To compare two modalities of iron supplementation for the preoperative stimulation of erythropoiesis using recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO), 12 adults in normal hemoglobin and iron status due for elective surgery were randomized to rhEPO 200 U/kg body weight subcutaneously twice weekly combined with either iron sucrose 200 mg intravenously twice weekly or iron sulfate 160 mg/day orally, for 3 weeks preoperatively. Efficacy was measured by the increases over baseline in hemoglobin, reticulocyte count, and ferritin determined 3 days before surgery; preoperative reticulocyte count and ferritin were significantly higher with intravenous iron, whereas the only significant intragroup increases in hemoglobin between time points also occurred in this group. Intravenous iron significantly boosts the hematopoietic response to rhEPO and prevents iatrogenic iron depletion in otherwise healthy candidates for elective surgery.


We report here two cases of spontaneous retropharyngeal and cardiomediastinal emphysema. The patients were a 15-year-old boy, who developed a foreign body sensation in the pharynx after he ran and a 16-year-old boy who developed pain in the anterior neck after he spoke loudly. X-ray and CT examination findings revealed air in the retropharyngeal and cardiomediastional regions in both patients. Antibiotics and a week of rest were prescribed and these complaints disappeared. Sixty-four cases of spontaneous mediastinal emphysema, including our two cases, reported in the Japanese literature in the period between 1992 and 2001 are also reviewed and discussed in this paper.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the bond strength of a resin luting cement to zirconia surfaces that had received two novel surface pretreatment methods: etching of a pre-fired overglaze or paste liner on the zirconia substrate.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Fully sintered zirconia disks were assigned to 6 groups according to the surface pretreatment: firing of 2 layers of paste liner which was then etched with hydrofluoric acid and treated with silane (Liner group); firing of 2 layers of overglaze which were then etched with hydrofluoric acid and treated with silane (glaze group); Rocatec treatment and silane application (Rocatec group); Rocatec treatment followed by ultrasonic cleaning and silanization (ultrasonic-Rocatec group); sandblasted with alumina (alumina group); as-sintered with no pretreatment (control group). Twenty composite resin cylinders were bonded to each group with Panavia F 2.0. Each group was further divided into 2 subgroups (n = 10) for 2 different storage conditions: 24 h water storage or 3 weeks water storage plus 6000 thermocycles between 5°C and 55°C. The shear bond strength was then determined. Statistical analyses with two-way ANOVA were conducted; the level of significance was set at p < 0.05.

RESULTS
At 24 h, the shear bond strength values of all groups except the control showed no statistically significant difference. After artificial aging, the mean bond strength of all groups dropped, but the decrease in the glaze group was not statistically significant. The glaze group showed the highest shear bond strength. However, that was not statistically different from the liner or the Rocatec group without ultrasonic cleaning (p < 0.05). All the control specimens debonded spontaneously after aging. Ultrasonic cleaning after Rocatec treatment caused a reduction in shear bond strength, but the difference was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION
Both the fired paste liner and overglazed ceramic treated zirconia surfaces provided a strong and durable bond to resin cement under the conditions tested.


From a blood transfusion service with ca. 7000 donors a year, there was a loss of donors whose blood, having undergone medical tests, was found to be unsuitable. Details of all such donors were carefully documented. The results were ascertained by attentive control of the health of the donors which, in part, exceeded the minimum requirements laid down by the existing regulations. The relatively high loss of donors and the kind of disease underline the importance of these control checks, as an aspect of preventive medicine. This is of particular importance with regard to the results of so-called "new donors", who register for the first time. They had to undergo examination, and were only allowed to give blood when all the results of the tests had been submitted. The question then arises as to whether the regulations for the differing minimum requirements for the examination of "occasional donors" and "regular donors" can be maintained. A reduction of the expenditure on the present regulation examination of donors is not advocated because of both responsibility towards the blood donors, and in view of the increasing significance, to the medical care of patients, of the proximity of a clinic to an expedient transfusion service.


Summary There is no doubt that a recession is an extremely difficult period for most companies. Especially when a recession has universal dimensions, many companies find themselves unprepared to face great challenges. While marketing in good times has a long-term focus, a broad scope, it is benefits- and opportunities-driven and proactive, in bad times it has a short-term focus, limited and narrow scope, it is cost-and sales-driven and reactive. Panic is not the right reaction. Such difficult times should be overcome through methodical and well planned actions. After all, research has shown that those companies that take a proactive stance and treat the recession as an opportunity are likely to come out of the crisis stronger than before. Specific marketing activities have been proved to be beneficial to companies during a downturn. Below we analyze, ten marketing survival strategies and tactics.


According to the Cameroonian Penal Code, pregnant women, nursing mothers and children may not be admitted to prison and, by implication, there are no facilities to cater for these vulnerable categories of prisoners. Yet pregnant women are arrested occasionally and they deliver children in prison and some women are sentenced as nursing mothers. There is an implicit belief and practice that women are the primary caretakers of children – hence their imprisonment impacts on children both inside and outside of prison. This article first discusses the discrepancies between policy and practice regarding female inmates and their children in the Cameroonian penitentiary system. It then goes on to show how pregnancies, deliveries and being a mother are dealt with by female prisoners, given the constraints under which they are living. The research is based on observations and interviews at six out of 73 prisons in Cameroon. The data for this article is based on qualitative analysis of the narratives of 13 female inmates, who have experienced motherhood in prison, interviews with five prison staff members and two NGO representatives working in close collaboration with these inmates. The study was approached with standpoint feminist theory as a point of departure.


This paper studies the interdependence between the U.S. and four other developed stock markets in Canada, Japan, Sweden, and the UK. Specifically, we investigate how the 2007-2009 financial crisis influenced the dynamics of stock market integration among five developed countries by analyzing the short-run and long-run effects of the crisis over two sample periods: pre-crisis and post-crisis. We employ the Johansen co-integration test to verify cointegration and the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to examine the short-run and long-run relationships among five national stock markets. The results of co-integration tests confirm the presence of co-integration in both sample periods. The short-run VECM results indicate a significant influence of the U.S. market on four other markets in both periods, suggesting that little diversification benefits exist in the short-run. The pre-crisis long-run results demonstrate significant cointegrating relationships between the U.S. market and each of three markets (in Canada, Japan, and Sweden). The insignificant cointegrating relationship between the UK and U.S. markets in the pre-crisis period, however, becomes significant in the post-crisis period. In contrast, the Japanese stock market, which was initially cointegrated with the U.S. market in the pre-crisis period, loses its cointegrating relationship with the U.S. market in the post-crisis period. Overall, our findings confirm that major national equity markets are, to varying degrees, interdependent in both the short-run and long-run. We also find that a negative shock such as a financial crisis may significantly change the co-movements among national stock markets.


Two systems using ash–cinder and dust–offgas to treat textile dyeing wastewater were studied, one being an ash-cinder filtration adsorption system, and the other an integrated system consisting of ash–cinder filtration–adsorption and dust/offgas scrubbing adsorption, in which high-color dyeing wastes were introduced to the scale-removal system of a boiler, resulting in both hydraulic antiscaling and wastewater treatment. Because of the very low cost of wastewater treatment and the saving of antiscaling process, comprehensive treatment and utilization of various wastes was sucessfully realized.


Patients with trigger thumb and trapeziometacarpal joint arthritis accompanied by swan-neck deformity of their first rays find that their arthritic pain becomes worse whenever their thumbs "catch." Six hands with adduction contracture and arthritis of the trapeziometacarpal joint are studied biomechanically and demonstrate significantly excessive shear forces (p less than 0.01) around their trapeziometacarpal joint relative to six normal hands. Increased pain with deformity suggests aggressive treatment of trigger thumb in cases such as these.


Uraria picta leaf-pair unrolling inside out is a remarkable feat. A leaf-pair was investigated to understand the mechanism of spontaneous reverse inside out act of the plant. The upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces of the leaf-pair were examined using scanning and light microscopy. The scan showed diversity of hairs varying in shape from straight, pointed, curve, and club to hook. There were deposits of wax on both sides of the leaf-pair. The light microscope showed hairs are restricted to the midrib on the adaxial surface of the leaflets. Hooked hairs dominated the entire abaxial surface of the leaflets. The transverse section of the midrib section showed abundance of structural and mechanical tissues, collenchyma and sclerenchyma tissues. Both morphological and anatomical attributes were used to explain the mechanism and how the plant got its Yoruba vernacular name 'Alupayida' as well as its purported use in changing the sex of the unborn child and in breaking up love affairs.


Abstract Purpose: To investigate the efficacy and safety of intravitreal dexamethasone implant as initial and only treatment for macular oedema after pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD). Methods: This study included 14 patients, who were diagnosed with macular oedema after PPV for RRD and who were treated with intravitreal dexamethasone implant. Patients were examined at the time of macular oedema diagnosis (baseline) and 1, 6 and 12 months after treatment, using best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) measurement and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Results: The mean BCVA at baseline was 0.72 ± 0.29 logMAR and improved significantly to 0.37 ± 0.21, 0.42 ± 0.19 and 0.35 ± 0.22 logMAR at month 1, 6 and 12 after treatment with dexamethasone implant. The mean central retinal thickness (CRT) was 623 ± 142 μm at baseline and decreased significantly to 339 ± 163 μm, 428 ± 131 μm and 356 ± 147 μm at month 1, 6 and 12 after treatment. Total resolution of macular oedema was observed in 10 out of 14 patients (71.4%) at month 12. Ellipsoid zone was intact in 71.4% of patients at the end of the follow-up, while 71.4% of patients received only one implant until the end of the 12-month follow-up. No adverse events were observed. Conclusions: Intravitreal dexamethasone implant was found to be effective and safe as initial treatment for macular oedema after PPV for RRD.


