OBJECTIVE
To investigate the operative treatment of displaced intra-articular calcaneal fracture by lateral minimally invasive approach reduction and internal fixation.

METHODS
During January 2006 to September 2009, 30 cases (31 feet) of displaced intra-articular calcaneal fracture were treated by open reduction and hollow screws internal fixation through lateral minimally invasive approach from the fibular tip to the basement of the fourth metatarsal foot (Sanders II in 21 feet, Sanders III in 8 feet, Sanders IV in 2 feet), including 23 males and 7 females with an average age of 36.5 years ranging from 18 to 60 years.

RESULTS
The 31 feet of 30 patients were followed-up for from 3 to 24 months (14 months in average). There was no soft tissue complications such as infected incision, skin necrosis, poor wound healing, and sural nerve injury. X-ray films of 25 feet after the operations showed well reduction of articular surface and satisfactory shape on calcaneal; 6 feet showed roughly normal shape. Based on the Maryland grading system, 6 feet were excellent, 20 feet good and 5 feet fair.

CONCLUSION
The lateral minimally invasive approach is a good option for calcaneal fracture of Sanders II and III, because of its less damages to soft tissue and fewer complications. It could also provide excellent exposure of articular surface.


We develop a validated numerical procedure for continuation of local stable/unstable manifold patches attached to equilibrium solutions of ordinary differential equations. The procedure has two steps. First we compute an accurate high order Taylor expansion of the local invariant manifold. This expansion is valid in some neighborhood of the equilibrium. An important component of our method is that we obtain mathematically rigorous lower bounds on the size of this neighborhood, as well as validated a posteriori error bounds for the polynomial approximation. In the second step we use a rigorous numerical integrating scheme to propagate the boundary of the local stable/unstable manifold as long as possible, i.e., as long as the integrator yields validated error bounds below some desired tolerance. The procedure exploits adaptive remeshing strategies which track the growth/decay of the Taylor coefficients of the advected curve. In order to highlight the utility of the procedure, we study the embedding of some...


Q, G and C banding studies of the chromosomes of Nycticebus coucang permitted the identification of all pairs in the complement. The X was a long submetacentric, the Y a rather long metacentric. All members of the complement were non-acrocentrics. The differences between the 2n = 52 and the 2n = 50 karyotypes described in this species may be due to a centric translocation mechanism.


© 2018 Benha Medical Journal | Published by Wolters K Objective Renal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury involves multiple mechanisms including oxidative stress. Erythropoietin (EPO) and allopurinol have an antioxidant effect and are protective against I/R-induced kidney injury. This study compares the ability of EPO to compete oxidative stress and kidney injury induced by I/R with that of allopurinol. Materials and methods A total of 72 male Sprague–Dawley rats were randomized into the following groups: sham group, I/R group, EPO-treated I/R group, and allopurinol-treated I/R group (n=18 in each group). I/R was persuaded by 45min clamping of the left renal pedicle followed by right nephrectomy. The therapeutic intervention started before the operative procedure. In each group, animals were killed at 1, 3, and 7 days after the operation. Serum creatinine, serum aspartate aminotransferase, tissue malondialdehyde, and pathological score for injury and regeneration were determined. Results We found that both EPO and allopurinol were able to attenuate the elevation of serum creatinine. EPO was more effective than allopurinol in reducing aspartate aminotransferase and malondialdehyde levels. Both drugs were equally effective regarding their effect on the active injury and regeneration scores. Conclusion These results indicate that although EPO or allopurinol can effectively reduce kidney damage, EPO is a better choice as an antioxidant and for reducing the overall damage of I/R-induced kidney injury.


A list of stamps relating to physics issued between the 1985 and 1986 editions of the Simplified Catalogue of Stamps of the World published by Stanley Gibbons.


All-nitrogenated sugars (ANSs), in which all hydroxy groups in a carbohydrate are replaced with amino groups, are anticipated to be privileged structures with useful biological activities. However, ANS synthesis has been challenging due to the difficulty in the installation of multi-amino groups. We report herein the development of a concise synthetic route to peracetylated ANSs in seven steps from commercially available monosaccharides. The key to success is the use of the sequential Overman rearrangement, which enables formal simultaneous substitution of four or five hydroxy groups in monosaccharides with amino groups. A variety of ANSs are available through the same reaction sequence starting from different initial monosaccharides by chirality transfer of secondary alcohols. Transformations of the resulting peracetylated ANSs such as glycosylation and deacetylation are also demonstrated. Biological studies reveal that ANS-modified cholesterol show cytotoxicity against human cancer cell lines, whereas each ANS and cholesterol have no cytotoxicity.


Binding conformations of single anti-BPDE-N2-dG adducts in oligonucleotides of varying base composition have been studied by induced circular dichroism (ICD). The sign of the ICD around 350 nm of single-stranded oligonucleotide adducts and the sign of an exciton type of CD component at 260 nm in both single strand and duplex forms of adducts correlate with the absolute configuration of the cyclohexyl moiety of the adduct. Changes in magnitude and sign of the ICD around 350 nm were observed upon duplex formation. The results show that adducts displaying external (minor groove) binding characteristics are associated with a significant positive ICD. Conversely, adducts displaying intercalation binding characteristics were found to have a positive or negative ICD. The magnitude of the ICD is dependent on the sequence context and the particular adduct isomer studied. Duplexes with (+)-trans-anti-BPDE-N2-dG in 5'-d(CCTATCGCTATCC) or 5'-d(CCTATAGATATCC) exhibit a relatively strong positive ICD. In contrast, the duplexes with (+)-trans-anti-BPDE-N2-dG in 5'-d(CCTATTGCTATCC) and 5'-d(CCTATTGTTATCC) display a small positive and negative ICD, respectively, in both cases suggesting conformational heterogeneity. Partially complementary duplexes (dA, dT, or dG) localized opposite the (+)-trans-anti-BPDE-N2-dG adduct in 5'-d(CCTATCGCTATCC) or 5'-d(CCTATAGATATCC) also demonstrated negative ICD. These results together with light absorption characteristics suggest a preferred conformation of intercalation for the mismatched duplexes. Evidence of an equilibrium between the external and intercalative adduct conformation is provided by the results from the temperature dependence of the near-UV absorption and ICD characteristics of (+)-trans-anti-BPDE-N2-dG complex in a 5'-d(CCTATAGATATCC) duplex.


ABSTRACT Due to the high consumption of Medium-density fiberboard (MDF), waste products of this material are growing worldwide. In this research, the feasibility of using Medium-density fiberboard waste ash (MDFWA) as part of cement in concrete was investigated. For this purpose, 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25% of the cement in concrete was substituted with MDFWA. For all design mixes, the water/blind ratio and the volume of aggregates were same. The slump, compressive strengths, SEM, EDX, TGA, DSC, and FTIR tests were conducted on the samples. At 28 days, the results demonstrated that the compressive strength of the sample containing 20% MDFWA increased by 13.6% compared to the control sample. Furthermore, the microstructure of the concrete show that the voids of the sample containing 20% MDFWA reduced compared to the control sample and also more calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) crystal formed. Implications: The significance of the present paper is to solve the environmental issue caused by large amount of Medium-density fiberboard waste ash (MDFWA) and produce also sustainable concrete. In addition, the replacement of cement with MDFWA increases the compressive strength and enhancement of the microstructure of concrete due to extra C-S-H products. Therefore, the findings confirm that by using 20% MDFWA, a more eco-friendly production, denser, sustainable, economical, and stronger concrete would be achieved.


The problem of cross-modal retrieval, e.g., using a text query to search for images and vice-versa, is considered in this paper. A novel model involving correspondence autoencoder (Corr-AE) is proposed here for solving this problem. The model is constructed by correlating hidden representations of two uni-modal autoencoders. A novel optimal objective, which minimizes a linear combination of representation learning errors for each modality and correlation learning error between hidden representations of two modalities, is used to train the model as a whole. Minimization of correlation learning error forces the model to learn hidden representations with only common information in different modalities, while minimization of representation learning error makes hidden representations are good enough to reconstruct input of each modality. A parameter $\alpha$ is used to balance the representation learning error and the correlation learning error. Based on two different multi-modal autoencoders, Corr-AE is extended to other two correspondence models, here we called Corr-Cross-AE and Corr-Full-AE. The proposed models are evaluated on three publicly available data sets from real scenes. We demonstrate that the three correspondence autoencoders perform significantly better than three canonical correlation analysis based models and two popular multi-modal deep models on cross-modal retrieval tasks.


A visual memory may contribute to perception by providing a source of hypotheses against which current input is tested. To make this contribution it should neither require active processes for its maintenance nor be overwritten by subsequent visual events.
There is little evidence for a visual memory with these characteristics. However, the single-item visual recency effect observed in the continuous binary decision task is an isolated instance of a short-term visual effect which does not reflect an active visual memory.
The present experiments demonstrate that the visual memory underlying this effect possesses the above
characteristics. Visual effects were isolated by using single letters varying in case. It was found that visual facilitation can survive an intervening visual event if it is predictable that this event will not be visually identical to the preceding stimulus or if it occurs in a different spatial location. This visual memory appears to retain the last of a particular class of events rather than the last item per se, indicating that the usual limitation of visual facilitation to one item is not due to interference or to decay with time.
Further experiments confirmed the automatic nature of the visual facilitation effect and provided evidence for an underlying process which compares current input against memory for preceding stimuli, and directly primes response selection.
The final experiments employed photographs of real objects and isolated a two-dimensional visuo-spatial code from an object level code. Only the former is sensitive to the predictability of occurrence of an irrelevant visual stimulus, suggesting that visual memory and perception interact at the level of this code.


