Carbon-based materials, such as chars, activated carbons, one-dimensional carbon nanotubes, and two-dimensional graphene nanosheets, have shown great potential for a wide variety of applications [...]


Cytokines constitute a complex network of molecules involved in the regulation of the inflammatory response and the homeostasis of organ functions. Cytokines coordinate physiologic and pathologic processes going on in the liver, such as liver growth and regeneration, inflammatory processes including viral liver disease, liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. Liver growth and regeneration are regulated by several cytokines. The platelet-derived hepatocyte growth factor, in particular, delivers a strong mitogenic stimulus for hepatocyte regeneration. The cell-mediated immune response plays a central role in hepatocellular necrosis and in the immunopathogenetic mechanisms involved in viral clearance and persistence in liver disease of viral etiology. In this context, cytokines modulate the immune system and exert direct antiviral activity by cytopathic and non-cytopathic mechanisms, as demonstrated in a transgenic mouse model. IL-6, TNF-alpha, IL-1 and IL-2 increase in acute fulminant viral hepatitis; in fact, they have pro-inflammatory and cytotoxic effects. Reduced IL-2 and IFN-alpha synthesis and increased serum levels of IL-1 and IL-2 soluble receptor (IL-2R) have been observed in HBV chronic liver disease. In HCV chronic hepatitis, IL-2R increases as well, while IFN-gamma and IL-2 decrease. In personal experimental observations, intra-hepatic messenger RNA expression of several cytokines was measured in liver specimens of patients with chronic HBV and HCV infections: patients with HCV chronic liver disease had higher levels of IL-2, IL-6, IL-10, and IFN-gamma. These data are in accordance with immunological studies showing a vigorous cell-mediated immune response in HCV chronic liver disease and a deficient immune response in HBV chronic hepatitis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The magnetization reversal process in evaporated cobalt films in the thickness range 1000-4000 A has been studied by use of the transverse Kerr effect to display hysteresis loops and the longitudinal Kerr effect to observe magnetic domain structures. The samples investigated all exhibit a rotatable initial susceptibility and an unusual mode of magnetization reversal, which suggests that the films behave as random assemblies of magnetostatically interacting uniaxial crystallites.


Based on successful developments in the field of high-speed flame spraying (HVOF) equipment, HVOF spray materials (powder), and HVOF process technology, this paper describes the increasing use of HVOF as a replacement for hard chrome plating. It presents the results of laboratory and operational evaluations of the HVOF-sprayed coatings as a replacement for hard chrome in the aviation industry. Paper includes a German-language abstract.


The efficacy of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) for the treatment of intracerebrally implanted rat gliosarcomas was tested. Preferential accumulation of 10B in tumors was achieved by continuous infusion of the sulfhydryl borane dimer, Na4(10)B24H22S2, at a rate of 45-50 micrograms of 10B per g of body weight per day from day 11 to day 14 after tumor initiation (day 0). This infusion schedule resulted in average blood 10B concentrations of 35 micrograms/ml in a group of 12 gliosarcoma-bearing rats and 45 micrograms/ml in a group of 10 similar gliosarcoma-bearing rats treated by BNCT. Estimated tumor 10B levels in these two groups were 26 and 34 micrograms/g, respectively. On day 14, boron-treated and non-boron-treated rats were exposed to 5.0 or 7.5 MW.min of radiation from the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor that yielded thermal neutron fluences of approximately 2.0 x 10(12) or approximately 3.0 x 10(12) n/cm2, respectively, in the tumors. Untreated rats had a median postinitiation survival time of 21 days. Reactor radiation alone increased median postinitiation survival time to 26 (5.0 MW.min) or 28 (7.5 MW.min) days. The 12 rats that received 5 MW.min of BNCT had a median postinitiation survival time of 60 days. Two of these animals survived greater than 15 months. In the 7.5 MW.min group, the median survival time is not calculable since 6 of the 10 animals remain alive greater than 10 months after BNCT. The estimated radiation doses to tumors in the two BNCT groups were 14.2 and 25.6 Gy equivalents, respectively. Similar gliosarcoma-bearing rats treated with 15.0 or 22.5 Gy of 250-kilovolt peak x-rays had median survival times of only 26 or 31 days, respectively, after tumor initiation.


Background Hand osteoarthritis (HOA) is one of the three most common subsets of osteoarthritis. So far, HOA diagnosis has relied on clinical (pain and finger joint nodes) and radiological features. Conventional radiographs (CR) can assess only subchondral bone. However, ultrasound (US) could detect synovial inflammation, even in the absence of clinically detectable signs of inflammation. Objectives To describe ultrasound abnormalities in HOA in order to assess eventual association between these lesions and clinical symptoms. Methods Patients at a hospital-based outpatient rheumatology clinic who met American College of Rheumatology criteria [1] for HOA were included. Demographic and clinical data (Visual analogue scale (VAS), the Australian Canadian osteoarthritis hand index (AUSCAN) pain, tender and swollen joint count) were collected for each patient. Ultrasonography (Esaote MyLab 60 machine and a 13-18 MHz linear array transducer) and plain radiographs of the hands were performed in all participants. The sonographer was a rheumatologist with theoretical and practical training in musculoskeletal ultrasonography and blinded to clinical features. The following joints were assessed: metacarpophalangeal (MCP) 1–5, proximal interphalangeal (PIP) 1–5, distal interphalangeal (DIP) 2–5 and trapezio-metacarpal (TM) joints. Allover, 720 joints were explored. In B mode, erosion, synovial hypertophy and effusion were defined with the OMERACT criteria. In power Doppler mode, the inflammatory activity was evaluated. Results We included 24 women with symptomatic HOA between July and December 2013. Their mean age was 59,6 years (range, 44-76). All participants were right-handed. Median VAS and AUSCAN pain were 38mm and 7,5, respectively. Mean Dreiser algofunctional index was 8.03±6 (range, 1-19). Their mean symptom duration was 5 years (range, 1-20years), it consists in pain in 21 cases and stiffness in 8 cases. Mean number of Heberden's and Bouchard's nodes were 3,8 (±2,9) and 1.5 (±1,8), respectively. The average number of painful joint was either spontaneously at 2,08 (±5,45) or upon squeezing at 3.58 (±6,3) and with swelling at 0,33 (±0,7). Erosions were detected in 89/720 (12.3%) small joints by US and in 152/720 (24%) small joints by CR (p=0,005). Osteophytes were detected in 137/720small joints by US, and in 159/720small joints by CR (p=0,5). Thickened synovium was found in 22/720, effusion in 79/720 and increased power Doppler in 14/720small joints. Effusion were distributed between the PIP (91%) and DIP (9%), synovites between PIP (n=3), DIP (n=8), TM (n=7) and power Doppler imaging between PIP (n=3), DIP (n=6) and TM (n=5). The number of tender joint was significantly correlated with presence of an effusion by US (r =0.49, p<0.0001) but not correlated with a positive Doppler signal (r=-0.12, p=0.02). Conclusions Our study showed that effusion is correlated with the number of tender joint. US detect inflammatory changes in small hand joints in the vast majority of patients with HOA. It suggests that current treatment modalities are inadequate treatment for this disease References Altman R, Alarcon G, Appelrouth D, et al. The American Rheumatology critera for the classification and reporting of the hand 1990;33:1601–10. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.5954


Autophagy is initiated by multimembrane vesicle (autophagosome) formation upon mammalian target of rapamycin inhibition and phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate [PtdIns(3)P] generation. Upstream of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3), WD-repeat proteins interacting with phosphoinositides (WIPI proteins) specifically bind PtdIns(3)P at forming autophagosomal membranes and become membrane-bound proteins of generated autophagosomes. Here, we applied automated high-throughput WIPI-1 puncta analysis, paralleled with LC3 lipidation assays, to investigate Ca2+-mediated autophagy modulation. We imposed cellular stress by starvation or administration of etoposide (0.5–50 μM), sorafenib (1–40 μM), staurosporine (20–500 nM), or thapsigargin (20–500 nM) (1, 2, or 3 h) and measured the formation of WIPI-1 positive autophagosomal membranes. Automated analysis of up to 5000 individual cells/treatment demonstrated that Ca2+ chelation by BAPTA-AM (10 and 30 μM) counteracted starvation or pharmacological compound-induced WIPI-1 puncta formation and LC3 lipidation. Application of selective Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase kinase (CaMKK) α/β and calmodulin-dependent kinase (CaMK) I/II/IV inhibitors 7-oxo-7H-benzimidazo[2,1-a]benz[de]isoquinoline-3-carboxylic acid acetate (STO-609; 10–30 μg/ml) and 2-(N-[2-hydroxyethyl])-N-(4-methoxybenzenesulfonyl)amino-N-(4-chlorocinnamyl)-N-methylamine (KN-93; 1–10 μM), respectively, significantly reduced starvation-induced autophagosomal membrane formation, suggesting that Ca2+ mobilization upon autophagy induction involves CaMKI/IV. By small interefering RNA (siRNA)-mediated down-regulation of CaMKI or CaMKIV, we demonstrate that CaMKI contributes to stimulation of WIPI-1. In line, WIPI-1 positive autophagosomal membranes were formed in AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) α1/α2-deficient mouse embryonic fibroblasts upon nutrient starvation, whereas basal autophagy was prominently reduced. However, transient down-regulation of AMPK by siRNA resulted in an increased basal level of both WIPI-1 puncta and LC3 lipidation, and nutrient-starvation induced autophagy was sensitive to STO-609/KN-93. Our data provide evidence that pharmacological compound-modulated and starvation-induced autophagy involves Ca2+-dependent signaling, including CaMKI independent of AMPKα1/α2. Our data also suggest that AMPKα1/α2 might differentially contribute to the regulation of WIPI-1 at the onset of autophagy.