The separation process of  the whey resulting from milk coagulation in cheese manufacturing was modelized and optimized for different coagulae. Preliminary investigations of the filtration process allowed to choose the kind of coagulum and the ranges of the key-parameters. The pressing process was further modelized and optimized using a 3 2 experiment design. The effects of time (t) of coagulum pressing and the pressing force were investigated in the respective range: 0-6 hours and 0,005-0,009 kg/cm 2 . It was found that the optimum process is strongly correlated to the kind of coagulum. For instance, for coagulum obtained using promoter agents, this optimum occurs at a pressing time of 4,9 hours and a pressing force of 0,0064 kg/cm 2 . For tainted milk, this optimum lies at t op : 7,2 hours and 0,008 kg/cm 2 . The results highlight the opportunity to achieve a high performance whey recovery using a low-cost process.


All CBM+ solutions must establish a business case considering cost of implementation and sustainment of value with a quantifiable return on investment. The business case must be traceable to specific failure modes, associated failure effects, criticality, and risk. Risk is not limited to safety and operational risks. Predictive systems by definition return both true and false predictions representing operational and financial risk from high false positive rates. There is also risk of losing operator confidence in predictive systems when there is a high false positive rate. All of these risks must be quantified and considered in the design and development of CBM+ systems. Model based approaches are effective in accelerating development, defining advanced functional characteristics, and efficiently testing dynamic effects of complex systems. CBM+ maintenance strategies rely on performance of complex systems.


This article describes the design and application of a non–contact ultrasound air instability compensation
transducer. The spatial impulse response approach was used to simulate the reflected energy from the reference in the path
of the ultrasound from the non–contact transducer to compensate for the error provided by the instability of the air media
during measurements. Based on simulation, a model was suggested for the design of a reference for the 1.0 MHz 12.5 mm
diameter non–contact ultrasound transducer. Simulation results highly correlated with the measured data to provide R2 values
greater than 0.99. The improved stability of the thickness and ultrasound velocity measurements of polystyrene and cheddar
cheese was demonstrated with a constructed air instability compensation transducer. Results indicate that the non–contact
air instability compensation ultrasound technique has excellent potential for non–destructive, rapid, and precise quality
measurement and monitoring in varying environmental conditions, as in a food manufacturing plant or a process industry.


We suggest a novel approach for the efficient and reliable approximation of the Pareto front of sufficiently smooth unconstrained bi-criteria optimization problems. Optimality conditions formulated for weighted sum scalarizations of the problem yield a description of (parts of) the Pareto front as a parametric curve, parameterized by the scalarization parameter (i.e., the weight in the weighted sum scalarization). Its sensitivity w.r.t. parameter variations can be described by an ordinary differential equation (ODE). Starting from an arbitrary initial Pareto optimal solution, the Pareto front can then be traced by numerical integration. We provide an error analysis based on Lipschitz properties and suggest an explicit Runge-Kutta method for the numerical solution of the ODE. The method is validated on bi-criteria convex quadratic programming problems for which the exact solution is explicitly known, and numerically tested on complex bi-criteria shape optimization problems involving finite element discretizations of the state equation.


Given the pervasiveness of substance abuse, it is not feasible for the community and specialty substance abuse treatment sectors to operate independently of each other. Functional division of labor between these 2 sectors can allow for efficient use of limited state, federal, local, and private resources to address substance abuse issues. Social workers in both sectors can enhance their effectiveness by recognizing their interlocking relationship and by learning how to implement practice changes that will navigate the distance between these 2 separate, but interdependent entities. This article differentiates between the specialty and nonspecialty substance abuse treatment sectors, describes the interlocking relationship between these 2 sectors, explains the intent and process of screening and assessment for substance abuse problems, clarifies the steps of a brief intervention, and explores obstacles that social workers might face when they implement screening, assessment, and brief intervention programs.


Results from a large-scale study, comprising 75 different breeding herds, are reported on predicting the halothane (Hal) genotypes of individual pigs by making use of the known close linkage between Hal and three electrophoretic blood marker loci (Phi, Po2, Pgd). The parents haplotypes (involving Hal and marker loci) were determined from the HAL phenotypes (halothane test results) and marker loci phenotypes of their offspring in the first one or two litters studied. In subsequent litters of the Hal-marker loci haplotyped parents, the offspring's expected Hal genotypes could be predicted on the basis of the marker loci haplotypes inherited by them. By comparing the expected and observed HAL phenotypes of offspring in subsequent litters, the predicted Hal genotype was found to be correct in 90-95% of the 4000 offspring (from Nn X Nn and Nn X nn matings) of Swedish Landrace and Yorkshire breeds studied. The order of the three marker loci was confirmed as Phi-Po2-Pgd but the position of Hal with regards to Phi could not be resolved. The recombination frequencies between the most distant loci in this region, viz. Hal-Pgd and Phi-Pgd, were estimated to be 3-4.5% and 4-6%, respectively. The easy and rapid electrophoretic techniques described in the study to phenotype PHI, PO2, PGD, also allowed phenotyping of six other polymorphic protein systems on the same gels. Thus Hal genotyping and effective parentage control can be conducted simultaneously.


In this article a four-step methodology is proposed for the creation of the lemma-sign list of a Nguni-language reference work. The theoretical principles are illustrated throughout with a full- scale case study revolving around isiNdebele For the suggested approach raw corpus data is utilised, and only standard, straightforward and widely-available software tools are required to process the data. Apart from the inherent value of having an entire macrostructure at one's disposal right from the start of a dictionary project, it is shown how such a list can also be used for both predictions and measurements on lemma-sign, page and time levels As such, drawing up the macrostructure of a dictionary automatically leads to a 'ruler' with which the entire lexicographic process can successfully be monitored. Specifically for isiNdebele, suggestions are made for the way ahead.


This article introduces MPI-F an efficient implementation of MPI on the IBM-SP1 distributed memory cluster. After discussing the novel and key concepts of MPI and how they relate to an implementation, the MPI-F system architecture is outlined in detail. Although many incorrectly assume that MPI will not be efficient due to its increased functionality, MPI-F performance demonstrates efficiency as good as the best message passing library currently available on the SP1.


Sometimes unpredictable aversive events have more adverse consequences than predictable aversive events and sometimes not. Three experiments were conducted to test an attentional explanation of the inconsistent effects of unpredictability. This explanation suggests that unpredictable events exert a deleterious influence because more attention is typically directed to them. If there were no difference in the amount of attention directed to unpredictable and predictable events, however, there should be no difference in their effects. The validity of these notions was assessed by applying them to one previously established finding from the unpredictability literature--the finding that exposure to unpredictable noise leads to reports of more severe physical symptoms than does exposure to predictable noise. In Experiment 1, subjects performed a reaction time task while they listened to loud bursts of either predictable or unpredictable noise. As expected, reaction times were slower when the noise was unpredictable than when it was not. This finding suggests that more attention had been directed to the unpredictable than the predictable noise. In Experiments 2 and 3, subjects were exposed to either predictable or unpredictable noise and were either instructed to attend to the noise or given no special instructions. In both cases, subjects not instructed to attend to the noise reported more severe symptoms when the noise was unpredictable than when it was not, thus replicating the previous finding. Of greater interest, however, was the fact that equating the amount of attention directed to the unpredictable and predictable noise (by asking subjects to attend to the noise) eliminated the apparent benefits of predictability. The discussion of the findings centers on their theoretical and practical significance.


Abstract A series of hydrothermal diamond-anvil cell experiments have been conducted to evaluate the role of supercritical water on the isotopic equilibrium between H/D methane isotopologues at 600-800 °C and 409-1622 MPa. Raman spectroscopy was deployed to investigate the distribution of H/D isotopic molecules formed during hydrothermal decomposition of Si5C12H36 in H2O-D2O aqueous solutions. To this end, the intensities of the fundamental vibrational C-H and C-D modes of deuteromethanes were employed to determine the thermodynamic properties of isotope exchange reactions between H/D isotopologues and to constrain the methane D/H molar ratios. By adjusting the initial volume ratios of silane/H2O-D2O, reactions in the CH4-D2O-H2O system were monitored for gaseous and supercritical-water phases. Discreet differences between the equilibrium constants, describing the relationship between the CH3D-CH2D2-CHD3-CH4 species dissolved in supercritical water or present as a homogeneous gas phase, are revealed. The bulk D/H methane composition in the liquid-system is also twice that of the D/H molar ratios recorded in the gas-bearing system. Accordingly, condensedphase isotope effects are inferred to play a key role on the evolution of H/D isotopologues, likely induced by differences in the solubility of the isotopic molecules driven by the excess energy/entropy developed during mixing of non-polar species in the H2O-D2O structure. Our experiments show that isotope fractionation effects need to account for the presence of condensed matter (e.g., melts, magmatic fluids), even at conditions at which theoretical models suggest minimal (or nonexistent) isotope exchange, but comparable to those within the Earth's interior.


Background: In analogy to acne, oral isotretinoin has been considered in the treatment of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). Objectives: To assess the efficacy of oral isotretinoin according to patients. Methods: From 1999 to 2006, 358 consecutive HS patients were interviewed and examined. A standardized record of the data was performed for each patient during the first consultation. Patients were questioned regarding the effect of previous treatment with oral isotretinoin: patients had to grade the effect as either 'improved', 'no effect' or 'worse'. Results: Fourteen patients (16.1%) declared an improvement, 67 patients (77%) no effect and 6 patients (6.9%) worsening of HS. Conclusion: According to our patients, oral isotretinoin is not effective in the treatment of HS.