SUMMARY
The daily integral of photosynthesis for a population of planktonic cyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea is calculated by numerical analysis based on the photosynthesis-irradiance curve of the organism, the vertical distribution of the population and details of the underwater light field. Variations in the light field are calculated from continuous recordings of surface irradiance and measurements of vertical light attenuation, with corrections for losses by reflection at the water surface that depend on the sun's elevation and roughening by wind. Integrals calculated using models in which simplifying assumptions are made about the surface irradiance overestimate the calculated value by 21% on a cloudless day and by 75%, or more, on an overcast day. Even larger discrepancies (> 100%) result when the population, which is concentrated in near-surface layers, is assumed to be evenly distributed with depth. Errors of up to 5% result from neglect of surface reflection, and up to 12% from neglect of changes in phytoplankton distribution over 24 h. Details are given of the method of numerical analysis, using standard computer spreadsheets. Versions of the spreadsheet are described in which effects of changes in the vertical distribution of the phytoplankton and light attenuation can be calculated and the effects of water temperature and photoinhibition can be modelled. The method will improve estimates of primary productivity in natural waters. It can also be used for calculating values of the euphotic depth integrated over 24 h. The spreadsheets are available on http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/walsby/integral.htm.


This study aims to firstly develop a brief review of the creation and functioning of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), highlighting the role of the EGTC in respect of its contribution to the harmonious development of the whole European Union through the strengthening of economic, social and territorial cohesion. The article highlights recent changes in EU legislation governing the EGTC and analyses the infl uence that there is in choosing the State where a Gro uping will be located, and the applicable law. Subsequently, the article outlines the contribution of those EGTCs — constituted by municipalities in Romania and Hungary — to regional sustainable development. Utilising a cross-border EGTC is a way of promoting of better neighbourliness, and stimulating balanced economic development and social stability by harnessing local resources and regional joint projects. At the end of the article I stress the need for cross-border cooperation between Romania and Hungary in developing serv...


Abstract The urgent need for new knowledge as a result of the CoViD-19 pandemic has led to a significant increase in the amount of scientific writing on the topic. Various analyses of this phenomenon from different approaches have appeared thus far (Horbach 2020; Torres-Salinas 2020). However, less attention has been paid to the impact of this situation on the language of these studies, looking into whether the continued emergency affects authors' conscious or unconscious linguistic choices, and if so, how. This article compares texts on CoViD with texts written during the previous MERS emergency and its aftermath, trying to find if texts on CoViD present particular linguistic features reflective of this situation of urgency. Results suggest that texts on CoViD do indeed exhibit particular linguistic features, and that these point to a preference for conveying immediate knowledge and a departure from rhetorical practices common in scientific writing.


Since the end of the 20th century, patient autonomy does not only aim at protecting patients' personal rights, but also to promote their active cooperation in the health system. In Germany, the legal development of patient autonomy goes hand in hand with the concerted establishment of patient counseling and training designed to produce ,,informed decision makers". This article examines the practice of patient autonomy and its corresponding subject beyond the sphere of formal law. Therefore, it draws on (1) reports of the German ,,Sachverstandigenrates zur Begutachtung der Entwicklung des Gesundheitswesens" and (2) a medical genetic counseling session. On the basis of an influential political-economic discourse on health policy and an advisory doctor-patient encounter it can be shown that the original goal of patient autonomy, namely the protection of personal freedom, tends to be perverted: Patient counseling and training increasingly requires that autonomy be exercised on the condition that it incorporate an expert-controlled rationality and exhibit the subject-position of an ,,informed decision maker".


125I-insulin was prepared by reacting 17.4 nmol porcine insulin (100 μg) with 5 mCi 125I (about 2.4 hmol) using the lactoperoxidase method. The reaction product was subjected to gel electrophoresis and the band containing A14 [125I]monoiodoinsulin was eluted. This preparation showed a specific activity of about 1.5 Ci/μmol as evaluated by radioimmunoassay and bioassay, i.e., about 75% of the theoretical maximum. The content of radioactive derivatives other than A14 monoiodoinsulin was less than 2%. The binding affinity of tracer A14 monoiodoinsulin to adipocytes, hepatocytes, and cultured human lymphocytes was about twice as high as that of A19 monoiodoinsulin. Binding to antibodies was examined in 10 guinea pig anti-insulin sera. Three sera did not distinguish between the two tracers, whereas seven exhibited higher binding of the A14 tracer. A detailed analysis of one of the discriminating sera showed that the average affinity constant was about 2.5 times lower for the A19 tracer than for the A14 tracer. The A14 monoiodoinsulin tracer is remarkably stable. After 200 days the specific activity had declined to about half of its original value which is consistent with the hypothesis that the physical decay of [125I]monoiodoinsulin (T12 = 60 days) extinguishes the activity of the molecule without causing major damage of other molecules. By this time 96% of the radioactivity migrated with insulin when subjected to gel filtration on Sephadex G-50, 4% was in the void volume, and nothing in the total column volume or later. Binding to receptors was indistinguishable from that obtained at time zero. It is concluded that Tyr A14 [125I]monoiodoinsulin represents an advance in biologic work as compared with previous tracers for insulin.


Obesity is an emerging health problem and its incidence has been increasing throughout the workforce. In industrial workstations, vertical handling tasks (VHT), including lifting and lowering, are very common and can cause a significant muscular overload for the involved workers. During these tasks, muscular activity may be considerably affected by workers' body conditions. This study aims to analyze and compare the muscular activity in subjects with different obesity levels, using surface electromyography (EMG), during predefined VHT. Six different VHT (combining 5, 10 and 15-kg loads with two task styles) were performed. EMG data normalization was based on the percentage of maximum contraction during each task (MCT%). The results show that obesity influences the MCT%, which in turn increases the muscular effort during VHT. The current investigation demonstrates that obesity is a relevant musculoskeletal risk factor regarding VHT. The engineering analysis and design implications of this work can thus be perceived.


A key to the unique combination of electronic and optical properties in halide perovskite materials lies in their rich structural complexity. However, their radiation sensitive nature limits nanoscale structural characterization requiring dose efficient microscopic techniques in order to determine their structures precisely. In this work, we determine the space-group and directly image the Br halide sites of CsPbBr3, a promising material for optoelectronic applications. Based on the symmetry of high-order Laue zone reflections of convergent-beam electron diffraction, we identify the tetragonal (I4/mcm) structural phase of CsPbBr3 at cryogenic temperature. Electron ptychography provides a highly sensitive phase contrast measurement of the halide positions under low electron-dose conditions, enabling imaging of the elongated Br sites originating from the out-of-phase octahedral rotation viewed along the [001] direction of I4/mcm persisting at room temperature. The measurement of these features and compariso...


This article unearths the little-known history of charitable giving in Cold War Europe. The first case explores supply conduits forged in the German Romanian community of West Germany and Romania. Starting in the late 1960s, Western community members became involved in supporting those left behind in Romania through care packages and tourist visits. As the political leadership under Nicolae Ceaușescu adopted drastic austerity measures in the early 1980s, the second case shows how East German volunteer groups organized aid to Romania from within the socialist bloc. The discussion concludes that the provisioning relationships uncovered in both examples integrated the world of materials into daily aspirations of 'governing precarious lives' to a new repertoire for public action that did not remain external to politics but rather reformulated what was at stake in politics through immediate, direct acts of assistance.


Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of   business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance. Among the potential enablers of BPR is information technology (IT). IT makes it possible to obtain improvements in BPR, though not just by it. This study examines a series of relationships between information technology (IT) and business process reengineering (BPR). Specifically, it argues that those aspiring to do business process reengineering must begin to apply the capabilities of information technology. The purpose of this paper is to answer some questions regarding this issue, like: Is the use of information technology a critical success factor of reengineering ? Is it possible to reengineer the business without the existence of IT sophistications? What are the facilitations that have been contributed by IT to successful reengineering? The methodology that has been adopted in the study is reviewing the literature to explore answers for such questions. It was found that IT has a critical role in the success of BPR project in achieving dramatic improvements, at the same time BPR introduced well defined strategies to make an organization heavily extracts the benefits from such enablers with huge capabilities and to employ IT correctly and efficiently. The main objective of this study is to explore the possibilities for improvement in the processes of Cost Accounting Information System in Tractor industry after re-engineering through use of information technology. Data has been collected through unstructured interviews from the technical experts in the companies and from the website. Besides, extensive study has been carried out from the existing literature. By applying BPR techniques and technology, Most of the companies in tractor industry has achieved about 50% reduction in waste in production (WIP), 20% reduction in lead times and 90% reduction in overtime resulting into a lot of savings. Keywords : Businesses Process Reengineering; Information Technology; Manufacturing Companies; Tractor Industry in Pakistan.


