Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) has a catalytic cleft characteristic for zinc metallopeptidases and has significant sequence similarities with some bacterial peptidoglycan metallopeptidases defining a subgroup within the M15A family that, besides having the characteristic zinc coordination domain, can bind two calcium ions. Extracellular matrix (ECM) components in animals include heparan-sulfate proteoglycans, which are analogs of bacterial peptidoglycan and thus potentially involved in the extracellular distribution of Shh. We found that the zinc-coordination fold of Shh is required for its association with ECM as well as for non-cell autonomous signaling. Association with the ECM requires the presence of at least 0.1 μM zinc and is prevented by mutations affecting critical conserved catalytical residues as well as extracellular calcium. Our results demonstrate that the zinc-coordination fold is required for ECM-association and suggest that the putative intrinsic peptidase activity of Shh is required for non-cell autonomous signaling.


The main aim of the paper is to assess the financial situation of beverages production sector in Poland and Germany. Comparative research was carried on the basis of size classes of enterprises estimated with databases of European Central Bank that allowed to assess different economic sectors in aspects of financial structure, financial liquidity, indebtedness, activity and profitability. The research proved that Polish enterprises – comparing to German ones – apply more aggressive financial strategies, experience worse financial liquidity, less effective management of working capital, possess weaker ability to service its debts, evidence lower markup from sales but higher rate of return from own capital – as the consequence of interest shield and high capital leverage.


Understanding the determinants of reproductive skew (the partitioning of reproduction among co-breeding individuals) is one of the major questions in social evolution. In ants, multiple-queen nests are common and reproductive skew among queens has been shown to vary tremendously both within and between species. Proximate determinants of skew may be related to both queen and worker behaviour. Queens may attempt to change their reproductive share through dominance interactions, egg eating and by changing individual fecundity. Conversely, workers are in a position to regulate the reproductive output of queens when rearing the brood. This paper investigates queen behaviour at the onset of egg laying and the effect of queen fecundity and worker behaviour on brood development and reproductive shares of multiple queens in the ant Formica fusca. The study was conducted in two-queen laboratory colonies where the queens produced only worker offspring. The results show that in this species reproductive apportionment among queens is not based on dominance behaviour and aggression, but rather on differences in queen fecundity. We also show that, although the queen fecundity at the onset of brood rearing is a good indicator of her final reproductive output, changes in brood composition occur during brood development. Our results highlight the importance of queen fecundity as a major determinant of her reproductive success. They furthermore suggest that in highly derived polygyne species, such as the Formica ants, direct interactions as a means for gaining reproductive dominance have lost their importance.


An abundant literature is now available about numerous properties of such operators with different assumptions on the phase Φ and the amplitude u, we will mainly quote articles related to our work sometimes disregarding other interesting properties. The general formulation (1) includes as typical examples two families of operators with D = d that have been intensively studied since the '70s. The first family corresponds to the choice Φ(x, y, η) = (x−y) ·η and consists of semiclassical Pseudo-Differential Operators (PDOs) (see for instance [24]). Those turned to be very relevant to produce parametrices of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), for instance of elliptic type, with the help of symbolic and functional calculus. As far as global results are concerned, Calderón and Vaillancourt [6] showed a fundamental result: PDOs are bounded operators from L(R;C) into itself if the amplitude and its derivatives up to some order are globally bounded. The second family corresponds to the choice Φ(x, y, η) = S(x, η) − y · η where the real-valued function S is a generating function of some canonical transformation κ of the phase space T ∗Rd i.e. κ(∇ηS(x, η), η) = (x,∇xS(x, η)).


Objectives To survey medical students on their ideas of future work-life balance and discuss topics for next-generation medical education. Methods First-year (n=372, 34.9% female) and sixth-year medical students (n=311, 44.1% female) responded to a questionnaire on future self, marriage and childcare, and gender differences at the workplace. Responses were compared between academic years and gender. Responses were evaluated by gender and academic year using the Mann-Whitney U test. Significance was set at p<0.01. Results The first-year and sixth-year students, regardless of gender, had different views on gender-related favorable treatment at workplaces {U=13464, p=0.000 (first-year), U=10407, p=0.000 (sixth-year)}. A greater percentage of female students would choose career options based on the possibility of marriage and childbirth {U=10689, p=0.000 (first-year), U=10930, p=0.000 (sixth-year)}. Among first-year students, a greater percentage of female students expected to work part-time. Also among first-year students, greater percentages of female students expected to work part-time or leave their jobs temporarily while raising their children. Compared with first-year male students, first-year female students expected to undertake larger portions of the childcare and housework burden than their partners. However, gender differences in work-life balance and childcare leave vanished in the sixth-year students. Conclusions Female medical students accepted childcare and housework burdens as inevitable; the work environment they choose might affect their career development. While support from male partners and institutions must be increased, voluntary actions and change in mentality of female students need to be promoted through medical education to prevent them from waiting passively for the situation to change.


Limousinite, ideally BaCa[Be4P4O16]·6H2O, is a new beryllophosphate mineral discovered in the Vilatte-Haute pegmatite, Chanteloube near Razès, Limousin, Haute-Vienne, France. The new mineral is intimately associated with microcrystalline pale brown greifensteinite, black amorphous vitreous Mn-oxyhydroxide, triplite, and quartz. It forms isolated, partly corroded, colorless to snow-white crystals up to 0.9 mm long, showing rhombic cross sections. Limousinite is transparent with a vitreous luster, non-fluorescent, without cleavage planes; its calculated density is 2.58 g/cm3. Optically, the mineral is biaxial negative, α = 1.532(2), β = 1.553(3), γ = 1.558(2) (measured under 589 nm wavelength light), 2Vcalc. = 18°, non-dispersive, with Z parallel to the elongation of the prismatic crystals. Electron-microprobe analyses indicate an empirical formula of (Ba0.91K0.07)Σ0.98(Ca0.87Na0.05)Σ0.92[(Be3.87Al0.13)Σ4P4O16]·5.56H2O, calculated on the basis of 4 P atoms per formula unit, assuming 4 (Be + Al) pfu and a water content calculated from refined site-occupancy factors. A single-crystal structure refinement was performed to R1 = 4.90%, in the P21/c space group, with a = 9.4958(4), b = 13.6758(4), c = 13.4696(4) Å, β = 90.398(3)°, V = 1749.15(10) Å3, Z = 4. The crystal structure is characterized by a beryllophosphate framework similar to that of phillipsite-group zeolites, based on corner-sharing BeO4 and PO4 tetrahedra forming interconnected four- and eight-membered rings. Large cages within this zeolite framework contain Ba, Ca, and water molecules. Limousinite is the third known natural zeolite-type beryllophosphate, together with pahasapaite and wilancookite; it is also the first phosphate with a framework identical to that of a natural zeolite silicate.


Experimental data are presented to show that the use of the dispersion relationships, which are derived from the steady state solutions of the hydromagnetic equations governing the plasma, for the interpretation of transiently excited Alfven waves is not a valid procedure. The most serious misinterpretations can occur near the wave guide cut-off for the fast wave since the complex wave number represents strong absorption and the group velocity ceases to have a clear physical meaning.


Environmental virtues have become an essential ingredient in an ethics of nature. An account of environmental virtues can contribute to this ethics of nature by exploring the virtues that the gardener displays in cultivating and caring for plants. An approach that relates to the virtues of gardening is helpful in explicating a more general approach in a certain domain of interaction with nature. Good gardeners get involved in processes of natural growth and decay, they are aware of their position within the garden, and they endure ambivalences in nature. This relational account of the virtues of gardening is also exemplary in processes of active co-designing of nature and in landscaping. The Virtues of Gardening: A Relational Account of Environmental Virtues


In this paper, we propose a new method to overcome catastrophic forgetting by adding generative regularization to Bayesian inference framework. Bayesian method provides a general framework for continual learning. We could further construct a generative regularization term for all given classification models by leveraging energy-based models and Langevin-dynamic sampling to enrich the features learned in each task. By combining discriminative and generative loss together, we empirically show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods on a variety of tasks, avoiding catastrophic forgetting in continual learning. In particular, the proposed method outperforms baseline methods over 15% on the Fashion-MNIST dataset and 10% on the CUB dataset


Three hundred twenty-seven bite injuries of the hand were reviewed for incidence of infectious complications. A policy to hospitalize all patients with human bite injuries was maintained, but noncompliance was high. Patients with uninfected or superficially infected bites (131) were hospitalized and treated with parenteral penicillin, cephalosporins, or clindamycin (mean duration, 45 hours). Among the 62 patients not lost to followup three minor septic complications occurred. Of similar patients not hospitalized (134), only two thirds received antibiotic therapy but no complications were observed. These data suggest that human bite hand infections can be averted and that established superficial infections can be successfully treated with outpatient antibiotic therapy. Of the 62 patients with moderately to severely infected human bites, 77% were injured by striking an opponent; 52% suffered injury over metacarpophalangeal joints. The mean delay in seeking medical attention was 2 1/2 days, compared to 1/2 day in the less severely infected group. Of the patients with more seriously infected bites, 94% received parenteral antibiotic therapy. Of 30 patients with known outcome in the latter group 27% suffered complications (stiffness; recurrent infection; other infectious complication), confirming the high morbidity of established deep hand infections secondary to human bites.


Four significant changes in the training of RN Medical and Nursing personnel have taken place over the past four years, since training was last outlined in the article commemorating the Branch Centenary namely, the resurrection of MA training with a significantly increased throughput than previously; a relocation from Dophin II to purpose-built accommodation in the grounds of Haslar Hospital; the introduction of the QARNNS Medical Assistant, and also that of the Direct Entry QARNNS Registered General Nurse within the Rating Structure. Current training regimes and constraints are highlighted at all levels to familiarize and update the Branch with the changes and to promote a better understanding of the abilities and capabilities of the Royal Naval Medical and Nursing Services.


