There is an imperative need to develop methods that can rapidly and accurately determine individual exposure to radiation for screening (triage) populations and guiding medical treatment in an emergency response to a large-scale radiological/nuclear event. To this end, a number of methods that rely on dose-dependent chemical and/or physical alterations in biomaterials or biological responses are in various stages of development. One such method, ex vivo electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) nail dosimetry using human nail clippings, is a physical biodosimetry technique that takes advantage of a stable radiation-induced signal (RIS) in the keratin matrix of fingernails and toenails. This dosimetry method has the advantages of ubiquitous availability of the dosimetric material, easy and non-invasive sampling, and the potential for immediate and rapid dose assessment. The major challenge for ex vivo EPR nail dosimetry is the overlap of mechanically induced signals and the RIS. The difficulties of analysing the mixed EPR spectra of a clipped irradiated nail were addressed in the work described here. The following key factors lead to successful spectral analysis and dose assessment in ex vivo EPR nail dosimetry: (1) obtaining a thorough understanding of the chemical nature, the decay behaviour, and the microwave power dependence of the EPR signals, as well as the influence of variation in temperature, humidity, water content, and O₂ level; (2) control of the variability among individual samples to achieve consistent shape and kinetics of the EPR spectra; (3) use of correlations between the multiple spectral components; and (4) use of optimised modelling and fitting of the EPR spectra to improve the accuracy and precision of the dose estimates derived from the nail spectra. In the work described here, two large clipped nail datasets were used to test the procedures and the spectral fitting model of the results obtained with it. A 15-donor nail set with 90 nail samples from 15 donors was used to validate the sample handling and spectral analysis methods that have been developed but without the interference of a native background signal. Good consistency has been obtained between the actual RIS and the estimated RIS computed from spectral analysis. In addition to the success in RIS estimation, a linear dose response has also been achieved for all individuals in this study, where the radiation dose ranges from 0 to 6 Gy. A second 16-donor nail set with 96 nail samples was used to test the spectral fitting model where the background signal was included during the fitting of the clipped nail spectra data. Although the dose response for the estimated and actual RIS calculated in both donor nail sets was similar, there was an increased variability in the RIS values that was likely due to the variability in the background signal between donors. Although the current methods of sample handling and spectral analysis show good potential for estimating the RIS in the EPR spectra of nail clippings, there is a remaining degree of variability in the RIS estimate that needs to be addressed; this should be achieved by identifying and accounting for demographic sources of variability in the background nail signal and the composition of the nail matrix.


With the increase in astronomical surveys, astronomers are faced with the challenging task of analyzing a large amount of data in order to classify observed objects into hard-to-distinguish classes. This article presents a machine learning-based method for the automatic spectral classification of stars from the latest release of the SDSS database. We propose the combinatorial use of spectral data, derived stellar data, and calculated data to create patterns. Using these patterns as inputs, we develop a Random Forest model that outputs the spectral class of the observed star. Our model is able to classify data into six complex classes: A, F, G, K, M, and Carbon stars. Due to the unbalanced nature of the data, we train our model considering three data use cases: using the original data, using under-sampling, and over-sampling data techniques. We further test our model by using a fixed dataset and a stratified dataset. From this, we analyze the performance of our model through statistical metrics. The experimental results showed that the combinatorial use of data as an input pattern contributes to improve the prediction scores in all data use cases, meanwhile, the model trained with augmented data outperforms the other cases. Our results suggest that machine learning-based spectral classification of stars may be useful for astronomers.


In practical robot motion planning, robots usually do not have full models of their surrounding, and hence no complete and correct plan exists for the robots to be executed fully. In most real-world problems a robot operates in just a partially-known environment, meaning that most of the environment is known to the robot at the time of planning, but there exists incomplete information about some 'hidden' variables which represent potential blockages (e.g. open/closed doors, or corridors congested with other robots or obstacles). For these hidden variables, the robot has a probability distribution estimation and a prioritized preference over their possible values. In this paper, to deal with the problem of choosing an optimal policy for planning in offline mode, a stochastic dynamic programming model is developed, which is converted to and solved by linear programming. Next, a heuristic method is proposed for conditional planning in the presence of numerous hidden variables which produces near-optimal plans.


