Abstract Background The implementation of antimicrobial stewardship program is one of the basis for the control of multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR) and the reduction of unnecessary costs, especially in public hospitals. The use of a multimodal strategy is fundamental to the success of a stewardship program. Methods This is an analysis of antimicrobial consumption in intensive care unit (ICU) of a public hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, before and after the implementation of the antibiotic stewardship program. In the pre-intervention period—January 2014 to December 2015—the rational use of antimicrobials was based only on postprescription authorization by the infectious diseases doctor. Since January 2016 was established an antibiotic stewardship program based on authorization of antimicrobial use, implementation of an empirical antibiotic protocol according to institutional microbiological profile, measurement of adherence to the protocol and feedback to the leadership, pharmaceutical intervention, educational measures for medical staff and leadership engagement to the program. We compared consumption in DDD per 1,000 patient-days (1,000/pd) and mean cost with antimicrobials in the ICU in US dollars. Results The overall antimicrobial consumption reduced from 1,032 DDD/1,000 pd in the preintervention period to 785 DDD/1,000 pd postintervention. Analysis stratified by individual antibiotic was done for the five most commonly used antibiotics. A reduction of 51% consumption for meropenem, 41% for colistin, and 41% for vancomycin was observed. Antibiotic costs were reduced from a monthly median of US$71,176.49 to US$43,772.75 between the two periods. No difference in mortality or mean Apache was observed over the period. Conclusion The implementation of the antimicrobial stewardship program can lead to a safe reduction in antibiotic use in the ICU, with significant reduction of costs that can be reapplied in the patient care. Further analyzes are needed to assess the impact on clinical patient outcomes. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


BACKGROUND
Genetics is a known risk factor for alcoholism, and human alcoholics are known to suffer from a loss of brain function and mass. A 4 day rat binge drinking model is known to cause brain region-specific damage. To investigate the role of genetics in binge-drinking-induced brain damage, we studied bidirectionally selected rat lines, the alcohol-preferring P and the alcohol-nonpreferring NP rat lines.

METHOD
P and NP rats were treated with a 4 day binge ethanol protocol. Animals were killed, transcardially perfused, and fixed, and their brains were removed, sectioned, and stained by using the amino cupric silver stain of de Olmos or by using immunohistochemistry for phospho-extracellular signal regulated kinases and other antigens.

RESULTS
Significant brain damage was found in the olfactory bulbs, posterior perirhinal cortex, and entorhinal cortex in both P and NP rats. P rats were found to have significantly greater brain damage, compared with NP rats, in the posterior perirhinal and posterior entorhinal cortexes, 239% +/- 50% (p < 0.02) and 219% +/- 46% (p < 0.01), respectively. Phospho-extracellular signal regulated kinase immunohistochemistry stained prominently in damaged brain areas.

CONCLUSIONS
The P rat line, a genetic model of alcoholism, shows greater region-specific brain damage due to binge ethanol treatment than its genetic counterpart, the NP rat line. These findings suggest that genetics contribute to susceptibility for binge-induced brain damage.


In this paper, the problem of observer design in linear multi-output systems with asynchronous sampling is addressed. The proposed multi-rate observer is based on a continuous-time Luenberger observer design coupled with an inter-sample predictor for each sampled measurement, which generates an estimate of the output in between consecutive measurements. The sampling times are not necessarily uniformly spaced, but there exists a maximum sampling period among all the sensors. Sufficient and explicit conditions are derived to guarantee exponential stability of the multi-rate observer. The proposed framework of multi-rate observer design is applied to estimate the amount of active catalyst sites in a gas-phase polyethylene reactor, with a convergence rate that is comparable to the case of continuous measurements.


This report describes tests performed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for Numatec Hanford Corporation (NHC) as part of the overall activities for the development of the K Basin Sludge Treatment System. These tests were conducted to examine the dissolution behavior of a K East Basin canister sludge composite in nitric acid at the following concentrations: 2 M, 4 M, 6 M, 7.8 M and 10 M and temperatures of 25 C and boiling. Assuming that the sludge was 100% uranium metal, a 4X stoichiometric excess of nitric acid was used for all testing, except that conducted at 4 M. In the 4 M nitric acid dissolution test, 50% excess nitric acid was used resulting in a dissolver solution with a significantly higher solids loading. The boiling tests were conducted for 11 hr, the 25 C dissolution tests were conducted from 24 hr to 2 weeks. For the 25 C dissolution testing, the weight percent residual solids was determined, however, chemical and radiochemical analyses were not performed.


Recent advances in the Sentiment Analysis field focus on the investigation about the polarities that concepts describing the same sentiment have when they are used in different domains. In this paper, we investigated on the use of fuzzy logic representation for modeling knowledge concerning the relationships between sentiment concepts and different domains. The developed system is built on top of a knowledge base defined by integrating WordNet and SenticNet, and it implements an algorithm used for learning the use of sentiment concepts from multi-domain datasets and for propagating such information to each concept of the knowledge base. The system has been validated on the Blitzer dataset, a multi-domain sentiment dataset built by using reviews of Amazon products, by demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


The last few years have witnessed the transformation of the real-time, fluorescence-based reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) from an experimental technology into a mainstream scientific tool for the detection and quantification of RNA with an enormous range of uses in basic research, molecular medicine and biotechnology. The continuous improvement of reagents and instruments, combined with the trend towards high throughput and miniaturisation, is likely to reinforce that pre-eminence and continue to open up new application areas. Nonetheless, although in principle undoubtedly a straightforward technology, the reliability of RT-qPCR assays depends a series of sequential steps that include careful experimental design, optimisation and validation, which must be implemented pragmatically to obtain meaningful, biologically relevant data.


We propose an approach to the interpretation of natural language queries, particularly relevant to the tourist industry in Thailand, by applying natural language queries against a tourism ontology containing tourism information specific to Thailand, and in the Thai language. Queries in Thai language are difficult to segment into words and meaningful phrases given that Thai has no word separation, such as in European languages which have a space between words, meaning specific Thai natural language processing is required. This paper demonstrates the identification and comparison of various methodologies currently available for segmenting natural language phrases, which allowed us to develop a hybrid approach based on aspects of natural language processing drawn from the methods analyzed. Our primary contribution is the hybrid approach, which was applied particularly to the queries and questions likely to be posed by Thai tourists in Thai language. Our discussion presents and describes the framework of the proposed methodology, which applies Thai Word Segmentation together with Trigram and the Name Entity method, together with our evaluation of the query response accuracy achieved, which collectively was 99%. We are confident that the proposed approach can be applied for developing any semantic searching application that allows natural language query, otherwise than for tourism in Thailand, our immediate concern.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze the features of patients who converted from clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) to multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and explore the correlated factors.

METHODS
A total of 151 patients admitted in our unit as CIS from January 2009 to December 2014 were enrolled in the study. All patients were divided into the following four groups by locations of the initial lesion, which were the spinal cord, the optic nerve, the brain stem and the multifocal lesions. Data were collected at the baseline including demographics, expanded disability status scale (EDSS) score, site of CIS, presence or absence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) oligoclonal bands (OB) and serum aquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4-Ab), evoked potential (EP) and MRI lesions. The conversion rates from CIS to clinically definite MS or NMO were calculated and the correlated factors were explored.

RESULTS
With a mean follow-up period of (44.11±17.62)months, 46/151(30.5%) patients converted to MS, 28/151 (18.5%) to definite NMO and 66/151 patients(43.7%)remained as CIS. Other patients were converted to optic neuritis(4/151), one-time transverse myelitis(3/151), acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (1/151) and Balo concentric sclerosis(3/151) . The EDSS score was significantly higher in patients converted to NMO than those converted to MS (P=0.003). The initial manifestation of optic neuritis significantly correlated with the conversion to NMO (P=0.000), while the initial manifestation of CIS with multifocal lesions significantly correlated with the conversion to MS (P=0.000). Neither the isolated BAEP (P=0.703), VEP (P=0.076), SEP (P=0.915) nor the combination of two (P=0.546)or three (P=1.000) of the above parameters could help to distinguish the conversion to MS or NMO. More patients with positive CSF-OB converted to MS (P=0.001), while more patients with positive serum AQP4-Ab converted to NMO (P=0.001). More patients were serum AQP4-Ab positive in those converted to NMO than those converted to MS (P=0.000). Lesions longer than three vertebral segments were dominant in patients converted to NMO (P=0.000). The logistic regression analysis revealed that factors correlated with conversion from CIS to MS were the initial CIS manifestation of multifocal lesions (OR=4.775, P=0.002), positive CSF-OB (OR=7.794, P=0.002) and VEP abnormality (OR=7.251, P=0.001). Factors correlated with conversion from CIS to NMO were female in gender (OR=12.536, P=0.019), positive serum AQP4-Ab (OR=36.410, P=0.002), lesions longer than three vertebral segments (OR=93.602, P=0.001), abnormal VEP and SEP (OR=18.448, P=0.002; OR=12.731, P=0.016).

CONCLUSIONS
Factors correlated with the conversion from CIS to MS are initial CIS manifestation of multifocal lesions, positive CSF-OB and abnormal VEP, while those correlated with the conversion from CIS to NMO are female in gender, positive serum AQP4-Ab, initial CIS manifestation with optic nerve, lesions involved more than three vertebral segments and abnormal VEP and SEP.