Abstract Neem has been used as an effective postharvest protectant for many crops. Neem is especially effective against the cowpea weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus (F.), a major pest of cowpeas. Although it is well known that azadirachtin A breaks down rapidly at high temperatures, the efficacy of neem kernel extract previously exposed to high temperatures for protecting stored pulses has not been conclusively investigated. Effectiveness of these materials would allow West African farmers to make a neem extract at their convenience and store it for later use. We found that neem kernel extract continued to reduce infestations of C. maculatus, after the neem kernel extract had been stored at high temperatures, including 2 wk at 50°C followed by up to 5 mo storage at 28°C. Neem kernel extract analyzed with high performance liquid chromatography revealed that azadirachtin A present in unheated or fresh neem kernel extract dissipated when stored at 50°C for 2 wk. Neem kernel extract heated to 28°C or above also lost effectiveness as an oviposition deterrent. However, the number of neem kernel extract-treated eggs that survive to become adults was significantly reduced even when the neem kernel extract was exposed to 50°C for 2 wk. We attribute the mortality we observed, which was maintained even when azadirachtin A was absent in neem kernel extract, to physical effects of the oil properties of neem kernel extract. We conclude that neem kernel extract can be stored at high temperatures for at least 5 mo without significant reduction in overall effectiveness.


Introduction: The muscular dystrophies (MDs) result from perturbations in the myofibers. These alterations are induced in part by mechanical stress due to membrane cell fragility, disturbances in mechanotransduction pathways, muscle cell physiology, and metabolism. Methods: We analyzed 290 biopsies of patients with a clinical diagnosis of muscular dystrophy. Using immunofluorescence staining, we searched for primary and secondary deficiencies of 12 different proteins, including membrane, costamere, cytoskeletal, and nuclear proteins. In addition, we analyzed calpain‐3 by immunoblot. Results: We identified 212 patients with varying degrees of protein deficiencies, including dystrophin, sarcoglycans, dysferlin, caveolin‐3, calpain‐3, emerin, and merosin. Moreover, 78 biopsies showed normal expression of all investigated muscle proteins. The frequency rates of protein deficiencies were as follows: 52.36% dystrophinopathies; 18.40% dysferlinopathies; 14.15% sarcoglycanopathies; 11.32% calpainopathies; 1.89% merosinopathies; 1.42% caveolinopathies; and 0.47% emerinopathies. Deficiencies in lamin A/C and telethonin were not detected. Conclusion: We have described the frequency of common muscular dystrophies in Mexico. Muscle Nerve, 2012


The present investigation reports the characterization of the bacteriocin produced by the probiotic strain Lac-tobacillus plantarum 29V isolated from raw cow milk in the Western's highlands of Cameroon, as well as the viability of this strain in the palm kernel oil. The antimicrobial compound synthesized by Lactobacillus plantarum 29V was sensitive to some proteolytic enzymes. It showed remarkable stability at high temperatures and in the presence of organic solvents, detergents and surfactants. It was also active in pH 2.0–10 and NaCl range of 1-7%. The neutralized cell-free supernatant of this bacterium inhibited the growth of several Lactobacillus spp., pathogenic and food spoilage microorganisms. The results of this study showed that palm kernel oil maintains the viable cell numbers of the probiotic strain Lactobacillus plantarum 29V, without any changes of peroxide and acid indexes of palm kernel oil.


Abstract : We introduce the notion of a discrete-time, multivariate point process which can arise in the modeling of an optical communication system. We wish to estimate the rate of this process at time t given the past of the process up to time t -1. This requires the computation of a certain conditional expectation: we perform this computation by introducing an absolutely continuous change of measure and then applying the generalized Bayes rule.


A hardware architecture is proposed which allows direct mapping of design simulation topology onto an acceleration platform. In order to clarify architectural principles, the simulation is confined to functional verification of unit delay, binary valued gate level logic designs. Under this approach, a rank ordered design description is executed on a massively parallel processor grid which implements an efficient and direct model of the design, similar to prototyping. Architectural innovation reduces logic complexity and execution time of boolean evaluation and fanout switching circuits, while large scale parallelism is integrated at die level to reduce cost and communication delays. The results of this research form the basis for a multiple order of magnitude improvement in reported state-of-the-art cost-performance merit for hardware gate level simulation accelerators.


Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine whether lengthy audit delays lead to auditor changes in the subsequent year. The paper hypothesizes that a lengthy interaction between clients and their auditors reflects high audit risk factors relating to management integrity, internal controls, and the financial reporting process. It argues that auditors are more likely to drop clients with long audit delays because they would like to avoid these types of audit risks. Design/methodology/approach - Using logistic regressions, the paper first tests whether a lengthy audit delay leads to an auditor change. It then examines whether as audit delays increase, auditor changes are more likely to be downward than lateral. Findings - The results support the hypothesis that Big N auditor-client realignments occur following long audit delays. Further, as the length of the delay increases, the paper finds that there are more downward changes. Research limitations/implications - An implication of our study is that a long audit delay represents a publicly observed proxy for the presence of audit risk factors that lead to an auditor change. Practical implications - This study suggests that all else constant, investors should consider a lengthy audit delay as indicating that there has been deterioration in the quality of the client-auditor interaction. An audit delay also presents an observable proxy for successor auditors to consider while evaluating risks associated with a new client. Originality/value - The results of our study increase our understanding of how Big N auditors manage their client portfolios to mitigate their exposure to risk factors.


The objective of this study is to clarify the legal provisions of the impact of the death of the accused on the criminal case according to the Jordanian Criminal Procedure Law. The research reviewed these provisions and the impact of death on the lawsuit, whether it was a public action or a personal action, as well as the impact of death on the penalty. The study also dealt with several legal problems on this subject such as the impact of mistake or ignorance of death and its consequences.


Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have gained significant attention for their energy-efficient and fast-inference capabilities, but training SNNs from scratch can be challenging due to the discrete nature of spikes. One alternative method is to convert an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) into an SNN, known as ANN-SNN conversion. Currently, existing ANN-SNN conversion methods often involve redesigning the ANN with a new activation function, rather than utilizing the traditional ReLU, and converting it to an SNN. However, these methods do not take into account the potential performance loss between the regular ANN with ReLU and the tailored ANN. In this work, we propose a unified optimization framework for ANN-SNN conversion that considers both performance loss and conversion error. To achieve this, we introduce the SlipReLU activation function, which is a weighted sum of the threshold-ReLU and the step function. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that conversion error can be zero on a range of shift values δ ∈ [ − 0 . 5 , 0 . 5] rather than a fixed shift term 0.5. We evaluate our SlipReLU method on CIFAR datasets, which shows that SlipReLU outperforms current ANN-SNN conversion methods and supervised training methods in terms of accuracy and latency. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ANN-SNN conversion method that enables SNN inference using only 1 time step. Code is available at https://github.com/HaiyanJiang/ SNN_Conversion_unified .


Purpose To determine the normal reference range of pulsatile ocular blood flow (POBF) values in healthy Korean subjects and to find out the factors that may affect them. Methods A total of 280 eyes of 280 normal subjects were included in this study. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP), axial length, POBF, systemic blood pressure, and pulse rate were measured. The mean, standard deviation, range, and the 5th and 95th percentiles of POBF were calculated, and the influences of various parameters to POBF were determined by multiple regression analyses. Results The mean POBF value was 766.0±221.6 µl/min in men and 1021.1±249.5 µl/min in women. The 5th and 95th percentiles for POBF values were 486.0 µl/min and 1140.0 µl/min in men and 672.0 µl/min and 1458.0 µl/min in women. The POBF values were significantly influenced by gender, mean blood pressure, pulse rate, and axial length. Conclusions Even though the POBF values were influenced by gender, BP, and axial length, we could define the normal reference range of POBF in healthy Koreans.


Bone Voyage: A Journey in Forensic Anthropology, is published on the heels of biographical and semi- autobiographical accounts of forensic anthropologists Clyde Collins Snow (I), Douglas Ubelaker (2) and, William Maples (3). It is singularly different from these volumes. With the exception of the 1980 New Mexico Prison Riot, Bon Voyage is not a tale of high profile cases, but the nuts and bolts, cases seen by the majority of forensic anthropologists. In Rhine'B words, cases that "… bristle with instructive examples to be plucked like so many feathers from a chicken." The volume consists of 10 chapters and numerous photos and is also accompanied by drawings from Rhine's own forensic reports.


Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are explicit statements about all expectations and obligations in the business partnership between customers and providers. They have been introduced in Grid computing to overcome the best effort approach, making the Grid more interesting for commercial applications. However, decisions on negotiation and system management still rely on static approaches, not reflecting the risk linked with decisions. The EC-funded project "AssessGrid" aims at introducing risk assessment and management as a novel decision paradigm into Grid computing. This paper gives a general motivation for risk management and presents the envisaged architecture of a "risk-aware" Grid middleware and Grid fabric, highlighting its functionality by means of three showcase scenarios.


This paper argues against the widely shared assumption that the coordination of markets depends primarily or exclusively on institutions at the level of the nation state. It shows instead that coordination problems of 'global' markets can be addressed through a variety of governance mechanisms combining different forms of private and public authority. This is illustrated through an analysis of long-distance exchange networks and cross-border markets in late medieval Europe, which emerged and operated within a polycentric and multilayered transjurisdictional system long before the rise of the nation state. The paper concludes that a comparison of different historical forms of transnational markets can open new perspectives for analyzing the contemporary era of globalization.


