Background: Anemia is present in almost 5% of adults worldwide and accompanies clinical findings in many diseases. Diseases of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and liver are a common cause of anemia, so patients with anemia are often referred to a gastroenterologist. Summary: Anemia could be caused by various factors such as chronic bleeding, malabsorption, or chronic inflammation. In clinical practice, iron deficiency anemia and the combined forms of anemia due to different pathophysiological mechanisms are most common. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy, colonoscopy, and the small intestine examinations in specific situations play a crucial role in diagnosing anemia. In anemic, GI asymptomatic patients, there are recommendations for bidirectional endoscopy. Although GI malignancies are the most common cause of chronic bleeding, all conditions leading to blood loss, malabsorption, and chronic inflammation should be considered. From a gastroenterologist's perspective, the clinical spectrum of anemia is vast because many different digestive tract diseases lead to bleeding. Key Messages: The gastroenterological approach in solving anemia's problem requires an optimal strategy, consideration of the accompanying clinical signs, and the fastest possible diagnosis. Although patients with symptoms of anemia are often referred to gastroenterologists, the diagnostic approach requires further improvement in everyday clinical practice.


Abstract Objective Children's poor growth and nutrition status has serious consequences and therefore it is important to understand its contributing factors. Design A community-based interventional study focusing on child feeding was conducted in a rural community in China. Data from the intervention group at baseline (1–4 months of age) and follow-up visits (12 and 18 months of age) were used in the present study (n 236). A structural equation model was generated to explore the effects of family wealth, household food safety, dietary intake, diseases and other factors on the growth and nutrition of young children. Results Mother's knowledge and behaviours on household food safety had positive effects on children's weight-for-age Z-score (WAZ; β direct=0·03 and 0·15, respectively, at 12 months of age; β direct=0·02 and 0·08, respectively, at 18 months; P<0·05) and weight-for-length Z-score (WLZ; β direct=0·04 and 0·21, respectively, at 12 months of age; β direct=0·01 and 0·06, respectively, at 18 months; P<0·05). While mothers' feeding behaviours and children's dietary intake at 12 months of age were positively associated with WAZ and/or WLZ at current and later ages, children's diseases were negatively associated with WAZ and WLZ cross-sectionally. Conclusions Caregiver's knowledge and feeding behaviours, and children's dietary intake and diseases, are factors influencing the WAZ and WLZ of children. Promoting feeding and health knowledge and behaviours at early stages of childhood can improve children's physical growth at later ages.


We developed an epidemiological model of avian malaria (Plasmodium relictum) across an altitudinal gradient on the island of Hawaii that includes the dynamics of the host, vector, and parasite. This introduced mosquito-borne disease is hypothesized to have contributed to extinctions and major shifts in the altitudinal distribution of highly susceptible native forest birds. Our goal was to better understand how biotic and abiotic factors influence the intensity of malaria transmission and impact on susceptible populations of native Hawaiian forest birds. Our model illustrates key patterns in the malaria-forest bird system: high malaria transmission in low-elevation forests with minor seasonal or annual variation in infection; episodic transmission in mid-elevation forests with site-to-site, seasonal, and annual variation depending on mosquito dynamics; and disease refugia in high-elevation forests with only slight risk of infection during summer. These infection patterns are driven by temperature and rainfall effects on parasite incubation period and mosquito dynamics across an elevational gradient and the availability of larval habitat, especially in mid-elevation forests. The results from our model suggest that disease is likely a key factor in causing population decline or restricting the distribution of many susceptible Hawaiian species and preventing the recovery of other vulnerable species. The model also provides a framework for the evaluation of factors influencing disease transmission and alternative disease control programs, and to evaluate the impact of climate change on disease cycles and bird populations.


: A search is presented for hidden-sector bosons, χ , produced in the decay B 0 → K ∗ (892) 0 χ , with K ∗ (892) 0 → K + π − and χ → µ + µ − . The search is performed using pp -collision data corresponding to 3.0 fb − 1 collected with the LHCb detector. No significant signal is observed in the accessible mass range 214 ≤ m ( χ ) ≤ 4350 MeV, and upper limits are placed on the branching fraction product B ( B 0 → K ∗ (892) 0 χ ) ×B ( χ → µ + µ − ) as a function of the mass and lifetime of the χ boson. These limits are of the order of 10 − 9 for χ lifetimes less than 100 ps over most of the m ( χ ) range, and place the most stringent constraints to date on many theories that predict the existence of additional low-mass bosons. A search is presented for hidden-sector bosons, χ , produced in the decay B 0 → K (cid:1) ð 892 Þ 0 χ , with K (cid:1) ð 892 Þ 0 → K þ π − and χ → μ þ μ − . The search is performed using pp -collision data corresponding to 3 . 0 fb − 1 collected with the LHCb detector. No significant signal is observed in the accessible mass range 214 ≤ m ð χ Þ ≤ 4350 MeV, and upper limits are placed on the branching fraction product B ( B 0 → K (cid:1) ð 892 Þ 0 χ ) × B ð χ → μ þ μ − Þ as a function of the mass and lifetime of the χ boson. These limits are of the order of 10 − 9 for χ lifetimes less than 100 ps over most of the m ð χ Þ range, and place the most stringent constraints to date on many theories that predict the existence of additional low-mass bosons.


Neuroendocrine carcinoma and small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) are highly responsive to chemo- and radiotherapy. Nevertheless, most patients (pts.) experience relapse. At the 2nd department of medicine in the Donauspital, 4 pts. with neuroendocrine carcinomas of different primary sites underwent high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASTx). Pt. 1 suffered from neuroendocrine lung cancer, pt. 2 from a small-cell carcinoma of the pancreas. Pt. 3 had a metastatic small-cell abdominal bulky tumor and pt. 4 presented with neuroendocrine carcinoma of the prostate. After 4-6 cycles induction chemotherapy pts. were consolidated with 1 cycle of HDCht and ASTx. Prior to HDCht pt. 1 and pt. 2 were in complete remission (CR) and pt. 3 and pt. 4 in partial remission. Pt. 3 converted in CR after HDCht. He is still in CR with a disease-free survival of 23 month after ASTx and 30 month after diagnosis. Pt. 1, 2 and 4 died from relapse 10, 16 and 5 month after ASTx and 16, 22 and 9 month after diagnosis. Pts. with neuroendocrine carcinomas might be suitable candidates for HDCht and ASTx.


Only a small fraction of the transition metals content in sludge-amended soils is soluble, and yet this fraction is a major contributor to the mobility and bioavailability of the metals. The chemical species of zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) in the soluble fractions of soil-sludge mixtures were characterized with respect to their charge, molecular weight, and stoichiometry using ion exchange resin and gel chromatography procedures. The change in the metals' species with time after sludge application was followed for 100 d. Copper in the water extracts of the sludge-sand mixtures was found almost exclusively in low molecular weight (below 1000 Da) complexes. Higher molecular weight (around 2500 Da) dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was present in the extracts as well, but this DOC fraction exhibited little complexation. Copper was present in the extracts mainly as negatively charged species throughout the incubation period, and zinc tended to form zwitter ions. As incubation progressed, the relative content of positively charged Zn in solution increased. Complexation capacity of DOC in sludge water extract, extrapolated to infinite dilution, was 8.75 mM Ca g(-1) DOC. When the complexation capacity of the extract is near saturation, a mean Cu-DOC complex can be defined. It consists of 1.9 Cu atoms attached to DOC species containing 5.6 C atoms. Thus, the organic Cu complexes consist primarily of about two Cu ions attached to DOC species containing only five or six C atoms. Amino acids and small peptides or polycarboxylic acids, such as citric acid, thus may be important complexing agents of the metal.


The man participation in family planning (FP) mean to take part in this program inspite of founding good sexual behavior for themselves and their wife. This research explore several factors which related to man participation in FP program on Rumbai Pesisir Sub district, Municipality of Pekanbaru in the year of 2012.Research design is case control study, with case is the man not participate in FP program while as control is the man whom taking part on the FP in the year of 2012. Result the man with acces difficulty to family planning program 10 times risk not to participate compared with the counterpart/control (CI 95% : OR = 5,3 – 17,9), men not supported by social and cultural aspect for family planning program 4 times risk not to participate (CI 95% : OR= 2,4 – 7,9), men with negative opinion to family palnning program 4 times risk not to participate(CI 95%: OR = 1,3 – 7,0), while the man from low income family 2 times risk not to participate (CI 95% : OR = 1,2 – 3,5) compared with their counterparts respectively. Conclusion: Multivariate analysis revealed that independent variable related to man participation , the family planning program, social and cultural aspect, opinión to family planning program and family income. Wife age is the only Independence variabel related counter directionally. Parity, education level and knowladge to family planning program are three variables not related to men participation, meanwhile family planning service quality is the confounding variable to service acces variable and social and cultural variable. Suggestion : increase quality and acces of family planning services including site of service, concellor, cost and spesific family planning promotion for mankind. Family planning and health service program is distributed to all area of Rumbai Pesisir subsdistric and to increase the support of public figure and all stake holder for Family planning program.


In this paper, we consider the problem of building 3D models of complex staircases based on laser range data acquired with a humanoid. These models have to be sufficiently accurate to enable the robot to reliably climb up the staircase. We evaluate two state-of-the-art approaches to plane segmentation for humanoid navigation given 3D range data about the environment. The first approach initially extracts line segments from neighboring 2D scan lines, which are successively combined if they lie on the same plane. The second approach estimates the main directions in the environment by randomly sampling points and applying a clustering technique afterwards to find planes orthogonal to the main directions. We propose extensions for this basic approach to increase the robustness in complex environments which may contain a large number of different planes and clutter. In practical experiments, we thoroughly evaluate all methods using data acquired with a laser-equipped Nao robot in a multi-level environment. As the experimental results show, the reconstructed 3D models can be used to autonomously climb up complex staircases.


