HYPOTHESIS
The use of kidneys from deceased donors considered at increased infectious risk represents a strategy to increase the donor pool.

DESIGN
Single-institution longitudinal observational study.

SETTING
Tertiary care center.

PATIENTS
Fifty patients who gave special informed consent to receive Centers for Disease Control and Prevention high-risk (CDCHR) donor kidneys were followed up by serial testing for viral transmission after transplantation. Nucleic acid testing for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, and hepatitis C virus was performed on all high-risk donors before transplantation. Outcomes of CDCHR kidney recipients were compared with outcomes of non-high-risk (non-HR) kidney recipients.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
New viral transmission, graft function, and waiting list time.

RESULTS
No recipient seroconversion was detected during a median follow-up period of 11.3 months. Compared with non-HR donors, CDCHR donors were younger (mean [SD] age, 35 [11] vs 43 [18] years, P = .01), fewer were expanded criteria donors (2.0% vs 24.8%, P < .001), and fewer had a terminal creatinine level exceeding 2.5 mg/dL (4.0% vs 8.8%, P = .002). The median creatinine levels at 1 year after transplantation were 1.4 (interquartile range, 1.2-1.7) mg/dL for CDCHR recipients and 1.4 (interquartile range, 1.1-1.9) mg/dL for non-HR recipients (P = .4). Willingness to accept a CDCHR kidney significantly shortened the median waiting list time (274 vs 736 days, P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS
We show safe use of CDCHR donor kidneys and good 1-year graft function. With continued use of these organs and careful follow-up care, we will be better able to gauge donor risk and match it to recipient need to expand the donor pool and optimize patient benefit.


ABSTRACT Two Epstein-Barr virus latent cycle promoters for nuclear antigen expression, Wp and Cp, are activated sequentially during virus-induced transformation of B cells to B lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) in vitro. Previously published restriction enzyme studies have indicated hypomethylation of CpG dinucleotides in the Wp and Cp regions of the viral genome in established LCLs, whereas these same regions appeared to be hypermethylated in Burkitt's lymphoma cells, where Wp and Cp are inactive. Here, using the more sensitive technique of bisulfite genomic sequencing, we reexamined the situation in established LCLs with the typical pattern of dominant Cp usage; surprisingly, this showed substantial methylation in the 400-bp regulatory region upstream of the Wp start site. This was not an artifact of long-term in vitro passage, since, in cultures of recently infected B cells, we found progressive methylation of Wp (but not Cp) regulatory sequences occurring between 7 and 21 days postinfection, coincident with the period in which dominant nuclear antigen promoter usage switches from Wp to Cp. Furthermore, in the equivalent in vivo situation, i.e., in the circulating B cells of acute infectious mononucleosis patients undergoing primary EBV infection, we again frequently observed selective methylation of Wp but not Cp sequences. An effector role for methylation in Wp silencing was supported by methylation cassette assays of Wp reporter constructs and by bandshift assays, where the binding of two sets of transcription factors important for Wp activation in B cells, BSAP/Pax5 and CREB/ATF proteins, was shown to be blocked by methylation of their binding sites.


In the present paper we study the fast rotation limit for viscous incompressible fluids with variable density, whose motion is influenced by the Coriolis force. We restrict our analysis to two dimensional flows. In the case when the initial density is a small perturbation of a constant state, we recover in the limit the convergence to the homogeneous incompressible Navier-Stokes equations (up to an additional term, due to density fluctuations). For general non-homogeneous fluids, the limit equations are instead linear, and the limit dynamics is described in terms of the vorticity and the density oscillation function: we lack enough regularity on the latter to prove convergence on the momentum equation itself. The proof of both results relies on a compensated compactness argument, which enables one to treat also the possible presence of vacuum.


This paper is concerned with the modelling of maps with conceptual graphs for the design of a knowledge-based system. We first describe the maps, which are synthetic descriptions of farm territories. We then explain the modelling principles we have used: the spatial objects of the map and the relations are represented into concepts linked with arcs. The reasoning principle of the system are briefly described. We finally focus on an example of graph comparison.


The purpose of this study was to examine the secular trend of colorectal cancer in Norway by gender and subsite. All new cases of cancer in proximal colon, distal colon and rectum diagnosed between 1958 and 1997 in Norway were included in the study, altogether 34 202 and 34 097 cases for men and women, respectively. The incidence data were fitted separately for each gender and subsite to an age–period–cohort model. An increase in incidence of colorectal cancer was seen from 1958 to 1997 for both men and women, although a moderate attenuation of the increase has taken place in the last 15–20 years. This observation is most pronounced for cancer of the distal colon, but is also evident for proximal colonic and rectal cancers. For the distal colon and rectum, the period effect is more important than the cohort effect for both genders, whilst opposite for the proximal colon. The main estimated trend for cohort effects is a steady increase for both men and women, apart from an unexpected drop in incidence among the cohorts born during or shortly after World War II. These findings indicate that different aetiological risk factors may act on cancers of the proximal and distal part of the large bowel and further suggest that exogenous risk factors acting very early in life may play a more important role for colorectal cancer than previously recognized.


The modern focused ion beam (FIB) system nanofabrication. It uses a liquid metal ion source (LMIS) at the top of its column to produce ions. Gallium is usually point, high mass, low volatility, and because it is easily distinguished from other elements. From the LMIS the ions are field evaporated and focused into a narrow beam by an electrostatic lens, then passed through a number of apertures before scanning the sample surface (Figure When the ions impact the sample surface, elastic ion result in the removal of surface atoms Inelastic collisions produce secondary electrons and Additionally, the incident ions transfer energy to the surface atoms and electrons, producing secondary ions. These products of ion collisions are collected, amplified, and analyzed as signals to form an image.


Viridans streptococcus, an indigenous bacterial species of the mouth and gastrointestinal tract, is thought to be a rare cause of bacterial meningitis. The type of streptococcus involved is important because each type causes a different kind of meningitis and is associated with a different outcome. A 39-year-old previously healthy man was admitted due to the onset of acute purulent meningitis. A cerebrospinal fluid culture grew Streptococcus sanguis (S. sanguis). Although the patient was asymptomatic for dental caries, odontogenic maxillary sinusitis was found to be the cause of the meningitis. Treatment with intravenous antibiotics was successful. Following a review of the pertinent literature, we discuss the characteristics of S. sanguis meningitis.


The world has been encountering a COVID-19 pandemic since late 2019. The world's people have also witnessed the free movement of wildlife, even in many urban areas in some countries during the imposed lockdown. We conducted research on the birds in the urban landscape of Jamalpur Sadar upazila from March 2020 to October 2020 during this pandemic situation. A total of 134 species of birds with 4338 individuals were recorded during the study period. The number of resident bird species was the maximum (115 species, 85.82%) compared to migrants. The highest number of birds was observed (120 species, 89.55%) and counted 2278 individual birds 52.51%) in the summer season. It was observed that the highest diversity of birds (89 species, 65.92%) was in March. The tree was the most (94 species, n = 2502) used microhabitat by birds in the study area. Among all birds, Pycnonotus cafer was the most abundant bird species with the highest relative abundance (6.11%). Some bird species (e.g. Metopidius indicus, Anastomus oscitans, Amaurornis phoenicurus, Streptopelia tranquebarica, Lonchura malacca) were frequently observed in the urban landscape of the study area during the pandemic. Proper management and awareness creation are essential for the conservation of the bird species in this area.
Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 30(2): 261-274, 2021 (July)


The paper considers the thermo-mechanical mechanism of interaction between the damage agents and armor protection made of polymer fabrics. A simplified mathematical model is proposed to describe the deceleration of a damage agent within an armor fabric due to the dissipation of energy expended on irreversible stretching deformations of fabric fibers, as well as fiber slipping friction and material heating. Woven fabric layers are replaced by solid layers characterized by averaged stiffness and viscosity. A discrete numerical model of a solid material is proposed to reduce a problem with a finite number of degrees of freedom; motion equations are obtained on the basis of the Lagrange equations of the second kind, and for their integration, a stable non-conservative difference scheme is used. The software implementation is based on a functional-object paradigm which allows the modeling of conjugated processes. The parameters of governing equations are identified by using the experimental data. Some illustrative examples of interaction between damage agents and armor barriers with different arrangement of fibers are presented. The proposed model can be used to predict the quality of armor protection with the changing number and location of fibers, as well as to test the armor protection by applying the technique of infrared thermography.


Objective: To investigate the effect of Mongolia Astragalus that is one of Chinese herbal medicine originating in Longxi of Gansu Province on cardiac and nephritic function in patients of essential hypertension (EH) with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Design and method: This study was designed as a prospective, open label, parallel randomized controlled trial. Two hundred and twenty-six EH patients with MetS over the age of 18 years were selected. Patients were randomly assigned to control group (adopted conventional medical treatment), Astragalus group 1 (added Astragalus capsules10 g/d) and Astragalus group 2 (added Astragalus capsules 5 g/d). Some indicators of the cardiac anatomy structures, the cardiac systolic function and diastolic function were measured by M-mode echocardiography, two-dimensional echocardiography, doppler echocardiographic determination and tissue Doppler imaging. The level of urinary microalbuminuria (MAU) was evaluated by radioimmunoassay. In addition, the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was calculated by Modification of Diet in Renal Disease formulas. The changes of related indicators for cardiac and nephritic function were compared between pre-treatment and post-treatments after 12 months follow-up. Research programs was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Register Website and approved by The Ethics Committee of Lanzhou University Second Hospital. Each patient signed an informed consent. Results: The all metabolic related indicators did not differ in three groups (P > 0.05). The cardiac anatomy structure and the indicators of cardiac systolic function have no significant difference in these three groups (P > 0.05). The ratio of early diastolic peak flow velocity and early diastolic mitral annular velocity ratio (E / E ') was reduced in Astragalus group1 than those of in Astragalus group 2 (P < 0.05). And it in both Astragalus group1 and Astragalus group2 were all superior to that in conventional treatment group (P < 0.05). Astragalus had a significant effect on MAU reduction (P = 0.044), and this effect was dosage related of astragalus (P = 0.036). Conclusions: Comparing with only conventional treatment, Astragalus combined with conventional treatment could improve the left ventricular diastolic function and reduce the MAU at certain extent in EH patients with MetS. These effects were more superior within high-dose of Astragalus than those of low-dose Astragalus in some aspects.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the efficacy of a clinician-supported, web-based intervention delivered over the first year after birth compared with standard care in children born after <34 weeks' gestation, on child development at 24 months corrected age (CA), parental mental health, and the parent-child relationship at 24 months.