This paper focuses on a method for parameterization of urban space at the pedestrian scale. There is a growing demand for new design approaches that would help to slow down urban sprawls, move away from modernist urban planning models and improve the quality of urban centers overall. One important aspect that contributes to the overall sustainability of contemporary cities is the quality of pedestrian space. To enhance urban environment at pedestrian scale new design strategies must be investigated. Contemporary urban centers must provide various options for public transport, contain fine-grained urban functions, mixed use building types and good-quality public open spaces to facilitate their use by pedestrians. The aim of this paper is a) to identify the initial set of design parameters of urban form at the pedestrian scale and b) to demonstrate the exemplary implementation of these parameters within parametric software, e.g. Grasshopper for Rhinoceros and Esri CityEngine for analysis, optimization and evaluation of urban settings.


We determine the exact threshold of satisfiability for random instances of a particular NP-complete constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). This is the first random CSP model for which we have determined a precise linear satisfiability threshold, and for which random instances with density near that threshold appear to be computationally difficult. More formally, it is the first random CSP model for which the satisfiability threshold is known and which shares the following characteristics with random $k$-SAT for $k \geq 3$: The problem is NP-complete, the satisfiability threshold occurs when there is a linear number of clauses, and a uniformly random instance with a linear number of clauses asymptotically almost surely has exponential resolution complexity.


A 48-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of high fever and left flank pain. Laboratory findings revealed a high white blood cell count, high C-reactive protein level, and severe pyuria. Sonographic examination revealed an enlargement of the cyst at the upper pole of the left kidney that had already been detected. Percutaneous drainage was performed for the cyst and 60 ml of purulent fluid was obtained. Bacterial culture of the fluid was positive for Propionibacterium acnes and gamma-Streptococcus. The drainage and administration of povidone-iodine was continued for 7 days. The size of the cyst was reduced with disappearance of symptoms.


The article presents the importance of farm income, taking the farm's ability to develop into account. It has been demonstrated that achieving farm income at a parity level is insufficient to determine the farm's ability to develop. These requirements are also not met by labour income. What informs about a farm's development ability is the ratio of farm income to conventional costs of own production factors: labour, land and capital in the form of the competitiveness index (Wk). Its value from 1 to 1.9 points to a competitive capacity and when it reaches 2 and more, it points to full competitiveness. Based on the data from farms covered by FADN monitoring in 2017, it was found that the farm area specialising in field crops and the cultivation of cereals, oilseeds and protein crops for seeds and being able to compete (to develop) was about 40 ha of utilised agricultural area (UAA), while in the case of fully competitive farms it was 106 ha. The size of farms specialising in vegetable and permanent (fruit-growing) crops and able to compete was 7 and 13 ha of UAA, respectively. The size of dairy farms able to compete was about 25 ha of UAA and 21 cows, while the size of fully competitive farms – 75 ha and 54 cows. The size of pig farms able to compete was about 25 ha of UAA and 26 sows, while the size of fully competitive farms – 40 ha of UAA and 37 sows. The size of "mixed" farms able to compete was 39 ha of UAA and, on average, 4 cows and 7 sows, while the size of fully competitive farms – 79 ha of UAA, 8 cows and 11 sows.


In this paper, we report on our investigation of haptics-enabled mid-air interactions for sketching three-dimensional (3D) curve-soups—collections of three-dimensional multi-planar curves. We study pen-based mid-air interactions for free-form curve input from the perspective of manual labor, controllability, and kinesthetic feedback. We specifically study the role of kinesthetic feedback for two aspects of mid-air sketching, namely, drawing curves on planar surfaces and spatial rotation of 3D curve-soups. For this, we implemented a simple haptics-enabled workflow for users to draw and compose collections of planar curves on a force-enabled virtual canvas. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of our study-tasks show that there is a rich interaction design space of kinesthetic feedback methods for mid-air sketching beyond physically currently prevalent models.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

The progression of human prostate cancer is a result of metastasis from the primary tumor to vital organs. Metastasis is a complex process that involves invasion, intravasation, extravasation, and metastatic colonization. To date, the biology underlying the various mechanisms of metastasis has not been fully elucidated. Chemokines are pro-inflammatory molecules that bind to chemokine receptors, which are members of the G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) family. The interaction between chemokines and their receptors results in a diverse array of biological and biochemical functions, such as chemotaxis, hematopoiesis and angiogenesis. Likewise, neoplastic cells employ chemokines and their receptors to promote metastasis, and encourage cell survival. It has been observed that the CXCR4 chemokine receptor is overexpressed on the cell surface of prostate cancer cells, which directed metastatic cells to tissues where its CXCL12 ligand is overexpressed, such as the bones and lungs. The Phosphate and Tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) is the second most mutated tumor suppressor in human cancer, and has been shown to be mutated in metastatic prostate cancer cells. Gao et al demonstrated that reconstituted PTEN in lymphocytes down-regulated CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis towards its ligand, CXCL12. Additionally, progenitor PTEN-deficient smooth muscle cells (SMC) increased migration towards CXCL12-producing SMC, suggesting that an alteration in PTEN expression negatively regulated CXCR4-mediated events. We analyzed prostate cancer cells for the expression of CXCR4 by flow cytometry, and observed that CXCR4 was expressed in human metastatic prostate cancer cell lines, PC3 and LnCaP. We analyzed for the expression of PTEN, and observed no expression of PTEN in PC3 and LnCaP cells at the protein level by western blot, nor at the mRNA level in PC3 cells by PCR. Furthermore, when reconstituted with PTEN, PC3 cells demonstrated a mesenchymal to epithelial-like phenotypic change in morphology. Additionally, we observed that reconstituted PTEN inhibited CXCR4-meditated proliferation via an MTT assay. Therefore, we hypothesize that the absence of PTEN expression correlates with an up-regulation of CXCR4-mediated proliferation and tumorigenesis in prostate cancer cells. In summary, our results showed that PTEN induced an epithelial-like morphological change, and inhibited CXCR4-mediated proliferation in metastatic prostate cancer cell lines. In future studies, we will investigate if the reconstituted expression of functional PTEN regulates CXCR4-mediated metastatic events in prostate cancer cells.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3182.


Large eddy simulations of an isothermal Mach 0.9 jet issued from a convergent-straight nozzle are performed at Reynolds number 1 × 10. The flow configuration and operating conditions match the companion experiment conducted at the PPRIME Institute, Poitiers. To replicate the effects of the boundary layer trip present in the experiment and to ensure a turbulent jet, localized adaptive mesh refinement, synthetic turbulence, and wall modeling are used inside the nozzle. This leads to fully turbulent nozzle-exit boundary layers and results in significant improvements for the flow field and sound predictions, compared to those obtained from the typical approach based on laminar flow assumption in the nozzle. The far-field noise spectra now match the experimental measurements to within 0.5 dB for relevant angles and frequencies. As a next step toward better understanding of turbulent jet noise, the large database collected during the simulation is currently being used for reduced order modeling and wavepacket analysis.


In this paper, a new auxiliary function with one parameter for box constraint is proposed. It can escape from the current local minimizer to arrive at a lower local minimizer and can finally go to a global optimal solution. First, a new definition of the filled function for box constrained minimization problem is given, and under mild assumptions, this new auxiliary function can be proved to be a filled function. Then a new solution algorithm is proposed according to the theoretical analysis. And some numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.


Optical automatic devices, using ambient light only, can locate and range objects up to about 100 feet. Shallow real images of the objects are formed by a wide-aperture lens in an image space where a moving vane with minute bars and slots periodically cuts across all light rays in one image plane after another. Whenever the bars coincide with a sharp image they modulate the light received by a photocell. Range information may be read on a meter or control directly a range-following servo mechanism. A small hand-held guidance device for the blind is described. It is used for probing like a flashlight but operates on ambient light when that exceeds one foot-candle. Image space is explored several times per second by a helical vane with bars spaced the closer the nearer the objects whose image they intercept. A photo-multiplier and audio amplifier feed the resulting whistle-modulation to an earphone, 8 frequencies corresponding to 8 ranges from 20 inches to 20 feet. A motor turns the vane, also a chopper to supply via transformer and twentyfold voltage multiplier 1000 volts dc to the electron multiplier; total consumption is 50 ma from one 1.5v cell. , pp. 102-105; April, 1950.


We report the case of a 73-year-old man with a history of previous aortic valve replacement in 1990 and rupture of an aortic dissection into the right atrium. The patient was admitted to the emergency room because of chest pain, stopped not long after. The electrocardiogram did not show any signs of ischemia and myocardial enzymes were not increased. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed aortic root dilation (maximum diameter 60 mm) extended to the aortic arch, and the presence of a flow from the ascending aorta to the right atrium (evocative of a fistula between the two chambers). The aortic valvular prosthesis function was good. Transesophageal echocardiography confirmed an aorta-right atrium fistula. Cardiac catheterization did not show any luminal obstructions in the coronary arteries; there was a small shunt from the aorta to the right atrium. The ascending aorta and the aortic root were replaced with a Dacron graft. Right and left sinuses were reimplanted to the graft. The fistula was repaired with 4-0 pledgeted Prolene sutures. The surgeon's diagnosis was "type A aortic dissection in a patient with an ascending aorta aneurysm and an old ascending aorta-right atrium fistula".


FDA has approved low-dose paroxetine capsules (Brisdelle, Noven Pharmaceuticals), 7.5 mg/day, for the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause, also referred to as hot flashes and night sweats.