The LDL receptor (LDLR) family has long been studied for its role in cholesterol transport and metabolism; however, the identification of ApoE4, an LDLR ligand, as a genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease has focused attention on the role this receptor family plays in the CNS. Surprisingly, it was discovered that two LDLR family members, ApoE receptor 2 (Apoer2) and VLDL receptor (Vldlr), play key roles in brain development and adult synaptic plasticity, primarily by mediating Reelin signaling. This review focuses on Apoer2 and Vldlr signaling in the CNS and its role in human disease.


Terminal cooperation can make up for the deficiency of single terminal in perception, communication, computing, service presentation and other aspects. This paper enumerates typical application scenarios of terminal cooperation in ubiquitous network, and key tecnologies in terminal environment need to be studied are also analyzed. Following that, a framework of terminal middleware is put forward, including service demand processing, service discovery, context-aware, data processing, cooperation control, safety control and other functional components. Finally, based on the above method, we have developed a terminal cooperation application system, which demonstrates the cooperative downloading of multimedia files.


Pomacea bridgesii is a snail species native to tropical and sub-tropical regions, where it usually faces variability in water, temperature and oxygen level. This study of the effect of temperature on mass-specific oxygen consumption (ṀO2) and its relation to body weight shows that the ṀO2 of juvenile snails in normoxia (18-21 kPa) acclimated at temperature of 25°C ranged from 5 to 58 µMol O2/g/h, with a mean of 41.4 ± 18.3 µMol O2/g/h (n=7). Adult snails in normoxia at 25°C show less variation, ranging from 13 to 23 µMol O2/g/h , with a mean of 24.4± 6.1 µMol O2/g/h (n=12). The Q10 value for juvenile snails was higher in the interval 25-30°C (Q 10=5.74) than in the interval 20-25°C (Q10= 0.286). In adult snails, Q10 was higher in the interval 20-25°C (Q10=3.19). ṀO2 of P. bridgesii in relation to body weight showed a negative linear correlation between metabolic rate and body weight with b values between 0.23 and 0.76. Also, both juvenile and adult snails exhibited weak O2 regulation. In general, the different respiratory characteristics between juvenile and adult snails might be related to the differences of individual life history, which caused them to perform differently in face of temperatures change. Additionally, Pomacean snails species originated in tropical habitats where there is a lack of thermal fluctuation. For this reason, Pomacean snails may be less likely to have evolved effective thermal acclimation capabilities.


cludes with important changes ushered in by the 1970's: a new concept of democracy, new ideas about the usefulness of education, and uncertainty about the future. This is the context in which the author says modern curriculum development is based. For a person familiar with curriculum development in North America, the major value of this book is in the contrasts and new insights provided. Anyone looking for formulae, models, or designs for curriculum change will be thoroughly frustrated by reading it.


In recent years, summarizers that incorporate domain knowledge into the process of text summarization have outperformed generic methods, especially for summarization of biomedical texts. However, construction and maintenance of domain knowledge bases are resource-intense tasks requiring significant manual annotation. In this paper, we demonstrate that contextualized representations extracted from the pre-trained deep language model BERT, can be effectively used to measure the similarity between sentences and to quantify the informative content. The results show that our BERT-based summarizer can improve the performance of biomedical summarization. Although the summarizer does not use any sources of domain knowledge, it can capture the context of sentences more accurately than the comparison methods. The source code and data are available at this https URL.


A 2D fully nonlinear Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) is developed based on potential theory, Boundary Element Method (BEM)/Constant Panel Method (CPM), MEL-nonlinear free surface treatment, and Runge-Kutta 4 th -order (RK4) time-marching scheme. The inner pneumatic chamber is modeled by the volume-dependent pressurized air and its flow through outlet causing damping. Using the developed 2D NWT, the damping effect of the pneumatic floating breakwater was simulated and its wave-blocking performance is assessed against various damping coefficients. The developed NWT was utilized to investigate the variation of transmission coefficients for various kinds of mooring and wave conditions. It is seen that a significant damping effect can be achieved up to 50% if the breakwater is stationary. When the breakwater is floating against incident waves, the maximum transmission coefficient reduction ratio is much smaller since the floating body tends to follow the vertical motion of incident waves and the resulting volume-change effect is small. The fully nonlinear simulations are also compared with linear ones.


This paper investigates the differences in floral phenotype in Paeonia broteroi (Paeoniaceae) in four populations at two distant mountainous regions in southern Spain. Paeonia broteroi flowers exhibit traits of a highly generalized pollination system, but previous studies have revealed that not all flower visitors are effective at pollen delivery. Plants differed between regions in the number of flowers per plant, petal size, number of stamens per flower, and ovules per carpel. Differences between regions could not be attributable to differences in the size structure of the plants. Flower visitors in the two regions differed in assemblage and body size at all the spatiotemporal scales. Larger visitors were more effective as pollinators in the region with the largest and more rewarding (as measured by the number of stamens) flowers, suggesting that pollinators may create opportunities for selection of certain floral traits. In contrast, the two regions did not differ in the probability of damage by herbivores, which did not select flowers based on any of the measured traits, nor affected maternal fecundity. Despite the differences in flower phenotype, potential maternal fecundity, and pollinator effectiveness, plants did not differ between regions in seed production. The role of pollinators as determinants of the differences between regions in floral phenotype, through male and female reproductive success, is discussed. Also, alternative explanations to divergence are addressed, with special reference to the patterns of resource allocation between sexual functions and genetic drift.


Questionnaires concerning their own death were given to groups of general practitioners, final year medical students, 2nd year medical students, post-basic nurses, nurses working with the home nursing foundation and religious nursing sisters. The results of the questionnaire indicate that the majority wish to die at home with their families present, and would like spiritual advice. The majority of the respondents believe in a life after death. Although a minority fear death, most feared a prolonged dying process, troubling others and a painful death. Most want to be told if they are terminally ill, want to help prepare their families for matters after their death and wish to discuss their death with their relatives. For those who are actively involved in the care of the dying in Singapore, the questionnaire was extended to include their opinions on their own experience in the care of the dying. The majority were not satisfied with the level of care given. Further support for the professional carers in the form of multidisciplinary seminars, and the formation of a hospice movement was deemed necessary by the majority. The greatest indication of problems in satisfying the needs of the dying patient and the family is in the desire to legislate euthanasia by 23% of doctors and 38% of nurses.


Clinical study is performed to estimate the efficacy of Oftaquix in cataract phacoemulsification with intraocular lens (IOL) implantation. Obtained results show that Oftaquix prescription two days before surgery allows to eliminate bacterial agents from conjunctival cavity on the day of surgery. Significant and stable antibacterial effect is demonstrated. Bacteriological study on the 19-21 day after surgery revealed bacterial growth in 6.7% of patients in experimental group and in 30% of patients in control group.


The scientific excitement that follows the recognition of a new disease has been reflected in the numerous publications describing the clinical, histopathologic, and pathogenetic aspects of the eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) during the period covered by this review. The clinical picture that has emerged during the past 2 years indicates that EMS is a multisystemic disease with prominent cutaneous, hematologic, and visceral manifestations that frequently evolves into a chronic course and can occasionally be fatal. Considerable progress has been made toward understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of EMS. The demonstration of an association with the ingestion of L-tryptophan-containing products originating from a single source has led to the identification and characterization of a putative etiologic agent present as a contaminant in these preparations. Although the accumulation of eosinophils, lymphocytes, macrophages, and fibroblasts in the affected tissues suggests that these cells play important roles in the pathogenesis of EMS, the precise mechanisms of their involvement have not been established. Several studies have demonstrated the activation of eosinophils and the deposition of eosinophil-derived toxic proteins in affected tissues. Fibroblast activation and increased expression of genes coding for various connective tissue macromolecules have been demonstrated employing in situ hybridizations with complementary DMAs. Furthermore, interleukin-5 and transforming growth factor-β have been implicated as potential mediators in the pathogenesis of EMS. The explosive epidemic of EMS has emphasized the importance of chemical and environmental factors in the development of systemic disorders characterized by chronic inflammation and fibrosis. It is expected that further study of the pathogenesis of EMS will provide valuable information regarding the mechanisms responsible for these obscure disorders.


A method is presented to estimate the effects of a polydisperse particle size distribution on the measured turbulent dispersion of particles. In addition, the analysis provides a means to estimate the standard deviation of the size distribution for which a class of particles may be considered monodisperse. If monodisperse particles are unavailable because of practical considerations (e.g., the required standard deviation of particle size is too small to obtain a sufficient quantity) then the method provides a means to correct the data of near monodisperse size distributions to reflect the dispersion of monodisperse particles


A matchbox manifold is a foliated space with totally disconnected transversals, and an equicontinuous matchbox manifold is the generalization of Riemannian foliations for smooth manifolds in this context. In this paper, we develop the Molino theory for all equicontinuous matchbox manifolds. Our work extends the Molino theory developed in the work of \'Alvarez L\'opez and Moreira Galicia which required the hypothesis that the holonomy actions for these spaces satisfy the strong quasi-analyticity condition. The methods of this paper are based on the authors' previous works on the structure of weak solenoids, and provide many new properties of the Molino theory for the case of totally disconnected transversals, and examples to illustrate these properties. In particular, we show that the Molino space need not be uniquely well-defined, unless the global holonomy dynamical system is tame, a notion defined in this work. We show that examples in the literature for the theory of weak solenoids provide examples for which the strong quasi-analytic condition fails. Of particular interest is a new class of examples of equicontinuous minimal Cantor actions by finitely generated groups, whose construction relies on a result of Lubotzky. These examples have non-trivial Molino sequences, and other interesting properties.


Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and ultra-wideband (UWB) waveforms have recently been considered for through-the-wall surveillance to enhance its imaging and detection performance. The performance of UWB SAR through-the-wall imaging is analyzed here. A time-domain back-projection focus algorithm is used for SAR image formation. The target shift in the focused image and the detection performance are formulated as functions of the wall parameters. The target shift is corrected using a waveform propagation path estimation method, and the relevant estimation errors are analyzed. The two popular UWB modulations, time modulation (TM) and spread spectrum (SS), are investigated in these analyses, and their robustness to wall parameters is evaluated. Results show that SS is preferable to TM for through-the-wall SAR imaging due to its robustness to wall parameter estimation errors and its superior range sidelobe suppression performance.


Cancer is a disease that affects a large number of people all over the world. For treating cancer, nano-drug delivery system has been introduced recently with objective of increasing therapeutic efficiency of chemotherapeutic drug. The main characteristics of this system are the encapsulation of the insoluble chemotherapeutic cargo, increasing the period of circulation in the body, as well as the delivery of the drug at that specific site. Currently, the nano-drug delivery system based on the stimuli response is becoming more popular because of the extra features for controlling the drug release based on the internal atmosphere of cancer. This review provides a summary of different types of internal (pH, redox, enzyme, ROS, hypoxia) stimuli-responsive nanoparticle drug delivery systems as well as perspective for upcoming times.


Background: Teratomas are a unique family of tumors derived from two or more of the three embryonic layers: endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. Mature teratomas are comprised the most well-differentiated tissue types and may contain skin, hair, teeth, smooth muscle, respiratory tissues, etc. Infrequently, mature teratomas may be found within the central nervous system and, in exceedingly rare cases, may be occur within the spinal cord itself (i.e., intramedullary/intradural). Case Description: A 78-year-old female presented with a subacute progressive lower extremity paraparesis. The MR revealed a cystic 81 × 30 × 25 mm intradural/intramedullary spinal mass involving the distal conus with exophytic extension into the L1-L4 spinal canal. Following surgical intervention consisting of a L1-L4 laminectomy, the lesion was largely removed. Pathology of the mass confirmed a large mature teratoma containing a multilobulated cyst that intraoperatively compressed the conus and cauda equina. Immediately postoperatively, the patient significantly improved neurologically. However, on postoperative day 2, she acutely developed a change in mental status with the left gaze preference and hemiparesis. CT brain in the acute setting showed no evidence of causative pathology and subsequent MR brain was unremarkable. The patient's neurologic deficits progressively improved leading to eventual discharge. Conclusion: Intrathecal intramedullary/extramedullary mature teratomas of the conus that results in subacute cauda equina syndromes are rare. The differential diagnosis for such lesions exophytic to the conus must include mature teratomas which, though rare, may be readily resected resulting in generally favorable outcomes.


Many standard nursing texts effectively treat 'the nursing process' and 'nursing' as one and the same, yet there have been few attempts to critically analyse the concept and its implications. This paper seeks to do both.


Applying extant IB theory, I argue that initial firm internationalisation is shaped by the interdependence and dynamic interaction between its O assets and the L assets of its home location. Regardless of nationality, the initial O assets of an infant MNE tend to be constrained by the L assets available to them, rather than by their strategy. I also contrast the modus operandi of developing country (DC) infant MNEs with those from advanced economies, highlighting the similarities and differences. The O assets of DC MNEs are largely determined by home country influences. Advanced economy MNEs have a larger set of L assets to draw from, because a wider variety of non-home country influences exist. Strategy and host countries begin to play a greater role once MNEs have moved past the nascent stage. I also take a look at the changes due to globalization and how it has affected the propensity of firms to internationalise. I argue that successful firms (regardless of nationality) will increasingly explore internationalisation, but the basic pre-condition - that of possessing competitive O assets - remains the same. There is also no reason to believe that this is likely to happen disproportionately from the developing countries.


Porosity formation in aluminium alloys is strongly dependent on melt cleanliness (oxide level) and its hydrogen content. Porosity phenomenon in aluminium alloys is extremely important in case of critically stressed components such as in aerospace applications. In order to investigate the effect of varying oxide levels (by the addition of anodized plates and oxide rods), series of reproducible castings were produced at a constant hydrogen level, i.e. 0.2 ml/100g melt under carefully controlled conditions. The ALSPEK* H probe was used for the measurement of the hydrogen level. The Porous Disc Filtration Apparatus (PoDFA) and Reduced Pressure Test (RPT) were performed in parallel with the casting trials for the melt quality assessment. It has been found that the presence and distribution of the defects is strongly influenced by the melt oxide level. Analysis of fracture surfaces by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) shows that the oxides are associated with the pores. The bi-film index and melt inclusions content (mm2/kg) based on the RPT and PoDFA tests, proved to be increased with the oxide additions.


Three cases of acute gangrenous acalculous cholecystitis, revealed by a postoperative septic shock, are reported. Clinical examination was negative and the surgery gave the diagnosis. Infection with biliary stasis and ischaemia accounts for this pathological entity. The very serious prognosis of this condition can only be reversed by cholecystectomy.


Biomaterial innovation is needed for bone substitute which can help the osteogenesis process on periodontal tissue regeneration. This study is an experimental in-vitro study of different concentration of chitosan and aimed to analyze the osteogenesis of human periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLsc) cultured in chitosan. Forty eight PDLsc were collected from healthy and periodontitis third lower molar. There were 24 healthy teeth-PDLsc and 24 periodontitis teeth-PDLsc. Each groups were divided into three experimental groups and were layered by 200 μl concentration of chitosan (0.15%, 0.2%; 0.25%) and diluted in 0,5 % citric acid. Cell culture without chitosan was used as a control group. The levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteocalcin and calcium deposit in the cell culture were measured on day 3, day 7, day 14 and day 21. Chitosan at concentration of 0.25 % shows a potential impact of PDLsc in both periodontitis and healthy teeth samples, especially in the level of ALP and calcium deposit. Chitosan has potential effect in increasing of osteogenesis process in periodontal ligament cells for regeneration of periodontal tissues. Experimental article (J Int Dent Med Res 2012; 5: (2), pp. 93-97)


A low-error reduced-width Booth multiplier using a proper compensation vector is proposed. The compensation vector is dependent on the input data. The compensation value will thus be adaptively adjusted when the input data are different. Design results from a 16/spl times/16 to 16 Booth multiplier show that the gate counts and critical path delay of the new reduced-width multipliers is 50.94% and 66.04% of the post-truncation reduced-width multiplier. A module generator of our proposed architecture is developed that will generate C code and Verilog code for each reduced-width multiplier. Pulse-shaping filter-system applications used in CATV transceivers show promising performance with 50.04% hardware reduction and 33.82% reduction in the critical path delay.


Rapamycin is a macrolide antibiotic that inhibits vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and migration and that is used clinically on drug-eluting stents to inhibit in-stent restenosis. Although inhibition of cell migration is an asset in preventing restenosis, it also leads to impaired stent endothelialization, a significant limitation of current drug-eluting stent technology that necessitates prolonged antiplatelet therapy. We measured the ability of rapamycin to inhibit the migration of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAEC) toward the chemoattractant vascular endothelial cell growth factor. Although acute administration of rapamycin had no effect, exposure for 24 h inhibited HUVEC and HCAEC migration. Disruption of the mTORC2 via small interfering RNA was also effective in inhibiting HCAEC migration. Treatment of HCAECs for this period with rapamycin produced an increase in the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27Kip, through a decrease in the targeting of the protein for degradation by phosphorylation at Thr187. ECs isolated from a knock-in mouse expressing p27Kip1 with a mutation of this residue to an alanine, blocking this phosphorylation, exhibited reduced migration compared with wild-type controls. Silencing of p27Kip1 with small interfering RNA blocked the effects of rapamycin on migration and tube formation as well as RhoA activation and cytoskeletal reorganization. We conclude that prolonged exposure of ECs to rapamycin increases p27Kip1 and in turn inhibits RhoA activation, blocking cell migration and differentiation. These data elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying regulation of p27Kip1 protein and cell migration by rapamycin.


The aim of this work was to compare the tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) and tambaqui (Colossoma macroporum) skins on the histology, composition, physico-chemical and physico-mechanical features. Therefore, 10 kg of skins of each species were used. All skins have followed the same methodology for tanning, all processed in tannery machine. Histological and composition analysis were conducted in fresh skin, and 20 leather of each species were used after tanning for physical-chemical and physico-mechanical analysis. The skin of Nile tilapia showed lamellulae larger than the other species examined, however, the deeper layer of the dermis of this species shows collagen fibers thinner in the transverse direction to the skin surface. The Nile tilapia skin had a higher humidity (67.14 %), lipid (1.96 %) and ash contents (1.82 %), though the skin of this species showed the lowest level of crude protein (29.08 %). A higher content of crude protein was found in tambaqui skins (35.70 %). The Nile tilapia leather showed lower thickness (0.68 mm), tensile strength (11.86 N/mm2), progressive tearing (40.18 N/mm), elasticity (52.63 %) and lower maximum strength (81.06 %) compared to pacu and tambaqui leathers. It was observed that the tambaqui leather was the thickest (0.89 mm) and most resistante for the measured variables (tensile strength= 29.49 N/mm2, progressive tearing= 80.01 N/mm and maximum strength= 224.25). Tilapia leathers are less resistant than tambaqui and pacu leathers and the tambaqui leather could be destined for the manufacture of clothing, and the leathers of the three species have thickness within recommended for gloves and clothing manufacture.


In July 1994 I spent several weeks in Rajasthan, visiting Hinganiya and travelling further west to Jaisalmer and Barmer. I also visited the now completed Rajasthan Canal. The visit was brief and I had no opportunity to carry out comprehensive research. Nevertheless, what I observed provides a focus for useful reflections. The early 1994 monsoon had been extremely heavy, causing heavy flooding in parts of Rajasthan. In fact, since my last visit in August 1987, monsoon rainfall had been generally good. This lead to some astonishing changes in Hinganiya. Judging by the increased number of houses there had been ·a considerable increase in village population, probably the result of a natural increase combined with the return of crisis migrants. Most strikingly, there were many new pakka houses, including several in the Nayak and Meghwal sections of the village. Further, there was quite a lot of new construction activity. One of the Nayaks had become an accomplished mason and was earning around Rs 150 per day building houses. Electricity had been connected to many houses and the village appeared quite prosperous in comparison to earlier visits.