METHODS
We randomly allocated 103 preterm infants to clinician-supported, web-based intervention (n = 50) or standard care control (n = 53) groups. At 24 months CA, child cognitive, language, motor, social-emotional development, and the parent-child relationship were assessed. Parental mental health and quality of life were assessed at 12 and 24 months CA.

RESULTS
At 24 months, child development, maternal mental health, and maternal quality of life were similar for the intervention and control groups. There was some evidence that mothers in the intervention group had lower odds of being in the elevated category for depression at 12 months (odds ratio: 0.19; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.04-0.90; P = .04). Scores were higher in the intervention group for child responsiveness (mean difference: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.03-1.11; P = .04), child involvement (mean difference: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.09-1.13; P = .02), and maternal structuring (mean difference: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.22-1.21; P = .01) during the parent-infant interaction at 24 months.

CONCLUSIONS
This study provides preliminary evidence that a clinician-supported, web-based early intervention program for preterm infants had a positive effect on the parent-child relationship and maternal mental health immediately after the intervention but potentially little effect on child development.


Job satisfaction as an attitude resulting from a balancing and summation of many specific likes and dislikes experienced in connection with the job. Extant literature mostly focused on job satisfaction in developed world context. Determinants of job satisfaction in developing world context are largely ignored whereas there are significant difference among the nature, personality and culture of the employees of developed and developing countries. This paper attempts to explore the determinants of job satisfaction in Bangladesh perspective. It focused on six factors – Job, Pay, Promotion, Supervision, Colleagues and Environment as the key determinants of job satisfaction based on the extant literature. The study conducted a survey based on structured questionnaire, which revealed that job, pay, promotion, supervision have significant impact on job satisfaction while other two factors – colleagues and environment are not found to have significant impact on job satisfaction of Bangladeshi employees. At the end, this paper suggest that, in order to attain the job satisfaction of the employees, the human resource managers of Bangladesh should concentrate more on the nature of the job, promotion, payment and supervision more than colleagues and the environment of the office / job.


Recent discoveries of supposedly pure alpha-tetragonal boron require to revisit its structure. The system is also interesting with respect to a new type of geometrical frustration in elemental crystals, which was found in beta-rhombohedral boron. Based on density functional theory calculations, the present study has resolved the structural and thermodynamic characteristics of pure alpha-tetragonal boron. Different from beta-rhombohedral boron, the conditions for stable covalent bonding (a band gap and completely filled valence bands) are almost fulfilled at a composition B_52 with two 4c interstitial sites occupied. This indicates that the ground state of pure alpha-tetragonal boron is stoichiometric. However, the covalent condition is not perfectly fulfilled because non-bonding in-gap states exist that cannot be eliminated. The half occupation of the 4c sites yields a macroscopic amount of residual entropy, which is as large as that of beta-rhombohedral boron. Therefore, alpha-tetragonal boron can be classified as an elemental crystal with geometrical frustration. Deviations from stoichiometry can occur only at finite temperatures. Thermodynamic considerations show that deviations delta from the stoichiometric composition B_(52+delta) are small and positive. For reported high-pressure syntheses conditions delta is predicted to be about 0.1 to 0.2. An important difference between pure and C- or N-containing alpha-tetragonal boron is found in the occupation of interstitial sites: the pure form prefers to occupy the 4c sites, whereas in C- or N-containing forms a mixture of 2a, 8h, and 8i sites are occupied. The present article provides relations of site occupation, delta values, and lattice parameters, which enable us to identify pure alpha-tetragonal and distinguish the pure form from other ones.


We developed and evaluated a visualization tool for browsing individual blog archives. In our study, we solicited qualitative feedback from the participants to explore the reasons behind their usability ratings. This feedback reveals factors that are deemed important in selecting entries to read, and adds to the understanding of blogging practices. Based on our analysis, we propose two design principles to complement the current blog interfaces: (1) A blog should provide a rich overview of its content to ease information exploration; and (2) A blog should utilize social interaction history to help users find potentially useful entries.


Background: The dissemination of the uropathogenic O25b-ST131 Escherichia coli clone constitutes a threat to public health. We aimed to determine the circulation of E. coli strains belonging to O25b:H4-B2-ST131 and the H30-Rx epidemic subclone causing hospital and community-acquired urinary tract infections (UTI) in Colombia. Methods: Twenty-six nonduplicate, CTX-M group-1-producing isolates causing UTI in the hospital and community were selected for this study. Results: Twenty-two E. coli isolates harboring CTX-M-15, one CTX-M-3, and three CTX-M-55 were identified. Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) showed a variety of sequence types (STs), among which, ST131, ST405, and ST648 were reported as epidemic clones. All the E. coli ST131 sequences carried CTX-M-15, from which 80% belonged to the O25b:H4-B2 and H30-Rx pandemic subclones and were associated with virulence factors iss, iha, and sat. E. coli isolates (23/26) were resistant to ciprofloxacin and associated with amino acid substitutions in quinolone resistance-determining regions (QRDR). We detected two carbapenem-resistant E. coli isolates, one coproducing CTX-M-15, KPC-2, and NDM-1 while the other presented mutations in ompC. Additionally, one isolate harbored the gene mcr-1. Conclusions: Our study revealed the circulation of the E. coli ST131, O25b:H4-B2-H30-Rx subclone, harboring CTX-M-15, QRDR mutations, and other resistant genes. The association of the H30-Rx subclone with sepsis and rapid dissemination warrants attention from the public health and infections control.


Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has revolutionized the therapeutic care of patients by allowing high-throughput and parallel sequencing of large numbers of genes in a single run. However, most of available commercialized cancer panels target a large number of mutations that do not have direct therapeutic implications and that are not fully adapted to low quality formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples. Here, we designed an amplicon-based NGS panel assay of 16 currently actionable genes according to the most recent recommendations of the French National Cancer Institute (NCI). We developed a panel of short amplicons (<150 bp) using dual-strand library preparation. The clinical validation of this panel was performed on well-characterized controls and 140 routine diagnostic samples, including highly degraded and cross-linked genomic DNA extracted from FFPE tumor samples. All mutations were detected with elevated inter-laboratory and inter-run reproducibility. Importantly, we could detect clinically actionable alterations in FFPE samples with variant allele frequencies as low as 1%. In addition, the overall molecular diagnosis rate was increased from 40.7% with conventional techniques to 59.2% with our NGS panel, including 41 novel actionable alterations normally not explored by conventional techniques. Taken together, we believe that this new actionable target panel represents a relevant, highly scalable and robust tool that is easy to implement and is fully adapted to daily clinical practice in hospital and academic laboratories.


Due to the development of communication system in the warfare, the future warfare is changing to network-centric warfare (NCW). In the NCW, the communication effect has a significant influence on the combat power. There is growing importance for analysis of communication effect in the combat power. There are many researches about this issue, but there is no study on analysis using relationship between communication system and combat power. In this paper, we illustrates interoperation environment consisting of NetSPIN communication model and wargame model to analyze influence of parameters of communication model on combat effectiveness of wargame model. The wargame model is a corps-scaled model based on Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) formalism. The communication model is a corps-scaled SPIDER network model of NetSPIN based on OPNET. Especially, we uses OAI matrix to identify parameters in communication simulator influencing on combat power, and analyze relationship between parameters and combat power through design of experiment and simulation by using them. For the future work, we expect that requirement analysis of communication equipment in NCW by using meta-modeling method.


Stacks of multilayered rutile TiO(2) nanoflowers can grow on a titanium film through a simple acid vapour oxidation (AVO) method. The growth of this interesting hierarchical architecture is due to the formation of rutile {101} twinned structures and a subtle mismatching between the lattice spacings of the substrate and product.


The political goal and the aim of Swedish disability policy today is to give persons with disabilities the same opportunities as others to participate in society and to live together with others - the principles of normalisation and integration. Two particular acts came into force on the 1st of January 1994, the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS) and the Act concerning Assistance Compensation (LASS). LSS gives persons with severe functional disabilities, either physical or mental, the legal right to 10 different kinds of support and services. One of the most important elements in LSS is the right to personal assistance. The idea of personal assistance is to provide support that is tailor-made to the individual as far as possible and to optimise the person's influence over how the support is arranged. The aim of this article is to describe and analyse the right personal assistance from an administrative perspective. The focus is on the application and decision process and the development of this support during the years.


About the book: Assessing the scientific and technological aspects of lead-free soldering, this reference considers the necessary background and requirements for proper alloy selection. It highlights the metallurgical and mechanical properties, plating and processing technologies, and evaluation methods vital to the production of lead-free solders in electronics. Responding to increasing environmental and health concerns over lead toxicity, Lead-Free Soldering in Electronics discusses soldering inspection and design, mechanical evaluation in electronics, lead-free solder paste and reflow soldering, plating lead-free soldering in electronics, and wave soldering.


AIM
To study on the release profile in vitro and biodistribution in mice of the compound liposomes carried with vincristine sulfate (VCR) and mitoxantrone chlorhydric acid (MTO).

METHODS
The release behaviors of the VCR and MTO from compound liposomes were studied in vitro. HPLC was developed for the determination of the contents of VCR and MTO in tissues in mice.