In this paper, a two-dimensional axisymmetric fl uid model was established to investigate the in fl uence of nitrogen impurity content on the discharge pattern and the relevant discharge characteristics in an atmosphere pressure helium dielectric barrier discharge ( DBD ) . The results indicated that when the nitrogen content was increased from 1 to 100 ppm, the discharge pattern evolved from a concentric-ring pattern into a uniform pattern, and then returned to the concentric-ring pattern. In this process, the discharge mode at the current peak moment transformed from glow mode into Townsend mode, and then returned to glow mode. Further analyses revealed that with the increase of impurity level, the rate of Penning ionization at the pre-ionization stage increased at fi rst and decreased afterwards, resulting in a similar evolution pattern of seed electron level. This evolution trend was believed to be resulted from the competition between the N 2 partial pressure and the consumption rate of metastable species. Moreover, the discharge uniformity was found positively correlated with the spatial uniformity of seed electron density as well as the seed electron level. The reason for this correlation was explained by the reduction of radial electric fi eld strength and the promotion of seed electron uniformity as pre-ionization level increases. The results obtained in this work may help better understand the pattern formation mechanism of atmospheric helium DBD under the variation of N 2 impurity level, thereby providing a possible means of regulating the discharge performance in practical application scenarios.


The photopyroelectric (PPE) technique is usually used as a contact photothermal method to characterize thin solid materials. We performed theoretical and experimental investigations of a non-contact PPE configuration to analyse the effects of an air gap between the thermal source and a PVDF sensor using a modulated laser beam as optical excitation. The detection of the thermal wave developed within the sample was possible across an air gap of up to 15 mm. The PPE signal was described well thanks to a two-dimensional (2D) model with axial symmetry, which could be reduced in some particular cases to a simpler 1D propagation model. Border effects can be artificially taken into account in the calculations by increasing the adiabatic lateral limits in the model, keeping the active sensor area constant. Despite there being strong attenuation with increasing modulation frequency, the PPE method can be used as well as can other non-contact photothermal techniques. New perspectives for the application of the PPE technique have been opened.


Aluminium composites contains 85% of Al 2618 alloy, 10% of graphite powder and 5% of E glass have been fabricated by stir casting method. Wear, hardness and compressive tests are conducted and compared with each other, sliding wear test carried out on pin on disc apparatus with constant speed and time but varying loads. Compressive test carried out in universal testing machine (UTM) for heat treated and non heat treated samples for obtaining compressive strength and it will be compared each other. Brinell and Rockwell hardness are carried out in hardness apparatus. It includes depth of indentation on surface of samples in different positions by using formula of BHN the hardness of the sample is calculated. In case of Rockwell hardness test direct reading from testing apparatus obtained but it includes different scales with having standard loads for example in this thesis B scale used which having load of 100kg. Hence by applying load in different positions on surface of sample and averaging of these readings will give the RHN value. The best results are obtained by heat treated samples compare with un heat treated samples.


Part 1 Introduction: the principles of diffraction analysis the practice of diffraction analysis progress and potential x-ray diffraction. Part 2 Industrial applications - high tech: semiconductors - integrated circuit manufacture superconductors -structures and applications aerospace - the aircraft gas turbine industry automotive - selected cases of applications petroleum exploration and production petroleum and petrochemicals petrochemicals - catalysts in refineries petrochemicals -vitality of catalysts research. Part 3 Metals: hydrometallurgy x-ray fractography. Part 4 Minerals and ceramics: mining -exploration and process control mining - mineral ores and products cement - quantitative phase analysis of Portland cement clinker silica glass-ceramics. Part 5 Polymers and composites: polymer industry paint and pigment industry pharmaceuticals -development and formulation pharmaceuticals - design and development of drug delivery systems. Part 6 Chemicals: energy -by-products of coal combustion in power plants lighting - design and development of luminescent materials photography - image capture and image storage materials detergents and cleansers -phase analysis of sodium phosphates museum - art and archaeology forensic science - every contact leaves a trace US Customs laboratories commercial service laboratory. Part 7 Specialty techniques - radiations: synchrotron usage by industry electron microscopy in industry. Part 8 Microstructures and instrumentation: line profile and sample microstructure thin films and multilayers residual stress and stress gradients residual stress development and texture formation during rolling contact loading Warren-Averbach applications microbeam crystallographic and elemental analysis high temperature and non-ambient x-ray diffraction. Part 9 Diffraction patterns: NIST standard reference materials for characterization of instrument performance grain orientation and texture structure analysis from powder data.


Background: Pouchitis occurs in 20% to 59% of patients operated on for ulcerative colitis. Several risk factors have been identified for the development of pouchitis. This study was undertaken to assess the incidence of pouchitis at least 5 years after ileal pouch‐anal anastomosis for ulcerative colitis, and to evaluate possible predictive factors for inflammation activity. Methods: A total of 107 subjects were enrolled (54 M, 53 F, mean age 45 years, range 23–69) with a J‐pouch created between 1985 and 1994. Preoperative medical history was determined, an endoscopy performed, and biopsies taken from the pouch and neoterminal ileum above the pouch. Sera from all patients were tested for perinuclear antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (pANCAs). Results: After a mean 7.5‐years' follow‐up time, the cumulative incidence of pouchitis was 58%. Risk for development of active inflammation (PDAI ≥ 7) was significantly higher in patients with preoperative extraintestinal manifestations (OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.1–6.4, P = 0.03). Patients who had had ankylosing spondylitis (AS) (OR 11.7, P = 0.006) or iritis (OR 9.8, P = 0.013) were especially at risk. Positive titres of pANCAs were associated with inflammation in the neoterminal ileum; 80% of patients with high pANCA levels (>100) had pouchitis. Current smokers tended to have a more benign disease course. Conclusions: A correlation existed between the prevalence and titre of pANCAs and extent and disease activity of pouchitis. Chronic pouchitis may continuously stimulate the immunological process, keeping pANCAs at detectable levels. A strong correlation between AS, iritis and pouchitis suggests a common link in their pathogenesis.


Angle-resolved photoelectron spectra encompassing the and the states of sulphur hexafluoride have been recorded in the 20 - 22 eV photon energy range using synchrotron radiation. The envelope of the photoelectron band displays a complicated structure which varies significantly both as a function of excitation energy and as a function of electron ejection angle. The data for the state have been analysed by dividing the band into eight regions, specified by their binding energies. The results show that, as the photon energy is varied, the branching ratio for each region exhibits an enhancement at an electron kinetic energy of about 2.5 eV. The photoelectron angular distributions also vary significantly across the band. Various interpretations for this resonant behaviour are discussed.


SUMMARY Feeding and food choice are crucial to the survival of an animal. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans feeds on various microorganisms in nature, and is usually fed Escherichia coli in the laboratory. To elucidate the mechanisms of food/non-food discrimination in C. elegans, we examined the accumulation of various fluorescent polystyrene microspheres in the absence and presence of bacterial food. In the absence of food and on agar plates, C. elegans worms actively accumulated 0.5 and 1 μm diameter microspheres, whereas those microspheres <0.5 μm or >3 μm were rarely accumulated. Carboxylate microspheres were accumulated more than sulfate or amine microspheres. These results of accumulation in the absence of food probably well simulate uptake of or feeding on the microspheres. Presence of food bacteria even at bacteria:nematode ratios of 1:100 or 1:10 significantly reduced accumulation of 0.5 μm microspheres, and accumulation was reduced to approximately one-fourth of that observed in the absence of bacteria at a ratio of 1:1. When accumulation of microspheres was examined with the chemical sense mutants che-2, tax-2, odr-1 and odr-2, or the feeding mutant eat-1, all the mutants showed less accumulation than the wild type in the absence of food. In the presence of food, the che-2 mutant showed more accumulation than the wild type. It is possible that C. elegans discriminates food both physically, based on size, and chemically, based on taste and olfaction.


ABSTRACT This paper employs goods and services descriptions from US trademarks to study spatial diffusion of innovations. Identifying novel, fast-spreading tokens (words) in trademark descriptions, we outline patterns of regional innovation and estimate how distance affects diffusion. Novel trademark tokens are frequently new to English, they capture many unpatented innovations, and their appearance in language co-evolves with their use in intellectual property filings. We analyse the introduction of novel tokens to capture the emergence of innovations and show that spatial distance affects their diffusion. Estimating the intensity of diffusion between locations in the United States, we confirm strong, negative effects of distance.


Quantum chemical calculations using the density functional theory (DFT) have been applied to the five kinds of polydentate Schiff base compounds (PSCs), act as inhibitors for iron in aerated 2.0 M HNO3 and 2.0 M NaOH media. The structural parameters, such as the frontier molecular orbital energy HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital), LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital), energy gap ∆E (ELUMO - EHOMO), the charge distribution, the absolute electronegativity (χ), the fraction of electrons transfer (∆N) from inhibitors to iron, the dipole moment (µ), the global hardness (η) and the total energy (Etotal) were also calculated and correlated with their inhibition efficiencies (%IE). The inhibition effects of (PSCs) may be explained in terms of electronic properties. The results showed that the (%IE) of PSCs increased with the increase in EHOMO and decrease in ELUMO - EHOMO. The inhibitor molecules were first adsorbed on the iron surface and blocking the reaction sites available for corrosive attack; and the areas containing N and O atoms are most possible sites for bonding by donating electrons to the iron surface through interaction with π-electrons of the aromatic rings, and the azo methine group. Also, the adsorbed Schiff base molecules interact with iron ions in the corrosive media leading to neutral and cationic iron-Schiff base complexes. Adsorption process is spontaneous, exothermic and obeyed Temkin isotherm and regarded as physical as chemical mechanism. The polarization studied indicated that the inhibitors act as a mixed type inhibitor in HNO3; cause only inhibition of the cathode process in NaOH, and the magnitude of the displacement of the Tafel plot is proportional to its concentration. Models for the inhibition corrosion behaviour were developed based upon statistical analyses of the experimental data. Some thermodynamic and kinetic parameters (Kads, ∆Gads) were estimated. Both experimental and quantum theoretical calculations are in excellent agreement. The inhibition efficiency increase in the order of: PSC_1 > PSC_2 > PSC_3 > PSC_4>PSC_5. Thus, DFT study gave further insight into the mechanism of inhibition action of PSCs. This research might provide a theoretical inhibition performance evaluation approach for homologous inhibitors.


