Seprafilm® is an adhesion barrier sheet. However, it is difficult to handle it through a 5-mm trocar. We have devised a method of applying Seprafilm® safely and reliably through a 5-mm trocar by using a holder that comes with the film. We practiced this method in three cases of total laparoscopic hysterectomy for uterine leiomyoma. The quarter-pack is cut into three pieces. The film placed on the holder sheet was rolled up with forceps (or wrapped around forceps) and inserted into a 5 mm trocar. After application, the center of the short axis of the holder was pinched with a grasping forceps, and the holder was drawn out of the body through the trocar. Of the 36 pieces placed, Seprafilm® broke only in once. Insertion was successful in 100%, and the holder was successfully retrieved through the trocar in 92% (33/36) of the cases. The holder may be easily retrieved after application. This technique represents an extremely simple versatile application method in operations in which only 5-mm trocars can be used.


With continuous advancements in Internet technology and the increased use of cryptographic techniques, the cloud has become the obvious choice for data sharing. Generally, the data are outsourced to cloud storage servers in encrypted form. Access control methods can be used on encrypted outsourced data to facilitate and regulate access. Multi-authority attribute-based encryption is a propitious technique to control who can access encrypted data in inter-domain applications such as sharing data between organizations, sharing data in healthcare, etc. The data owner may require the flexibility to share the data with known and unknown users. The known or closed-domain users may be internal employees of the organization, and unknown or open-domain users may be outside agencies, third-party users, etc. In the case of closed-domain users, the data owner becomes the key issuing authority, and in the case of open-domain users, various established attribute authorities perform the task of key issuance. Privacy preservation is also a crucial requirement in cloud-based data-sharing systems. This work proposes the SP-MAACS scheme, a secure and privacy-preserving multi-authority access control system for cloud-based healthcare data sharing. Both open and closed domain users are considered, and policy privacy is ensured by only disclosing the names of policy attributes. The values of the attributes are kept hidden. Characteristic comparison with similar existing schemes shows that our scheme simultaneously provides features such as multi-authority setting, expressive and flexible access policy structure, privacy preservation, and scalability. The performance analysis carried out by us shows that the decryption cost is reasonable enough. Furthermore, the scheme is demonstrated to be adaptively secure under the standard model.


Since the Agricultural Revolution, each time there is a dramatic change in societal progress, jobs are replaced and transformed. This paper explores how Robotic Process Automation (RPA) impacts jobs in healthcare systems. RPA is a type of software robot that automates the actions of humans interacting with digital technology systems, websites, or software applications to conduct a particular process. Speci cally, the study will explore how tasks within various types of healthcare workers' jobs change, which speci c jobs have the highest likelihood of replacement, and the key considerations healthcare systems take into account when implementing RPA. The study consists of a comparative analysis of ve major healthcare systems in the United States that have either implemented RPA or are in the process of implementing the technology and explores operations in healthcare systems before, during, and after digital transformation. Using case studies, the study nds that individual, rule-based tasks are the most likely to be automated and that RPA provides more bene t than harm to the jobs of healthcare workers. This is so because technology reduces burnout and enables healthcare workers to spend more time with patients. The increases in e ciency gained by RPA enable hospitals to provide improved quality and access to care for patients.


CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2008 Abstracts

Abstract #5141

Purpose/Objective(s): With the new ConturaTM Multi-Lumen Balloon (MLB) catheter (SenoRx, Inc, Aliso Viejo, CA), one may achieve 2 dosimetric advantages over a MammoSiteTM catheter: 1) avoidance of a radiation "hot spot" in the skin which may improve cosmetic results, and 2) reduction of the size of an air/fluid pocket in the planning target volume for plan evaluation (PTV_EVAL) which may improve local control by increasing the radiation dose delivered to breast tissue at risk. The purpose of this study was to analyze the frequency with which a Contura catheter can satisfy the above 2 dosimetric goals relative to a MammoSite catheter. Materials/Methods: From October 2007 to June 2008, 23 patients between the ages of 43 and 88 years (median, 57 years) with unifocal AJCC pathological T0, T1, or T2 (maximum, 3.0 cm; median, 1.0 cm), N0 ductal, papillary, or tubular carcinomas of the breast at least 1 mm from the inked edge of the lumpectomy specimen were treated with high-dose-rate iridium-192 brachytherapy using a Contura MLB catheter. Sixty-five percent of the cancers were estrogen-receptor positive. Brachytherapy was delivered to a total dose of 34 Gy in 10 fractions bid over 5-7 days. We prescribed the dose to a depth of 1.0 cm from the balloon surface. The Contura applicator allows one to load up to 5 source lumens: 4 lumens that are offset 0.5 cm circumferentially from a central lumen. The ability to choose from multiple lumens allows for greater control over where radiotherapy is delivered. The Contura catheter also has a sixth lumen through which air/fluid can be removed from around the balloon. This feature helps to improve tissue-balloon conformance. The minimum balloon-to-skin distance was 0.5 cm. In 39% of patients, the balloon-to-skin distance was 0.5-0.9 cm. The balloon volume was 30-55 cc, V150 was ≤ 33 cc, and V200 was ≤ 10 cc. Hypothetical MammoSite treatment plans were created using a CT scan of the breast prior to air/fluid removal. Only the central lumen was loaded for the hypothetical MammoSite plan. The 2 treatment planning goals were to keep the: 1) maximum skin dose ≤ 100% of the prescribed dose, and 2) volume of air/fluid around the balloon ≤ 3.0% of PTV_EVAL. A one-sided McNemar test was used to compare the % of Contura plans that satisfied both goals vs the % of MammoSite plans that satisfied both goals. Results: The maximum skin dose was 100% of the prescribed dose with the Contura catheter vs 145% of the prescribed dose with a MammoSite catheter. The volume of air/fluid around the balloon was 4.4% ± 1.0% (mean ± standard error) of PTV_EVAL prior to suctioning vs 1.2% ± 0.3% after suctioning. Ninety-one percent of Contura plans satisfied both treatment planning goals vs only 48% of MammoSite plans (p=0.08). Conclusion: A Contura applicator resulted in a trend towards dosimetric improvement over a MammoSite catheter. Patients will be followed long-term in order to determine their local control, disease-free survival, cosmetic results, and treatment-related toxicities.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2009;69(2 Suppl):Abstract nr 5141.


The controversial Capitanian (Middle Permian, 262 Ma) extinction event is only known from equatorial latitudes, and consequently its global extent is poorly resolved. We demonstrate that there were two, severe extinctions amongst brachiopods in northern Boreal latitudes (Spitsbergen) in the Middle to Late Permian, separated by a recovery phase. New age dating of the Spitsbergen strata (belonging to the Kapp Starostin Formation), using strontium isotopes and d 13 C trends and comparison with better-dated sections in Greenland, suggests that the first crisis occurred in the Capitanian. This age assignment indicates that this Middle Permian extinction is manifested at higher latitudes. Redox proxies (pyrite framboids and trace metals) show that the Boreal crisis coincided with an intensification of oxygen depletion, implicating anoxia in the extinction scenario. The widespread and near-total loss of carbonates across the Boreal Realm also suggests a role for acidification in the crisis. The recovery interval saw the appearance of new brachiopod and bivalve taxa alongside survivors, and an increased mollusk dominance, resulting in an assemblage reminiscent of younger Mesozoic assemblages. The subsequent end-Permian mass extinction terminated this Late Permian radiation.


ABSTRACT The RIKEN Accelerator-driven compact Neutron Source-II (RANS-II) based on the 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction with 2.49 MeV proton injection was installed in a small area of the experimental hall, where the scattered radiation is expected to strongly influence experiments. Therefore, we have begun to study the radiation characteristics of the RANS-II hall by simulation with the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) and by experiments to clearly identify the scattered component. In addition, to suppress the background, a collimator is studied with respect to its size, shape, and materials. With the use of the 30 mm borated polyethylene collimator, we found that the background becomes less than 1 of the extracted neutron beam intensity 1.0 m from the Li target. For the experiment, neutron suppression was characterized by measuring the neutron dose rate with a neutron dosimeter and a collimator. The suppression ability of the neutron beam was confirmed by comparing the results of simulations with those of experiments.


Laboratory and in situ experiments were done to investigate the influences of cultivation on temperate semi-arid grassland (for 17 years spring wheat planted once every two years without fertilisation) on soil N2O emission and quantitative variations of related soil microbes. In the laboratory (25 degrees C and soil moisture 18%), cultivation increased soil transformations of fertilizer nitrogen (100 micrograms N/g as NaNO3, urea, or as urea with dicyandiamide 1 microgram N/g). The N2O emissions from the cultivated and uncultivated soils with or without nitrogen additions were relatively low, and mainly originated from the nitrification. The soil N2O emission due to cultivation decreased somewhat upon no fertilization or NaNO3 addition, but significantly upon urea addition. The role of dicyandiamide as nitrification inhibitor was only considerable in the cultivated soil, and had small influence on decreasing N2O emission in the two soils. The influence of cultivation on soil N2O emission was also reflected by the number variations of microbes related with soil nitrogen transformation in the two soils. Compared to the uncultivated grassland, in situ ammonifiers and denitrifiers in the cultivated grassland quantitatively averagely increased, and aerobic no-symbiotic azotobacters were quantitatively similar, leading to the continued decrease of organic matter content and the decrease of N2O emission from the cultivated grassland soil.