The interaction of an airfoil with incident turbulence is an important source of aerodynamic noise in numerous applications, such as turbofan engines, cooling systems for automotive and construction industries, high-lift devices on aircraft wings, and landing gear systems. In these instances, turbulence is generally produced by elements that are installed upstream of the wing profile and generate inflow distortions. A possible strategy for the reduction of turbulence-interaction noise, also referred to as leading-edge noise, is represented by the integration of porous media in the structure of the airfoil. However, the physical mechanisms involved in this noise mitigation technique remain unclear. The present thesis aims to elucidate these phenomena and, particularly, how porosity affects the incoming turbulence characteristics in the immediate vicinity of the surface. This problem has been addressed from different perspectives, namely from the technological, experimental, and analytical ones. An innovative design for a porous NACA-0024 profile fitted with melamine foam is proposed. The noise reduction performance achieved with such a porous treatment is evaluated through a novel version of the generalized inverse beamforming (GIBF) implemented with an improved regularization technique. The algorithm is first applied to different experimental benchmark datasets in order to evaluate its ability to reconstruct distributed aeroacoustic sources and to assess its accuracy and variability in different conditions. Results indicate that the implemented method provides an enhanced representation of the distributed noise-source regions and higher performance in terms of accuracy and variability if compared with other common beamforming techniques. GIBF is then employed together with far-field microphone measurements to characterize the leading-edge noise radiated by solid and porous NACA-0024 profiles immersed in the wake of an upstream cylindrical rod at different free-stream velocities. A noise reduction of up to 2dB is found for frequencies around the vortex-shedding peak, with a trend that is independent of the Reynolds number, whereas significant noise regeneration is observed at higher frequencies, most probably due to surface roughness. Subsequently, the flow-field alterations due to porosity in the stagnation region of the airfoils are investigated by means of mean-wall pressure, hot-wire anemometry, and particle image velocimetry measurements. The porous treatment mostly preserves the integrity of the NACA-0024 profile's shape but yields a wider opening of the jet flow that increases the drag force. Moreover, porosity allows for damping of the velocity fluctuations near the surface and has limited influence on the upstream mean-flow field. In particular, the upwash component of the root-mean-square of the velocity fluctuations turns out to be significantly attenuated in a porous airfoil in contrast to a solid one, resulting in a strong decrease of the turbulent kinetic energy in the stagnation region. The present effect is more pronounced for higher Reynolds numbers. The mean spanwise vorticity close to the body appears also to be mitigated by the porous treatment. Furthermore, the comparison between the power spectral densities of the incident turbulent velocities demonstrates that porosity has an effect mainly on the low-frequency range of the turbulent-velocity spectrum, with a spatial extent up to about two leading-edge radii from the stagnation point. In addition, the vortex-shedding frequency peak in the power spectrum of the streamwise velocity fluctuations close to the airfoil surface is found to be suppressed by porosity. The present results show analogies with the outcomes of the aeroacoustic analysis, highlighting the important role played by the attenuated turbulence distortion due to the porous treatment of the airfoil in the corresponding noise reduction. An analytical model based on the rapid distortion theory (RDT) to predict the turbulent flow around a porous cylinder is formulated with the aim of improving the understanding of the effect of porosity on turbulence distortion and interpreting the experimental results. The porous treatment, characterized by a constant static permeability, is modeled as a varying impedance boundary condition applied to the potential component of the velocity that accounts for Darcy's flow within the body. The RDT implementation is first validated through comparisons with published velocity measurements in the stagnation region of an impermeable cylinder placed downstream of a turbulence grid. Afterwards, the impact of porosity on the velocity field is investigated through the analysis of the one-dimensional velocity spectra at different locations near the body and the velocity variance along the stagnation streamline. The porous surface affects the incoming turbulence distortion near the cylinder by reducing the blocking effect of the body and by altering the vorticity deformation caused by the mean flow. The former leads to an attenuation of the one-dimensional velocity spectrum in the low-frequency range, whereas the latter results in an amplification of the high-frequency components. This trend is found to be strongly dependent on the turbulence scale and influences the evolution of the velocity fluctuations in the stagnation region. The porous RDT model is finally adapted to calculate the turbulence distortion in the vicinity of the porous NACA- 0024 profile leading edge. The satisfactory agreement between predictions and experimental results suggests that the present methodology can improve the understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in the airfoil-turbulence interaction noise reduction through porosity and can be instrumental in designing such passive noise-mitigation treatments.


Abstract Context Maternal dysglycaemia and prepregnancy obesity are associated with adverse offspring outcomes. Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation (DNAm) could contribute. Objective To examine relationships between maternal glycaemia, insulinemic status, and dietary glycemic indices during pregnancy and an antenatal behavioral-lifestyle intervention with newborn DNAm. Methods We investigated 172 women from a randomized controlled trial of a lifestyle intervention in pregnant women who were overweight or obese. Fasting glucose and insulin concentrations and derived indices of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), β-cell function (HOMA-%B), and insulin sensitivity were determined at baseline (15) and 28 weeks' gestation. Dietary glycemic load (GL) and index (GI) were calculated from 3-day food diaries. Newborn cord blood DNAm levels of 850K CpG sites were measured using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylationEPIC array. Associations of each biomarker, dietary index and intervention with DNAm were examined. Results Early pregnancy HOMA-IR and HOMA-%B were associated with lower DNAm at CpG sites cg03158092 and cg05985988, respectively. Early pregnancy insulin sensitivity was associated with higher DNAm at cg04976151. Higher late pregnancy insulin concentrations and GL scores were positively associated with DNAm at CpGs cg12082129 and cg11955198 and changes in maternal GI with lower DNAm at CpG cg03403995 (Bonferroni corrected P < 5.99 × 10−8). These later associations were located at genes previously implicated in growth or regulation of insulin processes. No effects of the intervention on cord blood DNAm were observed. None of our findings were replicated in previous studies. Conclusion Among women who were overweight or obese, maternal pregnancy dietary glycemic indices, glucose, and insulin homeostasis were associated with modest changes in their newborn methylome. Trial registration ISRCTN29316280


In the article is discussed the problem of the access of broad masses of the population to information. The use of speech recognition in the interactive information systems is the most suitable way to make these systems more open and easily available for people. The purpose of our work was to create the functioning speech interfaces in Russian language to information and service systems and to analyze the results. Our efforts resulted in creation of the first voice servers for interactive information and services systems in Russia: computer reservation system Sirena, a system for dispatching of orders for taxi delivery, and a banking system. We developed several analytical models that allow dialogue optimization and control. One of our models, which enable the calculation of the mean number of retries and appropriate time losses in different conditions, is presented in this paper.


Institutional and student surveys carried out in 1992 and 2004 suggest that soil science education is experiencing a significant decline in the United States and Canada. The present article reports on the data obtained in these surveys, particularly the fact that the enrollment in MSc and PhD programs in soil science in US and Canadian universities in 2004 was approximately 40% less than that in 1992. Some of the possible causes of this drop are analyzed in detail, such as the tendency of soil science education programs to keep emphasizing the agricultural side of soil science (i.e., its connection to crop production), despite the open intention of most students to pursue careers dealing predominantly, or at least in part, with environmental issues. It is argued that measures could still be taken by soil science educators and soil scientists to revert the downward trend in enrollments. Among these are licensing soil scientists, being vigilant about oversimplifications and misrepresentations of soil processes by researchers in other disciplines, expanding the scope of soil science and actively promoting its achievements, and making sure that the public at large is aware of the intrinsic, challenging complexity of soils and that it mandates a unique pluridisciplinary approach. We believe that if some of these measures were adopted, soil science could relatively and rapidly regain its place in the pantheon of science.


A central objective in organ transplantation and the treatment or prevention of autoimmune disease is the achievement of antigen-specific immune tolerance. An additional challenge in bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of hematological malignancies is the prevention of graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) while maintaining graft-vs-tumor activity. Interestingly, CD4-CD8- (double negative, DN) T cells, which exhibit a unique antigen-specific immunoregulatory potential, appear to exhibit all of the properties to respond to these challenges. Herein, we review the therapeutic potential of immunoregulatory DN T cells in various immunopathological settings, including graft tolerance, GVHD, cancer, and autoimmunity.


In the early postnatal subventricular zone (SVZ), two seemingly unrelated events occur simultaneously: a massive tangential migration of neuroblasts towards the olfactory bulb, known as the rostral migratory stream (RMS), and the outward movement of radial glia (RG) undergoing astrocytic transformation. Because of the orthogonal arrangement between these two sets of cells, little, if any, relevance has been ascribed for their possible interactions. By depositing DiI at the pial surface we have studied RG transformation within the SVZ/RMS, from birth up to the end of the first postnatal week. While still within the SVZ/RMS, RG morphology changed from simple bipolar to highly complex branched profiles, attaining their highest degree of complexity at the interface of the SVZ with the overlying white matter. At this interface cell bodies of radial glia accumulate and their processes run tangentially, surrounding the SVZ/RMS. Processes of RG surrounding the SVZ/RMS could also be observed by immunostaining for vimentin, GFAP, and nestin. In contrast, in the white matter all DiI-labeled RG presented a simple bipolar profile. These results indicate that the outward radial migration of the transforming RG does not occur uniformly. Instead, the different morphologies and cell densities that RG assume when they cross the SVZ/RMS and overlying white matter imply different migratory behaviors. Finally, our data suggest that RG provide a cellular scaffold to the early postnatal SVZ/RMS, much in the same way as astrocytes in the adult RMS.