We investigate how bank competition affects the efficiency of credit allocation, using a model of spatial competition. Our analysis shows that bad loans are more likely the larger the number of banks competing for customers. We study further how many banks will be active if market entry is not regulated. Free entry can induce too much entry and thus too many bad loans compared to the social optimum. Finally, we analyse how bank competition affects the firms' restructuring effort. We find that restructuring has positive externalities that give rise to multiple equilibria, with either much or little restructuring activity.


Quantum mechanical molecular dynamics simulations are employed to reveal the influence of hydrogen on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) formation in oxygen-lean combustion. While higher hydrogen concentration leads to the inhibition of PAH growth, it simultaneously facilitates pentagon and heptagon defect healing, leading to thermodynamically more stable PAH fragments with more hexagons. We therefore propose the existence of an optimal H/C ratio that facilitates the growth of all-hexagon-containing PAH species. Analysis of the PAH edge reconstruction in our simulations shows a near-equal ratio of armchair and zigzag edge structures. As armchair edge structures are thermodynamically considerably more stable than zigzag edge structures, the present simulations show that both kinetic and thermodynamic factors are needed to understand PAH/graphene edge reconstruction.


A 37-residue peptide has been purified from the endocrine pancreas of the anglerfish. The first 36 residues were sequenced by gas phase Edman degradation. The sequence at the carboxyl-terminus was determined by sequencing the carboxyl-terminal tryptic dipeptide. The sequence of the peptide, which is consistent with the amino acid composition, was determined to be: Y X P X P X K X P X E X T X P X G X S X N X A X S X P X E X D X W X A X S X Y X Q X A X A X V X R X H X Y X V X N X L X I X T X R X Q X R X Y X G. Fast atom bombardment/mass spectrometry of the peptide identified a molecular ion with an average mass of 4221.3, in good agreement with the theoretical mass based upon the determined amino acid sequence. The peptide has an equal degree of sequence identity to both porcine neuropeptide YY (64%) and gastrointestinal peptide YY (64%), but less sequence identity to porcine pancreatic polypeptide (47%). Unlike the related mammalian peptides, the major form of the anglerfish peptide terminates in tyrosyl-glycine rather than tyrosineamide.


This work sought to explore the development impacts of RSE, particularly the changes in the lives and livelihood for migrants as well as the expected gains to employers. The field research was carried out in the months of August and September, 2010. Epi Island in Vanuatu was selected as a case study for the field research. A few of the RSE employers in New Zealand who had recruited Ni-Vanuatu in the horticulture and viticulture industry were interviewed as well. From the findings, it is clear that the RSE Scheme generally benefitted both the Ni-Vanuatu labourers and their employers. Although there are some issues that need to be addressed, overall, the scheme ensures that dual objectives of creating a win-win outcome are being met. The migrants interviewed reported benefits in terms of income (including sending remittances), new skill transfers, and greater productivity consciousness, improvement in education and housing and start-up of small businesses in the community. The employers have also realised productivity gains from migrants who participated in consecutive contracts, and have been assured a reliable and readily available pool of workers.


Objective: To establish a method for determing the trichloroethylene(TCE)and trichloroethanol(TCOH)in blood samples by liquid-liquid extraction-gas chromatography with electron capture detector. Methods: With this method,ether was used as extraction solvent and trichloromethane was used as an internal standard. The whole blood sample was extracted with ether, and dehydrated by anhydrous sodium sulfate. Then the analytes were separated on HP-5 capillary column(30m×0.32mm×0.15μm)and detected byECD.The retention time was for qualitative analysis and the internal standard was for quantitation. Results: The standard curves of TCE and TCOH showed significant linearity between 95.5μg/L-7640.0μg/L(r=0.9997)and 19.0μg/L-1520.0μg/L(r=0.9992). The average recovery was 95.5%-103.6%.The intra-day and inter-day precisions(RSD)were 2.5%-6.8%(n=6)and 1.6%-4.3%(n=6) respectively. The detect limit of TCE and TCOH were 2.10 μg/L and 0.56μg/L(S/N=3)respectively.The blood can be kept 7 days at-20℃ refrigerator without significantly loss. Conclusion: This method is proved to be simple,practical and highly sensitive. It can satisfy the request for the determination of blood samples of humans exposed to TCE.


Polyploidy, the inheritance of more than two genome copies per cell, has played a major role in the evolution of higher plants. Little is known about the transition from diploidy to polyploidy but in some species, triploids are thought to function as intermediates in this transition. In contrast, in other species triploidy is viewed as a block. We investigated the responses of Arabidopsis thaliana to triploidy. The role of genetic variability was tested by comparing triploids generated from crosses between Col-0, a diploid, and either a natural autotetraploid (Wa-1) or an induced tetraploid of Col-0. In this study, we demonstrate that triploids of A. thaliana are fertile, producing a swarm of different aneuploids. Propagation of the progeny of a triploid for a few generations resulted in diploid and tetraploid cohorts. This demonstrated that, in A. thaliana, triploids can readily form tetraploids and function as bridges between euploid types. Genetic analysis of recombinant inbred lines produced from a triploid identified a locus on chromosome I exhibiting allelic bias in the tetraploid lines but not in the diploid lines. Thus, genetic variation was subject to selection contingent on the final ploidy and possibly acting during the protracted aneuploid phase.


The roller milling of sorghum and quinoa seeds into flour fractions (coarse, middle, and fine) was investigated, chemically analysed, and applied in the baking of gluten-free sourdough bread. The gap settings were adjusted to 0, 5, 8, and 10 for quinoa, and 3, 5, and 7 for sorghum. The fine fractions reached values of up to about 41% (gap 8) for quinoa and around 20% for sorghum (gap 5). SEM pictographs illustrated the clear separation of each fraction with the chemical analysis showing high contents of protein, TDF (total dietary fibre), and IDF (insoluble dietary fibre) in the coarse fraction. Up to 77% starch content was obtained in the fine fraction with significant amounts of SDF (soluble dietary fibre), which has good health benefits. Increasing the dough moisture up to 90% helped in decreasing the bread crumb firmness, while low Avrami parameters and RVA pasting behaviour indicated a slow bread-staling rate for both sourdough breads.


Coronary artery spasm is an important pathogenetic mechanism in some forms of myocardial ischemic disease. Factors that may be important in the genesis of spasm include the autonomic nervous system, prostaglandins, endoperoxides, thromboxanes, and the calcium availability to the contractile apparatus. Spasm results in myocardial ischemia with attendant chest pain and electrocardiographic and hemodynamic changes; it is the primary pathogenetic mechanism in Prinzmetal's variant angina and has been found in association with classic angina pectoris and acute myocardial infarction. Diagnosis of coronary artery spasm is firmly made only by coronary angiography. Treatment includes the use of both short- and long-acting nitrates and the slow-channel blocking agents such as verapamil, nifedipine, and perhexiline.


Prediction with the possibility of abstention (or selective prediction) is an important problem for error-critical machine learning applications. While well-studied in the classification setup, selective approaches to regression are much less developed. In this work, we consider the nonparametric heteroskedastic regression problem and develop an abstention procedure via testing the hypothesis on the value of the conditional variance at a given point. Unlike existing methods, the proposed one allows to account not only for the value of the variance itself but also for the uncertainty of the corresponding variance predictor. We prove non-asymptotic bounds on the risk of the resulting estimator and show the existence of several different convergence regimes. Theoretical analysis is illustrated with a series of experiments on simulated and real-world data.


Most of the existing works on pedestrian pose estimation do not consider estimating the pose of an occluded pedestrian, as the annotations of the occluded parts are not available in relevant automotive datasets. For example, CityPersons, a well-known dataset for pedestrian detection in automotive scenes does not provide pose annotations, whereas MS-COCO, a non-automotive dataset, contains human pose estimation. In this work, we propose a multi-task framework to extract pedestrian features through detection and instance segmentation tasks performed separately on these two distributions. Thereafter, an encoder learns pose specific features using an unsupervised instance-level domain adaptation method for the pedestrian instances from both distributions. The proposed framework has improved state-of-the-art performances of pose estimation, pedestrian detection, and instance segmentation.