As with many other Islamic institutions, the origins of the qa≠s ̨s ̨ (storyteller) and the wa≠'iz ̨ (preacher) are obscure. However, from an early point in the Islamic period, storytellers and popular preachers became the principal channel of instruction for the common people, those not engaged in a rigorous course of study of the religious sciences under the supervision of one or more scholars. By the sixth/twelfth century, the Hanbali jurist and theologian Ibn al-Jawz|, whose famous treatise on the storytellers, Kita≠b al-Qus ̨s ̨a≠s ̨ wa-al-Mudhakkir|n ("The Book of Storytellers and Those Who Remind [People of God's Blessings]"), sought to rein in their excesses and set proper bounds for the material which they related, acknowledged their important role in the transmission of religious knowledge to the common people (al-'awa≠mm). Drawing on the ethical injunction related in the Quran in surah 3, verse 104 and elsewhere, he remarked that God had sent prophets "to draw people to the good and warn them against evil," and after them the ulama who are distinguished by their learning ('ilm). "Moreover," he said, "the storytellers and the preachers were also given a place in this order [amr] so as to exhort


In the recently proposed LACE framework for collective entity resolution, logical rules and constraints are used to identify pairs of entity references (e.g. author or paper ids) that denote the same entity. This identification is global: all occurrences of those entity references (possibly across multiple database tuples) are deemed equal and can be merged. By contrast, a local form of merge is often more natural when identifying pairs of data values, e.g. some occurrences of 'J. Smith' may be equated with 'Joe Smith', while others should merge with 'Jane Smith'. This motivates us to extend LACE with local merges of values and explore the computational properties of the resulting formalism.


Five new species of Myrsidea parasitic on members of the avian family Cardinalidae are described. They and their type hosts are M. lightae ex the Buff-throated Saltator, Saltator maximus (Statius Muller, 1776), M. markhafneri ex the Slatecolored Grosbeak, S. grossus (Linnaeus, 1766), M. pittendrighi ex the Streaked Saltator, S. striatipectus Lafresnaye, 1847, and M. johnklickai and M.sychrai ex the Blue-black Grosbeak, Cyanocompsa cyanoides (Lafresnaye, 1847). Results from sequences of a portion of the mitochondrial COI gene for several specimens of two of these species and other species of Myrsidea are presented.


UNLABELLED
PURPOSE AND STUDY DESIGN: The purposes of this qualitative descriptive study were to describe the perceptions of Armenian childbearing women about the meaning of giving birth and to conduct an outcomes evaluation of the Erebuni Women's Wellness Center.

METHOD
Fifteen women who had given birth to healthy term infants during the past 8 months and who received health-care services at the Erebuni Medical Center, Yerevan, Armenia participated in audiotaped interviews. Questions were asked about the meaning of their childbirth experience and their satisfaction with their health care.

RESULTS
Themes included the meaning of giving birth within the Armenian sociocultural context, enriching the family perspective across generations of Armenian families and receiving supportive quality health care.

DISCUSSION AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
This research is an example of an international collaborative work conducted with the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) who established women's wellness centres in Eastern Europe in conjunction with United States Agency for International Development. Outcomes data is very important in order to ensure the quality of health care provided. Clinical personnel found evaluative data were helpful in improving services to women and newborns. Because of dramatic socioeconomic situation in Armenia and many changes that have happened in their health care over the past 18 years, it is important to document the outcomes of AIHA partnership programmes in improving the health of childbearing women and their families. Listening to the voices of Armenian childbearing women is essential to guide health-care initiatives.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of using different accelerometer cut-points and epoch on reports of sedentary behavior and physical activity (PA) levels in a group of Kenyan school children. The PA levels of 26 children from the Nandi region of Kenya aged 4-16 years, was assessed for 3 consecutive days using uniaxial accelerometry combined with a PA diary. No significant differences were found in counts per minute (CPM) (753±214, 753±212, 724±220, 723±229, 721±220, 733±212 CPM; P>0.05) or total monitoring time (689±109, 693±110, 693±108, 693±109, 695±108, 693±110 min; P=1.00) across all six epochs. Time spent engaging in sedentary behavior was not effected by epoch or cut-point (Sirard cut-point, 590±87, 592±87, 594±88, 596±89, 598±90, 598±94 min; Reilly cut-point, 573±86, 567±87, 554±85, 554±88, 550±86, 547± 89min; P>0.05), while the amount of light (Sirard cut-point, 38±11, 43±12, 76±22, 79±23, 81±24, 81±23 min; Puyau, 70±20, 87±27, 104±35, 111±38, 120±34, 123±42 min; Pate, 596±87, 595±87, 595±87, 597±88, 601±90, 604±94 min; P<0.05) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (Sirard, 73±25, 71±26, 37±23, 35±24, 32±24, 28±24; Puyau, 59±22, 52±23, 45±24, 41±25, 38±26, 36±28; Pate, 108±29, 107±40, 110±31, 109±32, 106±33, 102±34 min; P<0.05) were influenced by choice of cut-points and epoch. Shorter epochs, such as 1 and 5 s, resulted in significantly less reported minutes of light PA (Sirard, 1 s 38±11 and 5 s 43±12 min vs. 76±22, 79±23, 81±24 and 81±23 min; Puyau, 1 s 70±20 and 5 s 87±27 vs. 104±35, 111±38, 120±43 and 123±42 min; P<0.05) and significantly more minutes of moderate and vigorous activity (Sirard 1 s 73±25 and 5 s 71±26 vs. 37±23, 35±24, 32±24 and 28±24 min; Puyau 1 s 59±22 vs. 60 s 36±28 min P<0.05). Lower cut-points led to significantly more minutes of light, moderate and vigorous PA compared to higher cut-points (see above; P<0.05). In conclusion, choice of cut-points and epoch significantly influences PA classification, where it may be more appropriate to use smaller epochs when assessing PA levels of active children. Additionally, one should be wary when comparing PA calculated using different cut-point values.