Background: Tobacco use is a major global public health threat for all countries and no form of tobacco use is safe. Pictorial warnings covering 40% area of tobacco products are made mandatory from May 31, 2009 in India. The present study was aimed to investigate the awareness and attitude toward pictorial warnings on tobacco products among age 15 years and above population in field-practice area. Materials and Methods: A total of 1064 individuals were selected by systematic random sampling. A model containing the pictorial warnings were shown to the study subjects, and data were collected by semi-structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20 and statistical tests used were Chi-square test. Significance level set at P ≤ 0.05. Results: Of the 1064 individuals participated in the study, 53.9% were male and the mean age of the study population was 31.24 ± 5.8. Nearly 45.8% reported using tobacco in some form and all of them were males. 51.3% of both males and females reported that they never came across antitobacco messages (pictorial warnings). 71.2% believed that the size and position of pictorial warnings on tobacco products were not sufficient to understand the harmful effects of tobacco. There was statistically significant difference between different age groups in their responses to the aforementioned questions. Conclusion: The results of present study demonstrate that the need for pictorial warnings on tobacco products to be more clear and explanatory since there is little point in having pictorial warnings when the prime purpose of having them is not being served.


As one of the major branches of automatic speech recognition, attention-based models greatly improves the feature representation ability of the model. In particular, the multi-head mechanism is employed in the attention, hoping to learn speech features of more aspects in different attention subspaces. For speech recognition of complex languages, on the one hand, a small head size will lead to an obvious shortage of learnable aspects. On the other hand, we need to reduce the dimension of each subspace to keep the size of the overall feature space unchanged when we increase the number of heads, which will significantly weaken the ability to represent the feature of each subspace. Therefore, this paper explores how to use a small attention subspace to represent complete speech features while ensuring many heads. In this work we propose a novel neural network architecture, namely, pyramid multi-branch fusion DCNN with multi-head self-attention. The proposed architecture is inspired by Dilated Convolution Neural Networks (DCNN), it uses multiple branches with DCNN to extract the feature of the input speech under different receptive fields. To reduce the number of parameters, every two branches are merged until all the branches are merged into one. Thus, its shape is like a pyramid rotated 90 degrees. We demonstrate that on Aishell-1, a widely used Mandarin speech dataset, our model achieves a character error rate (CER) of 6.45% on the test sets.


Identification of person using multiple biometric is very common approach used in existing user validation of systems. Most of multibiometric system depends on fusion schemes, as much of the fusion techniques have shown promising results in literature, due to the fact of combining multiple biometric modalities with suitable fusion schemes. However, similar type of practices are found in ensemble of classifiers, which increases the classification accuracy while combining different types of classifiers. In this paper, we have evaluated comparative study of traditional fusion methods like feature level and score level fusion with the well-known ensemble methods such as bagging and boosting. Precisely, for our frame work experimentations, we have fused face and palmprint modalities and we have employed probability model - Naive Bayes (NB), neural network model - Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP), supervised machine learning algorithm - Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers for our experimentation. Nevertheless, machine learning ensemble approaches namely, Boosting and Bagging are statistically well recognized. From experimental results, in biometric fusion the traditional method, score level fusion is highly recommended strategy than ensemble learning techniques.


The protective antigen (PA) moiety of anthrax toxin delivers the toxin's enzymatic moieties to the cytosol of mammalian cells by a mechanism associated with its ability to heptamerize and form a transmembrane pore. Here we report that mutations in Lys-397, Asp-425, or Phe-427 ablate killing of CHO-K1 cells by a cytotoxic PA ligand. These mutations blocked PA's ability to mediate pore formation and translocation in cells but had no effect on its receptor binding, proteolytic activation, or ability to oligomerize and bind the toxin's enzymatic moieties. The mutation-sensitive residues lie in the 2β7-2β8 and 2β10-2β11 loops of domain 2 and are distant both in primary structure and topography from the 2β2-2β3 loop, which is believed to participate in formation of a transmembrane β-barrel. These results suggest that Lys-397, Asp-425, and Phe-427 participate in conformational rearrangements of a heptameric pore precursor that are necessary for pore formation and translocation. Identification of these residues will aid in elucidating the mechanism of translocation and may be useful in developing therapeutic and prophylactic agents against anthrax.


When a library of 573 cyanobacteria extracts was screened for inhibition of the quorum sensing regulated prodigiosin production of Serratia marcescens, an extract of the cyanobacterium Fischerella ambigua (Näg.) Gomont 108b was found to drastically increase prodigiosin production. Bioactivity-guided isolation of the active compounds resulted in the two new natural products ambigol D and E along with the known ambigols A and C. Ambigol C treatment increased prodiginine production of Serratia sp. ATCC 39006 (S39006) by a factor of 10, while ambigols A and D were found to have antibiotic activity against this strain. The RNA-Seq of S39006 treated with ambigol C and subsequent differential gene expression and functional enrichment analyses indicated a significant downregulation of genes associated with the translation machinery and fatty acid biosynthesis in Serratia, as well as increased expression of genes related to the uptake of l-proline. These results suggest that the ambigols increase prodiginine production in S39006 not by activating the SmaIR quorum sensing system but possibly by increasing the precursor supply of l-proline and malonyl-CoA.


Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPases) have recently been recognized as important modulators of various signal transduction pathways in immune cells. Genetic polymorphisms have been described in genes codifying for members of this family of enzymes, and the genetics of PTPases is predicted to play an important role in the etiology of immune diseases and of their clinical variability. The low molecular weight protein tyrosine phosphatase (ACP1 or LMPTP) is one of the few PTPases with a known genetic polymorphism, and has been proposed to be associated with atopic dermatitis in a small sample from an Italian population. In this paper we describe the association of the ACP1 polymorphism with total IgE levels in two independent samples from English and Italian populations. In both the samples the mean value of serum IgE is lower among subjects carrying the BC genotype than in other ACP1 genotypes. The BC genotype is associated with the highest total ACP1 enzymatic activity. Our data suggest that one or both of the ACP1 isoforms exert an inhibitory role on some signal transduction pathway relevant for IgE hyperproduction.


Exact results concerning spatiotemporal universal features of three-dimensional propagation-invariant solutions of the wave equation (X waves) are derived. In particular, relations connecting the pulse transverse extension to the longitudinal coordinate and the propagation velocity to the spatial field distribution are obtained for the whole class of X waves.


The incidence and prevalence of chronic degenerative disease in America's elderly population are important determinants of the need for long-term care health services. Though a wide range of data on disease incidence and prevalence is available from a variety of different health studies, a Congressional Budget Office study (1977) concluded that data limitations are a major factor in the lack of precise national long-term care cost estimates. In this paper, we present a modeling strategy to make better use of existing data by using biomedically motivated actuarial models to integrate multiple data sources into a comprehensive model of population health dynamics. The development of a specific model for application to a disease of interest involves three distinct phases. First, biomedical evidence and data are used to specify a cohort model of chronic disease morbidity and mortality. Second, the model is fitted to cohort mortality data with estimates of its parameters being derived by maximum likelihood procedures. Third, the morbidity distribution in the national population is generated from the parameter estimates. The model is used to examine lung cancer morbidity and mortality patterns for U. S. white and non-white males in 1977. A review of these patterns suggests that, based on current concepts of lung cancer incidence and natural history, over 2 percent of white males in the United States have lung cancer at some stage of development, though most of this prevalence is pre-clinical. The likelihood that these clinically latent morbid patterns will translate into future health care needs is a function not only of incidence and natural history of lung cancer in different birth cohorts, but also of changes in the mortality patterns of other diseases. The model demonstrates that, if for other chronic degenerative diseases a large proportion of future health care needs is determined in the present health state of the population, long-range planning models of national population health dynamics are necessary to anticipate and meet future requirements for long-term care health services.


Limited internal phonon coupling and transfer within graphene in the out-of-plane direction significantly affects graphene-substrate interfacial phonon coupling and scattering, and leads to unique interfacial thermal transport phenomena. Through the simultaneous characterization of graphene and SiC Raman peaks, it is possible, for the first time, to distinguish the temperature of a graphene layer and its adjacent 4H-SiC substrate. The thermal probing resolution reaches the nanometer scale with the graphene (≈1.12 nm) and is on the micrometer scale (≈12 μm) within SiC next to the interface. A very high thermal resistance at the interface of 5.30 (-0.46) (+0.46) x 10(-5) Km2 W(-1) is observed by using a Raman frequency method under surface Joule heating. This value is much higher than those from molecular dynamics predictions of 7.01(-1.05) (+1.05) x 10(-1) and 8.47(-0.75) (+0.75) x 10(-10) Km2 w(-1) for surface heat fluxes of 3 × 10(9) and 1 × 10(9) and 1 x 10(10) W m(-2) , respectively. This analysis shows that the measured anomalous thermal contact resistance stems from the thermal expansion mismatch between graphene and SiC under Joule heating. This mismatch leads to interface delamination/separation and significantly enhances local phonon scattering. An independent laser-heating experiment conducted under the same conditions yielded a higher interfacial thermal resistance of 1.01(-0.59) (+1.23) x 10(-4) Km2 W(-1). Furthermore, the peak width method of Raman thermometry is also employed to evaluate the interfacial thermal resistance. The results are 3.52 × 10(-5) and 8.57 × 10(-5) K m2 W(-1) for Joule-heating and laser-heating experiments, respectively, confirming the anomalous thermal resistance between graphene and SiC. The difference in the results from the frequency and peak-width methods is caused by the thermal stress generated in the heating processes.


Correlations for predicting characteristic velocity both above and below the critical rotor speed have been obtained under conditions with and without solute transfer.

It has been found that (1) above the critical rotor speed, the characteristic velocity U0 is proportional to g/DrN2, whereas below this value a transition region exists where Uo is proportional to (g/DrN2)0.26; (2) multiple regression analysis of the experimental data of continuous phase axial mixing shows that the axial dispersion coefficient varies not only with the rotor speed and modified velocity of continuous phase but also with the velocity of dispersed phase.