It was a wise move on the part of the British Medical Jouirinal to invite a series of articles on endocrinology and to repLiblish them in book form. One's first impulse is to congratuLlate the Editor on planning the series and choosing the contributors, for the success of the enterprise is largely due to his generalship. It is curious that good endocrinologists have written bad books when left to their own devices and that the two best books on endocrinology have been produced when they have been led in editorial chains. Both these books were published by medical associations because important advances have been made and difficulty is expErienced by the ordinary medical man in separating the wheat from the tares so assiduouLsly sown by those whose interest in endocrinology is commercial. The American Medical Association's symposiuLm on Glanidular Physiology and Therapy (1935) was an amazing achievement, which it is fair to say no other country in the world could have duplicated, and it at once became the research student's bible, but it is rather heavy going for the ordinary practitioner. The British Medical Jouirnal's book on the En7docrintes in Theory and P-actice is built on simpler lines and fulfils the task of bridging the gap between theory and practice. For, as Sir Humphry Rolleston indicates in his chapter on the history of endocrinology (curiously placed at the end of the volume), the output of scientific investigation has been enormous, and practical application of this new knowledge has not had time to keep abreast. Much of the work of the past has been discredited because the extracts used were utterly powerless, excessively weak, badly contaminated, or given in vehicles or channels through which they were imperfectly absorbed or too rapidly excreted. Effects differ in different species, and there is therefore an immense field for clinical research, in which the only, but at the same time the indispensable, apparatus is a critical outlook and knowledge of the pitfalls of therapeutic trials in man. Powerful extracts are now available from almost all the endocrine glands, and in many cases the chemical constitution and formuLlae are known. Wherever possible, as suggested by Professor E. C. Dodds, dosage should be expressed in milligrammes of crystalline material, for the units derived from small animals such as the mouse and the rat need multiplying to astronomical figures to produce effects in man, and the practitioner, unconsciously influLenced by memories of units of antitoxin and insulin, may be afraid to give adequate amounts. This may be one reason why the harvest of the new knowledge has so far been disappointing, and in the field of the sex hormones we can point as yet to little more than the relief of menopausal symptoms by oestrin and the acceleration of imperfect rnigration of the testes by gonadotropic hormone from the pituitary or the urine of pregnancy. Many readers distrust popular reviews as they so often degenerate to the level of favourite prescriptions and unjustified generalizations. The present volume is free from such faults: the physiology of the glands is clearly described and therapeutic advice is based on experiment. The pituitary gland is described first, as befits its dominant role, and then follow accounts of the thyroid, adi-cnals, gonads, thymus, pineal, and parathyroid glands, with separate chapters on menstruation, pregnancy, anid tlhe menopause. It is invidious to cite names wher-e all ar-e good, buLt special mention must be made of the initroductory chapter in which Sir W. Langdon-Brown discuisses the present posfition of endocrinology. He points out how the endocrine glands have come under the control of the diencephalo-pituitary system and are linked with the central nervous system and the autonomic. The hormones themselves fall into two groups: the first, of complex chemistry, are formed by the pituitary gland, which uses them to stimulate or inhibit the secretion of the second, chemically simpler grade, by the other endocrine glands. The latter have affinities with the substances by which nervous impulses are transmitted, with the stimulants to the organization of the embryo. and with certain carcinogenic chemicals. We can now clearly see a future in which the halting language of infant science is discarded and we no longer speak of vitamins, hormones, or vagus-stuff, but of ascorbic acid, thyroxin, acetylcholine, and other equally well-defined substances. L. J. WITTS.


Introduction Treatment failure to be appears to occurring in women with genital Chlamydia trachomatis after azithromycin treatment. This study aimed to characterise the molecular basis of treatment failure by characterising clinical isolates from these women who failed to resolve the infection. Methods A selection of 6 clinical isolates were cultured and whole genome sequence examined. Cultures were conducted in variety of cell lines, and in the presence of a novel anti-chlamydial drug to examine differences in growth and drug responses between isolates from treatment failure cases and treatment resolved cases. Results The clinical isolates showed distinct growth profiles in different cell lines, with variation in infectious progeny yield and kinetics. Cervical, endometrial, gastrointestinal and fibroblast cell lines were compared and distinctions in growth were observed. There were no genome mutations in the ribosome loci in any isolate that would confer a direct resistance to azithromycin. However, there was less susceptibility to a novel anti-chlamydia drug by a clinical isolate from a treatment failure case as well as higher growth yield in the absence of the drug. Conclusion Distinct phenotypic growth traits were observed in clinical treatment failure isolates of C. trachomatis that could underlie the mechanism of azithromycin treatment failure clinically. Disclosure of interest statement This study was funded by the NHMRC.


Restriction of human rights in criminal procedure offtenly is integrated part of effective criminal procedure. Nevertheless, more complicated is evaluation of addmisability of application of secret surveillance measures. These procedures restricts private life of a person; therefore, they should be proportional and the results obtained should comply with the general requirements for evidences. Legal regulation of special investigative techniques was not changed in Lithuania recently. Nevertheless court's practices rise new questions related to their proper application. Constitutional jurisprudence of Lithuania indicates that human rights may be restricted only by the law and the courts have no right to fill in legal gaps by limitations of human rights in criminal procedure. Nevertheless, the author of the article concludes that in some aspects the law defining conditions and procedures of secret surveillance measures is unqalitative. Therefore the question may be formulated in respect to the beforementioned ideas – has the court the right (or is the court obliged?), if the gap in legal regulation is identified, to foresee additional, not provided by legislator, bases and conditions, that in essence narrowes application of such a law? Thus, the author concludes that the court seaking for application of proportional restrictions of human rights should apply the principles of criminal procedure. Accordingly, if the court determines that the law lacks proper warranties for proportional restriction of human rights it should fill in such gaps ad hoc. In such cases court practices should comply with consistency, publicity and predictability requirements.


The volume contains 23 articles by international experts, both scholars and practioners dealing with the development of institutional investors (such as banks, insurances, investment companies, pension funds etc.), their investment and voting policies, the impact on managements of the companies concerned and related issues. The consequences of the international development on capital markets as well as policy implications for the respective national legislations are treated.


Optical storage and photon quantification systems based on sensitive photoreactions have numerous applications. Herein, we report a highly efficient photocatalytic reaction, in which ruthenium photoredox catalysis is combined with a 1,2-dioxetane, from which chemiluminescence can be triggered. In this system, blue light irradiation as optical input enables a defined inverse correlation with base-triggered, blue light emission as optical output. Comparison of readout by 1H NMR and chemiluminescence, relative to previous optical input, underlines the reliability and usefulness of the ruthenium-dioxetane system for optical storage, sensing and ruthenium detection.


Porous materials are now widely used in noise control for their acoustic properties in sound absorption and transmission. These properties are function of the internal porous medium structure. Generally, most of the models assume that the porous medium is isotropic. Mineral wools (as well as some foams) clearly present an anisotropic structure. This communication is concerned with the adaptation of recent works on isotropic materials to the case of anisotropic porous materials. The general theory will be exposed for sound absorbing materials with anisotropic acoustical and mechanical parameters. The case of transverse isotropic materials (with fibers organized in planes running parallels one to each other) will then be detailed in particular in the case when the plane of fibers is not the same than the normal plane of the sample. The influence on the acoustical properties anisotropic porous materials will then be presented. Illustrations are then provided with measurements performed on wools and it will b...


Growing advancements in reinforcement learning has led to advancements in control theory. Reinforcement learning has effectively solved the inverted pendulum problem and more recently the double inverted pendulum problem. In reinforcement learning, our agents learn by interacting with the control system with the goal of maximizing rewards. In this paper, we explore three such reward functions in the cart position problem. This paper concludes that a discontinuous reward function that gives non-zero rewards to agents only if they are within a given distance from the desired position gives the best results.


The genus Sappinia belongs to the family Thecamoebidae within the Discosea (Amoebozoa). For long time the genus comprised only two species, S. pedata and S. diploidea, based on morphological investigations. However, recent molecular studies on gene sequences of the small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) gene revealed a high genetic diversity within the genus Sappinia. This indicated a larger species richness than previously assumed and the establishment of new species was predicted. Here, Sappinia platani sp. nov. (strain PL-247) is described and ultrastructurally investigated. This strain was isolated from the bark of a sycamore tree (Koblenz, Germany) like the re-described neotype of S. diploidea. The new species shows the typical characteristics of the genus such as flattened and binucleate trophozoites with a differentiation of anterior hyaloplasm and without discrete pseudopodia as well as bicellular cysts. Additionally, the new species possesses numerous endocytobionts and dictyosomes. The latter could not be found in previous EM studies of the genus Sappinia. Standing forms, a character of the species S. pedata, could be formed on older cultures of the new species but appeared extremely seldom. A loose layer of irregular, bent hair-like structures cover the plasma membrane dissimilar to the glycocalyx types as formerly detected in other Sappinia strains.


The authors systematically investigate the evolution of the modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the associated changes in protest – related tactics employed by two main stakeholders in the contemporary contentious political processes – dissenters and incumbent political authorities. Through in-depth investigation of the cyberprotest cases in the former Soviet states of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine, which occurred during the last decade, a coherent outline is developed of the co-evolution of the ICT-enabled protest tactics of the main counterparts in the contemporary political struggle in these countries. Particularly, it was found that there were at least three highly distinguishable levels of development of modern ICTs and the associated types of protest-related tactics employed by the main stakeholders in these events. It was established that as soon as the authorities were able to effectively counteract the previous ICT-enabled tactics by the dissenters, new developments in modern ICTs always empowered the latter to devise new effective strategies to overcome previously successful counterrevolutionary measures of the political authorities.


The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of non-cultured autologous epidermal cell grafting resuspended in hyaluronic acid, performed using a ready-to-use kit, compared with hyaluronic acid alone (neutral comparator) for repigmenting vitiligo and piebaldism lesions at 6 months. Two identified paired lesions per patient were randomized to be treated by either device. Devices with a ready-to-use kit were prepared by separate health professionals, to maintain blinding. A skin biopsy was digested using trypsin, and cells resuspended in hyaluronic acid solution. Among 38 patients screened, 36 (94.7%) patients, corresponding to 72 lesions, were analysed. For difficult-to-treat lesions, defined as those located on the wrist, elbow, and hands (n = 30), no repigmentation ≥50% was observed. For all other locations (n = 42), the success rate was significantly higher (p = 0.021) in the ready-to-use kit group (47.6% vs 9.5%) at 6 months and was maintained until 12 months. In conclusion, a single application of non-cultured epidermal cellular grafting using a ready-to-use kit was efficient at 6 months and at 1-year follow-up.


Sync The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order. Steven Strogatz. Theia (Hyperion), New York, 2003. 348 pp. $24.95, C$36.95. ISBN 0-7868-6844-9. Allen Lane (Penguin), London. 352 pp. £14.99. ISBN 0-7139-9621-8. Weaving together stories of the science and the researchers who have created it, Strogatz draws on complexity theory to discusses the emergence of order in such phenomena as orbits, firefly flashing, traffic patterns, sleep cycles, brain waves, and heart beats.