The genus Xiphovelia Lundblad is recorded for the first time from Vietnam and X. vietnamica sp. nov. is described as new. Photographs of the male and female dorsal habitus, male legs, and male genitalic structures are provided. Pseudovelia vittiformis Ye, Polhemus & Bu, 2013 and P. tibialis tibialis Esaki & Miyamoto, 1955 are newly recorded from Vietnam. Together with two other species of Pseudovelia Hoberlandt from southern Vietnam, four species of Pseudovelia are now known from the country. A distribution map for the species of Xiphovelia and Pseudovelia occurring in Vietnam also is provided.


1. Ovary formation in Tenthredinidae follows the general hymenopterous plan. 2. Nurse-cell phenomena are as follows: the nuclei of the first nutritive chamber are surrounded by a chromatin cloud and many of them contain irregular darkly-staining masses of nuclear material, which masses may also be present in the riper chambers; the granules given off from the nuclei into the chromatin cloud eventually become surrounded by a vesicle and give rise to the 'secondary' or 'accessory' nuclei. 3. Oocyte nucleolar phenomena show the following: the nucleoli in Thrinax mixta and Platycampus luridiventris give rise to buds which become free; in one case buds were observed close to the inner surface of the nuclear membrane in Allantus (Emphytus) pallipes are shown what are apparently later stages of this process, viz. the passage of the buds through the nuclear membrane into the egg substance and their formation there into accessory nuclei. 4. The fate of the nurse-cells is shown in the older nutritive chambers and oocytes--the cell boundaries become indistinct and some of the cytoplasm, together with contained accessory nuclei, passes by a narrow channel into the oocyte. The cytoplasmic flow becomes more marked in the last chamber. In the final stages, shown in the last chamber, all the cells lose their boundaries and the common cytoplasm passes into the oocyte, carrying with it the free nuclei to their engulfment and absorption in the ooplasm. 5. Some of the follicle-cells surrounding the last oocyte in Pristiphora padi, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh of Thrinax mixta, contain granular dark-staining material which may completely fill the cell, these granules probably originating from the nucleus. They pass out of the follicle-cell into the egg where they become surrounded by vesicles, and, finally, present an appearance indistinguishable from that of accessory nuclei. 6. Secondary or accessory nuclei, therefore, have a threefold origin, namely, from the nuclei, of nurse-cells and oocytes and from follicle-cells, their source of derivation in the last being the follicular nuclei. 7. The follicle-cells of the distal pole of the last oocyte of one ovariole of Pristiphora padi have processes which insinuate themselves into the ooplasm. 8. The phenomena of oogenesis described in these four species of sawflies, while embracing certain which have not hitherto been recorded, conform, in essentials, with those already discovered for Hymenoptera generally.


The Punjab Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and community-based organizations (CBOs) collaboratively manage the rural water supply (RWS) system in Punjab, Pakistan since the mid-nineties. In a command-and-control administration, a collaborative approach to managing RWS is peculiar. The study addresses this gap by analyzing the relational behavior as a monitoring and enforcement mechanism to ensure community compliance with government-produced institutions for managing RWS. Four focus group interviews were conducted with the CBO members and the survey of households from the same villages. Using the partial-least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM), the mediating influence of frequent communication, commitment of users, and shared meaning on community compliance with institutions was analyzed. The integrated results from the two methods imply that trained CBOs better self-organize, as they communicate frequently with the community members. It is recommended that for the sustainability of the RWS system, regular government support for CBOs underscores the success of collaborative collective action, though trained CBOs better manage RWS in weak monitoring by the government.


We developed a novel single cell measurement of photosynthesis activity using fluorescent oxygen sensor in a microchamber with gas barrier wall. We used Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, which is a series of cyanobacteria. The chamber wall contains oxygen sensor and gas barrier wall to measure the dissolved oxygen concentration in the chamber. The oxygen concentration is changed by aerobic respiration and photosynthesis of Synechocystis. The variation of the oxygen concentration was used for evaluation of aerobic respiration and photosynthesis of single Synechocystis. To achieve precise oxygen measurement, we used our proposed compensation method for photo-degradation of fluorescence. We demonstrated photosynthesis evaluation of single Synechocystis and calculated the photosynthetic performance of sugar production of single Synechocystis.