Executive Summary With incessant global competition, technological innovations, organizational restructuring, and turbulent business environment, contemporary organizations need resilient employees, who in turn are capable to face unprecedented changes and adapt successfully to challenging roles, tasks, and situations (Shin, Taylor, & Seo, 2012). Consequently, this necessitates a validated employee-centric measure of resilience for assisting the organizations in fostering and measuring employee resilience development, which would enable employees to meet the challenges and growing work demands (Hodliffe, 2014, The development and validation of the employee resilience scale (EmpRes): The conceptualisation of a new model (Doctoral dissertation), New Zealand: University of Canterbury; Masten, 2001, American Psychologist, 56(3), 227; Winwood, Colon, & McEwen, 2013, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 55(10), 1205–1212). To address this gap, the study assessed the psychometric properties of the 'resilience at work' (RAW) scale. The study sample comprised employees working in IT organizations operating in the Indian National Capital Region (NCR). The study is based on cross-sectional questionnaire responses from 546 Indian employees working in the IT industry. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the factorial validity followed by an analysis of convergent and discriminant validity of the scale items. To evaluate the convergent validity, this study utilized three standard criteria which are standard factor loadings, composite reliability, and average variance extracted (AVE) (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988, Psychological Bulletin, 103(3), 411–423). In addition, the study tested the nomological validity of the RAW scale. The study results reveal that the RAW scale exhibits high reliability and the results of CFA validated the seven-factor model of the RAW scale. The results of CFA and reliability of the scale demonstrate that the scale can be utilized to develop and measure resilience among Indian employees. Furthermore, the results of the nomological validity exhibit a significant relationship between resilience and work engagement. This study offers significant implications for both researchers and HRD practitioners. The study provides preliminary evidence for the psychometric properties of the scale in t he Indian organizational context and signifies its potential for the cross-cultural implementations. The RAW scale, thence, can be utilized by organizations as a validated tool for measuring and developing resilience among employees.


Studied was the effect of psychrophilic organisms of the Acinetobacter, Aeromonas, Alcaligenes, and Flavobacter genera on the amino acid composition of white poultry meat stored at 0 degrees to 4 degrees C in the course of 48 hours, and at 18 degrees C in the course of 6 to 12 months. The quantitative determination of individual amino acids was carried out by means of an automatic amino acid analyzer, Hitachi type, after the method of Speckman, Stein, and Moore. No changes were established in the amino acid composition of white poultry meat that was treated with psychrophilic organisms as against the composition of untreated meat. Proteins preserved their biologic value.


The wavelet transform has become the most interesting new algorithm for still image compression. Yet there are many parameters within a wavelet analysis and synthesis which govern the quality of a decoded image. In this paper, we discuss different decomposition strategies of a two-dimensional signal and their implications for the decoded image: a pool of gray-scale images has been wave let-transformed with different settings of the wavelet filter bank, quantization threshold and decomposition method. Contrary to the new standard JPEG-2000, where nonstandard decomposition is implemented, our investigation proposes standard decomposition for low-bitrate coding.


A hybrid MP2:DFT (second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory-density functional theory) method that combines MP2 calculations for cluster models with DFT calculations for the full periodic structure is used to localize minima and transition structures for proton jumps at different Brønsted sites in different frameworks (chabazite, faujasite, ferrierite, and ZSM-5) and at different crystallographic positions of a given framework. The MP2 limit for the periodic structures is obtained by extrapolating the results of a series of cluster models of increasing size. A coupled-cluster (CCSD(T)) correction to MP2 energies is calculated for cluster models consisting of three tetrahedra. For the adsorption energies, this difference is small, between 0.1 and 0.9 kJ/mol, but for the intrinsic proton exchange barriers, this difference makes a significant (10.85 ± 0.25 kJ/mol) and almost constant contribution across different systems. The total values of the adsorption energies vary between 22 and 34 kJ/mol, whereas the total proton exchange energy barriers fall in the narrow range of 152-156 kJ/mol. After adding nuclear motion contributions (harmonic approximation, 298 K), intrinsic enthalpy barriers between 134 and 141 kJ/mol and apparent energy barriers between 105 and 118 kJ/mol are predicted for the different sites examined for the different frameworks. These predictions are consistent with experimental results available for faujasite, ferrierite, and ZSM-5.


Background: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a highly malignant tumor featured with high intra-tumoral heterogeneity and poor prognosis. Cell-in-cell (CIC) structures have been reported in multiple tumor types, and their presence is thought to promote clonal selection and tumor evolution. Here, we aimed to establish a CIC-related gene signature for predicting the prognosis and evaluating immune microenvironment in PC. Methods: In this study, the gene expression data, as well as corresponding clinicopathological data of PC and normal pancreatic tissues were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx), International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Differential gene expression analysis, random forest screening, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and multivariate Cox regression analysis were performed on 101 CIC-related genes to construct a prognostic gene signature. The effectiveness and robustness of the prognostic gene signature were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and establishing the nomogram model. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses were conducted to annotate the biological functions of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), western blotting and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining were validated the core gene expression in both mRNA and protein levels. Results: A 4-gene signature was constructed to stratify patients into the low-risk and high-risk groups with distinct survival outcomes, somatic mutation profiles and immune features. The high-risk group had poorer prognosis than did the low-risk group. This signature was found to be an independent prognostic factor for PC patients with favorable predictive efficiency. Functional enrichment analyses showed that numerous terms and pathways associated with invasion and metastasis were enriched in the high-risk group. Moreover, the high-risk group had a higher tumor mutation burdens and lower immune cell infiltrations. KRT7, as the most important risk gene, was significantly associated with the worse prognosis of PC. CIC formation assay performing in PC cell lines indicated that KRT7 expression was correlated with CIC frequency. Conclusions: The signature based on four CIC-related genes could be applicable for predicting the prognosis of PC, and targeting CIC processes may be a potential therapeutic option. Further studies are needed to reveal the underlying molecular mechanisms and biological implications of CIC in PC progression.


Resistance to imatinib in Philadelphia-positive (Ph+) leukemia patients is often associated with selection of point mutations in the Bcr-Abl kinase domain (KD). Dasatinib and nilotinib are second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) with different binding modes with respect to imatinib, that have been shown to confer in vitro and in vivo activity against many Bcr-Abl mutated forms. However, both dasatinib and nilotinib have been shown to retain some 'Achilles heels', and they include both imatinib-resistant mutations (e.g., T315I) and some novel, inhibitor-specific ones. Selection of either type of KD mutations has frequently been observed in patients (pts) who relapse after an initial response to dasatinib or nilotinib and represents one of the major hurdles on the road to successful treatment of imatinib-resistant pts. We have monitored Abl KD mutation status in a total of 121 pts who received dasatinib (n= 78) or nilotinib (n=43) as 2 nd TKI after imatinib failure since February 2005. Fifty-eight (48%) pts had chronic phase (CP) chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), 63 pts (52%) had accelerated phase (AP) or blast crisis (BC) CML or Ph+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Median age was 55 years (range, 18–76); median time from diagnosis was 49 months (range, 4–181); median time on imatinib was 32 months (range, 4–66). Median follow-up of all pts who received a 2 nd TKI is 7 months (range, 1–38). Median follow-up of pts who are still on 2 nd TKI treatment is 32 months (range, 28–38). Relapses after an initial response have so far been observed in 46/121 pts. Thirty-eight out of these 46 pts had AP/BC CML or Ph+ ALL at the time 2 nd TKI was started. Forty-one out of 121 (34%) pts have experienced relapse after an initial response during the first 12 months of 2 nd TKI treatment (median time to relapse, 6,5 months; range 4–12 months), while only five of the 45 (11%) pts who were still on 2 nd TKI treatment after >12 months have relapsed (at 13, 15, 18, 20 and 33 months, respectively). Interestingly, none of these 5 pts had never achieved more than a minor cytogenetic response (CgR), and 4/5 pts were receiving a reduced TKI dose because of toxicity. In 36/46 (78%) cases, relapse was associated with newly acquired Abl KD mutations. In particular 26/30 (87%) pts who relapsed on dasatinib and 10/16 (63%) pts who relapsed on nilotinib had evidence of a newly acquired KD mutation presumably responsible for treatment failure. Newly acquired mutations in pts who relapsed on dasatinib as 2 nd TKI were T315I (n= 12 pts) F317L (n= 8 pts) T315A (n=3 pts); V299L (n=3 pts); F317I (n=2 pts); 2 pts had multiple mutations. Newly acquired mutations in pts who relapsed on nilotinib as 2 nd TKI were E255K (n=3); E255V (n=2); Y253H (n=2); T315I (n=1); F359V (n=1); F359C (n=1). Sixteen pts (but none of those harboring the T315I) switched to dasatinib or nilotinib or high-dose imatinib as 3 rd TKI and this rescued hematologic or even cytogenetic responses in a proportion of cases. Our observations suggest that: newly acquired mutations leading to relapse in Ph+ leukemia pts receiving dasatinib or nilotinib as 2 nd TKI usually arise rapidly; the likelihood of mutation selection consistently decreases over time, and seems mainly confined to advanced phase pts and to pts with no or minor CgR; almost all (87%) cases who developed resistance to dasatinib had newly acquired KD mutations - suggesting that the higher potency with respect to imatinib can overcome Bcr-Abl gene amplification and that Src kinase inhibition may turn off Bcr- Abl-independent resistance mechanisms; a lower incidence (63%) of newly acquired KD mutations was observed in pts who developed resistance to nilotinib; with the exception of T315I, there is little if no overlap between dasatinib and nilotinib-resistant mutants, which may allow to regain responses by switching TKIs.