RESULTS
The release time of VCR from compound liposome was 24 h and that from free drug (in control solution) was 6 h. The release of MTO from compound liposome was 0.05% after 288 h and release time of MTO from free drug (in control solution) was 12 h. The liposomes and free drugs were injected intravenously at same dose to mice. The elimination half-life time (T 1/2) in plasma of liposomal and free VCR were 0.16 h and 0.14 h, and the AUCs (0 - 48 h) of them were 2.69 (ug x g(-1)) x h and 1.58 (ug x g(-1)) x h, respectively. The elimination half-life times (T 1/2) in plasma of liposomal and free MTO were 21.6 h and 0.05 h and the AUCs (0 - 48 h) of them were 17.06 (ug x g(-1)) x h and 0.42 (ug x g(-1)) x h, respectively.

CONCLUSION
The compound liposome with high entrapping efficiency and small particle size could be prepared by pH-gradients method and reverse evaporation technique. Two drugs were sustained-released from the compound liposome. Mice tail intravenous injection of compound liposomes showed that compound liposome prolonged the retention time and improved the concentration of MTO and VCR in the blood circulation system compared to control. In the mean time, compound liposome reduced the concentration of the MTO and VCR in heart, lung, kidney etc. These observations indicated that compound liposome could improve anticancer activity and reduce side effect.


We present an investigation of the interference effects which have been observed experimentally and predicted for ionizing collisions between highly charged projectiles and molecular hydrogen targets. The present data have been obtained from a non perturbative treatment of the collision system, using the semiclassical impact parameter method and solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation fully numerically, the scattering wavefunction being discretized in the electron position space and, for detailed analysis, on spaces of reduced dimensionality. We discuss the oscillatory structures observed in differential cross sections as function of outgoing electron energy and angle in Kr34+ – H2 collisions. Emphasis is placed on the discussion on Young-type interference pattern as well as extra high frequency oscillations which have been observed experimentally but not confirmed by theoretical calculations.


This paper explores understandings of harm in law through the application of a feminist perspective. Drawing on the idea of harm as a social construct, the paper considers the role of law in shaping perceptions of when a harm has occurred and whether it should be redressed. These themes are illustrated by means of a close legal and contextual analysis of the House of Lords decision in Waters v Metropolitan Police Commissioner,' in which a woman was allegedly bullied at work for reporting she had been raped by a fellow ofJicer. The paper raises questions about why this particular claimant had dif iculv establishing that she had suffered harm, despite alleging 89 separate hostile acts by fellow oficers, and even though the courts who heard her claim assumed for the purposes of legal argument that the facts alleged were true. It is argued that the narrowness of the approach adopted by most of the judges who heard Ms Waters' claim precluded recognition of the seriousness of the allegations and the social, political, and legal need to provide redress.


Features are used in computer aided geometric modeling to encapsulate primitive and lower-abstraction entities to compose higher-level complex entities in order to support faster modeling, consistent data structures between features within the model, and feature-level reasoning that extends beyond reasoning supported by the primitives. In this paper, this idea is extended to computer-aided function modeling. Four function modeling features, which mainly operate on material flows but also involved energy flows, are formally defined. These features are: (1) Convergize_EM, (2) Handover_E, (3) Change_M, and (4) Changeover_EM. Each feature is composed of formerly established functional primitives that are formally defined, and by connecting those primitives in a controlled topology enforced by a feature-level grammar. The ability of these features to support consistent function modeling and model-based reasoning is illustrated using applications, both at the device level (simpler models) and at the system level (more complex models).


Purpose The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic value of the local NK cell count in patients with recurrent non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Methods The archival paraffin-embedded primary tumor specimens were derived from retrospectively-selected patients, who were treated between 1996 and 2001 for bladder cancer. The study group consisted of 46 patients who developed recurrent disease during their first two post-operative years. The control group consisted of 27 patients who did not develop recurrent disease during their first two post-operative years. Specimens were assessed immunohistochemically with standard "ABC" technique. The frequency of NK cells was expressed as total number, estimated for each tumor by counting the positive NK cells in 10 high-power representative fields. Statistical analysis was done using Kruskal-Wallis test. Results Patients with recurrent non-muscle invasive bladder cancer in general have significantly higher values of stromal NK cell count than the control group. Patients with single tumor and smaller tumors show a statistically significant difference in NK cell count between study and control group. There also exists a statistically significant difference in stromal NK cell count in patients with clinical stage Ta tumor. Conclusions Our results confirm an association of the bladder wall NK cell count in bladder cancer patients with the natural history of disease. Further well-performed, reproducible, large, prospective investigation stratified by clinical parameters, such as tumor number and diameter, is needed to display the true value of this marker in the clinical work-up of bladder cancer patients.


Deception is rapidly growing as an important tool for cyber defence, complementing existing perimeter security measures to rapidly detect breaches and data theft. One of the factors limiting the use of deception has been the cost of generating realistic artefacts by hand. Recent advances in Machine Learning have, however, created opportunities for scalable, automated generation of realistic deceptions. This vision paper describes the opportunities and challenges involved in developing models to mimic many common elements of the IT stack for deception effects.


Matching cross-modality features between images and point clouds is a fundamental problem for image-to-point cloud registration. However, due to the modality difference between images and points, it is difficult to learn robust and discriminative cross-modality features by existing metric learning methods for feature matching. Instead of applying metric learning on cross-modality data, we propose to unify the modality between images and point clouds by pretrained large-scale models first, and then establish robust correspondence within the same modality. We show that the intermediate features, called diffusion features, extracted by depth-to-image diffusion models are semantically consistent between images and point clouds, which enables the building of coarse but robust cross-modality correspondences. We further extract geometric features on depth maps produced by the monocular depth estimator. By matching such geometric features, we significantly improve the accuracy of the coarse correspondences produced by diffusion features. Extensive experiments demonstrate that without any task-specific training, direct utilization of both features produces accurate image-to-point cloud registration. On three public indoor and outdoor benchmarks, the proposed method averagely achieves a 20.6 percent improvement in Inlier Ratio, a three-fold higher Inlier Number, and a 48.6 percent improvement in Registration Recall than existing state-of-the-arts.


Introduction The term 'true' posterior communicating artery (PCoA) aneurysm refers to an aneurysm that originates from the posterior communicating artery itself. Over the past decades, an increasing number of this type of posterior communicating artery aneurysms have been reported. We systematically reviewed all of these published data and conducted a meta-analysis on these individual patient data. Method A meta-analysis of individual patient data was conducted. Results Pooled data demonstrated that 'true' PCoA aneurysms represented about 1.3% (95% CI 0.8% to 1.7%) of all intracranial aneurysms and 6.8% (95% CI 4.3% to 9.2%) of all PCoA aneurysms. Mean age was 53.5 (53.5±15.4) years and ranged between 23 and 79 years. 49 of these reported aneurysms had the ruptured status, 44 (89.8%) were reported as ruptured and four (10.2%) were reported as unruptured. There were no significant differences in ruptured status between age (p=0.321), aneurysm side (p=0.537) and shape (p=0.408). No significant differences in complication rates were found between the different ruptured status (p=0.27) or operative modalities (p=0.878). Mean ages of those patients who had no complications and those who had complications were 53 (53±2.59) versus 53.2 (53.2±5.02) years (p =0.972). Conclusion We concluded that 'true' PCoA aneurysms represent about 1.3% of all intracranial aneurysms and 6.8% of all posterior communicating artery aneurysms. 'True' PCoA aneurysms are more prone to rupture compared with their counterpart junctional aneurysms. When surgical management is indicated, care should be taken in choosing the operative approach to avoid oculomotor nerve damage and to preserve perforating branches as much as possible. A good understanding of the location and configuration of the aneurysm neck before surgical treatment is critical in successful treatment of these lesions.Abstract E-062 Figure 1


The somatostatin receptors (SSTR) are effective therapeutic targets for treating neuroendocrine tumors, primarily achieved through the inhibition of both cellular proliferation and hormone secretion. SSTR are comprised of five major subtypes, namely subtypes 1, 2 (A and B), 3, 4 and 5. The somatostatin signaling also works as a determinant in the TGF‐β dependent neuroendocrine‐mesenchymal transition (NMT) process. NMT is similar to the epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT), but has the opposite cellular differentiation response to TGF‐β. For instance, TGF‐β promotes cell dedifferentiation in EMT but promotes cell differentiation in NMT. The process of EMT is a critical morphogenic event during the progression of epithelial tumors. Recently, in epithelial tumors, the micro RNA 200c (miR‐200c) has been found to negatively regulate E‐cadherin9s transcriptional repressor ZEB1 and capable of keeping the EMT invasiveness in check. In our study, the miR‐200c repressor (Oligoengine Inc. designed by Todd Hauser) has been successful in up‐regulating ZEB1 and ultimately driving the neuroendocrine tumor BON cells into the dedifferentiated mesenchymal state. The miR‐200c repressor induces changes in the tumor metastasis markers, such as the ZEB1 increase, E‐cadherin decrease, and ultimately with both Vimentin and Twist increases. Our anti‐SSTR antibodies raised against receptor9s ectodomain region (anti‐SSTR ECL2 antibodies) were able to reverse the BON cell from its mesenchymal state back to the differentiated neuroendocrine state. Our results suggest that similar to EMT, both miR‐200c and ZEB1 are also involved in the NMT dedifferentiation programming. In summary, we conclude that miR‐200c/ZEB1 signaling can be regulated by the SSTR activation. This is evident because anti‐SSTR agonist‐like SSTR2, 3 and 5 antibodies are capable of overcoming neuroendocrine tumor9s miR‐200c commitment to metastasis. Furthermore, we also found that these anti‐SSTR antibodies can sensitize tumor cells to death. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2009;69(23 Suppl):C45.


