Chemical modification of chitosan is increasingly studied for its potential of providing new applications of chitosan. Here, a group of novel chitosan quaternary ammonium derivatives containing pyridine or amino-pyridine were designed and successfully synthesized through chemical modification of chitosan. Pyridine and amino-pyridine were used as functional groups to improve the antifungal activity of chitosan derivatives. The chitosan derivatives' antioxidant activity against hydroxyl-radical and 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH)-radical was tested in vitro. The results showed that chitosan derivatives had better water solubility and stronger antioxidant activity compared with chitosan in all assays. Especially, compounds 3C and 3E (with 3-amino pyridine and 2,3-diamino pyridine as substitute respectively) exhibited stronger hydroxyl-radical and DPPH-radical scavenging ability than other synthesized compounds. These data demonstrated that the synergistic effect of the amino group and pyridine would improve the antioxidant activity of chitosan derivatives, and the position of the amino group on pyridine could influence the antioxidant property of chitosan derivatives.


Led by the National Solar Observatory, plans have been made to design and to develop the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST). The ATST will be a 4-m general-purpose solar telescope equipped with adaptive optics and versatile post-focus instrumentation. Its main aim will be to achieve an angular resolution of 0.03 arcsec (20 km on the solar surface). The project and the telescope design are briefly described.


Fracture toughness and fracture mechanisms in Al_2O_3/Al composites are described. The unique flexibility offered by pressureless infiltration of molten Al alloys into porous alumina preforms was utilized to investigate the effect of microstructural scale and matrix properties on the fracture toughness and the shape of the crack resistance curves ( R -curves). The results indicate that the observed increment in toughness is due to crack bridging by intact matrix ligaments behind the crack tip. The deformation behavior of the matrix, which is shown to be dependent on the microstructural constraints, is the key parameter that influences both the steady-state toughness and the shape of the R -curves. Previously proposed models based on crack bridging by intact ductile particles in a ceramic matrix have been modified by the inclusion of an experimentally determined plastic constraint factor ( P ) that determines the deformation of the ductile phase and are shown to be adequate in predicting the toughness increment in the composites. Micromechanical models to predict the crack tip profile and the bridge lengths ( L ) correlate well with the observed behavior and indicate that the composites can be classified as (i) short-range toughened and (ii) long-range toughened on the basis of their microstructural characteristics.


The European Council occupies a central role in European politics. Yet it is not officially accountable to any public or parliamentary body for the decisions it makes on behalf of European citizens. National parliaments are only entitled to exert control over their own Heads of Government or State. The European Parliament, as a supranational institution, is the only parliamentary body that regularly discusses European politics with the European Council as a collective, namely via the European Council Presidency. As such, it alone has the possibility to hold the Council accountable for the agreements made at European Summits. However, the European Parliament has limited rights to impose pressure on the European Council Presidency. Nonetheless, despite the lack of a formal accountability arrangement, the European Council Presidency is more forthcoming than could have been expected.


1) The worldwide diffusion of COVID-19 contributes to electronic commerce all over the world. The proliferation of high volume and small value electronic commerce naturally has combined artificial intelligence with online dispute resolution (ODR). This paper investigates the age effect on Artificial Intelligence acceptability in online dispute resolution and its empirical findings are as follows. First, seven measures out of the nine employed in this case study shows a coherent dynamic pattern over the age spectrum. In other words, the total samples are a heterogenous group rather than a homogeneous one. Second, medium answer occupies a non-negligible portion across answers from nine research questions. It seems to indicate that a considerable portion of Korean respondents are hesitant to make a choice on artificial intelligence at this juncture. Third, all of the respondents agree that the introduction of AI to the dispute resolution could contribute to the hastening of the dispute resolution process. Fourth, most of the respondents agree that artificial intelligence might have the cognitive ability but not the sympathetic or affective ability to handle the electronic commerce disputes.


We study a one dimensional two-type contact process with equal rate of propagation (and death) of the two types. We show that the progeny of a finite number of mutants has a positive probability of survival if and only at time 0 there is at most a finite number of residents on at least one side of the mutant's ``colony''.


Three newborn children with cyanosis due to Ebstein's anomaly of tricuspid valve with an important hemodynamic repercussion presented features of imperforation of pulmonary valve. On the follow-up, clinical and laboratory findings verified that pulmonary atresia was functional resulting from a combination of low right ventricular pressure and high pulmonary vascular resistance.


Recent advances in machine learning and pattern recognition methods have propagated into various applications in seismology. Phase picking, earthquake location, anomaly detection and classification applications have benefited also from the increased availability of cloud computing and open-source software libraries. However, applications of these new techniques to the problems of earthquake forecasting and prediction have remained relatively stagnant.

The main challenges in this regard have been the testing and validation of the proposed methods. While there are established metrics to quantify the performance of algorithms in common pattern recognition and classification problems, the earthquake prediction problem requires a properly defined reference (null) model to establish the information gain of a proposed algorithm. This complicates the development of new methods, as researchers are required to develop not only a novel algorithm but also a sufficiently robust null model to test it against.

We propose a solution to this problem. We have recently introduced a global real-time earthquake forecasting model that can provide occurrence probabilities for a user defined time-space-magnitude window anywhere on the globe (Nandan et al. 2020). In addition, we have proposed the Information Ratio (IR) metric that can rank algorithms producing alarm based deterministic predictions as well as those producing probabilistic forecasts (Kamer et al. 2020). To provide the community with a retrospective benchmark, we have run our model in a pseudoprospective fashion for the last 30 years (1990-2020). We have calculated and stored the earthquake occurrence probabilities for each day, for the whole globe (at ~40km resolution) for various time-space windows (7 to 30 days, 75 to 300 km). These can be queried programmatically via an Application Programmable Interface (API) allowing model developers to train and test their algorithms retrospectively. Here we shall present how the Rx TimeMachine API is used for the training of a simple pattern recognition algorithm and show the algorithm's prospective predictive performance.

Nandan, S., Kamer, Y., Ouillon, G., Hiemer, S., Sornette, D. (2020). Global models for short-term earthquake forecasting and predictive skill assessment. European Physical Journal ST. doi: 10.1140/epjst/e2020-000259-3
Kamer, Y., Nandan, S., Ouillon, G., Hiemer, S., Sornette, D. (2020). Democratizing earthquake predictability research: introducing the RichterX platform. European Physical Journal ST. doi: 10.1140/epjst/e2020-000260-2


The conventional post-harvesting process of horticultural fruit and vegetables is exorbitant and highly subjective which susceptible to errors. This process is extremely unreliable in terms of accuracy, throughput, speed and cost. An automated fruit grading approach is desirable to reduce the manual efforts and increase the efficiency. In this paper, we are developing a computer vision based an image acquisition and classification system for fruit grading. This system is divided into three modules image pre-processing, image segmentation and Classifier. In the first phase, we are extracting the image features such as image quality, area, perimeter, mean, variance, color, intensity. Next Otsu algorithm works on automatic threshold calculation and image binarization part. In the second phase k-means clustering is used for image segmentation. In last phase the vectors of color, intensity, segments, and image quality feature were utilized for training of the support vector machine structure. The image k-means clustering approach is embedded with support vector machine classifier to improve the speed and accuracy of the classifier. As a result, the system will be able to classify the fruit into three different categories. The proposed algorithm is implemented with an example of tomato fruit grading. The experiments consider real tomato image dataset of 200 samples.75% of the total dataset is used for training and remaining 25% used for testing purpose. Training dataset is distinguished into three categories depending on the maturity of tomato.


This paper introduces MinCor (Minimum of Correlations), a decentralized simulated annealing algorithm designed for the data placement in peer-to-peer networks. Its goal is to reduce the correlated failures impact in such data storage systems. This data placement is realized using a multi-agent system which turns the documents into mobile agents flocks. After a network clustering step where highly correlated peers are regrouped together, the flocks executing MinCor are able to find a placement minimizing the number of agents on the same clusters. This placement is obtained in a decentralized way thanks to the environment exploration capabilities of the flocks. A set of experiments are performed on this system in presence of correlated failures. They show that, in practice, the expected placement is well obtained. They also show that, flocks using the MinCor algorithm suffer less simultaneous losses in presence of correlated failures than a mere random placement.


Optimization of an area detector involves compromises between various parameters like frame rate, read noise, dynamic range and pixel size. We have implemented and tested a novel front-end binning design in a photon-integrating hybrid pixel array detector using the MM-PAD-2.0 pixel architecture. In this architecture, the pixels can be optionally binned in a 2×2 pixel configuration using a network of switches to selectively direct the output of 4 sensor pixels to a single amplifier input. Doing this allows a trade-off between frame rate and spatial resolution. Tests show that the binned pixels perform well, but with some degradation on performance as compared to an un-binned pixel. The increased parasitic input capacitance does reduce the signal collected per x-ray as well as increases the noise of the pixel. The increase in noise is, however, less than the factor of 2 increase one would observe for binning in post-processing. Spatial scans across the binned pixels show that no measured signal intensity is lost at the inner binning unit boundaries. In the high flux regime, at a 2×2 pixel wide beam spot (FWHM) size, binned mode responds linearly up to a photon flux of 107 x-rays/s, and performs comparably with un-binned mode up to a photon flux of 108 x-rays/s. While this study demonstrates a proof of concept for front-end binning in integrating detectors, we also identify changes to this early-stage prototype which can further improve the performance of binning pixel structures.