Abstract Clausena excavata is a medicinal plant widely distributed in Southeast Asia. It is used for a variety of indications, including to treat malaria. In our present study, a phytochemical study of the methanol extract from the stem bark of C. excavata led to the isolation of five pyranocoumarins, nordentatin ( 1 ), dentatin ( 2 ), kinocoumarin ( 3 ), clausarin ( 4 ), and clausenidin ( 5 ), and a coumarin, 8-hydroxy-3″,4″-dihydrocapnolactone-2′,3′-diol ( 6 ). The isolation of compound 6 from C. excavata and the antiplasmodial activities against a multidrug-resistant K1 strain of Plasmodium falciparum of 1, 3 , and 5 were reported for the first time. Compounds 3 and 4 exhibited potent antiplasmodial activities with EC 50 values of 1.10 and 0.58 µM, respectively, while 1 and 5 had EC 50 values of 5.62 and 7.15 µM, respectively. A prenyl group attached to the C-3 or C-12 position on the pyranocoumarin ring probably plays an important role on the activity. A hydroxyl group at the C-10 position is also likely to enhance the activity.


When professionals or trainee professionals in industrial or commercial fields receive language instruction, it involves both user performance and formal linguistic knowledge. Firstly, the acquisition of one or more foreign languages enables distinct industrial or commercial activities in an international context. This foreign language skill must be shaped in keeping with the professional area and the functions which it is meant to support; it must also adopt the imperatives of efficiency which prevail in the sector of its application. Secondly, knowledge about the language itself supports an efficient use of electronic language tools and cross-language electronic communication in an automated environment, whether it be Information Technology, Computer-Assisted Design or Manufacturing. A result of the globalization of industrial and commercial activities, language instruction is also part of a huge economic interest. For all these reasons, language instruction for the corporate sector calls upon computers extensively and constitutes a rich field for the observation of language instruction in the context of language engineering. Efficient language instruction for that sector rests on focused contents, tailor-made provisions for individual learners or groups of learners, and modes of delivery which integrates well with existing corporate practices. (6 pages)


Little is known about the vasomotor effects of sirolimus, and preliminary studies using animal models have provided conflicting results. The present study was designed to determine the effects of sirolimus on vasomotor tone in human blood vessels. Human radial artery segments were cut into rings, denuded of endothelium, and placed into organ chambers for isometric tension recording. Sirolimus (10-10 to 10-6 M) caused concentration-dependent relaxation of human arteries contracted with U46619 (9,11-dideoxy-11α,9α-epoxymethano-prostaglandin F2α; 10-8 M) [-log (M) EC50 (pD2) = 7.28 ± 0.1; Emax = 57 ± 6%] or phenylephrine (10-6 M) (pD2 = 7.16 ± 0.4; Emax = 45 ± 9%). Sirolimus-induced relaxation was unaffected by treatment with indomethacin (10-5 M) but was nearly abolished in tissues contracted by depolarization with elevated K+ (60 mM). In U46619-contracted rings, the response to sirolimus was markedly inhibited in the presence of the specific ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channel blocker, glyburide (10-6 M), but was unaffected by treatment with blockers of large conductance, calcium-activated potassium channel (iberiotoxin, 10-7 M), small conductance, calcium-activated potassium channel (apamin, 10-6 M), or voltage-gated potassium channel (4-aminopyridine, 10-3 M). The KATP channel opener, aprikalim (10-7 to 10-5 M), caused concentration-dependent relaxations that were inhibited by glyburide (10-6 M) and abolished in tissues contracted with elevated K+ (60 mM), thus confirming that KATP channel opening causes relaxation of these arteries. These data suggest that sirolimus, at concentrations attained in vivo, causes relaxation of human arteries, and this effect is mediated by opening of KATP channels in vascular smooth muscle. Reduced vasomotor tone is a heretofore unrecognized action of sirolimus that could potentially contribute to its efficacy in drug-eluting stents.


Multiprocessor platforms have been widely adopted to accommodate the increasing computation requirement of modern applications. Partitioned scheduling (or packing) has been widely exploited by partitioning real-time tasks onto processors to meet the timing constraints, which has been shown to be NP-complete in the strong sense. This paper studies the approximation of partitioned scheduling by exploiting resource augmentation with (1) speeding up or (2) allocating more processors. When adopting speeding up to meet timing constraints, we provide a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) to derive near-optimal solutions only with the assumption that the ratio of the maximum relative deadline to the minimum relative deadline is a constant. The previously known PTAS for this problem imposes additional restrictions on the periods and the execution times of tasks. By removing these additional constraints, our scheme can be adopted for wider task sets. When considering the resource augmentation by allocating more processors, we show that there does not exist any asymptotic polynomial-time approximation scheme (APTAS) unless P=NP.


OBJECTIVES
Research has suggested that subjective memory complaints (SMC) are predictive of cognitive decline in cases of Alzheimer's disease; however, multidimensional characteristics of SMC make it difficult to formulate causal links. The Subjective Memory Complaints Questionnaire (SMCQ) has proven effective in capturing the nature of SMC. In this study, we developed a revised version of SMCQ (SMCQ-R) with corresponding normative data for application in Taiwan.

METHODS
This study recruited 100 cognitively normal participants (> 45 years) stratified according to demographic characteristics. Assessments were performed to evaluate test-retest reliability, criterion-related validity, and construct validity of SMCQ-R. SMCQ-R scores of 20 matched patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were also compared with those of normal participants to test construct validity.

RESULTS
Reliability of SMCQ-R was satisfactory (0.81-0.95). Factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure: everyday memory problems (EMP), recent severe memory problems (RSMP), and long-term memory problems (LTMP). EMP and RSMP scores were negatively associated with objective cognitive function (r = -.20 to .39). Depressive symptoms were positively associated with all factors (r = .23-.33). Age was positively associated with total (b = 0.09, p < .05) and EMP scores (b = 0.06, p < .01). MCI patients obtained higher scores (p < .05) on all subscales. SMCQ-R scores discriminated between normal and MCI individuals (area under the curve = 0.77). This study established a norm based on scores adjusted to control for effects of age.

CONCLUSIONS
SMCQ-R has sound psychometric properties and could potentially be used as a tool to assess SMC in clinical settings.


The immunological synapse (IS) is a specialized membrane domain with localized display of T-cell receptor (TCR) in contact with a similar display of peptide-loaded MHC on antigen presenting cells (APCs). Aberrant IS function is linked to ineffective tumor killing and autoimmunity. Accumulating evidence indicates a key role of endocytic traffic in the generation and maintenance of the IS. The C-terminal Eps-15 Homology Domain-containing proteins (EHD1-4) are essential regulators of endocytic recycling of surface receptors. Yet, nothing is known about their role in immune cell function. EHD-regulated receptors include the MHC-I and MHC-II proteins, and EHDs regulate vesicle budding at neural synapse. Our hypothesis is that EHD-dependent recycling of TCR and accessory receptors on T cells and MHC-II on APCs is required for the formation and stability of the IS. Indeed, using antigen-specific TCR transgenic CD4+ T-cells, we observe an accumulation of EHD proteins at the interface of T cells and APCs. CD4+ T-cells from floxed EHD1,3,4 mice bearing CD4-Cre and an antigen-specific TCR transgene demonstrate reduced antigen-driven proliferation. Further in vitro and in vivo analyses are being carried out to test the idea that endocytic recycling orchestrated by EHD proteins plays an important functional role in the formation and/or maintenance of IS and in T-cell function.


Pollux improves scheduling performance in deep learning (DL) clusters by adaptively co-optimizing inter-dependent factors both at the per-job level and at the cluster-wide level. Most existing schedulers will assign each job a number of resources requested by the user, which can allow jobs to use those resources inefficiently. Some recent schedulers choose job resources for users, but do so without awareness of how DL training can be re-optimized to better utilize those resources.
Pollux simultaneously considers both aspects. By observing each job during training, Pollux models how their goodput (system throughput combined with statistical efficiency) would change by adding or removing resources. Leveraging these models, Pollux dynamically (re-)assigns resources to maximize cluster-wide goodput, while continually optimizing each DL job to better utilize those resources.
In experiments with real DL training jobs and with trace-driven simulations, Pollux reduces average job completion time by 25%-50% relative to state-of-the-art DL schedulers, even when all jobs are submitted with ideal resource and training configurations. Based on the observation that the statistical efficiency of DL training can change over time, we also show that Pollux can reduce the cost of training large models in cloud environments by 25%.


Rice plants (IR26 and Latisail) obtained at near heading stage from a wetland field were transferred to water culture and exposed to 15N2 in a gas-tight growth chamber for 7 days to measure N2-fixing activities associated with the rice. The activities measured varied from 6.5 to 11.6 μmol of N2 fixed per hill per day. The outer leaf sheath had about 2.5 times higher N2-fixing activities per unit weight than the root. Slight activities were also found in the basal node and inner leaf sheath. Wrapping basal parts of the stem with aluminum foil did not decrease the activities of N2 fixation in these parts. Thus, the outer leaf sheath as well as the root are N2-fixing sites in rice plants. N2 fixation found in above-ground parts is not due to photoautotrophic organisms. Less than 10% of the fixed nitrogen was translocated from the fixing sites to the leaf blades and the young panicles.