Deficits in cognitive control have been found in depression, but how they contribute to depressive symptoms remains unknown. The present study investigated whether the regulatory efficacy of cognitive control on negative emotion varies with depression level and whether the regulatory efficacy affects depressive symptoms via the mediation of rumination. Fifty participants screened by the Zung Self-Rating Depressive Scale (SDS) with high and low depression levels were selected. They were instructed to controlled-process different semantic representations of aversive pictures, and the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP) evoked by the pictures was used as the measure of electrocortical response. We found that controlled-processing neutral representations of aversive pictures significantly decreased the amplitude of LPP relative to that under controlled-processing unpleasant ones in an early window in the low depression group and that this regulatory effect was impaired in the high depression group. Furthermore, a mediation analyses indicated that the regulatory efficacy of controlled-processing different semantic representations was associated with SDS score via the mediation of rumination. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying the association between the function of cognitive control in emotion generation and depressive symptoms and indicated a pathway from the regulatory efficacy of cognitive control to depression via rumination.


Background In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) are highly disease-specific biomarkers with suggested involvement in RA pathogenesis. Despite recent advances, their exact role in the inflammatory disease process and their effector mechanisms still have to be identified. Objectives To gain insight in ACPA Fc-mediated effector functions, we studied the binding of ACPA immune complexes to various Fc gamma receptors. Methods ACPA-IgG and non citrulline-reactive IgG (ncIgG) were isolated from plasma and synovial fluid samples of established RA patients by affinity chromatography using 2nd generation cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP2) as an antigen. After further purification of the IgG1 subclass of both entities, immune complexes (IC) were generated using fluorescently labelled F(ab')2 fragments directed against the F(ab')2 part of IgG1 or by using citrullinated fibrinogen. The size of the IC was measured using asymmetric flow-field flow (AF4) molecular size/weight fractionation. ICs were incubated with various CHO cell lines stably transfected with different human Fc gamma receptors (FcγR). IC binding to these FcγR was analysed by flow cytometry. ACPA-IgG1 and IgG1 Fc glycosylation was measured by mass spectrometry. Results ACPA-IgG1 and ncIgG1 ICs of comparable size bound predominantly to activating FcγRs whereas less binding of the ICs was detected to the inhibitory receptor FcγRIIB. Most IC binding was observed to FcγRI and FcγRIIIA (V176), whereas much lower binding signals were detected for FcγRIIA. Strikingly, ACPA-IgG1 showed reduced binding to FcγRIIIA when compared to ncIgG1. This corresponded to enhanced core fucosylation of the ACPA-IgG1 Fc tail. Finally, we observed enhanced binding of ACPA-IgG1 IC to IFN-γ activated neutrophils. Conclusions The binding of ACPA-IgG1 to activating FcγR implies an enhanced immune activating effect with a particular role for FcγRI. Moreover, the reduced ACPA-IgG1 binding to FcγRIIIA suggests that the differential Fc glycosylation profile of ACPA could affect FcγR mediated effector functions. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Nematodes of the genus Gnathostoma can cause a spectrum of disease in humans. This includes a distinctive syndrome of intermittent migratory subcutaneous swellings, central nervous system involvement with high morbidity and mortality and occasionally, involvement of other organs. Gnathostomiasis is endemic in southern and eastern Asia, particularly Thailand, but has recently been reported from Ecuador and Mexico. Diagnosis is usually based on clinical, epidemiological and serological findings. A recent study suggests that treatment with albendazole is effective. This report describes a patient diagnosed in Canada in whom evidence of pericarditis was associated with gnathostomiasis and in whom treatment with albendazole appears to have been effective.


A topical solution containing 65% permethrin (EXspot, Schering-Plough Animal Health Corp., Union, NJ) was evaluated for repellency and insecticidal activity against the phlebotomine sandfly, Phlebotomus perniciosus (Diptera: Psychodidae). Four dogs were sedated and individually exposed to 100 female P. perniciosus inside a cage. Two of the dogs were treated on Day 0 with the permethrin solution by application of a 2-ml dose directly on the skin along the dorsal midline from the dorsal scapular area to the base of the tail. Two dogs remained untreated as controls. On Days -8, 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 49, 70, and 91, sandfly landings were recorded during the first 5 minutes of an insect exposure period and insect feeding and mortality rates were recorded after 1 hour of exposure. The number of sandfly landings was moderately decreased, and insect feeding rates decreased to zero by Day 7. From Day 14 through Day 28, the number of insect feedings was reduced from control values by greater than 90%. These findings indicate the permethrin spot-on provided a considerable repellent effect. Insect mortality rates remained very high (about 61%) during the 5 weeks after application, although insecticidal effects persisted for more than 7 weeks in total. These data suggest that monthly application of this topical solution of permethrin from the end of spring until the beginning of fall may protect dogs from the majority of sandfly bites. Further investigation with greater numbers of animals is warranted; however, results of this preliminary investigation indicate that a leishmaniasis control program that incorporates the strategic use of this product on dogs can be expected to decrease the number of infected animals and the incidence of the disease among the canine population.


The function of artifacts depends on Ba. Ba is defined as elements of human, artifacts and surroundings and the relationships between each of these elements. The different relationship generates the differences in function of artifacts.Generally, artifacts are used in diverse Ba. But many artifacts are designed under average Ba at present. Therefore, this diversity of Ba results in low evaluation of artifacts under particular human or surroundings.In order to solve this problem, the objective of the present study is to construct a method for stable evaluation under diverse Ba. First, a method of robust design was proposed. Using objective function including average and variance, the proposed design method can adapt to diverse Ba and features modeling Ba and simulation using Ba model.Secondly use of this method was confirmed by application for the railway vehicle swing-seat design. Swing-seat has a function, which prevents hip sliding by increasing cushion angle as seat back tilts. In the present study, the diversity of sitting postures and differences in physical constitutions were defined as noise factors. Optimizing design solution (relationships between back angle and cushion angle) for the object variables (hip-sliding force) was attempted. The simulation using Ba model, which was constructed as a dynamic model of human body and seat, was performed.As a result, optimum relationships between back angle and cushion angle were obtained using the proposed method. It was proved that the proposed design method for diversity of Ba could be useful.


Of significant concern to governments in Southeast Asia is the rapid and extensive deforestation and forest degradation that has occurred in the recent past and in some cases is still occurring. The purpose of this publication is to assist stakeholders in the lower Mekong countries develop and implement ecologically and socio-economically sound forest rehabilitation policies and practices. An overview and broad assessment of relevant forest policy and practices are presented, and it is hoped that discussion will be encouraged among key decision-makers about the preferred principles and criteria for guiding future forest rehabilitation programmes.


Abstract : The Gulf War has significantly influenced our attitudes and perceptions about war. The New Concept views war as conflict won quickly and decisively with minimum casualties. The means to this end is superior military technology applied within the context of Joint combined-arms operations. Conditions necessary for the New Concept to deliver quick, low-cost victory may be articulated as attributes which characterize the ideal enemy. Evaluation on the level of strategic theory indicates the asymmetric nature of any conflict involving America will militate against the enemy having these attributes. Evaluation of the ethno-religious small wars which characterize our present age suggests the prospect for quick, low-cost victory to be similarly remote in these conflicts. Although the New Concept's preferred operational context, Joint combined-arms operations, will not lend itself to universal employment, its ethic of quick, low-cost victory will tend to be applied to all military situations. The Commander will find himself attempting to resolve the tension between accomplishing the mission and the need for zero defects warfare. Despite the New Concept focus on mid-intensity, conventional conflict, the most-likely case conflict in the out years is the ethno-religious small war. These small wars will be challenging because of their prolificacy, the streamlining of our military, and unrealistic public expectations resulting from Desert Storm. To address this challenge, the United States military should broaden its field of view to better include all conflict types, strengthen its special operations forces and intelligence capabilities, diversify its technology and, if possible, attempt a coup de main in these small wars. (AN)


The activity profile of men's competitive surfing was investigated during an international contest. Forty-two male surfers were filmed during 42 elimination heats. Surfers' activities were classified into 1 of 4 distinct categories (paddling, wave riding, stationary, and miscellaneous). The surfers were paddling and stationary 51% (25–70%) and 42% (23–72%) of the total time, respectively. Wave riding accounted for 4% (2–7%) of the total time, whereas miscellaneous activity accounted for the remaining 2% (0.1–6%) of the total time. The frequency (average number of motions in a heat) of each activity was 26 for paddling (15–37); 17 for stationary (10–26); 5 for wave riding (2–8); and 6 for miscellaneous activity (1–13). The mean duration lengths of the activities were 30.1 seconds (1–286 seconds), 37.7 seconds (1–413 seconds), 11.6 seconds (1–44 seconds), and 5 seconds (1–31 seconds) for paddling, stationary, wave riding, and miscellaneous activities, respectively. Most of the paddling bouts (±60%) were performed at time intervals of between 1 and 20 seconds. Approximately 50% (50.9%) of the rest intervals were between 1 and 20 seconds in duration. The results showed that surfing is an intermittent activity characterized by a large variability and random distribution of each parameter analyzed. This information can be used to assist in the development of fitness training programs and physiological testing for competitive surfers.


Based on the assumption that vulnerability is socially constructed, and may thus change according to
transformations in human action, it appears necessary to consider the issue at the core of studies on the social
aspects of Climate Change (CC), risk level and disaster prevention. The social nature of vulnerability is
determined by elements such as poverty, inequality, exclusion and access to sanitation, water, food and
education among other factors.
In 2010, a study was undertaken in the ambit of the project "Climate Change, Social Inequalities and Vulnerable
Populations" about the perception of and an assessment of vulnerability. Information was gathered through
interviews using structured questionnaires administered in communities in three Brazilian biomes: the Atlantic
Forest, the Amazon and the Semi-Arid and Cerrado region. This paper discusses the result of three case studies:
one in Rondonia in the Amazon, and two in the Atlantic Forest biome, one in Rio de Janeiro and another in Santa
Catarina.
Two points in common among the communities should be highlighted. (1) None of the communities have plans
or actions to adapt to natural climate variability, much less to CC. This makes the communities more vulnerable
and unprepared to act with protective or reactive preventive measures. (2) Thus, it is important to develop a plan
with actions that address the situation of "organized irresponsibility", understood as a network of mechanisms
that treat environmental problems as normal, or regard them as being of governmental responsibility alone.