Objective: To determine difficulty index, discrimination index and distractor effectiveness of items included in MCQs paper of Ophthalmology.
Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out to determine Difficulty index, Discrimination Index and Distractor Effectives of MCQs included in Ophthalmology send up MCQs exam held in September 2017. 324 solved MCQ papers were collected from Ophthalmology department of Rawalpindi Medical University. These papers were arranged in accordance with scores obtained by the students from highest to lowest. Out of all these papers, MCQ marks of 216 papers were considered in such a way that scores of upper 1/3 (108 high performing students) and lower 1/3 (108 low performing students) were enrolled in this study for item analysis through purposive sampling. Difficulty index, discrimination index and distractor effectiveness were computed for all the items. Data was analyzed by using SPSS version 20.
Results: Four (13.3%) MCQs were found to be moderately difficult while 24 (80%) and 2 (6.7%) items were very easy and very difficult, respectively. 22 (73.3%) items had poor discrimination index while 5 (16.7%) and 3 (10%) items were analyzed to be good and excellent discriminators, respectively. 21 (70%) items had no Non-Functional Distractor whereas 5 (16.7%) and 4 (13.3%) items were analyzed to have 2 and 3 NFD, respectively.
Conclusion: Item analysis of MCQs in medical sciences is the need of time to achieve the intended learning outcomes and to amplify the quality of medical education.


Received: 08 October 2021 Accepted: 22 November 2021 Published: 04 December 2021 DOI: 10.32996/ijahs.2021.1.1.15 The long road of economic and political modernization of democracy in Indonesia has transformed Indonesian society into an industrial society that has not empowered the people's economic sectors. The ups and downs of democratic politics remain far from the culture of deliberation mandated by Pancasila. The combination of development politics that has hit collective economic, cultural wisdom with political liberalization in the past 15 years has negatively impacted Indonesian cultural identity. The following study seeks to reconstruct the local wisdom and political values of Indonesian ethnic groups and communities to demonstrate the potentials of social capital to improve our democratic politics. The object of the study consists of two types: the first is ethnic groups, with a focus on Wajo and Minang, the second is the communities of several urban parks in Java. The theoretical perspective used is the theory of deliberative democracy. From the point of view of political anthropology, this study is a case study in the context of qualitative research with qualitative-interpretive methods. KEYWORDS


This ongoing research presents an alternative to the manual creation of lexical resources and proposes an approach towards the automatic construction of a lexical ontology for Portuguese. Textual sources are exploited in order to obtain a lexical network based on terms and, after clustering and mapping, a wordnet-like lexical ontology is created. At the end of the paper, current results are shown.


Aims There is substantial evidence that attention is significantly affected in children with a history of stroke. However, which domains of attention are affected and how lesion characteristics (volume, location and age at stroke) affect attention difficulties is unclear. Methods We conducted a systematic review of the current literature to address these gaps. Searches were carried out using PUBMED, Psychinfo and Web of Science which retrieved studies that investigated attention in paediatric stroke population. Quality assessment was carried out using modified versions of the STROBE Checklist and the Quality Assessment Instrument. Results The 8 studies fulfilling our criteria were individually of good to excellent quality but were limited by small sample sizes and heterogeneous stroke aetiologies. Sustained attention was affected by paediatric strooke in 6/8 studies with medium to large effect sizes (d=0.5 to 1.5). Attentional control was impaired in individuals with paediatric stroke in two studies with small to medium effect sizes (d=0.2 to 0.57). Four studies found divided attention to be significantly affected after paediatric stroke with large effect sizes (d=0.9 to 1.4). Selective attention was moderately affected by paediatric stroke (d=0.6 to 0.75) in 2 studies. Lesions located bilaterally within frontal, subcortical and cortical regions appeared to impact attentional abilities with a small to medium effect of lesions in extra-frontal brain regions with poorer performance on divided attention (d=0.31; 1 study), sustained attention (d=0.12 and 0.16; 2 studies) and attentional control (d=0.42; 1 study). However lesion volume and laterality had no effect on attention. Of the 5 studies which looked at lesion size on MRI, 3 found no relationship while the other two found significant effects, with poorer attention in those with larger lesion size, one with moderate effect sizes for selective attention (d=0.38) and attentional control (d=0.46) for those with parenchymal lesions >25% of the total. Stroke occurrence before the age of 5 years appeared to affect sustained and divided attention, while those with onset aged less than 12 months appeared to have reduced sustained and selective attention. Discussion Longitudinal research investigating specific aetiologies of stroke is warranted to investigate the impact of lesion characteristics on attention difficulties further.


Image registration is an important task of image processing. In parallax image mosaic, the geometric registration is a global registration minimized residual in translation model. In order to realize quick and robust geometric registration of parallax image, a coarse-to-fine global registration strategy using the coarse images weighted with detail image is proposed. Taking the advantage of multi-resolution characteristic of Wavelet, the original image is pyramid decomposed by Wavelet transformation. The registration result of the upper layer can be the initial value of the next layer in the global registration. The better initial value by this way is applied in the registration of coarse image and vertical detail image in the layer next to the bottom, and the correlative registration curve can be got. The extremums can be got from the correlative registration curve which weights the weight vector by means of the correlative registration curve of the vertical detail image in the layer next to the bottom. Then the optimal registration can be achieved. Experiments indicated that this method has high accuracy, reliability and real-time property.


Metabolic engineering strategies have enabled improvements in yield and titer for a variety of valuable small molecules produced naturally in microorganisms, as well as those produced via heterologous pathways. Typically, the approaches have been focused on up‐ and downregulation of genes to redistribute steady‐state pathway fluxes, but more recently a number of groups have developed strategies for dynamic regulation, which allows rebalancing of fluxes according to changing conditions in the cell or the fermentation medium. This review highlights some of the recently published work related to dynamic metabolic engineering strategies and explores how advances in high‐throughput screening and synthetic biology can support development of new dynamic systems. Dynamic gene expression profiles allow trade‐offs between growth and production to be better managed and can help avoid build‐up of undesired intermediates. The implementation is more complex relative to static control, but advances in screening techniques and DNA synthesis will continue to drive innovation in this field.


【This paper presents a reliability analysis of S-bonds for AF track circuits, which detect train movement and transmit a speed control signal to the train. Field survey shows that S-bonds are exposed to very large vibrations transferred from rail, and suffer from frequent failures when they were installed on ballasted track. We collected the time-to-failure data of S-bonds from the maintenance field of Seoul metro line 2, and made a parametric approach to estimate the statistical distribution that fits the time-to-failure data. The analysis shows that S-bonds have time-to-failure characteristics described by Weibull distribution. The estimated shape parameter of Weibull distribution is 1.1, which means the distribution has constant failure rate characteristics like exponential distribution. The reliability function, hazard function, percentiles and mean lifetime are derived for maintenance support.】


A mechanism of cellulose phosphorylation in presence of urea is proposed. This model is correlated with the thermal stability of phosphorylating reactive mixture and the yield of phosphorylation for two different reagents: phosphoric acid and lauryl phosphate monoester. Three main successive reactions are involved in the formation of cellulose phosphate: (1) generation of ammonia by urea decomposition, (2) formation of phosphoramidate as intermediate reactive due to the reaction of ammonia with phosphate species, and (3) grafting the phosphate moiety to substrate due to the transfer of phosphate from phosphoramidate to cellulose. The proposed in vitro mechanism is supported by similar phosphorylation processes observed in some biochemical reactions. The limiting factor in the phosphorylation of cellulose is the formation of phosphoramidate intermediate.


The Austrian healthcare system relies mainly on physicians in private practice and on various services provided by hospitals. The social health insurance scheme is compulsory, covering 99% of the population. The system is very decentralized. While the federal state provides the framework, the nine autonomous provinces are responsible for administering health and social services. There is ongoing public discussion about centralizing the healthcare system to make it more efficient and to enforce structural reforms. Because of concerns about healthcare expenditures, in 1997 the Performance-Related Hospital Financing System (LKF), a system similar to the diagnosis-related group system, was introduced for hospitals, including a plan for large medical devices. It is too early to evaluate the success of this new system, although some effects of the LKF system that could have been anticipated, such as shortened lengths of stay and more hospitalizations, have been seen. Previously, health technologies have been almost uncontrolled in Austria. The evaluation of health technologies as an instrument to support or to control their dissemination and use or to help define policies is not institutionalized or systematically used. It seems clear that structural reforms of the Austrian healthcare system are needed. Health technology assessment should be part of such reforms.


The ultraviolet (UV) emission from a fast-pulsed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in a He-air gas mixture has been investigated for a wide range of operating conditions (discharge gap: 1 cm, pressure: 100 - 750 Torr, voltage: 2.5 - 8 kV, sawtooth pulse: decay time ~ 10 ns, frequency: 1.5 - 23 kHz, He-air mixture with 3%-30% air). The short-pulse excitation scheme allows the release of the charges deposited on the dielectric surfaces. The discharge (~ 10 ns) studied here is ignited only when a fast shortening pulse is applied to a previously charged electrode. The emphasis of the studies was on the UV emissions from NO, OH, N2, and N2 + between 200 nm and 400 nm and their dependence on the discharge operating parameters. It was found that the main factor that determines the spectral distribution is the amount of air admixed to the He. Because of the importance of UV emissions around 250 nm in sterilization and biological applications, a calibrated photodiode was used for absolute intensity measurements of the NO γ-band system in the 200 - 280 nm range