ABSTRACT: Since 1999 regulators have attempted to improve the monitoring of financial reporting by exerting significant pressure on firms to appoint accounting financial experts (AFEs) to their audit committees. Yet, many firms have been reluctant to do so, which has made these firms more prone to financial reporting problems. We examine appointments of AFEs to the audit committees of S&P 1500 firms during the period 1999–2008 to explore whether concerns about the status of these experts discouraged firms from appointing them. We find that typical AFEs (CFOs and retired audit partners) have lower director status (board seats, trusteeships, social club memberships, and elite education) than other types of directors, and that this status gap is greater for higher status firms (larger, better connected, and more admired firms). Moreover, we find that higher status firms are less likely to appoint AFEs, suggesting that status-related concerns reduce the demand for accounting financial expertise on audit commi...


As the human cost of the pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) is still being witnessed worldwide, the development of broad‐spectrum antiviral agents against emerging and re‐emerging viruses is seen as a necessity to hamper the spread of infections. Various targets during the viral life‐cycle can be considered to inhibit viral infection, from viral attachment to viral fusion or replication. Macromolecules represent a particularly attractive class of therapeutics due to their multivalency and versatility. Although several antiviral macromolecules hold great promise in clinical applications, the emergence of resistance after prolonged exposure urges the need for improved solutions. In the present article, the recent advancement in the discovery of antiviral peptides and polymers with diverse structural features and antiviral mechanisms is reviewed. Future perspectives, such as, the development of virucidal peptides/polymers and their coatings against SARS‐CoV‐2 infection, standardization of antiviral testing protocols, and use of artificial intelligence or machine learning as a tool to accelerate the discovery of antiviral macromolecules, are discussed.


OBJECTIVES
The prognosis of pN3b oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC) remains heterogeneous. We sought to improve the prognostic stratification of patients with pN3b OCSCC through a combined analysis of FDG-PET parameters and clinicopathological risk factors (RFs).

METHODS
From 2001 to 2019, complete data on maximum standardized uptake values derived from FDG-PET of neck metastatic nodes (SUV-nodal-max) and clinicopathological RFs were available for 257 patients with pN3b disease.

RESULTS
Using the 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) as the outcome of interest, the optimal cutoff points for SUV-nodal-max and lymph node ratio (LNR) were 15.9 and 0.17, respectively. The 5-year DFS rates/(number of cases) for patients with pN3b disease were as follows: SUV-nodal-max < 15.9 versus ≥ 15.9, 49%(226)/21%(31), p = 0.000003; LNR < 0.17 versus ≥ 0.17, 49%(230)/17%(27), p = 0.000117; absence versus presence of neck level IV/V metastases, 49%(230)/15%(27), p = 0.000004. Multivariable analyses revealed that SUV-nodal-max ≥ 15.9, LNR ≥ 0.17, and level IV/V metastases were independent prognosticators for 5-year distant metastases (DM), DFS, disease-specific survival (DSS), and overall survival (OS) rates. Based on these variables, we devised a scoring system that identified three distinct prognostic subgroups at low (score 0, n = 190), intermediate (score 1, n = 51), and high (scores 2-3, n = 16) risk. The 5-year rates of patients with pN3b disease deemed to be at low/intermediate/high risk were as follows: DM, 31%/52%/89%; DFS, 54%/26%/0%; DSS, 59%/36%/8%; OS, 42%/31%/6%, respectively; all p < 0.001.

CONCLUSIONS
A scoring system based on SUV-nodal-max, LNR, and level IV/V metastases improves the prognostic stratification of OCSCC patients with pN3b disease.


Usually, parametric synthesis of controllers for a closed control system is carried out for nominal conditions, and then the source performance for other load resistance values is estimated. As a result, the control system may not always provide the sufficient mode stabilization with a changing load resistance value. The paper suggests an alternative version. It deals with estimation of dynamic transient responses for the required mode parameter in an open-circuit system as well as with determination of transfer functions and the controller parameters for the most complicated version of transient response curves. The paper presents the results of simulation modelling of dynamic operating conditions for LLC converter using Simulink Matlab as well as load characteristics for three versions of a closed control system.