A critical optimization in the domain of linear signal transforms, such as the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), is loop merging, which increases data locality and reuse and thus performance. In particular, this includes the conversion of shuffle operations into array reindexings. To date, loop merging is well understood only for the DFT, and only for Cooley-Tukey FFT based algorithms, which excludes DFT sizes divisible by large primes. In this paper, we present a formal loop merging framework for general signal transforms and its implementation within the SPIRAL code generator. The framework consists of Ε-SPL, a mathematical language to express loops and index mappings; a rewriting system to merge loops in Ε-SPL and a compiler that translates Ε-SPL into code. We apply the framework to DFT sizes that cannot be handled using only the Cooley-Tukey FFT and compare our method to FFTW 3.0.1 and the vendor library Intel MKL 7.2.1. Compared to FFTW our generated code is a factor of 2--4 faster under equal implementation conditions (same algorithms, same unrolling threshold). For some sizes we show a speed-up of a factor of 9 using Bluestein's algorithm. Further, we give a detailed comparison against the Intel vendor library MKL; our generated code is between 2 times faster and 4.5 times slower.


CuO thin films were prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering using a copper target in a (Ar + O2) reactive mixture. Different sputtering parameters were varied including oxygen flow rate, total pressure, target-substrate distance, substrate temperature and target orientation. As expected, the thin film chemical composition is strongly dependent on the oxygen flow rate. CuO thin films having a good electronic conductivity (9.3 × 10(-1) S·cm(-1)) were obtained with an oxygen concentration of 12%. The texture and the columnar growth are amplified when the target is tilted. Preliminary electrochemical results highlight that CuO thin film performances in lithium systems are tightly related to their morphology and structure.


UVB irradiation of bone marrow or pancreatic islets has been shown to prevent GVHD and to induce transplant tolerance in experimental animal models. To clarify the underlying mechanism(s) responsible for these UVB effects we have examined in vitro cell function following UVB irradiation using LDA, FACS analysis, and DNA gel electrophoresis to assess the role of UVB-induced anergy and/or cell death. To extend our studies to the clinical setting and to promote chimerism and tolerance to organ allografts, we have further studied the effects of UVB irradiation combined with the commonly used immunosuppressive agents (cyclosporine, azathioprine, and methylprednisolone) on human T cells in proliferative in vitro assays. When cytotoxic and proliferative responses to allogeneic cells or to PHA stimulation were evaluated in LDA, the use of increasing doses of UVB irradiation resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in proliferative and cytotoxic responses of T-cells as seen by decreases in precursor frequencies. The results of proliferative T-cell assays suggest an additive immunosuppressive effect of various immunosuppressive drugs when combined with UVB irradiation. Gel electrophoresis of DNA derived from resting and activated, UVB-irradiated PBLs showed apoptosis at all UVB doses used. FACS analysis of UVB-treated CD2+ cells resulted in a UVB dose-related decrease in cell numbers that correlated with viability studies. It appears that UVB irradiation of both activated and resting PBLs induces programmed cell death but not anergy of T-cells.


Earlier research states that if an unaccented pronoun refers to the subject of the preceding sentence, a focally accented pronoun will refer to the object. In the current study, we tested whether Norwegian adults select the intended pronoun referent in this context. Our study is also the first one to use eye-tracking to investigate children's developing sensitivity to intonational cues in pronoun resolution, and consequently the first one where Norwegian is the object language. The participants were monolingual 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old children, and a group of adults. They listened to the Norwegian version of utterances like 'Sarai hugged Mariaj. Then shei/SHEj hugged her own teddy bear', while watching two corresponding figures on a screen. This was followed by the question, in Norwegian, 'Who hugged her own teddybear?' When answering the question, the adults selected the subject referent (Sara) after unaccented pronouns, and the object referent (Maria) after focally accented pronouns. Eye-tracking data revealed that the 7-year-olds initially looked towards the object referent after hearing the pronoun, and then switched to look at the subject referent, regardless of the pronoun's intonation. The 5-year-olds answered the question by selecting the intended referent more often after a focally accented pronoun than after an unaccented one. Finally, the 3-year-olds showed no clear preferences. These results suggest that Norwegian children under the age of seven are still not adult-like when resolving accented and unaccented pronouns.


PURPOSE
This study aimed to identify the mediating effect of learning flow and the moderated mediation effect of digital literacy on the effect of the learning presence of non-face-to-face class experience in nursing students on academic achievement.

METHODS
Participants were 272 nursing students from six universities in two different cities. A self-report questionnaire was used to measure learning presence, learning flow, digital literacy, and academic achievement. Analysis was performed using SPSS 26.0 and SPSS PROCESS Macro (4.0).

RESULTS
The mediating effect of learning flow on the effect of learning presence on academic achievement was 0.42, and the moderated mediation index of digital literacy was 0.17. Learning flow showed a mediating effect on the relationship between learning presence and academic achievement. Digital literacy had a moderated mediation effect on the relationship between learning presence and academic achievement that was mediated by learning flow.

CONCLUSION
The intensity of the mediating effect of nursing students' learning presence on academic achievement through learning flow increases as the level of digital literacy increases. These results suggest that educational programs considering the level of learning presence, learning flow, and digital literacy are required to promote the academic achievement of nursing college students.


We have used the GALEX ultraviolet telescope to study stellar populations and star formation morphology in a well-defined sample of 42 nearby optically-selected pre-merger interacting galaxy pairs. Galaxy interactions were likely far more common in the early Universe than in the present, thus our study provides a nearby well-resolved comparison sample for high redshift studies. We have combined the GALEX NUV and FUV images with broadband optical maps from the Sloan Digitized Sky Survey to investigate the ages and extinctions of the tidal features and the disks. The distributions of the UV/optical colors of the tidal features and the main disks of the galaxies are similar, however, the tidal features are bluer on average in NUV - g when compared with their own parent disks, thus tails and bridges are often more prominent relative to the disks in UV images compared to optical maps. This effect is likely due to enhanced star formation in the tidal features compared to the disks rather than reduced extinction, however, lower metallicities may also play a role. We have identified a few new candidate tidal dwarf galaxies in this sample. Other interesting morphologies such as accretion tails and `beads on a string' are also seen in these images. We also identify a possible `Taffy' galaxy in our sample, which may have been produced by a head-on collision between two galaxies. In only a few cases are strong tidal features seen in HI maps but not in GALEX.


The use of microorganisms for starch degradation in various processes has not only eliminated the need to use various chemicals, but has also reduced the expenditure on these processes. In modern biotechnology, yeasts have gained sufficient importance due to several reasons; the most important being their harmless status for human consumption. The need to search for some good amylolytic yeast species, is therefore, the need of time, since such strains may not only be used for the bulk production of commercial products like bioethanol, but also to obtain amylases in larger amounts, which may then be used wherever required. The present review focuses on the various amylolytic yeast species and their potential industrial applications along with a brief discussion about amylases.


Side-effects occurring in patients treated by multilayer bandaging may be neurological, dermatological or arterial. We report on two cases of venous thrombosis involving outpatients treated for venous leg ulcers (VLU). In the first case, a lack of understanding of multilayer bandages and training on their use by the nursing staff was likely the cause of a superficial vein thrombosis (SVT) in a great saphenous vein tributary. The second case occurred in a patient suffering from an ulcer complicated by oedema. Insufficient education of the patient in alert symptoms for his condition and an inappropriate medical follow-up were the direct causes of a non-severe distal vein thrombosis. We conclude that, as it has been suggested over a number of years, patients being treated with bandage therapy must be rigorously and carefully monitored.


In this article features of physicochemical processes initiated by the low-energy electron flow between the components of the target based on nitrates of metals and metals, their influence on the kinetics of the formation of volatile products, the chemical composition and structure of the deposited coatings are established. When electrons act on a mixture of aluminum nitrate and dispersed aluminum, zinc oxide coatings containing zinc nanorods are formed. The impact of the electron flow on a mechanical mixture of powders of iron nitrate and dispersed aluminum is accompanied by explosive evaporation of the target, and a large number of microdroplet formations deposited at the final stage of exothermic reactions in the surface layers of the target are fixed on the surface of the coating containing oxides and metal nanoparticles. The features of the structure and chemical composition of coatings deposited from the volatile products of electron beam dispersion of a mechanical mixture of polytetrafluoroethylene, iron nitrate, and aluminum are determined. It is shown that under such conditions of generation of the gas phase, coatings are formed consisting of a polymer matrix and containing particles of oxide, a free metal, and a certain amount of the initial undecomposed salt. The result of exothermic reactions in the crucible is partial defluorination and increased defectiveness of the molecular structure of the fluoroplastic matrix.


A new species of Moenkhausia from the upper rio Xingu basin is described. Moenkhausia eurystaenia is distinguished from all congeners, except M. heikoi and M. phaeonota, by the presence of a dark, broad longitudinal stripe from the opercle to the end of caudal peduncle. The new species is distinguished from M. heikoi mainly by having 18-21 branched anal-fin rays (vs. 24-26) and the absence of a round blotch at the end of the caudal peduncle (vs. present). Moenkhausia eurystaenia can be distinguished from M. phaeonota mainly by the anterior portion of longitudinal band darker at horizontal septum (vs. darker below horizontal septum), the deep dark pigmentation along horizontal septum extending anteriorly up to humeral region (vs. extending up to vertical through pelvic-fin origin), number of vertebrae 34 (vs. 36-37), and others additional measurements.


