinant (r) form of the protein can inhibit mitogen‐induced lymphocyte proliferation and growth of canine primary osteogenic sarcoma cells, mouse lymphoma cells, human prostatic adenocarcinoma cells (PC‐3 cell line) and bovine preimplantation embryos. The mechanism by which OvUS inhibits cell proliferation is still unknown. Accordingly, experiments were conducted to test whether rOvUS exerts its anti‐proliferative action through apoptosis. In the first experiment, the anti‐proliferative effect of rOvUS on PC‐3 cells was tested to determine the minimal concentration effective at inhibiting proliferation. Proliferation was inhibited by concentrations of OvUS at 8 μg/mL and higher. The incorporation of [3H]thymidine was 4043, 3998, 3464, 2785, 2827, 2310, and 2332 dpm for 0, 0.5, 2, 8, 32, 125, and 250 μg/mL, respectively. In the second experiment, PC‐3 cells were cultured for 48 hr with 50, 100 and 200 μg/mL of rOvUS or ovalbumin. Cells were then fixed and apoptotic cells identified using the TUNEL assay to detect DNA fragmentation. There was no effect of OvUS at any concentration tested on the percent of cells that were apoptotic. Percent apoptosis was 1.3% for control cells, 3.8%, 4.8% and 2% for cells cultured with 50, 100 and 200 μg/mL rOvUS, and 2% for cells cultured with 200 μg/mL ovalbumin. Results confirm that OvUS inhibits proliferation of PC‐3 cells and indicate that inhibition does not involve induction of apoptosis. Further experiments are warranted to elucidate the anti‐proliferative mechanism of action of OvUS.


OBJECTIVES--Pulmonary disease is responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Static lung compliance (Cst) has been observed to be decreased more often in SSc than the vital capacity, indicating that it is a sensitive measure of lung restriction. In this study Cst was compared with the carbon monoxide transfer factor (TLCO), a widely used measure of the function of the alveolar capillary unit, and with lung volumes in 59 patients with confirmed or suspected SSc. METHODS--Cst was calculated from the oesophageal pressure at different lung volumes and the TLCO was measured with the single breath method. RESULTS--The TLCO was found to be the earliest sign of pulmonary disease and was already decreased at a disease duration of one year or less. Surprisingly, no relation was found between the TLCO and smoking habits, nor the degree of peripheral vascular disease. The TLCO correlated with the Cst and vital capacity. CONCLUSIONS--An early pulmonary lesion can be identified in patients with SSc with decreased TLCO at a time when no fibrotic changes are manifested.


An optimal control approach for a wind turbine drivetrain with the objective of maximizing energy harvesting and minimizing noise emission is presented. One of the major challenges facing the public acceptance for continuous growth of wind turbine installation is its noise emission. However, reducing the noise emission could lead to decreased wind energy harvesting. As a result, a tradeoff arises between power generation and noise emission, especially when a wind turbine operates under the partial-load condition.This paper will show that through controlling the generator electromagnetic torque and/or the blade pitch angle, an optimal tradeoff between wind turbine energy harvesting and noise emission can be obtained. The dynamic model of a wind turbine drivetrain and a noise emission prediction model are also presented. Simulation results of using the proposed control design for different wind speed ranges are analyzed and compared.© 2013 ASME


In this work, we present a series of newly synthesized conjugated oligothiophene derivatives, with different numbers of central thiophene units, and different donor/acceptor architectures. Electrochemical and spectroscopic data have also been reported. We used thiophene or bithiophene as central donor core units, 3-octylthiophenes as π-bridge and solubilizing sub-units, and ethyl cyanoacetate or rhodanine moieties as acceptor end groups, in order to get D-π-A and A-π-D-π-A molecular architectures. The length of the synthesized oligothiophenes ranges from three to eight thiophene units, a variety that is sufficient to put in evidence different optical and electrochemical characteristics as well as semiconducting characteristics. Oligothiophene compounds can be regarded not only as models for the study of structure-property relationships relative to polythiophenes, but also they present a large number of applications in the field of organic electronics (i.e.: as donors in bulk-heterojunction solar cells and hole-transporting layer materials in perovskite solar cells, among others).


Abstract. We test the proposal that the Sun's magnetic activity, communicated via the solar wind, provides a link between solar variability and the Earth's climate in the Antarctic troposphere. The strength of a geomagnetic storm is one indicator of the state of the solar wind; therefore, we use the dates of 51 moderate to strong winter geomagnetic storms from the period 1961–1990 to conduct a series of superposed epoch analyses of the winter South Pole isobaric height and temperature, at pressures of between 100–500 mbar. Using Student's t -test to compare the mean value of the pre- and post-storm data sets, we find no evidence to support the hypothesis that there is a statistically-significant correlation between the onset of a geomagnetic storm and changes in the isobaric temperature or height of the troposphere and lower stratosphere over the South Pole during winter months. This concurs with a similar study of the variability of the troposphere and lower stratosphere over the South Pole (Lam and Rodger, 2002) which uses drops in the level of observed galactic cosmic ray intensity, known as Forbush decreases, as a proxy for solar magnetic activity instead of geomagnetic storms. Key words. Interplanetary physics (solar wind plasma; cosmic rays) – Atmospheric composition and structure (pressure, density and temperature)


Biological Control Agents Parasitoids and Predators, D. Orr and C.P.-C. Suh Microbial Insecticides, J. L. Flexner and D.L. Belnavis Pheromones and Other Semiochemicals, D.M. Suckling and G. Karg Botanical Insecticides, Soaps, and Oils, R.A. Weinzierl Insect Growth Regulators, N.E. Beckage Physiological Approaches Genetic Control of Insect Pests, A.S. Robinson Plant Resistance to Insects, C.M. Smith Biotechnology Genetic Engineering of Plants for Insect Resistance, J.A. Gatehouse and A.M.R. Gatehouse Genetic Engineering of Biocontrol Agents for Insects, R.L. Harrison and B.C. Bonning Environmental Impact of Biotechnology, R.G. Shatters, Jr. Regulation Regulatory Aspects of Biological Control Agents and Products Derived by Biotechnology, J. T. McClintock, N.A.M. van Beek, J.L. Kough, M.L. Mendelsohn, and P.O. Hutton Index