Multiscale wavelet-based representation of data has shown great noise removal abilities when used in data filtering. In this paper, a multiscale Kalman filtering (MSKF) algorithm is developed, in which the filtering advantages of multiscale representation are combined with those of the Kalman filter to further enhance its estimation performance. The MSKF algorithm relies on representing the data at multiple scales using stationary wavelet transform (SWT), applying Kalman filtering on the scaling coefficients at each scales, and then selecting the optimum scale at which the Kalman filter minimizes a cross validation mean square error criterion. The multiscale state space models used in MSKF are also derived using the SWT representation. The MSKF algorithm is shown to outperform the conventional Kalman filter through a simulated example, and the reason behind this improvement is the additional filtering advantage gained by the low pass filters used in SWT


Numerical simulations are important tools for understanding the human circulation system in different states of heart failure and exercise, or with a cardiac assist device. However, its application is limited due to the complexity of the numerical model of the human circulation system. To overcome this difficulty, a Graphic User Interface (GUI) has been developed. The GUI was designed to be intuitive; users can set different scenarios using self-explanatory controls, without knowledge of the tasks done in the complex numerical model. The GUI will display the simulated hemodynamic response of the model. This GUI may be used for both education and medical/research purposes.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


Introduction. One of the methods of treating lumbago coming from joints of the articular origin are thermolesions of intervertebral joints. Thermolessions are aimed at damaging the paracentral shoulder of the dorsal branch of lumbar roots, innervating ill joints. Aim. The aim of this work was to assess the quality of life and the level of pain in patients after lumbar thermolesions within a six-month observation period. Material and Methods. 30 patients subject to thermolesion treatments of intervertebral joints in the lumbar section were analysed. The level of pain was being assessed on the VAS scale (Eng. Visual Analogue Scale) and the quality of life with the Oswestry questionnaire before the surgery, on the first day after the surgery, after the first month, three months and after six months. 20 questionnaire forms which were subject to further analysis were returned. Results. On the basis of the analysis of the research conducted, there was noted a reduction of pain intensity as well as of the degree of disability expressed on the VAS and Oswestry Scales present in the early and late period after lumbar thermolesion. Conclusions. Lumbar thermolesion is an effective method of treating the lumbago pain of the articular origin and reducing disability in patients in the early and late period. (JNNN 2016;5(2):76–80)


The chemical changes occurring upon rotational welding with dowels of Canadian wood species sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) were examined by pyrolysis-GC/MS, DSC and XPS anlayses. The analyses performed separately on wood substrate (reference wood) and welded material by pyrolysis-GC/MS, DSC and XPS indicate that the differences in mechanical performances of the two welded woods are due mainly to the differences in original lignin structures as well as in the welding temperatures determined for the two wood species. The more pronounced guaiacyl character of the maple wood lignin seems to explain the preferential condensation reactions of the guaiacyl moieties in maple lignin with formaldehyde and furanic compounds released from lignin and carbohydrates during the fast pyrolysis associated with the welding process. The higher temperature determined for maple wood welding than for birch could be responsible for enhanced miscibility of wood polymers in the welding zone, explaining, therefore, the more significant presence of xylan polymer together with newly formed lignin carbohydrate complex (LCC) in the welded material. The detailed analysis of the compounds identified by pyrolysis-GC/MS, together with the results of the other two methods applied in this study, has confirmed that the S/G ratio cannot be taken as the sole criterion for the discussion of the chemical changes in lignins during welding of wood.


This study describes the literary definition of short story in Brahui fiction. It further discuses the techniques, topics, tendencies and requirements, that on behalf of which Brahui short story May achieve them and get standardization in it. It more emphasis on a hypothesis which is common in regional literatures and they face difficult to differentiate between short story and a fiction or Novel, it has been proved how readers can easily know the distinction between above two literary terms. It has been discuss in detail that Brahui short story begins at 1982. But in Fifties the master piece of Brahui short story Musafir written by Hebat khan, reflects that Brahui literature especially fiction had modern tendencies of writing in its soil. Paper ends with satisfactory thoughts and ideas that now the young writers of Brahui have following the new age requirements and this is being painted in their topics and writings.


This study is entitled The Study of Meaning Behind the Banners of the Bandung Great City Police Unit. The purpose of this study is to determine the meaning of the icons, indexes, symbols on the banner of traffic ad by The Bandung Great City Police Unit for motorcycle riders in Purnawarman Road, Bandung. The method used was qualitative method with the semiotics perspective of Charles Sanders Peirce. The technique of collecting data is in the form of textual analysis, interviews, and literature study. In conclusion, the icon of the traffic ad banner for motorists in Purnawarman Road is aimed at creating a motorist to adhere to traffic signs. In the index, the traffic ad banner is addressed to motorists in Purnawarman Road because many people do not obey the traffic rules. The meaning of the symbols on the traffic ad banner describes a policewoman, as law enforcer, maintains and improves public order. The ad is intended for motorcycle riders in Purnawarman Road to wear a helmet.