Introduction: This is the first case report about a thoracic intraspinal schwannoma in twin pregnancy with aggressive clinical presentation. Clinical presence and diagnoses: A 21-year-old woman presented with a 2-month history of back pain and slight lower extremity numbness and weakness, and her symptoms were misdiagnosed as normal reactions to pregnancy until she progressed to complete paralysis and incontinence within 2 weeks. She was then confirmed to have thoracic intraspinal schwannoma through MRI. Interventions and outcomes: Surgery was performed using a unilateral hemilaminectomy approach with a comfortable lateral position during operation. The patient exhibited significant improvements in sensation and muscle strength after surgery. She delivered 2 healthy baby girls by eutocia in her 38th week of pregnancy. Lessons: The diagnosis of this disease and the 4 possible mechanisms of its aggravated clinical presence are discussed. Intraspinal schwannomas during pregnancy are rare but may cause critical consequences for both the mother and the fetus. Timely diagnosis and multidisciplinary treatment by obstetricians, anesthesiologists, surgeons, oncologists, and neonatologists are essential for the clinical management of this disease.


In this paper, we propose a reinforcement learning (RL) approach to design an access scheme for secondary users (SUs) in a cognitive radio (CR) network. In the proposed scheme, we introduce a deep Q-network to enable SUs to access the primary user (PU) channel based on their past experience and the history of the PU network's automatic repeat request (ARQ) feedback. In essence, SUs cooperate to avoid collisions with other SUs and, more importantly, with the PU network. Since SUs cannot observe the state of the PUs queues, they partially observe the system's state by listening to the PUs' ARQ packets. To model this system, a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) is adopted, and an RL deep Q-network is employed for the SUs to learn the best actions. A comparative study between the proposed scheme with baseline schemes from the literature is presented. We also compare the proposed scheme with the perfect sensing system (which constitutes an upper bound on the performance) and the system exploiting only the last ARQ feedback. Our results show that the proposed RL based access scheme yields comparable performance to the baseline ARQ-based access schemes, yet, with minimal knowledge about the environment compared to the baseline which assumes perfect knowledge of key system parameters, e.g., PUs arrival rates. On the contrary, our proposed scheme autonomously learns these parameters and, hence, dynamically adapts to their variation.


The excretion of carbamazepine in the saliva of six normal adults after receiving a single oral dose of 400 mg carbamazepine is described. There was a good correlation between carbamazepine concentrations in the plasma and saliva (r = 0.94, P less than 0.001). This indicates that the concentrations of carbamazepine in the saliva can be used to monitor carbamazepine therapy. The half-life of carbamazepine in the plasma was not significantly different from the half-life in the saliva. Thus areas under concentration-time curves, apparent volumes of distribution (Vd) and the total body clearances were significantly dependent (P less than 0.001) upon the distribution of carbamazepine between plasma and saliva. Calculated from saliva concentrations, 75% of the total carbamazepine plasma concentration is bound to protein while 25% is unbound in diffusional equilibrium with saliva. These figures are consistent with data in the literature.


Forces of Management and Production Governance can direct a self-organizing team to achieve an appropriate state of dynamic equilibrium to enhance the probability of success. CASM (Complex Adaptive Situational Model) promotes an understanding of what it takes to establish those conditions and applies to any software engineering team, irrespective of the chosen way of working: agile or plan-driven. After reviewing some aspects of Complexity Science, CASM is presented as a model of complexity with four states of dynamic equilibrium in the zone between chaos and order. The four states are: Crafted Quality (agile), Controlled Quality (plan-driven), Managed Costs (WetAgile) and Self-Directed Quality. A band of software engineering feasibility is also described as the area in which teams are most likely to deliver successful projects. The journey across the band of feasibility is further described by introducing SEMAT, with Crafted Quality amounting to applying native SEMAT Essence, and Controlled Quality being achieved by introducing additional practices which satisfy more stringent governance requirements. CASM in its four states allowed introduction of the idea of describing an enterprise as a collection of CAS's (the Enterprise Amoeba), thereby setting the scene for further research into the complexities of human-driven complex adaptive systems. CASM's model of complexity could also be seen as making a contribution to the general theory of software engineering.


According to a nation-wide annual report on pancreatic cancer patients in 1992, 70 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer underwent operations. Thirty percent of them, along with 10 percent of patients who did not undergo operations, underwent radiation therapy. The result of external radiation monotherapy for local advanced pancreatic cancer is so poor that the 2-year survival rate and the median survival time have been reported in some papers to be approximately 10% and at most 13 months, respectively. Our results indicated that the 1-, 2- and 3-year survival rates and the median survival time after external radiation monotherapy for local advanced pancreatic cancer were 21%, 11%, 5% and 11.3 months, respectively. The reasons for the poor results are thought to be as follows: pancreatic cancer is very malignant, invades the surrounding tissues and metastasizes distantly in its earliest stages; it is mostly adenocarcinoma resistant to radiation therapy; and the pancreas borders closely the stomach and duodenum, which are very sensitive to radiation. Therefore, charged particle radiotherapy, especially heavy ion radiotherapy, is expected to bring about advances in the field of radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer because of its excellent potential for dose distribution and biological effect.


The effect of Gelatin coating on the quality of rainbow trout fillet was investigated over a period of 20 days in cold storage conditions (4 ± 1 ° C). In this study, we tried using a gelatin coating to reduce spoilage process in trout fillet during storage at refrigerator temperature. Therefore, 4% gelatin solution was used to cover the fillets. Microbial tests, including total viable count and psychrotrophic viable count, chemical tests, including total volatile bases nitrogen, thiobarbituric acid index, peroxide index and sensory evaluation were periodically performed for without coating fillets (control) and coated fillets. The control fillets and samples that were covered with gelatin receipt to 7.88 and 7.44 (log cfu/g), respectively, in the tenth day that is not acceptable for human consumption. Also, in psychrotrophic count value did not observe difference between the treatments. ThioBarbituric Acid index in 10th and 15th day, and peroxide and free fatty acid index only in 15th day in the coated fillets were better than the control samples. The results of this research indicate that the gelatin coating alone don ' t have antimicrobial properties and is not effective on the sensory properties preservation in chilled storage fish fillets, however, its effect on the inhibition of oxidation is tangible.


The reports on the clinical application of interferon (IFN) have been increasing because human IFN can be produced on a large scale. However, the therapy of viral diseases and malignant tumors by IFN alone is limited from the data obtained so far. The combination of IFN therapy with other therapies should be considered. In this article, the fundamental studies on the combined therapy of IFN and other agents will be reviewed. As for the combined therapy of IFN and chemotherapeutic agents, the synergic or additive effect is recognized unless IFN and chemotherapeutic agent exist in the body at the same time. The combined therapy of IFN and radiation is effective when the tumor has been irradiated before the administration of IFN. The efficacy of the combined therapy of IFN and immunomodulators is confirmed in mouse experiment. The development of tumor transplanted into the mice is highly inhibited when IFN-alpha or beta and gamma are combined. At present, there is few reports about the combination therapy in the clinical application of IFN, although the data on the combination therapy are increasing in the animal experiments. The issues about the combination therapy will become important in the near future.


We utilize the methods of computational topology to the database of optical flow created by Roth and Black from range images, and demonstrate a qualitative topological analysis of spaces of $3 \times 3, 5 \times 5$ and $7 \times 7$ optical flow patches. We experimentally prove that there exist subspaces of the spaces of the three sizes high-contrast patches that are topologically equivalent to a circle and a three circles model, respectively. The Klein bottle is the quotient space described as the square $[0,1] \times [0,1]$ with sides identified by the relations $(0, y)\sim (1, y)$ for $y\in [0, 1]$ and $(x, 0) \sim (1-x, 1)$ for $ x\in [0, 1]$. For the space of $3 \times 3$ optical flow patches we found a subspace having the same homology as that of the Klein bottle. As the size of patches increases, the Klein bottle feature of the spaces of $5 \times 5$ and $7 \times 7$ optical flow patches gradually disappears.


Surface modification of microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes has been widely used to
improve the protein adsorption resistance and permeation properties of hydrophobic membranes. Several
surface modification methods for converting conventional membranes into low-protein-binding membranes
are reviewed. They are categorized as either physical modification or chemical modification of the membrane
surface. Physical modification of the membrane surface can be achieved by coating it with hydrophilic
polymers, hydrophilic-hydrophobic copolymers, surfactants or proteins. Another method of physical
modification is plasma treatment with gases. A hydrophilic membrane surface can be also generated during
phase-inverted micro-separation during membrane formation, by blending hydrophilic or hydrophilichydrophobic
polymers with a hydrophobic base membrane polymer. The most widely used method of
chemical modification is surface grafting of a hydrophilic polymer by UV polymerization because it is the
easiest method; the membranes are dipped into monomers with and without photo-initiators, then irradiated
with UV. Plasma-induced polymerization of hydrophilic monomers on the surface is another popular
method, and surface chemical reactions have also been developed by several researchers. Several important
examples of physical and chemical modifications of membrane surfaces for low-protein-binding are
summarized in this article.