Prevention of cardiovascular disease is a major public health challenge. Many chronic health problems are amenable to lifestyle interventions, which can ameliorate progression of disease and contribute to primary prevention. Prior to a large randomised controlled trial we assessed preventive care in trial practices. General practitioners and practice nurses completed a preventive care questionnaire covering frequency of assessing and managing behavioural and physiological risk factors, which was developed from previously validated instruments. Factor analysis confirmed 10 scales. Scores for rural and urban respondents were contrasted using univariate statistics. Sixty-three general practitioners and practice nurses completed the questionnaire (27 urban and 36 rural). The clinicians reported high levels of assessment and advice for cardiovascular risk factors but less frequent referral. There were no differences between urban and rural practitioners in relation to assessment of risk or stage of change, referral or barriers to referral or management of high blood pressure. Rural practitioners had lower scores for frequency of advice, and management of obesity/overweight, pre-diabetes and high lipids. Although clinicians report frequently advising high risk patients to exercise more, there remain significant gaps in provision of dietary advice and referral. Greater attention to addressing these issues is required to maximise the potential benefits for cardiovascular disease prevention in general practice.


Myricitrin has multiple effects, including antagonism of platelet activating factor, regulation of blood sugar levels, oxidation resistance, protection of the liver and the relieving of ethylism. The present study evaluated how myricitrin weakens traumatic injury of the spinal cord (TISC), and exhibits antioxidant and anti‑inflammatory activities in a rat model. TISC model rats were injected intraperitoneally with 5, 10 or 30 mg/kg/day of myricitrin for 5 days. Basso‑Beattie‑Bresnahan evaluation of locomotion and water content of spinal cord were used to analyze the effects of myricitrin on TISC. Myricitrin significantly inhibited the TISC‑induced oxidative stress and inflammatory reactions. In addition, cyclooxygenase‑2 (COX‑2), transforming growth factor (TGF)‑β1 and p53 were significantly reduced and Bcl‑2/Bax rate was significantly increased by treatment with myricitrin. The results of the current study suggested that the neuroprotective effect of myricitrin exhibits significant antioxidant and anti‑inflammatory activities, and a remarkable trauma protection activity in TISC rats through inhibition of COX‑2, TGF‑β1, p53 and elevation of Bcl‑2/Bax signaling pathway.


As China is transferring from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, the land market becomes more active. With the rapid transition from an agricultural society to an industrialized society, both economic and social factors could influence the choice of land lease agreement. This paper investigates the choice behavior of land lease agreement based on the household data collected from the largest wheat-producing province in China, Henan province. The results provide strong evidence that economic interest plays a key role in the choice of land lease agreement. Meanwhile, the paper has also found that social relations still affect the choice of land lease agreement. To speed up the transfer of land use rights and scale of operation, this study proposes: reducing the land dependence of rural households; improving agricultural machinery and achieving farming mechanization; creating more non-farm work opportunities for rural laborers; promoting the citizenization of rural households; respecting farmers' choice of contracts; and attaching importance to the role of social relations in farmland transfer.


Knowledge-based systems reason over some knowledge base. Hence, an important issue for such systems is how to acquire the knowledge needed for their inference. This paper assesses active learning methods for acquiring knowledge for "static code warnings". Static code analysis is a widely-used methods for detecting bugs and security vulnerabilities in software systems. As software becomes more complex, analysis tools also report lists of increasingly complex warnings that developers need to address on a daily basis. Such static code analysis tools often usually over-cautious; i.e. they often offer many warns about spurious issues. Previous research work shows that about 35% to 91% warnings reported as bugs by SA tools are actually unactionable (i.e., warnings that would not be acted on by developers because they are falsely suggested as bugs). Experienced developers know which errors are important and which can be safely ignoredHow can we capture that experience? This paper reports on an incremental AI tool that watches humans reading false alarm reports. Using an incremental support vector machine mechanism, this AI tool can quickly learn to distinguish spurious false alarms from more serious matters that deserve further attention.
In this work, nine open source projects are employed to evaluate our proposed model on the features extracted by previous researchers and identify the actionable warnings in priority order given by our algorithm. We observe that our model can identify over 90% of actionable warnings when our methods tell humans to ignore 70 to 80% of the warnings.


Abstract A 46-year-old woman presented with shortness of breath and frequent lower respiratory tract infections. A ventilation-perfusion scan showed markedly reduced perfusion of the right lung, and pulmonary arteriogram showed stenosis of the right pulmonary artery. A right pneumonectomy revealed dense white fibrous bands partially occluding the pulmonary artery branches and two large abscess cavities filled with pus in the upper and lower lobes. Microscopic examination revealed extensive necrosis of lung parenchyma, suppurative granulomatous inflammation with Coccidioides immitis organisms and rare acid-fast bacilli. Pulmonary artery fibrous bands were originally believed to be congenital; however, they are now known to be sequelae of thromboembolic phenomena.


Increased surface roughness and wear of resin cements may cause failure of indirect restorations. The aim of this study was to evaluate quantitatively the surface roughness change and the vertical wear of four resin cements subjected to mechanical toothbrushing abrasion. Ten rectangular specimens (15 × 5 × 4 mm) were fabricated according to manufacturer instructions for each group (n = 10): Nexus 3, Kerr (NX3); RelyX ARC, 3M ESPE (ARC); RelyX U100, 3M ESPE (U100); and Variolink II, Ivoclar/Vivadent (VL2). Initial roughness (Ra, µm) was obtained through 5 readings with a roughness meter. Specimens were then subjected to toothbrushing abrasion (100,000 cycles), and further evaluation was conducted for final roughness. Vertical wear (µm) was quantified by 3 readings of the real profile between control and brushed surfaces. Data were subjected to analysis of variance, followed by Tukey's test (p < 0.05). The Pearson correlation test was performed between the surface roughness change and wear (p < 0.05). The mean values of initial/final roughness (Ra, µm)/wear (µm) were as follows: NX3 (0.078/0.127/23.175); ARC (0.086/0.246/20.263); U100 (0.296/0.589/16.952); and VL2 (0.313/0.512/22.876). Toothbrushing abrasion increased surface roughness and wear of all resin cements tested, although no correlation was found between those variables. Vertical wear was similar among groups; however, it was considered high and may lead to gap formation in indirect restorations.