The extent of heterogeneity in DNA sequence within human cancers has been difficult to fully assess, due to the absence of methods with sufficient sensitivity to detect minority variants. For example, next-generation sequencing could in principle detect sub-clonal mutations at any genomic position; however due to amplification errors and inaccuracies in the sequencing platform itself, such approaches are limited to detection of mutations present in >1% of cells. We have overcome this limitation by developing an approach, Duplex Sequencing, which improves the accuracy of next-generation sequencing by >100,000 fold. Duplex Sequencing is based upon separately tagging and sequencing the two strands of single molecules of duplex DNA. True mutations are present at the same position in both DNA strands and are complementary, whereas artifacts arising from amplification or sequencing errors are seen in only one strand. The calculated error rate of our approach is less than one artifactual mutation per billion nucleotides sequenced (ref. 1). We have also developed an enrichment approach based on sequential rounds of hybridization to biotinylated probes which enables efficient sequencing of targeted regions of the genome (ref. 2). Duplex Sequencing thereby enables exceptionally sensitive detection of sequence heterogeneity within any set of genes. We have now applied Duplex Sequencing to study of sequence heterogeneity in both normal and malignant samples. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), we find multiple sub-clonal mutations which fall below the detection limit of conventional approaches, some of which encode mutations that can drive chemotherapy resistance and cancer progression. Our results indicate that prior studies have under-estimated the burden of sub-clonal mutations in AML by more than 1,000-fold. We have additionally studied chronic myeloid leukemia (CML); treatment of CML with inhibitors directed against the Abl kinase represents the prototypical targeted cancer therapy. With Duplex Sequencing, we find that Abl mutations are extremely uncommon at the time of CML diagnosis. In contrast, refractory patients who fail therapy frequently possess multiple sub-clonal mutations within the Abl kinase, most of which are below the resolution of conventional approaches but are readily detected with our method. In ongoing work, we have found multiple sub-clonal mutations within human prostate cancer and colon cancer, suggestive of widespread intratumor heterogeneity that may limit the efficacy of single-agent therapy in these diseases. References: 1. Schmitt MW, Kennedy SR, Salk JJ, Fox EJ, Hiatt JB, Loeb LA (2012). Detection of ultra-rare mutations by next-generation sequencing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 109(36):14508-13. 2. Schmitt MW, Fox EJ, Prindle MJ, Reid-Bayliss KS, True LD, Radich JP, Loeb LA (2015). Sequencing small genomic targets with high efficiency and extreme accuracy. Nature Methods. 12(5):423-5. Citation Format: Michael W. Schmitt, Jesse J. Salk, Edward J. Fox, Justin R. Pritchard, J Graeme Hodgson, Victor M. Rivera, Pamela S. Becker, Jerald P. Radich, Lawrence A. Loeb. Direct assessment of sequence heterogeneity in human cancers by Duplex Sequencing. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2395.


The calibration of the polarization effect of a high-numerical-aperture (high-NA) objective lens (OL) is of great significance for high-precision polarized light micro-imaging. In this work, we propose a method to calibrate the polarization effect of a high-NA OL with Mueller matrix polarimetry in a retro-reflection configuration by using a spherical mirror as the reference sample. We present the calibration details in both the conoscopic and orthoscopic illumination modes. A high-NA OL with a NA of 0.95 is exemplified to demonstrate the capability of the proposed calibration method, and the experiments performed on two standard SiO2/Si thin film samples with thicknesses of 25 nm and 100 nm verify the calibrated results. Compared with the existing calibration methods, the proposed method is simpler and more efficient for implementation, and moreover, the calibrated Mueller matrices contain all the polarization information of the high-NA OL under test. It is therefore expected that the proposed calibration method could provide a more complete polarization characterization of the high-NA OL.


Vitamins are organic substances that cannot be produced by the human body. The only way of getting all of the vitamins that the body needs is to ingest them, in small quantities, through the diet. Vitamins are essential for normal cell function, growth and development. There are 13 essential vitamins which the body needs to function. They can be divided into two groups, fat-soluble or water-soluble vitamins.


Noise influences the functioning of nanomaterials and optoelectronic materials to a significant extent. We investigate the excitation kinetics of a repulsive impurity doped quantum dot initiated by the application of external white noise with special reference to noise shape. We have exploited white noise of Gaussian and Lorentzian shapes. The said shapes in effect alter the range of spatial correlation of the white noise. We have considered both additive and multiplicative noise (in Stratonovich sense). In conjunction with the shape, the noise strength and the dopant location also fabricate the kinetics in a delicate way. Moreover, the influences of additive and multiplicative nature of the noise on the excitation kinetics have been observed to be prominently different. Interestingly as well as surprisingly enough, in case of additive noise, the noise strength does not affect the kinetics. The investigation reveals that the Lorentzian shape invites more diversities in the excitation kinetics when noise strength and dopant location are varied over a range than the Gaussian one. The Lorentzian shape causes a surge in the excitation rate over the other shape. The present investigation provides some useful perceptions of the functioning of mesoscopic devices where noise plays some profound role. Implications and influences : The present work assumes to have significance in engineering and technological applications of quantum dot nanodevices. Since in most of the devices noise plays some important role, the present study could also sincerely motivate further research on optical properties of those devices in presence of noise.


Considerable progress has been made in domain generalization (DG) which aims to learn a generalizable model from multiple well-annotated source domains to unknown target domains. However, it can be prohibitively expensive to obtain sufficient annotation for source datasets in many real scenarios. To escape from the dilemma between domain generalization and annotation costs, in this paper, we introduce a novel task named label-efficient domain generalization (LEDG) to enable model generalization with label-limited source domains. To address this challenging task, we propose a novel framework called Collaborative Exploration and Generalization (CEG) which jointly optimizes active exploration and semi-supervised generalization. Specifically, in active exploration, to explore class and domain discriminability while avoiding information divergence and redundancy, we query the labels of the samples with the highest overall ranking of class uncertainty, domain representativeness, and information diversity. In semi-supervised generalization, we design MixUp-based intra- and inter-domain knowledge augmentation to expand domain knowledge and generalize domain invariance. We unify active exploration and semi-supervised generalization in a collaborative way and promote mutual enhancement between them, boosting model generalization with limited annotation. Extensive experiments show that CEG yields superior generalization performance. In particular, CEG can even use only 5% data annotation budget to achieve competitive results compared to the previous DG methods with fully labeled data on PACS dataset.


Multiple components of the fibrinolytic mechanism (plasminogen, plasmin, antiplasmin, fibrinogen, fibrin degradation products) and factor II (prothrombin) levels were studied in 40 children with cyanotic congenital heart disease (CCHD) prior to corrective surgery. Seven of these were also studied post-operatively. A further 17 children were studied after corrective surgery only. Pre-operatively, increased fibrinolysis could bedemonstrated in only 7.5-12% of patients, and there was no correlation between the levels of fibrinolytic components and the severity of polycythemia or post-operative blood loss. There was no evidence of fibrinolysis post-operatively. Pre-operatively, low prothrombin levels were common (25%), were correlated with the amount of post-operative bloodloss and were restored to normal by corrective surgery. Hypoprothrombinaemia is one of the most significant haematological abnormalities in CCHD.


Oleaginous yeast are known to synthesize and accumulate large amount of intracellular triacylglycerol. Hence, they are considered to be one of the most promising alternate sources for oil production. In this regard, the present study was undertaken to isolate, characterize and screen oleaginous yeast for biomass and lipid production. Eighty yeast isolates were obtained from 19 soil samples collected from different districts of Karnataka. Out of 80 isolates, ten isolates were confirmed to be oleaginous based on Sudan Black B staining. These isolates were further analyzed for biomass and lipid production. The reference strain Debaryomyceshansenii var. hansenii was also used in the study. The highest biomass and lipid production of 806.03 mg/100ml and 123.51 mg/100ml respectively was recorded by the isolate OYB-1 followed by OYH-2 with biomass production of 790.59 mg/100ml and lipid production of 120.50 mg/100ml. Hence the isolate OYB-1 can be exploited for biodiesel production.


The framework of the PLAYOUT design system supports hierarchical decomposition, multiple representations, realization alternatives, versioning, and concurrency. It includes a universal meta data schema, based on an object-oriented data model, a design database, and a design flow manager. The design work is done by toolboxes. A methodology for interfacing the toolboxes and the database system, called the data management interface, is presented. It handles the exchange of the design data as a toolbox transaction. This nonstandard transaction includes the data retrieval and preparation for the toolbox, synchronization with other transactions, and consistency check of the toolbox output data. If the check fails, the transaction in reset and the toolbox data are removed from the database. The toolbox transactions are started by the design flow manager. New toolboxes can be easily adapted to this framework by adding a toolbox description written in an object-oriented retrieval language.<<ETX>>


This paper examines the meaning of 'autonomy' in European social dialogue, starting from the definition of social dialogue as adopted by the Commission and the social partners in various ways. In addition, the paper considers the applicability of collective autonomy parameters - as traditionally developed by labour law and industrial relations theory - especially after the amendments made by the Lisbon Treaty. Finally, the paper explores social dialogue as a governance model using the conceptual perspective of political science. The analysis leads to two main arguments: first, autonomy should be seen as a primarily procedural matter, related to the implementation of European collective bargaining outputs rather than to a real independence from institutions in managing negotiations. Second, autonomous agreements should be recognized as having relevance for the European legal system, even though defined as soft-law sources. In this regard, a comparison with the open method of coordination adds further meaning to autonomy in the context of European social dialogue.


Hyperinsulinaemia has proved to be a key link in the enigmatic generation of the symptoms of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), i.e. anovulatory infertility and the skin stigmata induced by hyperandrogenism. Regression of these symptoms may be achieved by reducing the hyperinsulinaemia. As obesity exaggerates the expression of the symptoms induced by hyperinsulinaemia, a low calorie diet and lifestyle change resulting in loss of weight for obese women with PCOS is capable of reversing these symptoms. Insulin-sensitizing agents, predominantly metformin, have been examined for their ability, in all patients with PCOS, to achieve similar beneficial changes to those induced by loss of weight in the obese. While the scientific value of many of these studies is questionable and solid evidence of efficiency and safety is not complete, the honourable intent of lowering high insulin levels in this way prompts the bottom line of this debate to strike a note of cautious optimism that insulin-sensitizing agents will be of some clinical usefulness both in the short-term aiding of infertility treatment and, possibly, in the prevention of the long-term sequelae for this troublesome and very prevalent condition.