ABSTRACT One of the main weaknesses of the EU and causes of citizens' disaffection is its alleged scarce effectiveness in achieving its targets among various policy sectors. This, among other reasons, is due to member states' (MS) lack of compliance or uneven implementation performance, which, in turn, results from the traditional share of tasks, according to which the EU institutions adopt policies, while the MS implement them and enforce them. After many and reiterated actions by the EU, aiming to foster better and more complete compliance to EU law through soft measures and incentives to MS, another trend is emerging, by which the EU is gradually taking on direct enforcement competences in a growing number of policy sectors. Moreover, the ways through which the EU is taking the field in the enforcement phase are many and diverse, ranging from direct full enforcement powers to differently shared and networked roles with the MS and the other actors involved. In such evolving governance, a crucial role is played by EU agencies, established ad hoc or attributed new tasks to deal with enforcement issues.Arguing that such verticalization of the enforcement powers is an expanding trend, we take the fisheries sector as a case study. Among the Common Fisheries Policy, indeed, this phenomenon is already gaining traction and displays a variety of new configurations of powers. We find that verticalized enforcement takes on different shapes, depending on the specific sub-phase of the enforcement process, In addition, we provide insights on how enforcement mechanisms of the Common Fisheries Policy work in practice.


Glioblastoma is the most common and lethal primary brain tumor in adults, with a median survival less than 15 months despite current standard of care. Oncolytic immunovirotherapies (OVs) have shown promise in early clinical trials. OVs are engineered to specifically target cancer cells, trigger autophagic programmed cell death, and release tumor antigens in the context of T-cell activating cytokines. Cellular communication network factor 1 (CCN1) is an extracellular matrix protein expressed in 70% of glioblastomas that has been shown to drastically reduce OV efficacy, particularly herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). Our objectives were to decode protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks activated by CCN1, identify critical nodes in resistance networks, and use this analysis to design OVs that overcome CCN1-mediated resistance. We used NetDecoder to elucidate phenotype-specific PPI subnetworks in LN229 human glioblastoma cells with tetracycline-inducible CCN1 expression. Publicly available microarray data on CCN1-induced and control samples established differentially expressed genes, which served as sources in our PPI network to derive prioritized context-specific subnetworks. We found that 11 source genes collaborate via 39 deep nodes to confer OV resistance to CCN1-expressing glioblastomas. Of these, a router (IKBKE) and a sink (YBX1) have been previously implicated in glioblastoma pathogenesis. We conclude that autophagy regulator HSP90AA1, a critical node, may be targeted to improve OV efficacy in CCN1-expressing glioblastomas. Furthermore, WebGestalt overrepresentation analysis of subnetwork nodes suggests that oncolytic adenovirus may be more effective than HSV-1 as a synthetic biology chassis.


Objective: Type D personality—a joint tendency toward negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI)—is related to poor cardiac prognosis, but there is no standard for assessing Type D. This study reports on the Type D Scale-14 (DS14) as a standard measure of NA, SI, and Type D. Methods: The study included 3813 participants (2508 from the general population, 573 cardiac patients, 732 hypertension patients). They all filled out the DS14, containing 7-item NA and SI subscales; 275 subjects also completed the NEO-FFI, and 121 patients filled out the DS14 twice. Results: Factor analysis of the DS14 yielded 2 dominant traits; all of the NA and SI items loaded between 0.62 to 0.82 on their corresponding factor (N = 3678). The NA scale covered dysphoria, worry, and irritability; the SI scale covered discomfort in social interactions, reticence, and lack of social poise. The NA and SI scales were internally consistent (&agr; = 0.88/0.86; N = 3678), stable over a 3-month period (test–retest r = 0.72/0.82) and not dependent on mood and health status (N = 121). NA correlated positively with neuroticism (r = 0.68); SI correlated negatively with extraversion (r = −0.59/−0.65). Scale-level factor analysis confirmed the construct validity of the DS14 against the NEO-FFI. Using a cutoff of 10 (NA ≥10 and SI ≥10), 1027 subjects (28%) were classified as Type D, 21% in the general population versus 28% in coronary heart disease and 53% in hypertension (p ≤ .001). Age, sex, and Type D (odds ratio, 3.98; 95% confidence interval, 3.2–4.6; p <.0001) were independently associated with cardiovascular morbidity. Conclusion: The DS14 is a brief, psychometrically sound measure of negative affectivity and social inhibition that could readily be incorporated in epidemiologic and clinical research. CHD = coronary heart diseaseDS14 = Type D Scale-14GMS = Global Mood ScaleHCS = Health Complaints ScaleLVEF = left ventricular ejection fractionNA = negative affectivityNEO-FFI = NEO Five Factor InventorySI = social inhibition.


OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of hydrocortisone combined with vitamin C and vitamin B1 versus hydrocortisone on sublingual microcirculation in septic shock patients. METHODS: This pilot study enrolled septic shock patients admitted to the ICU of a tertiary teaching hospital from February 2019 to January 2020. We randomly assigned the enrolled patients to the treatment group (hydrocortisone combined with vitamin C and vitamin B1 added to standard care) and the control group (hydrocortisone alone added to standard care) in a 1 : 1 ratio. The primary outcome was perfused small vascular density (sPVD) monitored by a sublingual microcirculation imaging system at 24 hours after treatment. RESULTS: Twelve patients in the treatment group and ten in the control group completed the study. The baseline characteristics were comparable between the groups. No statistically significant difference was found in the sPVD between the groups at baseline. The sPVD in the treatment group was significantly higher than that in the control group at 4 hours after treatment (mean difference, 7.042; 95% CI, 2.227-11.857; P = 0.009) and 24 hours after treatment (mean difference, 7.075; 95% CI, 2.390-11.759; P = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: Compared with hydrocortisone, hydrocortisone combined with vitamin C and vitamin B1 significantly improves microcirculation in septic shock patients.


Traditional bulk RNA sequencing assesses the average expression level of genes in tissues rather than the differences in cellular responses. Accordingly, it is hard to differentiate sensitive responding cells, leading to inaccurate identification of toxicity pathways. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) isolated single cells from tissue and subjected them to cell subtypes-specific transcriptome analysis. This technique in toxicological studies realizes the heterogeneous cellular responses in the tissue microenvironment upon chemical exposure. Thus it helps to identify sensitive responding cells and key molecular events, providing a powerful tool and a new perspective for exploring the mechanisms of toxicity and the modes of action. This review summarizes the development, principle, method, application and limitations of scRNA-seq in mechanistic toxicological researches, and discusses the prospect of multi-directional applications.


Background: The PAKs are effectors of Rac/cdc42. Results: Identification of a pyridopyrimidinone, as a potent inhibitor of the group I PAKs that shows anti-tumor activity in vivo. Conclusion: A pyridopyrimidinone provides a scaffold for development of high specificity group I PAK inhibitors. Significance: Identification class of orally available ATP-competitive Group I PAK inhibitors with significant potential for the treatment of NF2. The p21-activated kinases (PAKs) are immediate downstream effectors of the Rac/Cdc42 small G-proteins and implicated in promoting tumorigenesis in various types of cancer including breast and lung carcinomas. Recent studies have established a requirement for the PAKs in the pathogenesis of Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2), a dominantly inherited cancer disorder caused by mutations at the NF2 gene locus. Merlin, the protein product of the NF2 gene, has been shown to negatively regulate signaling through the PAKs and the tumor suppressive functions of Merlin are mediated, at least in part, through inhibition of the PAKs. Knockdown of PAK1 and PAK2 expression, through RNAi-based approaches, impairs the proliferation of NF2-null schwannoma cells in culture and inhibits their ability to form tumors in vivo. These data implicate the PAKs as potential therapeutic targets. High-throughput screening of a library of small molecules combined with a structure-activity relationship approach resulted in the identification of FRAX597, a small-molecule pyridopyrimidinone, as a potent inhibitor of the group I PAKs. Crystallographic characterization of the FRAX597/PAK1 complex identifies a phenyl ring that traverses the gatekeeper residue and positions the thiazole in the back cavity of the ATP binding site, a site rarely targeted by kinase inhibitors. FRAX597 inhibits the proliferation of NF2-deficient schwannoma cells in culture and displayed potent anti-tumor activity in vivo, impairing schwannoma development in an orthotopic model of NF2. These studies identify a novel class of orally available ATP-competitive Group I PAK inhibitors with significant potential for the treatment of NF2 and other cancers.


Background Radiographic damage was recently considered to be a feature of poor prognosis in cases of polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (pJIA). However, most radiographic studies did not differentiate pJIA from other subtypes of JIA and did not include a control group. Furthermore little is known about radiographic damages in pJIA persisting into adulthood. Objectives To describe structural peripheral involvement in pJIA persisting into adulthood and compare observed lesions to those seen in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using a cross-sectional observational study. Methods All consecutive pJIA followed in a transition program were included. Age, sex, disease duration, medical or surgical treatments were collected. Laboratory tests (ESR, CRP, Rheumatoid Factor (RF) and anti-CCP) and standard radiographies of the hands and wrists, feet and hip were performed. A RA control group (<55 years), matched for sex and disease duration, was recruited. Radiographs were analyzed by two independent radiologists blinded to the diagnosis. Structural lesions on the hands and feet were assessed by the modified version of Larsen's scoring method. The hands and feet scores range from 0 to 110 and from 0 to 50, respectively. Hips were assessed for presence of coxitis. Student and Fischer exact test were used. Results 58pJIA (48 females/10 males) and 59 RA (52/7) were included. Respectively, mean age was 23.5±10.0 years and 43.2±9.6 years and mean disease duration 13.1±11.1 and 12.2±7.1 years. 60% and 80% were RF positive and 57% and 78% were anti-CCP positive (p=0.02). The inter-observer concordance coefficient kappa was 0.614 between the two investigators. Four pJIA patients had previous hand or feet surgery and 7 in RA group avoiding radiographs evaluation. Radiographs showed hand lesions in 41/54 (76%) pJIA and 42/50 (84%) RA-patients, feet lesions in 35/54 (65%) pJIA and 45/57 (79%) RA-patients and coxitis in 16/54 (30%) pJIA and 8/47 (17%) RA-patients (p=NS for all comparisons). Mean hands and feet scores were 17.9±21.8 and 7.7±10.8 in pJIA and 18.5±17.6 and 9.9±11.3 in RA, respectively (p=NS). Coxitis was bilateral in 13/16 (81%) in pJIA and in 2/8 (25%) of the cases of RA-patients, respectively (p=0.005). Hand damages involved wrists, metacarpophalangeal, proximal interphalangeal and distal interphalangeal joints in pJIA without statistical significant difference when compared to RA. RF-positive patients differed from RF-negative patients only by a shorter disease duration (10.4±9.3 vs. 17.3±12.6, p=0.02). Radiographic comparison between RF-positive and RF-negative patients revealed a higher frequency of hand damage (29/34 vs. 12/21) and less coxitis (5/31 vs. 11/23) in RF-positive subgroup (p=0.02 and 0.01, respectively). In pJIA, presence of radiographic damage correlated with a more severe disease phenotype: higher frequencies of biotherapies and surgery (p=0.009 and p=0.02, respectively), but not with RF status. Conclusions Structural peripheral damages are frequent in young adults with pJIA and correlated with a more severe disease. A specific feature to pJIA seems to be a high risk of bilateral coxitis. This requires a particular following and monitoring of pJIA patients with unilateral hip involvement to prevent bilateralization. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