Purpose. Estimation of optimal viscosity of a glass lubricant for chromium-nickel steel tube extrusion depending on the deformation resistance, chemical composition of metal and the temperature, degree and rate of deformation. Methodology. To determine the force conditions for tube extrusion, a complex factor of deformation resistance was used, which consists in estimating the value of deformation resistance under the basic process parameters of extrusion plants and its refinement depending on the deviations of heating temperature and wall thickness of billets as well as the degree and rate of deformation from the base conditions. Findings. The dependence of basic values of deformation resistance on the percentage of alloying elements (Ni + Cr) in steels has been found. With the addition of hardening alloying elements (Mo, W, V, Nb) into the alloy steel, its deformation resistance increases in proportion to their percentage. Analytical expressions for calculating the base values of deformation resistance for different extrusion plants have been obtained. Originality. For the first time, the principles governing estimation of the optimal viscosity of glass lubricants based on the chemical composition of steel to be formed, its temperature and the degree and rate of deformation of the blank, thickness of the lubricating layer and geometric dimensions of the tool (die) in hot extrusion of tubes have been established. Practical value. The use of the results of calculation according to the developed method will make it possible to increase the surface quality of tubes manufactured by extrusion and reduce the volume of their subsequent machining.


OBJECTIVE AND IMPORTANCE
Delayed and isolated tension intraventricular pneumocephalus without air in the pericerebral subarachnoid spaces is an exceptional complication of a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt. We purpose an explanation for the development of such delayed pneumocephalus.

CLINICAL PRESENTATION
A 14-year-old boy developed headaches and right-side hearing loss three months after surgical resection of a cerebellar medulloblastoma and insertion of a VP shunt. CT-scan showed isolated intraventricular pneumocephalus without air in the pericerebral subarachnoid spaces. A petrous bone defect was discovered and surgically repaired with clinical and radiographic resolution of pneumocephalus.

CONCLUSION
We presume that the brain tIssue plugging the bony defect retracted following the placement of the shunt and eventually there was rupture through the pia-mater into the lateral ventricle. This could explain why isolated intraventricular occurred, as opposed to air in the subarachnoid spaces.


While dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is the most commonly used cryoprotectant agent in the cry-opreservation of cultured mammalian cells, it has been reported to cause differentiation of some cell lines by DNA methylation and associated histone modifications. To avoid the side effects of DMSO in cryopreservation, other agents might be more appropriate for maintaining the stable differentiation of cultured cell phenotypes through cryopreservation. All cryoprotectants should be highly soluble in water and display low cell toxicity. Cryoprotective agents have been shown to be effective in animal sperm preservation, and eight types of amides were examined in the cryopreservation of cultured mouse endothelial cells. Among the amides examined, acetamide and lactamide were effective cry-oprotectants for cultured mammalian cells. The most effective concentration of lactamide, 1.5 M, had an even lower cryoprotective ability than 1M DMSO. Because successful cryopreservation of cultured cells is hampered by osmotic stress, the adequate ionic concentration was determined by diluting phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) in the 1.5M lactamide solution. The most effective concentration was 0.4×PBS, which minimized osmotic stress during the cryopreservation of cultured cells. As the addi-tion of high molecular weight materials in cryopreservation media improves the viability of cells, the effects of bovine serum albumin (BSA), hydroxyethyl-starch (HES), and dextran were examined. The best combination of lactamide-based media for cryopreservation was found to be 1.5 M lactamide in 0.4×PBS with 1% BSA.


1 Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&MUniversity, College Station, Texas, United States of America,2 Departmentof Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology, College of Medicine, Texas A&MHealth Science Center, Bryan, Texas, United States of America,3 Norman BorlaugCenter, Texas A&MUniversity, College Station, Texas, United States of America,4 Comparative Immunogenetics Laboratory, Texas A&MUniversity, College Station, Texas, United States of America


Nowadays, the field of biomass conversion is gradually moving towards a hopeful era. The preparation of nitrogen-containing chemicals using various biomass resources instead of fossil resources  cannot only reduce carbon emissions, but also diversify the products of biomass conversion, thus increasing the economic competitiveness of biomass refining systems. LA can be used as a promising intermediate in biomass conversion for further synthesis of pyrrolidone via reductive amination. However, there are still many critical issues to be solved. Particularly, the specific effects of catalysts on the performance of LA reductive amination have not been sufficiently revealed, and the potential impacts of key conditional factors have not been clearly elucidated. In view of this, this review attempts to provide theoretical insights through an in-depth interpretation of the above key issues. The contribution of catalysts to the reductive amination of LA as well as the catalyst structural preferences that favor for improving catalytic performance are discussed. In addition, the role of key conditional factors is discussed. The insights presented in this review will contribute to the design of catalyst nanostructures and the rational configuration of green reaction conditions, which may provide inspiration to facilitate the nitrogen-related transformation of more biomass platform molecules.


The paper by Wei Mao et al proposes a novel approach to deal with the modelling of regional flow in both the unsaturated and saturated zone using a coupling between a simple 1D unsaturated flow model – UBMOD – and the 3D groundwater flow model MODFLOW. The approach proposed is interesting and relevant because the degree of complexity is in between the full approaches that use the 3D Richards equation and simpler approaches that rely for instance on the Boussinesq equation. I like the fact that the authors went through a detail testing of their coupled model using synthetical test cases and an intercomparison with a detailed model. The application to a real-world system is also to be praised. The paper is well written and structured.


Recent work of Pritsker defines and studies an areal version of the Mahler measure. We further explore this function with a particular focus on the case where its value is small, as this is most relevant to Lehmer's conjecture. In this situation, we provide improvements to two inequalities established in Pritsker's original paper.


Background Recently there has been an increased interest in the pharmacologically active natural products associated with remedies of various kinds of diseases, including cancer. Fucoidan is a polysaccharide derived from brown seaweeds and has long been used as an ingredient in some dietary supplement products. Although fucoidan has been known to have anti-cancer activity, the anti-metastatic effects and its detailed mechanism of actions have been poorly understood. Therefore, the aims of this study were to demonstrate the anti-metastatic functions of fucoidan and its mechanism of action using A549, a highly metastatic human lung cancer cell line. Methods and Principal Findings Fucoidan inhibits the growth of A549 cells at the concentration of 400 µg/ml. Fucoidan treatment of non-toxic dose (0–200 µg/ml) exhibits a concentration-dependent inhibitory effect on the invasion and migration of the cancer cell via decreasing its MMP-2 activity. To know the mechanism of these inhibitory effects, Western blotting was performed. Fucoidan treatment down-regulates extracellular signal-related kinase 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)–Akt–mammalian target of rapamycin (PI3K-Akt-mTOR) pathways. Furthermore, fucoidan decreases the cytosolic and nuclear levels of Nuclear Factor-kappa B (p65). Conclusions/Significance The present study suggests that fucoidan exhibits anti-metastatic effect on A549 lung cancer cells via the down-regulation of ERK1/2 and Akt-mTOR as well as NF-kB signaling pathways. Hence, fucoidan can be considered as a potential therapeutic reagent against the metastasis of invasive human lung cancer cells.


The refined field emission SEM, S-900 LV which gives better resolution especially at low voltages below 5 kV was developed for ultrahigh resolution scanning electron microscopy. A visualization test at x 300,000 was made using a gold-evaporated magnetic tape, and the resolution was found to be about 1 nm at 2.5 kV. The ultrastructure of the cell wall, especially the reverting glucan network, from the protoplast of Schizosaccharomyces pombe was studied using this improved ultrahigh-resolution low-voltage SEM (UHR-LVSEM). The results with uncoated reverting protoplasts observed with this microscope revealed that the network was originally formed as secreted particles scattered on the protoplast surface and these were subsequently stretched to microfibrils about 2 nm thick. The microfibrils were twisted around each other and joined together so that they developed into 8-nm-thick fibrils, forming a ribbon-shaped network of glucans about 16-nm-thick which covered the entire protoplast surface. The UHR-LVSEM images of reverting protoplasts treated with glucanase confirmed that the particles scattered on the protoplast surface in the initial stage of regeneration were glucan in nature.


Pilot-scale tests to enhance phosphorus removal with ferrous sulphate in a biological phosphorus and nitrogen removal process (modified UCT) for treating municipal wastewater were performed. The results indicated that Fe(II) competes with the BioP organisms and will inhibit the biological phosphorus removal process completely at doses exceeding 9 g m(-3) of Fe(II). The goal of an effluent P level of 0.5 mg l(-1) can be attained with 5 g m(-3) of Fe(II). A consistent effluent concentration of 0.3 mg l(-1) could not be achieved with this method. A centrifugation method to evaluate the dewatering properties of sludge was developed. Comparison of the settling and dewatering properties between activated sludge from the pilot plant and a full-scale simultaneous precipitation process indicated no consistent differences between them. The poor settling properties are due to the long sludge retention time needed by nitrification and not to the biological phosphorus removal process.


The literature suggests that journalists give a substantial amount of attention to Twitter and use the platform widely, but the impact of that use on news judgment has not been assessed. We hypothesize that Twitter affects journalists' news judgment, impacting coverage decisions. To test this, we conducted an online survey experiment on working US journalists (N = 212). We find that journalists who use Twitter less in their work discount news they see on the platform, potentially causing them to dismiss information that many of their colleagues identify as newsworthy. Our results also indicate that the routinization of Twitter into news production affects news judgment – for journalists who incorporate Twitter into their reporting routines, and those with fewer years of experience, Twitter has become so normalized that tweets were deemed equally newsworthy as headlines appearing to be from the AP wire. This may have negative implications, such as pack journalism, but we also see positives, as Twitter may conduit a wider array of voices into the mainstream news agenda. Twitter plays a key role in journalistic practices including, as we demonstrate here, influencing journalists' news judgment. Twitter's growing centrality in the news process warrants greater scrutiny from journalists and scholars.