With varying RDC operations, the true value of Kod corrected for axial mixing changes continually between the limiting values predicted from stagnant and fully turbulent drop models. However, the highest experimental values were only 30 to 40% of those predicted by the Handlos-Baron model at the same drop Peclet number.


The appearance of local cerebral dysfunction at remote regions from the focus in the acute stage of stroke (diaschisis) is well known, but its mechanism has not been established. We have analysed serial MR images of the infarcted brain of rats to evaluate the distribution of oedema. Forty-seven Sprague-Dawley rats were anaesthetized with halothane, and the right middle cerebral artery (MCA) was permanently occluded via the intraluminal approach using a nylon 2-0 suture. At 3, 6, 9 and 24 hours after the occlusion, coronal T(2)-weighted MR images were taken and the signal intensity (SI) was computed at each region of the brain. After occlusion of the right MCA, SI increased diachronically up to 24 hours on the occluded side of the cortex (52.9+/-3.2 to 104.8+/-22.4) and striatum, which are within the perfusion territory of the MCA. SI increment was also observed at the hippocampus, alveus hippocampi and pyriform lobe, which are not within the territory of the MCA, and at some regions of the contralateral side (52.5+/-4.8 to 69.4+/-14.8 at the cortex). These changes were prominent in ischaemia-vulnerable portions, mild in the cortex, and minimal in the striatum. This contralateral side SI increment indicates remote oedema, which corresponds to diaschisis. We suggest that the mechanism of this remote contralateral oedema is the movement of extravasated protein from the lesion.


Many researchers worked on scalable coding for unencrypted images, and there is more space for research in scalable coding for encrypted images. This paper proposes a novel method of scalable coding for encrypted images, especially for lossy compression images using the Modified Absolute Moment Block Truncation Code (MAMBTC) technique. The given input image is compressed using MAMBTC and then encrypted using a Pseudo-Random Number (PRNG) at the encryption phase. The PRNG is shared between the encoder and the decoder. At the decryption phase, the compressed pixel value is obtained by decryption using the PRNG and then reconstructed using MAMBTC, scaled by scaling factor 2 and Bilinear Interpolation Technique to obtain the original image. MAMBTC gives better image quality than Block Truncation Code (BTC), a higher PSNR of 36.32 dB, and a Compression ratio of 1.09, which makes the proposed system ready for the signal processing community/applications.


We developed a new rapid assay for the factor XIa-alpha 1 antitrypsin complex (FXIa-alpha 1AT) in plasma using an anti FXI monoclonal antibody (KMXI-1). In 20-fold diluted plasma samples, this assay was not affected by co-existing FXI or non specific color development of the plasma. Normal level of FXIa-alpha 1AT (11 +/- 4.1 ng/ml plasma) increased with the aging of healthy adults. The FXIa-alpha 1AT levels of patients with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) rose along with the progression of the disease, and the appearance of high levels and the peak of FXIa-alpha 1AT developed faster than FDP-E or alpha 2plasmin inhibitor-plasmin complex (alpha 2PI-PmC) in most patients. These results indicate that, in addition of FDP and alpha 2PI-PmC, FXIa-alpha 1AT is a useful molecular marker for DIC.


In reconstruction of the redundant neck, combining skin lift, muscle lift, and suction lipectomy gives superior results more often than use of only one of these. The history of the development of the operation is reviewed. Points in preoperative planning, stressing the extent of the platysma muscle and volume of submandibular fat in obtaining good results, are emphasized. Pertinent anatomy of the subcutaneous musculoaponeurotic platysma system is reviewed. Specific points of operative technique are reviewed, such as my preference to elevate the skin in the neck prior to suction lipectomy. Variances in technique related to thin, "normal," and obese patients are discussed.


Abstract Objective: The purpose of this analysis was to study the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of oral rosuvastatin (RSV) 10 mg/day vs. oral ezetimibe/simvastatin (E/S) 10/20 mg/day in patients who met the LDL-C goals set out in the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) 2001 and 2004 guidelines, and the percent change in the atherogenic lipid profile in daily outpatient practice in a high specialty Hospital in Mexico City. Methods: From January 2004 to December 2005, outpatient medical records in the Cardiology Service were reviewed according to the following criteria: established dyslipidemia diagnosis, triglycerides and serum lipid measurements (TC, LDL-C, HDL-C) taken before receiving drug therapy with either oral RSV 10 mg/day or oral E/S 10/20 mg/day once daily, no other related lipid-lowering treatment administered, and lipid levels recorded at 8 weeks of treatment. A cost analysis was performed from an institutional perspective, using the exchange rate as of October 2006 of 10.9007 pesos / US dollar. A deterministic analysis was performed comparing treatment costs, proportion of patients achieving the ATP III goal, and the percentage decrease in LDL-C. In addition, a stochastic analysis was performed, considering the uncertainty around the estimations for mean cost and mean effectiveness estimations. Results: Using the ATP III 2001 criteria, the percentage of patients who reached the LDL-C goals was 81.4% for patients who received RSV, while the proportion for patients who received E/S was 58.4% (p < 0.001). Results according to the ATP III 2004 criteria were: RSV, 46.4% vs. E/S, 31.4% (p = 0.04). The cost of a 1% reduction in LDL-C was $2.02 with RSV and $4.09 with E/S. The cost-effectiveness acceptability curve showed that RSV might be more cost-effective than E/S, based on patients who achieved the 2004 goals. Conclusions: According to this exploratory, non-controlled retrospective analysis, it can be said that in daily clinical practice in high-cardiovascular-risk Mexican patients, treatment with oral RSV 10 mg/day is more effective and less costly than treatment with the fixed-combination oral E/S 10/20 mg/day.


This study shows the value of promoting organizational culture by identifying and analyzing factors of economic success in a particular factory. The research was conducted by qualitative investigation using ethnographic interviews and document analysis procedures. The findings describe how the managers merged socialist traditions of the pre-privatized kibbutz and the capitalism of the global market in order to create a dynamic strategic model. The components of the model interacted with each other, creating an unusual organizational culture and a porous boundary between the factory and the kibbutz community that owned it. The findings suggest that there are advantages to preserving the unique cultural attributes that link workers, managers and their surrounding community which reflect their roots and basic mindset. This case study offers managers of kibbutz, and non-kibbutz, factories a successful example of combining opposite trends in management style. The main contribution of this study is presenting an alternative method for examining kibbutz industries in future research. This alternative method describes a managerial culture that facilitates the combination of two seemingly contradictory paradigms. The first is the kibbutz's socialist, cooperative, and communal principles. The second paradigm is the external capitalist realities of the domestic and global market.


Thermally expandable microspheres (TEMs) consist of a copolymer shell encapsulating a liquid hydrocarbon core and expand irreversibly to many times their original volume on heating. In this work commercial TEMs with a mean diameter of approximately 13 µm were coated with either polypyrrole, polyaniline or poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) [PEDOT] at conducting polymer mass loadings of 0.1 to 1.5%. Laser diffraction showed that aqueous suspensions of these conducting polymer-coated TEMs were well-dispersed, indicating minimal particle aggregation. Scanning electron microscopy studies indicated that these TEMs have relatively rough surfaces both before and after coating with conducting polymer. Raman spectroscopy was very sensitive to the presence of conducting polymer and could be used to confirm the presence of polypyrrole at target mass loadings as low as 0.1 wt%. The presence of polypyrrole at the TEM surface was confirmed from the Cl/N atomic ratios determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This technique allowed the polypyrrole-coated TEMs to be ranked correctly according to their targeted conducting polymer loadings. All the conducting polymer-coated TEMs were subjected to irradiation using a near-infrared lamp with a λmax of 1200 nm. Since conducting polymers absorb strongly in the near-infrared region, this leads to efficient localised heating of the coated TEMs. Thus the onset time required for the expansion of conducting polymer-coated TEMs under a given set of irradiation conditions is reduced significantly compared to control experiments conducted with uncoated TEMs (from 162 ± 2 seconds to 11 ± 1 seconds). For the polypyrrole-coated TEMs, systematic reduction of the target polypyrrole mass loading from 1.5 to 0.3% had surprisingly little effect on the observed onset times for volumetric expansion. Polypyrrole, polyaniline and PEDOT-coated TEMs all exhibited similar onset times (10 ± 1 seconds) when compared at the same mass loading (1.5%). However, EDOT is relatively expensive compared to pyrrole and polymerisation of the former monomer is substantially incomplete even at 50 °C. Moreover, aniline is significantly more toxic than pyrrole and its polymerisation requires a more expensive oxidant. Thus it is concluded that polypyrrole is the preferred conducting polymer for coating TEMs in order to optimise their thermo-responsive volumetric expansion behaviour.