40% of a group of children with spina bifida were identified as having the "cocktail party" syndrome at the age of 5. In comparison to spina bifida cases with meaningful speech, children with this syndrome tended to have more severe multiple physical handicaps and to be of significantly lower intelligence. At the age of 7 there were significant differences between the two groups in school performance. Reassessment at 10 showed that almost half of the children no longer showed this syndrome, but those who retained this behaviour were grossly retarded. The aetiology of the condition is discussed.


An assessment of the relative magnitude of the timescales of mixing and aggregation of fully destabilized polymeric latices in stirred vessels is presented. It is demonstrated that, in industrially relevant conditions (that is, volume fractions above 10% and primary aggregate sizes below 200 nm), latices aggregate and possibly gel before complete mixing is achieved. By means of focused beam reflectance measurements, we measure on-line and in situ the size of aggregates obtained aggregating a PVDC latex at salt concentrations above the critical coagulation concentration in a stirred vessel operated in semibatch. Several experimental runs are conducted and averages of the aggregate size distribution, that is, volume and number averages, are measured at various values of the feed flowrate, feed solid volume fraction, stirring speed and final volume fraction in the vessel. It is,found that at high feeding volume fractions aggregates instantaneously aggregate and gel on entering the vessel. Resulting aggregates are then broken down to volume weighted average sizes falling in the range between 100 and 400 microns at steady state. The experimental results are interpreted in terms of a competition between the aggregation/gelation process and mixing. In particular, by evaluating the relevant characteristic times, it is found that the process is dominated by the competition between mesomixing at the location, where the latex enters the vessel and the aggregation/gelation process. Scanning electron micrographs of dry samples obtained after thermal treatment show aggregate morphologies which further support the above interpretation.


At Pedro Beach on the southeastern coast of Australia a series of foredune ridges provides an opportunity to explore the morphodynamic paradigm as it applies to coastal barrier systems using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, ground penetrating radar (GPR) and airborne LiDAR topography. A series of sandy dune‐capped ridges, increasing in height seawards, formed from c. 7000 years ago to c. 3900 years ago. During this time the shoreline straightened as the embayment filled and accommodation space for Holocene sediments diminished. Calculation of Holocene sediment accumulation above mean sea level utilising airborne LiDAR topography shows a decline in average sediment supply over this time period coupled with a decrease in shoreline progradation rate from 1.2 m/yr to 0.38 m/yr. The average ridge 'exposure lifetime' during this period increases resulting in higher ridges as dune‐forming processes have longer to operate. Increasing exposure to wave and wind energy also appears to have resulted in higher ridges as the sheltering effect of marginal headlands was diminished. An inherited disequilibrium shoreface profile will drive onshore accumulation of sandy sediments forming a prograded barrier; however, if there is no longer 'accommodation space' for sediment, this will be an overriding factor causing the cessation of progradation, as occurred c. 3900 years ago at Pedro Beach. Excess sediment in the nearshore zone after 3900 years ago may have been moved northward to nourish downdrift beaches in the compartment. A high outer foredune has formed through vertical accretion after 500 years ago, evidenced by GPR subsurface structures and OSL ages, with a distinct period of vertical and lee slope accretion and dated to the period 1890–1930 AD. The increased dune sediment transport resulting in foredune building is attributed to recent human disturbance. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The adsorption and dissociation of methane on the IrO2(110) surface were investigated by density functional theory calculations. The adsorption energy of methane obtained in this study is −0.41 eV on the stoichiometric surface and −0.63 eV on the oxygen-rich surface, which are significantly higher than those calculated recently on other different catalytic systems. Analyses from density of states and electron density difference show a special interaction between the C–H bonding orbital and the dz2 orbital of surface iridium atom. In addition, the first hydrogen atom abstraction of methane by the IrO2(110) surface is a reaction with low barrier and high exothermic energy. The lower reaction barrier than the desorption energy indicates that the IrO2(110) surface could provide not only high sticking coefficient but also high turnover frequency in methane dissociation reaction.


Summary Background Emotion processing is essential for well-being and psychosocial adaptation. Alexithymia is widely viewed as an impairment in emotion processing that includes difficulty identifying and describing emotions. While there is a significant understanding of primary alexithymia, which is thought to be the result of developmental genetic and familial factors, secondary and organic alexithymia are beginning to be focus of research. Method and results The present review of the literature suggests the importance of differentiating between primary and secondary alexithymia, and the organic subtype of secondary alexithymia. Secondary alexithymia is thought to be a consequence of psychological stress, chronic disease, or organic processes (e.g. brain trauma or stroke) that occur after childhood (whereas primary alexithymia is a developmental phenomenon). Organic insults to the brain may bring about the organic form of alexithymia by altering cerebral structures involved in emotional processing (e.g. anterior cingulate cortex, frontostriatal networks, callosum corpus, right hemisphere cortex and amygdala). The usefulness of differentiating among alexithymia categories and their relationships with brain structures known to subserve emotional processing is discussed.


The introduction of section 12H of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962, inserted by section 18(1) of Act 30 of 2002, and subsequently amended, was to encourage employers to create and develop skills, and to create jobs. Section 12H is an incentive to employers offering learnerships registered with a Sector Education and Training Authority ('SETA') and apprenticeships registered with the Department of Labour, and provides an additional tax deduction over and above the deduction of salary costs. However, on 1 October 2016 the incentive comes to an end in respect of so-called 'registered learnership agreements' entered into between learners and employers. SARS and the National Treasury are currently in the process of extending the term of section 12H because its incentives by way of generous tax allowances can be advantageous to employment.
This article examines the various allowances available within the section and illustrates the benefit of the section to employers by way of a number of examples. Some of the complexities in the interpretation of the meaning of a 'full month' within a tax year are also explored, because, depending on when a learnership commences during a tax year, a full month may not necessarily be completed in that year.
Section 12H distinguishes between a base allowance, which is an annual deduction of R30 000 per employee with no disability, and R50 000 per disabled employee. In the year in which the employee successfully completes the learnership contract, a completion allowance of R30 000 will be deductible from the employer's income per learner with no disability, and R50 000 per disabled learner. The completion allowance will increase if the learnership agreement is for a period of 24 months or more. The R30 000 allowance is increased by multiplying this amount by the number of consecutive 12-month periods of the learnership agreement. So, for a 24-month learnership agreement the completion allowance will amount to R60 000.


Lignocellulosic biomass which are frond and empty fruit bunches (EFB) is second generation raw material for ethanol production. Lignocellulose USAge is expected to create a green process. Utilization of lignocellulose materials into ethanol involved four main processes, i.e pretreatment, hydrolysis/sacharification, fermentation, distillation and dehydration ethanol that was product. This research aims to optimize hydrolysis process of EFB and frond by using sulfated zirconia catalyst characterized its physical and chemical properties as a solid acid catalyst. Catalytic hydrolysis process conducted at 160 DCfor 3 hours gave the highest TRS (Total Reducing Sugar) which is 17,51 % for EFB while for frondfor 2 hours which is 19,23 % .


This multicentric study compared 14-day treatment with loratadine (Clarityne) 10 mg once daily, terfenadine 60 mg twice daily and placebo in outpatients with seasonal allergic rhinitis. Of 275 patients enrolled, 256 (87 in the loratadine group, 89 in the terfenadine group and 80 in the placebo group) were evaluable for efficacy and 266 (90, 91 and 85 in respective groups) were evaluable for safety. Investigators graded the severity of 4 nasal and 4 nonnasal signs/symptoms and investigators and patients rated overall disease condition and therapeutic response on treatment days 3, 7 and 14; patients recorded when signs/symptoms of rhinitis were relieved, as well. Hematology and blood chemistry tests were conducted before and after therapy, and patients were questioned throughout the study about possible adverse experiences. At all visits, loratadine and terfenadine were significantly superior to placebo (p less than or equal to 0.004), and the two active medications were statistically comparable, based on mean totals of sign/symptom severity scores and ratings of overall disease condition and therapeutic response. By patients' last valid visit, mean totals of sign/symptoms severity scores improved by 56% and 53% for loratadine and terfenadine groups, respectively, but exacerbated by 5% for the placebo group. Moreover, an excellent or a good therapeutic response was observed in 58/87 (67%) loratadine-treated patients and 58/89 (65%) terfenadine-treated patients, as compared to 13/80 (16%) placebo-treated patients (p less than 0.01). A total of 61/76 (30%) patients in the loratadine group and 57/78 (73%) in the terfenadine group versus 22/71 (31%) in the placebo group experienced relief within the first 3 days of therapy (p less than 0.01).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Agenesia of the Mullerian system is a congenital syndrome seldom seen in siblings. This report concerns two sisters with the syndrome. In one of them, the vagina was successfully reconstructed, and the other is awaiting the same operation.