ABSTRACT The structures of nCB (n = 6 & 7 where n is the number of carbon atoms in the alkyl chain) have been optimized using the Becke3-Lee-Yang-Parr (B3LYP) hybrid functional with 6–31G+(d) basis set using the crystallographic geometry as input. The electronic structures of the dimer molecules have been computed using the optimized geometries. The spectra of the dimer molecules have been calculated by employing the DFT method. The features of electronic transitions and excited states have been calculated via configuration interaction singles (CIS) with the semiempirical Hamiltonian Zerner intermediate neglect of differential overlap (ZINDO). The photo sensitivity of liquid crystalline alkyl cyanobiphenyl has been presented on ultraviolet (UV) absorption based approach through Density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The structural and electrochemical properties such as HOMO (H), LUMO (L), and energy gap (Eg = EL – EH) have been investigated. A comparison of dimers during the different modes of interactions suggests an absorption maxima at longer wavelength for 7CB, indicating the high photo sensitivity. Further, the 6CB dimers exhibit a lower band gap; hence its conductivity is high in comparison with the 7CB dimers.


The ability to distinguish foreshocks from background seismicity is very important in short-term earthquake prediction. To that end we have looked at spatial clustering (using waveform cross-correlation) and stress drops of foreshocks of two New Zealand earthquake sequences that occurred in 1990. The Tennyson sequence, located in a continental margin-type strike-slip environment, consisted of a group of foreshocks, an ML = 5.8 mainshock, and many aftershocks. A cross-correlation analysis showed five spatially close clusters of activity prior to the mainshock. Two were event pairs located within the final aftershock zone, two were clusters of four events, each located outside the aftershock zone, and the fifth was a cluster of eight immediate foreshocks loated within the aftershock zone. An analysis of two nearby control regions showed that pairs of identical events were not uncommon, but larger clusters were. Stress drops of three events in the 12 days before the mainshock, obtained by deconvolving small events as empirical Green's functions, were lower than for earlier preshocks and aftershocks. Source time functions derived from the Green's function deconvolution indicated that a unilateral rupture model was more appropriate than a circular source model.

Cross-correlation values from the ML = 5.9 Weber sequence also showed spatial clustering, but this was well removed from the mainshock in space and time. A control area also showed similar clustering, suggesting that it is a normal feature of the seismicity at a convergent margin. The Weber foreshocks, only four in all, were not highly correlated. For both sequences, foreshocks did not correlate with the aftershocks, indicating that they occurred in a region of complete coseismic stress relief.

A stress drop of 1650 bars was obtained for a 44-km-deep event that occurred within the upper part of the subducting Pacific Plate, nearby, but not related to the Tennyson sequence.


We employ analytic QCD (anQCD) approach to analyze the unpolarized nucleon structure function (NSF) in deep inelastic scattering ( DIS ) processes at the next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy. Considering the unreliable results of underlying perturbative QCD (pQCD) at energy scale Q ∼ Λ and even less we modify the calculations at these scales using anQCD approach and compare them with results from underlying pQCD and also with the available experimental data. In these progresses the massive perturbation theory (MPT) model is also used where an effective mass is attributed to gluons. We finally use the Jacobi polynomials formalism to transfer the calculations from Mellin moment space to Bjorken-x space. To confirm the validity of anQCD approach the Gottfired sum rule is also investigated. The achieved numerical results at low energy scales are compatible with what is expected and corresponding to an admissible behaviour of parton densities.


To the Editor.— The radiological portion of the article entitled "Evaluation of Hematuria in Adults" by Sutton 1 is quite misleading and outdated, and it is important that a more up-to-date approach to the subject be described. I am referring to the radiological workup of the patient with hematuria that is displayed in the algorithm (Fig 1) in the article. The workup shown in the algorithm concerning imaging of renal masses might have been appropriate 10 years ago but is totally inappropriate at this time. If a renal mass is studied by renal ultrasound examination and is found to be a cyst, the algorithm suggests cyst aspiration for confirmation. The use of cyst aspiration in this regard is totally unnecessary. If the ultrasound examination indicates that a renal mass is a cyst, nothing further need be done, since sonography is virtually 100% accurate in the diagnosis of renal cysts if


Federated recommendation system is a recently emerging architecture, which provides recommendation services without exposing users' private data. Existing methods are mainly designed to recommend items already existing in the system. In practical scenarios, the system continuously introduces new items and recommends them to users, i.e., cold-start recommendation. To recommend cold items, existing federated recommendation models require collecting new interactions from users and retraining the model, which is time-consuming and poses a privacy threat to users' sensitive information. This paper presents a novel Item-guided Federated aggregation for cold-start Recommendation (IFedRec) framework. The IFedRec exchanges the item embedding to learn the common item preference semantic and preserves other model parameters locally to capture user personalization. Besides, it deploys a meta attribute network on the server to learn the item feature semantic, and a semantic alignment mechanism is presented to align both kinds of item semantic. When the new items arrive, each client can make recommendations with item feature semantic learned from the meta attribute network by incorporating the locally personalized model without retraining. Experiments on four benchmark datasets demonstrate IFedRec's outstanding performance for cold-start recommendation. Besides, in-depth analysis verifies IFedRec's learning ability for cold items while protecting user's privacy.


(1) Background: This retrospective study evaluated perioperative and intensive care unit (ICU) variables to predict colonic ischemia (CI) after infrarenal ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (RAAA) surgery. (2) Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of the patients treated for infrarenal RAAA from January 2011 to December 2020 in our hospital. (3) Results: A total of 135 (82% male) patients were admitted to ICU after treatment of infrarenal RAAA. The median age of all patients was 75 years (IQR 68–81 years). Of those, 24 (18%) patients developed CI, including 22 (92%) cases within the first three postoperative days. CI was found more often after open repair compared to endovascular treatment (22% vs. 5%, p = 0.021). Laboratory findings in the first seven PODs revealed statistically significant differences between CI and non-CI patients for serum lactate, minimum pH, serum bicarbonate, and platelet count. Norepinephrine (NE) was used in 92 (68%) patients during ICU stay. The highest daily dose of norepinephrine was administered to CI patients at POD1. Multivariable analysis revealed that NE > 64 µg/kg (RD 0.40, 95% CI: 0.25–0.55, p < 0.001), operating time ≥ 200 min (RD 0.18, 95% CI: 0.05–0.31, p = 0.042), and pH < 7.3 (RD 0.21, 95% CI: 0.07–0.35, p = 0.019), significantly predicted the development of CI. A total of 23 (17%) patients died during the hospital stay, including 8 (33%) patients from the CI group and 15 (7%) from the non-CI group (p = 0.032). (4) Conclusions: CI after RAAA is a sever complication occurring most frequently within the first 3 postoperative days. Our study identified many surrogate markers associated with colonic ischemia after aortic RAAA, including norepinephrine dose > 64 µg/kg, operating time ≥ 200 min, and PH < 7.3. Future studies are needed to support these results.


An NH3 laser pumped by a CO2 laser with spatial matching of output beams is investigated. Such a laser can be used as a radiation source for a two-frequency lidar operating in the range from 11 to 13.5 μm.


Optimum management strategies (crop rotation systems, crop areas, irrigation intensities and moveable capital replacement) for typical one, two and three plot farmers at Vaalharts were determined under different intensities and incidences of water limitations as well as with increased water quotas and peak canal deliverances. Special consideration was given to changes needed in management strategy as well as the ability of the different typical farmers to survive financially as availability of water changes. The study utilised, inter alia, dynamic linear programming, water production functions and loss functions. The results indicate significant changes in optimum management strategies as water limitations, water quotas and peak canal deliverance change. The ability to replace moveable capital differs considerably among the different typical farm units.


Genetic factors strongly influence the risk for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Studies in both animal models and humans suggest that SLE is a complex trait with contributions from multiple genes. Recent genetic studies have shown that polymorphisms at several loci, including the major histocompatibility complex, complement proteins, immunoglobulin receptors, cytokines, and other as yet unmapped genes, are associated with SLE. Ethnic factors are also important because some of these genetic associations are only found in certain populations. Murine models of SLE have provided rational candidate loci to begin genome-wide studies in humans. Promising results are now emerging from such studies.


Fermentative growth via the arginine deiminase pathway is mediated by the enzymes arginine deiminase, carbamate kinase, and catabolic ornithine transcarbamylase and by a membrane-bound arginine-ornithine antiporter. Recently we reported the characterization of catabolic ornithine transcarbamylase and the corresponding gene, arcB, from Halobacterium salinarium (formerly Halobacterium halobium). Upstream of the arcB gene, three additional open reading frames with halobacterial codon usage were found. They were identified as the arcC gene coding for carbamate kinase, the arcA gene coding for arginine deiminase, and a gene, tentatively termed arcR, coding for a putative regulatory protein. The identification of the arcC and arcA genes was verified, respectively, by heterologous expression of the enzyme in Haloferax volcanii and by protein isolation and N-terminal sequence determination of three peptides. The gene order arcRACB differs from the gene order arcDABC in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the only other organism for which sequence information is available. Transcripts from H. salinarium cultures grown fermentatively or aerobically were characterized by Northern (RNA) blot and primer extension analyses. It was determined (i) that monocistronic transcripts corresponding to the four open reading frames exist and that there are three polycistronic transcripts, (ii) that the level of induction during fermentative growth differs for the various transcripts, and (iii) that upstream of the putative transcriptional start sites for the three structural genes there are sequences with similarities to the halobacterial consensus promoter. The data indicate that expression of the arc gene cluster and its regulation differ in H. salinarium and P. aeruginosa.