A major feature of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is disordered B-cell function, which paradoxically includes both pathologic overactivity (elevated serum antibodies, lymphadenopathy, and increased risk for lymphoma) and underactivity (impaired antibody immunity, particularly to bacterial polysaccharide antigens). B-cell immune dysfunction contributes significantly to HIV-related morbidity and also represents an obstacle to eventual definitive treatment by anti-HIV immunization. Our laboratory has recently identified in normal B-cell populations certain VH gene subfamilies with a developmentally regulated pattern of utilization. In particular, B cells bearing rearranged VH3L were rare in the germinal center but uniformly abundant in the blood and lymphoid mantle zone. We used this index gene subfamily as a clonal criterion for the pattern of B-cell development in lymphocytes of HIV-positive individuals. In a series of 19 HIV-positive subjects, a striking deficit of VH3L B cells was observed; in contrast, none of the 16 normal subjects showed this abnormality. Other VH subfamilies (VH1N, VH4/6, and VH5N) were unaffected in the HIV-positive patients. This VH3L clonal deficit and other recent phenotype and histopathologic findings suggest that the general B-cell dysfunction in HIV is due to a discreet maturational arrest at the germinal center stage.


Author(s): Courson, Elias Edise | Advisor(s): Watts, Michael J | Abstract: This work challenges the widely held controversial "greed and grievance" (resource curse) narrative by drawing critical insights about conflicts in the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has attracted substantial scholarly attention in view of the paradox of poverty and violence amidst abundant natural resources. This discourse suggests that persistent resource-induced conflicts in the region derive from either greed or grievance. Instead, the present work draws inspiration from the political geography of the Niger Delta, and puts the physical area at the center of its analysis. The understanding that the past and present history of a people is etched in their socio-political geography inspires this focus.Whereas existing literatures engages with the Niger Delta as a monolithic domain, my study takes a more nuanced approach, which recognizes a multiplicity of layers mostly defined by socio-geographical peculiarities of different parts of the region and specificity of conflicts its people experience. In specific terms, the study demarcates Rivers and Delta States in Niger Delta into two distinctive domains – Eastern and Western Niger Delta respectively. Although each domain has experienced violent conflicts of various dimensions and proportions, such conflicts are distinct and distinguishable in several respects: in terms of their genealogy, patterns, trajectories, actors, motivations and modalities. These important distinctions, in turn, define and determine the nature and responses to conflicts generated over the years. The two conflict domains of Rivers and Delta States are shaped, then, by local socio-political dynamics within the Niger Delta.There are however, cross-delta linkages and common burdens connecting these domains such as: corporate imperialism, marginalization, dispossession, environmental degradation, repression, poverty, unemployment and the quest for social justice. These common denominators influenced Paul Collier and most social science scholars to categorize the Niger Delta holistically as a conflict zone. Unfortunately and significantly, however, all these scholars have ignored the fact that in countries such as Nigeria, there is not just one conflict (resource conflict); rather, there are several, and they cannot be easily placed under the blanket category "resource curse." This study thus, rethinks Collier and conventional social science narratives on the Niger Delta conflict with a view to understanding the complicated geo-political dynamics of the region. The work shows that conflicts in the Niger Delta are precipitated by age-long animosities arising from land disputes, territorial claims, chieftancy tussles and demand for political autonomy fueled in the contemporary moment by petro-capitalism (petro-relations) and blurred by the spoils of oil.The methodology for the study is a comparative analysis of East versus West Niger Delta. It draws on primary and secondary data sources as well as making extensive use of archival materials in order to elicit the historical, geographical and contemporary dimensions of the conflicts.


This little volume is an expansion of a lecture given at Belfast in the spring of 1956 and of some others given at Toronto in the fall of 1958. On both occasions Fay was already well into his seventies. In the words of its preface, the volume is "a study of Adam Smith in relation to the economy of his age, as mirrored in The Wealth of Nations." It deals sketchily—not "at length," as it claims—with Edmund Burke and F. M. Eden, two "literary disciples" of Adam Smith, and with the program of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce that anticipated the famous London Merchants' Petition of 1820 by a good thirty years, Thomas Tooke notwithstanding. Finally, with the fact in mind that Adam Smith was a Commissioner of Customs for Scodand during his closing years, Fay draws upon the records of His Majesty's Customs and Excise in London and certain outports to elucidate what The Wealth of Nations has to say about timber, tobacco, and coal. Fay's style has disconcerted successive generations of reviewers and readers during his long, productive life. Often brilliant and always replete—as he says of customs reports—with "a wealth of vivid detail," his works seem lacking in structure, in over-all organization, in thematic control. They tend to be a mere serializing of the notes that he has amassed in a life of boundless research. One is fascinated frequently by the anecdotal material he reads, but just as often he is left at the end wondering what it was all about. This latest volume by one of the grand old men of economic history shares all the shortcomings of the many that have preceded it. Unfortunately, the flashes of genius that informed the earlier works are fewer now. One of Fay's most deeply felt purposes in offering the present book is to defend his hero against the charge that Book V of The Wealth of Nations is but "the supererogation of old age." One wonders if some day a future historian will try to defend The World of Adam Smith against a similar charge. LLOYD SORENSON, University of Oregon


Optical spectroscopy (OS) is a method of evaluating breast tissue that involves no exposure to ionizing radiation and no discomfort, unlike mammography. Red and near-infrared light is shined through the breast and light scattering and absorption spectra provide information on the breast content of water, lipid, and hemoglobins (oxy and deoxy). Previously, we demonstrated that OS scores derived from Principal Component Analysis of spectra were associated with quantitative mammographic features of the breast (percent density, dense area). Here, we examine the relationship between optically derived breast concentrations of water (%), lipid (%), total hemoglobin (μM), tissue oxygen saturation (%), and scattering parameters (amplitude, power) and percent density and dense area in these pre (n = 95) and post-menopausal (n = 107) women. Participants were recruited from the Breast Imaging Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Information concerning their age, menopausal status, height and weight were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. For each woman, OS measurements were done in four standardized positions (center, medial, distal, lateral) on each breast, providing optical interrogation of different anatomical regions. A spectrally constrained global fitting procedure using a model of diffuse light transport was used to estimate tissue composition (hemoglobins, lipids, water) and scattering parameters (amplitude, power) at each measured position on both breasts. These results were then averaged over each position over both breasts. Percent mammographic density (PD) and dense area (DA) were estimated from digitized film mammograms using Cumulus. For each woman, PD and DA were averaged over both breasts and square root transformed. The association between OS breast tissue content at the distal position and quantitative mammographic features was analyzed using linear regression analysis stratified by menopausal status and adjusted for body mass index (PD only). Among pre-menopausal women, lipid content was significantly inversely associated with both PD (β = -0.050, p = 0.0002) and DA (β = -0.046, p = 0.019), while water content was significantly positively associated with PD only (β = 0.057, p = 0.008). Tissue oxygen saturation was marginally inversely associated with PD (β = -0.033, p = 0.057) and strongly inversely associated with DA (β = -0.098, p = 0.002). Among post-menopausal woman, both lipid and water content were significantly and strongly associated with PD (lipid: β = -0.084, p The association between breast tissue content (hemoglobin, lipid, water) derived from OS and PD and DA in pre- and post-menopausal women is consistent with a higher amount of proliferating tissue in younger women (lower tissue oxygen saturation in more dense breasts). Greater lipid associated content was observed in lower density breast tissue while higher water content characterized higher density breast tissue. PD, and to a lesser extent DA, are recognized risk factors for breast cancer. OS may be useful for assessing physiologic tissue differences related to breast cancer risk and/or measuring differences from cumulative exposure to factors known to modulate risk, particularly in younger woman where mammography is not an option. Citation Format: Kristina M. Blackmore, Julia A. Knight, Jane Walter, Lothar Lilge. The association between breast tissue optical content and percent density and dense area in pre- and postmenopausal women. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2013 Oct 27-30; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2013;6(11 Suppl): Abstract nr C18.


Tjalma syndrome, also known as pseudo-pseudo Meigs' syndrome, is a rare manifestation of conditions in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The syndrome is characterized by the presence of ascites, pleural effusion, and an elevated cancer antigen-125 (CA-125) level. We present the case of a 27-year-old female patient admitted in 2021 without any comorbidities, who presented with unintentional weight loss, gastrointestinal upset, and ascites. Further evaluation showed elevated CA-125 levels and pleural effusions, with no atypical cells. The patient was initially treated with antiemetics, intravenous fluids, antibiotics, and total parental nutrition with no improvement in her symptoms or laboratory parameters. The results of an autoimmune workup met the criteria for the classification of SLE. After extensive investigation, she was diagnosed with Tjalma syndrome. She was subsequently treated with corticosteroids and hydroxychloroquine, resulting in the rapid resolution of the patient's nausea and emesis, and discharge from the hospital. Her ascites resolved over 4 weeks. Prednisolone was tapered down and azathioprine was added as a steroid-sparing agent. The patient eventually had complete remission of her symptoms, as well as remarkable improvements in her laboratory results. However, 8 months after her initial diagnosis, the patient showed signs of increasing SLE activity with lupus nephritis, anemia, and leukopenia, despite being compliant with her treatment regimen. The patient was initiated on oral prednisolone (1 mg/kg) and azathioprine was replaced with mycophenolate mofetil, which resulted in significant improvement of clinical and laboratory parameters within 3 weeks. Cases of Tjalma syndrome, and specifically, this presentation, are rarely reported in the literature. We present this condition to raise awareness about both the presenting symptoms and therapeutic options for Tjalma syndrome.


This paper deals with the development of a general finite element formulation of the layerwise theory that was proposed and advanced by the first author for laminated plate structures with piezoelectric materials (layers or patches). The formulation includes full electromechanical coupling. Several approximations are used for the primary variables of the theory in the thickness direction and different interpolation schemes are considered in the surface directions. A very good agreement is obtained for the models using cubic approximation in the thickness direction. The advantages of these models on the prediction of layer stresses are fully illustrated.