The data of Mesofauna are recorded in main biocenoses (forest of wood trees, forest of bamboo, savan of blady grass and garden around home) of Khu hamlet during surveys conducted from December 2004 to August 2005 (table 1 and figs 1, 2). Earthworms is the most abundant in density and biomass more than those of insects. In comparing earthworms with all arthropods, density of arthropods is more than earthworms but their biomass is clearly lower. Collembola is abundant in microarthropods. 63 species of Collembola in 12 families are found in Khu hamlet (tables 2, 3 and figs 3, 4). The table 4 shows that species number, density and biomass of many groups of soil invertebrate are decreased from natural biocenoses (forest of wood trees, forest of bamboo) to anthropogene ones (blady grass and garden around home), while the density and biomass of earthworms and collembola changed in opposite direction, that is explained by the development of some eurytopic species in anthropogene specified biocenoses. Soil invertebrates condensed in litter and in 30 cm upper layer of soil.


BACKGROUND
Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is characterized by the synthesis and secretion of calcitonin (Ct). MTC without Ct secretion has been reported on rare occasions. The aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence and clinical spectrum of nonsecretory MTC in two tertiary centers that cared for 839 patients with sporadic MTC.

METHODS
Clinical, biochemical, histological, and immunohistological findings, and somatic RET mutations were analyzed, and long-term follow-up was documented.

RESULTS
Seven patients with nonsecretory MTC were identified among 839 patients with sporadic MTC; thus, the prevalence rate of nonsecretory MTC was 0.83%. In these seven patients, Ct and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels were normal when MTC was initially diagnosed in the patients, despite advanced tumor stage. Ct and CEA levels remained undetectable in four patients; recurrence was indicated in one patient after 10 years of follow-up by routine anatomic imaging and increased CEA levels, and Ct levels became slightly elevated during follow-up, despite massive tumor load, in the remaining two patients. The diagnosis of MTC was confirmed by positive immunohistochemistry for Ct, CEA, and chromogranin A. A high Ki67 proliferation index (PI) (three patients) and a high proportion of RET 918-mutated cells (four patients), as well as poorly differentiated histology, were associated with aggressive biological behavior of the MTC. The prognosis for nonsecretory MTC varied between long-term survival (12.5 years) and rapid progression leading to death within 1.75 years after diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of nonsecretory MTC was low (0.83% of patients with MTC). Diagnosis was often made at a clinically advanced tumor stage. The histological and immunohistological characteristics and the clinical course and prognosis of nonsecretory MTC are markedly heterogeneous. A high Ki-67 PI and a large proportion of cells with RET 918 mutations are associated with a poor prognosis.


On 17 ex-smokers (7 without chronic bronchitis, 10 with chronic bronchitis) and 48 smokers (13 without chronic bronchitis, 35 with chronic bronchitis) we analyzed the correlation between smoking habits (pack years, smoking and ex-smoking time), mucociliary clearance rate (mC) and airways obstruction. The mC was measured with 99mTc tagged monodisperse erythrocytes. The static and dynamic lung volumes, the maximal expiratory flow volume curve and the airway resistance were measured by whole body plethysmography. The ex-smokers without chronic bronchitis showed the same mucociliary clearance rate (t-mC in 1 h = 38.3 +/- 10.3%) as the 80 control subjects who never smoked (t-mC in 1 h = 36.9 +/- 12.6%). But the subjects who never smoked showed less airway obstruction. The mucociliary clearance rate in normal subjects who never smoked is a function of age: t-mC in 1 h = -0.37 X age + 53; c-mC in 1 h = -0.45 X age + 73; p-mC in 1 h = -0.25 X age + 38. The smokers without chronic bronchitis showed normal ventilatory function tests but a lower mC rate (t-mC in 1 h = 27.8 +/- 12.3%) than the healthy ex-smokers and the control subjects who never smoked (p less than 0.01). The ex-smokers and smokers with chronic bronchitis had a lower mC rate (t-mC in 1 h = 21.2 +/- 11.3% and 18.1 +/- 9.1) and more airway obstruction (p less than 0.001) than the subjects who did not report any symptoms of chronic bronchitis. The ex-smokers with persistent symptoms of chronic bronchitis showed the severest degree of airways obstruction. The smokers with chronic bronchitis showed the most delayed central mC (c-mC) rate, but less airway obstruction than the ex-smokers with persistent symptoms of chronic bronchitis. The smoking habits (pack years) correlated with the decreased mC rate (p less than 0.01) and the degree of airways obstruction (p less than 0.001).


Intrathecal diamorphine is associated with a high incidence of emetic symptoms. Six anti-emetic drugs representing various chemical groups were given in random order to patients undergoing total hip replacement and who had received intrathecal diamorphine 0.5-1.0 mg. The phenothiazines, perphenazine and prochlorperazine, were more effective than the others. It is suggested that this might be a useful model for the evaluation of new anti-emetics.


Glucocorticoids play important roles in lung development and function by modulating the expression of a variety of genes. The type 1 vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) receptor gene is highly expressed in the lung where it mediates VIP physiological functions. In this study, the effect of glucocorticoid on VIP receptor gene expression was examined. Dexamethasone (100 n) suppresses endogenous VIP receptor mRNA expression in cultured lung cells. Transient transfection of lung cells with fusion constructs containing various portions of the VIP receptor 5'-flanking sequences linked to the luciferase reporter gene shows that 126 base pairs (bp) of the VIP receptor upstream sequences are sufficient to mediate transcriptional repression by glucocorticoid. DNase I footprinting demonstrates that purified glucocorticoid receptor (GR) binds to the VIP receptor promoter between -21 and -36 bp relative to the transcription start site. Point mutations within this binding site not only abolish GR binding and GR-mediated transcriptional repression of the VIP receptor gene, but basal transcription is also reduced to background levels. Co-transfection of GR expression vector and the VIP receptor GR binding site linked to the thymidine kinase promoter and luciferase shows that this sequence is sufficient to confer glucocorticoid-mediated transcriptional repression to a heterologous promoter. These results indicate that the VIP receptor gene contains a negative glucocorticoid response element between -21 and -36 bp that may act to regulate both basal and glucocorticoid-mediated expressions of the VIP receptor gene in lung cells.


BACKGROUND: Internal splintage of proximal metaphyseal tibial fractures has gained acceptance as a method of early stabilization of such injuries. Intramedullary nailing is a challenging procedure. This study tries to evaluate treatment outcomes of closed reduction and intramedullary nailing with the aid of blocking screws to maintain the reduction and stabilize theses injuries. METHOD: Thirty patients (23 males and 7 females) with proximal metaphyseal tibial fractures were treated and followed from June 2010 and February 2014 (44 months) with average 19 months. Age ranged between 23 to 55 years (average, 38 years). According to A.O. Classification 13 cases were Type A2.1, 9 cases were Type A2.1 (II), and 8 cases were Type A3.2. Seven cases were open fractures and according to Gustilo Anderson classification 4 cases were Grade (I), 3 cases were Grade (II). All cases were treated by interlocking intramedullary tibial nailing assisted by the use of blocking screws technique. RESULTS: The results had been evaluated through the following parameters: (pain, union, malunion, infection, range of motions, walking capacity, extension lag, knee stability and implant and technical failure. All cases had been united. Excellent alignment obtained in 27 fractures (90%). Knee and Ankle joints range of motions were equivalent to the unaffected side in 25 patients (82%). Two patients got superficial wound infection (2.7%). The final functional results were evaluated through modified Karlstrom-Olerud Score and we get: Excellent: 20 cases (66.7%), Good: 7 cases (23.3%), Satisfactory: 2 cases (6.7%) and Poor: 1 case (3.3%). DISCUSSION: Intramedullary nailing of proximal tibial fracture is a load sharing procedure, sparing the extraosseous blood supply, avoiding additional soft-tissue dissection, thereby minimizing the risk of postoperative complications. Also, it reduces the length of hospital stay and costs, enables early mobilization and achieves satisfactory outcomes. However; it is a technically demanding procedure and may result in malalignment. Our aim is evaluating the clinical use of Pollar screws (blocking screws) as a supplement to stability fixation of these fractures with statically locked intramedullary nails. CONCLUSION: Utilizing intramedullary interlocking nailing supplemented with blocking screws to aid in stabilizing proximal tibial fractures whether closed or open is a good method of treatment. The high proportions of excellent and good results in our series confirm that this technique is equal to other known methods of fracture fixation.


We investigated the degree to which strength of pulmonary hypoxic vasoconstriction affects perfusion of pulmonary shunt pathways in acute atelectasis. In 17 intact supine dogs (anesthetized, paralyzed, and ventilated) we produced left lower lobe atelectasis by occluding the lobar bronchus during oxygen inhalation. Subsequently, shunt fraction (reflecting perfusion of that lobe) was measured using an SF6 infusion while the dogs breathed room air; the mean was 26% (range 14-40%). Pulmonary pressor response to hypoxia was assessed in 13 dogs using the increase in pulmonary end-diastolic gradient (PDG) produced by inhalation of 10% oxygen. Those animals with the largest increase in pulmonary diastolic gradient had the smallest shunt fraction while breathing room air, whereas those with the smallest response had the largest shunt fraction. The contribution of local hypoxia to vasoconstriction in the shunt pathway was assessed in 13 dogs breathing room air by measuring the increase in shunt fraction produced by infusing prostaglandin E1 (PGE1). Those with the largest increase in shunt fraction had the smallest pre-PGE1 shunt fraction. Thus the strength of pulmonary vascular reactivity to hypoxia markedly influences the degree of vasoconstriction in shunt pathways and is a major determinant of shunt pathway perfusion.