The coccolith assemblages from seafloor sediments over the inner shelf in the northern region of the KwaZulu- Natal Bight on the east coast of South Africa were identified and their distribution determined. In all, 29 Recent species and taxonomic groups, as well as 29 reworked species were recorded. The distribution of the Recent species appears to be governed by environmental features that have been documented in other studies: temperature, salinity, nutrient concentration and water circulation pattern, which reveals the long-term existence of a circulation cell in the sector between Durban Bay and the Thukela River. The outer edge of the cell consists of nutrient-enriched mixed layers and is characterised by an enhanced abundance of Gephyrocapsa oceanica, whereas the central region consists of a stratified nutrient-depleted water mass with elevated abundance of Umbilicosphaera sibogae, Florisphaera profunda, and a group of umbelliform species. The elevated levels of G. oceanica, coupled with the rarity of U. sibogae, F. profunda and the umbelliform species, confirm the presence of a permanent upwelling cell off Richards Bay. The maximum abundance of F. profunda found between Richards Bay and Lake Nhlabane indicates a region of nutrient-depleted (except for nitrite) conditions.


Wave propagation in a heterogeneous medium, characterized by a distribution of local elastic moduli, is studied. Both acoustic and elastic waves are considered, as are spatially random and power-law correlated distributions of the elastic moduli with nondecaying correlations. Three models--a continuum scalar model, and two discrete models--are utilized. Numerical simulations indicate the existence, at all times, of the relation, alpha = H, where alpha is the roughness exponent of the wave front in the medium, and H is the Hurst exponent that characterizes the spatial correlations in the distribution of the local elastic moduli. Hence, a direct relation between the static morphology of an inhomogeneous correlated medium and its dynamical properties is established. In contrast, for a wave front in random media, alpha = 0 (logarithmic growth) at short times, followed by a crossover to the classical value, alpha = 1/2, at long times.


The 2013 Data Fusion Contest organized by the Data Fusion Technical Committee (DFTC) of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society aimed at investigating the synergistic use of hyperspectral and Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data. The data sets distributed to the participants during the Contest, a hyperspectral imagery and the corresponding LiDAR-derived digital surface model (DSM), were acquired by the NSF-funded Center for Airborne Laser Mapping over the University of Houston campus and its neighboring area in the summer of 2012. This paper highlights the two awarded research contributions, which investigated different approaches for the fusion of hyperspectral and LiDAR data, including a combined unsupervised and supervised classification scheme, and a graph-based method for the fusion of spectral, spatial, and elevation information.


An experiment was conducted to determine the percentage of rate, nutrient contents and physical properties of grinding and roasting products of freshwater mussel shell. Fresh mussel samples were collected from four different lakes in West Sumatra: Maninjau, Singkarak, Danau Diatas and Danau Dibawah. The samples of about 3 kg each were processed to separate the shell and their body content. The shells were then dried and processed to produce three different products: raw coarse ground, raw fine ground and roasted fine ground. Parameters measured included: percent rate of meal, the content of DM, ash, Ca and P, and physical properties (angle of response, bulk and compacted bulk densities and specific density). The results showed that grinding and roasting gave no significant effect on specific density and mineral content of the meal product. The rate of meal product and bulk density decreased, while angle of response and compacted bulk density increased significantly. It was concluded that both roasting and grinding could not improve both nutrient content and physical properties of freshwater mussel shell.


An important issue in diagnostic problem solving is how to generate and rank plausible hypotheses for a given set of manifestations. Since the space of possible hypotheses can be astronomically large if multiple disorders can be present simultaneously, some means is required to focus an expert system's attention on those hypotheses most likely to be valid. A domain-independent algorithm is presented that uses symbolic causal knowledge and numeric probabilistic knowledge to generate and evaluate plausible hypotheses during diagnostic problem solving. Given a set of manifestations known to be present, the algorithm uses a merit function for partially completed competing hypotheses to guide itself to the provably most probable hypothesis or hypotheses.


Multimedia conferencing services have specific performance requirements with respect to the exchange of continuous data like audio and video streams. One of these requirements is the synchronization within and between related streams. Synchronization solutions relevant for conferencing services that operate in a open distributed environment are applied using the TINA-C service life-cycle model as a road map. We refined the phases of the service life-cycle model using the RM-ODP information, computational and engineering languages which are also adopted by TINA-C. Furthermore, a description is given of the implementation in ANSAware of synchronization for a multimedia conferencing service. Finally, the TINA life-cycle model as a development method is discussed.<<ETX>>