Salmon returning to Lake Clark, Alaska are a valuable subsistence, commercial and ecological resource, and are an important component of the larger Kvichak River escapement. Average escapement to the Kvichak River declined sharply during 1996-2005, prompting studies to investigate age and size at maturity, key life history traits of salmon linked to reproductive success and survival. We examined potential factors which may influence sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka age and size at maturity: spawning habitat and ocean environment, and examined variation in both traits over time. Sockeye salmon age and length at maturity differed among spawning locations and between brood years, but no consistent patterns were observed among habitat types. Age and length at maturity differed over time; the proportion of older marine age 3 fish was larger in recent brood years, while fish were smaller during 1997-2001 compared to 1976-1980. Sea surface temperatures and coastal upwelling appeared to be important indicators of fish length, highlighting the importance of the ocean environment in salmon growth. These results demonstrate the complexity and importance of both the freshwater and ocean ecosystems in variation in age and size at maturity, and indicate that trends may not necessarily be similar among systems or years.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Muscle dysfunction is very common following musculoskeletal injury. There is very little evidence to suggest that muscle function may be positively impacted by soft tissue interventions, such as dry needling. The purpose of this case report is to describe the immediate effect of dry needling on muscle thickness in a subject after shoulder surgery.

CASE DESCRIPTION
A 22 year-old competitive gymnast presented seven months post shoulder surgery with significant impairments and functional limitations. Previous physical therapy focused on restoration of range of motion and strength using general exercise interventions, but the subject had persistent tightness and weakness of musculature of the shoulder complex. A subject-specific physical therapy program including manual physical therapy resulted in significant initial improvement, but lack of flexibility and weakness of the rotator cuff limited progress. Dry needling was used to address persistent myofascial trigger points.

OUTCOMES
Immediately after dry needling the infraspinatus, the muscle's thickness was significantly improved as measured by rehabilitative ultrasound imaging. There was a corresponding increase in force production of external rotation at 90 degrees of abduction.

DISCUSSION
Minimal research exists that validates the potential of dry needling on muscle function, as assessed by muscle thickness measured using rehabilitative ultrasound imaging. The results of this case report suggest that dry needling contributed to improvement in muscle thickness and strength in a subject with muscle dysfunction following an injury.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
4.


The role played by 6p metastable Xe level in the kinetics of discharge pumped XeC1 laser emission is investigated by performing time resolved and time integrated fluorescence studies of the Xe 6p-6s emissions produced in the discharge plasma at various pressures of chlorine donor compounds. The results analyzed according to a simple kinetic model suggest that 6p level is populated through a cascading mechanism involving various Xe levels which is enhanced by the presence of the halogen donor compound. The laser emission dependence is also investigated as a function of the halogen donor pressure. The observations lead to the conclusion that 6p states do not play a relevant role in the formation of XeCI* molecules and that other Xe excited states should be considered to account for the participation of the neutral channel in the XeCI* formation mechanism.


Introduction: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) represents approx. 5% of all newly diagnosed leukemias in patients between 55 and 70 years of age. Despite recent advances especially in younger patients, the prognosis of elderly patients with ALL remains dismal, even after moderately intensive chemotherapy. Incorporation of antibody-based therapies in the first line induction therapy bears the potential of a significant increased response rate and survival with the reduction of treatment toxicity.
 Methods: This open label phase II study of the German Multicenter Study Group on Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia was conducted at 13 centers. Patients aged >55 years with newly diagnosed Ph/BCR-ABL negative acute B-precursor ALL were eligible. Leukemic blasts had CD22 surface expression of at least 20%. The 1st induction cycle consisted of InO 0.8mg/m2 on day1 and 0.5mg/m2 on d8 and d15 together with dexamethasone 10 mg/m2 (day7-8, day14-17) and one intrathecal injection (i.th.) of methotrexate (MTX), cytarabine (AraC) and dexamethasone (Dex). The 2nd and 3rd induction cycle consisted of InO 0.5mg/m2 on day 1, 8 and 15 plus i.th. MTX/AraC/Dex. Patients achieving a complete remission (CR) were offered to receive 5 conventional consolidation therapies (3 x ID-MTX/asparaginase; 2 x ID-AraC) and one reinduction therapy (idarubicine/ AraC/ cyclophosphamide / Dex.) in combination with rituximab (for CD20+ ALL), followed by a maintenance therapy with 6-MP/MTX. The primary endpoint was event free survival (EFS) at 12-months follow-up. An event was defined as any of the following: persisting bone marrow blasts after 2 cycles of InO, relapse or death. An event rate of ≤40% at 12 months follow-up was considered to qualify the experimental treatment as very promising for additional testing. Under the assumption of one-sided type I error of 5% and 80% power, 42 evaluable patients were needed for primary endpoint analysis (registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT03460522).
 Results: As of July 2021, 45 patients were included, with induction results available for 43 patients. Two patients were excluded per protocol from further analysis, as they received only one induction: 1 prolonged toxicity (CR after induction), 1 withdrawn consent. Median age at initial diagnosis was 64 years (range 56-80 years). 38 patients were diagnosed with a common- and 5 with a pro-B ALL. Median CD22 expression on leukemic blasts was 69% (range 21-99%). Due to suspected therapy related liver toxicities, a single patient received only 2 induction cycles (complete remission after 1st induction). All other patients completed 3 cycles of induction therapy and achieved complete remission (CR/CRi), mainly after the 1st induction. Results of minimal residual disease (MRD), measured by real-time quantitative PCR, are available for all 43 patients, with 23/43 (53%) and 31/42 (74%) patients being MRD negative after 2nd and 3rd induction therapy, respectively. Four patients with MRD failure (≥10 -4) after the 3rd induction therapy are still in CR (2 were treated with conventional chemotherapy per this protocol, one proceeded to allogeneic stem cell transplantation (aSCT), one received blinatumomab). MRD below the threshold of 10 -4 was detected in 15 patients after the 2nd induction (no relapse occurred so far). 8 of these 15 patients were MRD negative after the 3rd induction. So far, 7 events have been reported (during year 1: 3 deaths in CR and 1 relapsed ALL; during year 2: 1 death in CR and 2 patients with relapse). With a median follow-up of 422 days, the probability of OS at 1 and 2 years is 91% (95% C.I. 80-100%) and 77% (95% C.I. 57-96%), respectively. 4 patients received an aSCT in 1st CR, 1 patient in 2nd CR. Regarding adverse events (AEs) during induction cycles 1, 2 and 3, most common AEs ≥CTC grade 3 reported were leukocytopenia (in 60%, 12% and 3% of all cases, respectively), anemia (28%, 2%, 0%), thrombocytopenia (35%, 7%, 3%) and elevation of liver enzymes (14%, 5%, 0%). So far, one patient has been reported with suspected veno occlusive disease (after 2nd induction therapy).
 Conclusion: Three cycles of InO as induction therapy for the treatment of elderly patients with acute B-cell ALL results in very high remission rates with MRD-response in up to 90% (MRD negativity or MRD-levels <10 -4). The promising EFS and survival rates of these patients warrant further investigation of this novel induction therapy in a prospective randomized trial.
 Figure 1 Figure 1.