Introduction: Attitude, Ethics and Communication modules (AETCOM) for undergraduate medical students have been suggested by the Indian Medical Council (2015) in the new curriculum based on competencies. There is a need to assess the attitude of students towards communication skills training modules. Communication Skills Assessment Scale (CSAS) is an accepted tool for it. Aim: To assess the attitude of first year medical undergraduate students towards communication skills learning programme. Materials and methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted in Department of Physiology at Government Medical College, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India, in the third week of November 2016. Total 60 students from first year undergraduate (MBBS) course were included in the study. The CSAS questionnaire has 26 items using five-point Likert scale with 13 positive and 13 negative statements about communication skills training labelled as Positive Assessment Scale (PAS) and Negative Assessment Scale (NAS). The scores were compared for gender groups and English medium and vernacular medium group by Independent two-tailed student's t-test. Results: Sixty students (34 females and 26 males) were present with mean age of 18.4±0.8 years. Overall, PAS was 53.5±7.8, and NAS was 32.2±6.1. Among 26 males, PAS was 52±10.7, and among 34 females it was 54.7±4.4 (p-value=0.18). NAS in males was 34.2±6.3, whereas, in females, it was 30.7±5.6 (p-value= 0.026). Conclusion: The findings indicate the acceptability of communication skills training among first year MBBS students. There is a need to utilise these positive perception among students and train them to become competent doctors with the desired communication skills.


Millions of Egyptians participated in the revolution, but only the doctors and nurses took part as professionals. We treated the injured in so called field hospitals created by the protesters in Tahrir Square and in public hospitals. We took this experience back to our hospitals after Mubarak fell in February 2011 and started the fight to improve our health service and to raise state health spending from 3.5% of the budget to 10% (the Egyptian government pledged 15% in the 2001 Abuja Declaration).

We achieved amazing things during these campaigns at the hospital where I work as a neuropsychiatrist. Manshiet el Bakry is a state funded general hospital with 90 beds, serving 1000 outpatients daily in Heliopolis.

 At first it was hard to convince all hospital staff that they needed to join an independent union to defend their interests. A petition campaign was started to support doctors' demands after Mubarak's fall. Nurses and other staff wanted to sign. Initially the doctors refused, but other staff insisted. Discussions began …


Background: The goal of staging laparoscopy in primary gastrointestinal malignancies is to examine any local, regional, and/or metastatic disease in order to determine the stage of the presenting malignancy, and thus, the possibility of performing a curative resection. This study aimed to evaluate the role of staging laparoscopy in preoperative assessment of colorectal cancer patients. Subjects and Method: this is a cross-sectional study, conducted at Suez Canal University hospital. A total of 26 patients with colorectal cancer were enrolled and had a CT scanning with contrast and staging laparoscopy as a step in the preoperative assessment of their disease. Results: Staging laparoscopy of these patients revealed metastatic spread in 10 cases (38%). Both pelvi-abdominal CT and staging laparoscopy had equally high specificity for metastatic diseases (99%). However, regarding the sensitivity, staging laparoscopy was superior to pelvi-abdominal CT in detecting the presence of metastatic disease in general (83% vs 66%, p=0.026). Conclusion: staging laparoscopy is a valuable tool in evaluating colorectal cancer patients preoperatively. Future studies should be conducted on a higher number of patients in order to detect the actual value of staging laparoscopy in detecting metastatic spread.


This paper presents a new method for optimal dispatch of real and reactive power generation which is based on cartesian coordinate formulation of economic dispatch problem and reclassification of state and control variables associated with generator buses. The voltage and power at these buses are classified as parametric and functional inequality constraints, and are handled by reduced gradient technique and penalty factor approach respectively. The advantage of this classification is the reduction in the size of the equality constraint model, leading to less storage requirement. The rectangular coordinate formulation results in an exact equality constraint model in which the coefficient matrix is real, sparse, diagonally dominant, smaller in size and need be computed and factorized once only in each gradient step. In addition, Lagragian multipliers are calculated using a new efficient procedure. A natural outcome of these features is the solution of the economic dispatch problem, faster than other methods available to date in the literature. Rapid and reliable convergence is an additional desirable characteristic of the method. Digital simulation results are presented on several IEEE test systems to illustrate the range of application of the method vis- à-vis the popular Dommel-Tinney (DT) procedure. It is found that the proposed method is more reliable, 3-4 times faster and requires 20-30 percent less storage compared to the DT algorithm, while being just as general.


Are we running out of fossil fuel? If so, how fast is this happening? How are policies and technologies responding to these changes? And what are the alternatives? Today, global policies towards fossil fuel production are rapidly changing towards stringent means (owing to the debate on global climate change) in that "arguably" the change is brought by the release of anthropogenic CO2 into the atmosphere. A change towards reducing the amount of CO2 flared during petroleum production into the atmosphere by employing technologies that can capture CO2 and transport it to matured oil fields has the potential of increasing reserves while achieving a paradigm towards cleaner and environmentally friendly production as well as mitigating climate change. This paper presents a propose perspective for the Nigerian E & P sector in mitigating the scourge of climate change, adaptive for smarter future growth and prosperity in an cost effective manner through the capture of anthropogenic CO2 and injecting it back into matured oil wells for enhance oil recovery (EOR).


Joseph E. Levine has been largely neglected by Film Studies, yet he was a uniquely important figure in the US film industry during his lifetime. As an independent producer, distributor and promoter, Levine's influence on the post-War cinematic landscape of the US was wide-ranging and profound. His versatility and multifariousness were unsurpassed during his lifetime and analysis of his abilities, strategies and influence complicates many areas of current film scholarship.

Levine was a very prominent figure in the popular press where he was perceived as a master showman. His prominence and hyperbolic style undermines the traditional understanding of the cultural intermediary, a role usually associated with discretion. Levine's conspicuousness led to him becoming an easily identifiable public figure yet, due to his varied output, he resists the notions of branding that are often associated with prominent figures in the film industry.

Studies of reputation building strategies are often closely aligned to critical approval, yet Levine never courted critical favour. Although Levine's output catered for many niche tastes, his public image was unabashedly populist. He would, however, utilise the critical adulation bestowed on others to bolster his own reputation as a supporter of talent, providing an ideal case study for the complex political interactions of reputational assessment.

As a pioneer of industrial strategy and practice, Levine was hugely influential. He pioneered saturation publicity and opening tactics and was an early advocator of the use of television in movie marketing, and therein he represents a vital missing link in the evolution of blockbuster marketing techniques. He was similarly influential regarding the marketing and distribution of art cinema and, in the 1960s and 1970s, he helped to redefine the role of the independent producer.

All these factors combine to make Levine an ideal vantage point for surveying cultural and filmic mores of the post-War US. His career was one of extraordinary contradictions and complexities. An analysis of his career provides a deepening of understanding of film historiography of this era and calls into question many commonly held scholarly assumptions regarding taste cultures, cultural boundaries and the supposed demarcation between independent and major studio film production.


It's the morning of the Sixties and it's suppertime at Freedom Hall, the most welcoming household in North London. Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the motley, youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table - here are her two sons, smarting at their upbringing but beginning to absorb their mother's lessons. Around them are ranged their schoolfriends and girlfriends and ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. The feast begins. Wine and talk flow. Everything is up for grabs, everything is being changed and being challenged. And here in this kitchen, the nutritious tolerance can be sniffed even above the heady fish stew. But what is being tolerated? And where will it end? Over there in the corner is Frances' ex-husband, Comrade Johnny, who delivers his rousing tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation while he laps up his soup, before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Upstairs sits Johnny's exiled mother, funding all, but finding she can embrace only one lost little girl - Sylvia, who has to travel to Africa, to freshly, fervently independent Zimlia, to find out who she is and what she wants. And, yes, what of the Africans, what will they tolerate? These are the people dreaming the Sixties into being and the people who on the morning after all that dreaming, woke to find they were the ones taxed with clearing up and making good. And Freedom Hall stands sentry to all the changes, all the dreams - embracing its charges before seeing them off again into the outside world. No living novelist in Britain is in a better position than Doris Lessing to look hard and long at what the world did in that eventful decade and at the world that decade made. And perhaps no-one else has better expressed the difference between the male experience of the 1960s and what followed and the female experience of the same thing than she has here in The Sweetest Dream.


Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) has devastated the swine industry worldwide for over 30 years and shows no signs of slowing down. In this study, we found that PRRSV infection elevated hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) expression. ABSTRACT Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is an Arterivirus that has been devastating the swine industry worldwide since the late 1980s. Severe interstitial pneumonia is the typical pathological characteristic of PRRSV-infected swine. Accumulating evidence has suggested that hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) plays vital roles in the development of inflammation and the viral life cycle. However, the role and the underlying mechanism of HIF-1α in PRRSV infection remain elusive. Here, we found that PRRSV infection elevated HIF-1α expression. Furthermore, overexpression of HIF-1α increased PRRSV replication, whereas knockdown of HIF-1α inhibited PRRSV infection. Our further mechanistic analysis revealed that PRRSV-encoded nonstructural protein 1β (nsp1β) promoted HIF-1α transcription via its N-terminal nuclease activity and degraded the polyubiquitin chain of HIF-1α via its C-terminal deubiquitylation (DUB) enzyme activity, collectively stabilizing HIF-1α. Meanwhile, nsp1β interacted with both HIF-1α and von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor (pVHL) to form a ternary complex, which may have hindered pVHL-mediated ubiquitination degradation of HIF-1α by impairing the interaction between HIF-1α and pVHL. Interestingly, pVHL also stabilized nsp1β via K63-linked ubiquitination, forming a positive feedback loop to stabilize HIF-1α. Taken together, these results indicate that PRRSV infection stabilizes HIF-1α to facilitate viral proliferation and that viral nsp1β plays a vital role in enhancing the expression and stabilization of HIF-1α. The regulation of HIF-1α may have great therapeutic potential for the development of novel drugs against PRRSV. IMPORTANCE Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) has devastated the swine industry worldwide for over 30 years and shows no signs of slowing down. In this study, we found that PRRSV infection elevated hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) expression. In addition, overexpressed HIF-1α contributed to PRRSV replication, whereas knockdown of HIF-1α reduced PRRSV growth. The PRRSV-encoded nonstructural protein 1β (nsp1β) exerted a stabilizing effect on HIF-1α through its nuclease protease and papain-like cysteine protease enzymatic domains. PRRSV nsp1β also interacted with von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor (pVHL) and HIF-1α, whereby nsp1β impaired the interaction between HIF-1α and pVHL. This work deepens our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in PRRSV infection and provides new insights for the development of HIF-1α-based anti-PRRSV therapies.