Hypertonic saline solution (HSS) is known as an important treatment for hypovolemic shock. Cattle with acute rumen lactic acidosis (ARLA) usually present different degrees of dehydration. This study evaluated the efficiency of HSS for treatment of ARLA. Twelve yearling, cross-bred, male cattle were used. After an adaptation period, when a rumen cannula was implanted, the animals were submitted to an induction of ARLA by the administration of sucrose into the rumen. Twenty hours later the cattle were randomly divided in two groups. The 1st group was treated with 5 mL/kg BW with 7.5 % (NaCl), within 15 min after 20th h of the induction; thereafter it was infused 20 mL/ kg BW of isotonic saline solution (ISS) for the next 165 min. The 2nd group was treated only with ISS. Five liters of ruminal contents were removed and replaced with five liters of water in both groups. Variables were measured at time 0 (MO), 20 h (M20h) and throughout the treatment (M30 , M60 , M120 e M180 ). The use of HSS caused a mild acidemia followed by a discrete hypercapnia. No side effects were seen in cattle treated with HSS. Infusion of HSS decreased the globular volume indicating a passage of fluids from the rumen into the bloodstream, correcting partially the dehydration. The use of HHS is a possible additional treatment for correction of dehydration caused by ARLA.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the feasibility and safety of autologous peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (auto-PBHSCT) and its therapeutic effect on refractory rheumatism among preschool children.

METHODS
Three boys with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus (JSLE) and juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) respectively, 3 to 6 years old with the mean age of 5 years with 3.5 to 22 months course of disease with 14 months on average, received auto-PBHSCT. Their conditions were so severe that conventional therapy failed to control the diseases. The changes of both clinical manifestations and immunologic indexes were observed before and after transplantation with long term following up at specialty clinic of rheumatism.

RESULT
The time when neutrophil count >or= 0.5 x 10(9)/L in the 3 children was days +9, +13 and +11 respectively, that of platelet count >or= 20 x 10(9)/L was days +14, +18 and +13 respectively. The cellular immune function remained abnormal with CD4 cells at a low level and CD4/CD8 being inverted. As to the JDM child, the skin rash had disappeared and his muscle tone was improved to grade 5 within one month after the transplantation. The EMG and serum creatase level returned to normal and muscle MRI findings were improved greatly within 2 months after the transplantation. As to the JSLE child, skin rash and proteinuria had disappeared, MRI of brain showed that the pathological changes had been absorbed and EEG returned to normal 3 months after the transplantation, all the autoantibodies turned to negative within 8 months after transplantation. As to the JRA child, the arthritis had been improved remarkably within 3 weeks after auto-PBHSCT. There was no swelling of joints nor movement limitation 3 months post transplantation. The steroids and immunosuppressive drugs were discontinued post transplantation. Cushing syndrome disappeared. Their body heights increased by 10 to 15 cm in the past 18 months, and they all returned to school. There was no relapse during follow-up periods of 25 - 27 months.

CONCLUSION
The therapy with auto-PBHSCT for refractory rheumatism among preschool children was remarkably effective in a short-term, yet the safety and long-term effect still need to be further studied.


Objective: To establish psychometric properties of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) with respect to detecting mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD-MCI). Introduction: MCI is considered a transitional stage between normal cognitive functioning and dementia. The MoCA has recently been recommended as one of the standard tools for the diagnosis of PD-MCI. However, its detection potential in the Czech population has not been demonstrated. Methods: A sample of 80 patients with PD was administered the MoCA and a neuropsychological battery with criteria operationalized for MCI-deficits. Thirty nine of these patients (PD-MCI sample) were age and education-matched to a control sample (CS). ROC analysis was used to ascertain classification statistics (discriminative validity) of the MoCA as a diagnostic instrument. Results: The MoCA total score was significantly different between PD-MCI and CS (p = 0.006). Delayed recall was the most differentiating MoCA subscore (p < 0.001). The 28/29 scores were identified as an optimal screening MoCA cut-off to discriminate PD-MCI from CS was (sensitivity = 0.90, specificity = 0.32; positive and negative predictive value = 0.57 and 0.76, respectively). We constructed a regression equation based on a large control sample of the Czech population (n = 268) to estimate the MoCA's age and education-specific performance more accurately. Conclusion: Despite the group differences between PD-MCI and CS, our results show that MoCA has an unsatisfactory detection potential for an individual diagnosis of PD-MCI. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery is thus recommendable. Autoři deklarují, že v souvislosti s předmětem studie nemají žádné komerční zájmy. The authors declare they have no potential conflicts of interest concerning drugs, products, or services used in the study. Redakční rada potvrzuje, že rukopis práce splnil ICMJE kritéria pro publikace zasílané do biomedicínských časopisů. The Editorial Board declares that the manuscript met the ICMJE "uniform requirements" for biomedical papers. O. Bezdíček1, J. Michalec 2, T. Nikolai1, H. Štěpánková 3, E. Panenková3, P. Harsa2, P. Havránková1, J. Roth1, M. Kopeček3,4, E. Růžička1 1 Neurologická klinika a Centrum klinických neurověd, 1. LF UK a VFN v Praze 2 Psychiatrická klinika 1. LF UK a VFN v Praze 3 Psychiatrické centrum Praha 4 Klinika psychiatrie 3. LF UK v Praze * Mgr. Ondřej Bezdíček Neurologická klinika a Centrum klinických neurověd 1. LF UK a VFN Kateřinská 30 128 21 Praha 2 e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Přijato k recenzi: 15. 2. 2013 Přijato do tisku: 5. 9. 2013


Abstract The study of the arthropod fauna involved in carcass decomposition is crucial for medicolegal forensic purposes. This knowledge is especially needed in countries with high levels of criminality and where the arthropod fauna is still under-recorded and not well known, such as Angola. We present data from the first survey on sarcosaprophagous flies and beetles in Angola, conducted in Luanda over a 17-d period, in the wet summer season. In total, 881 adult and immature specimens, belonging to 18 species, were collected from three pig carcasses that were sampled daily. Three species were not previously known from Angola. The dominant flies were Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann, 1819) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) and Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius, 1794), but Chrysomya marginalis (Wiedemann, 1830), Chrysomya putoria (Wiedemann, 1830), and Liosarcophaga emmrichiana (Lehrer, 2002) (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) also bred on the carcasses. The dominant beetles were Dermestes maculatus De Geer, 1774 (Coleoptera: Dermestidae), Saprinus splendens (Paykull 1811) (Coleoptera: Histeridae), and Necrobia rufipes (De Geer, 1775) (Coleoptera: Cleridae). Because of the hot weather during the experimental period (∼27°C), decomposition was extremely fast. Periods of insect activity on carcasses are presented and comparisons are made with other carrion communities reported from the Afrotropical region.


In some high-, middle-, and low-income countries, law has been employed to limit individuals' secondhand smoke exposure. Innovative legal tools are still needed, especially in low- and middle-income countries where smoking prevalence continues to rise. For some persons with severe respiratory conditions, the presence of secondhand smoke is intolerable and prevents their entrance into restaurants and other venues. With its adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006, the United Nations gave countries a new way to promote the rights of disabled individuals and simultaneously address secondhand smoke exposure. We analyze the CRPD's potential to advance tobacco control goals and offer recommendations for advocates, policymakers, and others seeking to apply this approach.


This paper describes a strategy for helping students to learn about laboratory and radiological investigations in diagnosis and management, and to make decisions about the use of investigations, taking into account such features as safety, patient comfort and cost. Learning takes place through the use of a programmed text, in which students commit decisions to paper, and then receive feedback on the results of their decisions. Acceptability to students and teaching staff has been evaluated, and future developments of the strategy are outlined.


ABSTRACT It is well-accepted that maternal obesity affects fetal development to elevate the risk of offspring disease, but how this happens is unclear. Understanding placental alterations during gestation as a consequence of maternal obesity is critical to understanding the impact of maternal obesity on fetal programming. Here, we used histological criteria, flow cytometry, quantitative PCR, and multiplex cytokine assays to examine changes in cell proliferation and inflammation in the placenta during gestation in a mouse model of maternal high-fat diet-induced obesity. We focused on mouse mid- to late gestation (approximately human late first and third trimester) because previous literature has indicated that this is when important regulators of metabolism, including that of the brain and endocrine pancreas, are forming. These studies were undertaken in order to understand how maternal obesity changes the placenta during this period, which might suggest a causal link to later-life metabolic dysfunction. We found that labyrinth thickness and cell proliferation were decreased at both pregnancy stages in obese compared to normal weight pregnancies. Inflammation was also altered in late pregnancy with increased macrophage activation and elevated cytokine gene expression in the placenta as well as increased abundance of some cytokines in the fetal circulation in obese compared to normal weight pregnancies. These changes in macrophage activation and cytokine gene expression were of greater magnitude and significance in placentas accompanying male fetuses. These data provide insight into placental changes in obesity and identify potential links between placental inflammation and programming of offspring disease by maternal obesity.