Childhood tuberculosis is an increasingly important public health problem and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, contributing to a significant increase in the burden of disease worldwide. TB is particularly difficult to diagnose in children. Sputum induction as a diagnostic method is feasible, effective and well tolerated in children and has become the preferred standard diagnostic investigation at most paediatric hospitals for suspected pulmonary TB. This article describes registered nurses' experiences of their role regarding the induced sputum procedure to diagnose childhood TB. A sample of six South African registered nurses participated in the exploratory, descriptive, qualitative study. The main research question was: What are registered nurses' experiences regarding their role in sputum induction for diagnosing childhood TB in a secondary hospital setting in South Africa? Data were collected using a semi-structured interview guide and field notes. The interview guide was pre-tested with two participants. A qualitative thematic analysis method was used to analyse the transcribed interviews and field notes. The following six themes emerged from the analysed data pertaining to the roles of the registered nurses: involving the mother or caregiver, assessment and monitoring, controlling the spread of infection, active participation in diagnosing TB, teaching/training and saving money. These findings highlight the important roles played by nurses in conducting the sputum induction procedure for the diagnosis of childhood TB, the need to train more nurses to perform


By TLC, GM4 was found to be the major ganglioside in the liver of six shark species examined: Odontaspis taurus, Negaprion brevirostris, Sphyrna lewini, Mustelus griseus, Mustelus manazo, and Prionace glauca. A detailed analysis of the glycosphingolipids (GSLs) in the liver of O. taurus (sand tiger shark) showed that it contained approximately 110 nmol of lipid-bound sialic acid per gram of wet tissue, of which 80% was GM4. By extracting the liver of O. taurus with chloroform/methanol, followed by chromatographic separation of GSLs using DEAE-Sephadex A-25 and Iatrobeads columns, we have isolated GM4 in pure form with a yield of approximately 5 mg per 100 g of wet tissue. The structures of both the sugar chain and the ceramide moiety of this GM4 were analyzed by chemical analysis, mass spectrometry, and NMR spectroscopy. Similar to GM4 isolated from other sources, 92% of fatty acids in the ceramide of this GM4 were 2-hydroxylated. However, unlike the long-chain bases found in other GSLs, the total long-chain bases in this GM4 were found to contain 43% octadecasphingenine and 50% nonadecasphingenine. Immunohistochemical analysis using a monoclonal antibody against GM4 revealed that the hepatocytes of both M. griseus (spotless smooth hound) and M. manazo (smooth hound) were filled with lipid droplets and GM4 was primarily associated with the membrane structure surrounding lipid droplets.


Proceedings: AACR 106th Annual Meeting 2015; April 18-22, 2015; Philadelphia, PA

Many cancer therapies are intended to induce cell death within a target tumour. A substantial body of research using in vitro and in vivo models has demonstrated that cell death can be detected via quantitative ultrasound techniques. This study investigated the potential to quantify tumour responses to therapy in patients, using quantitative spectral and textural biomarkers extracted from low-frequency ultrasound data (4-10 MHz). Results demonstrate for the first time in a large cohort of patients the ability to predict clinical responders from non-responders as early as one week after the start of chemotherapy with over 95% sensitivity and 95% specificity.

A clinical study was undertaken investigating the efficacy of ultrasound to quantify cell death in tumor responses with cancer treatment. Patients (n = 100) with locally advanced breast cancer received anthracyline and taxane-based chemotherapy treatments over four to six months. Data collection consisted of acquiring tumor images and radiofrequency data prior to treatment onset and at 4 times during neoadjuvant chemotherapy (weeks 0, 1, 4, 8 and pre-operatively). Data collection was carried out using an Ultrasonix-RP and an L15-5 6cm transducer pulsed at frequencies of ∼5 and ∼7 MHz, respectively. The majority of patients went on to have a modified radical mastectomy and correlative whole mount histopathology.

Results obtained from both ∼5 and ∼7 MHz data indicated considerable increases in ultrasound spectral backscatter power in patients who clinically responded to treatment within one week of starting their chemotherapy. This was accompanied by significant increases in quantitative ultrasound spectral parameters such as mid-band-fit (up to 9.1 ± 1.2 dBr) and 0-MHz intercept (up to 10.8 ± 2.4 dBr). Patients categorized as poor responders clinically demonstrated significantly lower increases (1.9 ± 1.1 dBr and 1.4 ± 2.7 dBr for mid-band-fit and 0-MHz intercept, respectively). Textural biomarkers extracted from quantitative ultrasound spectral parametric maps also demonstrated considerable differences in trend between treatment responding and non-responding patients early after the treatment initiation.

Statistically significant differences were found between treatment responding and non-responding patient populations using quantitative ultrasound spectral biomarkers 4 and 8 weeks after treatment initiation. Applying quantitative ultrasound textural biomarkers in order to incorporate response heterogeneities resulted in statistically significant differences between these two populations only one week after the start of chemotherapy. There were also associated survival differences between the two groups of patients. Patients with ultrasound-detected responses at week 1 had an over 90+/-5% 3 year survival whereas patients with no ultrasound-detected response at the same time had a 30+/10% survival (p<0.05).

This study demonstrates the potential of ultrasound to quantify changes in tumours in response to cancer treatment administration in a clinical setting. The results indicate that such responses can be detected early during a course of chemotherapy. This can potentially permit ineffective treatments to be changed to more efficacious ones potentially leading to improved treatment outcomes within a framework of personalized medicine.

Citation Format: Gregory Jan Czarnota, Ali Sadeghi-Naini, Hadi Tadayyon, Lakshmanan Sannachi, Mehrdad Gangeh, William Tran, Frances Wright, Sonal Gandhi, Kathleen Pritchard, Sunil Verma, Maureen Trudeau. Quantitative ultrasound for personalized chemotherapy in locally advanced breast cancer: Clinical trial results. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr CT317. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-CT317


As a result of institutional failure of the nationalization of forest in 1957 A.D., a newer concept of participatory forest management was introduced in Nepal and local people got their space created in forest management during 1970s with a view to mitigating forest cover loss. Under this scheme Kamalmai Community Forest (129.59 hectares) located in Laduk VDC of Dolakha District was handed over to the community in 2000 A.D. The present study was conducted during February, 2014 to assess the status of forest management strategies and impact on livelihood of forest dependent people. Management aspect of the forest was assessed based on field observation, Key Informant Interview and Focus Group Discussion, whereas judgmental scoring method was used to assess the impact on livelihood; the questionnaire for which was prepared on the basis of Sustainable Livelihood Framework Guidance Sheet developed by Department for International Development (DFID), 1999. All the forest management practices including control of composition and structure of growing stock, and harvesting and distribution of forest products were strictly implemented. The total average scores for human, physical, social, financial and natural capitals, which were used to assess the livelihood, were found to be 2.5862, 1.4310, 2.5689, 0.2068 and 2.6896 respectively. The result illustrated that the forest under study had contributed to enhance the condition of human, social and natural capitals. The contribution was noticeable in terms of physical capital, but financial capital was not found satisfactory. Since the handover, there has been a notable change in greenery and landscape as well as on livelihood of forest dependent people.


The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of latent and manifest suprascapular neuropathy in high-level male volleyball players. Thirty subjects were examined clinically and electrophysiologically. Suprascapular neuropathy, most probably at the level of the suprascapular notch, was demonstrated in 12 subjects, being latent in eight. Taking into account our clinical findings in a further 36 international-level players, a remarkably high overall prevalence of suprascapular nerve lesion of 33% (22 of 66 subjects) was found. All cases involved the side of the body with the player's smashing arm. These findings suggest that careful monitoring of suprascapular nerve function may be useful in high-performance volleyball players, as early diagnosis is essential to prevent more severe damage.


Purpose: We used high resolution magic angle spinning proton MRS to identify metabolomic profiles of lung cancer tissue and serum samples. Previous studies have reported that profiles for lung cancer tissue may be predictive of the profiles of matched serum samples. We further searched correlations of metabolomic data with traditional histopathology from the same tissue samples, and identified serum lung cancer metabolomic markers based on matched tissue analysis. Methods: Paired tissue and serum samples from 107 patients of adenocarcinoma (AC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and 29 serum samples from control subjects without lung disease, were analyzed. MR experiments were carried out on a Bruker AVANCE spectrometer operating at 600 MHz (14.1T) and pre-cooled to 4°C. A 4mm zirconia rotor was used with inserts to create a 10μl sample space, and D 2 O was added for 2 H field locking. Rotor spinning rate was regulated and verified by measuring the inter-SSB distances from spectra with an accuracy of 1.0Hz. A repetition time of 5s and 128 transients were used to acquire each spectrum. Spectra were collected with a spinning rate of 3600Hz, with a rotor synchronized CPMG filter to reduce broad resonances. Spectra were analyzed by an in-house MatLab based program. After spectroscopy, tissue samples were fixed in formalin, embedded in paraffin, cut into sets of 5μm sections at 100μm intervals, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Volume percentages of histological features (cancer, stroma, necrosis, lymphatic structures, and cartilage) were quantified by a pathologist. Results: We used Lasso, a feature selection method using L1 regularized linear regression, to select a subset of peaks from the spectral results to build a linear model to predict AC/SCC readings. A 2-peak model (peaks at 2.14-2.10 and 0.89-0.89 ppm) has been identified as the most optimal model, and the predicted probability from this model agrees well with the AC/SCC readings. We used the same procedure to build predictive models for quantitative histopathology readings from serum and tissue samples. Out of the four histopathology readings (%Cancer, %Fibrosis/ Inflammation, %Necrosis and %Cartilage), we were able to build a model for %Fibrosis/Inflammation (p =1E-5) using 3 peaks from serum samples (peaks at 2.09-2.03, 1.33-1.32 and 3.27-3.24), and a model for %cancer cells (p =0.002) using one peak from tissue samples (peak at 3.73-3.71). Further data analyses are still underway. Conclusions: These preliminary results, showing the potential to predict AC/SCC status with metabolomic profiles from serum, could have important implications in the screening for lung cancer. If patients could be identified by suspicious serum metabolomic profiles, and subsequently undergo more advanced imaging, lung cancer could be diagnosed at an earlier stage where effective treatment and a good prognosis is more likely. Citation Format: Hailiang Huang, Emily A. Decelle, Yannick Berker, Andreas Schuler, Isabel Dittman, Li Su, Eugene J. Mark, Mark J. Daly, David C. Christiani, Leo L. Cheng. Using paired tissue and serum samples to characterize human lung cancer metabolomics with 1H HRMAS MRS. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3228. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-3228