 Stelljes: Pfizer: Consultancy, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Amgen: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau; Medac: Speakers Bureau; MSD: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau; Novartis: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau; Celgene/BMS: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau; Kite/Gilead: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau. Wäsch: Sanofi: Consultancy, Honoraria; Amgen: Consultancy, Honoraria; Pfizer: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen: Consultancy, Honoraria; Novartis: Consultancy; BMS/Celgene: Consultancy; Gilead: Consultancy. Nachtkamp: Jazz: Honoraria; Bsh medical: Honoraria; Celgene: Other: Travel Support. Haenel: Jazz: Consultancy, Honoraria; GSK: Consultancy; Bayer Vital: Honoraria; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria; Roche: Consultancy, Honoraria; Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria; Amgen: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria. Berdel: Philogen S.p.A.: Consultancy, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Goekbuget: Amgen: Consultancy, Other: Invited talks for company sponsored symposia (with honoraria); Research funding for institution; Astra Zeneca: Other: Invited talk for company sponsored symposia (with honor); Erytech: Consultancy; Cellestia: Consultancy; Incyte: Other: Research funding for Institution; Jazz Pharmaceuticals: Other: Research funding for institution; Novartis: Consultancy, Other: Research funding for Institution; Gilead/Kite: Consultancy; Morphosys: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy, Other: Research funding for institution; Servier: Consultancy, Other; Abbvie: Other.

 Inotuzumab Ozogamicin


In the world of big data there has been a steady shift from parallel to high speed serial digital communication buses which requires devices with much higher data throughput. Serializing the data and sending at a faster rate, reduces the pin counts which in turn lead to much smaller devices in an integrated circuit compared to parallel communication. Line coding can potentially help in high data transfers. In this paper 128b/130b line coding algorithm has been proposed which has the double the payload of conventional 64b/66b encoding technique, with same number of preamble bits. This increases the data transfer rate drastically. The polynomial for the scrambler has been used from IEEE clause. The proposed 128b/130b encoding algorithm has been coded using Verilog and simulated using Quartus II 9.0v .The parameters such as Setup time, Hold time, Maximum frequency, power and slack for 8b/10b, 64b/66b and 128b/130b has been compared and tabulated. The layout has been designed for 128b/130b using Cadence Encounter 14.26 tool. The comparison shows that proposed algorithm has higher data rate at the expense of increase in hardware utilization.


In our research we investigate rational agent which consciously balances deliberation and acting, and uses learning to augment its reasoning. It creates several partial plans, uses past experience to choose the best one and, by executing it, gams new Knowledge about the world. We analyse a possible application of Inductive Logic Programming to learn how to evaluate partial plans in a resource-constrained way. We also discuss how ILP framework can generalise partial plans.


The phenomena of settlement and wear of the ballast under dynamic stresses lead to high frequencies and high maintenance costs on high-speed railway lines. Studies have shown that these settlements are linked to high accelerations produced in the ballast by the passage of high-speed trains (HST). A layer of asphalt concrete (GB) was introduced under the ballast layer on the high-speed line Bretagne-Pays de Loire (BPL HSL). It is intended, among other things, to reduce the amplitude of accelerations produced at the passage of the HST and thus improve the durability of the track. The BPL HSL spans 105 km, with a sublayer of asphalt concrete under the ballast and 77 km with a granular sublayer (UGM). To evaluate the performance of the structures with bituminous sublayer and to compare it with traditional structures with granular sublayer, four track sections have been instrumented during construction. This article presents the different sensors of the instrumentation, as well as the acquisition system installed to collect measurements. The focus, in this study, concerns the temperature, water content, and vertical settlement measurements made on the instrumented sections. Temperature variations recorded during two years on the railway structure with bituminous sublayer were analyzed and compared with those measured on a classical bituminous pavement. Influence of the bituminous layer on water infiltration and track settlements has also been studied.


Using the achievements of my research group over the last 30+ years, I provide evidence to support two hypotheses: 1. The representation of a problem is often the key to its solu-


Serum calcium, phosphate, and alkaline phosphatases were investigated in 15 1 prematures admitted to the Children's Hospital, Fuglebakken, Copenhagen. AS a main principle, these infants were fed on human milk until they had attained a weight of about 2300 g after which they had either continued breast feeding, mixed, or artifical feeding. From the age of one week all prematures had a supplement of 100 mg ascorbic acid, from the age af 2 weeks 1600. I.U. vitamin D and 8000 I.U. vitamin A daily. Out of the 151 cases 70 (46.4%) had serum calcium values below 4.8 mEq/l and 60 (39.7 %) had alkaline phosphatases exceeding 35 King-Armstrong units/ 100 ml shortly before discharge, i.e. at a weight of approx. 2500-2800 g. Owing to the difference in age at the time of the investigation it is impossible to compare the various weight groups. However, out of the entire series the investigations in October, November and December showed in the infants born in August, September, and October on the average higher serum calcium, and feeding with human milk of prematures having birth weights exceeding 1500 gave a smaller number having serum calcium values lower than 4.8 mEq/l than changing from human to cow's milk. With alkaline serum phosphatases this finding was reversed. Only a very few of the prematures so examined showed mild X-ray signs of rickets.


We present a Bayesian jackknife test for assessing the probability that a data set contains biased subsets, and, if so, which of the subsets are likely to be biased. The test can be used to assess the presence and likely source of statistical tension between different measurements of the same quantities in an automated manner. Under certain broadly applicable assumptions, the test is analytically tractable. We also provide an open source code, chiborg, that performs both analytic and numerical computations of the test on general Gaussian-distributed data. After exploring the information theoretical aspects of the test and its performance with an array of simulations, we apply it to data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) to assess whether different sub-seasons of observing can justifiably be combined to produce a deeper 21cm power spectrum upper limit. We find that, with a handful of exceptions, the HERA data in question are statistically consistent and this decision is justified. We conclude by pointing out the wide applicability of this test, including to CMB experiments and the H0 tension.