The nucleotide sequence (2617 nucleotides) of virus-like double-stranded (ds) RNA 3a in a diseased isolate, Log1/3-8d2 (Ld), of the ascomycete fungus Ophiostoma novo-ulmi has been determined. One strand of the dsRNA contains an open reading frame (ORF) with the potential to encode a protein of 718 amino acids, and the complementary strand contains two smaller ORFs with the potential to encode proteins of 178 and 182 amino acids, respectively. The large ORF contains 12 UGA codons which code for tryptophan in ascomycete mitochondria and has a codon bias typical of mitochondrial genes, consistent with the localization of Ld dsRNAs within the mitochondria. The amino acid sequence contains motifs characteristic of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRps). This putative RdRp was shown to be related to putative RdRps of mitochondrial dsRNAs of another ascomycete and a basidiomycete fungus and also to a putative RdRp encoded by the mitochondrial genome of Arabidopsis thaliana. In multiple sequence alignments, the fungal mitochondrial dsRNA-encoded RdRp-like proteins formed a cluster, ancestrally related to the RdRps of the yeast 20S and 23S RNA replicons and of the positive-stranded RNA bacteriophages of the Leviviridae family, but distinct from RdRps of other families and genera of fungal RNA viruses and related plant and animal RNA viruses. Northern blot analysis with RNA 3a strand-specific probes indicated that nucleic acid extracts of Ld contain more single-stranded (positive-stranded) RNA than dsRNA, consistent with an evolutionary relationship between RNA 3a and positive-stranded RNA phages.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the baseline data of cancers in the Jinchang Cohort, this paper examined trends in cancer mortality among adults investigated in Jinchang, Gansu province from 2001 to 2010.

METHODS
Mortality data were collected from company departments through administrative documents, death certificates, etc. Trend analyses of cancer mortality were performed on the basis of 925 cancer deaths between 2001 and 2010.

RESULTS
The crude mortality rate of cancer continuously increased from 161.86 per 100,000 in 2001 to 315.32 per 100,000 in 2010, with an average increase of 7.69% per year in the Jinchang Cohort (16.41% in females compared to 6.04% in males), but the age-standardized mortality rate increased only in females. Thirteen leading cancers accounted for 92.10% of all cancer deaths. The five leading causes of cancer mortality in males were lung, gastric, liver, esophageal, and colorectal cancer, whereas those in females were lung, liver, gastric, breast, and esophageal cancer.

CONCLUSION
The overall cancer mortality rate increased from 2001 to 2010 in the Jinchang Cohort, with greater rate of increase in females than in males. Lung, breast, and gastric cancer, in that order, were the leading causes of increased cancer mortality in females.


Osteoarthritis is a heterogeneous disease characterized by progressive loss of cartilage. The earliest biochemical features, which precede gross pathological changes, include non-uniform loss of proteoglycans associated with increase of water content in tissue and finally, fibrillation of the tissue's collagen network. Loss of proteoglycans decreases the ability of cartilage to withstand compressive loading and makes the tissue softer and more susceptible to wear and fibrilation. If the early loss of proteoglycans is detectable by a non-invasive optical technique, progression of the disease may be arrested using, for example, pharmacologic or surgical intervention. When an electric field is applied to cartilage by an electrical stimulator, the current-generated stress gradients are produced and stress deformation occurs. Since differential phase optical coherence tomography is very sensitive to subsurface stress deformation, we propose to stimulate cartilage electrically and detect stress gradients before gross signs of cartilage degeneration appear. Detection of depth-resolved electromechanical stress gradients in cartilage using differential phase optical coherence tomography may be useful to monitor non-invasively cartilage degeneration. Since the streaming potential and other electrokinetic effects in cartilage are directly proportional to proteoglycan density, application of an electric field in cartilage combined with depth-resolved phase sensitive optical measurements may provide a sensitive indicator of cartilage viability on the molecular-level.


Nanofluids are colloidal solutions of nanometer sized particles in a base fluid. They exhibit enhanced thermal conductivity and viscosity compared to the base fluid from which they are prepared. The variation of thermal conductivity and viscosity of ethylene glycol based alumina and copper oxide nanofluids with respect to particle volume concentration and temperature were investigated. The increase in thermal conductivity values were slightly greater than the prediction of Hamilton Crosser model and the effective viscosity of nanofluids were much higher than the values predicted by Einstein-Batchelor model. No consistent trend was observed for temperature dependence of relative effective viscosity of nanofluids. The stability of nanofluids increased with increase in viscosity of the base fluid and decreased with increasing particle volume concentration. These results are helpful in extending the use of nanofluids to various fields such as industrial cooling and lubrication. Keywords—cooling; nanofluids; thermal conductivity; viscosity; stability


OBJECTIVE: To study the effects of adjunctive gabapentin on agitation in severely and persistently mentally ill (SPMI) inpatients. METHOD: Eleven chronic SPMI inpatients on stable psychotropic medication regimens were evaluated before and after the initiation of adjunctive gabapentin for six months. The following psychometric tests were used: Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Corrigan Agitated Behavior Scale (CABS), and Clinical Global Impression (CGI)–Severity. Data collection was accomplished via retrospective chart review. An internal reliability check indicated that a chart review BPRS is significantly predictive of one performed face-to-face. RESULTS: Statistically significant reductions were found at six months for each assessment instrument (p > 0.05, two-tailed). BPRS scores were reduced from 40.6 to 33.2, CABS from 34.4 to 25.0, and CGI—Severity from 5.9 to 5.3. The bulk of the BPRS reduction was accounted for by several subscores exclusive of those assessing affective/anxious symptomatology. Adverse effects were minimal. Two patients were discharged 12 and 17 months after implementation of gabapentin. CONCLUSIONS: Adjunctive gabapentin appears to be associated with a reduction in agitation in chronically hospitalized SPMI patients. Controlled, prospective trials are needed before any definitive conclusion can be drawn regarding the role of gabapentin in the treatment of this group of patients.


BACKGROUND
Degenerative lumbar instabilities are one of the major reasons for low back pain, especially in elderly people. There is still controversy in the literature about the clinical outcome of instrumented monosegmental fusions compared to noninstrumented posterolateral fusions.

MATERIAL/METHODS
In this study we described the postoperative outcome of 33 patients who underwent posterolateral monosegmental spinal fusion:instrumented (17 patients)or noninstrumented (16 patients).All patients received the same instrumentation system. Medical history (considering daily activities,sports,social contacts and quality of life),clinical examination and radiological analysis served as evaluation parameters. Data were collected by a questionnaire based on the Oswestry Disability Score for low back pain.

RESULTS
86.6%of all subjects showed an improvement of postoperative health status. Although patients with fusion without internal fixation needed a reduced dose of postoperative analgesics compared to the monosegmental non-instrumented group,there were no statistical differences in patient-reported,clinical and radiographical outcome between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS
The results do not indicate a benefit in outcome from added instrumentation in elective lumbar fusions. This should be considered in each single case when a spinal fusion in the treatment of degenerative lumbar instability is indicated.


Continued size reduction of semiconductor microelectronic circuits increases their sensitivity to ultra small particulate contaminants. A form of self-replicating particulate is bacteria found in ultrapure water systems. The bacteria can micromask plasma etches causing electrical shorts between adjacent conduction paths, thereby providing a key yield loss mechanism when fabricating high density circuits. This paper discusses defects caused by water born bacteria in tight pitch repetitive patterns found in high density memory circuits. Using high resolution wafer inspection tools and scanning electron microscopy, intentionally introduced bacteria were located on wafers before plasma etching and the same locations were inspected after the etch was completed. While in some cases the defect formed followed the bacteria shape, in many instances the post-etch defects did not resemble the original bacteria in any way. Besides electrical shorts between conducting regions, due to the specifics of the technology, defects due to bacteria micromasking of dry etches can also cause failures between two layers of polysilicon. The "before" and "after" data provided by this work present a means of identifying a key defect source, namely bacteria, based on defect appearance.


Cephapirin, a beta-lactam antibiotic, was administered intravenously to five healthy subjects in a dose of 1 g. Renal clearances of cephapirin, beta 2-microglobulin, uric acid and amino acids were measured during the experiment and compared to timed control data, i.e. when no cephapirin was given. Renal clearance of cephapirin decreased when plasma concentrations declined. As protein binding of cephapirin is constant over a wide plasma concentration range, this finding may indicate that cephapirin is reabsorbed in the kidney by a saturable process. Renal clearance of endogenous amino acids, particularly those belonging to the basic group increased after cephapirin. There was no change in renal clearance of beta 2-microglobulin which excludes a general toxic effect on tubular reabsorption of endogenous substances caused by cephapirin. A flow dependent increase of uric acid clearance was observed. Our results are suggestive of a competition between cephapirin and amino acids for some common step in the tubular reabsorption process.


AgCu nanoparticles were prepared through hydrogen-reduction-assisted Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis (USP) and the Hydrogen Reduction (HR) method. The changes in the morphology and crystal structure of nanoparticles were studied using different concentrated precursors. The structure and morphology of the mixed crystalline particles were characterized through X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The average particle size decreased from 364 nm to 224 nm by reducing the initial solution concentration from 0.05 M to 0.4 M. These results indicate that the increase in concentration also increases the grain size. Antibacterial properties of nanoparticles against Escherichia coli were investigated. The obtained results indicate that produced particles show antibacterial activity (100%). The AgCu nanoparticles have the usage potential in different areas of the industry.