Despite the huge potential of telemedicine services (increasing accessibility of care, increasing quality of care and lowering of healthcare costs), its implementation in daily clinical practice is very limited and most services fade away after a project or pilot phase. The aim of this thesis has been to contribute to knowledge concerning the added value of telemedicine services for physical rehabilitation. For this, two state of the art evaluation studies of telemedicine services for physical rehabilitation (chapter 2 and 3) have been performed and in addition, the actual use of these telemedicine services and its association between actual use and clinical benefit have been addressed (chapter 5 and 6). Results of this thesis show that telemedicine services have potential to comply with the increased demand of care in the field of rehabilitation and other fields. To provide concrete guidelines to other researchers active in the field of evaluation of telemedicine services the "DeChant" framework [4] is refined into a new stage approach framework focusing on four different aspects 1] evaluation objective, 2] evaluation context, 3] evaluation design and 4] evaluation endpoints. Actual use is an aspect that is hugely underexposed given that it is significantly related to clinical outcome and the measure that reflects real adoption of telemedicine by its end users. In addition, based on the knowledge that actual use of telemedicine decreases over time, it is important that new tools and techniques will be developed that improve actual use. It is hypothesized that this can be realized on one hand by enhancing technologies, such as using ambulant technology that allows objective monitoring and feedback and gaming technology but also by addressing implementation strategies such as implementation intentions.


By analyzing a number of very high resolution, nonhydrostatic experiments of baroclinic lifecycles, it was concluded that the intensity of the near-surface baroclinic development influences the upper-level wave to such an extent that it could produce cyclonic or anticyclonic wave breaking. Since the final jet position is equatorward or poleward, the position depends on whether the waves break cyclonically or anticyclonically, respectively. The low-level baroclinicity plays a very important role in the outcome of the wave and feedback to the mean circulation. Using a shallow water model the hypothesis that the intensity of the eddy forcing from the lower layers of the atmosphere can have a profound effect on the disturbances of the upper layers is tested. From these experiments the following is concluded. For weak intensities, the strong effective beta asymmetries due to the earth's sphericity produce anticyclonic wave breaking and a poleward shift of the zonal jet will occur. For moderate forcing, anticyclonic wave breaking occurs and consequently, as before, a poleward shift of the zonal jet will occur. However, there is an important distinction between weak and moderate forcing. In the latter case, the eddy anticyclonic centers are very intense. The influence of the two anticyclones produces a difluence field that will strain the cyclonic vortex along the SW‐NE direction. Consequently, the meridional vorticity flux y9z9 is positive in the north and negative in the south. This process has two effects: thinning the cyclone and producing positive vorticity fluxes on the north, negative fluxes on the south and moving the jet poleward. By increasing the forcing, the cyclone centers become considerably more intense than the anticyclones (CVC) and they are able to deform and thin the anticyclones, thus moving the jet equatorward. This transition is very abrupt; above a threshold amplitude, the life cycle bifurcates to a cyclonic wave breaking. The implications for storm track variability are quite direct. In normal years, at the entrance of the storm track, intense baroclinicity produces CVCs with a slight shift of the jet equatorward. At the last half of the storm track, due to much weaker baroclinicity, anticyclonic wave breaking occurs (AVCs) displacing the jet poleward. The eddies at the entrance of the storm track develop from the baroclinicity of the subtropical jet. Downstream fluxing and weaker surface baroclinicity make the upper-level waves more aloft and barotropic by the middle of the storm track. These waves normally break anticyclonically, enhancing the subpolar eddy-driven jet. In the warm phase of ENSO, more baroclinicity (and subtropical moisture flux) is present in the eastern Pacific Ocean. This enhanced baroclinicity could support more CVCs in the eastern basin, maintaining the subtropical jet further east.


Tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis or lateral elbow tendinopathy) is a self-limiting condition in most patients. Surgery is often offered to patients who fail to improve with conservative treatment. However, there is no evidence to support the superiority of surgery over continued nonoperative care or no treatment. New evidence also suggests that the prognosis of tennis elbow is not influenced by the duration of symptoms, and that there is a 50% probability of recovery every three to four months. This finding challenges the belief that failed nonoperative care is an indication for surgery. In this annotation, we discuss the clinical and research implications of the benign clinical course of tennis elbow. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2023;105-B(2):109–111.


BACKGROUND
Circulating homocysteine, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), is often elevated in chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. Little is known about the risk of elevated homocysteine associated with less advanced renal insufficiency in the community.

METHODS
Serum homocysteine concentration measures (umol/L) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1991-1994 participants who were aged >/=40 years and fasted >/=6 hours (1558 men and 1829 women) were categorized as <9, 9 to 11.9, 12 to 14.9, and >/=15. Renal function levels were determined by Modified Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFRest) (mL/min/1.73 m(2)) and the urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) (mg/g). Cumulative odds ratios (OR) of exceeding any given homocysteine cut point were computed by gender, using ordinal logistic regression. Each model included GFRest (<60, 60 to 90, >/=90), ACR (<15, 15 to <30, >/=30), age, race/ethnicity, red blood cell folate, serum vitamin B(12), and dietary vitamin B(6) intake as independent variables.