We develop a modulus method for surface families inside a domain in the Heisenberg group and we prove that the stretch map between two Heisenberg spherical rings is a minimiser for the mean distortion among the class of contact quasiconformal maps between these rings which satisfy certain boundary conditions.


Set in rural Ireland of the early 60s, Billy Roche's new play takes us into the burlesque world of Delaney's Travelling Roadshow and in particular its boxing hall where prizefighter Dean takes on all comers on a nightly basis. That is, until a challenge from a professional fighter upsets the apple-cart. Taking us back to a forgotten world that is nonetheless brimming with familiar passions and human foibles, "Lay Me Down Softly" is a rich slice of vintage Roche, following on from his acclaimed "Wexford Trilogy" and other much-loved tales of small-town Ireland.


Introduction. The purpose of the research is the determination of parameters and characteristics of the laser measuring systems providing decrease in errors of measurement of geometrical parameters of vehicles.The goal is achieved at the expense of the solution of the relevant task connected with the parameters research of the laser equipment and definition of requirements to accuracy (a passport error) of the laser range finders applied at geometrical parameters control of vehicles.Methods and materials. The algorithm of calculation of spatial coordinates of the car points and errors of their definition has been created and used for the research. In this case calculations of spatial provision of the point and its error have been reduced to definition and to the solution of the equations system of the second order in the MathCAD program environment. As the controlled and measured parameters at coordinates' calculation of distances from laser measuring instruments to the studied car points were accepted.Results. As aresult, the mean square error of measurement of distance between control points significantly decreases at reduction of the passport error of laser range finders. At the size of the passport error of laser range finders equals 0,8 mm, the mean square error of measurement of distance between control points (from 0 to 3000 mm) equals 2,2-2,9 mm, and an error of definition of the control point is 1,5-1,9 mm.Discussion and conclusion. The conducted research demonstrates that it is necessary to compare the reached accuracy parameters at the set configuration of laser measuring system with the shown standard restrictions for an error of measurements. Therefore, further improvement of characteristics of accuracy of measuring systems is possible due to progressive decrease in an error of laser range finders as a result of their technical improvement.


Emergency Medicine - Paediatric

 Fever is a common presentation among children coming to the Emergency Department (ED) and a urinary tract infection (UTI) often needs to be excluded. Sterile techniques, like catheterization, are invasive, can be traumatizing to children, and are time consuming to complete. A two-step approach has been shown to reduce the catheterization rate in febrile, young children without unintended consequences.

 Our aim was to implement a two-step approach for UTI screening in febrile children 6-24 months in order to decrease unnecessary urine catheterizations by 50% without impacting ED length of stay (LOS) or return visits (RVs).

 After engaging key stakeholders and a nursing champion, we created a process map to understand the current urine collection process in our ED, and areas for targeted improvement. Using the model for improvement, we adopted a 2-step pathway for a suspected UTI in children 6-24 months as our change idea. The pathway involved identifying children who met inclusion criteria for UTI screening, followed by urine bag application and urinalysis (UA) if clinically indicated. Only if the UA was positive, a second urine sample was collected via catheterization, for repeat UA and culture. Through multiple PDSA cycles, our pathway was implemented in the ED along with concurrent staff education. The outcome measure was the rate of ED urine catheterizations. Process measures included the total number of urine cultures sent to microbiology and percent positivity. The balancing measures included ED LOS and RVs.

 Since project initiation in July 2019, the ED catheterization rate decreased from 73% to 53% (Figure 1) and the number of urine cultures sent to Microbiology decreased by 23%. The number of urine cultures sent to Microbiology decreased by 23% with a mild improvement in the positivity rate by 2% (Figure 2). There was no significant change in RVs. There was a slight 10-min increase in ED LOS, most likely confounded by the COVID pandemic.

 Using improvement methodology, we successfully decreased the number of unnecessary catheterizations in children and the number of urine cultures sent to microbiology. Further refinements to our intervention are ongoing and include optimizing urine screening equipment in patient rooms, poster reminders, re-education for providers, and introducing a parent resource explaining the 2-step pathway. This improvement work is also being spread to the paediatric wards and can easily be adopted by other paediatric centres. It has also been adapted by the Choosing Wisely hospital campaign.


A thermophotovoltaic (TPV) generator for electric vehicles has been designed and developed. In this paper we focus on the combustion system and the heat regenerator. The system has been designed to work as a range extender for electric vehicles. This solution would provide energy always available on the vehicle, which would run even if the battery level were low. Several configurations for the burner and for the heat exchanger have been investigated and a comparison of these is presented. The different solutions have been studied both theoretically and experimentally. In this paper, we report on the work carried out to build a TPV device capable of yielding 6 kW of electric power to recharge the battery pack of an electric city-car. The project has been divided into four steps: (1) pre-design of different configurations of the burner and heat exchanger using non-commercial software 'TPV Design Tool 1.0'; (2) testing of the pre-designed generators with a CFD code (Fluent 6); (3) testing of the chosen configurations on the experimental bench to validate the results from CFD simulations and to highlight technological limits of the chosen configurations; (4) selection of the best configuration. After the design and testing of the devices, a two-burner modular configuration has been proven to be a good compromise between the geometric constraints and the objectives of the project. The designed generator is relatively compact and light with good efficiency and emissions performance.


We report on our ongoing development of an optimized low-level timer-API for the RIOT operating system. Starting with a survey of hardware timer peripherals from 43 MCU-families and 8 manufacturers, we identify common properties and differences of all available timer types. Based on this hardware analysis, we propose a lightweight yet powerful low-level timer-API design. It streamlines existing timer interfaces and relieves application developers from the error-prone task of repeatedly writing additional peripheral driver code.


Neutrophils participate in the advancement of the human innate immune system and respond to perceived endogenous and exogenous threats. As a response mechanism, neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) form near pathogens and surrounding tissues during an immune response. Drusen is an important marker of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and plays an important role in the course of AMD. Aβ1-40 is the main component of drusen. However, the relationship between NETs and AMD or Aβ1-40 is unclear. Here, we found elevated levels of NETs in the serum of AMD patients and elevated levels in the serum of mouse models. We also observed the accumulation of neutrophils in the mouse retina. In addition, the production of NETs was inhibited by PAD4 inhibitors, which can alleviate chronic inflammation. Moreover, we confirmed that Aβ1-40 can induce NETs formation via the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and neutrophil NADPH oxidase (NOX) pathways. Our study confirmed that the formation of NETs is induced by Aβ1–40, and the results suggest that NETs may play a vital role in AMD pathogenesis.