We propose a single-shot wavelength-selective quantitative phase microscopy by annular white-light illumination, polarization-phase-division, and parallel phase-shifting. Compared to conventional multi-wavelength incoherence digital holography, the proposed microscopy presents the following merits: no switching of illumination or mechanical scanning, high spatiotemporal phase sensitivity, and single-shot reconstruction at each wavelength. Experiments validate these characteristics by quantitative phase imaging of gratings, cells, and tissues.


An inflammatory response of the skin to dithranol-induced free radicals seems to be essential for its clinical efficacy. In normal volunteers this response was evaluated at the level of the microvasculature following 30 min, 2 h and 24 h applications, using a functional parameter (erythema) and a biochemical parameter (alkaline phosphatase). The results of 'short contact' and 24 h applications were similar. In all schedules a maximum erythema was seen 2-3 days after the application which had resolved totally after 6-8 days. A marked discrepancy was established between the duration of functional and biochemical abnormalities; the alkaline phosphatase activity reached a maximum 1 day after the culmination of the erythema and persisted up to at least 7 days after disappearance of the erythema. These findings are discussed in the light of the day-to-day management of psoriasis with dithranol.


Mental health policy development in the UK has become increasingly dominated by the assumed need to prevent violence and alleviate public concerns about the dangers of the mentally ill living in the community. Risk management has become the expected focus of contemporary mental health services, and responsibility has increasingly been devolved to individual service professionals when systems fail to prevent violence. This paper analyses the development of mental health legislation and its impact on services users and mental health professionals at the micro level of service delivery. Historical precedence, media influence and public opinion are explored, and the reification of risk is questioned in practical and ethical terms. The government's newest proposals for compulsory treatment in the community are discussed in terms of practical efficacy and therapeutic impact. Dangerousness is far from being an objectively observable phenomenon arising from clinical pathology, but is a formulation of what is partially knowable through social analysis and unknowable by virtue of its situation in individual psychic motivation. Risk assessment can therefore never be completely accurate, and the solution of a 'better safe than sorry' approach to mental health policy is ethically and pragmatically flawed.


The variable annuity product has many desirable features for retirement saving purposes, such as stock-linked growth potential, protection against losses in the investment, and guarantees of minimum payout amount at annuitization. Therefore, it is of great interest to study this product for designing next generation retirement solutions. Policyholder behavior is one of the most important profit or loss factors for the variable annuity product, and insurance companies generally do not have sophisticated models at the current time. This paper will discuss a new approach using modern statistical learning techniques to model policyholder withdrawal behavior with promising results. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The Hippocratic Oath proclaims: "I will keep [the sick] from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect." This is an essential precept for a flourishing civil society. No one, especially a doctor, should be permitted to kill intentionally, or assist in killing intentionally, an innocent neighbor.


Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International. By Stephen Hopgood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. 249p. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. As human rights promotion gradually comes to rival development and democratization in the Western policy pantheon, more human rights–related books appear each year. Only a minority of these are empirically and methodologically rigorous, however, and even fewer are theoretically adventurous. Stephen Hopgood's unique study of Amnesty International is thus a welcome contribution from a political scientist with anthropological instincts, and it is likely to become a classic in the field. Hopgood immersed himself for over a year in Amnesty's culture, rituals, and politics, and then interpreted this data with insights from Emile Durkheim and Pierre Bourdieu. He writes clearly and well, and his interpretations should appeal to students of transnational organizing, human rights, and international affairs, broadly conceived.


In order to improve contrast and restore color for underwater image captured by camera sensors without suffering from insufficient details and color cast, a fusion algorithm for image enhancement in different color spaces based on contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) is proposed in this article. The original color image is first converted from RGB color space to two different special color spaces: YIQ and HSI. The color space conversion from RGB to YIQ is a linear transformation, while the RGB to HSI conversion is nonlinear. Then, the algorithm separately operates CLAHE in YIQ and HSI color spaces to obtain two different enhancement images. The luminance component (Y) in the YIQ color space and the intensity component (I) in the HSI color space are enhanced with CLAHE algorithm. The CLAHE has two key parameters: Block Size and Clip Limit, which mainly control the quality of CLAHE enhancement image. After that, the YIQ and HSI enhancement images are respectively converted backward to RGB color. When the three components of red, green, and blue are not coherent in the YIQ-RGB or HSI-RGB images, the three components will have to be harmonized with the CLAHE algorithm in RGB space. Finally, with 4 direction Sobel edge detector in the bounded general logarithm ratio operation, a self-adaptive weight selection nonlinear image enhancement is carried out to fuse YIQ-RGB and HSI-RGB images together to achieve the final fused image. The enhancement fusion algorithm has two key factors: average of Sobel edge detector and fusion coefficient, and these two factors determine the effects of enhancement fusion algorithm. A series of evaluate metrics such as mean, contrast, entropy, colorfulness metric (CM), mean square error (MSE) and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) are used to assess the proposed enhancement algorithm. The experiments results showed that the proposed algorithm provides more detail enhancement and higher values of colorfulness restoration as compared to other existing image enhancement algorithms. The proposed algorithm can suppress effectively noise interference, improve the image quality for underwater image availably.


Recovery processes are complex; understanding them can help make reclamation a success. Many of the things that have been done in the name of traditional reclamation have actually served to slow or even stop the recovery of the disturbed site. In other cases, failure to conduct simple treatments early in the process can lead to the collapse of the reclaimed ecosystem over the long term. Understanding the ecology of recovery can help prevent treatments that work against natural recovery processes. Similarly, understanding the processes involved in ecosystem recovery can allow treatments that enhance these processes. Simple abiotic (physical) treatments can be used to expedite the recovery of drastically disturbed sites. Planting designs that make use of native pioneering species can be used to re-establish successional trajectories that will lead to productive ecosystems that are in accord with the local ecosystems. This paper explores the ecology of recovery processes and the treatments that can be applied to drastically disturbed sites to assist in these processes.


Employee scheduling is a well known problem that appears in a wide range of different areas including health care, airlines, transportation services, and basically any other organization that has to deal with workforces. The creation of efficient schedules often becomes essential not only to save avoidable costs, but also to provide a healthy work environment and to satisfy the preferences of the employees. Although different approaches based on heuristics as well as exact solution techniques have been proposed in the past, there is still a great demand for innovative strategies which are able to find good solutions for the many existing variants of employee scheduling problems. This thesis proposes two novel solution approaches for well known instances of the employee scheduling problem and evaluates their performance. The first approach provides for the first time a weighted partial boolean maximum satisfiability model for employee scheduling. An analysis of different encoding variants is performed and results achieved by leading maximum satisfiability solvers are evaluated. The second solution approach which is proposed in this thesis introduces a novel hybrid algorithm that combines metaheuristic techniques with exact solution strategies that are based on constraint programming. Using an implementation of the proposed algorithm, a large number of experiments is then conducted on a number of well known problem instances from the literature. The obtained results are compared with the best known solutions which were acquired by state of the art methods. An empirical evaluation of the proposed methods shows their competitiveness with state of the art solutions. The maximum satisfiability model is used successfully to verify optimal bounds and to produce feasible solutions for most of the considered problem instances. Using the hybrid algorithm that is proposed in the thesis, results produced by state of the art techniques are improved for the majority of the considered problem instances. Additionally, five new unknown upper bounds are provided for the considered problem instances.


Drug discovery based on classic models for cognitive impairment and negative symptoms of schizophrenia have met with only modest success. Because cognitive impairment and negative symptoms may result from disruptions in neurodevelopment, more complex developmental models that integrate environmental and genetic risk factors are needed. In addition, it has become clear that biochemical pathways involved in schizophrenia form complex, interconnected networks. Points at which risk factors converge, such as brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and protein kinase B (AKT), and from which processes involved in neuroplasticity diverge, are of particular interest for pharmacologic interventions. This paper reviews elements of neurodevelopmental models for cognitive deficits and negative symptoms of schizophrenia with the aim of identifying potential targets for interventions.


Abstract. The article deals with the class Fα consisting of non-vanishing functions f that are analytic and univalent in D such that the complement C\f(D) is a convex set, f(1) = ∞, f(0) = 1 and the angle at ∞ is less than or equal to απ, for some α ∈ (1, 2]. Related to this class is the class CO(α) of concave univalent mappings in D, but this differs from Fα with the standard normalization f(0) = 0 = f (0) = 1. A number of properties of these classes are discussed which includes an easy proof of the coefficient conjecture for CO(2) settled by Avkhadiev et al. [3]. Moreover, another interesting result connected with the Yamashita conjecture on Dirichlet finite integral for CO(α) is also presented.


Threatening Peace: Violence Abstract Violence against Women (VAW) is the most shameful act of human rights violation. It is like an epidemic which destroys the lives of women all around the world. VAW is actu-ally a latent form of war that takes place in every corner of the world, affecting millions of women all through their lives. This heinous act is not only a threat to the enjoyment of basic human rights but it also affects the future potentiality of women ' s involvement in both the private and public sphere. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze the relationship between VAW and peace. As long as women are subject to violence, we cannot achieve a truely peaceful world. As women constitute half the world ' s population, it is high time that we should give earnest effort eradicating this problem and paving way for peace.


An open-type X-band resonator was constructed of two cylindrical reflectors with crossed axes, separated by half the radius of curvature. The diffraction loss of this structure was found to be several orders of magnitude less than when the axes of the cylinders were made parallel, while the otherwise equivalent flat-flat resonator had the highest loss of all. A formula for the resonant frequencies of spherical confocal resonators, suitably modified, was found to predict the lowest mode resonances of the crossed-cylinder resonator with good accnracy.