Ninety alcoholic patients with the secondary affective disorders (anxiety, depression) were divided into four groups. Patients in the first group received GABAB receptor ligands (baclofen), those in the second group, diazepam, those in the third group, amitriptyline and those in the fourth group, placebo. The results of clinical, psychological (tests of Spielberger, Zung and MMPI), and electrophysiological (superslow w-potential) investigations showed that baclofen is an effective drug for affective disturbances in alcoholic patients, with efficacy superior to placebo and equal to diazepam and amitriptyline. At the same time baclofen does not have the side-effects and complications of the latter. Significant changes in platelet MAOB activity and the dopamine, serotonin and GABA concentrations in blood after treatment were not found in the four patient groups. The peripheral matabolism of GABA and monoamines do not seem to be related to the development of secondary affective disorders in alcoholic patients. This investigation encourages the search for drugs acting on the affective psychopathology of GABA, receptor ligands.


High-dimensional data sets have been used extensively in recent years. However, their use is computationally expensive, and model features are difficult to capture. Thus, it is necessary to construct a simple and appropriate model. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) can estimate several regression coefficients as exactly zero, making it possible to estimate a model and select variables at the same time. However, several problems exist. The decision procedure for the tuning parameter, which is the coefficient of the penalty term, is not established, and it is difficult to determine the value of the estimated model. In this paper, we consider a model evaluation method and a selection method for the tuning parameter. We investigate selection methods for the most appropriate tuning parameter and model evaluation methods using the model evaluation indexes RSS, AIC, BIC, and Mallows's Cp. Let several regression coefficients be zero and vary the number of zeroes. Then, we observe the performances of the evaluation indexes. Furthermore, we observe their performances when the values of the regression coefficients are close to zero and confirm them by simulation.


One of the most relevant areas of research in biomedical anthropology is the establishment of morphometric parameters of the human body, individual organs and structures of the body, in particular cephalometric indicators and indicators of the jaw-facial apparatus. Such research is important from the point of view of practical medicine, first of all improvement of methods of identification of the person in forensic medicine and for creation of a normative database for diagnostics of dental deformities and improvement of consequences of surgical, orthopedic and orthodontic interventions. One of the most accurate and effective methods for determining cephalometric parameters is the method of lateral teleroentgenography. The object: to establish teleroentgenographic indicators that characterize the position of teeth and the profile of facial soft tissues and determine their sexual characteristics in Ukrainian young men and young women with orthognathic occlusion depending on the profiles and types of faces according to Schwarz A. M. Conclusions: the results prove the need to consider not only age, but also sex, type and profile of the face for an individualized approach in determining the normative teleroentgenographic indicators of human, are important in forensic medicine to improve the efficiency of identification and in practical dentistry to assess the condition of the dental apparatus and ensure effective therapeutic and aesthetic results of orthopedic and orthodontic dentistry.


Higher education quality costs are escalating daily and the cost of poor quality is becoming excessive. The higher education department has indicated that inefficiencies within the higher education environment are affecting the performance and the return of investments. This research uses 2011 and 2012 records retrieved on Industrial Engineering department from the Management Information System unit of Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa. It focuses on how cost of poor quality can be categorized within higher education environment, and identifies methods which can be used to minimize these costs with the purpose of improving the performance and return of investments. The paper established the cost of poor quality for the department using the teaching input grant, teaching output grant, research output grant, and institutional factor grants, teaching input unit, student's full credit load and among other factors. The results of this research indicated that USD94,3166.24 and USD933,431.92 were lost for the year 2011 and 2012 respectively on just one department and affirmed that failure cost and preventative costs are the main costs associated with higher education inefficiencies and shortfalls. Thus, Application of lean enterprise or lean six sigma tools is recommended to salvage the situation.


This paper examines the economic development experiences of China, South Korea and Singapore from the lens of strategy. It attempts to answer the following question: can countries' economic success be attributed, even partially, to a well-designed and effectively implemented development strategy? The paper presents a framework for what I term "Grand Strategy of Development". It is the overall direction that a country takes to achieve economic development, and it provides the big picture reference, guidance, and direction for the development policies and plans of the country. It consists of four elements: economic objective, development strategy, tactics, and operations. Alignment and consistency between the four elements of Grand Strategy of Development are critical for countries' development outcomes. Each of the studied countries pursued a different Grand Strategy of Development. Hence, Grand Strategy of Development is context specific. It must fit with the local context and development phase of each country.


The concept of autonomy as self-rule is delineated by examination of intergovernmental relations within eight devolutionary situations: Belgium, Crimea (Ukraine), Ethiopia, Greenland (Denmark), Mexico, Scotland (United Kingdom), South Africa and Spain. After autonomy and devolution are profiled, the autonomy situations are comparatively examined through their intergovernmental institutional structures, fiscal arrangements and political channels. These three processes are at the core of post-devolution autonomy situations, and their sufficiency within a polity contributes to meaningful self-rule. While in most of the eight autonomy situations effective institutional and political channels exist, the fiscal ties are weaker and non-existent in some cases, leading to fiscal dependence. In those situations where one-party rule prevails, institutional and political autonomy is also weaker, attenuating autonomy through devolution.


This paper presents conditions for the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions for a boundary value problem of a nonlinear fractional differential equation. We show that it has at least one or two positive solutions. The main tool is Krasnosel'skii fixed point theorem on cone and fixed point index theory.


ABSTRACT Following the 2007–2008 financial crisis, it was expected that the economic downturn and the widening of economic disparities would produce lower support for the European Union (EU) and its continued integration. Using the 2009 European Election Study (EES) data in 27 EU member states, we find that citizens who see greater economic instability and insecurity, regardless of their current economic status, lower their support for the EU as it is but increase their support for continuing integration. Substantively, this suggests that EU citizens may offer the EU another chance to tackle this timely issue and counterbalance market-generated inequality.


Bos indicus-crossbred calves exposed to natural Babesia bovis infection in wet and dry tropical environments in northern Queensland were tested for antibodies using the indirect haemagglutination (IHA) test. There was evidence of maternal antibodies suggesting endemicity of B. bovis in the 2 environments. Within one year 35.3 to 94.6% of the calves had acquired B. bovis infection. The highest titres and most rapid conversion rates were observed just after the wet season when the tick population was at its peak. Clinical disease was not observed. A third group of Bos indicus-cross cattle of varying ages in a dry tropical environment of north Queensland was examined for antibodies against B. bovis and Anaplasma marginale using the IHA and complement fixation (CF) tests, respectively. B. bovis and A. marginale antibodies were detected on the farm but clinical disease did not occur.


Diabetic retinopathy is the main ocular complication of diabetes mellitus. The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect and mechanism of resolvin D2 (RvD2) on diabetic retinopathy. Streptozocin-induced C57/BJ diabetic mice were divided into three groups: normal control, diabetes mellitus, and diabetes plus RvD2 treatment. After three months of diabetic model induction, exogenous RvD2 was injected, monthly for three months, into the vitreous cavity of mice in the diabetic treatment group. Retinal vascular leakage, ganglion cell apoptosis, inflammatory factor expression, and oxidative stress factors were detected one month after the last injection. The levels of retinal vascular leakage and ganglion cell apoptosis in diabetic mice treated with RvD2 were significantly lower than those in untreated diabetic mice, as were the retinal levels of inflammatory factors and oxidative stress. In conclusion, RvD2 might be used as a retinal protective factor for diabetes mellitus by reducing inflammation and oxidative stress.


The purpose of this study was to examine the profiles of attribution of
importance to three life-roles (work, family and leisure) of 185 adolescent girls
about to finalize their period of compulsory education and, therefore, to face an
extremely relevant decision concerning their future. After the data collection
(questionnaire, self-image inventory, teachers? and families? appraisals of
performance, marks registration), a cluster analysis was conducted in order to
identify groups of responses among participants. Results indicated that girls grant
a different level of importance to life-roles, or to different combinations between
them. Three groups can be identified: one group of girls who grant a great
importance to both work and family roles; another who appraise work and leisure
highly, giving little importance to the family role; and, finally, a third group of girls
that seem to be essentially concerned with taking care of the family and being
mothers.


Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder of major health challenge in Nigeria. Micronutrients deficiencies often associated with the disorder may cause inflammation and abnormal metabolisms in the body. The copper-to-zinc ratio is a more important assessment than the concentrations of either of the metals in clinical practice. This study seeks to evaluate serum levels of c-reactive protein (CRP), copper, zinc and copper-to-zinc ratio and to correlate copper-to-zinc ratio with CRP in adult subjects with SCD. Serum copper, zinc, CRP and plasma fibrinogen were assayed in 100 confirmed SCD patients in steady clinical state and 100 age and sex matched subjects with normal haemoglobin. Serum copper and zinc were assayed by colorimetric method using reagents supplied by Centronic, Germany while CRP and fibrinogen were assayed using reagents supplied by Sigma (St. Louis, MO, USA) and Anogen (Ontario, Canada), respectively. The copper to zinc ratio was calculated from serum levels of copper and zinc. The measured parameters were compared between the groups using Students t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient was used to relate CRP with the other parameters. Serum copper, CRP, fibrinogen and copper-to-zinc ratio were significantly higher (p < 0.001) while zinc level was lower in SCD patients than controls. Serum CRP concentration correlated with copper (r = 0.10; p < 0.02), zinc (r = −0.199; p < 0.05) and Copper-to-zinc ratio (r = 0.312; p < 0.002) but the correlation between CRP and fibrinogen was not significant. Inflammatory condition may modulate copper and zinc homeostasis and copper-to-zinc ratio may be used as marker of nutritional deficiency and inflammation in SCD patients.