The Eleven antenna is a log-periodic folded-dipole-pair array with two unique radiation characteristics: a constant beamwidth and a fixed phase center location over a decade bandwidth. This paper presents a new compact design of a 1.2-10 GHz Eleven antenna, as a feed for reflector antennas by re-arranging the geometry of the outermost elements of the antenna. Due to the compact size, it is possible to put the whole feed system inside a compact cryostat and cool it down to cryogenic temperatures, in order to reduce the system noise temperature in radio telescope applications. The new compact Eleven feed has only a 40% volume of the original standard Eleven feed with a very similar performance. This reduces the capacity requirement for the cryogenic cooling system significantly and therefore the power consumption for future radio telescopes, such as the square kilometer array (SKA). The concept behind this compact design is analyzed in the paper. Simulations and measurements presented here have verified the design.


Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines are ~95% effective in preventing coronavirus disease 2019. However, the dynamics of antibody secreting plasmablasts (PBs) and germinal centre (GC) B cells induced by these vaccines in SARS-CoV-2 naïve and antigen-experienced humans remains unclear. Here we examined peripheral blood and/or lymph node (LN) antigen-specific B cell responses in 32 individuals who received two doses of BNT162b2, an mRNA-based vaccine encoding the full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) gene. Circulating IgG- and IgA-secreting PBs targeting the S protein peaked one week after the second immunization then declined and were undetectable three weeks later. PB responses coincided with maximal levels of serum anti-S binding and neutralizing antibodies to a historical strain as well as emerging variants, especially in individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, who produced the most robust serological responses. Fine needle aspirates of draining axillary LNs identified GC B cells that bind S protein in all participants sampled after primary immunization. GC responses increased after boosting and were detectable in two distinct LNs in several participants. Remarkably, high frequencies of S-binding GC B cells and PBs were maintained in draining LNs for up to seven weeks after first immunization, with a substantial fraction of the PB pool class-switched to IgA. GC B cell-derived monoclonal antibodies predominantly targeted the RBD, with fewer clones binding to the N-terminal domain or shared epitopes within the S proteins of human betacoronaviruses OC43 and HKU1. Our studies demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-based vaccination of humans induces a robust and persistent GC B cell response that engages pre-existing as well as new B cell clones, which enables generation of high-affinity, broad, and durable humoral immunity.


My thesis attempts to examine the determinants of the cross-sectional stock returns. It mainly consists of three topics on the relation between consumption, stock liquidity, financial constraints, and expected returns.

The first is "Transaction costs, liquidity risk, and the CCAPM". I examine how the consumption-based capital asset pricing model (CCAPM) performs with transaction costs and liquidity risk adjustments. Using the effective trading costs of Hasbrouck (2009) and the high-low spread estimates of Corwin and Schultz (2012) as proxies for transaction costs, I find that a liquidity risk-adjusted CCAPM explains a larger fraction of the cross-sectional return variations than that of the traditional CCAPM. I show that my liquidity risk-adjusted model gives more plausible risk aversion estimates than the CCAPM.

The second is "The Liquidity risk adjusted Epstein-Zin model". In this chapter, I propose a liquidity risk adjustment to the Epstein and Zin (1989, 1991) model and assess the adjusted model's performance against the traditional consumption pricing models. I show that liquidity is a significant risk factor and it adds considerable explanatory power to the model. The liquidity-adjusted model produces both a higher cross-sectional R^2 and a smaller Hansen and Jagannathan (1997) distance than the traditional CCAPM and the original Epstein-Zin model. Overall, I show that liquidity is both a priced factor and a key contributor to the adjusted Epstein-Zin model's goodness-of-fit.

The third is "Financial constraints, stock liquidity, and stock returns". I examine the different impacts of stock liquidity on the stock returns across financially constrained and unconstrained firms due to different levels of information asymmetry. My results show that financial constraints are highly correlated with liquidity and liquidity risk. More importantly, stock liquidity is a significant determinant of the cross-sectional stock returns for financially constrained firms, but it is insignificant for unconstrained firms. In addition, stock liquidity is a main driver of the different relations between financial constraints and stock returns. The liquidity premium accounts for the positive constraint premium, but it cannot be subsumed by the constraint premium.


Background: Carnosic acid is an herbal derivative with potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anticancer properties. Aim: Comparative evaluation of the antimicrobial potential of carnosic acid, calcium hydroxide, and triple antibiotic paste as intracanal medicaments against Enterococcus faecalis. Settings and Design: Department of Conservative Dentistry and Microbiology, an in vitro study. Materials and Methods: Fifty-two extracted single-rooted human teeth were decoronated and chemomechanical preparation was performed. The specimens were secured in the center of screw-capped vials and autoclaved. A strain of E. faecalis was inoculated into the canals and grown for 72 h. The teeth were divided into: Group I-Ca(OH)2, Group II- triple antibiotic paste (TAP), Group III-Carnosic acid, and Group IV-Negative control. The medicaments were applied in the canal and left for 14 days. The specimens were sectioned transversely at three levels to create dentinal discs and observed under the confocal laser scanning microscopic (CLSM). Images were analyzed, and quantification of bacteria was done using the Image J software. Statistical Analysis: Mean percentage of live/dead bacteria was analyzed using One-way ANOVA and Post hoc Tukey test. Results: Mean percentages of live and dead bacteria were seen under CLSM in Group I, Group II, and Group III were (4.44 ± 2.87, 4.56 ± 2.93, 1.61 ± 1.90), and (4.59 ± 3.04, 4.25 ± 2.98, 1.70 ± 1.99), respectively, with least mean percentages for live and dead bacteria in carnosic acid (Group III). Conclusion: Carnosic acid showed better antimicrobial efficacy against E. faecalis than TAP and Ca(OH)2 by showing a low percentage of both live and dead bacteria.


The patient had collateral flow from the right coronary to left circumflex coronary artery in the absence of proximal obstructive disease. This supports the hypothesis that the intercoronary collaterals seen in coronary atherosclerotic disease are present in the normal heart.


Crowdsourcing is a phenomenon emerging in various sectors and industries that provides an opportunity for governments to collaborate with the public to generate information, deliver public services, or facilitate policy innovation. This review paper synthesizes prior research and practices on crowdsourcing from a variety of disciplines and focuses on the purpose, crowd, motivation, process design and outcomes. A process map for governments to design crowdsourcing is generated and three key actions are highlighted, namely incentive design, communication, and information aggregation.


Objective. To establish a clinically relevant list with explicit criteria for pharmacologically inappropriate prescriptions in general practice for elderly people ≥70 years. Design. A three-round Delphi process for validating the clinical relevance of suggested criteria (n = 37) for inappropriate prescriptions to elderly patients. Setting. A postal consensus process undertaken by a panel of specialists in general practice, clinical pharmacology, and geriatrics. Main outcome measures. The Norwegian General Practice (NORGEP) criteria, a relevance-validated list of drugs, drug dosages, and drug combinations to be avoided in the elderly (≤70 years) patients. Results. Of the 140 invited panellists, 57 accepted to participate and 47 completed all three rounds of the Delphi process. The panellists reached consensus that 36 of the 37 suggested criteria were clinically relevant for general practice. Relevance of three of the criteria was rated significantly higher in Round 3 than in Round 1. At the end of the Delphi process, a significant difference between the different specialist groups' scores was seen for only one of the 36 criteria. Conclusion. The NORGEP criteria may serve as rules of thumb for general practitioners (GPs) related to their prescribing practice for elderly patients, and as a tool for evaluating the quality of GPs' prescribing in settings where access to clinical information for individual patients is limited, e.g. in prescription databases and quality improvement interventions.


This study was conducted as a descriptive study in order to determine the views of nurses working a university hospital on web-based training. Population consisted of all the nurses working in the hospital. It was found out that nurses use computer at the moderate level (46.5 %), they benefit from Internet at a good level (46.5 %), almost all of them use Internet to make searches about professional issues (94.6%), they want to update their professional knowledge (90.1%) and they find it difficult to reach information on such grounds as time constraint (81.1 %) and lack of appropriate environment (62.1 %) and they want to receive a web-based training (87.1 %). It is important that web-based training programmes be generalised in the field of nursing where there exists a time problem, studies as regards to how to integrate these programmes into continuing education be increased and their results be reflected on the practices.


Parasitic weeds of the genus Striga cause high yield losses in cereal crops across Africa. Host-plant defence against Striga spp. can be an effective control strategy. It ideally consists of resistance, to reduce infection, complemented with tolerance, to mitigate the effects of infection. As resistance against Striga spp. can both minimise yield losses and reduce future infestation levels in infested fields, current breeding efforts are mainly directed towards this trait. Because it is nearly impossible to screen for tolerance on highly resistant genetic lines, tolerance is often neglected. Here, we argue reconsidering the role of tolerance, as recent findings regarding the physiological expression of tolerance offer a promising track for identifying the genetic background of tolerance. Identification of quantitative trait loci for tolerance would facilitate the inclusion of this trait in adapted cultivars with high levels of resistance, where its main role would be to function as a safety net in case the genetically highly variable parasite populations overcome host-plant resistance. Because Striga spp. are mainly prevalent in subsistence farming systems, we consider this an important addition and it is for this reason that we make a plea for a more prominent role of tolerance in present-day integrated management of this weed.