Soil-borne nematodes establish close associations with several bacterial species. Whether they confer benefits to their hosts has been investigated in only a few nematode-bacteria systems. Their ecological function, therefore, remains poorly understood. In this study, we isolated several bacterial species from rhabditid nematodes, molecularly identified them, evaluated their entomopathogenic potential on Galleria mellonella larvae, and measured immune responses of G. mellonella larvae to their infection. Bacteria were isolated from Acrobeloides sp., A. bodenheimeri, Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, Oscheius tipulae, and Pristionchus maupasi nematodes. They were identified as Acinetobacter sp., Alcaligenes sp., Bacillus cereus, Enterobacter sp., Kaistia sp., Lysinibacillus fusiformis, Morganella morganii subsp. morganii, Klebsiella quasipneumoniae subsp. quasipneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. All bacterial strains were found to be highly entomopathogenic as they killed at least 53.33% G. mellonella larvae within 72h post-infection, at a dose of 106 CFU/larvae. Among them, Lysinibacillus fusiformis, Enterobacter sp., Acinetobacter sp., and K. quasipneumoniae subsp. quasipneumoniae were the most entomopathogenic bacteria. Insects strongly responded to bacterial infection. However, their responses were apparently little effective to counteract bacterial infection. Our study, therefore, shows that bacteria associated with soil-borne nematodes have entomopathogenic capacities. From an applied perspective, our study motivates more research to determine the potential of these bacterial strains as biocontrol agents in environmentally friendly and sustainable agriculture.


Most surface features of the Moon were named after famous people (especially astronomers and physicists); other names were formed from common nouns at the time when the mapping of the Moon had just begun. These latter names remind us that the dark spots on the Moon observable from the Earth were suspected to be bodies of water (seas, lakes and swamps) by the early astronomers. The paper discusses in detail the names of moon craters, mostly named after scientists, including some Hungarian ones. The author also discusses related orthographical problems (transliteration, hyphenation, upper and lower-case letters), presenting the forms suggested by astronomers.


Food classification serves as the basic step of image-based dietary assessment to predict the types of foods in each input image. However, foods in real-world scenarios are typically long-tail distributed, where a small number of food types are consumed more frequently than others, which causes a severe class imbalance issue and hinders the overall performance. In addition, none of the existing long-tailed classification methods focus on food data, which can be more challenging due to the inter-class similarity and intra-class diversity between food images. In this work, two new benchmark datasets for long-tailed food classification are introduced, including Food101-LT and VFN-LT, where the number of samples in VFN-LT exhibits real-world long-tailed food distribution. Then, a novel two-phase framework is proposed to address the problem of class imbalance by (1) undersampling the head classes to remove redundant samples along with maintaining the learned information through knowledge distillation and (2) oversampling the tail classes by performing visually aware data augmentation. By comparing our method with existing state-of-the-art long-tailed classification methods, we show the effectiveness of the proposed framework, which obtains the best performance on both Food101-LT and VFN-LT datasets. The results demonstrate the potential to apply the proposed method to related real-life applications.


Modern hypnosis started with the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), who believed that the phenomenon known as mesmerism, or animal magnetism, or fluidum was related to an invisible substance--a fluid that runs within the subject or between the subject and the therapist, that is, the hypnotist, or the "magnetizer". The term hypnosis was introduced in the 1840s by a Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795-1860), who believed the subject to be in a particular state of sleep--a trance. In the late 19th century, a French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) thought hypnotism to be a special physiological state, and his contemporary Hyppotite-Marie Bernheim (1840-1919) believed it to be a psychological state of heightened suggestibility. Sigmund Freud, who studied with Charcot, used hypnosis early in his career to help patients recover repressed memories. He noted that patients would relive traumatic events while under hypnosis, a process know as abreaction. Freud later replaced hypnosis with the technique of free associations. Today, hypnosis is used as a form of therapy (hypnotherapy), a method of investigation to recover lost memories, and research tool. According to Caplan & Sadock, F.A. Mesmer is generally thought of as the fons et origo of modern psychotherapy; and from the early techniques of mesmerism, it is said, have evolved the more elaborate and sophisticated therapeutic measures of the analyst and his colleagues. Although Mesmer was certainly dealing with individuals suffering from a variety of neurotic disorders, and though the clinical successes he achieved were the result of psychological processes that his procedures induced in his patients, Mesmer's theoretical formulations, his understanding of the nature of the treatment he developed, and his specific procedures were all totally different from those of the 20th century analyst. He was one of the corne stones in the development of psychoanalysis through hypnosis mainly of hysterical patients.


In this article I offer an overview of my doctoral dissertation, which studied the social imaginary of consumerism, and the psychological subjectivity it produces, through the dream - as both a leitmotif or thematic lens, and the empirical object of research. For such I employed an interdisciplinary exploratory outlook, whose theoretical framework first discusses the symbolic imaginaries (G. Durand) and their relations with the unconscious psyche, dream, imagination, and subjectivity (C. G. Jung), and then explores their relationships with consumption (Baudrillard, Bauman) and its semiotic imaginaries and ideology, focusing on the concepts of consumption dreams and dream-worlds of consumption. The main research aim was to explore how night dreams represent the colonization of subjectivity by the imaginary of consumerism. The method consisted in a multiple-case study in which each night dream was taken as a case and interpreted through Jungian hermeneutics. Findings stress that night dreams can offer a deep sociocultural critique; in them the imaginary of consumption appeared as a totalizing mass ideology engendering colonization of both symbolic imaginaries and the subject and her unconscious psyche. Conclusions emphasize such colonization as an anthropological mutation - the progressive commodification and dehumanization of the subject.


Reaction of dihydropyran with propiolic acid and N- iodosuccinimide gave an iodo ester which was cyclized under free-radical conditions to form an (E) iodomethylene lactone. Photolysis of this lactone could be controlled to generate mixtures of (E) and (Z) iodomethylene lactones, or alternatively the iodine-free methylene lactone. The structures of some by-products of the iodo ester formation have been shown to be a succinimide derivative and two stereoisomers of a diiodo acetal. X-Ray determination of the structure of one of the diiodo acetal isomers is described.


RacerPro is a software system for building applications based on ontologies. The backbone of RacerPro is a description logic reasoner. It provides inference services for terminological knowledge as well as for representations of knowledge about individuals. Based on new optimization techniques and techniques that have been developed in the research field of description logics throughout the years, a mature architecture for typical-case reasoning tasks is provided. The system has been used in hundreds of research projects and industrial contexts throughout the last twelve years. W3C standards as well as detailed feedback reports from numerous users have influenced the design of the system architecture in general, and have also shaped the RacerPro knowledge representation and interface languages. With its query and rule languages, RacerPro goes well beyond standard inference services provided by other OWL reasoners.


The use of a device consisting of alternating layers of high and low refractive index porous silicon, arranged as a Fabry–Perot cavity, as an inexpensive and miniature refractometer is investigated. The position of the reflectance minimum depends on the pore structure as well as on the material filling the pores. We show that the presence of an interfacial layer at the internal silicon surfaces plays a crucial role in determining the quantitative relationship between the position of the reflectance minimum (i.e. the optical output of the device) and the refractive index of the medium filling the pores (i.e. the material whose presence is being sensed). The intended application of the device is in chemical and possibly biological sensing rather than in the accurate absolute determination of refractive indices.


ABSTRACT Lymphatic filariasis is known to be associated with diminished CD4+ Th1 and elevated CD4+ Th2 responses to parasite-specific antigens. The roles of cytokine-expressing CD8+ T cells in immune responses to filarial infections are not well defined. To study the roles of CD8+ T cells expressing type 1, type 2, and type 17 cytokines in filarial infections, we examined the frequencies of these cells in clinically asymptomatic, patently infected (INF) individuals, directly ex vivo and in response to parasite or nonparasite antigens; these frequencies were compared with the results for individuals with filarial lymphedema (i.e., clinical pathology [CP]) and those without active infection or pathology (i.e., endemic normal [EN]). INF individuals exhibited significant decreases in the frequencies of CD8+ T cells expressing tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), gamma interferon (IFN-γ), and interleukin-22 (IL-22) at baseline and/or in response to filarial antigens, compared with CP and EN individuals. In contrast, the same individuals exhibited significant increases in the frequencies of CD8+ T cells expressing IL-4, IL-5, IL-9, IL-13, and IL-21, compared with CP and/or EN individuals. Curative treatment resulted in significantly increased frequencies of CD8+ T cells expressing IL-2 and significantly decreased frequencies of CD8+ T cells expressing type 2 cytokines. Finally, the regulation of these responses appears to be independent of IL-10 and transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), since blockade of IL-10 or TGF-β signaling did not significantly alter the frequencies of type 1 or type 2 cytokine-expressing CD8+ T cells. Our findings suggest that alterations in the frequencies of cytokine-expressing CD8+ T cells are characteristic features of lymphatic filarial infections.


Palliative care for those who need it should be an integral part of National Health Service (NHS) practice in all settings in the UK. This study used a focus group and individual structured questionnaires, completed during a semi-structured interview, to gain an insight into how different professionals in the hospital view palliative care. An assessment was made of their understanding of it, previous training and current knowledge. The respondents also discussed training needs and personal experiences. The findings show that previous training was variable but, in general, relatively young and inexperienced staff were working in the hospital under enormous pressures of workload, staff shortages and without experienced role models from whom to learn the complexities of palliative care. Communication difficulties focused around the lack of support and the inherent problems of multidisciplinary team working resulting in frustration and less than optimum care being given. Rapid staff turnover compounded the problems. Although staff were keen to learn, clinical workload always took priority over training. The following recommendations arose from the study: undergraduate training should be standardized, and postgraduate training and support should be ongoing and flexible to accommodate the diversities of knowledge and difficulties encountered in attending set sessions.