Genetic variations in a network of genes involved in DNA double strand breaks (DSB) repair pathway have been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. XRCC4 is identified as a pivotal modulator in non-homologous end joining (NHEJ), a predominant DSB repair pathway. In this study, we evaluated the associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in XRCC4 and breast cancer, and investigated the impact of XRCC4A247S variant on nuclear localization and DNA damage response functions of XRCC4. A hospital-based case-control study, comprising 412 breast cancer patients and 458 cancer-free controls recruited from Shanghai Cancer Center, was conducted to investigate the relationship between common polymorphisms in XRCC4 and the risk of breast cancer. Our results showed that XRCC4 A247S polymorphism (rs3734091), located near the putative nuclear localization signal (NLS) of XRCC4, was associated with a significantly increased risk of breast cancer in a recessive genetic model (Adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 1.47, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.09-4.52; P = 0.042). This homogeneous variant was more often observed in triple negative subtype (Adjusted OR = 2.07, 95% CI = 1.34 - 3.58 in the recessive model; P = 0.036). Although XRCC4 A247S variant did not harm its interactions with XLF and ligase IV (the other two components of DNA ligase complex), we revealed that A247S alteration partially impaired the nuclear localization of XRCC4 in mammary cells. Remarkably, more evidences implied that XRCC4 A247S variant significantly reduced the in vivo NHEJ repair efficiency compared to the wild-type XRCC4 via colony formation assay and NHEJ reporter assay, suggesting that reduced nuclear accumulation by XRCC4 A247S variant impaired its functions in response to DNA damage. Importantly, XRCC4 A247S alternation promoted cellular sensitivity to ionizing radiation and DNA damaging agents in chemotherapy. Taken together, this study demonstrates that genetic variation of XRCC4 A247S could impair NHEJ mediated DSB repair and provide further evidences that genetic variants involved in DNA repair pathways contribute to breast cancer susceptibility. In addition, our results also indicate that XRCC4 A247S variant might be a potential predictive biomarker and therapeutic target in breast cancer. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P2-07-01.


The Pleistocene stratigraphy of Bermuda offers important information for sea-level history. Corals are rare in Bermuda Pleistocene carbonates, and so many deposits are not appropriate for U-series dating. We have extended the geochronological base in Bermuda by determining the extent of isoleucine epimerization (A/I ratios) in (1) marine shells ("Glycymeris" and others) from deposits of sea-level high stands, (2) land snails ("Poecilozonites") from protosols associated with the eolianites that comprise the bulk of Bermuda, and (3) whole-rock samples of bioclastic calcarenites. The three distinct types of samples provide independent aminostratigraphies (Aminozones C, E, F, G, H, J, and K) that are mutually consistent and in agreement with the mapped lithostratigraphy. Correlation of the amino acid ratios with ages based on previously published U-series coral dates verifies the utility of the apparent parabolic kinetics model for estimation of amino acid racemization ages. Extrapolation of ages based on the model to deposits beyond the range of U-series dating reveals that a significant middle Pleistocene section is present in Bermuda.


made clear what happened to women in this group who went on to request epidural analgesia at a later stage in their labour. If they were denied an epidural, or were excluded from the trial, in either case this might bias the results, as women who do not request epidurals may inherently be less likely to have a complicated delivery. It may well be true that women having epidural analgesia have a higher incidence of complicated labour, but one needs a randomised pair of groups to determine this [l]. The other conclusions drawn by Stoddart et al . from comparison of their two randomly selected trial groups were interesting and with good scientific foundation. Why were they not satisfied with this alone?


An analysis of state-labour relations in Malawi over a period of four decades reveals, like in other countries in Southern Africa, tendencies towards continuities and discontinuities in labour controls. While Malawi's political system has undergone a major transformation to democracy in the 1990s after three decades of dictatorship which was hostile to trade unions through administrative, political and legal apparatuses, the democratic state has been marked by 'diplomatic' hostility through divide-and-rule and hide-and-seek tactics. Using different means the state has succeeded in curtailing freedom of association in varying degrees during the one-party and multiparty periods. Thus, while labour control as an objective of the state has not changed, the means have changed dramatically. The desire to achieve political stability and economic development, against a changed international political order demanding human rights and good governance in the 1990s, explains the current 'diplomatic' hostility in Malawi's industrial relations. The role of the international donor community in exporting democratic structures and values to societies that do not have an inbuilt culture of democracy similar to western societies is viewed as a further explanation for the creation of significant degrees of discrepancies between labour policy and practice in Malawi. Resume En examinant de pres les relations entre l'Etat et le monde du travail au Malawi, sur quatre decennies, l'on observe, comme dans bon nombre d'autres pays d'Afrique subsaharienne, diverses continuites et discontinuites au niveau du controle du milieu du travail. Si le systeme politique du Malawi a connu des


The Dirichlet distribution is a statistical model that is deeply entrenched in the theory and practice of learning and reasoning in Bayesian networks. While it is mathematically convenient in certain situations, it imposes computational challenges in others, such as in Bayesian parameter learning under incomplete data. We consider in this paper a discretized variant of the continuous Dirichlet distribution. We show first how one can model such a distribution compactly as a Bayesian network, which can be used as a submodel in other Bayesian networks. We analyze some of its theoretical properties, relating the discrete variant to the original continous density. We further show how to represent and perform exact inference efficiently in this model. We finally discuss some implications that a discrete Dirichlet model may have in enabling the design of more sophisticated models, and in enabling new ways to reason about them.


OBJECTIVE
To analyse the clinical and laboratory parameters in patients with SLE according to their age at disease onset a retrospective study was undertaken of 272 Brazilian patients fulfilling the 1982 ARA criteria for SLE who were referred to the University Hospital of Campinas between 1973-1992.

METHODS
The patients were divided into three groups according to their age at disease onset: Group A: under the age of 16 (39 patients); Group B age 17 to 49 (223 patients); Group C over the age of 50 (10 patients). Various clinical and laboratorial parameters were analysed and compared among these groups.

RESULTS
There were no significant differences in terms of race, time of disease onset or time of follow-up. Group A had more male patients than Groups B (p < 0.05) or C. Alopecia as an early manifestation, seizures and gastrointestinal involvement were more frequent in Group A (p < 0.05). Raynaud's phenomenon was lower in Group A than in Groups B and C (p < 0.05). Pericarditis was higher in Group C than in Groups A or B (p < 0.05). Nephrotic syndrome was lower in Group C than in Group A (p < 0.05). Positive LE cells were higher in Groups A and C than in Group B (p < 0.05). Anti-DNA antibodies were more prevalent in Group A than in B (p < 0.05). Anti-cardiolipin antibodies were more frequent in adult patients (p < 0.05) (Group B). The mortality rate was higher in Group A than in B or C (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The clinical presentation and course of SLE may be influenced by the age at disease onset. Younger patients showed a poorer prognosis with more seizures, gastrointestinal involvement, nephrotic syndrome, and a higher rate of mortality than the other groups. Group A included more male patients and also exhibited more positive LE cells and anti-DNA antibodies. Raynaud's phenomenon was lower in these young patients. Elderly patients (C) presented more pericarditis and showed mild disease.


Immunization of mice with thyroglobulin emulsified in Freund's complete adjuvant produces autoimmune thyroiditis, characterized by antibodies to thyroglobulin and infiltration of the thyroid with mononuclear cells. Some strains of mice are low and others are high responders to thyroglobulin. The immune response as reflected especially in the magnitude of the thyroid infiltration, is controlled by gene(s) within the H-2 locus. Previous attempts to map the Ir gene(s) for thyroglobulin (Ir-Tg) showed that it could be assigned to either the K or I-A subregion of H-2. An H-2 recombinant strain of mice, B10.MBR (H-2bq1), in which the H-2K is derived from the H-2b haplotype and which carries the I-Ak allele(s), was immunized with thyroglobulin. B10.MBR mice were high responders to thyroglobulin in contrast to C57BL/6 mice, which have both the H-2K and I-A from the H-2b haplotype and were low responders. This suggests that Ir-Tg, which controls the severity of autoimmune thyroiditis, maps within the I-A subregion, similar to gene(s) controlling the susceptibility to experimental myasthenia gravis.


Pose and illumination variability are two major problems with 2D face recognition. Since 3D data is less sensible to illumination changes and can be used to adjust pose variations, it has been adopted to improve performance on face recognition systems. The main problem with utilizing 3D data is the high cost of the traditional 3D scanners. The Kinect is a low cost device that can be used to obtain the 3D data from an environment in a fast manner, but with lower accuracy than the traditional scanners. Recently, a 3D Local Binary Pattern (3DLBP) method was proposed for 3D face recognition by using high resolution scanners. The main goal of this work is to assess the performance of 3DLBP method, fused with Histogram of Averaged Oriented Gradients (HAOG) face descriptor method, for face recognition when Kinect is used as the 3D face scanner. Another goal is to compare the 3DLBP method, fused with HAOG descriptor, with other methods proposed in the literature for face recognition by using Kinect. Experimental results on EURECOM face dataset showed that the data generated by Kinect are discriminative enough to allow face recognition and that 3DLBP performs better than the other methods.


The low velocity impact (LVI)-induced damage of a highly anisotropic laminate [0/90/0/909]s has been studied experimentally and numerically. The purpose of the analyses of this laminate is that this stacking sequence resembles a sandwich composite panel, in the sense that the [0/90/0] outer layers serve as the "face sheet" while the inner 18 plies of 90 deg layers serve as the "core." The LVI-induced damage pattern of this laminate is unique and referred to as the "kidney" shape. The "kidney" shape damage is caused by a strong interaction between matrix transverse cracking and delamination, hence is challenging to be computationally captured. The enhanced Schapery theory (EST) model has been improved with the capability to model material inelasticity, as well as a novel mixed-mode cohesive law, to tackle this problem. EST with inelasticity (EST-InELA) is shown to be able to predict load responses and damage morphology accurately and efficiently. The aim of this paper is to provide a challenging LVI case to examine and calibrate computational models.


OBJECTIVE
Mutation status of the KRAS gene in tumors has been shown to be a predictive biomarker of response to anti-epidermal growth factor receptor antibody therapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. This retrospective analysis examined the association between efficacy and safety of the fully human anti-epidermal growth factor receptor antibody panitumumab and KRAS mutation status in Japanese metastatic colorectal cancer patients using data from two clinical trials with adherence to good clinical practices.