The present study investigates the nature of egocentric biases in a situation where a speaker is surrounded by social actors with different perspectives. In this context, the author investigated how communication channels function to ease egocentric bias during collaborative activities. To investigate this point, the author used conversational agents as social actors. The present study therefore created a virtual situation where a speaker was surrounded by several speakers. The author hypothesized that the diversity of communication channels available to the audience would increase the awareness of others and facilitate the adoption of an exocentric perspective. The results of the analysis show that participants who engaged in the collaboration task with various communication channels used fewer egocentric perspectives. Studies in egocentrism and communication have not yet investigated the conversational dynamics of multiple speakers. This study therefore provides a new perspective about the kinds of factors that may ease such biases. Facilitating Perspective Taking in Groups: An Analysis Using Multiple Conversational Agents


ABSTRACT Fractures in the maxillofacial region are among the most frequent incidences in patients exposed to trauma. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of 2100 MHz electromagnetic radiation on the healing of mandibular fractures in rabbits. The study was carried out on 12 mature male New Zealand rabbits. After producing a left mandibular osteotomy, the fracture was repaired by using a plate screw. The rabbits were divided into two groups – control and experimental. The experimental group was exposed for 3 h daily to a 2100 MHz radiofrequency (RF) for 28 d. Biomechanical, histopathological and radiological tests were performed during the healing of the mandibular bone. According to the biomechanical tests, the energy absorption capacity, toughness and maximum strength of the mandibular bone were increased compared to the control group (6.84 vs. 2.57, 0.135 vs. 0.041 and 22.21 vs. 10.32, respectively). No significant differences between the two groups were found during the radiological assessment. However, the histopathological examination revealed that the fracture healing score was higher in the experimental group when compared to the control group (8.0 vs. 2.75, respectively). In conclusion, the results of this study showed that a 2100 MHz RF radiation positively affected fracture healing.


Recent studies reinforce the consistent finding of a J-shaped inverse association between alcohol and cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality, primarily as a result of the underlying association between alcohol and coronary heart disease. The most plausible mechanism behind this effect is through increases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. All types of alcoholic beverage reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, suggesting that ethanol is responsible for the protective effect.


In March, 1950, Dr. Howard C. Smith removed the central lobe of my prostate at the Church Home and Hospital. He described it as the largest central lobe he had ever encountered in surgery; the weight was 254 gm. The posterior incision healed by first intention; nevertheless, there was a great amount of leakage from the urethral orifice, evidently due to laxness after removal of the large tumor. As soon as I was well enough, Mrs. Cullen, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing, undertook control of the leakage. She selected a waterproof plastic, 1 so soft that it could hardly be felt. She made a round bag of this material sufficiently large to contain the genitalia, with a wide hem through which to draw tapes. Two absorbent pads were placed in the bag, the bag was placed around the genitalia, and the tapes were drawn tight


This rich history illuminates the lives and partnerships of five married couples – two British, three American – whose unions defied the conventions of their time and anticipated social changes that were to come in the ensuing century. In all five marriages, both husband and wife enjoyed thriving professional lives: a shocking circumstance at a time when wealthy white married women were not supposed to have careers, and career women were not supposed to marry.
 Patricia Auspos examines what we can learn from the relationships of the Palmers, the Youngs, the Parsons, the Webbs, and the Mitchells, exploring the implications of their experiences for our understanding of the history of gender equality and of professional work. In expert and lucid fashion, Auspos draws out the interconnections between the institutions of marriage and professional life at a time when both were undergoing critical changes, by looking specifically at how a pioneering generation tried to combine the two.
 Based on extensive archival research and drawing on mostly unpublished letters, journals, pocket diaries, poetry, and autobiographical writings, Breaking Conventions tells the intimate stories of five path-breaking marriages and the social dynamics they confronted and revealed. This book will appeal to scholars, students, and anyone interested in women's studies, gender studies, masculinity studies, histories of women in the professions, and the history of marriage.


ABSTRACT Baby spinach is a relatively new crop of commercial significance in South Africa with considerable health attributes. Three parallel trials to investigate its response to nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) were conducted. N and P (0, 45, 75, 105, and 120 kg·ha−1) and K (0, 63, 85, 127, and 148 kg·ha−1) treatments were applied to baby spinach in a randomized block design with four replications. After the parallel trial, NPK combination trial was also done. The biomass yield, chlorophyll content, and leaf area index increased significantly with increase in N and P rates; K had no effect on the yield, chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance, and leaf area index. Yield and chlorophyll content peaked at 75 kg·ha−1 of N/P but growth was best optimized at the NPK combination of 45:45:60 kg·ha−1.


BACKGROUND
Sarcoidosis and Sjögren's syndrome (SS) are chronic multi-system inflammatory diseases of unknown origin that most commonly attack the salivary glands. Both of the diseases have vague and nonspecific symptoms, causing difficulties for the clinicians to distinguish between the two diseases. Most diagnostic criteria of SS exclude sarcoidosis. However, a coexistence of both diseases should be noted. Here, we reported a case of coexisting sarcoidosis and Sjögren's syndrome, complicated with severe hypercalcemia and renal failure, in addition to a literature review.

CASE REPORT
A 71-year-old man visited our hospital complaining of daily progressive oral dryness, thirst and blurred vision with a feeling of dry eyes for one-year duration. His physical examination showed enlargement of both sides of cervical and supraclavicular lymph nodes. Lung auscultation showed decreased breath sounds with bibasilar inspiratory crackles. However, initial laboratory results revealed severe hypercalcemia with moderate hypercalciuria and renal failure. The final diagnosis was coexisting SS and sarcoidosis according to clinical, radiological and laboratory data. The patient received oral prednisone therapy for 18 months. After a follow-up of years, the serum calcium concentration, renal function, and chest CT scan remained normal after prednisone treatment stopped for more than 18 months.

CONCLUSION
In the literature, calcium metabolic disorder and renal involvement have not been reported among patients with Sarcoidosis and Sjögren's syndrome, suggesting that calcium metabolic disorder may be underestimated. Serum and urine calcium concentration should be measured in addition to routine laboratory test.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

Oncogenic signaling through the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) MET has been implicated in driving tumor cell invasive growth. High expression of MET or its cognate ligand, the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) have been associated with poor prognosis in multiple cancer types, including pancreatic cancer. MET has also been implicated in co-operative signaling with other RTKs, including those in the HER family. We examined the expression of MET and HGF in a panel of pancreatic cancer cell lines and examined the impact of MET activation on cell signaling. While most lines were uniformly positive for MET protein, 6/12 lines not co-expressing HGF and MET, and all sub-lines of the autocrine KP4 line, demonstrated constitutive phosphorylation of MET (p-MET) in normal growth conditions. All lines were positive for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) protein and had basal levels of phosphorylated-EGFR (p-EGFR) with evidence of downstream activity in the MAPK and PI3K signaling pathways. Treatment of some lines expressing constitutive p-MET with the small molecule MET inhibitor GDC-0712 resulted in suppression of both p-MET and p-EGFR. However, treatment of these same lines with erlotinib resulted in no inhibition of p-EGFR or p-MET, strongly suggesting that MET activates EGFR phosphorylation. Co-suppression of MET with GDC-0712 or onartuzumab (MetMAb) and erlotinib resulted in greater inhibition than either agent alone. We assessed whether anti-tumor activity could be further improved by targeting downstream molecules of MET or EGFR signaling, including modulators of the Ras or PI3K pathways, in combination with MET inhibitors. Improved cell inhibition was seen with combinations of MET inhibitors and the MEK inhibitor GDC-0973 compared with either agent alone, with greater activity than combinations of MET and EGFR inhibitors. Analysis of the combination of MET inhibitors with GDC-0973 revealed that Ras signaling contributed to the stability of total MET levels, resulting in lower total p-MET burden when MEK was inhibited. The combination of MET and MEK inhibitors produced greater suppression of downstream signaling through ERK and the ribosomal S6 kinase, which resulted in better induction of the pro-apoptotic mediator Bim and induction of cleaved caspase 3. These effects were not seen with combinations of MET and PI3K inhibitors in vitro. Lastly, MET inhibitors were evaluated in combination with MEK, PI3K or EGFR inhibitors in pancreatic xenograft tumor models. The combination of MET and MEK inhibitors resulted in additive anti-tumor activity whereas there was little to no apparent increase in activity with combinations of MET and PI3K or EGFR inhibitors. These data provide evidence for an interplay between MET and mutant Ras signal transduction and provide a rationale for combination of MET and MEK inhibitors in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Citation Format: Nai-Ying Yang, Jing Peng, Janet Tien, Mark Merchant. Inhibition of pancreatic cancer cell and tumor growth using MET inhibitors in combination with inhibitors of downstream signaling mediators, MEK and PI3K. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2162. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-2162


Atmospheric moisture content is critical in hydrological modeling yet is sparsely measured in mountainous environments. We compared densely distributed measurements of dew point temperature in two study sites in the Sierra Nevada, California, against (1) simple empirical algorithms, (2) the Parameter‐elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), (3) radiosonde data, and (4) the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model. Empirical algorithms that used only one sea‐level measurement of dew point to extrapolate to higher elevations often did not match local dew point lapse rates and could be biased as high as 9.9°C. PRISM improved upon these methods by using local observations to determine the local average dew point lapse rate, with median bias values of −0.3°C and 3.3°C in our two study sites. Empirical algorithms that derived dew point from air temperature showed a seasonal variation in performance; summer median bias values were 0.6°C–8.2°C wetter than winter bias values. Radiosonde readings showed median biases of −6.5°C and −8.0°C from observations in our study sites. WRF improved on the radiosonde data, performing well in representing both the overall trends in the basin (with median biases of −0.9°C and −1.0°C in our study sites). One base station within the basin paired with PRISM lapse rates showed small biases from overall moisture trends. However, a physically resolved model such as WRF was better equipped to represent daily dew point variations and in basins with nonlinear trends.