This is a study of the interaction effects of the dual frequency (210 and 33 kHz) backscatter signal with seafloor sediment and benthic biota along a transect in water 27–83 m deep offshore of the Goa region of India's central west coast. Estimation of the power law exponent using seafloor topographic data provided equivalent values even when using dual high-frequency systems for different grain-size sediments. Backscatter signals corrected from system-related gain, etc., reveal better correlations with sedimentary and benthic parameters than the estimated coherence parameters (using echo peaks). Statistically, correlations are significant for the 210 kHz backscatter signal with sand and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) sediment content. Also, correlations are higher for macrobenthic biomass (wet weight) and population density with a 210 kHz backscatter strength, emphasizing the dominant seawater-seafloor interface scattering process. For 33 kHz backscatter strength, the absence of such correlations indicates a different scattering processes, i.e. dominant sediment volume scattering attributable to the comparatively lower signal attenuation. Additionally, to validate the results, the backscatter signal from other locations in the vicinity of this transect were considered.


Reducing emissions is a top priority within heavy duty diesel engine development and research. The aim of the work is to decrease the fuel consumption by decreasing frictional losses of the Power Cylinder Unit. Full scale testing of engine components improvements is time-consuming and costly. It is however possible to simplify the testing of engine components by pilot tribometer testing, enabling cost-effective screening of candidate material concepts. This thesis work answers the following research questions: 1. How should a pilot tribometer test be constructed in order to replicate the frictional and wear behaviour of the engine in the boundary, mixed and hydrodynamic lubrication regimes? 2. What part of the surface morphology of the cylinder liner surface affects the frictional behaviour of the different lubrication regimes? In this thesis work the tribometer test approach was further developed to study a wider range of the Stribeck curve. Several different surfaces were analysed using the developed tribometer test approach, the results showed that the plateau part of the cylinder liner surface was responsible for controlling the frictional response in the boundary and mixed lubrication regimes. The results of these experiments were compared with single cylinder engine tests which were also conducted in this thesis work. The result of the engine tests and the tribometer test were in contradiction, the surface exhibiting low frictional losses in the tribometer exhibited high fuel consumption in the engine test. In evaluating this difference it was determined that the majority of the frictional losses were governed by the contribution of hydrodynamic friction and that a smoother plateau surface increased the hydrodynamic friction. The results of the engine testing were reproduced using a tribological simulation tool. It is possible to decrease the hydrodynamic friction losses by decreasing the viscosity of the engine oil; however, this measure could increase the boundary frictional losses. To decrease the hydrodynamic friction losses in this thesis work a novel type of texturing was investigated in tribometer experiments. A DoE setup was developed with focus on analysis of the hydrodynamic lubrication regime. The results from the tribometer test show that a significant reduction in the hydrodynamic friction can be accomplished by applying textures on the cylinder liner surface. Based on the results from the experiments with textures a design proposal is put forward, in this a specification texture design in full scale is given. Suggestions for future work include development of manufacturing techniques for machining textures on the cylinder liner, optimization of texture geometry by e.g. using a mesh-free calculation method, and design of a tribometer test with the aim of only distinguishing the hydrodynamic friction response of different surface morphologies.


The worker to non-worker ratio in Canada is forecasted to fall dramatically over the next few decades due both to demographic pressures and the recent decline in the average age of retirement. If governments desire to reverse these trends, it is necessary to determine whether altering Canada's retirement income programs may impact retirement decisions. This analysis focuses on the CPP/QPP program using the internal longitudinal files of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and concludes that limited changes to CPP/QPP benefit levels will not have a large impact on the labour force behaviour of older workers. CPP/QPP benefits can affect retirement through two channels – by altering the relative benefits of work (the substitution effect) and by changing the net present value of lifetime wealth (the wealth effect). We first demonstrate that retirement and CPP/QPP benefit take-up are not temporally connected for most Canadians. This means that the substitution effect is unlikely to have an important impact on retirement decisions. We then use hazard regressions and ordered probit analyses to determine which factors influence retirement behaviour. We find no evidence that expected CPP/QPP benefits or current wage levels influence the retirement decision. This result provides further evidence that CPP/QPP benefits are not having a large impact on retirement through the substitution effect. We also find no evidence that wealth affects the retirement decision. Instead, demographic factors such as disability status, labour force status of spouse and class of worker dominate the regressions. This does not necessarily mean that the CPP/QPP program does not influence retirement, only that its influence is likely to be embedded in the structure of the program and the existence of borrowing constraints rather than through the benefit levels. However, the results also indicate that structural changes may not be required in order to raise the retirement age. Variables that do have a strong effect on retirement behaviour are moving in directions that may result in a reversal of the early retirement trend.


Structures of two K2SnX(PO4)3(X=Fe,Yb) phosphates, obtained by conventional solid state reaction techniques at 950 °C, were determined at room temperature by X-ray powder diffraction using Rietveld analysis. The two materials exhibit the langbeinite-type structure (P213 space group, Z=4). Cubic unit cell parameter values are: a=9.9217(4) Å and a=10.1583(4) Å for K2SnFe(PO4)3 and K2SnYb(PO4)3, respectively. Structural refinements show that the two crystallographically independent octahedral sites (of symmetry 3) have a mixed Sn∕X (X=Fe,Yb) population although ordering is stronger in the Yb phase than in the Fe phase.


Background The development of hip dysplasia is associated with several risk factors. 1 of these risk factors is gender, since 80% of patients with symptomatic hip dysplasia are females. Another risk factor for hip dysplasia is familial predisposition of hip dysplasia. Several studies indicate that the risk of hip dysplasia is increased with familial prevalence of hip dysplasia. However, little is known about the association between the familial prevalence and gender and the development of hip dysplasia. Purpose The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence of hip dysplasia among relatives to Danish patients with hip dysplasia operated with periacetabular osteotomy (PAO), and the degree of relationship of affected family members. Furthermore, to assess the association between gender and family predisposition in the same group of patients. Method The study is a cross-sectional study, with a descriptive and an analytical part. The study population consists of 676 patients drawn from a clinical database of patients operated with PAO at Aarhus University hospital from 1998 to 2014. Information about gender, operated hip side and age was collected from the clinical PAO database, while information about familial prevalence was collected through questionnaires. The association between gender and familial prevalence of hip dysplasia was presented as the prevalence proportions ratio (PPR), tested by χ2 test. Stratification was conducted for the variables age and operated hip side, with the Mantel-Haenszels analytical method, and tested for statistical significance by χ2. Results The familial prevalence of hip dysplasia in the study population was 30% (95% CI, 27%-34%), with 73% reporting affected first-degree relatives. Females have 32% increased risk of familial prevalence of hip dysplasia compared to males, but this difference in risk was not statistically significant (p = 0.10). Conclusions The study shows that females have 32% increased familial prevalence of hip dysplasia compared to males, but the increased prevalence was not statistically significant probably due to the low power of the study.


Traditional ways to acquire information on truck axle and gross weight are expensive and subject to bias, and this led to the development of weight-in-motion (WIM) techniques. Most of the existing WIM systems have been developed to measure only the static axle loads. However, dynamic axle loads are also important. Some systems use instrumented vehicles to measure dynamic axle loads, but are subject to bias. All of this prompted the need to develop a system to measure the dynamic axle loads using an unbiased random sample of vehicles. This paper aims to introduce four methods in determining such dynamic axle loads from bridge responses, The four methods are interpretive method I, interpretive method II, time domain method, and frequency-time domain method. Examples and experiments in laboratory show that all the four methods are feasible and the time domain method and frequency-time domain method give very good results even when 5% noise is added to the simulated input data.


OBJECTIVES
This study compares the effectiveness of an interactive e-learning module with a traditional text-based method for teaching peripheral blood smear analysis.

METHODS
Pathology trainees at Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education residency programs were asked to participate. Participants completed a multiple-choice test on peripheral blood smear findings. Trainees were randomized into completing an e-learning module or a PDF reading exercise with the same educational content. Respondents rated their experience and completed a postintervention test composed of the same questions.

RESULTS
In total, 28 participants completed the study; 21 improved their score in the posttest (mean, 21.6 correct answers) compared with the pretest (19.8; P < .001). This improvement was seen in both the PDF (n = 19) and interactive (n = 9) groups, with no difference in performance between the 2 groups. Trainees with less clinical hematopathology experience showed a trend of having the largest performance improvement. Most participants completed the exercise within 1 hour, rated the exercise as easy to navigate, were engaged, and reported learning new information about peripheral blood smear analysis. All participants indicated that they would likely complete a similar exercise in the future.

CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that e-learning is an effective tool for hematopathology education and equivalent to traditional narrative-based methods. This module could easily be incorporated into a curriculum.


The adoption of digital workflows within the architecture and construction industries is wide spread. Advanced digital methods including parametric and associative tools, integrated and iterative optimisation and file-to-factory automated fabrication workflows are now common in architectural and design offices internationally. These tools offer unique, fast and flexible opportunities for designers to conceptualise, rationalise, communicate and fabricate a wide range of complex designs that were previously deemed too complex to produce. While there are many contemporary examples of digital workflows used in the development of architectural solutions, there are limited examples where these tools have been used to deliver architectural products with low-value materials for the built environment. There is a current market-pull for the use of timber products in Australia and a resource-push to utilise emerging low-value Australian plantation hardwood timber. This emerging resource is deemed low-value by the excessive amount of natural feature that prevent its use in structural and appearance grade products. This research demonstrates the development of unique timber architectural lining products utilising digital workflows to rapidly generate unique product design outcomes with low-value materials that can be manufactured according to user defined parameters.