METHODS
An exploratory, integrated analysis of data from KRAS evaluable patients enrolled in a Phase 1 study (Study 20040192) and a Phase 2 study (Study 20050216) was performed. Paraffin-embedded tumor samples were analyzed for KRAS status. Primary efficacy endpoint of this analysis was objective tumor response per modified response evaluation criteria in solid tumors; a key secondary endpoint was progression-free survival. Safety endpoints included incidence of adverse events.

RESULTS
Tumor samples with known KRAS status were available from 8 of 13 (62%) metastatic colorectal cancer patients in the Phase 1 study and 16 of 53 patients (30%) in the Phase 2 study. Overall, 14 (58%) patients had wild-type KRAS tumors and 10 (42%) patients had mutated KRAS tumors. Four (17%) patients had a partial response; all responders had tumors with wild-type KRAS. Results of all secondary efficacy endpoints also favored patients with wild-type KRAS. Treatment-related adverse events were predominantly mild to moderate and skin related, and were similar between patients with tumors with wild-type and mutated KRAS in this small patient population.

CONCLUSIONS
Mutated KRAS status in tumors of Japanese patients with metastatic colorectal cancer is associated with lack of response to panitumumab therapy.


This paper is a historical overview of the work done on the tobacco mosaic virus. The primary finding was that a virus is capable of reassembling itself from its component protein and RNA, and that only the RNA carries the genomic capability of the virus. This was followed by detailed studies of the chemical and biological properties of viral RNA.


Provides a systematic scientific basis for understanding and controlling the processing of powders and ceramic bodies. Applies a wide range of analytical tools for characterizing agglomerate features throughout the processing steps. Contains electron and optical micrographs and discusses the improvement of product reliability, reduction of costs, and energy and environmental concerns.


This paper empirically explores the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). To reach that goal, the paper utilizes panel data consisting of annual data covering the period 1988-2013 from 34 countries, including the six OECS economies, and estimates a dynamic panel growth model using the generalized method of moments (GMM). The empirical results show that although FDI positively affects growth, its impact is minimal when considered in isolation. In other words, its significant effect is rather indirect. There is also a strong and positive interaction between infrastructural development and FDI in enhancing economic growth, but FDI crowds out domestic investment. These findings have policy implications.


The article looks into the World Philosophical Congress as a space for personal communication. The author examines the archival (primary epistolary) legacy of the organizers and participants of the Second Congress (Edouard Claparede, Henri Bergson, Vladimir Nikolaevich Ivanovsky, Georgy Ivanovich Chelpanov). H. Bergson's letters to Ed. Claparede show us how the topics of speeches formed, what role journals played in organizing congresses, and how the participants of this event reacted to the publication of reports and speeches. It is returning to the history (to the handwritten and published materials) of international philosophical congresses of the beginning of XX century, that allows us today to comprehend the trends in the development of Philosophical issues, to record the successive thematic areas that have not lost their relevance for modern intellectual culture, and also to show the existential specifics of reflection about congresses, which manifested itself in reviews of V.N. Ivanovsky and G.I. Chelpanov. Their discourse about plenary and sectional reports, evaluations of speeches, as well as general conclusions about the strength and weaknesses of this intellectual event in the life of the world (international) philosophical community, resulted from their own philosophical interests. The most significant attention is paid to the "fatal flaws" of any philosophical congress (according to Chelpanov's apt remark): lack of live communication (debate on reports), as well as "the lack of one language, equally accessible to all participants". Both of these flaws are genuinely unavoidable. Even with the expansion of the technical possibilities of transferring information, the monologue of speakers and terminological pluralism persist throughout the existence of World philosophical congresses.


We compute next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the top-bottom interference contribution to H+j production at the LHC. To achieve this, we combine the recent computation of the two-loop amplitudes for gg→Hg and qg→Hq, performed in the approximation of a small b-quark mass, and the numerical calculation of the squared one-loop amplitudes for gg→Hgg and qg→Hqg, performed within OpenLoops. We find that QCD corrections to the interference are large and similar to the QCD corrections to the top-mediated Higgs production cross section. We also observe a significant reduction in the mass-renormalization scheme uncertainty once the next-to-leading order QCD prediction for the interference is employed.


Prior research on the presence of medical pluralism and factors affecting utilization patterns within such societies/systems have been able to provide only variable oriented explanations. This paper draws on differentiation theory to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the context of medical pluralism in the developing countries. For the purpose, the South Asian country of Nepal is selected as a basic example. It is inferred that the arguments/theory presented in the paper will be applicable to other third world societies which have medical pluralism as well. This paper suggests that differentiation in these third world societies has not resulted in the formation of a single formal health care complex as in most developed countries. For example, in Nepal three overlapping and competing health care systems (folk, traditional, modern) have evolved producing a pattern we call "incomplete differentiation" in which there are no clearly demarcated boundaries separating the responsibilities of each health care system. Furthermore, in this incompletely differentiated system, modern medicine faces stiff competition with the folk/traditional health care systems over cultural legitimation.


Business Modelling is the use of models and methods to understand and change business operations with information systems (IS) in organisations. Today, we have many models and methods for development work in companies. We can recognise three levels och development work in pactice with different scope and focus:1. Corporte development (strategic level),2. Organisational development (business process level) and3. Systems development (IS/IT level).A widespread problem in companies today is that the interplay between the three levels do not function satisfactorily. We have communication gaps between business managers and systems experts performing the different development tasks. One possible solution to this problem is to create a Business Developer's Toolbox for combining models and methods from various interest groups. In this sense two new conceps are introduced: Metod Chains and Method Alliances.Anders G. Nilsson is a Professor of Information Systems at Karlstad Uiversity, Sweden and a Research partner att the Institute for Business Process Development (Institute V) in Stockholm. He has a Ph.D. in Business Administration and Information Management from Stockholm School of Economics. He is a research leader for the consortium "Business Modelling" investigating Swedish companies' interests in business process orientation. He is also a professional advisor to the industry regarding business systems development and standard application packages


Purpose Bilateral herpetic keratitis is a rare infection of the cornea. Ocular herpes in atopic patients is more often bilateral, with more frequent recurrences. The authors report a case of bilateral herpes simplex virus (HSV) keratitis during the active phase studied by in vivo confocal microscopy. Methods A 28-year-old man with 5 years history of unilateral HSV keratitis and atopic dermatitis was referred to the authors for a clinical and diagnostic evaluation. Results The corneas showed the typical features of dendritic HSV keratitis in both eyes. Examination by in vivo confocal microscopy demonstrated similar lesions in both eyes: a distortion of the superficial and basal epithelium and the presence of irregular hyperreflective structures and dendritic particles near the epithelial cells. The subbasal nerve plexus presented a tortuous appearance with hyperreflective areas and beadlike formations along the fibers. After a week of antiviral treatment, in vivo confocal microscopy examination demonstrated an irregular epithelium with highly reflective deposits and reflective areas. A reduction of nerve fiber bundles with a large number of beadlike formations and abnormal tortuosity was also noted. Conclusions In vivo confocal microscopy enables a noninvasive evaluation of the ocular surface at a high magnification level. It could be useful for the early and differential diagnosis of corneal infections and when HSV keratitis recurrence is suspected.


CLMA volunteered to conduct an online pilot survey of its membership to help the Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine (IQLM) determine quality management activities in laboratories. Among the hospital-based members who were surveyed, approximately 25 percent responded. The data they volunteered provide a snapshot of the current state of laboratory quality management. The pilot survey is part of a larger IQLM plan to develop networks of laboratories to monitor and evaluate laboratory practices and services to enhance laboratory medicine. This pilot survey will be used by IQLM as a model to establish quality and patient safety networks, applicable to laboratories of all sizes and types. Performance comparisons and best practices may then be shared to reduce laboratory errors and improve patient safety.


Studies of the hemodynamic effects of nasal continuous positive airway pressure (n-CPAP) in normal subjects have had conflicting results. The largest study (n = 19) found no effect of up to 15 cm H2O on heart rate (HR), cardiac stroke volume (SV), or cardiac index. We hypothesized that n-CPAP, by increasing intrathoracic pressure, should decrease SV and cardiac output (CO) in a dose-dependent fashion in normal subjects. We also hypothesized that mouth position, i.e., open or closed, could affect intrathoracic pressure and thus SV and CO. Six normal subjects were tested with four levels of CPAP (5, 10, 15, and 20 cm H2O) under three mask conditions-face mask and nasal mask with the mouth open (mo) or with the mouth closed (mc). Noninvasive pulsed Doppler measurements of SV and HR were made under each condition. N-CPAP (mc) and face mask CPAP (f-CPAP) resulted in significant dose-dependent decreases of SV-24 +/- 5 ml (21%) and 33 +/- 5 ml (28%), respectively--from baseline to 20 cm H2O (p < 0.05). HR were unchanged and CO significantly decreased with n-CPAP(mc) and with f-CPAP, 1.6 +/- 0.38 L/min (23%) and 2.29 +/- 0.54 L/min (31%), respectively, from baseline to 20 cm H2O (p < 0.05). Esophageal pressure measurements verified increasing intrathoracic pressure with increasing levels of f-CPAP and n-CPAP (mc) but not with n-CPAP (mo). In conclusion, n-CPAP (mc) and f-CPAP resulted in significant and similar dose-dependent decreases in SV and CO.


Wildfire. A Century of Failed Forest Policy. George Wuerthner, Ed.. Foundation for Deep Ecology, Sausalito, CA, in association with Island Press, Washington, DC, 2006. 352 pp. $75. ISBN 1-59726-069-X. Paper, $45. ISBN 1-59726-070-3. The contributors to the large-format, photo-rich volume discuss the ecology of fire landscapes of the western United States along with the effects of the policies and practices of fire suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging, and land-use planning.