Cancer cells can be killed by reducing the production of ATP from various pathways, however, this has not been exploited to any great extent in cancer therapy, principally because orthodox cytotoxic compounds were either effective in killing cells or resulted in multidrug resistance. An upregulation of the fatty acid synthase gene (FASN) has been observed in many cancer cells and indeed the overexpression of FASN in human mammary epithelial cells following transient transfection with a full length FASN plasmid appears to be sufficient to progress the cells toward a neoplastic state. It would appear that the overproduction of fatty acids is favourable toward the progression and survival of cancer cells. Human breast cancer cells could be effectively killed by the simultaneous inhibition of fatty acid transport to the mitochondria for beta-oxidation via carnitine palmitoyl transferase-1 (CPT-1) which is regulated by the CPT1C gene. In retrospect this is an extremely important pathway as beta-oxidation is the most efficient cellular ATP-generating system. The CPT1C gene correlates closely with tumour cell survival and human lung tumours overexpress the CPT1C gene with the level of overexpression being between 10- and 100-fold greater. In MCF-7 human breast cancer cells CPT1C was overexpressed and in comparison to cells which had been transfected with control vector, fatty acid oxidation (palmitic acid) and ATP production were increased. It has also been shown that the CPT1C gene confers resistance to rapamycin. It was demonstrated that HT116 human colon cancer cells could be sensitised toward rapamycin-induced inhibition of growth by siRNA targeted at the CPT1C gene. This clearly reveals the critical importance of CPT1C gene expression in cancer cell survival. This has been confirmed by the demonstration that the growth of human breast cancer cells correlates with increased expression of the CPT1C gene and inhibition of CPT-1 activity (by etomoxir - a CPT-1 inhibitor) resulted in a pronounced reduction in the viability of human glioblastoma cells. This is important as glioblastoma cells are intensely resistant to cell death mechanisms and thus affirms CPT-1 and its expression as an important anticancer target.


Modern management process may be viewed as one constant series of decision making and creation of conditions for effective decision realization. In the process of organizing it is important to verify the organization effectiveness and implement corrections in order to maintain or increase this effectiveness. For the purpose of situation diagnosis and improvement of organization's results, the three-efficiency-levels approach is used (organization level, process level, workstation level). Degree of decision effectiveness (efficiency) will depend on rationality of the problem solving process. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the primary and supporting goals as well as strategies for their realization and to take care of the quality of organization's internal activities, which includes full readiness for cooperation and flexibility towards changes.


This volume is the first full-length publication to systematically unpack and analyze the linguistic practices and ideologies of "new speakers" specifically in an Irish language context. The book introduces the theoretical foundations of the new speaker framework as it manifests itself in the Irish setting, describes its historical precedents, and traces its evolution to today. The book then draws upon a rich set of data and research methods, including participant observation and ethnographic fieldwork to examine the new speaker phenomenon in Irish in greater detail. Areas of analysis include new speakers' language practices and usage and the ways in which they position their linguistic identities both within their respective communities and in juxtaposition with "native" speakers. While the book's focus is on Irish, the volume will contribute to a greater understanding of new speaker practices and ideologies in minority language contexts more generally, making this key reading for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, language policy and planning, anthropology, and Irish studies.


The performance in biology at the secondary level has not been as good as expected. This has been a matter of concern. Thus, there has been a continuous focus on exploring newer innovative learner-centered and friendly instructional strategies to enhance understanding and retention in biology. This study, therefore, determined the effects of Concept Mapping (CM) and Cooperative Mastery Learning (CML) on fostering retention in photosynthesis among secondary schools in Nyamagabe district, Rwanda. A pre-test and post-test non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design was used. Data were obtained from 151 students taught with CM, 144 students taught with CML, and 154 students taught with Conventional Teaching Methods (CTM). The Photosynthesis Retention Test (KR-21= 0.82) was used for data collection. The data were mainly analyze d using mean and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The results showed that the CM and CML treatment groups outperformed the CTM group in retention in photosynthesis. There was a statistically significant difference in favor of the CM between the two experimental groups. The male and female students taught using CM retained equally in photosynthesis while gender difference was revealed in the mean retention scores of the students exposed to the CML, with females retained significantly higher than males. The study concluded that the CM and CML strategies were more effective than CTM. It was suggested, among other things, that teachers should be encouraged to apply CM and CML strategies when teaching biology.


This paper explores the use of the principle of simplicity in August Weismann's critiques of the inheritance of acquired characters. After considering different accounts of simplicity as a scientific virtue to be taken into account in science evaluation, the paper goes on to scrutinize a particular example of the principle of parsimony at work. The author considers the structure of August Weismann's arguments for the all-sufficiency principle of natural selection (NS) to conclude that a variety of lines of reasoning can be identified in his account and that parsimony plays a different role to each. There has been a long-lasting agreement among historians of biology and philosophers of science alike that the work of Weismann signals that theories involving the heredity of acquired traits are flawed, as such type of inheritance is not possible in evolution.  While much debate has recently arisen in the domain of evolutionary developmental biology challenging the Weismann barrier principle, both the proponents of the "extended synthesis" and the Neodarwinian orthodoxy seem to coincide in that Weismann's arguments favor NS to the virtual exclusion of any other principle regulating the transmission of traits in evolution. Whatever Weismann would have wanted to conclude, I will argue that this understanding of what Weismann's arguments entail is a mistake.


In a electrical distribution network, the challenges involved in the decentralized power generation and the resilience of the network to handle the failures, can be easily anticipated. With the use of information technology, a better control can be achieved over the distributed generation units and the fault handling in them. In this contribution, the use of a graceful degradation strategy is proposed as a means to improve the availability of the system during a fault situation. The Graceful degradation is presented as a constraint satisfaction problem. The trigger and the computation of the degradation process are formulated as the constraints. The concept of the utility of the resources is used to support a dynamic decision to trigger the degradation process. The computation of the graceful degradation strategy is formalized as an SMT problem and analyzed using the Z3 SMTsolver. The approach is illustrated with the help of a use case of applying the degradation strategy on a prosumer node during the power outage in the distribution network. It illustrates the dynamic calculation capability of the degradation scheme in the face of an unpredictable power from a renewable energy resource.


OBJECTIVE
To study the HBsAg transient expression in HepG2 or COS-7 cells with eukaryotic expression plasmids inserting HBsAg gene (pCI-S and pcDNA3.1-S) and the efficacy of naked DNA immunization in mice.

METHODS
Firstly, the recombinant plasmids of pCI-S and pcDNA3.1-S were constructed by the cloning technique and the accuracy of these constructs was confirmed by restriction enzyme digestion and DNA sequencing. Secondly, plasmids of pCI-S and pcDNA3.1-S were transferred into HepG2 and COS-7 cells, respectively by means of cationic liposome. HBsAg transient expression was assayed by ELISA in cell culture supernatants and cell lysates. Thirdly, plasmids were injected into quadriceps muscles of BALB/C mice and serum samples were obtained from individual immunized or control mice 4 weeks after injection and boost injection, respectively. Anti-HBs were assayed in mice sera by ELISA. HBsAg-specific CTL responses of spleen cells from immunized mice were tested by the LDH method.

RESULTS
Plasmids of pCI-S and pcDNA3.1-S allowed HBsAg transient expression in cell culture supernatants and cell lysates of HepG2 or COS-7 cells. Intramuscular immunization of BALB/C mice with plasmids of pCI-S or pcDNA3.1-S elicited the antibody and cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses to HBsAg.

CONCLUSIONS
The vectors used in this study are effective to induce prime antibody and HBsAg-specific-cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses to HBsAg in mice after intramuscular immunization.


Concurrent Class Machines are a novel state-machine model that directly captures a variety of object-oriented concepts, including classes and inheritance, objects and object creation, methods, method invocation and exceptions, multithreading and abstract collection types. The model can be understood as a precise definition of UML activity diagrams which, at the same time, offers an executable, object-oriented alternative to event-based statecharts. It can also be understood as a visual, combined control and data flow model for multithreaded object-oriented programs. We first introduce a visual notation and tool for Concurrent Class Machines and discuss their benefits in enhancing system design. We then equip this notation with a precise semantics that allows us to define refinement and modular refinement rules. Finally, we summarize our work on generation of optimized code, implementation and experiments, and compare with related work.


We propose a stochastic model for the intersection of two urban streets. The traffic state at the crossroads is controlled by a set of traffic lights, which periodically switch to red and green with a total period of T. Vehicular dynamics is simulated and total delay experienced by the traffic is evaluated within a definite time interval. Minimizing the delay give rises to the optimum signalization of traffic lights. It is shown that two different phases are identified. In the light traffic phase, the green times should be distributed to the streets on an equal basis. In the congested phase, minimizing the delay enforces us to break the symmetry between the roads by allocating the majority of green times to one of the roads. In contrast to our common sense, dividing the green times on an equal basis, leads to unfairness to drivers.


The high rate of coverage that has been achieved to date by the Australian government's Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Program has already led to profound reductions in the prevalence of biopsy‐confirmed, high‐grade abnormalities and of vaccine‐preventable HPV types in Australia. Declines in the prevalence of vaccine preventable HPV have occurred not only in vaccinated women but also in unvaccinated women, suggesting a herd‐immunity affect. These declines were anticipated on the basis of modelling and were the major drivers for the changes proposed to the Australian National Cervical Screening Program. The federal and state‐based Australian governments established a "Renewal Steering Committee," which conducted a literature search and a review of the available evidence to assess its applicability and quality. Together with this information the committee also used modeling to determine the optimal screening pathway for cervical cancer screening and constructed a plan for implementing the changes that will be required to transition from the currently successful screening program to the renewed program. The committee recommended that Australia move to a screening program based on testing every 5 years using an HPV test with partial genotyping with reflex liquid‐based cytology (LBC) triage for HPV‐vaccinated and unvaccinated women ages 25 to 69 years, and an additional exit test for women up to age 74 years. Primary HPV testing and reflex LBC will be funded by government. Symptomatic women outside the screening program will also be able to access government funded testing. The new screening program, to be rolled out in 2017, will also provide a cost‐effective framework for an evaluation of the national HPV vaccination program, enabling ongoing monitoring of HPV genotypes and cervical lesions in screened women. Cancer Cytopathol 2016;124:235–40. © 2015 American Cancer Society.