The necessity of incorporating experts from various domains in order to understand and draw meaningful conclusions from complex and massive amounts of data is an undisputed fact. In order to create and effectively use such a collaborative information workspace it is vital to understand the interaction processes involved. Established, high-level interaction patterns work well for single user, single data source scenarios. However, they cannot simply be applied to the collaborative analysis of heterogeneous data. In this paper we propose a Multi-User Multi-Level Interaction concept which differentiates between operations in view and data domain while considering the relations and transitions between data on different levels of granularity. Hence, the users' interaction can be formalized as a seamless path of navigation. This in turn helps to gain a deeper understanding of the interaction process and allows to efficiently steer it to accelerate data analysis. We demonstrate the applicability and benefits of our concept by means of a clinical use case scenario which aims at finding the best treatment for cancer patients.


Lutein is a dietary lipophilic compound with anti-inflammatory properties. We have previously shown that dairy fat can improve the lutein content in spinach smoothies. It is, however, unclear whether fat concentrations and fermentation status in dairy products affect lutein liberation in smoothies. Moreover, plant-based milks vary in fat, protein, and fiber content which may affect lutein dissolution. This study aimed to provide translatable information to consumers by comparing lutein liberation in spinach smoothies made with different dairy or plant-based liquids in domestic settings. The smoothies were digested in vitro, and liberated lutein was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). High-fat and medium-fat cow's milk, as well as coconut milk with and without additives, were found to significantly improve lutein liberation by 36%, 30%, 25%, and 42%, respectively, compared to blending spinach with water alone. Adjustment models suggested that the effects of cow's milk and coconut milk were derived from fat and protein, respectively. On the other hand, soymilk with and without additives showed significantly reduced lutein liberation by 40% and 61%, respectively. To summarize, only 4 out of 14 tested liquids increased lutein liberation in spinach smoothies. The results highlight the importance of testing food companions for lipophilic active ingredients.


action and even of the precise chemical structure of some of the pesticides, particularly those belonging to the chlorinated hydrocarbon group, of which D.D.T. is a representative. The action of the organo-phosphorus group, including " parathion," is better understood; they act by inhibiting the enzymes which hydrolyse acetylcholine, while the dinitro-derivatives raise the metabolic rate by disturbing vital enzymes and accelerating oxidative mechanisms. The description of these and other pesticides, as complete as possible in view of the existing gaps in present knowledge, is accompanied by suggestions for control of potential hazards and recommendations for further research, and is completed by an extensive bibliography drawn chiefly from sources in the library of the World Health Organization. ETHEL BROWNING.


Alongside the technologic developments, transformation in user behavior and business models has been observed. New areas and models are emerged in a lot of grounds like the communication of people or daily activities. So a new face put for shopping behavior by the e-commerce, which is one of the novelties. This study tries to research online shopping behavior in Turkey. With a quantitative research, device usage, the reasons behind to shop or not to shop online, online shopping category and e-commerce site preferences, payment methods, international e-commerce and online marketplace usage is investigated. As implications of the research, "saving time" is found to be the foremost reason for shopping online in Turkey and "travel and bookings" category is found as the most shopped category among the results of the survey.


A new methodology is developed to analyse existingwater quality monitoring networks. This methodology incorporates different aspects ofmonitoring, including vulnerability/probability assessment, environmental health risk, the value of information, and redundancy redu ction. The work starts with a formulation of a conceptual framework for groundwater quality monitoringto represent the methodology's context. This work presents the development of Bayesian techniques for the assessment of groundwater quality. The primary aim is to develop a predictive model and a computer system to assess and predict the impact of pollutants on the water column. The process of the analysis begins by postulating a model in light of al available knowledge taken from relevant phenomenon. The previous knowledge as represented by the prior distribution of the model parameters is then combined with the new data through Bayes' theorem to yield the current knowledge represented by the posterior distribution of model parameters. This process of updating information about the unknown model parameters is then repeated in a sequential manner as more and more new information becomes available.


This paper analyses various price and non-price factors that induce rice productivity during 1980-95 using a multi-variate model. This is studied separately for states where rice is a multi-season crop and mono-season crop. The non-price factors considered here include technology, commercialization, government support programme, farm size, and rainfall. The price factors include farm harvest price, fertilizer price and wage rate. Among these explanatory factors the influence of non-price factors is more important than the price factors except that of price of fertilizer in determining rice productivity. The relative influence of these factors differed between the multi-season and mono-season states which emphasizes region specific strategies for promoting rice productivity.


Recently, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) systems have been rapidly developing in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band due to the different advantages offered in different fields. The main goal of this paper is to present matched dipole tag antenna, fitting worldwide passive UHF RFID applications. The antenna is printed on an FR4 substrate with er = 4. 7; it has a size of 139 × 6. 75 × 1. 635 mm. T-matched chart was also designed to match the antenna tag IC including a charge capacitor which compensates the large conductive reactance of the antenna impedance. Furthermore, the power from the antenna can be maximally delivered to a tag IC unless the antenna impedance is conjugately matched with that of tag IC. Simulation results demonstrate that the antenna has a suitable operating band from 759–947 MHz; it has nearly omnidirectional radiation patterns with proper gain.


Femoral artery complications after percutaneous techniques seen more after therapeutic than diagnostic procedures. It can occur at late follow up period in aortic coarctation patients. In this report, we documented a late occurence of femoral artery stenosis after balloon aortoplasty and surgical coarctation repair. (Anatol J Clin Investig 2009:3(1):110-112).


Metals are known to influence the oxidative status of marine organisms, and antioxidant enzymes have been often proposed as biomarkers of effect. The clam Ruditapes decussatus is a well-known metal bioindicator. In this species cadmium (Cd) induces metallothionein (MT) synthesis only after 7 days of exposure. Before MT synthesis is induced, the other mechanisms capable of handling the excess of Cd are unknown. In order to identify some of these mechanisms, variations in antioxidant systems (superoxide dismutase, catalase, selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase and non-selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase), malondialdehyde (MDA) and MT were studied in the gills of R. decussatus exposed to different Cd concentrations (4, 40 and 100 gl-1) for 28 days. These parameters, together with total proteins and Cd concentrations, were measured in the gills of the clams over different periods of exposure. Results indicate that Cd accumulation increased linearly in the gills of R. decussatus with the increase in Cd concentration. This increase induces an imbalance in the oxygen metabolism during the first days of Cd exposure. An increase in cytosolic superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and a decrease in mitochondrial SOD activity was observed at the same time as or after a decrease in cytosolic and mitochondrial catalase activity and of selenium-dependent and non-selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase activity. After 14 days of exposure, Cd no longer affect these enzymes but there was elevation of other cellular activities, such as MDA and MT production. MT bound excess Cd present in the cell. These variations in these parameters suggest their potential use as biomarkers of effects such as oxidative stress resulting from Cd contamination in molluscs.


This article focuses on the resistance of today's children and adolescents to reading and their distressing school experiences with literature. Drawing on Tsvetan Todorov's research, it reveals some of the internal enemies of literary education, namely the dangerous reduction of literature in school to the instruments of its analysis. This technicist approach results in missing the real point of engaging with literature, and literary education self-destructs in the eyes of students. In addition to alienating students from reading, this conception of literature fails to address their basic needs, namely to better understand the world and learn to know themselves.


This paper introduces a computerized on-line partial discharge (PD) monitoring and diagnostic system for transformers. The system, which is already in use in a power station, uses wide-band active transducers and a data acquisition unit with modularized and exchangeable components. The system software is a power equipment monitoring and diagnostic system, which is based on the component object model, and was developed for monitoring multiple parameters in multiple power supply systems. The statistical characteristics of PDs in power transformers were studied using 7 experimental models for simulating PDs in transformers and 3 models for simulating interfering discharges in air. The discharge features were analyzed using a 3-D pattern chart with a three-layer back-propagation artificial neural network used to recognize the patterns. The results show that PDs in air and oil can be distinguished. The model can be used for interference rejection on-line monitoring of partial discharge in transformers.


Romantic love has challenged and vexed feminist thought from its origins. Judging from the shelves of books advising women on love problems, there seems to be an ongoing difficulty in maintaining equality in romantic relationships. Does romance weaken or empower women? Why do women seem overwhelmingly attracted to romantic love in spite of raised consciousness in other areas of life that is a legacy of feminism? Have women always been seen as the sex which most seeks love and is best suited for love? These are some of the questions Women and Romance: A Reader seeks to address in bringing together a collection of texts specifically focused on the subject of women's conflicted but powerful urge to experience the pleasure and endure the pain of romantic love. The first anthology of its kind, Women and Romance includes historical as well as contemporary selections, personal letters as well as theoretical essays, and social science perspectives as well as literary criticism of the novel and the popular mass-market romance. Wiesser lays out in systematic order for the first time the varying viewpoints and conflicted history of feminist views on romance, from Mary Wollstonecraft and Emma Goldman to Germaine Greer and Lillian Faderman. Introductions to each entry and section clarify the emerging themes of each era and of separate disciplines, while representing the views of traditionalists and anti-romance second-wave feminists alike. Contributors include: Charlotte Bronte, Barbara Bross, Eliza Southgate Bowne, Rita Mae Brown, Andreas Capellanus, Patricia Hill Collins, Simone de Beauvoir, Christine Delphy, Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Lillian Faderman, Shulamith Firestone, Moderata Fonte, Mary Gaitskill, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Vivian Gornick, Germaine Greer, Lynne Harne, bell hooks, Karen Horney, Carolyn Heilbrun, Audre Lorde, Tania Modleski, Gloria Naylor, Mary Poovey, Janice Radway, William Robinson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jane Rule, Barbara Ryan, Ann Snitow, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gloria Steinem, Mary Wollstonecraft, Victoria Woodhull, Virginia Woolf.