ATP hydrolysis by the maltose transporter (MalFGK(2)) is regulated by maltose binding protein (MBP). Binding of maltose to MBP brings about a conformational change from open to closed that leads to a strong stimulation of the MalFGK(2) ATPase. In this study, we address the long-standing but enigmatic observation that unliganded MBP is also able to stimulate MalFGK(2). Although the mechanism of this stimulation is not understood, it is sometimes attributed to a small amount of closed (but unliganded) MBP that may exist in solution. To gain insight into how MBP regulates the MalFGK(2) ATPase, we have investigated whether the open or the closed conformation of MBP is responsible for MalFGK(2) stimulation in the absence of maltose. The effect of MBP concentration on the stimulation of MalFGK(2) was assessed: for unliganded MBP, the apparent K(M) for stimulation of MalFGK(2) was below 1 microM, while for maltose-bound MBP, the K(M) was approximately 15 microM. We show that engineered MBP molecules in which the open-closed equilibrium has been shifted toward the closed conformation have a decreased ability to stimulate MalFGK(2). These results indicate that stimulation of the MalFGK(2) ATPase by unliganded MBP does not proceed through a closed conformation and instead must operate through a different mechanism than stimulation by liganded MBP. One possible explanation is that the open conformation is able to activate the MalFGK(2) ATPase directly.


Previously electric-field-induced transitions from helical to planar structures in bulk liquid crystals were considered to take place with unwinding of helix. We show that the transition to the planar structure in polar smectic with frustrating interlayer interaction can occur without unwinding but through the formation of a periodic modulated structure with successive left-hand and right-hand sense of rotation in every half period. With field the amplitude of the left-right rotation decreases and a planar structure is formed. This mechanism of transition can take place in the short-pitch SmC(α)(*) phase formed as a result of frustrating interaction.


Undercover ethnography and perpetrator research in Syria

 Research on perpetrators of mass violence in authoritarian contexts is beset by a number of challenges, most importantly the difficulty of managing subject positionality and transparency. For my research on Syrian perpetrators I resorted to the method of undercover ethnography in order not to jeopardize myself and my interviewees, and to circumvent the double prohibitive contexts of the secrecy of the topic, and the censorship of the Syrian government.


Fourteen unvaccinated and seronegative ewes were experimentally infected with bovine virus diarrhoea virus around day 60 of pregnancy. Two other groups of pregnant ewes served as control animals. The animals were followed with ultrasound scanning to study the status of the fetus and with frequent blood sampling for analysis of progesterone and 15-keto-13,14-dihydro-PGF2 alpha, two hormones that could reflect the propagation of the infection. The unvaccinated ewes responded to the infection with abortion, resorption of the fetus, mummification or no changes at all. The endocrinological changes reflected in a most adequate way the pathological changes in the uterus. Detailed endocrinological studies can contribute to the understanding of the pathogenesis of some infectious diseases that affect reproduction.


Polar codes, introduced recently by Arıkan, are the first family of codes known to achieve capacity of symmetric channels using a low complexity successive cancellation decoder. Although these codes, combined with successive cancellation, are optimal in this respect, their finite-length performance is not record breaking. We discuss several techniques through which their finite-length performance can be improved. We also study the performance of these codes in the context of source coding, both lossless and lossy, in the single-user context as well as for distributed applications.


Protein-protein interactions are important in carrying out many biological processes and functions. These interactions may be either permanent or of temporary nature. Several studies have employed tools like solvent accessibility and graph theory to identify these interactions, but still more studies need to be performed to quantify and validate them. Although we now have many databases available with predicted and experimental results on protein-protein interactions, we still do not have many databases which focus on providing structural details of the interacting complexes, their oligomerisation state and homologues. In this work, protein-protein interactions have been thoroughly investigated within the structural regime and quantified for their strength using calculated pseudoenergies. The PPCheck server, an in-house webserver, has been used for calculating the pseudoenergies like van der Waals, hydrogen bonds and electrostatic energy based on distances between atoms of amino acids from two interacting proteins. PPCheck can be visited at . Based on statistical data, as obtained by studying established protein-protein interacting complexes from earlier studies, we came to a conclusion that an average protein-protein interface consisted of about 51 to 150 amino acid residues and the generalized energy per residue ranged from -2 kJ mol(-1) to -6 kJ mol(-1). We found that some of the proteins have an exceptionally higher number of amino acids at the interface and it was purely because of their elaborate interface or extended topology i.e. some of their secondary structure regions or loops were either inter-mixing or running parallel to one another or they were taking part in domain swapping. Residue networks were prepared for all the amino acids of the interacting proteins involved in different types of interactions (like van der Waals, hydrogen-bonding, electrostatic or intramolecular interactions) and were analysed between the query domain-interacting partner pair and its remote homologue-interacting partner pair. We found that, in exceptional cases, homologous proteins belonging to the same superfamily, but with remote sequence similarity, can share similar interfaces.


The next generation of mobile communication systems must be secured because of the ongoing entrance of numerous security attacks. Thus, to secure the underlying network, the 3GPP has designed an authentication and key agreement protocol, 5G-AKA, to safely and stably access the mobile services. However, some recent observations indicate that 5G-AKA has numerous shortcomings such as perfect forward secrecy violation, malicious Serving Network (SN), de-synchronization attack, privacy theft, stolen device, and denial of Service (DoS) attacks when the user uses the roaming mobile services. Considering the shortcomings of existing protocols and the requirement to offer increased security, we propose a provable secure, efficient 5G-AKA authentication protocol using the blockchain. The security features of the proposed protocol are examined using the Real-Or-Random (ROR) logic and Scyther tool. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated, which shows that it is the least costly compared to its counterparts in terms of computational and communication costs. In addition, the comparison of the Ethereum blockchain depicts that the proposed protocol takes less transaction and execution costs compared to its counterparts.


Across modified landscapes, anthropic factors can affect habitat selection by animals and consequently their abundance and distribution patterns. The study of the spatial structure of wild populations is crucial to gain knowledge on species' response to habitat quality, and a key for the design and implementation of conservation actions. This is particularly important for a low-density and widely distributed species such as the mara (Dolichotis patagonum), a large rodent endemic to Argentina across the Monte and Patagonian drylands where extensive sheep ranching predominates. We aimed to assess the spatial variation in the abundance of maras and to identify the natural and anthropic factors influencing the observed patterns in Península Valdés, a representative landscape of Patagonia. We conducted ground surveys during the austral autumn from 2015 to 2017. We built density surface models to account for the variation in mara abundance, and obtained a map of mara density at a resolution of four km2. We estimated an overall density of 0.93 maras.km−2 for the prediction area of 3,476 km2. The location of ranch buildings, indicators of human presence, had a strong positive effect on the abundance of maras, while the significant contribution of the geographic longitude suggested that mara density increases with higher rainfall. Although human presence favored mara abundance, presumably by providing protection against predators, it is likely that the association could bring negative consequences for maras and other species. The use of spatial models allowed us to provide the first estimate of mara abundance at a landscape scale and its spatial variation at a high resolution. Our approach can contribute to the assessment of mara population abundance and the factors shaping its spatial structure elsewhere across the species range, all crucial attributes to identify and prioritize conservation actions.


The osteomyelitic lesions of Egyptian mummies, the wound infections of medieval soldiers, and contemporary outbreaks of neonatal sepsis all point to one fact: Staphylococcus aureus is as old as medicine and is an extremely successful pathogen, capable of causing invasive disease at all stages of life. The genotypic changes responsible for the S. aureus confer cross-resistance to virtually all beta-lactam antimicrobials, including oxacillin and the other antistaphylococcal beta-lactams that are now most often prescribed. The recent whole-genome sequencing of S. aureus strongly supports the concept that horizontal gene transfer is a common evolutionary mechanism in S. aureus, even though staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) transfer itself may only rarely occur; hence, horizontal transfer of mecA or SCCmec is a plausible hypothesis to account for emergence of community-acquired oxacillin-resistant S. aureus (ORSA) isolates that are dissimilar to health care setting acquired isolates. The clinical implications are obvious: treatment failure with accompanying complications or death may result if an antistaphylococcal beta-lactam antibiotic is used for serious infections and the infecting strain proves to be resistant; infections caused by oxacillin-resistant strains may be more difficult to manage or more expensive to treat, in part because vancomycin is inherently less efficacious; and the increasing prevalence of ORSA will inevitably increase vancomycin use, adding further to the problem of antimicrobial-resistant gram-positive bacteria. Immediate and widespread action to reduce vancomycin use can halt the emergence of fully resistant strains, increasing prevalence of the strains in health care settings, and then their eventual emergence in community settings.


.I Abstract: The system of equations for generation firequencies and the scattering * coefficient were derived when specific conductivities of all layers are not equd to zero. These equations were used for simulation of the very large scattering coefficient with particular parameters of semiconductor laser.


: Currently hydroponic cultivation is gaining popularity all over the world because of efficient resources management and quality food production. Soil based agriculture is now facing various challenges such as urbanization, natural disaster, climate change, indiscriminate use of chemicals and pesticides which is depleting the land fertility. In this article various hydroponic structures viz. wick, ebb and flow, drip, deep water culture and Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) system; their operations; benefits and limitations; performance of different crops like tomato, cucumber, pepper and leafy greens and water conservation by this technique have been discussed. Several benefits of this technique are less growing time of crops than conventional growing; round the year production; minimal disease and pest incidence and weeding, spraying, watering etc can be eliminated. Commercially NFT technique has been used throughout the world for successful production of leafy as well as other vegetables with 70 to 90% savings of water. Leading countries in hydroponic technology are Netherland, Australia, France, England, Israel, Canada and USA. For successful implementation of commercial hydroponic technology, it is important to develop low cost techniques which are easy to operate and maintain; requires less labour and lower overall setup and operational cost.