Understood in its modern sense as a primary activity in conceptualization, metaphor is here viewed as the linguistic product of a more fundamental metaphorizing process to be studied from developmental, semiotic, and all metapsychological dimensions. A backward look at the psychoanalytic literature identifies specific contributions that our field has made to its understanding, before pointing forward to its powerful role in groups; its neurophysiological implications; its pivotal place in the development and use of symbolization, both intrapsychically and interpersonally; its divers semiotic forms; and, most fundamentally, its pivotal function in dreams. On far horizon a ship at sea with shining sail and golden oar, transporting us from shore to shore, and on its prow writ, "Metaphor"


TLR7/9 signals are capable of mounting massive interferon (IFN) response in plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) immediately after viral infection, yet the involvement of epigenetic regulation in this process has not been documented. Here, we report that zinc finger CXXC family epigenetic regulator CXXC5 is highly expressed in pDCs, where it plays a crucial role in TLR7/9- and virus-induced IFN response. Notably, genetic ablation of CXXC5 resulted in aberrant methylation of the CpG-containing island (CGI) within the Irf7 gene and impaired IRF7 expression in steady-state pDCs. Mechanistically, CXXC5 is responsible for the recruitment of DNA demethylase Tet2 to maintain the hypomethylation of a subset of CGIs, a process coincident with active histone modifications and constitutive transcription of these CGI-containing genes. Consequently, CXXC5-deficient mice had compromised early IFN response and became highly vulnerable to infection by herpes simplex virus and vesicular stomatitis virus. Together, our results identify CXXC5 as a novel epigenetic regulator for pDC-mediated antiviral response.


This paper presents and explores the functionalities of automation and agricultural robotics (agribots) in recent years for agricultural operations. The explicit challenges fronting agribots and automation with regards to the operative implementation of Industry 4.0 are discussed. In this paper, several research works and developments on automation and agribots from different scopes and field areas are reviewed to explore recent agricultural practices. The first technology is on the automation work on developing a control algorithm that uses a single sensor that could recognise landmarks in the row-type plantation environment. This is followed by the navigation of a vehicle using a laser range finder (LRF) to a point-to-go aim location in the plantation by generating a control algorithm equipped with a sensor for an autonomous agricultural vehicle to detect the landmarks in the row-type plantation setting. The second technology is related to an automation device by developing an automated detector and counter (Oto-BaCTM) for bagworm census using deep learning with a Faster Regional Convolutional Neural Network (Faster R-CNN) and normal camera. Meanwhile the third technology is related to agribots via the design and development of a fully automated Agriculture robot (Agribot) for harvesting underground plants (rhizomes) with the assistance of transmission and receiving parts using microcontroller software. Another agribot technology would be on the development of Thorvald II agricultural robotic system, utilising a modularity hardware whereby the robot consists of standard modules and can be reconstructed to handle tasks in various types of environments. The first automation technology results showed the performance of the navigation systems to operate the tractor autonomously along the test path without any crashes on the guide cones. The second automation technology on the Oto-BaCTM performance, produced a positive Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient between the two variables (percentages of detection and temperature), R2 = 0.997 and p = 0.02 for Trial 1 and R2 = 0.888 and p = 0.04 for Trial 2. Meanwhile, the third technology on the Agribot, successfully picked up the rhizome plants, sprayed pesticides, and traced of the soil moisture content. Finally, the last automation technology which was on the development of Thorvald II, came out with positive results on the pass traction test, all
obstacles, and the incline test. The harvesting robot detected the ripe tomatoes at a 95% success rate by implementing the self-developed algorithm that applied the Adaboost and APV classifiers. However, a 5% miss detection occurred due to the leaf obstruction. The multi-robot system can be designed to handle pest control tasks via UAVs and UGVs. For weed patch recognition, the developed algorithms showed their robustness by precisely distinguishing and mapping the crop rows with a 100% accuracy, while the inter-row weed patches with an accuracy of 85%, and it was proposed to detect the early growth stage based on the weed maps through site-specific weed management. By implementing a 3D fruit detection algorithm, the precision for pepper, eggplant, and guava datasets was 0.864, 0.886, and 0.888, while the recall dataset was 0.889, 0.762, and 0.812, respectively. The proposed algorithm was effective and robust; hence it is appropriate to be applied as an agricultural harvesting robot. A roadmap in applying swarm robotics is described towards the weed control problems and is being implemented within the Swarm Robotics for Agricultural Applications scope. Thus, a baseline result was introduced specifically for monitoring and mapping out weeds in a field via a swarm of UAVs. Hence, the impact on the use of agribots and automation technologies is the realization of a more efficient systems potential to be operated in safe conditions and are cost effective for the farmers, allowing farmers to focus more on improving overall production yields. As a recommendation, there is a need for research and development of multipurpose and adaptive algorithms to be incorporated into different sensor platforms.


The ability to understand the ecological dynamics of parasites allows for a more wholistic insight into the application of the one health concept in wildlife medicine. Using this method, the ecological dynamics of shared gastrointestinal parasites of wildlife, humans and domestic animals in the Kumasi metropolis was determined. The study analyzed 102 faecal samples (59 from game and 43 from captive animals) from Kumasi Metropolis using the flotation and Mcmaster techniques. From the study, the pattern of prevalence for helminth parasites was same for both game and captive animals with Trichostrongyles being the most prevalent (49.2% in game animals and 44.2% in captive animals) followed by Ascarids, Stongyloides spp., and Trichuris spp. Capillaria spp. was least prevalent in captive animals at 23.3% and just a bit more prevalent in game animals (8.5%) than Trichuris spp. (5.1%). Protozoan parasite prevalence pattern differed between game and captive animals with Coccidia (45.8%) more prevalent in game animals than Entamoeba spp. (6.8%). In captive animals Entamoeba spp. (20.9%) was most prevalent followed by Coccidia (13.9%) and then Giardia spp. (11.6%). This confirmed the existence of shared gastrointestinal parasites between wildlife, humans and domestic animals with the potential to be spilled over into wildlife or spilled back to humans and domestic animals, emphasizing the need for more extensive studies in wildlife parasitology and ways in which to reduce the risks posed to humans, wildlife and our domestic animals.Keywords: Parasites; helminths; protozoan; wildlife; Ghana.


This commentary examines academic research that can assist auditors in detecting and preventing fraudulent financial reporting. We review theoretical and empirical research from game theory, social psychology, judgment and decision making, and auditing to identify improvements in audit practice and promising areas for future research. This review focuses on the strategic fraud setting and suggests modifications in auditing standards that should facilitate auditors' use of strategic reasoning in this setting. We emphasize three critical audit tasks—fraud risk assessment, audit planning, and audit plan implementation—and recommend changes to current auditing standards and identify potential research questions for each task.


Today's big challenges―the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, migration, and refugee crises―are global in scale, transcending geographical, national, and cultural boundaries, but responded to at the local level. It has therefore become necessary to reflect on the following questions: what kind of new forms of organizations are needed to tackle real-world problems? How can we enhance the humanities as a responsive field with the ability to translate knowledge into actions? How can we design a better humanities laboratory that is more attuned to contemporary challenges? The social labs as innovative institutions have opened up new epistemological directions for understanding a lab as a platform for addressing complex issues. A laboratory can be understood as a way of thinking and acting that entails new social practices and new research modes. Drawing on social lab theories, critical infrastructure studies, and digital humanities infrastructure theories, this essay aims to present a new theoretical approach to conceptualizing a laboratory in the humanities. I discuss two epistemological perspectives represented by Bruno Latour and Graeme Gooday in order to disclose the power of the laboratory. Next, I present the principles and network structure of social labs. Then, I introduce the concept of the infrastructure of engagement as a new analytical framework for understanding a laboratory as a site of intervention for the humanities as they are involved in addressing pressing global problems. Based on the Humanities Action Lab, I seek to reimagine a laboratory guided by the principles of collaborative infrastructure, participatory approach, and public engagement.


One of the main features of the real estate market is its imperfection, to which belongs, among others, the lack of sufficient data on transactions, often preventing the use of quantitative methods to the analysis. Some solution of the problem of insufficient amount of data can be an expansion of a research area. However, it also means that, the analysis is made on a much diversified data set, so it is difficult to meet the condition of similarity between objects. In the face of the absence of sufficient number of market data, especially in less developed markets, an attempt was made to simulate a transaction that provided at one hand, a necessary data to build models of prices and value, and at the other hand, to evaluate various opportunities and options shaping the local real estate market. In the presented paper a theoretical basis for simulation modeling was done. Also such simulation was presented. It was based on the classical model of linear, multiple regression in an analytical form, and also with the use of Monte Caro simulation. In the study an assumption was made that, the probability of the next transaction will depend on the density of current transactions. In order to determine the density a nuclear estimation was used. It allows to explicitly taking into consideration a spatial resolution. As a result of the research, simulated transaction data, in a several input assumptions, were obtained, which fill the information gap on the researched fragment of the real estate market.


Iron deficiency is considered as frequently observed single dietary nutrient deficiency through out the world, predominantly during pregnancy .According to WHO almost half of the pregnancies in developing countries are affected with iron deficiency and ultimately leads to iron deficiency anaemia. This figure increases up to 80% for South Asian countries. In Pakistan iron deficiency anaemia is still a major nutritional and public health problem.In pregnancy not only iron but also other minerals, vitamins and essential nutrients are required in increased quantity. Clinically a rapid rise in body iron is the main target in the treatment of iron deficiency anaemia.Most common practice is oral iron supplementation along with diet improvement.Pregnancy is a state of oxidative stress.Iron supplements can result in increased oxidative stress.The aim of this study was to evaluate the anti oxidative status in terms of SOD & GSH-Px level in anemic pregnant women, alteration in enzyme activity after treatment and hematological changes with different regimens of oral iron.


Online social networking sites like MySpace, Orkut, and Flickr are among the most popular sites on the Web and continue to experience dramatic growth in their user population. The popularity of these sites offers a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of social networks at scale. Having a proper understanding of how online social networks grow can provide insights into the network structure, allow predictions of future growth, and enable simulation of systems on networks of arbitrary size. However, to date, most empirical studies have focused on static network snapshots rather than growth dynamics.
 In this paper, we collect and examine detailed growth data from the Flickr online social network, focusing on the ways in which new links are formed. Our study makes two contributions. First, we collect detailed data covering three months of growth, encompassing 950,143 new users and over 9.7 million new links, and we make this data available to the research community. Second, we use a first-principles approach to investigate the link formation process. In short, we find that links tend to be created by users who already have many links, that users tend to respond to incoming links by creating links back to the source, and that users link to other users who are already close in the network.