This report is a brief overview of current policies regarding temporary protected status (TPS), which is relief from removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It includes information about humanitarian migrants, temporary protected status, other blanket forms of relief, nationalities receiving protections, and issues with TPS, as well as recent legislation.


Decision tree is a popular classification algorithm, which has the characteristics of fast learning, high classification accuracy, and the performance of the classification results. Decision tree structure includes two stages: the training set to generate decision tree; the generated decision tree pruning. This paper improves the traditional ID3 decision tree algorithm, and then puts forward the design and implementation of analytical CRM system based on improved decision algorithm. Finally, the experimental results show that the accuracy of the CRM system based on the improved decision tree algorithm is significantly improved, and it is stable.


Rehabilitation robots have proven their usefulness in assisting with physical therapy. This article presents a trajectory tracking controller for a wrist rehabilitation robot with three degrees of freedom. The nonlinearity of the human-robot interaction dynamics has been defined as the Koopman linear system in terms of nonlinear observable functions of the state variables. Koopman operators are learned using linear regression to encode the states into object-centric embedding space for a linear approximation of a nonlinear dynamical system. The learned Koopman operators ascertain the system dynamics applied to design the wrist robot's trajectory tracking task controller. This is a data-driven approach that yields an explicit control-oriented model. The efficiency and feasibility of the controller were evaluated through experiments with three healthy human subjects. The experiments demonstrated the ability of the controller to guide the subject's wrist along the reference trajectory.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze and propose amendments in the Pakistan Electronic Crime Act (PECA). It is observed that the Act contains some inherent weaknesses and difficulties due to which some criminals may set free. The investigating agencies, courts, prosecution and the defense attorney formulate a system and work within the ambit of the applicable laws. They derive their strength from the explicit provision of Law and the prescribed procedure. In the case of Electronic Crimes, the forensic evidence, its organization and presentation in the court of law is of pivotal importance. Any deficiency, for example, in procurement of evidence may destroy the entire case of the prosecution in court. The lack of evidence or incorrect procedure of its procurement helps the defense attorney. The judges have to give the verdict keeping in view the well organized and consistent evidence and also under the explicit provisions of law. The central idea of this paper is to make effective modifications and amendments in PECA, as it lacks "proper and soundproof" system for procuring general evidence, forensic and electronic evidence. The paper also focuses on these procedure.


A Hygroscopicity Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer (H-TDMA) system has been used to measure hygroscopic growth curves and deliquescence relative humidities (DRH) of laboratory generated (NH4)2SO4, NaCl, and NaNO3 particles at temperatures T= 20 degrees C and -10 degrees C. Good agreement (better than 3.5%) between measured growth curves and Köhler theory was found using empirical temperature and concentration dependent values for water activity, solution density, and surface tension. The measured growth curves only experience a small temperature dependence in the observed temperature range. Therefore, to a first approximation, it is possible to neglect the temperature dependence of the water activity for theoretical calculations in the temperature range -10 degrees C < T < 25 degrees C. The small differences between experiment and theory, which were predominantly observed for NaCl particles, are probably caused by a small amount of water adsorbed on the "dry" crystals. It was also observed that these particles experience a significant restructuring at relative humidity RH < DRH, which was also taken into account for a comparison with theoretical curves. If salt particles are used for instrument calibration, precautions regarding the dry particle diameter have to be taken.


This paper focuses on the barriers to the uptake of counselling and psychotherapy from a social class perspective. It begins with a definition of class before discussing particular aspects that inhibit uptake. Barriers focused upon are those regarding travel, costs, child care, appointment times and location of actual therapists. Likewise barriers to the effective outcome, for example cognitive and verbal abilities of clients, are addressed and the way in which these barriers inhibit the referral rate from particular social groups. Finally the self-imposed barriers of certain social groups are explored regarding self exile from the counselling arena.


Fine-grained steels belong to the progressive materials, which are increasingly used in the production of welded structures subjected to both static and dynamic loads. These are unalloyed or microalloyed steels hardened mainly by the grain-boundary strengthening mechanism. Such steels require specific welding procedures, especially in terms of the heat input value. At present, there are studies of the welding influence on the change of thermomechanically processed steels' mechanical properties, however mainly under static loading. The paper is therefore focused on the assessment of the welding effect under dynamic loading of welded joints. In the experimental part was determined the influence of five different heat input values on the change of weld fatigue life. As a result, there is both determination of five S-N curves for the double-sided fillet welds from the thermomechanically processed fine-grained steel S460MC and the quantification of the main influences reducing the fatigue life of the joint.


The textile and apparel industries have grown tremendously over the last few years. Customers no longer have to visit many stores, stand in long queues, or try on garments in dressing rooms as millions of products are now available in online catalogs. However, given the plethora of options available, an effective recommendation system is necessary to properly sort, order, and communicate relevant product material or information to users. Effective fashion RS can have a noticeable impact on billions of customers' shopping experiences and increase sales and revenues on the provider side. The goal of this survey is to provide a review of recommender systems that operate in the specific vertical domain of garment and fashion products. We have identified the most pressing challenges in fashion RS research and created a taxonomy that categorizes the literature according to the objective they are trying to accomplish (e.g., item or outfit recommendation, size recommendation, explainability, among others) and type of side-information (users, items, context). We have also identified the most important evaluation goals and perspectives (outfit generation, outfit recommendation, pairing recommendation, and fill-in-the-blank outfit compatibility prediction) and the most commonly used datasets and evaluation metrics.


Abstract This qualitative longitudinal phenomenological study was conducted to investigate identity negotiation and construction in a second language (L2) learning environment. Data were collected from 35 Saudi learners of English in the United Kingdom over a one-year period using a background information questionnaire, three sets of in-depth interviews, which were carried out before, during, and after the study abroad (SA) program, and monthly reflective journals. Data analysis revealed several opportunities and challenges that the participants encountered during their SA period. The findings also showed that most learners succeeded in negotiating and constructing an intercultural identity, which allowed them to actively seek out opportunities to participate in the host community and improve their language-learning outcomes. However, for a few learners, experiencing identity conflicts and failure to construct their desired identity was a primary obstacle to their language development as they tended to withdraw from social interactions. The study concluded by presenting a number of implications for SA programs and directions for future research.


Cardiologia CROATICA Aortoostial lesions count for up to 3% of all pathologic findings on coronary angiography. Aortoostial stenting differs slightly from other anatomic sites, mostly because of the need for complete ostium coverage. Also, coronary ostia differ anatomically from other sites and are more prone to dissection. Aortoostial in-stent restenosis is even more challenging because of the protruding and often deformed struts. Aortoostial interventions during acute myocardial infarction are often complex and associated with hemodinamic instability. We present a case of a 77 year old women who first presented with signs of acute inferior infarction with cardiogenic shock. Acute ostial occlusion of calcified right was found, together with significant LAD stenosis and subocclusion of a minor ACx. After numerous predilatations with non-compliant balloon bare metal stent was implanted in the RCA with good result. Patient recovered well, and was scheduled for myocardial ischemia assessment in 3 months. Two months after discharge postinfarction exertional angina occurred and she was readmitted for follow up coronary angiography. Severe in-stent restenosis of the right coronary ostium was found. We present the technique for aortoostial right coronary artery in-stent restenosis used in this patient and discuss optimal revascularization strategies in acute coronary syndrome patients presenting with multivessel disease including aortoostial lesions.


The feasibility to produce compact Corylopsis sinensis var. calvescens and C. coreana plant in a 10 cm pot in one year from transplanting seedlings with maximized number of short shoots and inflorescences was investigated. Corylopsis sinensis var. calvescens was selected as a suitable species to produce compact plant with inflorescences. Slow release fertilizer (SRF) at a rate of 0, 0.125, 0.25, and 0.5 g per pot was applied to the surface of the growing medium (Expt. 1). Shoots were pinched 2 (Feb. 28), 4, 6, and 8 weeks (May 16) (Expt. 2) after transplanting, and ancymidol, paclobutrazol, chlormequat, and daminozide plant growth retardants were treated (Expt. 3). Application of a SRF at 0.5 g per pot and pinching four times at 2-week intervals before May 16 effectively increased the flowering percentages and the number of stems with inflorescences, to accelerate flowering, and also produced a compact plants. Paclobutrazol at 10-20 mg/L applied as soil drench was effective in inhibiting stem elongation in the first year; however, higher concentrations should be avoided to prevent excessive reduction in the growth of shoots and production of malformed inflorescences.


ABSTRACT Billy, J.; Robin, N.; Hein, C.; FitzGerald, D., and Certain, R., 2018. Dominance of inherited geologic framework on the development of coastal barrier system. In: Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85, pp. 406–410. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Many coastal systems are influenced by geologic framework (e.g., bedrock or inherited sedimentary systems), either in their initial development, morphology, or continuously throughout their evolution. This study adds to our understanding of the role of bedrock inheritance by describing the evolution of the Miquelon-Langlade Barrier (NW Atlantic; France). This barrier has a complex coastal planform (Y-shape, 12-km-long, 100–2500-m-wide) with several embedded sedimentary landforms. Ground-penetrating radar and HR seismic data collected along the subaerial and subaqueous portions of the barrier reveal: (i) the bedrock architecture (largely buried by Holocene deposits) and (ii) the presence of specific inherited sedimentary units. Indeed, both the location and early development of the barrier are largely controlled by bedrock morphology; the barrier is perched on a buried bedrock high in its center, and pinned to subaerial bedrock exposures at its northern and southern ends. Moreover, unconsolidated sedimentary shoals, formed and modified by waves and tides during earlier stages of rapid sea-level rise, provided important morphological constrains that influenced barrier development and the resulting complex morphology of the barrier and associated beach-ridge plain. This study demonstrates the utility of using coupled terrestrial and marine geophysical data to map geologic framework units, thereby determining the role of inherited geology in the evolution of coastal systems.