Traditional water immersion and noncontact ultrasonic C-Scan systems were used for damage detection and quantification on wet Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composite plates. Long-term immersion for up to 24 months of low-velocity impact-damaged GFRP plates in hot water at 65°C and 93°C caused serious matrix and interface degradation. The water diffusion profile was followed by water uptake measurements. The use of water-immersion, single-probe pulse-echo ultrasonics proved ineffective after long-term water immersion as damaged areas became ultrasound-invisible. The impact-damaged part was filled with water, thus acting in a similar way to the rest of the undamaged material. The use of a pair of 400 kHz air-coupled through thickness ultrasonic probes was investigated for damage detection and evaluation. The contrast between impact-damaged areas and water-diffused areas was restored and damage size detection was possible. Calibrating the system for the group wave velocity of a dry-condition specimen, a good qualitative and quantitative indication of the degraded state of specimens can be obtained. This system proved to be very promising for both the impact damage sizing and for the monitoring of the degradation process.


Monitoring mouse social behaviors over long periods
of time is essential for neurobehavioral analysis of social mouse
phenotypes. Currently, the primary method of social behavioral
plienotyping utilizes human labelers, which is slow and costly. In
order to achieve the high throughput desired for scientific
studies, social behavioral phenotyping must be automated. The
problem of automation can be divided into two tasks; tracking and
phenotyping. First, individual body parts of mice must be
accurately tracked. This is achieved using shape context
descriptors to obtain precise point to point correspondences
between templates and mice in any frame of a video. This method
provides for greater precision and accuracy than current state of
the art techniques. We propose a means by which this tracking
information can be used to classify social behaviors between
mice.


During the Covid-19 pandemic that has marked the last years, while governments tried to control the spread of the virus, many-body donation programs were suspended due to difficulties that could potentially be encountered. Given the low body donation acceptance rates during this period, through this study we aimed to evaluate academics' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in cadaver acceptance and embalming practices during the pandemic. The research population of th estudy consisted of the faculty of 112 universities in Turkey who taught in under graduate and graduate programs in the Anatomy Department in 2020. An electronic questionnaire of 24 items, including demographic data, was distributed to the participants' official e-mail addresses. In addition, support was received from the Turkish Anatomy and Clinical Anatomy Society, whose members were also approached through their official group e-mail accounts. Answers were collected from 78 (39 %) out of 200 academics. The findings of the study were under 5 headings (ınformation about cadaver donation and ımported cadavers, attitude towards ımportation of cadavers and acceptance of body donations, precautions against contagion in ımportation of cadavers and acceptance of body donations and thoughts on their adequacy, considerations for adoption of cadavers for post-graduation education, advice on avoiding contagion in cadaver embalming) were collected and analyzed. The study high lights the importance of cadaver acceptance and embalming practices for medical education to minimally continue in the post-pandemic period. It can also serve as a reference for being cautious when faced with similar situations in the future.


Immigrant and refugee acculturation has both behavioral and spatial manifestations. The purpose of this study is to examine the spatial acculturation process of Hmong refugees in California's San Joaquin Valley in order to understand changing perceptions of the concepts and uses of space and place. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation among 120 Hmong university students and their families, the process of change in settlement and use of space is traced from traditional cultural practices in Laos through the refugee camp experience to the first and 1.5 generation enclaves. Each generation has recreated and adapted the immediately preceding socialization experience such that settlement patterns and the use of space by the 1.5 generation only minimally resemble traditional culture, yet maintain its underlying cultural values.


Background: Postoperative surgical site infections (SSI) can be major complications, which can prolong postoperative treatment. Perioperative oral management (POM) was first covered by Japanese national health insurance system in 2012, and patients that are scheduled to undergo major surgical treatment receive dental and oral management during the perioperative period.Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the ability of POM to prevent perioperative SSI in patients undergoing abdominal surgery.Methods: The patients' medical records were retrospectively reviewed, and the effects of POM were investigated in a multicenter analysis involving many cases. Detailed information about SSI was assessed and compared between patients with and without POM in univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: In total, the cases of 2,782 patients (1,750 males 1,032 females) were reviewed. Of these, POM was performed in 778 patients (28.0%). Univariate analyses revealed that diabetes mellitus, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification, the surgical site, the preoperative Prognostic Nutritional Index score, POM, the extent of surgery, the operation time, and the amount of intraoperative blood loss were significantly associated with postoperative SSI (Chi-square or Mann-Whitney U-test, p <0.01). The multivariate analysis revealed that POM had significant preventative effects against postoperative SSI (estimate: -0.245, standard error: 0.080, p <0.01). The surgical site, the ASA classification, and the operation time were also significant and independent clinical predictors of SSI.Conclusion: This study suggests that POM helps to prevent SSI in patients that undergo abdominal surgery.


This test aims to address the difficulties faced during the process of learning assessment in higher education in this educational triad. Looking for watch the attitudes of students and teachers, with the goal of providing a new vision of learning evaluation, where the student will be a fundamental part in the evaluation of the teacher to point out suggestions of a self-assessment of teaching professional, in order to improve their knowledge and skills and even suggests a reflective evaluation of each student so that the same can self-assess on the skills that most stands out for that in the future is a professional with production of high quality work. A new direction for the reviews in higher education is already in progress for teachers who seek to encourage students to think, create, reflect and have basement to your criticism, and with the various evaluation methodologies, whether for seminars, exams, oral communication, debates and these induce reflectively on both sides in the context of higher education.

Keywords: Reflective Reviews; Reviews in higher education; Students in higher education; Auto-evaluation of higher education.


A formal system is presented which abstracts the notions of data item, function, and relation. It is argued that the system is more suitable than set theory (or its derivatives) for the concise and accurate description of program semantics. It is shown how the system can be used to build composite data types out of simpler ones with the operations of rowing, structuring, and uniting. It is also demonstrated that completely new primitive types can be introduced into languages through the mechanism of singleton data types. Both deterministic and nondeterministic functions are shown to be definable in the system. It is described how the local environment can be modeled as a data item and how imperative statements can be considered functions on the environment. The nature of recursive functions is briefly discussed, and a technique is presented by which they can be introduced into the system. The technique is contrasted with the use of the paradoxical combinator, Y. The questions of local and global environments and of various modes of function calling and parameter passing are touched upon. The theory is applied to the proof of several elementary theorems concerning the semantics of the assignment, conditional, and iterative statements. An appendix is included which presents in detail the formal system governing webs and fen, the abstractions used informally in the body of the paper.


The presence of scientific misconduct challenges the authority of science to regulate itself. This paper examines the basis for scientific self-regulation, a basis which forms an ideology of science that has served to publicly legitimate the authority and autonomy of science. It is argued that the conventional scientific narrative overstates quality control and, as a consequence, that there is a potential crisis of legitimation in science. In particular, the dichotomy that is constructed between (1) the structure of science and (2) the individual scientist, is seen as problematic and cannot be used to shift the responsibility for misconduct onto individuals while at the same time preserving the sanctity of the structure of scientific practices-the two are inseparable. This analysis helps to locate the data audit/quality assurance movement and to clarify its role within the structure of scientific practices. The continued public support and legitimation of science requires that the scientific community critically examine and strengthen the structure of scientific practices. The re-examination should not focus overtly on controlling individual scientists. Rather, given the communal nature of science, the appropriate focus is on the social units that constitute and control the structure of scientific practices: laboratories, institutions, scientific societies and journals, and funding agencies. The First International Conference on Scientific Data Audit Policies and Quality Assurance should be viewed, then, as the beginning of a serious and difficult conversation among scientists on how to improve quality control in science and achieve public accountability while at the same time retaining the vitality of scientific practices.


ABSTRACT This study addressed the lack, in the work context, of a comprehensive time-lagged examination of the core constructs (interpersonal behaviors, psychological need states, and motivation) underlying Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Specifically, this research relied on person-centered analyses to gain a better understanding of how the distinct components of psychological need states (satisfaction, frustration, and unfulfillment of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) combine to produce distinct profiles of employees. We also documented the stability of these profiles over time and their associations with theoretically-relevant predictors (supervisors' supportive, thwarting, and indifferent behaviors) and outcomes (work motivation). Questionnaire surveys were completed twice over the course of three months by a sample of 590 French employees. Six profiles, characterized by distinct configurations of global and specific need constructs were identified and found to be stable over time. Supervisors' supportive, thwarting, and indifferent behaviors showed well-differentiated patterns of association with these profiles. Finally, employees' global levels of self-determination and specific levels of motivational regulations differed as a function of profile membership. Altogether, results from this research suggest that SDT's explanatory framework may be expanded to encompass the key role played by need indifferent behaviors and employees' experiences of need unfulfillment.


Given the nature of voltages and currents in nonlinear electrical networks with fast and random variation, it is understood that the power measurement methods cannot be based on averages or quadratic mean values, and it is necessary to offset the negative effects due to the presence of certain loads. In order to compensate the distorting regime, it is necessary to use active filters. The paper presents the structure of an active power filter to compensate higher order harmonics. Active Power Filter Control is performed using three theories (instantaneous reactive power, generalized power, and synchronous reference theories). In each of the three theories there is an analysis of the functioning of the system for loads balanced and unbalanced. The authors present the parallel active power filter based on these theories, and the results were simulated in MATLAB-Simulink. With the aims of these simulations, the authors made a comparative analysis in order to reduce the harmonic pollution to obtain conclusions about their efficiency.