ABSTRACT This paper examines the links between adverse events, depression, and decision-making in Nigeria. It investigates how events such as conflicts, shocks, and deaths of family members can affect short-term mental health, as well as longer-term decisions on economic activities and human capital investments. First, the findings show that exposure to conflict has the largest and strongest relationship with depression, associated with a 21-26 percentage point increase in the probability of depressive symptomatology. Second, depression is associated with lower labour force participation, child educational investment, and annual per capita income, holding constant covariates such as exposure to adverse events. People with depressive symptoms are 8 percentage points less likely to work. In addition, parents exhibiting depressive symptoms spend 18% less on their children's education. These findings show the links between adverse events and important outcomes such as labour and education through mental health. As such, policymakers must consider both the direct and indirect effects that adverse events – particularly conflicts – and depression can have on welfare.


Bull terrier polycystic kidney disease (BTPKD) is a Mendelian disorder with many features reminiscent of human autosomal dominant polycystic disease, the latter disease being due to mutations at PKD1 and PKD2 loci. We investigated the role of the canine pkd1 orthologue in BTPKD via linkage analysis of a large kindred in which the disorder is segregating. Twelve microsatellite markers around the canine pkd1 locus (CFA6) were amplified from the genomic DNA of 20 affected and 16 unaffected bull terriers. An additional 28 affected dogs were genotyped at five key microsatellites. A highly significant multi-point LOD score that peaked over the canine pkd1 locus was observed (LOD = 6.59, best two-point LOD score LOD = 6.02), implicating this as the BTPKD locus.


We read with great interest the report by Nishijim et al . entitled, "Antimicrobial resistance of Staphylococcus aureus ( S. aureus ) isolated from impetigo patients between 1994 and 2000." The authors describe the antimicrobial susceptibility in vitro of S. aureus isolated from impetigo patients from the Department of Dermatology, Kansai Medical University Center, Japan, between 1994 and 2000. In Japan, topical gentamicin is often prescribed for impetigo. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of gentamicin is high, but has not increased in this period. Despite the increasing use of fusidic acid in an ointment with gentamicin, no S. aureus isolates were found to be resistant to fusidic acid between 1994 and 2000. This ointment is apparently very effective for impetigo and the authors strongly recommend its prescription. Our observations do not confirm their data. We reviewed the resistance pattern of S. aureus to fusidic acid in patients with atopic dermatitis at our dermatology in-patient department. 1 Our department is a tertiary referral center for patients with atopic dermatitis. We routinely monitor patients for their S. aureus carrier state on the first day of hospitalization. Between 1995 and 2001, the rate of resistance to fusidic acid increased from 9.7% to 23.4% (Table 1). The rate of resistance to methicillin remained stable at around 0.5% during this period. The majority of patients with atopic dermatitis have used topical fusidic acid prior to hospitalization for prolonged periods of time to treat infected eczema or to control their S. aureus carrier state. Between 1989 and 1995, drug resistance amongst S. aureus isolates was monitored in The Netherlands. 2 The resistance of S. aureus isolates to fusidic acid was only 0.2% of the 6526 samples tested. Arkwright et al . 3 studied the antimicrobial resistance of Staphylococcus and Streptococcus taken from patients attending the Regional Paediatric Atopic Dermatitis Clinic, Manchester, UK, in whom there was a clinical suspicion of secondary impetigo; 51% of children older than 5 years had fusidic acid-resistant S. aureus , compared with 38% of children aged 1–5 years and 14% of infants younger than 12 months. In contrast, in about 140 children with impetigo seen in primary care centers in The Netherlands, none of the S. aureus isolates showed resistance to fusidic acid. 4 These authors also recommend topical fusidic acid as first-choice treatment in patients with impetigo at the primary care level. Ravenscroft et al . 5 investigated the possible reasons for the increase in fusidic acid-resistant S. aureus from below 4% to 8–10% in Harrogate, UK. Resistant strains were frequently found in patients with chronic cutaneous infections (68%), and 44% had been given topical fusidic acid within the preceding 6 months. It seems plausible that prolonged topical use of fusidic acid is the main cause of the increase in fusidic acid-resistant S. aureus , especially in patients with chronic dermatitis, such as atopic dermatitis. We believe that the topical preparation of fusidic acid is being prescribed too generously and for too long a time in this patient group in our setting. Therefore, we advise that fusidic acid should be used for infected dermatitis only and for short periods of time of about 2 weeks. We hope that the prudent use of this topical antimicrobial will reverse the trend of increasing resistance observed in our patients. It may be hypothesized that the low rate of resistance to fusidic acid in the Japanese study is related to the addition of gentamicin to fusidic acid in the same ointment. More research is needed to confirm this.


The RFID and Sensor system has much benefit but simultaneously has some problems such as user's privacy violation. Ubiquitous computing requirement in security that can happen in ubiquitous environment, and by suggesting the direction of security service centered on safe key distribution, certification and sensor node capture defense technology. In the proposed crypto systems we use a new security protocol. For the control of key that can be used for the certification of sensor node or encryption of sensed information, the researchers suggest a key control method and security protocol to defend against sensor node capture by applying PKI method to Hash Lock.


A signal subspace method, in which the weights of the array are determined by a linear combination of the eigenvectors of signal subspace, is proposed. In the method, the degree of freedom (DOF) is reduced so as not to cancel the desired signal while preserving the optimal characteristic of the array. Hence, the proposed method improves the performance of a beam-steered array noticeably when there exist steering errors.


According to the SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) project, the most important European airports should implement the A-CDM (Airport Collaborative Decision Making). In this work, I realized a preliminary analysis of the A-CDM implementation in the Barcelona - El Prat airport, using real traffic/operative data kindly offered by Aena (Week 14, 2015). To obtain a quantitative parameterization for this project, I performed an analysis based on the actual capacity of the airport, which is a function of the structure of the airside area, the number of aircrafts operating in the airport and their characteristics. The architecture of the active runways defines a result of 90 operations per hour. Moreover, based on the CDM analysis, I created useful parameters the values and characteristics of which can be used for the A-CDM to understand, quantify and evaluate and the implementation and the benefits of the new system. I quantified the benefits with a double comparative analysis: (i) an analysis based on the global traffic of the airport and (ii) based on timely flights with similar characteristics. Among the several useful results, I underline the improvement of aspects of the EXOT (Estimated Taxi Out Time) assigned to wide body aircrafts, which are the most penalized in the new system. Finally, I estimated the emissions of the traffic and the environmental impact of the A-CDM implementation with a comparative analysis of the week 24 (2014 against 2015), adjusting for the delay due to the airport CDM restrictions. Such estimation indicates the possibility of significant savings of greenhouse gases emissions.


Background: Short bowel syndrome (SBS) is a malabsorptive state due to functional or anatomic loss of extensive segments of small intestine which can lead to nutritional deficiencies and metabolic disarrangements. Here we describe a young patient with short bowel presenting with severe nutritional deficiencies, nephrocalcinosis and distal renal tubular acidosis. Nephrocalcinosis and distal renal tubular acidosis are closely associated and each can lead to the other. There are only rare case reports of short bowel syndrome complicated with nephrocalcinosis and distal RTA and severe degree of metabolic derangement with nutritional deficiencies. And this case highlights the importance of early management of short bowel syndrome in order to prevent long-term complications. Case presentation: A forty two-year-old Sri Lankan male patient who had undergone appendectomy at the age of nineteen years, which was complicated by bowel gangrene and about 240 cm of small bowel was resected. Later he presented with recurrent urolithiasis and urinary tract infections and ten years after the surgery imaging revealed bilateral nephrocalcinosis and obstructive uropathy. Distal Renal tubular acidosis (RTA) was diagnosed at the same time. He also had osteomalacia, proximal myopathy, multiple vitamin deficiencies, mixed deficiency anemia. He was started on calcium, iron supplements, parenteral B12, vitamin D injections and alkali therapy to achieve a normal serum bicarbonate concentration. His calcium and Vitamin D supplementation is currently being monitored with serum calcium, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, serum alkaline phosphatase, serum PTH and urinary calcium/creatinine ratio. Conclusion: Patients with extensive small bowel resection are at risk for nutrient, mineral, and vitamin deficiencies because of the loss of absorptive surface. It can also be complicated with nephrocalcinosis and distal RTA which is rare in short bowel syndrome. It is therefore important to identify patients at risk of short bowel syndrome and institute an early management, follow up plan to prevent complications.


Porous scaffolds composed of gelatin and beta-glucan were prepared using the freeze-drying method. The scaffold had an inter-connected pore structure with average pore size of 90-150 microm. Results for the contact angle and cell attachment revealed that a high gelatin content was suitable for cellular attachment and distribution in two- or three-dimensional fibroblast cultures, because the gelatin had acidic residues, and arginine-glycine-aspartic acid groups. To prepare a stratified wound dressing to mimic the normal human skin, fibroblasts and keratinocyte cells were isolated from a child's foreskin, and were co-cultured in gelatin/beta-glucan scaffolds were cross-linked using 1-ethyl-(3-3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride. An in vivo study showed that after 1 week, the artificial dermis containing the fibroblasts enhanced the re-epithelialization of a full-thickness skin defect rather than the acellular scaffold.