Abstract:Although most tumors of the bile ducts are predominantly invasive, some have an exophytic pattern within the bile ducts; these intraductal papillary neoplasms usually have well-formed papillae at the microscopic level. In this study, however, we describe a novel type of intraductal neoplasm of the bile ducts with a predominantly tubular growth pattern and other distinctive features. Ten cases of biliary intraductal neoplasms with a predominantly tubular architecture were identified in the files of the Pathology Department at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 1983 to 2006. For each of these cases we studied the clinical presentation, histologic and immunohistochemical features (9 cases only), and the clinical follow-up of the patients. Three male and 7 female patients (38 to 78 y) presented with obstructive jaundice or abdominal pain. Eight of the patients underwent a partial hepatectomy; 2 underwent a laparoscopic bile duct excision, followed by a pancreatoduodenectomy in one of them. The tumors range in size from 0.6 to 8.0 cm. The intraductal portions of the tumors (8 intrahepatic, 1 extrahepatic hilar, 1 common bile duct) were densely cellular and composed of back-to-back tubular glands and solid sheets with minimal papillary architecture. The cells were cuboidal to columnar with mild to moderate cytologic atypia. Foci of necrosis were present in the intraductal component in 6 cases. An extraductal invasive carcinoma component was present in 7 cases, composing <25% of the tumor in 4 cases, and >75% in 1 case. It was observed by immunohistochemical analysis that the tumor cells expressed CK19, CA19-9, MUC1, and MUC6 in most cases and that SMAD4 expression was retained. MUC2, MUC5AC, HepPar1, synaptophysin, chromogranin, p53, and CA125 were negative in all cases and most were negative for CEA-M and B72.3. Four patients were free of tumor recurrence after 7 to 85 months (average, 27 mo). Four patients with an invasive carcinoma component suffered metastases, 1 after local intraductal recurrence. However, the occurrence of metastasis in 3 of these patients was quite late (average, 52 mo). Intraductal tubular neoplasm of the bile ducts is a biliary intraductal neoplasm with a distinctive histologic pattern resembling the recently described intraductal tubulopapillary neoplasm of the pancreas. Immunohistochemical features are similar to those of other pancreatobiliary-type carcinomas. However, this tumor may be hard to recognize as intraductal because of its complex architecture. When the tumor is entirely intraductal, the outcome appears to be favorable, but metastases can occur when invasive carcinoma is present, even after many years.


Current mirror is one of the basic building blocks of analog VLSI systems. For high‐performance analog circuit applications, the accuracy and bandwidth are the most important parameters to determine the performance of the current mirror. This paper presents an efficient implementation of a CMOS current mirror suitable for low‐voltage applications. This circuit combines a shunt input feedback, a regulated cascade output and a differential amplifier to achieve low input resistance, high accuracy and high output resistance. A comparison of several architectures of this scheme based on different architectures of the amplifier is presented. The comparison includes: input impedance, output impedance, accuracy, frequency response and settling time response. These circuits are validated with simulation in 0.18µm CMOS TSMC of MOSIS. In this paper, a linear voltage to current converter, based on the adapted current mirror, is proposed. Its static and dynamic behaviour is presented and validated with the same technology. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The Spanish press recently introduced its model for information mobility based on applications that attempt to take advantage of the characteristics and singularities of the Smartphone as a "new medium". This article examines the apps of the 20 mastheads most read in Spain to evaluate the extent to which they use that potential (basically multimedia integration, customization, geo-location and participation) as effectively as possible.


This special issue should become a vade mecum for any cytogeneticist involved in prenatal diagnosis because it contains such immediately practical and useful information, especially about those relatively rare situations where no individual laboratory can collect enough data to arrive at a firm conclusion about the significance of a finding. I hope that this sort of data will continue to be collected and reported on regularly in the future. The first section gives maternal age specific rates for chromosome aberrations and exhaustively analyses paternal age data. It would have been interesting to have seen the analysis of parental age effects done for male and female trisomy 21 cases separately in view of the findings of Hassold et al (1984), but perhaps this can be done next time. Boue and Gallano give differential risks of an abnormal outcome in pregnancies to parents carrying varied balanced translocations. Translocations ascertained through amniocentesis for other reasons are excluded from these figures and I did wonder whether the elimination of these previously troublefree rearrangements might lead to an overestimation of risk. By sampling error alone some families would be expected to show no adverse outcome despite the risk, but they still form part of the population of outcomes on which risk figures should be based. There is a particularly informative section on de novo structural rearrangements. These cases are among the most difficult on which to give advice and this information will make that job much easier. The section highlights the need for more extended follow up of such cases. Most assessments are made immediately, at birth, and few cases are followed to the time when developmental delay or retardation might be expected to be detectable. It is an indication of the difficulty of assessing mosaicism that three studies of this problem are presented. The Canadian survey produces particularly helpful guidelines for establishing the most effective way of distinguishing between 'true' and pseudomosaicism and in this, and the European study, there are helpful notes about presumptive maternal cell contamination. Again the necessity for 237 full and extended follow up is stressed, without which the long term significance of such aberrations cannot be assessed. For me, this presentation reinforced with hard data impressions gained from a relatively small number of cases. My job is going to be easier because of the broad based information included in this special issue.


Preparing dedicated environments for testing often requires time consuming, manual configurations to be made on databases and the Windows Registry. A proposed Windows application could improve the efficiency and accuracy of such settings by automating the processes and providing a user-friendly graphical user interface. On behalf of Ninetech, a consulting company, such an application was therefore developed - KlarSynt Tools. This application was to enhance the company's previous methods of configuring test environments by removing the need of manual tasks and the use of an unoptimized tool called Verktyg.In the development of the application features such as connecting to servers, retrieving data from databases, and automatic configurations of the Windows Registry was implemented. Problems such as automating manual tasks had to be dealt with for providing accuracy of the configurations. The usage of development patterns such as MVVM was also utilized in the project to provide flexibility in the program code, and in that way prepare the software for future development. Finally, user-friendliness was integrated into the application interface to provide efficiency in the usage of the application.This project resulted in that a Windows application was developed to accurately and efficiently configure settings to a database and the Windows Registry. The developed application showed to significantly reduce the number of steps required and the time taken to perform the configurations in the old process.


Background Eribulin has recently been indicated for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer who have progressed after at least one chemotherapeutic regimen for advanced disease. However, eribulin use in our hospital is still limited to patients who have previously received two treatment lines for metastatic disease, including taxanes and anthracyclines (as adjuvant or metastatic setting). Purpose To evaluate the prescription pattern of eribulin in a tertiary care hospital. Material and methods A retrospective and observational study was conducted in our hospital. Patients who received at least one dose of eribulin, from February 2014 until September 2015, were included. Data were obtained from the computerised physician order entry system. A data collection form was designed to record patient's demographics, diagnosis, previous and concomitant treatments, performance status (PS), number of doses, progression free survival (PFS), response rates and toxicity. Results 11 women patients were included. Mean age was 58.7 years (range 43–72). All presented with metastatic breast cancer involving a median of three metastatic sites, PS was ≤1, positive hormone receptors and 4/11 were HER2 positive. All patients received eribulin after taxanes and anthracyclines, except for two patients who did not receive anthracyclines due to major contradication. In addition, one HER2+ patient received trastuzumab concomitantly. Eribulin was prescribed as third-line treatment for metastatic disease in 5/11 patients, fourth-line in 2/11, fifth-line in 1/11 and ≥6 line in 3/11. 4 women are still receiving treatment. Among patients who stopped treatment, a mean of 11.3 doses were administered and median PFS was 4.7 months. Response rates were: no response (1/11), dissociative response-progression but clinical improvement (1/11), stable disease (2/11), partial response (4/11), not assessable (3/11). Dose was reduced or postponed in 7/11 patients due mostly to neutropenia. The major cause of treatment discontinuation was progression of disease (only in one case was eribulin stopped due to gastrointestinal toxicity). Conclusion Eribulin was prescribed according the approved hospital criteria. Eribulin was well tolerated. Median PFS in evaluable patients was 4.7 months, which is similar to the results obtained in EMBRACE and E7389-G000–301 studies (3.7 and 4.1 months, respectively). References and/or Acknowledgements Cortes, et al. EMBRACE. Lancet 377:914–23 Kaufman, et al. Study 301. Cancer Res 72(24 Suppl):abstract S6–6 No conflict of interest.


Practical results following from measurements of ethylene oxide residues in polymeric sanitary materials are discussed. The obtained data are affected by the following factors: sample preparation, efficiency of the extraction procedure, the way of injecting the sample, conditions of chromatographic analysis and the interpretation of the obtained results. Further factors depend chiefly on the way of sterilization and on ventilation of the respective materials.The results point unambiguously to a different behaviour of hard polymeric materials in sterilization and to enhanced requirements concerning their ventilation. This must be considered in their repeated sterilization. On the other hand, soft materials cannot be easily ventilated or analyzed.