Pharmacy services and programs can be regarded as complex interventions which are developed and implemented within the open, complex system of overall healthcare. Realist research considers matters of complexity and provides insights into what programs and interventions work, why and in which contexts. Based on the philosophy of science of critical realism, realist evaluations and realist reviews generate causative explanations which inform pharmacy practitioners, educators and policy makers in which context programs and services achieve particular outcomes. This more nuanced understanding of how pharmacy services contribute to overall healthcare provides guidance for the refinement and targeting of programs, interventions and practice models. This article outlines key aspects of realist research approaches and provides insight into how realism can contribute to research in and the practice of pharmacy. with a review, which deliberately did not centre on one 'intervention' but studied the policy levels and various ways in which these are implemented within the UK care home sector. The team were interested in how various models of service provision, activities and opportunities lead to different outcomes and the mechanism(s) that cause these in order to inform policy decisions going forward. The paper provides a clear programme theory at the outset as the basis of the evaluation, which aimed to 'test, refine and possibly refute' the starting theory. The study used both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analytical methods in a number of different care home sites which were chosen purposively to provide varying examples of practice and enable comparison where appropriate. The refined program theory is supported by multiple CMOCs which were configured in an accessible manner and maintain a clear link to the original data. The evaluation showed how NHS (National Health Service) services delivered to care homes can address the needs of staff and residents through building relationships and accessible networks, as well as expertise in dementia care. 22 Transferring these findings to pharmacy services in aged care homes, which are often provided externally on a referral or consultant basis, suggests that building long-term working relationships with facility staff and residents, creating mutal learning opportunities and referral networks may optimise service outcomes. 23


During a multicentric field trial involving 134 diagnosticans from 16 centres in a first phase and 38 diagnosticans from 5 centres in a second phase a preliminary version of the manual "Operational Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD)" was tested. Focussing on feasibility, practicability and interrater-reliability the different axes of the new system were assessed as comparatively easy to use. The goodness of fit for diagnostic categories and the confidence in the diagnostic process showed a sufficient acceptance of the system. The percentage and chance-corrected inter-rater-reliability coefficients were acceptable for the most axes. It could be demonstrated that interrater-reliability depends on the degree of experiences with the OPD approach. Therefore a systematic training is necessary to use the system.


The use of heterogeneous catalysts in the transesterification reaction of vegetable oils has getting emphasis in recent years, mainly by the alternative of obtaining clean fuel derived from renewable sources. Metal oxide such as MgO or CaO, supported ones like  and zeolites are often applied in transesterification process. Among them, hydrotalcite has shown potential as catalysts on this reaction due to their physicochemical properties, such as: thermal stability, porosity, specific surface area, memory effect, basicity, acidity and anion exchange capacity. This work studies the catalytic performance of the calcium and aluminum based hydrotalcite in the transesterification reaction of soybean oil in methanol and ethanol. The hydrotalcite samples treated at 450?C were impregnated with KOH. The efficiency of impregnated and non- impregnated samples was compared and the non-impregnated one showed the best performance. This property was attributed to the higher availability of active sites used in the transesterification process.


We introduce the calculus of Classical Transitions (CT), which extends the research line on the relationship between linear logic and processes to labelled transitions. The key twist from previous work is registering parallelism in typing judgements, by generalising linear logic judgements from one sequents to many (hypersequents). This allows us to bridge the gap between the structures of operators used as proof terms in previous work and those of the standard {\pi}-calculus (in particular parallel operator and restriction). The proof theory of CT allows for new proof transformations, which we show correspond to a labelled transition system (LTS) for processes. We prove that CT enjoys subject reduction and progress.


Results of the investigation on the spectral characteristics of EL of SrS:Cu phosphors are presented. Some new features of the voltage and frequency dependence of EL-emission are reported.


Establishing the frequency of mental disorders among patients cared for at the mental health unit of a primary care outpatient clinic of Santiago, Chile, is intended. In this connection, 618 medical records have been screened retrospectively (i.e. a whole universe excepting patients under age 15). A great majority of patients--with an absolute ratio of female patients (88.8%) were referrals from physicians' offices. The most frequent disorders were anxiety disorders and adjustment disorders. Comments are made on (a): the scarcity of referrals from larger general hospitals, and (b) the need for mechanisms apt at an early detection of the most frequent disorders to be set up.


In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is a conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part $\frac{1}{2}$. The Riemann hypothesis belongs to the David Hilbert's list of 23 unsolved problems and it is one of the Clay Mathematics Institute's Millennium Prize Problems. The Robin criterion states that the Riemann hypothesis is true if and only if the inequality $\sigma(n)< e^{\gamma } \times n \times \log \log n$ holds for all natural numbers $n> 5040$, where $\sigma(x)$ is the sum-of-divisors function and $\gamma \approx 0.57721$ is the Euler-Mascheroni constant. The Nicolas criterion states that the Riemann hypothesis is true if and only if the inequality $\prod_{q \leq q_{n}} \frac{q}{q-1} > e^{\gamma} \times \log\theta(q_{n})$ is satisfied for all primes $q_{n}> 2$, where $\theta(x)$ is the Chebyshev function. Using both inequalities, we show that the Riemann hypothesis is possibly true.


Objective : To study the impact of OCD symptoms to quality of life of OCD patients and relatives Method : Descriptive cross-sectional study and in-depth interview was conducted. Participants were patients and their relatives aged 18 years old or above who visited the psychiatric out-patient unit of Ramathibodi Hospital between November 2013 and July 2014. The Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale was used to assess the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. WHOQOL-BREF-THAI was used to evaluate 4 domains of quality of life. Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression was used to assess depressive symptoms of patients. The constructed questionnaire developed by researchers was used to evaluate the impact of obsessive-compulsive symptoms to patients and relatives. Result : Thirty patients and fourteen relatives participated. Correlation between severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and depressive symptoms and quality of life of the patients was demonstrated (r<-0.54) but not between overall quality of life of relatives, except psychological aspect. From in-depth interview data, compulsive behaviors which need participation of relatives were associated with all aspects of relatives' quality of life. Conclusion : Obsessive-compulsive disorders have impacted various aspects of quality of life in both patients and relatives especially psychological aspect. From this study increased understanding of these impacts was achieved and might be useful data for health professionals in treating and counseling OCD patients.


The essential role of design process visualization is to capture and represent design information as well as the change of design objects to keep track of reasons behind decision-making activities. The most prominent benefit of BIM, among its wide-spectrum potentials, would be that it made possible to consider simulated building performances such as energy efficiency for critical decision-making criteria even during the early stages of design project. Advanced design process visualization centered around BIM calls for reflecting performance-oriented design information generated from the various simulation tools from the early stages of building project. This will certainly demand a different approach in terms of process modeling and representation strategies. This paper introduces a visualization tool addressing these issues. It is on the top of an Open BIM Server to manage evolving IFC data model in a systematic way, integrating quantitative design data generated from performance evaluation tools. A data model was developed to represent the design process composed of evolving versions and alternatives interwoven with decision-making factors. The system, with its timeline-based interactive user interface, will give a better insight into the design process and easy access to the reasons behind decision-makings in an intuitive way.


The Unified Power Quality Controller (UPQC) is the Custom Power device designed for improving the power quality of the electrical network. In this paper, we proposed UPQC design for an isolated power system network to attend both voltage and current distortion by using Unit Vector template algorithm and Instantaneous Reactive Power theory. Also UPQC is designed for the hybrid generation with Hysteresis control algorithm. The power quality improvement of the power system network is the main aim . The performance analysis is done by comparing its Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). Based on its THD the quality of the power at the "Point of common coupling (PCC)"with and without compensator is quantified in this paper.


This study was conducted in determine the efficiency of each of temperature, exposure time and bio-control agent Trichoderma harzianum in inhibition of the sclerotia myceliogenic germination of S. sclerotiorum and its mycelial growth on PDA and field. The laboratory experiment included determine efficient temperatures and its exposure hours needed to inhibit pathogen germination in order to use for minimizing disease dissemination in the field through soil solarization technique. The study showed that temperature of 60 ºC with exposure time of 5 and 6 hours were the most efficient treatments in inhibition of myceliogenic germination (55.55, 100 %) respectively. The result antagonism between T. harzianum and S. sclerotiorum by dual culture technique showed high efficacy of the bio-control agent T. harzianum inhibition anti mycelial growth of the pathogen S. sclerotiorum on PDA scoring antagonism rate of 2 degree.
In terms of disease incidence the results showed that soil solarization alone and its integration with bio-control agent were completely prevented the occurrence of the disease achieving the maximum reduction in incidence rate (100 %) for all studied depths at the end of eighth weeks compared with control treatment in which the average of incidence was (85.42 %) , followed by the treatment of bio-control agent alone by a reduction rate of (42.08 %) respectively with a significant difference compared with inoculated control treatment.


In order to evaluate factors associated with the increase in the in-patient medical expenditures for the elderly in Fukuoka prefecture during the period from 1987 to 1991, an analysis was conducted based on the data of 10 Health Care Regions. According to the results, there were two patterns in the increase. The first was the pattern observed in the southern part of the prefecture, where most of the increase in the in-patient medical expenditures for the elderly was explained by the increase of medical expenditures per capita. Furthermore, this increase per capita was due to the increase in utilization rate. This pattern is considered to be associated with the increase of general hospital beds as well as with the increase of the dependent elderly in the regions. The second pattern was observed in urban regions, such as Fukuoka and Kitakyushu, where the increase of in-patient medical expenditures for the elderly was mainly due to the increase in the number of elderly in the regions. This pattern is considered to be associated with the increase in the population categorized as the aged household. The present result suggests that in order to control the medical expenditures for the elderly, different service-mix strategies will be necessary, respecting the socio-economic characteristics of each region.