On 9 and 10 February 2015, the University of Granada hosted the International Colloquium on Rabbis and Synagogues in the Mediterranean Context. The event was organized by Lorena Miralles Maciá, Carmen Caballero Navas and Daniel Muñoz Garrido and received support from the University of Granada, The Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv), the Spanish Association of Hebrew and Jewish Studies (AEEHJ in its Spanish acronym), the research project Language and Literature of Rabbinic and Medieval Judaism (FFI2013-43813-P, funded by the State Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation – Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness), the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies (in whose Granada headquarters the colloquium was held). The colloquium was open to all (prior notification of attendance was the only requirement) so that anybody interested in the world of Hebrew and Jewish studies could attend as long as space was available, regardless of whether or not they were affiliated with an institution of higher learning…


Nucleotide‐binding oligomerization domain receptors (NOD‐like receptors, NLRs) are intracellular proteins that are chiefly known for their critical functions in inflammatory responses and host defense against microbial pathogens. Several NLRs have been demonstrated to assemble inflammasomes or to engage transcriptional signaling cascades that result in the production of pro‐inflammatory cytokines and bactericidal factors. In recent years, NLRs have also emerged as key regulators of early mammalian embryogenesis and reproduction. A subset of phylogenetically related NLRs represents a new class of maternal effect genes that are highly expressed in maturing oocytes and pre‐implantation embryos. Mutations in several of these NLRs have been linked to hereditary reproductive defects and imprinting diseases. In this review, we discuss the expression profiles, the emerging functions and molecular mode of action of these NLRs with newly recognized roles at the interfaces of the immune and reproductive systems. In addition, we provide an overview of coding mutations in NLRs that have been associated with human reproductive diseases, and outline crucial outstanding questions in this emerging research field.


Background/Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic accuracy (DA) of a ColonView (CV) test in proximal versus distal colorectal adenoma (pCRA versus dCRA). Patients and Methods: The colorectal neoplasia (CRN) screening cohort included 5,090 individuals and 506/5,090 (10%) were eligible for the study. Finally, only 127/506 were included in the CRA analysis and hierarchical summary ROC (HSROC) curves were used to show the pooled overall DA of visually analyzed (VA) and automatically analyzed (AA) techniques in pCRA and dCRA detection. Results: The overall specificity (Sp) of the AA technique for the pCRA and dCRA endpoint was 46% and 43%, respectively. The most sensitive AA test in pCRA patients showed 76% sensitivity (Se) versus 58% Se in dCRA patients. In the HSROC analysis, area under the curve (AUC) values were as follows: i) VA in pCRA: AUC=0.503, ii) AA in pCRA: AUC=0.560, iii) VA in dCRA: AUC=0.552 and iv) AA in dCRA: AUC=0.486. In Roccomp analysis, the statistically significant AUC values were available between VA and AA reading modes in pCRA (p=0.044) and in AA reading between pCRA and dCRA (p=0.024). Conclusion: As compared with the CRC endpoint, the DA value of the CV test is far inferior for the CRA endpoint, as determined by the AUC values.


Acute radiation-induced dermatitis (ARID) is a common sequela of radiation therapy in dogs. There is no consensus regarding ARID management in human medicine and the standard of care in veterinary medicine has not been reported. The objective was to report the practice standards for ARID management in dogs in North America. The design used was a questionnaire survey. Fifty-eight private and university teaching veterinary hospitals were contacted, 54 participated. The topical and oral medications used to treat ARID, prevent or treat bacterial infection, control pain and the indications for and timing of treatment initiation were the outcome measures. A minority of facilities (4/54, 7.5%) use exactly the same protocol regarding all parameters. There was agreement (>75% of facilities) with respect to the general use of oral antibiotics (77.8%), the need for pain control (92.6%) and the use of tramadol for pain control (76%), although the details of their use varied widely. There is a divergence of opinions regarding all details of ARID management in dogs except the general use of oral antibiotics and pain control medications.


Future environmental change is expected to modify the global hydrological cycle, with consequences for the regional distribution of freshwater supplies. Regional precipitation projections, however, differ largely between models, making future water resource projections highly uncertain. Using two representative concentration pathways and nine climate models, we estimate 21st century water resources across Australia, employing both a process-based dynamic vegetation model and a simple hydrological framework commonly used in water resource studies to separate the effects of climate and vegetation on water resources. We show surprisingly robust, pathway-independent regional patterns of change in water resources despite large uncertainties in precipitation projections. Increasing plant water use ef fi ciency ( due to the changing atmospheric CO 2 ) and reduced green


Summary Sociopathy is highly familial in both white and black families. Sociopathy in men and women clusters in the same families, but is much more frequent in men than in women. It is more prevalent among relatives of sociopathic women than among relatives of sociopathic men. The sex difference in its prevalence appears to be due to sex-related cultural or biological factors causing the threshold to be more deviant in women. There is no evidence of a genetic difference in its prevalence and transmission according to race. The two-threshold Multifactorial Model of Disease Transmission provides an explanation for the striking sex difference in the transmission of sociopathy. Such a pattern of transmission is obtained only in diseases whose genetic component is polygenic or, if only one or a few genotypes are relevant, where each of these has a small effect relative to environmental factors. Assortative mating accounts for a large proportion of the observed similarity between relatives. However, the familial clustering of male and female sociopaths is not dependent on assortative mating. The high correlation among siblings that is expected under conditions of random mating indicates that environmental factors common to siblings contribute to the aetiology of sociopathy. The greater deviance of the parental home experiences of sociopathic women compared to sociopathic men is further evidence of the importance of familial environment.


Purpose

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how elements of the socioecological system shape individual behaviors. The problem of childhood overweight and obesity is analyzed as existing within a complex system of relationships at different levels by means of system dynamics (SD).

Design/methodology/approach

Secondary sources and primary information collected from an elementary school were used to analyze the influences of several social environmental factors on the dietary habits and physical activity of children. The major elements that influence these behaviors were identified via a socioecological framework (SEF), and the interrelationships among these elements were described using an SD model. Then, several scenarios corresponding to social marketing actions oriented toward modifying the influence of specific elements in the socioecological system were proposed to evaluate how effective they are at reducing the percentages of overweight and obesity among children.

Findings

The current research shows the existence of counteracting efforts at the micro (family) and macro (governmental policies) levels that need to be aligned to reduce rates of obesity and overweight.

Practical implications

The systems perspective supports decision makers in defining social marketing strategies to modify alimentary behaviors based on the understanding of what elements of the SEF influence behavior and how they interrelate. To the authors' knowledge, a detailed analysis of the influences of the socioecological environment has not been performed based on Latin American countries to seek solutions to the public health problems of overweight and obesity.

Originality/value

The application of SD enhances the value of the SEF suggested by Collins et al. (2010) for modeling individual behaviors. Moreover, the use of the systems approach for framing and understanding how the interrelationships of socioecological elements derive in synergic or antagonistic effects helps to predict the long-term effect of governmental actions and school interventions.


The impedance of ceramic capacitors, made from different dielectric materials, was measured as a function of frequency from 1 MHz to 1 GHz. Most of the capacitors were of 0805 size and either end terminated or side terminated. The capacitance values ranged from a minimum of 50 pF to 100 nF. The high-frequency impedance measurements demonstrate that the inductance is a factor of two larger in end-terminated than in side-terminated ceramic muitilayer capacitors of size 0805. The inductance measured by two independent methods is 0.7 nH for the side-terminated 0805 capacitors. The inductance is only dependent on the geometry of the capacitor and independent of the dielectric material used. The capacitance and, in turn, the dielectric constant, remains constant for Z5U and X7R materials up to 100 MHz. For NPO materials the dielectric constant remains constant up to 1 GHz.


This paper proposes a new parallelization of the Primal and Dual Simplex algorithms for Linear Programming (LP) problems on massively parallel Single-Instruction Multiple-Data (SIMD) computers. The algorithms are based on the Steepest-Edge pivot selection method and the tableau representation of the constraint matrix. The initial canonical tableau is formed on an attached scalar host unit, and then partitioned into a rectangular grid of sub-matrices and distributed to the individual Processor Element (PE) memories. In the beginning of the parallel algorithm key portions of the simplex tableau are partially replicated and stored along with the sub-matrices on each one of the PEs. The SIMD simplex algorithm iteratively selects a pivot element and carries-out a simplex computation step until the optimal solution is found, or when unboundedness of the LP is established. The Steepest-Edge pivot selection technique utilizes information mainly from local replicas to search for the next pivot element. The pivot row and column are selectively broadcasted to the PEs before a pivot computation step, by efficiently utilizing the geometry of the toroidal mesh interconnection network. Every individual PE maintains locally and keeps consistent its replicas so that inter-processor communication due to data dependencies is further reduced. The presence of a pipelined inteconnection network, like the mesh network of MP-1 and MP-2 MasPar models allows the global reduction operations necessary in the selection of pivot columns and rows to be performed in time $O(\log n_R + \log n_C)$, in $(n_R \times n_C)$ PE arrays. This particular combination of pivot selection, matrix representation, and selective data replication is shown to be highly efficient in the solution of linear programming problems on SIMD computers. The proposed parallelization has optimal asymptotic speedup and scalability properties. Performance comparisons show that as the problem sizes increase the speed-ups obtained by MasPar''s MP-1 and MP-2 models are in the order of 100 times, and 1000 times, respectively, over sequential versions of the Steepest-Edge Simplex algorithm running on high-end Unix workstations.


Service-learning is a proven teaching and learning method that increases student success. This proposal for the Dartmouth, MA school district serves as a case study and example for how other districts can implement service-learning. First, I introduce service-learning as a pedagogy, leading into a discussion about the issues surrounding learning engagement and citizenship. I finish the piece with challenges, two policy alternatives with a final recommendation, and a discussion around lessons learned. Service-learning has proven benefits to the school and its community. This recommendation and research done for the Dartmouth Public Schools can be used as a national example for how college students in service-learning courses can assist school districts in adopting this pedagogy.