BACKGROUND
A combination of mifepristone followed after 24 hrs by misoprostol has proved a safe and effective abortifacient for termination of early pregnancy. Home use of misoprostol for medical abortion is still controversial in many countries including ours where women's literacy rate is low. Particularly in developing countries, this method markedly decreased the hospital visit which would be beneficial to patients and hospital staff.

OBJECTIVE
To see whether the home self administration of vaginal misoprostol was equally effective as administered by trained staff in terms of successful termination of early pregnancy. Secondary outcomes were bleeding and pain duration during medical abortion, side effects, reason for termination of pregnancy and women's acceptability of the procedure.

METHOD
One hundred and eighty eight women requesting medical abortion with pregnancy less than 63 days gestation were randomized into two groups either self administration of vaginal misoprostol (800 mcg) at home or hospital administration 24 hours after oral 200 mg mifepristone. Ultrasound was performed after 14 days to confirm complete abortion.

RESULT
The overall success rate was similar in two groups: 89.13% on home group Vs 86.9% in hospital group. Eleven out of 18 women (61.1%) having incomplete abortion had successful termination after 2nd dose misoprostol( 400 mcg). None of the women had continued pregnancy. Multigravida had slightly higher risk of failure (R.R: 1.04).

CONCLUSION
Home self administration of vaginal misoprostol was safe and effective for early termination of medical abortion and was acceptable. Use of extra dose of misoprostol has advantage of higher completion rate of abortion.


First of all, we outline a well known result. I.e. the formation of energy density and energy flux density for de Sitter space time, assuming close to mono chromatic close to plane wave generation of spin two gravitons. This is done in the context of an emergent vacuum energy field being introduced at the onset of the initial space time singularity. We reference entropy generation by multiple brane- anti brane combinations leading to an initial soliton-instanton formation. We close then with observations we think are pertinent to entropy increase and also the variation of statistical noise about the CMBR spectra. This ties in with possible new species of detectable 'neutrinos' in ways which lead to an extension of the standard model, and ties in with possible spin two graviton generation of both entropy and structure formation initially, in accordance with a starting point for our analysis of inflation being due to emergent field energy density from a prior universe.


This research is aimed to determine the benefits of urine and milk's camel as a medicine, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungial. It is related with hadith of Prophet Muhammad, Peace upon on Him (puh) about the benefits of milk and urine's camel. Camel urine is used as an alternative medicine for Middle Eastern societies. But there is controversy in consuming camel urine especially for some people whose think that camel urine as a najis. The result from in vitro laboratory has proved that camel urine as an inhibitor of cancer cells, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal. Until now yet research found on health tests for people who routinely consume camel urine. In addition, there have not been many studies in vivo. Based on the study side of fiqh, Shafi'i and Hanafi school of thought (madzhab) regard camel urine so najis that it should not be consumed. Meanwhile according to the Hanbali of school of thought (madzhab) the camel urine is not najis because the camel is a halal animal eaten, while the Maliki school of thought (madzhab) has the same opinion with the Hanbali school of thought (madzhab) but if the animal consumes something that is najis then the law of dirt and urine becomes najis.


We present a study of the effect that substituents with competitive inductive properties have on the reactivity of the aromatic ring. As specific case, we studied the gas phase protonation of paranitroaniline (PNA) using Density Functional Theory methods (DFT) and Moller Plesset second order perturbation Theory (MP2). The joint effect of the substituents yields relative stabilities on the protoanted species that follow the trend nitro group > amino group > ortho carbon > para carbon > meta carbon > ipso carbon (positions relative to the amino group).


Aim: To develop novel diagnostic tools that can predict the prognosis of gastric cancer. Material & methods: Using RNA expression data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus, we established protein-coding RNAs-noncoding RNAs-tumor microenvironment type (PNM) scores, which contain signatures of tumor protein coding genes (P), tumor noncoding genes (N) and immune/stroma cells in tumor microenvironment (M) to predict the prognosis of gastric cancer. Results & conclusion: Based on PNM scores, gastric cancer patients were divided into three subgroups and Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed significant differences among the subgroups (p < 0.001). Our study showed that the PNM scores could be used as a robust predicting tool for the prognosis of gastric cancer.


The pathophysiological events leading to cellular proliferation in proliferative vitreoretinopathy are largely unknown. An involvement of neuropeptides in that disease has recently been discussed, as substance P was found to be highly enriched in the intraocular fluid of patients with proliferative vitreoretinopathy. In the present study, aqueous humor was analyzed for another neuropeptide, vasoactive intestinal polypeptide. Radioimmunoassay revealed significantly increased levels of that polypeptide in the aqueous humor of patients with proliferative vitreoretinopathy as compared with cataract patients who served as controls. As vasoactive intestinal polypeptide contributes to the environment of the retinal pigment epithelial cell layer and induces proliferation of these cells in vitro, this peptide may be involved in the pathogenetic mechanisms leading to cellular proliferation in proliferative vitreoretinopathy.


Organizations thrive on people. At the heart of all excellence at work it is the degree and extent of human commitment that matters most. To have a committed workforce it is quite imperative to ensure satisfaction, consummation, and fulfillment in the minds of employees. A satisfied worker is a happy worker and of course can prove to be most productive, prolific, and industrious in his work and in execution of his responsibilities. In this paper, delineation is done as to what are the underlying elements of the subject matter of job satisfaction. With a brief introduction of the concept of job satisfaction, the paper moves on to throw light on occupational fulfillment for human involvement, job satisfaction traits and performances, job satisfaction and employee turnover, HR initiatives and job satisfaction, job satisfaction in relation to recruitment and retention, organizational culture and citizenship behavior and job satisfaction, job satisfaction as an indicator of employee contentment, human fulfillment, and the like. The scope of this paper moves along gauging workplace behavior of employees in organizational situations, with an eye on job satisfaction, as portrayed by relevant literature in business and management studies. The paper is based on literature review in the area concerned with identifiable areas of stress and concern.