From 2007 to 2015 total fertility rate in Russia increased from 1.42 to 1.78, following a long period of decline in 1990-1999 and stagnation in 2000-2006. Politicians attribute this growth to a package of pro-natalist policy measures introduced in 2007 and particularly to the maternity (family) capital program, the most well-known innovation of the 2007 reform. Existing studies, although sparse, have not actually proven this point of view clearly yet. This paper aims to reveal whether the pro-natalist measures of 2007 have influenced probability of second and consequent births in Russia. Since in 2007 several family policy measures were introduced simultaneously, and the authors estimate their cumulative effect applying a set of binary logistic regressions on the panel of Russian Generations and Gender Survey data collected in 2004, 2007, and 2011. The study reveals that the probability of second and subsequent births before the introduction of policy measures does not differ significantly from that observed after it. The authors find no effect of 2007 family policy changes on probability of second and consequent births in Russia. The data shows some signs of selective influence of the 2007 policy changes on women with lower human capital and incomes, however, further studies on bigger samples are needed to prove this fact. The study extends the academic discussion and adds to the pool of empirical evidence on the pro-natalist policy effects on fertility. By demonstrating no significant effects of Russian 2007 family policy measures the paper contributes to the overcoming of existing publication bias in the field.
Acknowledgements. The authors are grateful for the support granted to the research within the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).


Full-term and preterm infants were studied to determine whether differences between capillary and venous hematocrit and hemoglobin values were detectable after the first week of life. Significant differences were shown to persist in both term and preterm infants into at least the third postnatal months. However, the differences were considerably greater in low-birth-weight infants, with mean capillary values at ages 4 to 6 postnatal weeks approximately 11% to 12% higher than the corresponding venous values. The data indicated that capillary-venous differences were related not only to postnatal age, but also the postconceptual age.


Hospitals are evolving to cater its patients' needs that emphasis on promotive rather than curative healthcare that should become more patients-centric with greater attention paid especially young patients with families and visitors that come regularly to visit these young patients. This research deals with the possible healing environment that caters children while being hospitalized and children are prone to feel unfamiliar of new surroundings, the environment is scary, depressed and frustrated of being hospitalized. The aim is to understand the characteristic in creating an environment that would decrease children anxiety. The research design will look into a concise area of the public spaces in all the three cases analysed. And method used in this paper is mostly through site visits to the case studies and taken photographs of physical observations at public spaces where the general public would experience the environment. The findings would look into three exemplar hospital design that has expertise on children health care in Malaysia and Singapore. The analysis of the cases data will identify whether these case studies comply with the design characteristic and how can it be improved. In conclusion, the research can give a little contribution in the hospital environment settings and creates exciting hospital that applies also for children.


Objectives Studies comprising Danish Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs) and Danish Baptists found that members have a lower risk of chronic diseases including cancer. Explanations have pointed to differences in lifestyle, but detailed aetiology has only been sparsely examined. Our objective was to investigate the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among Danish SDAs and Baptists as a proxy for cancers related to sexual behaviour. Methods We followed the Danish Cohort of Religious Societies from 1977 to 2009, and linked it with national registers of all inpatient and outpatient care contacts using the National Patient Register. We compared the incidence of syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia among members of the cohort with the general population. Results The cohort comprised 3119 SDA females, 1856 SDA males, 2056 Baptist females and 1467 Baptist males. For the entire cohort, we expected a total of 32.4 events of STD, and observed only 9. Female SDAs and Baptists aged 20–39 years had significant lower incidence of chlamydia (both p<0.001). Male SDAs and Baptists aged 20–39 years also had significant lower incidence of chlamydia (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively). No SDA members were diagnosed with gonorrhoea, when 3.4 events were expected, which, according to Hanley's 'rule of three', is a significant difference. No SDA or Baptist was diagnosed with syphilis. Conclusions The cohort shows significant lower incidence of STD, most likely including human papillomavirus, which may partly explain the lower incidence of cancers of the cervix, rectum, anus, head and neck.


There have been tremendous interests about the fabrication of the Au plasmonic nanopore due to its capability of the nanosize optical biosensor. We have investigated the influence of low energy electron beam irradiation on an Au nanomembrane during Au nanopore formation. In this report, the influence of electron beam irradiation on the Au nanopore formation will be reported. The nanopores on the 200 nm thick Au membrane were initially fabricated using focused ion beam (FIB) and high energy electron beam techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). During high energy electron beam by using TEM, either a "shrinking" or a "opening" phenomenon is reported dependent on the ratio of thickness to aperture diameter. However, for a FESEM electron beam irradiation, a shrinking phenomenon is always observed. In this report, the nanopore formation during FESEM electron beam irradiation will be reported depending upon energy absorption and thermal diffusivity.


This paper is based on a wartime requirement for a 25-watt, 4000-megacycle continuous-wave oscillator capable of electronic frequency modulation with a deviation of at least 2.5 megacycles. A satisfactory solution was found in the addition of frequency control to a continuous-wave magnetron by the introduction of electron beams into the magnetron cavities in a manner described by Smith and Shulman. This method is referred to as "spiral-beam" control. A brief account is given of the method of designing a continuouswave magnetron for the specified power and frequency. The problem of adding spiral-beam frequency control to this magnetron is considered in detail, and a procedure is presented for obtaining the optimum design consistent with negligible amplitude modulation and reasonable cathode-current densities. The unusual features of construction of this magnetron are described, including a method of mechanical tuning and the method of adding grid-controlled beams for frequency modulation. Performance data on the continuous-wave magnetron over a wide range of operating conditions indicate that the required 25 watts output can be attained at 850 volts with 50 per cent efficiency. Experimental results on "spiral-beam" frequency control demonstrate that the required 2.5-megacycle frequency deviation with no amplitude modulation can be achieved by electron beams introduced into two out of twelve cavities. A deviation of 4 megacycles is attained under conditions allowing some amplitude modulation. Still greater deviation is predicted by using more beams.


This paper presents the activity made by the authors within the National Research Program "PRIN 2000", partially supported by the Italian Ministry of Instruction, University and Research (MIUR). The research has concerned the development of a sensorless controller for interior permanent magnet (IPM) synchronous motors to be used in city-scooter application. The project result has been the design of a sensorless scheme suitable for general applications where low speed and standstill such as high speed operations are required. The final solution consists in an hybrid technique employing an adaptive observer for medium/high speed operation and a signal injection based technique for low speed and standstill operation. The observer detects the rotor magnet flux components in the two-phase stationary reference frame using the motor electrical equations. The motor speed is identified by a model reference adaptive scheme using an additional equation obtained by a Lyapunov function. The analytical development of the observer is fully explained. The convergence of the estimates at low speeds and standstill is achieved through the assistance of a high frequency signal injection technique. Realistic simulations accounting for the inaccuracy of an actual digital signal processor (DSP) implementation and the prototypal implementation on a commercial hardware for city-scooter application are presented and discussed.


Results of treatment of 277 patients with colorectal cancer stage IV complicated by the urinary tract invasion, were analyzed. Men were 168 (60.7%); women - 109 (39.3%). Patients aged 31-79 years (59.6±5.7) years. All patients were operated on radically with the resection of the invaded parts of the urinary tract en bloc. Both abdominal surgeons and urologists took part in the operation. The study proved that the invasion of the urinary tract by colorectal cancer should not become a reason for the surgery refusal. The subtotal resection of the urinary bladder by its cancer invasion demonstrated the appropriate radicalism and functional postoperative results. The efficacy of such combined operations was proved by the high level of social adaptation of the operated patients - 18 (51.4%) of 35 followed up patients came back to the previous level of social activity. Urinary tracts' resection did not influenced the level of postoperative lethality.


Governments of regions and nations as well as international and supra‐national institutions are actors in "direct" tourism policies. Besides these policies, these institutions have to fulfil a minimum of roles in other fields, which are necessary for an optimal development of the world and national economies including their tourism sector. Even in a free market economy, the state has to provide a legal framework for the functioning of markets. Also, the state has to correct market failures: to provide for public goods, to internalize external effects and to avoid asymetric information. Some of these necessary measures of "indirect" tourism policy are discussed for such fields like the environment and use of land, education and training. On the other hand, some measures of the existing direct and indirect tourism policies are not optimal, for instance subsidies.


The existence of pseudo-gap states at energies larger than the coherence energy scale is shown to be at the origin of the difficulties encountered in achieving strong vortex pinning in the high Tc cuprates. Reduction or elimination of the pseudo-gap states by overdoping is effective in increasing the condensation energy and the irreversibility field. In YBa2Cu3O7, a full BCS state, with a single energy scale, can be restored, leading to the highest known irreversibility field and pinning strength. In the bismuthates, the detrimental effect of the pseudo-gap states can only be mitigated to some extent by overdoping.


10-hydroxy-cis-12-octadecenoic acid (HYA) is produced from linoleic acid in the hydration reaction resulted from Lactobacillus plantarum. HYA indicated an anti-inflammatory effect in the small intestine via GPR40 pathway. In order to examine whether the anxiety-like behavior was changed by the administration of HYA, the open field and elevated plus maze tests evaluated the changes of anxiety-like behavior in Wistar male rats given HYA orally for successive 14 days. The immunohistochemistry evaluated the expression of proteins associated with anxiety-like behavior. The elevated plus maze test indicated the increase the spent time in the open arms, although the open field test indicate the spent time in center time was not changed in HYA group. The numbers of cells indicating strong immunoreactivity against anti-cFos antibody and anti-BDNF antibody were significantly increased in the rat given HYA in the rat hippocampus. Thus, HYA may partially reduce the anxiety-like behavior, increasing the expressions of c-Fos and BDNF proteins in the hippocampus. Poster Sessions


Waste dumps are the man-made wastes of the mining industry. Particles of magnesium and aluminum are part of waste dumps and emissions from their combustion. Release of the dispersed particles of these metals leads to the spread of fire on the surface of the waste dump and beyond. Assessment of the dispersed composition of magnesium and aluminum particles, their flammability and the induction period allow to predict the fire hazard of rock dumps and the surrounding area. This contributes to ensuring the environmental safety of mining agglomerations. The most probable particle sizes of its oxide were established by sedimentation analysis of metallic magnesium scale. It was experimentally determined that the maximum temperature, at which magnesium particles of any fraction do not ignite, is 983 K. When the temperature reaches 1053 K, ignition of magnesium particles of all the rock dump fractions occurs, and at 1243 K, aluminum particles. The induction period for magnesium particles 1∙10–4 m in size at a temperature of 1053 K is 0,057 s. With increasing temperature, it decreases linearly. It is established that with an increase in temperature, the particles of the fraction 4,9∙10–5 m are the first to burn. The last to flash are the smallest particles of 6∙10–6 m. During research it was found that at the fixed particle sizes, an increase in temperature leads to a rapid reduction in the induction period. Its drop is observed at temperatures close to the flammability temperatures of the particles. An increase in the mass of magnesium particles leads to an increase in the induction period.