This research induces the eco calendar research on the basis of the time information of ecological information through the conversion of ecological recognition. Time is an 'idea' more than anything else. It is an idea with a systematic order of cause and effect that can be recognized in our consciousness. The calendar that is expressed by limiting with numbers through a complicated process for a long time can grasp the past days and the coming days. In the past many biologists proved that even in the dark the rhythm of plants follows the 'one day cycle' without change. This does not mean it is an absolute immutability, but this does mean that the average length of a cycle accords with 24 hours, and the flowering information can be expressed as a calendar design. Carolus Linneau, a Swedish botanist, showed that many flowers blooms their petals at a specific time of the day, and through this he found out that the processes of flowering are clearly different from each other according to time. Therefore he presented an eco calendar that makes it possible to grasp the meaning of ecology and time with the flowering information that is organized in the order of time. A calendar is made with a year as the cycle and thus I classified the process of growth of the sunflower that is an annual plant for an eco calendar design and combined with time information. However the shape on the overall flow of the calendar was complicated, and the meaning could be read in the order of time according to the figure of flowers but when seeing it on the whole, various information could make a confusion on the flow of time. Therefore, it is also good to express with a certain flower, but when a calendar design is analogized with the quality of seasonality of the nature, and when the flowering time is formed with only flowers that bloom at a clear time and that do not overlap, it could be possible to naturally understand the meaning of time. I presented the ecological quality that judges the figure of blooming and falling flowers classified by the seasons according to the change of time and the ecological meaning. The blooming time of each flower was chosen centering on the weather of the Northeast Asia. I applied each element according to the quality of the ecological information considering the visual elements of the graphic information. In addition, I designed the calendar centering on the causes of functionality, aesthetic and simplicity of the transmission of information. The final calendar design is simple and easy to classify, but it is somewhat complicated due to the colors of flowers of many shapes. From now on a design with a creative idea that not only forms the information of time successively on the basis of this kind of ecological research but also considers the communication in various viewpoints and uses appropriately the method to grant a new meaning should be presented.


Objective : Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) triggers systemic inflammation. Inflammatory system activation may cause deteoriation in liver and renal functions. In our study we aimed to search the effect of on-pump CPB and beating heart off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery techniques on renal and liver functions. Methods: Sixty four patients who underwent coronary artery surgery were included in the study and were divided into two groups: on-pump CPB group (40) and beating heart off-pump CABG group (24), prospectively. The blood samples were collected for preoperative and postoperative levels of blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and AST to ALT ratio at 24 th and 48 th hours. Results: Clinical and demographic features were similar in both groups. There were no statistically significant difference in levels of preoperative BUN, creatinine, AST, ALT, AST to ALT ratio. The postoperative 24 th hour plasma levels of creatinine, AST and AST/ALT were lower in beating heart off-pump CABG group but BUN and ALT levels were similar among the two groups. The postoperative 48 th hour plasma levels of BUN, creatinine, AST and AST/ALT were lower in beating heart off-pump CABG group but levels of ALT were similar in both groups. Conclusion: Based on our findings we conclude that beating heart off-pump CABG has lower negative effect on liver and renal function than on-pump CPB. Abstract of this manuscript was presented in 7th Congress of Update in Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery in association with TCT Mediterranean as a poster.


The issue of zakah (obligatory alms), which always has a substantial role in the literature of Islamic jurisprudence, is a matter of debate among the schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). One of the controversial issues is about who would be considered to be under an obligation to pay zakah. Regarding this issue, one of the agenda topics was the problem of zakah of the property of children under puberty. In this research, I will discuss which property of children was disputed in terms of obligation of zakah and I will also handle positions of schools of fiqh on this issue in conjunction with their motives for these positions


Laser plasma soft x-ray microscope using Wolter mirror optics was applied to three-dimensional observation of a biological specimen. To obtain a high-resolution image with an x-ray charge-coupled device camera, a high-magnification imaging system with a relay mirror was used. To obtain the three-dimensional image of a biological specimen, imaging tomography was used. The three-dimensional image of a diatom was obtained with a spatial resolution of 250nm.


A novel wavelength-switchable single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) implemented based on a sigma architecture that is composed of a ring loop and a linear standing wave arm is experimentally demonstrated. Gain competition that prevents stable dual-wavelength oscillation is effectively suppressed by placing the gain medium in the standing-wave arm and by introducing polarization hole burning (PHB) via polarization multiplexing of the two lasing wavelengths in the ring loop. The SLM operation is guaranteed by an ultranarrow Fabry- Perot filter (FPF) introduced by absorption saturation in an unpumped erbium-doped fiber (EDF) and the gain saturation in the gain medium. In addition, the ring cavity forms a Lyot filter for each wavelength. Thus, wavelength switching is achieved by simply adjusting the polarization state of either wavelength. By beating the two SLM wavelengths at a photodetector (PD), a microwave signal with a frequency tunable from approximately 10 to approximately 50 GHz is experimentally generated.


We present a new approach, namely kernel regression, to determine photometric redshifts for 399 929 galaxies in the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Kernel regression is a weighted average of spectral redshifts of the neighbours for a query point, and higher weights are associated with points that are closer to the query point. One important design decision when using kernel regression is the choice of bandwidth. We apply 10-fold cross-validation to choose the optimal bandwidth, which is obtained as the cross-validation error approaches its minimum. The results show that the optimal bandwidth is different for different input patterns: the lowest rms error of photometric redshift estimation arrives at 0.019 using colour+eClass as the inputs, the lowest rms errors comes to 0.020 using ugriz+eClass as the inputs. Where eClass is a galaxy spectral type, and 0.021 using colour+ r as the inputs. Thus, in addition to parameters such as magnitude and colour, eClass is a valid parameter with which to predict photometric redshifts. Moreover, the results suggest that the accuracy of estimating photometric redshifts is improved when the sample is divided into early-type and late-type galaxies; in particular, for early-type galaxies, the rms scatter is 0.016 with colour+eClass as the inputs. In addition, kernel regression achieves high accuracy when predicting the photometric eClass (σ rms = 0.034) using colour+ r as the input pattern. For kernel regression, the accuracy of the photometric redshifts does not always increase with the number of parameters considered, but is satisfactory only when appropriate parameters are chosen. Kernel regression is a comprehensible and accurate regression method. Experiments reveal the superiority of kernel regression over other empirical training approaches.


Nitrogen (N) fertilization is critical for cereal production; however, its low use efficiency poses both economic and environmental concerns. Urea deep placement (UDP) in lowland rice fields is one of the best currently applicable management techniques to increase N use efficiency (NUE) and crop productivity. Multi-location experiments conducted in Bangladesh in 2014-2015 have demonstrated several benefits of UDP use including reduced N losses through ammonia volatilization and greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO) emissions. Nitrogen loss as N2O and NO emissions were measured continuously throughout rice-growing and fallow seasons using an automated gas sampling and analysis system. Across the years and sites, UDP increased yield on average by 21% as compared to broadcast urea while using at least 25% less fertilizer. UDP reduced floodwater ammonium and ammonia volatilization similar to the control (N0) treatment, while both were significantly higher in broadcast urea treatments. UDP reduced N2O emissions by up to 80% as compared to broadcast urea under continuous flooded (CF) conditions. The effects of UDP on N2O emissions under alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation practices were site specific: depending on the duration and intensity of soil drying, emissions were reduced under mild soil drying but increased with more intense soil drying. These results confirm that UDP not only increases NUE and grain yields but also reduces negative environmental impacts including N2O emissions.


Introduction The use of routine antithrombotic prophylaxis is not recommended for advanced cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The effect of bevacizumab-containing therapy on the risk of thromboembolic events remains controversial in ovarian cancer patients. We report on the incidence of thromboembolic events and the prevalence of antithrombotic therapy in patients enrolled in the single arm, phase IV, MITO-16A/MaNGO-OV2A trial. Methods In this trial, potential prognostic factors for patients with previously untreated ovarian cancer receiving a combination of platinum-based chemotherapy and bevacizumab were explored and the final analysis has already been reported. In this secondary analysis, the occurrence of thromboembolic events and the use of antithrombotic therapy were described according to the clinical characteristics of the patients. The prognostic role of thromboembolic events for progression-free and overall survival were also evaluated. Results From October 2012 to November 2014, 398 eligible patients were enrolled. 76 patients (19.1%) were receiving some type of anticoagulant or anti-aggregant treatment at baseline. Overall, 24 thromboembolic events were reported (cumulative incidence of 6.0%). The occurrence of thromboembolic events was not associated with baseline patient characteristics and was not modified by the use of antithrombotic prophylaxis (HR 0.60, 95% CI 0.18 to 2.0). Occurrence of thromboembolic events was not associated with progression-free survival (HR 1.34, 95% CI 0.83 to 2.15) or overall survival (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.37 to 1.61). Conclusions In our study, a 6.0% rate of thromboembolic events was reported during treatment with bevacizumab plus chemotherapy. Thromboembolic events were not associated with the clinical characteristics of the patients or with the use of antithrombotic prophylaxis, nor did they significantly affect the long-term prognosis. Trial registration number NCT01706120


The spectral region near and above 3 /spl mu/m, which is important in particular for spectroscopy of molecular fundamental stretching modes is not accessible by femtosecond optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) based on the widely spread material BaB/sub 2/O/sub 4/ (BBO). Here we report the highest energies in this spectral range (up to 20 /spl mu/J at 3.5-3.6 /spl mu/m) obtained with a femtosecond traveling-wave LiNbO/sub 3/:MgO OPA.