Backgrounds and Objectives: Heavy metals in dust can enter to the human body through ingestion and inhalation. They can pollute the water and soil resources via atmospheric precipitation and accumulate in the plants tissue and enter human body by water and food. The aim of this study was measurement of the heavy metals in wet and dry atmospheric precipitation and effects of pollution sources at the ground surface on the concentration of heavy metals in the atmospheric precipitations. Materials and Methods: In this study the zanjan city was divided into 5 zones and wet and dry precipitations were collected in autumn, winter and spring (20082009) from zones. The concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cr and Zn the collected precipitations were determined by Atomic Absorption spectroscopy method. Results: The averages of concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cr and Zn were 0.082, 0.286, 0.018, and 0.009 (mg/m 2.d) respectively. The correlation coefficients between Pb-Zn was 0.8 (P<0.01) and for Cr-Cd, Cd-Pb, and Cr-Pb were 0.89, 0.58 and 0.61 respectively. Conclusion: The results showed that the industrial sources of heavy metals play the main role in concentration of heavy metals in wet and dry atmospheric precipitation in Zanjan.The correlation coefficients showed that the lead and zinc result from a common source. This source can be the lead and zinc factories locating around the city. The measurement of heavy metals in atmospheric precipitation shows the effects of anthropogenic sources in air quality. The heavy metals concentration in atmospheric precipitation can be use as air pollution index.


Improving the quality of Human Resources (HR) through stimulation of growth and development in children aged under two years (0-24 months), needs to be a priority concern of parents / caregivers considering this period is called the "golden age" or golden period, because brain development is very fast at two year old baby / BADUTA. Low Birth Weight (LBW) infants are at risk of growth and development disorders if LBW treatment and stimulation of development are not optimal and continuous. The research objective was to determine the development of Baduta motor skills with a history of LBW in the Regency. Descriptive research with the Cross Sectional Study approach. The study population was all Baduta with a history of LBW in Mamuju District, Mamuju District. The sample of this study was Baduta who had a history of low birth weight birth and lived in Mamuju District. the number of samples is 28 million, using the KPSP Pre Srining Development Questionnaire (KPSP) measuring gross motor development and fine motor development. The results showed that there were still 11 baduta (39.3%) unable to do gross motor skills and 5 baduta (17.9%) unable to do fine motor skills


A 17 year-old male, who was mentally and bodily retarded from the age of 7 years. At the age of 16 years, several neurological signs appeared. Pathologically, there was widespread myelin loss and tissue sponginess in the white matter of the cerebrum and cerebellum, bilaterally and symmetrically. A great many Alzheimer type II glia and Opalski glia were widely distributed in the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia. Despite severe destruction of the white matter, mesenchymal and gliofibre proliferation were not noticed. In the liver, Laennec's cirrhosis and a great many copper granules in the cytoplasm of the parenchymal cells were identified. From the above mentioned findings the present case, being a new type, could be called "Demyelinating type of Wilson's disease".


We found no credible enhancement of neonatal mortality in mice exposed in utero on Day 8 of gestation to ultrasound at 0.44 W/cm2 (+/- 20%) spatial average intensity, 2 MHz, continuous wave, for 60--180 s in a 37 degrees C water bath. This result is compared with the adverse effect on neonatal survival reported by Curto [in Ultrasound in Medicine (Plenum, New York, 1976), Vol. 2, pp. 535--536] for exposure on Day 14 of gestation at about 0.125 to 0.5 W/cm2, 1MHz, continuous wave, for 180 s in a 30 degrees C bath. It is concluded that a temporary reduction in fetal viability, lasting from 4 days to less than 10 days after exposure, could account for both sets of data. It is also evident from these data that improved methods of determining intensities within mammalian tissues are highly desirable.


The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative method for electric power utilities to predict the magnitude and duration of the peak demand following a power outage in cold weather. The study is limited strictly to electrically heated homes. A model has been developed based on experimental data that predicts the power demand of any number of homes following a power outage. The authors believe that this information should influence both the design of the distribution system and the method of power restoration.


Introduction Treatment of bipolar disorder is the focus of several clinical trials, however the understanding of the outcomes for establishing treatment effectiveness within these trials is limited. Further, there is limited literature which reports on the outcomes considered to be important to patients, indicating that patient perspectives are often not considered when selecting outcomes of effectiveness within trials. This protocol describes a systematic review which aims to describe the outcomes being used within trials to measure treatment effectiveness, commenting on the inclusion of patient-important outcomes within previous trials. Methods and analysis This protocol is reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Protocols statement. OVID MEDLINE, OVID Embase, OVID APA PsycINFO, Web of Science, the Wiley Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform databases will be searched for eligible studies. Screening, full-text and data extraction stages will be completed in duplicate using the Covidence platform for systematic reviews. Eligible studies will include clinical trials of interventions in bipolar disorder, in order to identify outcomes used to assess treatment effectiveness, and qualitative studies, to determine which outcomes have been reported as important by patients. Risk of bias for included studies will be assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for randomised controlled trials, and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for observational research. Ethics and dissemination This review will involve dissemination to key stakeholders, including primary end users such as patients, clinicians and trialists. Knowledge translation tools will be generated to share the relevant conclusions of this review. Results will be communicated to the scientific community through peer-reviewed publications, conferences and workshops. No ethics approval will be sought as this study is based on literature. PROSPERO registration number CRD42021214435.


The paper deals with the peculiarities of the formation of ecological and economic competences at modern school. The paper shows that ecological and economic education is continuous and uninterrupted psychological process which is directed towards the formation of knowledge, culture and consciousness of a person. Attention is paid to the problems of environmental and economic situation in the Carpathian region of Ukraine. Ecological and economic model of education can develop effectively only on the basis of humanistic orientation and innovation potential of the educational institution. The humanization provides increased attention to the individual as a whole, the promotion of its abilities, physical and moral qualities. Modern education aims to form environmentally and economically responsible person, that is ready for the conscious activity on the basis of the gained knowledge and formes behavioral norms and rules concerning the environment. Humanity has the ability to choose either the path of environmental and economic education, or the path of the global catastrophe and self-destruction. Civilized, cultured people are called to protect and multiply the good, by laws and authority to establish the highest spiritual values of the life in the society and public opinion. Only intelligence and environmental and economic culture, that is continuous educational training and educational activity, may generate culture of society, relevant to the permanent development, and transfer its relationships with the environment on the way of intelligent coexistence.