Laparoscopic surgery continues to evolve and to offer major potential for achieving benefits to patients and to health care providers because of decreased morbidity. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has diffused rapidly and widely. However, the spread of other minimal access surgery methods has been more gradual, reflecting uncertainties as to the degree of benefit and rate of change of technology. Firm evidence of efficacy and costs of the new methods is still limited, and a number of organisational issues continue to demand attention.


At present, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is not only used in high-surgical-risk patients with aortic stenosis (AS), but its use has also been extended to low-risk patients, resulting in its increasing utilization in patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV). BAV however presents unique challenges for TAVR due to its distinct valvular anatomy, and surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) remains the primary recommended method of aortic valve replacement in patients with BAV. Nonetheless, observational data have been quickly accumulating regarding the successful use of TAVR in BAV. Here, we present a case of a 73-year-old female who presented with heart failure symptoms and was found to have severe AS and BAV with calcified raphe (Sievers 1a). Due to her age and complicated medical history, including coronary artery disease and chronic kidney disease, she was considered to be at intermediate surgical risk (Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) score 5.4%) and underwent TAVR with the successful deployment of a 29 mm Edwards SAPIEN valve (Edwards Lifesciences, California, USA). A post-procedure echocardiogram confirmed the appropriate placement of the prosthesis without any valvular or paravalvular regurgitation. This case, therefore, adds to the growing body of evidence regarding the use of TAVR in patients with BAV despite anatomical challenges.


In 1998, the Western Australian Government introduced the Liveable Neighbourhoods Design Code; a policy aimed at using design principles  to increase the walking, cycling, public transport use and sense of  community of residents of new housing developments. The RESIDential Environments Project (known as RESIDE) commenced in 2003 to evaluate the impact of the Liveable Neighbourhoods (LN)  Policy on people living in LN designed communities. The study focused on five elements with most relevance to health, based on the 2nd edition  of LN and subsequent additions: movement network, urban structure,  residential diversity, public open space and schools. The RESIDE project shows that government policies and planning initiatives play a vital role in creating cities, towns and neighbourhoods that can positively impact community health and wellbeing. RESIDE provides strong evidence that new communities built in accordance with LN principles will likely promote the health and  wellbeing of residents.


Expositions of Sonata Forms are structured towards two cadential goals, one being the Medial Caesura (MC). The MC is a gap in the musical texture between the Transition zone (TR) and the Secondary thematic zone (S). It appears as a climax of energy accumulation initiated by the TR, dividing the Exposition in two parts. We introduce high-level features relevant to formalize this energy gain and to identify MCs. These features concern rhythmic, harmonic and textural aspects of the music and characterize either the MC, its preparation or the texture contrast between TR and S. They are used to train a LSTM neural network on a corpus of 27 movements of string quartets written by Mozart. The model correctly locates the MCs on 14 movements within a leave-one-piece-out validation strategy. We discuss these results and how the network manages to model such structural breaks.


Fluid and electrolyte transport is driven by transepithelial Cl- movement. The opening of Cl- channels in the apical membrane of salivary gland acinar cells initiates the fluid secretion process, whereas the activation of Cl- channels in both the apical and the basolateral membranes of ductal cells is thought to be necessary for NaCl re-absorption. Saliva formation can be evoked by sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation. The composition and flow rate vary greatly, depending on the type of stimulation. As many as five classes of Cl- channels with distinct gating mechanisms have been identified in salivary cells. One of these Cl- channels is activated by intracellular Ca2+, while another is gated by cAMP. An increase in the intracellular free Ca2+ concentration is the dominant mechanism triggering fluid secretion from acinar cells, while cAMP may be required for efficient NaCl re-absorption in many ductal cells. In addition to cAMP- and Ca(2+)-gated Cl- channels, agonist-induced changes in membrane potential and cell volume activate different Cl- channels that likely play a role in modulating fluid and electrolyte movement. In this review, the properties of the different types of Cl- currents expressed in salivary gland cells are described, and functions are proposed based on the unique properties of these channels.


Intravascular transplantation of human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) demonstrated a significant therapeutic effect in the treatment of restenosis by the paracrine function of extracellular vesicles (EVs). However, the risk of tumorigenicity and poor cell survival limits its clinical applications. In this study, we for the first time applied a highly efficient and robust three-dimensional (3D) protocol for hiPSC differentiation into endothelial cells (ECs) with subsequent isolation of EVs from the derived hiPSC-EC (ECs differentiated from hiPSCs), and validated their therapeutic effect in intimal hyperplasia (IH) models. We found that intravenously (iv) injected EVs could accumulate on the carotid artery endothelium and significantly alleviate the intimal thickening induced by the carotid artery ligation. To elucidate the mechanism of this endothelial protection, we performed miRNA expression profiling and found out that among the most conserved endothelial miRNAs, miR-126 was the most abundant in hiPSC-EC-produced EVs (hiPSC-EC-EV). MiR-126 depletion from hiPSC-EC-EV can hinder its protective effect on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in an inflammatory process. A variety of functional in vitro studies revealed that miR-126 was able to prevent endothelial apoptosis after inflammatory stimulation, as well as promote EC migration and tube formation through autophagy upregulation. The latter was supported by in vivo studies demonstrating that treatment with hiPSC-EC-EV can upregulate autophagy in mouse carotid artery ECs, thereby preventing IH and modulating vascular homeostasis via remodeling of the vascular intima. Our findings suggest a regulatory mechanism for the therapeutic effect on arterial restenosis by autophagy regulation, and provide a potential strategy for clinical treatment of the disease.


Hot-dip galvanized steel was exposed to sea air, sea spray, tidal flow, and continuous immersion in seawater in order to determine its corrosion resistance in various marine environments. Corrosion resistance was evaluated by surface observation, microscopic observation of a cross section of the galvanized coating, and measurement of corrosion weight loss. The corrosion rate in a relatively dry marine environment (exposure to sea air) was approximately equal to the corrosion rate in rural areas. The corrosion rate in a wet marine environment (immersion in seawater) was high when compared with the corrosion rate when exposed to sea air, but the corrosion rate decreased with time. The corrosion rate under the alternating wet/dry conditions encountered in the sea spray and tidal flow exposure sites was high, and corrosion of the steel base was observed before zinc in the coating was depleted. These exposure tests served to confirm the effectiveness of a hot-dip galvanized coating in various marine environments.


Abscesses secondary to pituitary adenoma are rare. The common clinical manifestations often encountered are headaches, meningismus, and visual disturbances. Hemiplegia as its revealing sign is uncommon. To the best of our knowledge, this is the second reported case of a pituitary abscess with a focal neurological deficit of the half-sided body. We report a case of a 52-year-old woman successfully treated by stereotactic evacuation of pituitary abscess inside an aggressive pituitary tumor. The pituitary abscess must be suspected early for adequate management because it is a serious complication.


This article reports an extensive descriptive survey of 90 older people (65+ years) living in the community who sought through in-depth, semistructured interviews to explore their experiences and responses to constipation. The composite story of these older people is that seeking a solution to constipation may be fraught with great difficulty. Most commonly tried are laxatives, yet laxative use can be like a mire. The older people tend to be uncertain of which way to turn to avoid getting stuck in a murky conglomeration of laxative options. The imperative for self-management of constipation is strong amongst most of the older people and the process in which they engage when seeking for a solution is discussed. There is an evident frustrating lack of readily identifiable and accessible services and information that could help them navigate successfully through or around this mire. "Through the mire" would be the appropriate use of suitable laxatives with minimal side-effects. "Around the mire" would be the gaining of useful solutions other than laxative use. Solutions may be strategies to prevent constipation or to treat constipation. The needs of these older people seeking solutions to constipation are grouped into two main categories: provision of accessible, empathetic and useful advice about affordable solution choices, and accessibility to solutions, including laxatives, where evidence-based knowledge informs selection or prescription of the solution. Eight major recommendations, including research suggestions, are offered for consideration.


Lignin degradation by Pleurotus ostreatus was studied under solid-state fermentation (SSF) in chemically defined medium containing various levels of Mn. Degradation of [14C]lignin prepared from cotton branches to soluble products, as well as its mineralization to 14CO2, was enhanced by the addition of Mn. The effect of malonate on lignin mineralization was most marked during the first 10 days of SSF, in a treatment amended with 73 μM Mn. A high concentration of Mn (4.5 mM) caused inhibition of both fungal growth and mineralization rates during the first 2 weeks of incubation. Addition of malonate reversed this effect because of chelation of Mn. Mn was found to precipitate in all treatments, with or without the addition of malonate. α-Keto-γ-methiolbutyric acid cleavage to ethylene, an indication of . OH production, was observed as early as 3 days of incubation in all treatments.