Let $A \to B$ be a $G$-Galois extension of rings, or more generally of $\mathbb{E}_\infty$-ring spectra in the sense of Rognes. A basic question in algebraic $K$-theory asks how close the map $K(A) \to K(B)^{hG}$ is to being an equivalence, i.e., how close algebraic $K$-theory is to satisfying Galois descent. An elementary argument with the transfer shows that this equivalence is true rationally in most cases of interest. Motivated by the classical descent theorem of Thomason, one also expects such a result after periodic localization.
We formulate and prove a general result which enables one to promote rational descent statements as above into descent statements after periodic localization. This reduces the localized descent problem to establishing an elementary condition on $K_0(-)\otimes \mathbb{Q}$. As applications, we prove various descent results in the periodic localized $K$-theory, $TC$, $THH$, etc. of structured ring spectra, and verify several cases of a conjecture of Ausoni and Rognes.


In this paper we review the main modes of variability associated with the West African monsoon (WAM) rainfall as predicted by three operational forecast systems: the ECMWF System 4 (S4), NCEP CFSv2 (CFSv2), and the Meteo-France System 3 (MF3). A new methodology to assess the interannual variations of the WAM rainfall is considered, where monthly rainfall is averaged zonally over 10oW-10oE before estimating the two leading modes of WAM rainfall variability. It is found that S4 is skilful when predicting the two leading modes of WAM rainfall variability, MF3 is skilful when predicting the Guinean regime, and CFSv2 has no skill when predicting the Guinean regime and low correlation when predicting the Sahelian regime.


: The Cerenkov luminescence imaging (CLI) has built a bridge between the nuclear and optical imaging, and opened a new direction of optical imaging in clinic translation. However, the wide applications of CLI are limited by the weak intensity and poor penetration capacity. By coupling highly sensitive charged coupled device camera with optical fiber bundle based endoscope, Cerenkov luminescence endoscopy (CLE) has recently been developed to overcome these limitations. Using the CLE, diseases deep buried in the body, such as the gastrointestinal (GI) tract cancer, can be identified by radiotracer, which can hardly be detected by CLI from the surface of the body. Here, we review recent progress on CLI and CLE, including the principle, imaging instrument, as well as applications. In addition, the intensity enhanced strategies for Cerenkov luminescence are presented, which may provide an ideal solution to the obstacle of CLE in the translation studies. In the end, we present possible future directions of the CLE technology.


The Care Journal is a tool developed by the Josie King Foundation to promote interactive exchange among providers and patients/families. The Care Journal was implemented in a pediatric intensive care unit, and surveys were administered to assess perceptions about use. Parents who used the Care Journal and nursing staff found it to be a useful tool that improved communication, made parents feel more knowledgeable and empowered, and improved parents' overall perception of the hospital stay.


The authors present 15 unstable fractures of the wrist treated by external fixation. The fractures were classified based on the AO system, while results were evaluated clinically (Gartland and Werley method modified by Sarmientio) and radiographically. In two cases stabilization with metal wiring was used in addition to external fixation. Results were excellent in 4 cases, good in 9, unsatisfactory in 2 (1 fair, 1 poor). Intraoperative complications included a compound fracture of the second metacarpus, and late complications included a case of algodystrophy.


Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is widely used in the pathological and functional studies of the brain, such as epilepsy, tumor diagnosis, etc. Automated accurate brain tissue segmentation like cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF), gray matter (GM), white matter (WM) is the basis of these studies and many researchers are seeking it to the best. Based on the truth that multi-channel segmentation network with its own ground truth achieves up to average dice ratio 0.98, we propose a novel method that we add a fourth channel with the ground truth of the most similar image's obtained by CBIR from the database. The results show that the method improves the segmentation performance, as measured by average dice ratio, by approximately 0.01 in the MRBrainS18 database. In addition, our method is concise and robust, which can be used to any network architecture that needs not be modified a lot.


Food acquisition and predation avoidance are key drivers of herbivore behaviour. We investigated the interaction of top-down (predator) and bottom-up (food, fire, thermal) effects by measuring the relationship between wolf (Canis lupus L., 1758) predation risk perceived by elk (Cervus elaphus L., 1758) and elk landscape use. We conducted fecal pellet and wolf scat surveys in three valleys with three wolf population levels (Saint Mary: low; Waterton: moderate; North Fork: high). In the North Fork, 90% of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) stands burned recently; the other valleys had no fire. We created predictive models of elk pellet density that incorporated bottom-up and top-down variables. All valleys had a high elk pellet density (≥10 per 100 m2). Wolf scat density was similar where there was no fire, but one order of magnitude greater in burned areas. Elk pellet density was lower in the North Fork, a predation-related response. In all valleys, site-specific elk density declined as impediments to detecting or escaping wolves increased, and elk avoided aspen, except for North Fork unburned areas. Models that best predicted elk density contained bottom-up and top-down effects. At local scales, high predation risk negatively influence elk occurrence, suggesting that even with minimal wolf exposure elk avoid risky sites.


An elementary theory of the interaction of shock waves with solids which are electrically polarisable by stress is given and discussed with regard to the generation of electric power pulses. The solid is assumed to be a one-dimensional slab between plane electrodes, which are connected through an external load circuit. It is shown that the temporal current build-up in the external circuit, due to electric polarisation and electric conduction behind the shock front of the stress wave, space charge and electric polarisation relaxations, is determined by an inhomogeneous Volterra integration equation. The latter is solved analytically, and current pulse forms for incident step-shaped stress waves are calculated. For shocked solids with cross-section A approximately 1 m2 and thickness a approximately 10-2 m, energies of the order Delta E approximately 104 J per pulse might be achievable.


Introduction :
Oral implants improve the quality of life for many of patients.
Commercially pure titanium has been and still is the material of choice for oral endosseous implants. Ceramics have however been proposed as an alternative to titanium, because of esthetic and material properties.
At present, the material most often used for producing oral implants is yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal with or without the addition of a small percentage of alumina.
The fact is that ceramic materials are white and mimic natural teeth better than the gray titanium, allows an 'improved' esthetic reconstruction for patients. Furthermore, potential health hazards that may result from the release of titanium particles and corrosion products are excluded. However some problems such as lower osseointegration has been reported with ceramic implants compared to titanium implants.

Aim:
This poster describes the advantages, disadvantages and applications of ceramic implants.

Conclusion :
Zirconia, may have the potential to be a successful implant material, although this is as yet unsupported by enough clinical investigations.


The patient was a 48-year-old male with a right subclavicular tumor. The pathological diagnosis showed primitive neuroectodermal tumor(PNET)because of the rosette formation and the positive neurogenic marker.Radiation was administered at a total dose of 50 Gy, because surgical resection would induce the loss of right arm function. CT examination demonstrated a reduction of the primary tumor and new multiple lung metastases. The patient received intravenous AI regimen(ADM and IFM). After the 7th course, both the primary tumor and multiple lung metastases decreased. AI regimen might be effective for PNET.


The present research investigates representational ability as a cognitive factor underlying the suggestibility of children's eyewitness memory. The misinformation effect is used as an index of children's suggestibility, and performance on the false belief task is used as an assessment of children's representational abilities (N = 117). Analyses that considered the effect of representational ability and general memory ability on children's susceptibility to misleading information showed that differences in representational ability and general memory ability predicted participants' susceptibility to misleading information. These results demonstrate that the eyewitness memory of children who lack either multirepresentational abilities, sufficient general memory abilities, or both (i.e., most 3- and 4-year-olds) is less accurate than the eyewitness memory of children with both multirepresentational abilities and sufficient memory abilities (i.e., most 6-year-olds and adults). Thus, it appears that the earliest age at which children's eyewitness memory can be considered to be similar to that of adults is 6 years of age, when children's mental representational abilities are similar to those of adults. These results suggest that one factor underlying children's vulnerability to misleading information is the number of representations of an event that they can simultaneously hold and compare.


When operators of dimension 6 are added to the standard WiLson action in lattice gauge theories, physical positivity is lost in general. We show that a transfer matrix can nevertheless be defined. Its properties are, however, unusual: complex eigenvalues may occur (leading to damped oscillatory behaviour of correlation functions), and there are always contributions in the spectral decomposition of two-point functions that come with a negative weight.


Introduction: Pharmacologic maintenance of normoglycemia in diabetes cannot prevent the eventual complications mainly due to protein glycation-induced cell death, dysregulated antioxidant defense and signal transduction in affected tissues. The rate-limiting enzyme of this process, aldose reductase, is therefore a pharmacologic target. To date, nine inhibitors of this enzyme have been developed. Ranirestat has completed two Phase III clinical trials. The objective of this evaluation is to summarize and provide expert opinion on the status of ranirestat with an emphasis on its pharmacokinetics in the context of its potential effects to prevent/treat diabetic complications. Areas covered: A qualitative systematic literature search of PubMed through November 2013 using MeSH terms – aldose reductase inhibitors, diabetic neuropathy, AS-3201, ranirestat, diabetic complications and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics – identified relevant publications limited to human and rodent (mouse and rat) and English-language studies. Expert opinion: Ranirestat is a well-tolerated front-line inhibitor. It reproducibly exhibits some degree of measurable objective beneficial outcomes in diabetic neuropathy. It is the furthest advanced in clinical trials with some depth of supporting preclinical data. Trials in subjects with newly diagnosed neuropathy along with the identification of objective biomarkers/measurements of efficacy will be critical in identifying the real value and effect of ranirestat.