Recent results from solar observations in the far and extremeultraviolet (FUV/EUV) obtained from SOHO (SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory) and TRACE (Transition Region Camera) show the extreme variability of the solar atmosphere. Within the limited resolution of the instruments (1-2 arcseconds) horizontal and vertical velocities up-to 100 to 400 km s-1 have been measured. With an horizontal velocity of 100 km s-1 an one arsecond structure crosses the one arcsecond slit width of a classical slit spectrometer in less than 10 seconds. In the future, with higher angular resolution (e.g. 0.1 arcsecond), the capability to study small structures will be greatly reduced by a classical slit spectrometer. To be able to characterize the small scale solar atmospheric structures formed in the 104 K to 106 K temperature range (which emit in the 30 to 180 nm wavelength range) a spectrometer without slit (or with wide slit) is required. At the same time to obtain an accurate measurement of the doppler velocity an high spectral resolution is needed. The two requirements, high spectral resolution and large slit, are difficult to be simultaneously fulfilled with a classical slit spectrometer within the limited volume of a space instrumentation. Also, we propose to use an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (IFTS) to provide simultaneously a bidimensionnal field and an accurate determination of line profiles and positions. The development of Fourier Transform Spectrometers (FTS), although popular in the infrared, has been very limited in the UV/FUV by the lack of very high quality beam splitter. Since 10 years, the use of diffraction gratings as beam splitters has been suggested and few intruments have been built ([Chak 94]; [Clea 92]; [File 00]). These instruments illustrate some applications in the new wavelength domain opened by using a beam splitter grating, but do not yet provide the full capabilities of an FTS. In this paper we present several optical schemes which can provide the full capabilities of a complete IFTS in the FUV/EUV spectral range.


This article examines the agrarian landscape in one part of the southern Andes (Quebrada of Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina). The region possesses extensive and well-preserved archaeological remains of agricultural systems, which stretch back to pre-Hispanic times. In this study, we employ an interdisciplinary approach in our analysis of the components that structure the agrarian landscape, especially those historical processes that intervened in its formation. The creation of a cartographic base, built from remote sensing and fieldwork data, allowed for the identification of four principal components of the landscape, each of which correspond to distinct phases or periods that mark the region's history. Our study shows that, in contrast to what is observed in many other rural areas, the successive productive dynamics that developed in the area did not result in the destruction of previous productive structures. Rather, the agrarian landscape in the study area presents a multi-temporal agglutinating combination or composition, which transcends historical discontinuities in the productive matrix. This is owing to the partial reutilisation of previous structures in each period; however, religious and cultural factors play an important role. The agrarian landscape we studied is not only a passive result of human activity, but also a force influencing the productive and lifestyle decisions of the peasant populations that live there today. Our research amplifies the understanding of agrarian landscapes in the Andes and shows how past temporalities are articulated with the present through a dialectical process.


Online technologies are increasingly hailed as enablers of entrepreneurship and income generation. Recent evidence suggests, however, that even the best such tools disproportionately favor those with pre-existing entrepreneurial advantages. Despite intentions, the technology on its own seems far from addressing socio-economic inequalities. Using participatory action research, we investigated why this might be, in an intimate, close-up context. Over a 1-year period, we--a collaborative team of university researchers and residents of Detroit's East Side--worked to establish a neighborhood tour whose initial goal was to raise supplementary income and fundraise for community block clubs. We found that in addition to technical requirements, such as communication tools, a range of non-technological efforts is needed to manage projects, build self-efficacy, and otherwise support community participants. Our findings widen Ackerman's "socio-technical gap" for some contexts and offer a counterpoint to overgeneralized claims about well-designed technologies being able to address certain classes of social challenges.


The decoupling behaviour of the leading one-loop Yukawa-coupling contributions of O(m4t ) to the lightest MSSM Higgs boson self-couplings, when the top-squarks are heavy as compared to the electroweak scale, are discussed. As shown analytically and numerically, the large corrections can almost completely be absorbed into the h-boson mass and therefore, the h self-couplings remain similar to the coupling of the SM Higgs boson for a heavy top-squark sector.


Two strategies for information exchange between processors in parallel ant colony algorithm are presented. Theses strategies can make each processor choose other processors to communicate and to update the pheromone adaptively. A strategy is also presented to adjust the time interval of information exchange adaptively according to the distribution of the solutions so as to keep balance between the convergence speed and the diversity of the solutions. The adaptive parallel ant colony algorithm (APACA) based on these strategies adaptively updates the pheromone according to the equilibrium of the pheromone distribution in each information exchange so as to avoid the precocity and local convergence. These strategies are applied to the traveling salesman problem on the massive parallel processors (MPP) Dawn 2000. Experimental results show that the algorithm has higher convergence speed, speedup and efficiency than other parallel ant algorithms.


Phase separation of a ternary mixture composed of poly(ethyl acrylate) and poly(ethyl methacrylate) derivatives dissolved in methyl methacrylate monomer was induced and driven by photopolymerization. Upon varying the initial composition of the mixture and the molecular weight of the resulting poly(methyl methacrylate) via changing the light intensity, a wide variety of morphologies ranging from separated double droplets, Janus-like droplets, core–shell, salami, bicontinuous to tricontinuous structures emerged due to the competition between phase separation and polymerization. Among the emerging morphologies, the tricontinuous structures were significant, and the details of the formation process were particularly investigated by using laser-scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM). Time-resolved experiments reveal that these tricontinuous structures were generated via two steps of the consecutive phase separation process. The formation of these tricontinuous structures is discussed with respect to the polymeriz...


Background : Target delivery of multiple therapeutic agents selectively to cancer cells remains a challenge. This necessitates the development of multifunctional drug delivery platform Objectives : The aim of this study is to construct a novel drug delivery system that can entrap and selectively deliver two anticancer drugs. Methods : Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to study the interactions between the pure drugs and the excipients while the liposomes were prepared by film hydration technique. Cryo-Transmission electron microscopy was use to study the morphology and the degree of entrapment, while the zeta potential, size distribution and particle determinations were obtained using a Zetasizer Nano ZS90. The in-vitro release and release kinetics were determined by the use of dialysis membrane and UV spectroscopy. Results : There were no chemical interaction between the drugs and the excipients. The incorporation of drugs in a single liposome structure was successful and exhibited synergy as evident from the MTT viable cell assay. Liposomes obtained were nanosized and negatively charged smooth surfaces with degrees of entrapment above 80%. All had PDI values less than 0.25 indicating homogenous dispersion with particle size ranked, FD2≥FD1≥ FD3 ≥ FD4 ≥ FD5. The release profiles of all the formulations were biphasic with an initial bust followed by sustained release. The mechanism of drug release which best fitted the Korsmeyer model was essentially a combination of diffusion and erosion. Conclusion : FD2 had the highest degree of entrapment, achieved sustained drug release and was able to synergistically kill MCF-7 breast cancer cell line in-vitro. It may be suitable for HR breast cancer treatment due to its good formulation parameters. Keywords: Liposomes, breast cancer, fulvestrant, doxorubicin, chemotherapy


Abstract TOVS satellite observations are used to evaluate the upper-tropospheric (400–200 mb) moisture distribution simulated by the GLA GCM in a 10-yr (1979–1988) integration produced for the Atmospheric Model Inter-comparison Project, in which several models participated worldwide. The simulated moisture fields show remarkable success in duplicating the large-scale structure and seasonal features in the observations, but they show insufficient contrast between very dry and very moist regions. The simulation generally does well in northern summer (June–July–August) but worse in northern winter. This is consistent with deficiencies in the annual cycle of moist convection so that convective rain stays too close to the equator in northern winter. The related misplacement of convective activity associated with the Asian monsoon produces discrepancies in the moisture over much of the Eastern Hemisphere. The simulation also shows a too weak moisture response to interannual fluctuations in the sea surface tempe...


Incompatibility of component interaction styles is identified as a major obstacle to interoperability when using off-the-shelf components or dealing with legacy software in compositional development. It is argued that a language for defining abstract interfaces – AID – can serve as a basis for accommodating heterogeneous interaction styles. AID is independent of any concrete style, such as invocation, pipe-and-filter, event-based or others. An AID text just specifies elementary input and output events which happen at the boundary of a component. Code that mediates between different styles can then be generated automatically from an abstract interface description. The focus of this paper is on mediating between dataflow and invocation interaction. The design of the mediation code for invocation-based interaction with mismatching push/pull modes is described in some detail. How to accommodate event-based interaction is shown in the context of the CORBA Notification Service. Enterprise Java Beans are taken as an example of a complex component model, and the problems of accommodating the message-driven beans of EJB 2.0 are analyzed.


Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) technology has become increasingly important due to the demand for high system performance and functionality [1]. Many challenges arise from the third dimension to successfully achieve excellent electrical and mechanical interconnection by wafer bonding approach. In this work, face-to-face (F2F) stacking of wafer-on-wafer (WoW) is successfully demonstrated using bump-less Cu-Cu bonding on 200 mm wafers. Experimental failures are investigated and discussed in details. Optimized bonded Cu structure is found to provide sufficient mechanical strength to sustain shear force during wafer thinning.