The fall armyworm (FAW) Spodoptera frugiperda J. E. Smith is the most noxious insect to maize and sorghum in the state of Colima, Mexico. In this work, two maize landraces ('blanco' and 'aperlado'), native to Colima, were grown in Tecomán, Colima, to determine the FAW population behaviour under natural conditions. The spatial distribution of the FAW larvae was random, and natural infestations were strongly associated with the maize phenological stages. The relationship between FAW and plant phenology was explained by non-linear regression models.


: 195mPlatinum cis-dichlorodiammineplatinum(II) (195mPt cis-DDP) was injected iv with furosemide or mannitol into male Sprague-Dawley rats. The effect of such a diuresis on the distribution, excretion, and retention of cis-DDP was measured. The mannitol-treated animals had a significant increase in the urinary excretion of 196mPt over control animals for the first five 15-minute collection times and for the 24-hour cumulative urine for the 0.01-mg/kg dose. At the 6-mg/kg dose, only the first three 15-minute and 24-hour cumulative urine collections were significant. This increased excretion, however, did not affect tissue or blood concentrations of this agent. Furosemide did not affect the excretion of 195mPt. A biliary excretion of 195mPt given as 195mPt cis-DDP is documented. The excretion is biphasic, with a rapid phase followed by a slower protracted phase. Forced diuresis, if it affords renal protection, does so during the first 90 minutes of urinary excretion.


RGB-D cameras are novel sensing systems that can rapidly provide accurate depth information for 3D perception, among which the type based on active stereo vision has been widely used. However, there are some problems exiting in use, such as the short measurement range and incomplete depth maps. This paper presents a robust and efficient matching algorithm based on semi-global matching to obtain more complete and accurate depth maps in real time. Considering characteristics of captured infrared speckle images, the Gaussian filter is performed firstly to restrain noise and enhance the relativity. It also adopts the idea of block matching for reliability, and a dynamic threshold selection of the block size is used to adapt to various situation. Moreover, several optimizations are applied to improve precision and reduce error. Through experiments on the Intel Realsense R200, the excellent capability of our proposed method is verified.


Marine microalgae are recognised as an important renewable source of bioactive lipids with a high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which have been shown to be effective in preventing or treating several diseases. For the extraction of oil from microalgae, supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) is regarded with interest, being safer than hexane and offering a negligible environmental impact, a short extraction time and a high-quality final product. Whilst some experimental papers are available on the supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of oil from microalgae, only limited information exists on the kinetics of the process. In such a contest, a mathematical model able to describe the kinetics of the SFE was applied to the recovery with ScCO2 of lipids from Nannochloropsis sp., a marine microalga commonly used in aquaculture and characterised by a lipid fraction with a high PUFA content. The aim of this paper was to examine the effect of operating conditions on the kinetics of the SFE, on process yields and on the fatty acid composition of lipid extracts.


Video transformers have recently emerged as an effective alternative to convolutional networks for action classification. However, most prior video transformers adopt either global space-time attention or hand-defined strategies to compare patches within and across frames. These fixed attention schemes not only have high computational cost but, by comparing patches at predetermined locations, they neglect the motion dynamics in the video. In this paper, we introduce the Deformable Video Transformer (DVT), which dynamically predicts a small subset of video patches to attend for each query location based on motion information, thus allowing the model to decide where to look in the video based on correspondences across frames. Crucially, these motion-based correspondences are obtained at zero-cost from information stored in the compressed format of the video. Our deformable attention mechanism is optimized directly with respect to classification performance, thus eliminating the need for suboptimal hand-design of attention strategies. Experiments on four large-scale video benchmarks (Kinetics-400, Something-Something-V2, EPIC-KITCHENS and Diving-48) demonstrate that, compared to existing video transformers, our model achieves higher accuracy at the same or lower computational cost, and it attains state-of-the-art results on these four datasets.


Tunable optical delay lines have many applications for high-performance optical switching and signal processing. Slow light has emerged as an enabling technology for achieving continuously tunable optical delays. Delay reconfigurability opens up a whole new field of nonlinear signal processing using slow light. In this paper, the authors review recent advances in slow-light-based optical signal processing, with a focus on the data fidelity after traversing the slow light elements. The concept of slow-light-induced data pattern dependence is introduced and is shown to be the main signal degrading effect. We then propose and experimentally demonstrate phase-preserving slow light by delaying 10 Gb/s differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) signals with reduced DPSK pattern dependence. Spectrally efficient slow light using advanced multilevel phase-modulated formats is further described. With this technique, doubled bit-rate signals can be transmitted through a bandwidth-limited slow light element. We finally show several novel slow-light-based signal processing modules. Unique features such as multichannel operation, variable bit-rate capability, and simultaneous multiple functions are highlighted.


The paper is to establish a method for simultaneous determination of 5 kinds of alkaloids in ephedra and poppy which are in Kechuanning tablets. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) was adopted in pretreatment, and a UPLC method with 2 different wavelengths had been developed: 210 nm for the detection of morphine, codeine phosphate, ephedrine hydrochloride and pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, and 251 nm for papaverine hydrochloride. The column used was Acquity UPLC BEH C18 (100 mm x 2.1 mm ID, 1.7 microm) with linear gradient elution using acetonitrile and 0.1% phosphoric acid. The flow rate was 0.4 mL.min-1, and the column temperature was 30 degrees C. The linear response range was 0.375 0 - 12.50 microg.mL-1 for morphine, 0.064 32 - 2.144 microg.mL-1 for codeine phosphate, 0.030 06 - 1.002 microg.mL-1 for papaverine hydrochloride, 1.126 - 37.52 microg.mL-1 for ephedrine hydrochloride, 0.287 8 - 9.592 microg.mL-1 for pseudoephedrine hydrochloride (r = 0.999 7). The average recoveries of these compounds were 99.26%, 100.6%, 95.29%, 100.1% and 97.48%, respectively. This is a more reasonable and credible method of quality control for Kechuanning tablets.


During last two decades multipotent mesenchymal stromal (stem) cells (MMSCs) were not only identified and isolated from many tissues, but their immunopriviledge and immunosupressive potential along with high proliferative activity and multilineage differentiation were demonstrated. At the same time there is an increasing evidence of the MMSC plasticity due to a wide range of microenvironmental factors: extracellular matrix, cell-to-cell interactions, oxygen content, etc. In this paper, a comparative study of direct cell-to-cell and paracrine effects of MMSCs on human PHA-activated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (MNCs) in the standard (20%) and reduced to 5% O2 concentration in the culture medium was conducted. It is shown that after coculture with MMSCs the proliferative activity of PHA-MNCs, the share of HLA-DR(+) -T cells and IL-6, -8 and TNF-alpha concentrations were reduced, but IL-10 and IFN-gamma were increased in the medium. Potentiating effect on the MMSC immunomodulating properties was noted at low oxygen, which is of great importance for increasing the efficiency of immunosuppression.


An approach to atomic structure calculations is described, using recent developments in the pseudo-state/R-matrix method, within the high optimization offered by close-coupling. These include the exploitation of the "QB" method for systematic resonance analysis, the definition and use of "core base states" for the target, and the incorporation of relativistic effects in the Opacity Project codes. A comprehensive set of data is calculated for fine-structure bound and continuum states of the form 1s22snl and 1s22pnl (J = 0e and J = 1o) up to n = 10 for the Be-like ion C III, together with electric dipole oscillator strengths.


Within the framework of an epidemiologic field study conducted in South Niedersachsen a standardised questionnaire was used to obtain data on the social and medical situation of persons with multiple sclerosis. Of the 195 people with multiple sclerosis questioned in that area in 1976 answers were received from 178 (91%). The mean age was 46 years, the average history of disease 15 years. Family status and social position corresponded to social average. A social downfall as a result of the disease was not found to have taken place. Approximately 50% who had been employed prior to the disease (N = 147) had given up their jobs at the time of the survey. The monthly net income was found to be average. Of the studied persons 42% were living in their own houses or flats. A lower percentage, compared to the general public, was living in lodgings (58% instead of 65,7%). The majority (56%) was living in flats suitable for the disabled. 13% of the surveyed persons lived alone, 5% in homes. Social care was found to be very poor in comparison with medical treatment. The introduction of compulsory notification for this disease was advocated by 83% of the people questioned.


Ciprofloxacin or doxycycline is recommended for antimicrobial prophylaxis and treatment of adults and children with Bacillus anthracis infection associated with the recent bioterrorist attacks in the United States. Amoxicillin is an option for antimicrobial prophylaxis for children and pregnant women and to complete treatment of cutaneous disease when B. anthracis is susceptible to penicillin, as is the case in the recent attacks. Use of ciprofloxacin or doxycycline might be associated with adverse effects in children, and liquid formulations of these drugs are not widely available. This notice provides further information about prophylaxis and treatment of children and breastfeeding mothers, including the use of amoxicillin.