Three spontaneously occurring tumors are described in dwarf galagos. One tumor was a subcutaneous fibrous histiocytoma in the left inguinal area of an adult male; the other two were bile duct carcinomas in a seven-year-old male and a four-year-old female. Both bile duct carcinomas had remarkable invasive and metastasizing capacities.


The development of an indirect measurement model for electro thermal furnace and its implementation in a reconfigurable architecture are the main issues of this article. The proposed measurement system is based on the system model, the principle of conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamics are applied to build a model of the thermal system and the Kalman theory is applied for filtering and prediction of the temperatures inside of a resistive furnace. Three setup are established to evaluate the performance of the indirect measurement system: implementation off-line of the algorithm on a test platform, the indirect measurement system is connected on the furnace hardware for standalone and real time operations. The measurement algorithm can be seen as good alternative for temperature indirect measurements systems, due to its effectiveness and simplicity during the performance evaluations


We demonstrate through a series of simulations that by parameterizing the temporal speckle contrast statistic from a sequence of translating speckle images on a number of experimental constants, the local temporal contrast can be used to quantitatively assess local motion, provided that the spatial and temporal Nyquist sampling criteria are both met. We develop a simple exponential model for quantifying speckle motion for speckle patterns that display arbitrary intensity statistics and provide suggestions for optimizing both the experimental acquisition of speckle data and the temporal contrast analysis of the data. The confounding effects of uncorrelated noise are also discussed. The model is demonstrated by applying it to an optical coherence tomography image sequence of an engineered tissue construct undergoing dynamic compression. Applications to tissue mechanics are shown, although the discussion is equally relevant for fluid motion studies.


This article focuses on political electoral campaigning in a given town in Cameroon. The intention is to bring about a deeper understanding of the nature of 'democracy' and its implications for political power sharing and accountability in a given locality in Africa. Based on extensive field research, interviews and participative observation the empirical data gathered are analysed with references to recent academic approaches on democratic developments in Africa. The article discusses concrete ways politicians use to convince potential voters to vote for their party in relation to theories of gift-giving and symbolic capital.


Despite a growing number of effective therapeutic options for patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the prognosis remains dismal mostly due to the late-stage presentation and spread of the cancer to other organs. Because a genomic analysis of pancreas tissue revealed that it may take years, if not decades, for pancreatic cancer to develop, we performed radiomics and fat fraction analysis on contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) scans of patients with historical scans showing no evidence of cancer but who subsequently went on to develop pancreas cancer years later, in an attempt to identify specific imaging features of the normal pancreas that may portend the subsequent development of the cancer. In this IRB-exempt, retrospective, single institution study, CECT chest, abdomen, and pelvis (CAP) scans of 22 patients who had evaluable historical imaging data were analyzed. The images from the "healthy" pancreas were obtained between 3.8 and 13.9 years before the diagnosis of pancreas cancer was established. Afterwards, the images were used to divide and draw seven regions of interest (ROIs) around the pancreas (uncinate, head, neck-genu, body (proximal, middle, and distal) and tail). Radiomic analysis on these pancreatic ROIs consisted of first order quantitative texture analysis features such as kurtosis, skewness, and fat quantification. Of all the variables tested, fat fraction in the pancreas tail (p = 0.029) and asymmetry of the histogram frequency curve (skewness) of pancreas tissue (p = 0.038) were identified as the most important imaging signatures for subsequent cancer development. Changes in the texture of the pancreas as measured on the CECT of patients who developed pancreas cancer years later could be identified, confirming the utility of radiomics-based imaging as a potential predictor of oncologic outcomes. Such findings may be potentially useful in the future to screen patients for pancreatic cancer, thereby helping detect pancreas cancer at an early stage and improving survival.


This paper presents an efficient opportunistic retransmission protocol (PRO, Protocol for Retransmitting Opportunistically) to improve the performance of IEEE 802.11 WLANs. PRO is a link-layer protocol that allows overhearing nodes to function as relays that retransmit on behalf of the source after they learn about a failed transmission. Relays with stronger connectivity to the destination have a higher chance of delivering the packet than the source does, thereby resulting in a more efficient use of the channel. PRO has four main features. First, channel reciprocity coupled with a run-time calibration process is used to estimate the instantaneous link quality to the destination. Second, a local qualification process filters out poor relays early. Third, a distributed relay selection algorithm chooses the best set of eligible relays among all qualified relays and prioritizes them. Finally, 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) is leveraged to make sure high priority relays transmit with high probability. PRO is designed to coexist with legacy 802.11 stations. We have implemented PRO in the driver of a commodity wireless card. Our extensive evaluation on both a controlled testbed and in the real world shows that PRO boosts throughput in diverse wireless environments, and especially in when there is significant contention for the channels, under fading, and with user mobility.


Joubert syndrome (JBTS) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of ciliopathy with a key diagnostic feature of 'molar tooth sign' in brain MRI. So far, over 20 causative genes have been identified, but only one gene (OFD1) results in X-linked Joubert syndrome 10 (JBTS10). Six mutations in the OFD1 gene have been found to cause JBTS10. In this study, we identified a novel OFD1 mutation of c.2843_2844 delAA (p.Lys948ArgfsX) in a 3-month-old boy with a 'molar tooth sign' and clinical features of JBTS using targeted exome next-generation sequencing. The de-novo OFD1 mutation in exon 21 leads to a frameshift mutation generating a prematurely truncated protein and is predicted to partly reduce the function of the OFD1 protein. Our study expands the genotype–phenotype spectrum in JBTS and will have applications in prenatal and early diagnosis of the disorder. This is the first report of the OFD1 mutation causing JBTS in a Chinese population.


This paper is about one of the most fascinating competitions between university students: the International Physicists' Tournament (IPT). The IPT is a team competition. The most interesting and challenging problems for the IPT are selected by vote long before the contest. The competition is meant to be close to real scientific life: the solution of the problem is presented, and then opposed and reviewed; the solution usually contains self-made and profound theoretical and experimental investigations. The tournament promotes science among the students and helps them establish international scientific relations.


Angela L. Coe (Editor), 2003, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 288 p. (Soft Cover, US $50.00) ISBN: 0-521-53842-4.

My first serious exposure to sequence stratigraphy was in a graduate seminar over 10 years ago. To be honest, it was pretty hard going; I had to read papers many times over and often still was not sure that I fully understood them. For one thing, the jargon of sequence stratigraphy is remarkably dense (despite its usefulness once basic concepts are grasped). Also, many papers that are now regarded as canonical because they clarify certain theoretical or practical issues had not yet appeared or had only recently been published and had not yet been digested by the broader stratigraphic community (to say nothing of a very green graduate student). Despite the familiarity of many of the concepts, the fundamental connections were difficult to grasp and weave into an integrated whole. Nevertheless, reading about and discussing these ideas was exciting because, as they came together, I felt like I was learning something genuinely new (at least to me). Since that time, sequence stratigraphy has become a fundamental part of my research as a paleontologist–to a large degree because I still find the challenge of using these ideas exciting.

From my personal point of view, I see sequence stratigraphy as fundamentally related to paleontology: after all, it aims to understand rock in a temporal framework just as paleontology aims to understand past life in a temporal framework. This connection, hinted at very early by Cisne and Rabe (1978), was largely overlooked except by taphonomists (e.g., Kidwell, 1984). However, as paleontologists have begun seeing past the veil of jargon, the relevance of sequence stratigraphy has become increasingly evident (e.g., Patzkowsky and Holland, 1999; Holland et al., 2001; Babcock, 2001; Olszewski and …


Reliable power delivery over the mission life is critical to all satellites; therefore solar arrays are one of the most vital links to satellite mission success. However, in the last ten years, the Ascend Division of Airclaims has documented 117 satellite solar array anomalies, 12 of which resulted in total satellite failure, making solar array reliability a serious issue. This paper will discuss satellite power system issues with the focus on solar array reliability issues. Suggestions for next steps that could be taken by the satellite industry to improve the reliability of the solar arrays will be included. Ways to improve solar arrays for high power and geosynchronous power will also be discussed in an effort to address some of the main failure trends seen in the satellite anomaly analysis. Solar array reliability is an issue that must be addressed to take space utilization to the next level.


The knowledge of innervation of pectoral muscles is important to surgeons performing breast surgeries, axillary lymph node dissection, harvesting pectoralis major/minor for flaps, and during neurotization procedures where the pectoral nerves are particularly at risk. The present case describes the innervation of the pectoral muscles solely by a nerve trunk arising from the ansa pectoralis (AP) - the loop of medial and lateral pectoral nerves. Interestingly, there was also a communication between the AP and roots forming the median nerve. It is imperative for the operating surgeons to be aware of these rare variations in order to prevent denervation and subsequent atrophy of the pectoral musculature.


The resolution (r) of our electron-acoustic microscopy (EAM) has been 1.2 pm 5_ r 5. 2.4 pm, when operated with electron beam chopping frequency (f) of 1 MHz, duty ratio of 50 % and acceleration voltage (HV) of 30 kV. This level of r is insufficient for observation of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) LSI. This problem was partly solved by improvement of a driving power unit for chopping an electron beam so that the harmonic components on the square wave of f which flow in the chopping coil could be drastically suppressed. The r obtained was estimated to be r -5-0.8 pm at f =1 MHz, duty ratio = 50 % and HV = 19 kV. If f can be further increased by this method, r would further improve, and application of EAM to nondestructive observation at the selected area, i.e., the fixed area, of MOS LSI would be come possible.