In contrast to Diels-Alder reactions involving heteroatom-containing substrates, the endo dimerization of cyclopentadiene responds only very weakly to changes in microenvironment or the presence of potential catalysts (less than factor of 10 variation), although this pure hydrocarbon reaction has been used as an early model to predict the maximum possible catalytic effect (kcat/kuncat ca. 106 M) due to entropic contributions of a transition-state confinement (Page, M. I.; Jencks, W. P. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 1971, 68, 1678). In the presence of cucurbit[n]uril homologues the reaction is selectively and almost maximally (kcat/kuncat ca. 4 × 105 M) accelerated by the intermediary sized cucurbit[7]uril in aqueous solution, while the other macrocyclic homologues display no acceleration or an inhibitory effect. The expected product inhibition due to the strong binding of the dicyclopentadiene reaction product can be overcome by addition of 10% methanol, which affords catalytic turnover numbers above 10. The reaction was monitored using 1H NMR spectroscopy as well as UV spectrophotometry. The analysis of the kinetic data, combined with packing coefficient considerations, modelling of Lennard-Jones potentials, and dispersion-corrected DFT calculations, suggest that the catalysis is due to an entropy-dominated transition-state stabilization in the tightly packed ternary complex.


In light of the numerous instances in the Hebrew Bible in which the dignity of its characters are threatened, violated or potentially violated, this article seeks to identify a number of strategies that may be used to read the Bible for the dignity of all so overcoming the Old Testament's troubling legacy. Th ese strategies have been inspired by the work of Martha Nussbaum who, in one of her recent books, Th e New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age, names three principles that may help a society to become more compassionate in nature and to transcend, what she calls, a narcissistic notion of fear: (1) Political (and I would add religious) principles that express equal respect and dignity for all people (2) Rigorous critical thinking that criticizes inconsistencies that may lead to human rights violations (3) Developing an empathetic or participatory imagination, in which one is able to consider how the world looks from the point of view of a person of a diff erent cultural or religious point of view.


As the impact of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the environment increases, there is a need for effective environmental policies to sustain their development. Under this condition, SMEs implement innovation to meet environmental regulations and to achieve environmental competitiveness in sustainability. We examine the impact of environmental innovation on labor productivity in SME manufacturers. The literature shows that complementary assets help SMEs to increase their performance in environmental innovation. Therefore, we study the interactive effects of the SMEs' business-group affiliation and the listing status on the relationship between environmental innovation and labor productivity. We add these interaction terms to multivariate regressions by using the 2010 Korea Innovation Survey. The results show that SMEs are able to use environmental innovation as a business strategy for green growth with improved labor productivity. Also, the results highlight that the business-group affiliation and the listing status as the complementary assets positively moderate the performance of the environmental innovation of the SMEs.


Abstract: Leading Western and Russian political scientists contributed to this collective study, which covers issues related to the Russian record of democratic rule and operation of the current political regime in the country, as well as comparative analysis of various concepts of democracy and institutional analysis of various organisations and mechanisms of democratic politics. Moreover it examines major incentives and obstacles to consolidation of democracy.


Moving between Nice and London, "The Bay of Angels", Anita Brookner's 20th novel, makes the point that not everyone needs conventional relationships to be happy. It relates the story of Zoe, whose life changes when her widowed mother marries a wealthy older man and moves to Nice.


The signaling molecule auxin controls plant development through a well-known transcriptional mechanism that regulates many genes. However, auxin also triggers cellular responses within seconds or minutes, and mechanisms mediating such fast responses have remained elusive. Here, we identified an ultrafast auxin-mediated protein phosphorylation response in Arabidopsis roots that is largely independent of the canonical TIR1/AFB receptors. Among targets of this novel response are Myosin XI and its adaptor protein MadB2. We show that their auxin-mediated phosphorylation regulates trafficking and polar, subcellular distribution of PIN auxin transporters. This phosphorylation-based auxin signaling module is indispensable during developmental processes that rely on auxin-mediated PIN repolarization, such as termination of shoot gravitropic bending or vasculature formation and regeneration. Hence, we identified a fast, non-canonical auxin response targeting multiple cellular processes and revealed auxin-triggered phosphorylation of a myosin complex as the mechanism for feedback regulation of directional auxin transport, a central component of auxin canalization, which underlies self-organizing plant development.


We examined the relationship between the density of cavity trees and forest structure characteristics and explored the occurrence of cavity trees among different tree species and diameter breast height (DBH) size in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in the Ailao Mountains in southwestern China. Cavity trees accounted for 7.9% of living trees and 16.3% of dead trees. Average density of living cavity trees (86.3 trees·ha–1) was 6.9 times that of dead cavity trees. Density of living cavity trees was positively correlated with the density of living trees. Cavity trees showed a skewed distribution among DBH classes that peaked at DBHs of 20–40 cm. Moreover, the probability that a living tree was cavity-bearing was logistically related to DBH. Overall, the likelihood of trees being cavity-bearing differed significantly among species. The proportions of cavity trees among the 23 species having more than 63 trees were positively related to the average DBH and to the largest DBH recorded for each species...


In this study, kaolinite and bentonite were investigated for the effect of thermal treatment on particle size, as well as water content, specific gravity, plasticity, activity index, swelling and compression index and strength properties. At first, kaolinite and bentonite were characterized using XRD and TG standard methods. All sieved samples were subsequently heated to various temperatures (100, 200, 400, 500 and 600°C respectively), and kept for 24 h at the maximum temperature. Odometer cells were used to describe the compressibility properties (loading and unloading) of the compacted-treated samples. Triaxial compression tests were carried out to determine thermal treatment effects on the strength parameters of all samples. It was found that kaolinite becomes non-plastic at 400°C and bentonite at 500°C. Grain size growth with increasing thermal treatment plays indeed a major role. Thermal treated kaolinite and bentonite up to 400°C drastically reduces their swelling behavior. Strong correlations between the angle of shearing resistance and thermal treatment of both materials and correlation coefficients have been demonstrated. The results showed that kaolinite and bentonite can be used as good stabilization materials if they are thermal treated; kaolinite up to 400°C and bentonite up to 500°C.


Background: Crataeva nurvala Buch-Ham is a well explored traditional Indian medicinal plant, routinely used as folkloric medicine to treat various ailments in particular urolithiasis and neurodegenerative disorders associated with cognitive dysfunction. Objectives: The present study was undertaken with the objective to investigate the antioxidant and anti-dementia activities of Crataeva nurvala stem bark extract. Methods: The antioxidant and anti-dementia activities of Crataeva nurvala extract was carried out using superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) specific activities, total content of reduced glutathione (GSH), malondialdehyde (MDA) level (lipid peroxidation) and Hebb's-William maze assays respectively in Wistar rats subjected to scopolamine (1 mg/kg i.p.) induced dementia. Results: Sub-acute exposures (daily, for 7 successive days) of Crataeva nurvala extract (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg) significantly increased antioxidant enzyme activities (SOD and CAT), total content of reduced GSH and reduced lipid peroxidation (MDA level) in rat brain homogenates in dose dependent manner, suggesting the antioxidant potential. Moreover, in Hebb's-William maze test, Crataeva nurvala extract showed significant improvement in transfer latency, suggesting anti-dementia activity. Conclusion: Taken together, our results suggest combination of antioxidant and anti-dementia activities may be associated with the neuroprotective effect of Crataeva nurvala extract against scopolamine-induced oxidative stress in rat brain.


One-dimensional (1D) semiconductor nanomaterials attract much attention because they are ideal systems for investigation and studying the relationship between properties and structures and having extensive application future in the high technical field. They are expected to play an important role in fabrication of the next generation nanocircuits, nanotools, nanowires lasers, photon tunneling devices, near-field photo-waveguide devices, etc. This article described controlled growth, characterization of structures and morphologies and properties of 1D semiconductor nanomaterials based on our previous works. This article is organized into two parts: The first part is complicated nanostructures of semiconductors, which includes coaxial nanocables, heterostructure nanowires and nanowires with metal-semiconductor junction behavior, hierarchical structures, doping of the nanowires and nanobelts, porous materials and periodically twined nanowires and asymmetrical polytypic nanobelts. The second part contains semiconductor nanoarrays based on anodic alumina membrane (AAM) templates. Finally, we propose that further investigation of the influence of nanomaterial morphologies on properties and how to design the morphology of nanostructures to meet the property requirements of nanodevices are our future research directions in this field.


The flow induced motion (FIM) of an elastically mounted trapezoid cylinder with different body shapes is numerically studied by solving two-dimensional unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. The trapezoid cylinder is mounted on end-supporting linear springs constrained to oscillate normal to the direction of flow and the axis of cylinder. Numerical simulations were performed in Reynolds number(Re) range from 10 000 to 120 000. The ratio of the rear and front edge width of the cylinder, λ, varies from zero to one. Both vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) and galloping are observed for the cylinder in the tested cases. The VIV upper branch for trapezoid cylinder with λ = 0.8 and square cylinder (λ = 1) are clearly observed in the amplitude and frequency responses. Galloping are exhibited for trapezoid cylinder with different body shapes when Re ≥ 90 000. The FIM responses of the square cylinder is obviously weaker than the triangle and trapezoid cylinders, since the interaction between the separated shear layers on the upper and lower sides of the cylinder becomes weak as λ increases. The maximum value of amplitude is achieved at 4.51D (D is the front edge width of the trapezoid cylinder) for λ = 0.6 at U * water = 22.21 (Re = 120 000), where U * w a t e r = U/(fn,waterD) and fn,water is the natural frequency of the oscillatory system in water. Up to 18 vortices are observed in the galloping branch. The displacement trend of the cylinder matches well with the lift forces, especially in the galloping branch.


We investigate the interannual relationship among clouds, their radiative effects, and two key indices of the atmospheric circulation: the latitudinal positions of the Hadley cell edge and the midlatitude jet. From reanalysis data and satellite observations, we find a clear and consistent relationship between the width of the Hadley cell and the high cloud field, statistically significant in nearly all regions and seasons. In contrast, shifts of the midlatitude jet correlate significantly with high cloud shifts only in the North Atlantic region during the winter season. While in that region and season poleward high cloud shifts are associated with shortwave radiative warming, over the Southern Oceans during all seasons they are associated with shortwave radiative cooling. Finally, a trend analysis reveals that poleward high cloud shifts observed over the 1983–2009 period are more likely related to Hadley cell expansion, rather than poleward shifts of the midlatitude jets.