Three species of piscine parasitic copepods previously undescriptionbed from southern African coastal waters were studied. Although sampling data are incomplete, Lepeopthirius nordmanni (Edwards, 1840) taken from Thunnus and Mola spp., Euryphorus brachypterus (Gerstaecker, 1853) from unknown host and locality and Nesippus orientalis Heller, 1868 from Thunnus thynnus, the bluefin tuna, are descriptionbed and figured. Several morphological variations from other descriptionptions are noted for all three species.


Mechanistic details of the decarbonylation of unstrained ketones by (IMesMe)Ni and (IMesMe)NiCO complexes with a N-heterocyclic carbene ligand (IMesMe) have been explored by density functional theory calculations. The calculated mechanism sheds light on the origin of realization for the decarbonylation catalytic cycle. (IMesMe)Ni mediates the first decarbonylation cycle and generates a biaryl product and (IMesMe)NiCO, which is inactive for the substrate 4-methyl-4′-trifluoromethyl benzophenone 1. However, (IMesMe)NiCO can mediate the decarbonylation of 3-quinolinyl ketone 2 and realize the catalytic cycle. The decarbonylation step is the rate-determining step controlling whether the transformation can be mediated catalytically. The stabilization energy E(2) of BDC(O)–C(methyl phenyl) → LVNi for the decarbonylation transition state plays a dominant role in the catalytic cycle. In addition, an electron-withdrawing group on the arene can stabilize the orbital energies facilitating the initial C–C(O) oxidative addition step. A moderate linear correlation is observed between the oxidative addition barriers and the charges transferred from (IMesMe)Ni to the benzoyl moiety.


Abstract The competition in industry can't be denied anymore, started from government's companies and even the private companies to compete each other to be the leader. To realize that, good workers are in need, the means of production which has been tested quality. But behind it all a lot of things are forgotten by the companies themselves such as tax payments, business licensing and so forth which resulted in delays in the process of production and marketing of the company. Warning System is the best medium to provide information such as warnings about things that are forgotten by the companies themselves in order not to be a problem that interferes with the working of the company. Selecting PT Putra Sindo as the research object is one of my goals to introduce the importance of "System Warning" as a form of early warning information media. With a system based desktop application then access information more quickly and certainly very effective. This warning system using the Java programming language with the help of netbeans 7.1.1 and using MySql data base.


In the present study, a model including two robust objective functions to reduce costs related to the location of waste transfer facilities in Bushehr. Using the first objective function not only reduces the selection of collection sites but also ensures the overall cost associated with the collection phase. In addition, the first objective function of this research seeks to optimally allocate citizens to collection sites. Also, this model includes the types of bins required for allocation to collection sites so that the total demand of the area is met. Another result of this objective function is that the landfills allocated to these sites may be of different types, with different distances from citizens' homes and even different capacities. Finally, each citizen receives service through a waste collection site with the shortest distance from home to the collection point. The second robust objective function to minimize total collection distance has been discussed. Waste collection widely depends on the route optimization problem that involves a large amount of expenditure in terms of capital, labor, and variable operational costs. Thus, the more waste collection route is optimized, the more reduction in different costs and environmental effect will be. This study proposes a modified robust optimization in a capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) model to determine the best waste collection and route optimization solutions. Other results of this research show that the value of the objective functions determined in the robust method is less than the definite method.


Selenium content of several complete enteral formulas and modular enteral components was determined by neutron activation analysis. Formulas based on egg albumin provided the highest content of selenium. Most of the remaining formulas had selenium contents that would provide an amount less than the proposed safe and adequate range of intake. Selenium supplementation should be considered for these latter formulas.


Although trade globalization is a multi-faceted phenomenon, researchers often capture its magnitude by trade volume alone. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon we propose measures that also account for the interconnectedness of countries, for geographical distance, and for the role of individual sectors in bilateral trade. We also improve upon existing indices by moving from a country-level analysis (internationalization) to a truly global perspective (globalization). We measure trade globalization using data from CHELEM (CEPII) over a period of 50 years, covering 72 countries for the sub-period 1967–1990 and 84 countries for 1994-2016. The results show substantial increases in all dimensions of globalization, despite substantial differences between the measures, highlighting the need to analyze globalization with a comprehensive set of indicators. Regarding the number of positive bilateral trade flows, globalization was almost completed by 2016. The importance of distance also diminished throughout the period analyzed, but neighboring countries still share stronger trade relations. Results indicate that trade globalization for high-tech sectors varies significantly from the evolution seen in other sectors, especially large, low-tech sectors. The latter tend to show the highest level of trade globalization over the whole period, but the former group could catch up considerably.


In the present paper I address two significant and prevalent errors concerning opposition to natural theology within the Reformed theological tradition. First, contrary to Alvin Plantinga, I argue that the idea of properly basic theistic belief has not motivated or otherwise grounded opposition to natural theology within the Reformed tradition. There is, in fact, a Reformed endorsement of natural theology grounded in the notion that theistic belief can be properly basic. Secondly, I argue that late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Reformed criticisms of natural theology do not constitute an objection to natural theology as such but rather an objection to natural theology construed in a particular way. I explore the nature of this objection and its compatibility with an alternative understanding of natural theology.


We study analytically the one-loop contribution to the Chiral Magnetic Effect(CME) using lattice regularization with a Wilson fermion field. In the continuum limit, we find that the chiral magnetic current vanishes at nonzero temperature but emerges at zero temperature consistent with that found by Pauli-Villas regularization. For finite lattice size, however, the chiral magnetic current is nonvanishing at nonzero temperature. But the numerical vaule of the coefficient of CME current is very small compared with that extracted from the full QCD simulation for the same lattice parameters. The possibility of higher order corrections from QCD dynamics is also assessed.


This paper presents an architecture for a collaborative non-linear editing system whose main goal is to allow people located at distinct places to work together in the composition of MPEG2 video programmes. The system uses an applet as the front-end application, enabling access from potentially anywhere, and some features of the CORBA architecture are used to enable interaction between applets in order to provide the necessary collaboration mechanisms.


Sophisticated nursing management is an integral part of treatment in GBS. Many difficulties are overcome if nurses have a sound basis of knowledge of the disease and can anticipate complications and explain the illness to patient and family. Most efforts are directed toward preventing the secondary medical complications of quadriparesis, bulbar paresis, and general disability. Plasma exchange is an important recent innovation in the therapy of GBS.


Micro-channel tube with submillimeter-diameter channels is a kind of newly developed heat transferring tube. As the micro-channel tube has many welding points and works under high pressure condition, welding strength is one of the key issues for its extrusion process. This paper presented a new study on evaluation of the seam welding strength formed in the extrusion process. Firstly, FE simulation is carried out for the status of the billet in the welding chamber during the extrusion process. Then, thermo mechanical experiment is done to study the relationship between the welding strength and key factors. The welding process is characterized as the void evolution on the welding interface, which consists of void generation, void cohesion and void closure. Combining the relationship with the numerical results, welding strength of the micro-channel tube can be evaluated. The extrusion die is developed and the microchannel tube is successfully extruded. The study is helpful for the optimization the extrusion ...


Management of saline water irrigation at the field scale requires electrical conductivity to be monitored regularly in the generally shallow soil layer explored by plant roots. Non‐invasive electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensors might be valuable for evaluating large‐scale soil salinity. However, obtaining information on soil surface salinity from depth‐integrated EMI measurements requires either an inversion of the electromagnetic signal or an empirical calibration. We opted for an empirical calibration of an EM38 sensor, which requires a reference dataset of local bulk electrical conductivity, σb, for comparison with EMI readings for estimating regression coefficients. We used time‐domain reflectometry (TDR) to replace direct sampling for local σb measurements. With empirical approaches, the different soil volumes involved with the EMI and TDR sensors become problematic. We resolved this issue by analysing large EMI and TDR datasets recorded at several times along three transects irrigated with water at 1, 3 and 6 dS m−1 degrees of salinity. A Fourier filtering technique was applied to remove the high frequency part (at small spatial scales) of the variation in the original data, which was the main source of dissimilarity between the two datasets. Therefore, calibration focused on the lower frequency information only; that is, information at a spatial scale larger than the observation volume of the sensors. We show that information from the TDR observations derives from a combination of local and larger scale heterogeneities, and how it should be managed for calibration of the EMI sensor. Analysis enabled us to identify characteristics of the calibration data that should be included to improve prediction.


Music is a universal language to convey sentiments. Hindustani classical music (HCM) has a long tradition and people from various cultural backgrounds are fascinated by it. Each performance of a given raga in HCM is supposed to create a common mood among most listeners. We have selected solo instrumental clips of bamboo flute for pilot study. We have chosen one instrument in order to eliminate the effect of words in vocal and effect of different timbres. We selected 2 ragas and 3 clips of each raga to understand possible sentiments created. We had total 4 sessions with 20 novice listeners and played 2 clips per session. Listeners have given rating for 13 sentiments on a numeric scale. From the Listener's feedback, we have stated our own observations about the sentiment creation. General sentiments felt by novice Indian listeners were found similar to the expected mood of specific raga.


This paper proposes a asymmetric FinFET (Fin shaped Field Effect Transistor) for robust and low power SRAM (Static Random Access Memory). This FinFET device uses Asymmetric Drain (AD), Asymmetric Drain Spacer Extension (ADSE) and Asymmetric Lateral Diffusion (ALD) techniques. The proposed structure exploits asymmetrical behavior of current to improve read-write stability for SRAM without compromising the cell area. As the asymmetry in Ids (drain to source) and Isd (source to drain) increases, improvement is observed in read, write and static noise margins. The write noise margin (WNM) and read noise margin (RNM) behavior is contradictory to each other, increase in one leads to decrease in other. It has been observed that by using asymmetric FinFETs altogether an overall improvement in static, read and write noise margins are 23.5, 19.3 and 12.4, percent respectively. Reduction in Average power is observed 21 percent.