Monitoring system of coastal waters dumping waste area consists of site machine system, wireless transmission network and remote monitoring center system. Due to the remote coastal waters, there exist the cases of difficult construction of base station and hostile transmitting environments, it is necessary for messages to have to transmit in the greater distance beyond cellular coverage. In this thesis, VGA module is increased to strengthen designed RF terminal system, and related products are chosen according to the need of the system design, and the specific system parameters are defined. Finally, the results of simulation are provided by MATLAB/SIMULINK, achieving the purpose to improve communications quality effect. Keywords-coastal waters, RF receiver, simulink7. 1 simulation, terminal, VGA


Treatment of children in the acute stage of hemorrhage from cerebral aneurysms is based on clinical cases reported in the literature and descriptions of small series of observations. There are no studies that enable the development of evidence-based approaches to intensive care in treatment of children with aSAH. We present a clinical case with a favorable outcome of complex treatment in a child admitted to the Burdenko Neurosurgical Institute at an extremely severe condition. The efficacy of treatment was based on a timely urgent neurosurgical intervention and adequate intensive therapy in the form of extended neuromonitoring with continuous measurement of intracranial pressure, which enabled using the whole complex of measures for timely management of intracranial hypertension. A favorable outcome (a GOS score IV) after this severe aneurysmal SAH indicates that there are no absolute contraindications for neurosurgical treatment of children with cerebral aneurysms.


1. Berge KH, Seppala MD, Lanier WL: The anesthesiology community's approach to opioidand anesthetic-abusing personnel: Time to change course. ANESTHESIOLOGY 2008; 109:762–4 2. McLellan AT, Skipper GS, Campbell M, DuPont RL: Five year outcomes in a cohort study of physicians treated for substance use disorders in the United States. BMJ 2008; 337:2038 3. Menk EJ, Baumgarten RK, Kingsley CP, Culling RD, Middaugh R: Success of reentry into anesthesiology training programs by residents with a history of substance abuse. JAMA 1990; 263:3060–2 4. Wischmeyer PE, Johnson BR, Wilson JE, Dingmann C, Bachman HM, Roller E, Tran ZV, Henthorn TK: A survey of propofol abuse in academic anesthesia programs. Anesth Analg 2007; 105:1066–71 5. Wilson JE, Kiselanova N, Stevens Q, Lutz R, Mandler T, Tran ZV, Wischmeyer PE: A survey of inhalational anaesthetic abuse in anaesthesia training programmes. Anaesthesia 2008; 63:616–20 6. Alexander BH, Checkoway H, Nagahama SI, Domino KB: Cause-specific mortality risks of anesthesiologists. ANESTHESIOLOGY 2000; 93:922–30 7. Berry AJ, Fleisher LA: Cause-specific mortality risks of anesthesiologists. New evidence for the existence of old problems. ANESTHESIOLOGY 2000; 93:919–21 8. Paris RT, Canavan DI: Physician substance abuse impairment: Anesthesiologists vs. other specialties. J Addict Dis 1999; 18:1–7 9. Pelton C, Ikeda RM: The California Physicians Diversion Program's experience with recovering anesthesiologists. J Psychoactive Drugs 1991; 23:427–31 10. Domino KB, Hornbein TF, Polissar NL, Renner G, Johnson J, Alberti S, Hankes L: Risk factors for relapse in health care professionals with substance use disorders. JAMA 2005; 293:1453–60


ABSTRACT Data-driven testing of ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) can help researchers in the ranking and selection of GMPEs for seismic hazard assessment. This paper presents and discusses the details of the major features of well-known testing methods which employ likelihood and Euclidean distance concepts. A set of local, regional, and global GMPEs are assessed under a ground-motion database. The data-driven testing of GMPEs is supported by thorough residual analyses under the database, providing valuable insights into the testing of GMPEs. The researchers are advised to evaluate all options together instead of focusing on a specific tool to build well-structured ground-motion logic trees.


Predefined categories can be assigned to the natural language text using Text categorization. This paper explores the effect of other types of values, which express the distribution of a word in the document. These values are called distributional features. These different features are calculated for Window passage using distinctive classifiers. The classifier which gives the more accurate result is selected for categorization. Experiments show that the distributional features are useful for text categorization. These results are simulated using Weka tool.


Abstract Primary tracheal tumours are extremely rare and present with widely variant clinical and histological features. Treatment methods vary considerably, and few studies have sought to provide adequate guidelines. A retrospective analysis was carried out of all patients treated in our unit between 1965 and 1990. Our experience deals almost exclusively with high tracheal tumours involving the adjacent subglottic region. Squamous carcinoma (SCC) and adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) were the commonest subtypes, and presented with dyspnoea and hoarseness as the most frequent symptoms. ACCs occurred commonly in young individuals, presented insidiously, and ran a long, and often, unpredictable course. Endoscopic evaluation revealed the majority of the lesions to be bulky and obstructive in nature. Primary surgery with adjuvant radical radiotherapy, when indicated, appeared to provide optimal results. Debulking surgery followed by radiotherapy provided effective and lasting control in two cases of ACC. Other malignant subtypes behaved aggressively and progressed uncontrolled.


INTRODUCTION: The HIV prevention cascade could be used in developing interventions to strengthen implementation of efficacious HIV prevention methods, but its practical utility needs to be demonstrated. We propose a standardized approach to using the cascade to guide identification and evaluation of interventions and demonstrate its feasibility for this purpose through a project to develop interventions to improve HIV prevention methods use by adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and potential male partners in east Zimbabwe.


Microparticles (MPs) represent a heterogeneous population of submicronic vesicles that are released in response to cell activation or apoptosis. MPs harbor a large repertoire of cell surface receptors and mRNA and biological activities representative of their parent cells and related to their involvement in many biological functions. Although MP generation is a physiological response, a dramatic increase in circulating MPs is detectable in a variety of thrombosis‐associated disorders compared with healthy individuals. In this review, we will discuss a new vision of MPs as complex and ambivalent structures that express both activators and inhibitors of coagulation but also convey fibrinolytic properties. After summarizing our current knowledge about the role of MPs in venous and arterial thrombosis, this review will explore how this new vision of MPs influences their definition as emergent biomarkers in thrombotic diseases. Among the studies that have aimed to establish a link between thrombosis and MPs, a few studies have demonstrated a predictive value of MPs. So far, it is unclear whether this limited causative association is the result of current technical concerns and limited standardization or has to be integrated into a more complex vision of the role of MPs as key systems for regulating the balance between coagulation and fibrinolysis.