Recent experience with civilian rectal trauma challenges the military dictum advocating routine distal colon washout. Opponents contend that septic morbidity is not influenced by perioperative removal of feces from the rectosigmoid region. In an effort to elucidate this issue, we reviewed 27 consecutive patients sustaining extraperitoneal rectal trauma over the past 5 years. One patient, exsanguinating from abdominal vascular injury, was excluded from further analysis. In the remaining 26 patients, rectal injury was due to gunshot wound in 16 (62%), pelvic fracture in 8 (31%), and stab wound in 2 (7%). The mean Revised Trauma Score was 6.9 +/- 0.4, Abdominal Trauma Index 20.9 +/- 8.1, and Injury Severity Score 28.6 +/- 11.0. Proximal colostomy was done in all patients and presacral drains were placed in 23 (88%). Broad-spectrum antibiotics were administered for a minimum of 5 days. Thirteen (50%) of the group underwent intraoperative washout of the distal rectosigmoid colon, dictated by attending surgeon's preference; the other half did not. These two groups were otherwise comparable with respect to injury mechanism, shock on arrival, rectal wound severity, associated injuries, and perioperative blood transfusions. Major complications were greater in the no-washout versus washout groups: pelvic abscess, 46% vs. 8%; rectal fistulae, 23% vs. 8%; and sepsis, 15% vs. 8%. The single death (4%) occurred in the no-washout group. Although based on a small group of patients, these trends imply that distal colon washout reduces septic morbidity following civilian rectal trauma.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Background: Emergence of new technologies and advances in tissue engineering strategies to treat diseases are shifting the conventional conception of medical devices. Tissue engineered products, manufactured as a combination of biomaterials, cells, and/or bioactive factors, are intended to temporarily restore an organ or tissue function, and induce the generation of newly site-appropriate functional tissue. Regulatory pathways for tissue engineered products require grouping policies controlling each of the components: materials, human cells, and active molecules. Purpose: To review current regulatory policies for medical devices (and within this, tissue engineered products), in a subset of Latin American countries, and to analyze the influence of international organizations and technological world power countries on policies of that subset. Methods: Top-down and horizontal diffusion models were employed to identify how regulatory policies have moved to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. Results: There are differences in technological appropriation to comprehensively define and classify medical devices. None of the countries have a definition of tissue engineered products. A top-down diffusion pattern was found to be associated with the current regulations. A horizontal diffusion is being applied as a regional effort to facilitate commercialization of medical products within Latin America. Conclusion: The concept of tissue engineered products is slowly arriving into the evaluated Latin American countries. Each country has the potential to take advantage of local institutions and regional and inter-regional coalitions to improve current guidelines and prepare the health system to the introduction of tissue engineered products.


Abstract This study focuses on accounting for allomorphy in Latin case/number inflection. It attributes essentially all of it to the influence of adjacent features of standard segmental phonology on morphemes expressing case assignment. Indeed, other languages lead linguists to expect that allomorphy at a stem-suffix border can depend on any feature of a final vowel: ±Low, ±High, ±Round, ±Back, ±Consonantal or ±Syllabic. Empirically, it turns out that no two Latin stem-final vowels induce identical allomorphy in case/number suffixes, nor the same allomorphy as final consonants. Moreover, some (not much) phonologically conditioned allomorphy is phonetically opaque. These two factors have led traditional scholarship to conclude that each stem-final segment should define a separate classification of noun suffixation or "declension". As there are basically six types of final segment (a, o, u, i, e and consonants), each then gives rise to a different declension (stems with final i are often put in some other group or considered irregular), thus creating five (or six) declensions. Tradition then goes on to analyse stem-final vowels not as part of stems but as some kind of separate morphemes called "thematic vowels" (with no role in either syntax or phonology). This essay argues rather that an unflinching modern and formal approach to inflectional allomorphy, exactly analogous to using phonology to reduce regular English plurals to a single lexical form, succeeds in sweeping away the sandcastle of Latin declensions and better captures the actual descriptive generalizations that account for Latin case inflection.


A unit of Fortum Service Ltd. operates and maintains the Rauhalahti power plant in Central Finland. In 1996-97, the unit launched a project pursuing coordinated organizationwide electronic document management (EDM). This case follows deliberate and emergent changes related to document management in the organization since the initiation of the project until February 2000. New information technologies were adopted, and responsibilities for continuous improvement of EDM were assigned. The continuous improvement was implemented as an extension of the ISO 9002 quality system earlier adopted for process improvement. The case shows that a shift from the paper-based era towards organizationwide EDM is a comprehensive change both affecting and affected by several components in the organization. EDM development in the organization was part of organization recursive dynamics where the quality system supported both planning for deliberate changes and reacting to emergent changes.


Implementation of Integrated Crop Management to Maize Hybrids (Zea mays L.)Hybridof maizes have a higher yield potential than the composite (open pollinated), because the hybrid has the dominant genes that capable to gain high yields. Integrated Crop Management(ICM) is an approach that promotes the cultivation of crop management, land, water, and plant pests in a synergistic and specific. Assessment carried out in paddy fields belonging to farmers, Farmers Group members Jatikersa, Cicurug Village, Majalengka Sub District,Majalengka District the Month June - August (Dry Season II) 2013. Activity assessment test varieties with 2 treatments: (1) hybrid maize varieties P-21 (private) and (2) hybrid maizevarieties Bima-14 (Balitsereal). Each activity was repeated at 16 wetland plots owned by farmers on the same land each 120m2. The data were analyzed using t-test, then made the relationship between the results of the yield components (number of cobs per plant, length of the cob, diameter cob, number of lines per cob, 100 grain weight) andusing analyzed correlation. The purpose of this study to determine variability and agronomic productivity of hybrid maize varieties using corn ICM approach. The resultapproach to the application of Integrated Crop Managementhybrid maize varieties P-21 can be adapted in paddy fields in Majalengka District and diameter of cob is the result of the most influential component of the yield of maize hybrids.


Variations of AIDS-related beliefs by grade, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and size of the community were examined for a diverse group of elementary school children (n = 609). Consistent with prior research, beliefs about HIV transmission and willingness to interact with persons with AIDS increased across grades 1 to 5. Black children living in rural communities held most misconceptions about AIDS and, relative to white peers, black children were more reluctant to interact with persons with AIDS (PWA). Support for more negative attitudes toward PWA among boys was also found. Knowledge of transmission mediated grade and sex differences in willingness to interact, but not race differences. Implications of results for AIDS prevention programs are discussed, along with directions for future research.


Abstract. Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus oreganus) have a range that extends from southern California into British Columbia. This subspecies is common in relatively warm and arid regions, but also occurs in habitats that are neither warm nor arid. We hypothesized that the presence of suitable microhabitat conditions can compensate for a less suitable macroclimate, allowing C. o. oreganus to exist in less suitable regions. We developed environmental niche models for C. o. oreganus at two spatial scales: (1) northern California and western Oregon, and (2) the northern California coast. These models explored macroclimatic suitability of northern, coastal California relative to other regions within the range of C. o. oreganus. The models revealed that the three most northern and coastal counties of California have a significantly less suitable macroclimate relative to the rest of each study area. Next, we used paired resource selection functions to determine microhabitat differences between rocky outcrops used as hibernacula and outcrops that are unoccupied by rattlesnakes despite similarities. Our analysis indicated selection for outcrops with more deep crevices, less vegetative cover, and slopes facing due south (180° from North). Additionally, we mapped landslides near hibernacula, which revealed that hibernacula commonly occurred within the head-scarps of landslides. We suggest that because landslide triggers (e.g., heavy rainfall and earthquakes) occur frequently along California's north coast, more rocky outcrops are created that are suitable as hibernacula. The relatively high abundance of these suitable outcrops compensates for the marginal macroclimate, allowing C. o. oreganus to occur in the region.


Urbanization is one of the most important phenomena of economy and society, which is the only way that must be passed to achieve modernization and the inevitable result of the synergetic collaborative evolution among the systems of socio-economic development. This paper analyzes the dynamic mechanism of urbanization based on synergetic, pre- sents that the initial, fundamental and subsequent dynamic mechanism of promoting urbanization are the development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and then constructs a "pyramid" model of dynamic mechanism of urbani- zation based on Synergetic. On these bases, using co-integration analysis test, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of the relations between the level of urbanization and industrial structures of Jiangxi Province, China, and establish the rele- vant error correction model, and conducts Granger causality test. The results show that the level of urbanization develops collaboratively with the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, while Jiangxi's urbanization level increased 1%, the GDP levels of the three industries will increase 3.18%, 5.33% and 6.08% respectively at the same time.


We argue that the most-promising area of clinical application of microarrays in the foreseeable future is the diagnostics and monitoring of infectious diseases. Microarrays for the detection and characterization of human pathogens have already found their way into clinical practice in some countries. After discussing the persistent, yet often underestimated, importance of infectious diseases for public health, we consider the technologies that are best suited for the detection and clinical investigation of pathogens. Clinical application of microarray technologies for the detection of mycobacteria, Bacillus anthracis, HIV, hepatitis and influenza viruses, and other major pathogens, as well as the analysis of their drug-resistance patterns, illustrate our main thesis.