Background:Although 900,000 HIV-infected South Africans receive antiretroviral therapy, the majority of South Africans with HIV remain undiagnosed. Methods:We use a published simulation model of HIV case detection and treatment to examine 3 HIV screening scenarios, in addition to current practice as follows: (1) one-time; (2) every 5 years; and (3) annually. South African model input data include the following: 16.9% HIV prevalence, 1.3% annual incidence, 49% test acceptance rate, HIV testing costs of $6.49/patient, and a 47% linkage-to-care rate (including 2 sequential antiretroviral therapy regimens) for identified cases. Outcomes include life expectancy, direct medical costs, and incremental cost-effectiveness. Results:HIV screening one-time, every 5 years, and annually increase HIV-infected quality-adjusted life expectancy (mean age 33 years) from 180.6 months (current practice) to 184.9, 187.6, and 197.2 months. The incremental cost-effectiveness of one-time screening is dominated by screening every 5 years. Screening every 5 years and annually each have incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of $1570/quality-adjusted life year and $1720/quality-adjusted life year. Screening annually is very cost-effective even in settings with the lowest incidence/prevalence, with test acceptance and linkage rates both as low as 20%, or when accounting for a stigma impact at least four-fold that of the base case. Conclusions:In South Africa, annual voluntary HIV screening offers substantial clinical benefit and is very cost-effective, even with highly constrained access to care and treatment.


Heading time is an important agronomic trait affecting the adaptability and productivity of common wheat. In this study, 95 common wheat varieties from Russia and the late-maturing breeding line 'Velut' were tested for allelic diversity of genes having the strongest effect on heading. In this research, allelic variation at the Ppd-D1, Vrn-A1, Vrn-B1, Vrn-D1, and Vrn-B3 loci was tested. The Vrn-B1 and Vrn-B3 loci provided the largest contribution to genetic diversity. We found two novel allelic variants of the Vrn-B3 gene in the studied varieties. Ten varieties carried a 160 bp insertion in the promoter region, and the breeding line 'Velut' carried a 1617 bp insertion. These alleles were designated Vrn-B3e and Vrn-B3d, respectively. The analysis of the sequences showed the recent insertion of a retrotransposon homologous to the LTR retrotransposon (RLX_Hvul_Dacia_ RND-1) in the Vrn-B3d allele. Plants with the Vrn-B3e and the 'Velut' line with the Vrn-B3d allele headed later than the plants with the wild-type allele; among these plants, 'Velut' is the latest maturing wheat variety. Analysis of the gene expression of two groups of lines differing by the Vrn-B3 alleles (Vrn-B3d or vrn-B3) from the F2 population with 'Velut' as a parental line did not reveal a significant difference in the expression level between the groups. Additional research is required to study the reasons for the late maturation of the 'Velut' line. However, the studied wheat varieties could be used as a potential source of natural variation in genes controlling heading times.


(Read June 24th, 1915).

Part of this region, to wit, Slaidburn in Bowland, was the venue of the Yorkshire Geological Society) in Easter, 1915, and, by the kind invitation of the President and the courtesy of the Society, I was fortunate to participate in the visit. This excursion was directed by the President, Mr. R. H. Tiddeman, with the purpose of examining the Carboniferous Rocks which he had surveyed some forty years previously. The result went to confirm the impression that I had obtained, on former visits to other parts of the Knoll Region, that geologists were insufficiently acquainted with the information that had already been acquired, both with regard to the sequence and correlation of the rocks, and with regard to the important and broad conclusions which had been deduced from the mapping. I need, therefore, scarcely apologise for the publication of this brief summary which in so far as it concerns Mr. Tiddeman's work, has been mainly extracted from the Report of the International Geological Congress of 1888 (London), pp. 313–323*. I have also availed myself of the information contained in sheet 92 S.W. (Clitheroe) 1873, and in the Geological Survey Memoir which deals with the Burnley Coal Field, 1875.

Commencing with the SEQUENCE of Carboniferous Rocks in the Knoll Region, we may make our remarks under the three main heads:—

(1) The lithological sequence of Tiddeman.

(2) Its correlation with the Avonian Time-scale of Yaughan.

(3) The Pendleside of Hind and Howe.

(1) The Lithological Sequence ...


The engineering of the power delivery network is becoming a fundamental issue in the design of high speed digital systems on PCB's. In fact, providing the required power to the different IC's at the specified noise-free voltage levels allows a correct functioning of the overall PCB systems. More over, the ongoing trend of replacing active devices with peripherally located I/O and PWR/GND pins with areally located I/O and PWR/GND pins (BGA packaged) increases the complexity of the models, when power delivery issues need to be studied in a larger contest, such as the overall PCB's. The employment of the powerful, but simple, concept of the segmentation method allows investigation of the power delivery network of the PCB systems in two fundamental stages. During the first stage, a small cut out of the board corresponding to the BGA footprint is modelled with a 3D full wave simulation tool. During the second stage the equivalent impedance network representation corresponding to this cut out is combined, by means of the segmentation method, with larger pieces of a board, whose network representations can be extracted from the closed form expression of the cavity model approach


The absolute refractive index of liquid sulphur dioxide (SO2) was determined with an uncertainty of ±0.0007 with the help of a Michelson interferometer and a computer-controlled rotatory stage supporting a rectangular fused silica cell, containing the liquid. The measurements were performed at temperatures around 20 °C for the laser line wavelengths 632.8, 514.5 and 488.0 nm. The experimental data were fitted to the simple Cauchy dispersion formula. The results calculated from this formula are consistent within the experimental uncertainty with published values obtained at other wavelengths and/or other temperatures.


The correspondence ratio is developed to evaluate output from an ensemble of numerical weather prediction models. This measure is a simple extension of the threat score, or critical success index, to more than two fields and is used to measure the divergence of the forecast fields. The ratio is compared with two commonly used measures: the anomaly correlation, and the mean square error. Results indicate that the correspondence ratio is sensitive to the bias and, when calculated for several threshold values, can provide information beyond that supplied by the mean-square error and anomaly correlation measures. The correspondence ratio is particularly useful in evaluating discontinuous fields, such as precipitation. While no one measure can provide a complete assessment of forecast success, this ratio provides useful information that can increase our understanding of model forecast quality.


We present a mathematical proof of Einstein's formula for the effective viscosity of a dilute suspension of rigid neutrally buoyant spheres when the spheres are centered on the vertices of a cubic lattice. We keep the size of the container finite in the dilute limit and consider boundary effects. Einstein's formula is recovered as a first-order asymptotic expansion of the effective viscosity in the volume fraction. To rigorously justify this expansion, we obtain an explicit upper and lower bound on the effective viscosity. A lower bound is found using energy methods reminiscent of the work of Keller et al. An upper bound follows by obtaining an explicit estimate for the tractions, the normal component of the stress on the fluid boundary, in terms of the velocity on the fluid boundary. This estimate, in turn, is established using a boundary integral formulation for the Stokes equation. Our proof admits a generalization to other particle shapes and the inclusion of point forces to model self-propelled parti...


The aim of this study was to determine the sample size (i.e., number of plants) required to estimate the mean and median of flax traits ( Linum usitatissimum L.) of the cultivar CDC Normandy, with precision levels. In the experimental area of 15 × 15 m (225 m2) at 134 days after sowing, 300 plants were collected randomly. In each plant, it was measured morphological (plant height and number of branches) and productive traits (number of capsules, fresh matter of capsules, fresh matter of aerial part without capsules, fresh matter of aerial part, dry matter of capsules, dry matter of aerial part without capsules, and dry matter of aerial part). For each trait, it was calculated measures of central tendency, variability, skewness, and kurtosis. It was determined the sample size by resampling with a replacement of 10,000 resamples. In order to estimate the mean of morphological and productive traits of flax, cultivar CDC Normandy, with the amplitude of the confidence interval of 95% equal to 30% of the estimated mean, 81 plants are required. To estimate the median, with the same precision, it is necessary 161 plants.


A total of 54 astronauts and cosmonauts returned questionnaires which addressed several aspects of communication between space crews and ground personnel. Two factors were rated as significantly helping this communication: Shared Experience and Excitement of Space Flight. Two additional factors were judged to significantly hinder space-ground communication: Spacecraft Ambient Noise and Space Sickness. Respondents also significantly endorsed the value of contact with loved ones on Earth as having a positive influence on mission performance, particularly cosmonauts and long-duration space travelers. The need for a private space-ground transmission link was mentioned by several respondents. There was no consensus as to whether or not negative personal information should be withheld until the space crew returned to Earth, although some respondents indicated that this might be justified during short-duration as opposed to long-duration missions. These findings have important scientific and operational implications for future manned space missions.


Aim: Couple of pneumonia cases were reported in a short period in Wuhan, China. The cases were revealed to be associated with a different coronavirus type was named SARS-CoV-2 and the disease was identified as Covid-19. It is known that the disease occurs in all age groups. We aimed to evaluate the differences in clinical and laboratory features between adult and pediatric patients. Method: The study is a retrospective cross-sectional study and consists of 206 patients with a definitive diagnosis of Covid-19 confirmed by a positive real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing for SARS-CoV-2. They hospitalized in health institutions connected to City Health Administrative of Bolu, Turkey between 11.03.2020 and 19.04.2020. The number of the pediatric patients (0-17 age group) was 106, that of the adult patients (18 and above age group) was 100. Data concerning the patients consisted of age, symptoms, laboratory parameters such as hemogram, biochemistry, coagulation. Results: The mean values of platelet (PLT), platocrit (PCT), percentage of monocytes (MONO %) and MONO in the "0-17" age group were found to be significantly higher than the mean values in the "18 and above" age group. The hemoglobin (HGB) mean value of the "0-17" age group was significantly lower than that of the "18 and above" age group. The mean C - reactive protein (CRP) value of the "0-17" age group (4.55;min: 1.20 – max: 11.80) was significantly lower than that of the "18 and above" age group (5.35;min 1.25- max: 19.77) with no statistically significance. In pediatric group, the most common symptoms were other symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting and joint pain whereas the adult patients had fever and cough often with statistically significant. Conclusion: Clinical findings and laboratory abnormalities in Covid-19 are less common in children. Although it seems that Covid-19 is less symptomatic in children, they are also affected by the disease. Performing RT-PCR test based on the contact history of the children may help to minimize morbidity with an early diagnosis. Multicenter studies with more numbers of patients should be performed.