Abstract : All currently available network intrusion detection (ID) systems rely upon a mechanism of data collection passive protocol analysis-which is fundamentally flawed. In passive protocol analysis, the intrusion detection system (IDS) unobtrusively watches all traffic on the network, and scrutinizes it for patterns of suspicious activity. We outline in this paper two basic problems with the reliability of passive protocol analysis: (1) there isn't enough information on the wire on which to base conclusions about what is actually happening on networked machines, and (2) the fact that the system is passive makes it inherently "fail-open," meaning that a compromise in the availability of the IDS doesn't compromise the availability of the network. We define three classes of attacks which exploit these fundamentally problems---insertion, evasion and denial of service attacks--and describe how to apply these three types of attacks to IP and TCP protocol analysis. We present the results of tests of the efficacy of our attacks against four of the most popular network intrusion detection systems on the market. All of the ID systems tested were found to be vulnerable to each of our attacks. This indicates that network ID systems cannot be fully trusted until they are fundamentally redesigned.


The contribution of metabolic control to in vivo myocardial contractile function in response to beta 1-adrenergic stimulation was determined in the spontaneously diabetic BB Wor rat. The study involved a group of insulin-dependent BB Wor rats showing marked variations in metabolic control, assessed by the level of glycosylated hemoglobin (gHb). These diabetic BB rats were divided into moderate and severe (%gHb > 14), diabetic groups. A group of Wistar rats and diabetes-resistant BB Wor rats served as controls. In vivo myocardial contractile function was measured under basal conditions and after i.v. dobutamine infusions in anesthetized rats, using a catheter-tip pressure transducer inserted into the left ventricle. No dramatic differences in heart rate with dobutamine stimulation were observed between the moderate, severe diabetic, and diabetes-resistant groups. However, heart rate was lower in Wistar control rats compared with these groups. Systolic left ventricular pressure was depressed in severe diabetic rats compared with Wistar controls. In addition, positive dP/dt was significantly less in the severe diabetic group at the highest doses of stimulation, whereas negative dP/dt was depressed under basal conditions and remained so with increasing doses of dobutamine. In the diabetic group maximal systolic left ventricular pressure, rate-pressure product, and negative dP/dt responses to dobutamine were all inversely correlated with gHb. These results indicate that changes in metabolic control of the insulin-dependent BB diabetic rat can contribute to a depressed myocardial contractile function.


Abstract A literature search was performed through May 2017. Studies that compared the risk of developing Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and/or the clinical outcomes of CDI in patients who received statin treatment versus those who did not receive statins were included. Ten observational studies with 37,109 patients were included. Compared to no treatment, statins reduced the risk of CDI development (odds ratio [OR] = 0.66, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.44–0.99). However, among patients who developed CDI, the use of statins did not significantly reduce recurrent CDI risk (OR = 0.69, 95% CI, 0.28–1.71) or 30-day mortality (OR = 0.77, 95% CI, 0.51–1.14). In conclusion, our study demonstrates a significant association between statin use and a reduced risk of CDI development. However, the findings of our study suggest no significant associations between statin use and improvement in clinical outcomes of CDI. These findings might impact the clinical management and primary prevention of CDI.


The efficacy and safety of topical OPA‐15406, a new phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitor, were examined in Japanese patients aged 15–70 years with atopic dermatitis in a phase 2, randomized, double‐blind, vehicle‐controlled study. Two hundred patients were randomized to three treatment groups at a 1:1:1 ratio to receive OPA‐15406 0.3%, OPA‐15406 1% or vehicle ointment twice daily for 8 weeks. The OPA‐15406 1% group was superior to the vehicle group in terms of the incidence of success based on the Investigator Global Assessment score at week 4 (P = 0.0328), which was the primary end‐point, while the OPA‐15406 0.3% group showed a trend toward improvement in the primary end‐point. The mean Eczema Area and Severity Index total score and subscale (erythema, induration/papulation, excoriation and lichenification) scores, the Visual Analog Scale pruritus score and the Patient‐Oriented Eczema Measure score were significantly improved and the percentage of affected body surface area was significantly decreased in both OPA‐15406 groups relative to the vehicle group as early as week 1, and the improved scores and decreased percentages were generally maintained until week 8. No deaths or serious treatment‐emergent adverse events occurred in the OPA‐15406 treatment groups. Treatment‐emergent adverse events frequently observed across treatment groups were worsening of atopic dermatitis, viral upper respiratory tract infection and pruritus, all of which were mild or moderate in severity in the OPA‐15406 groups. OPA‐15406 1% ointment showed favorable efficacy and safety profiles, indicating a promising treatment option for patients with atopic dermatitis.


Knowledge graph completion (KGC) aims to perform link prediction to fill lost relations between entities by knowledge graph embedding (KGE). Translating embedding, as an efficient embedding method in KGE, is widely applied in numerous recent KGC models. However, these translating models may lack the ability to express various relation patterns and mapping properties for knowledge graphs (KGs). In this paper, a simple and well-performed translating model named TransC is proposed to express different relations. A multi-channel mechanism is defined firstly to constrain translating embeddings. Then a relation-aware transfer function is designed to break the expressive restriction and map triplets involving the same relation into a corresponding plane. We also mathematically prove that TransC is capable of expressing four popular relation patterns and all mapping properties. Finally, experimental results illustrate that TransC can efficiently represent the different relation patterns and properties and achieve better performance than state-of-the-art translating models.


In this paper, we study the local geometry at a prime p of a certain class of (PEL) type Shimura varieties. We begin by studying the Newton polygon stratification of the special fiber of a Shimura variety with good reduction at p. Each stratum can be described in terms of the products of the reduced fiber of the corresponding Rapoport-Zink space with some smooth varieties (we call the Igusa varieties), and of the action on them of a certain p-adic group T_α, which depends on the stratum. (The definition of the Igusa varieties in this context is based upon a result of Zink on the slope filtration of a Barsotti-Tate group and on the notion of Oort's foliation.) In particular, we show that it is possible to compute the etale cohomology with compact supports of the Newton polygon strata, in terms of the etale cohomology with compact supports of the Igusa varieties and the Rapoport-Zink spaces, and of the group homology of T_α. Further more, we are able to extend Zariski locally the above constructions to characteristic zero and obtain an analoguous description for the etale cohomology of the Shimura varieties in both the cases of good and bad reduction at p. As a result of this analysis, we obtain a description of the l-adic cohomology of the Shimura varieties, in terms of the l-adic cohomology with compact supports of the Igusa varieties and of the Rapoport-Zink spaces.


Distribution of bacteria influential on the algal growth during the process of development and decay of Gymnodinium nagasakiense red tide and their effects on the growth of G. nagasakiense and Skeletonema costatum were investigated in Uranouchi Inlet, Kochi. Seawater samples collected around red tide period of G. nagasakiense were filtered through either 0.8μm or 0.2μm filters. Into these filtrates were inoculated axenic cultures of G. nagasakiense or S. costatum. After in-cubation, cell numbers of G. nagasakiense or S. costatum in 0.8μm-filtrates were counted and were compared with those in 0.2μm-filtrates to estimate the bacterial effect on the growth of the two algae. During the time of the development of G. nagasakiense red tide when diatoms were still predominated, natual bacteria were stimulative for both G. nagasakiense and S. costatum. The stimulative effect for S. costatum, however, solely decreased just before the peak of G. nagasakiense red tide, while that for G. nagasakiense was still kept. On the contrary, bacterial effects for both two algae were inhibitory in the decline process of G. nagasakiense bloom. These results indicate that natual communities of bacteria in 0.8μm-filtrates had significant effects on the growth of specific algal species and suggested that they play an important role on the development and decay of algal bloom, in addition to the succession of species predominating.


Strontium zirconate is a candidate material for thermal barrier coatings due to its high melting point, good sintering resistance, and high TCE. One drawback, however, is a phase transition that occurs below 1200 °C , although rare-earth element doping offers a way to suppress it. In this study, SrZrO3 doped with two rare earth oxides, ytterbia and gadolinia, is deposited by solution precursor plasma spraying and the layers obtained are evaluated before and after heat treatment. The coatings are characterized by two phases, SrZrO3 and t-ZrO2, with interpass boundary structure, nano and microscale porosity, and through-thickness vertical cracks. XRD analysis after heat treatment at 1400 °C for 360 h shows that the two phases are very stable due to the doping of rare-earth elements, which is also shown to reduce thermal conductivity in the as-sprayed deposits by nearly 35%.


Set enrichment analysis based methods (e.g. gene set enrichment analysis) have provided great helps in mining patterns in biomedical datasets, however, tools for inferring regular patterns in drug-related datasets are still limited. For the above purpose, here we developed a web-based tool, DrugPattern. DrugPattern first collected and curated 7019 drug sets, including indications, adverse reaction, targets, pathways etc. For a list of interested drugs, DrugPattern then evaluates the significance of the enrichment of these drugs in each of the 7019 drug sets. To validate DrugPattern, we applied it to predict the potential protective roles of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL), a widely accepted deleterious factor for the body. We predicted that oxLDL has beneficial effects on some diseases, most of which were supported by literature except type 2 diabetes (T2D), in which oxLDL was previously believed to be a risk factor. Animal experiments further validated that oxLDL indeed has beneficial effects on T2D. These data confirmed the prediction accuracy of our approach and revealed unexpected protective roles for oxLDL in various diseases including T2D. This study provides a tool to infer regular patterns in biomedical datasets based on drug set enrichment analysis.


X-ray nonspecular scattering method is used to study the structures of Mo thin films fabricated with magnetron sputtering under different Ar pressures. The results show that with the increase of Ar pressure, the density of amorphous Mo film decreased; the surface roughness of the films increased, while the surface coherent length decreased. The abnormal glow discharging in the sputtering processes interprets the observed results well.