The capability of the exciton scattering approach, an efficient methodology for excited states in branched conjugated molecules, is extended to include symmetric triple and quadruple joints that connect linear segments on the basis of the phenylacetylene backbone. The obtained scattering matrices that characterize these vertices are used in application of our approach to several test structures, where we find excellent agreement with the transition energies computed by the reference quantum chemistry. We introduce topological charges, associated with the scattering matrices, which help to formulate useful relations between the number of excitations in the exciton band and the number of repeat units. The obtained features of the scattering phases are analyzed in terms of the observed excited state electronic structure.


Probiotics are nonpathogenic live microorganism that can provide a diverse health benefits on the host when consumed in adequate amounts. Probiotics are consumed in diverse ways including dairy product, food supplements and functional foods with specific health claims. Recently, many reports suggest that certain probiotic strains or multi strain mixture have potent immunomodulatory activity in diverse disorders including allergic asthma, atopic dermatitis and rheumatoid arthritis. However, underlying mechanism of action is still unclear and efficacy of probiotic administration is quite different depending on the type of strains and the amounts of doses. We and others have suggested that live probiotics or their metabolites could interact with diverse immune cells (antigen presenting cells and T cells) and confer them to have immunoregulatory functions. Through this interaction, probiotics could contribute to maintaining immune homeostasis by balancing pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory immune responses. However, the effect of probiotics in prevention or modulation of ongoing disease is quite diverse even within a same species. Therefore, identification of functional probiotics with specific immune regulatory property is a certainly important issue. Herein, we briefly review selection methods for immunomodulatory probiotic strains and the mechanism of action of probiotics in immune modulation.


The enactment of the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) significantly changes the landscape for tax planning and compliance by U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs). The promised shift to a more territorial system actually results in a greater likelihood that more of a U.S. MNC's foreign income is subject to current U.S. taxation. The TCJA complicates effective tax planning for such firms, forcing them to reexamine their existing global structures and financial arrangements (i.e., the "geometry" of international tax planning). We briefly review international tax planning before the TCJA as well as some key international tax provisions in the TCJA. We then provide a method to estimate the new Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI) tax from a U.S. MNC's financial statements when such information is not publicly disclosed and illustrate the effective tax rate (ETR) and GILTI tax effects for a small sample of public firms after the TCJA. Finally, we discuss some likely changes in international tax planning going forward.


During the nineteenth century in North America, a small group of working-class women turned to sport to earn a living. Among them were circus performers, race walkers, wrestlers, boxers, shooters, swimmers, baseball players, and bicycle racers. Through their athleticism, these women contested and challenged the prevailing gender norms, and at the same time expanded notions about Victorian women's capabilities and appropriate work. This article focuses on one of these professional sports, namely high-wheel bicycle racing. Bicycle historians have mostly dismissed women's racing during the brief high-wheel era of the 1880s as little more than sensational entertainment, and have not fully understood its importance. I hope to change these perceptions by providing evidence that female high-wheel racers in the United States, who often began as pedestriennes (race walkers), were superb athletes competing in an exciting, well-attended, and profitable sport.


The naturally available uricosuric agents are Tinospora cardifolia, Allium sepa, Cajanus Cajan, Piper nigrum etc., Natural medicinal plants having no side effects are more preferred when compared to synthetic medications. Uricosuric agents increase the urinary excretion of uric acid hence the natural uricosuric agent is preferred to prevent many diseases like gout, arthritis, kidney stones etc., without side effect. Uricosuric medications are the substances that increase the excretion of uric acid in urine, thus reducing the concentration of uric acid in blood plasma. Prolonged and untreated hyperuricemia results into gout, a severe inflammatory condition. Sustain hyperuricemia leads to impaired blood pressure control, renal impairment and nephropathy. The common factors for deposition of uric acid in blood are drinking alcohol and taking high purine diet. The various screening methods for the uricosuric activity are uricosuric activity in mice, Potassium oxonate induced activity, and Phenol red excretion methods are explained in this review.


The purpose of this study was to assess challenges and perceptions EFL teachers in practicing continuous assessment in English focus EFL writing classes.  The participants of the study were 5 teachers and 120 students at Debre Tabor secondary and preparatory school. Multiple instruments that included questionnaire, interviews, observation, and document analysis were used to gather data. The findings indicated that the grade 9 EFL teachers didn't have positive perceptions, and they didn't properly practice CA in their school.  Although there are various assessment techniques in assessing writing skills, a few of them were only practiced in the writing classes, and, with regard to the provision of feedback, teachers did not properly provide feedback to students in teaching and learning of writings. Besides, there was a gap in practicing CA in writing classes is that, lack of  teachers and students awareness on CA, large class size, shortage of time, and lack of teachers' materials/manuals and the like. Finally, it was recommended that teachers & students be given on training on CA, the concerned bodies provide the availability of prepared materials, and minimize number of students in class for its effective utilization in school. Keyterms : Perceptions, Continuous Assessment, challenges, Practice, Feedback, Continuous assessment techniques DOI : 10.7176/JAAS/56-02 Publication date :June 30 th 2019


Abstract This article examines the rise of the international refugee regime in Asia, focusing on the work of the International Refugee Organization in repatriating overseas Chinese from mainland China back to their homes in Southeast Asia from 1947 to 1956. It looks both at how the International Refugee Organization inherited this repatriation project from its predecessor—the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration—and its survival after a civil war installed a new, Communist government on the Chinese mainland. Doing so reveals the extent to which both Chinese governments had to rely on outside assistance to fulfil an important task of maintaining positive ties between Chinese abroad and the homeland. Using research from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives in Beijing and Taipei, as well as records from relevant parties in the British and American governments, this article places the repatriation programme and the larger efforts of the International Refugee Organization in Asia in a broader context of regional foreign relations and the origins of the Cold War.


A mild, efficient, and environmentally benign protocol for the synthesis of tetrahydrobenzo[b]pyran derivatives in the presence of readily accessible, biodegradable, and choline hydroxide based ionic liquid as catalyst has been established. The key features of the reported methodology include good to excellent yields of desired products, simple work-up procedure and good recyclability of catalysts, which may be a practical alternative to the existing conventional processes for the preparation of 4-H pyrans to cater to the requirements of academia as well as industry.


Abstract Background: Sharing information and decisions with children and their parents is critical in pediatric rehabilitation. Although the ethical significance and clinical benefits of sharing decisions are established, approaches for implementing shared decision-making in clinical practice are still developing. Aim: To explore the ethical challenges of sharing information and decisions with one family in pediatric occupational therapy. Method: We used a single qualitative in-depth interview with an occupational therapist to examine the ethical dimensions of sharing decisions. Results: We found that asking what was ethically at stake in the information-sharing process, highlighted how timing and style of information sharing impacts on understanding and collaboration within the therapeutic relationship. Using ethics-based questions assisted in drawing out the complexity of implementing the ideals of sharing information and decisions in pediatric practice. Conclusion: Reflecting on ethical dimensions of communication with families assists to identify approaches to shared decision-making in clinical practice.


BACKGROUND
Osteopenia and enhanced risk of fractures have been reported after partial gastrectomy, but the significance of total gastrectomy is still unknown.

METHODS
Twenty-six patients were followed up for at least 3 years after total gastrectomy. The intake and S-levels of vitamin D, phosphate, magnesium, and calcium were prospectively studied, and a whole-body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan was performed at a mean of 5 years after gastrectomy.

RESULTS
At this time point we found normal blood levels of vitamin D, calcium, and phosphate. Food intakes of phosphate, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D reached the recommended daily allowances. Bone mineral density was similar to that of a control population, and increasing values were seen concomitant with an increase in body weight with the time after gastrectomy.

CONCLUSIONS
Calcium homeostasis and bone mineral densities seem not to be affected by total gastrectomy, at least when studied over a period of 5 years, an observation that hypothetically can be explained by weight recovery with time after the operation.


Electroporation of concentric compound spherical and confocal spheroidal as well as eccentric compound spherical vesicles, considered to be good models for corresponding nucleate cells, are investigated with an emphasis on their response to nanosecond pulse electric field (nsPEF). Analytical models are developed for the estimation of the transmembrane potential (TMP) across the bilayers of the inner and the outer vesicles and finite-element simulations are also carried out for the eccentric case. Our calculations show that with an increase in the aspect ratio, while the TMP decreases when nsPEF is used, it increases for confocal spheroids when the pulse width is greater than the membrane charging time, leading to fully charged vesicles. Bipolar pulses are shown to effectively control the TMP for a desired time period in the nsPEF regime, and a fast decay of the TMP to zero can be achieved by judicious use of pulse polarity. The external conductivity is found to significantly influence the TMP in nsPEF, unlike millisecond pulses where its effect is insignificant. Additionally the critical electric field required to induce a TMP of 1 V at the inner vesicle is presented for different pulse widths, rise time, as well as membrane capacitance, and the TMP of the outer vesicle is found to be within limits of reversible poration. It is found that the maximum TMP has a roughly linear dependence on the outer aspect ratio of the vesicle. We also introduce a new method to obtain the particular solution to the Laplace equation for bispherical system, and it is validated with finite-element simulations. Our study on nsPEF electroporation of bispherical vesicles shows that the north pole TMP is typically greater than the south pole, thereby suggesting the typical pathway a charged species might take inside an eccentric nucleate cell under electroporation.