The defense industry is unlike other industries due to the nature of its products and given the significance of the defense industry for national security. Since the end of the Cold War, the European defense industry has undergone a huge transformation. Decline in demand for military equipment and growing research and development costs for major weapons systems have strengthened economic pressure to concentrate arms-production activities in Europe. Co-operation in the European defense industry sector has taken different forms, shapes and magnitudes. Reconstruction of the European defense industry through mergers, acquisitions and joint-ventures is being shaped by strong market. There is a growing tendency towards greater co-operation and collaboration at the European level (regionalization) in order to create a competitive European defense industry, capable to compete, cooperate and integrate on equal terms with stronger and more productive American arms-producing companies. A combination of liberalism and mercantilism focuses on competition and the need to maintain considerable European capacity and autonomy in the field of armaments production. Such a balance would not only encourage a greater degree of transatlantic competition but also transatlantic co-operation.


Water colour is currently increasing in thousands of lakes in the northern hemisphere due to an increased input of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and more specifically coloured disscolved humic matter (DHM). I studied how water colour affects the light climate in the epilimnion and, as a consequence, phytoplankton biomass, species composition and production in lakes in southern Sweden. In my first study, I found that epilimnion depth (ze) did not, contrary to my expectations, decrease with increasing water colour. Instead, ze increased when fetch (the distance wind can blow uninterrupted over a lake, calculated as the square root of lake area) increased, independently of water colour. Consequently, light intensities in the epilimnion were in general lowest in large lakes with high water colour. Values for average light intensities in the epilimnion (Ē%) suggested that light may be a limiting factor for phytoplankton in some lakes. This was confirmed in an experimental study, where small volumes of lake water were incubated at different depths in lakes. Decreasing light intensities, i.e. increasing incubation depths, led to decreasing phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll a) even when nutrient availability was sufficient to support higher biomasses. However, effects of water colour on phytoplankton species composition in this study were minor. In my third study, I investigated specifically differences between phytoplankton communities in lakes in a water colour gradient using phytoplankton pigments to identify groups of phytoplankton. Only one phytoplankton pigment, chlorophyll c2 (affiliated with dinoflagellates, diatoms and chrysophytes), was affected directly by water colour, but Ē % and ze influenced the phytoplankton communities of the lakes. Finally, a mesocosm study revealed that primary production decreased with increasing water colour. In this study, increasing water colour was not accompanied by an increase in DOC, which explains why (bacterial) respiration did not increase as expected. If both production decreases and respiration increases as a consequence of increasing water colour in the future, lakes will become more heterotroph and thus emit more CO2 to the atmosphere. This effect may be enhanced by increasing temperature. In my mesocosm study, I found that respiration increased with increasing temperature but production did not. There were also no interaction effects of warming and browning on production and respiration. In summary, the results from these studies imply that increasing water colour is likely to lead to lower phytoplankton biomass and production in lakes in southern Sweden in the future.


ABSTRACT There is currently strong and widespread support among university administrators for blended learning at the college level, or courses that incorporate some degree of online instruction. As instructors are called on to incorporate online and face-to-face elements into their instruction, they face the critical question of how to intentionally connect the two modalities in ways that strengthen learning. This article first outlines the historical context of social-constructivism's presence in online instruction, and then presents a rationale for the use of "crossover" discussion protocols that connect online forums and face-to-face discussions. The article argues that by drawing deliberately on the benefits of both online and in-person learning environments, crossover protocols help students make more insightful connections among ideas and push their own—and each others'—thinking in unexpected ways. A set of crossover protocols is then provided, along with considerations for implementing them effectively. These practical strategies for facilitating conversations across the two modalities were developed in the author's undergraduate and graduate level courses in English and education and are adaptable across course levels and disciplines. The article concludes with a discussion of how students experience the learning benefits of crossover protocols.


In this paper, the oxygen plasma bonding process for fusion bonded silicon wafers has been characterized by a new approach. The mechanical reliability of bonded microstructures was determined using burst tests and Weibull statistic analyses. The fracture characteristic of the bonded system is considered to depend on the stress distribution, the defect distribution and the fracture surface energy at the bond. Using Weibull theory, it is possible to extract the Weibull modulus m and the mean fracture uniform tensile stress per unit length, σfc, from the measured data. These quantities make it possible to compare the joint defect distribution and the fracture surface energy at the bonded interface for the processing conditions under observation. These experiments also demonstrate that it is possible to distinguish between these quantities under certain conditions. The fracture probability for different annealing temperatures has been evaluated and found to agree with previous results from surface energy measurements. It is shown that the bond fracture probability increases with annealing times in the range of 10-100 h. The saturated bond strength value is considerably enhanced by oxygen plasma activation prior to bonding. In this study, plasma activations at room temperature and 300 °C compare to chemical activations in hot nitric acid annealed at 120 °C and 700 °C, respectively. The tendency to form voids at elevated temperatures, e.g. 300 °C, is increased by the oxygen plasma treatment. If the surface energy is considered to be homogeneous over the bonded interface, the Weibull modulus m is an indirect measure of the defect distribution, low m values indicate a wide spectrum of defect types, whereas a high m value narrows the defect distribution responsible for fracture. The Weibull modulus m is shown to be valuable for evaluation of the bonded interface. It is demonstrated that a more scattered defect distribution emerges for in situ bonded wafers as compared to ex situ, and annealing at 300 °C for 90 h as compared to room-temperature storage. However, the defect distribution becomes increasingly more narrow with storage time. These variations may be due to either changes in microcracks or void configuration or inhomogeneities in the fracture surface energy over the bond interface.


Odor identity is encoded by spatiotemporal patterns of activity in olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs). In natural environments, the intensity and timescales of odor signals can span several orders of magnitude, and odors can mix with one another, potentially scrambling the combinatorial code mapping neural activity to odor identity. Recent studies have shown that in Drosophila melanogaster the ORNs that express the olfactory co-receptor Orco scale their gain inversely with mean odor concentration according to the Weber-Fechner Law of psychophysics. Here we use a minimal biophysical model of signal transduction, ORN firing, and signal decoding to investigate the implications of this front-end scaling law for the neural representations of odor identity. We find that Weber-Fechner scaling enhances coding capacity and promotes the reconstruction of odor identity from dynamic odor signals, even in the presence of confounding background odors and rapid intensity fluctuations. We show that these enhancements are further aided by downstream transformations in the antennal lobe and mushroom body. Thus, despite the broad overlap between individual ORN tuning curves, a mechanism of front-end adaptation, when endowed with Weber-Fechner scaling, may play a vital role in preserving representations of odor identity in naturalistic odor landscapes.


Purpose Leveraging Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Oncology Information Systems (OIS) has great potential to generate hypotheses for cancer treatment, since they directly provide medical data on a large scale. In order to gather a significant amount of patients with a high level of clinical details, multicenter studies are necessary. A challenge in creating high quality Big Data studies involving several treatment centers is the lack of semantic interoperability between data sources. We present the ontology we developed to address this issue. Methods Radiation Oncology anatomical and target volumes were categorized in anatomical and treatment planning classes. International delineation guidelines specific to radiation oncology were used for lymph nodes areas and target volumes. Hierarchical classes were created to generate The Radiation Oncology Structures (ROS) Ontology. The ROS was then applied to the data from our institution. Results Four hundred and seventeen classes were created with a maximum of 14 children classes (average = 5). The ontology was then converted into a Web Ontology Language (.owl) format and made available online on Bioportal and GitHub under an Apache 2.0 License. We extracted all structures delineated in our department since the opening in 2001. 20,758 structures were exported from our "record-and-verify" system, demonstrating a significant heterogeneity within a single center. All structures were matched to the ROS ontology before integration into our clinical data warehouse (CDW). Conclusion In this study we describe a new ontology, specific to radiation oncology, that reports all anatomical and treatment planning structures that can be delineated. This ontology will be used to integrate dosimetric data in the Assistance Publique—Hôpitaux de Paris CDW that stores data from 6.5 million patients (as of February 2017).


Employer health insurance mandates form the basis of many health care reform proposals. Proponents make the case that they will increase insurance, while opponents raise the concern that low-wage workers will see offsetting reductions in their wages and that in the presence of minimum wage laws some of the lowest wage workers will become unemployed. We construct an estimate of the number of workers whose wages are so close to the minimum wage that they cannot be lowered to absorb the cost of health insurance, using detailed data on wages, health insurance, and demographics from the Current Population Survey. We find that 33 percent of uninsured workers earn within $3 of the minimum wage, putting them at risk of unemployment if their employers were required to offer insurance. Assuming an elasticity of employment with respect to minimum wage increase of -0.10, we estimate that 0.2 percent of all full-time workers and 1.4 percent of uninsured full-time workers would lose their jobs because of a health insurance mandate. Workers who would lose their jobs are disproportionately likely to be high school dropouts, minority, and female. This risk of unemployment should be a crucial component in the evaluation of both the effectiveness and distributional implications of these policies relative to alternatives such as tax credits, Medicaid expansions, and individual mandates, and their broader effects on the well-being of low-wage workers.


Propose use kurtosis divided by skewness squared as shape factor, and use the global or conditional minimum/maximum of this shape factor for selecting and differentiating distribution families. Semi-empirical formulas for that lower/upper bound are calculated for various distribution families, with the aid of Computer Algebra System, for fitting hard to match distributions. Previous studies show high CV distribution is hard to fit and simulate, this study extends that conclusion to cases with low CV but still hard to match EP curves, characterized by having shape factors close to 1. The maximal likelihood approach of distribution fit can tell us which distribution family is better suited for an empirical distribution, but the shape factor range information can tell us why a distribution cannot fit well, or is not suitable at all. So the shape factor, in a sense, determines the EP curve shape.