RESULTS
The adjusted ORs for elevated homocysteine risk were 9 to 11 times greater in adults with the lowest GFRest levels (<60 mL/min/1.73 m(2)) compared to those with normal GFRest levels. Association measures for marginal GFRest levels (60 to 90 mL/min/1.73 m(2)) were weaker but significant. Albuminuria (ACR >/=30 mg/g) was a significant, independent renal risk factor for elevated homocysteine in men and women (adjusted OR = 1.78, 95% CI 1.08-2.93, and adjusted OR = 1.83, 95% CI 1.21-2.76, respectively) relative to those with low normal albumin excretion, but high normal albuminuria (ACR = 15-30 mg/g) was not.

CONCLUSION
In the general population, renal insufficiency is strongly associated with an increased risk of elevated circulating homocysteine, independent of B vitamin status. These results raise the possibility that elevated homocysteine may be an important risk factor to explain the heavy burden of CVD associated with kidney disease.


This paper investigates a self-tuning steam turbine control scheme designed to improve the quality of control of power system frequency. The recursive least-squares estimation algorithm and minimum-variance control technique are implemented to synthesize the turbogenerator speed control loop. Computer simulations of a 5-unit power system show that employing this type of control is effective in curbing excessive over- and under-frequency deviations and alleviating generator and load sheddings for major disturbances.


The single-current sensor technique obtaining three phase currents from only a DC-link current sensor has been applied to reduce the cost and increase the reliability for various voltage-fed PWM inverters; however, in this technique there are some practical problems, such as unreliable detection of phase currents andphase shift. A new method that overcomes these problems by employing the estimation scheme with identified system parameters is proposed. The Space Vector PWM (SVPWM) strategy is modified to generate the switching pattern adequate for the proposed method. To obtain a good detection in spite of parameter uncertainties, system parameters used in the estimation method are identified using a recursive least square method (RLSM). Experimental results show that the proposed scheme not only provides a very good detection method for three phase currents without current sensors, but also identifies system parameters very well. This proposed method is very simple, has a small detection error, and gives ...


Tuberculosis constitutes a major public health problem in the world. Certain extra-pulmonary locations of tuberculosis disease are very exceptional. Amongst these, tuberculosis of the breast is rare even in countries where this infection is endemic. This form of tuberculosis is characterized by clinical and radiological polymorphisms and might mimic other diseases, especially breast cancer. This retrospective study is entailing seventeen patients treated in the Onco-Gynecology Department of the Mohammed VI Cancer Treatment Center, in the Ibn Rochd University Hospital of Casablanca, for breast tuberculosis, over a period of three years. We report the epidemiological, clinical and paraclinical aspects and we specify the treatment and evolution of the patients.


The main objective of this work was to characterize VA binding sites in multiple anesthetic target proteins. A computational algorithm was used to quantify the solvent exclusion and aliphatic character of amphiphilic pockets in the structures of VA binding proteins. VA binding sites in the protein structures were defined as the pockets with solvent exclusion and aliphatic character that exceeded minimum values observed in the VA binding sites of serum albumin, firefly luciferase, and apoferritin. We found that the structures of VA binding proteins are enriched in these pockets and that the predicted binding sites were consistent with experimental determined binding locations in several proteins. Autodock3 was used to dock the simulated molecules of 1,1,1,2,2-pentafluoroethane, difluoromethyl 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethyl ether, and sevoflurane and the isomers of halothane and isoflurane into these potential binding sites. We found that the binding of the various VA molecules to the amphiphilic pockets is driven primarily by VDW interactions and to a lesser extent by weak hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. In addition, the trend in Delta G binding values follows the Meyer-Overton rule. These results suggest that VA potencies are related to the VDW interactions between the VA ligand and protein target. It is likely that VA bind to sites with a high degree of solvent exclusion and aliphatic character because aliphatic residues provide favorable VDW contacts and weak hydrogen bond donors. Water molecules occupying these sites maintain pocket integrity, associate with the VA ligand, and diminish the unfavorable solvation enthalpy of the VA. Water molecules displaced into the bulk by the VA ligand may provide an additional favorable enthalpic contribution to VA binding. Anesthesia is a component of many health related procedures, the outcomes of which could be improved with a better understanding of the molecular targets and mechanisms of anesthetic action.


The paper describes the hardware implementation and optimization of parallel recursive algorithms that sort data using binary trees. Since recursive calls are not directly supported by hardware description languages, they are implemented using the model of a hierarchical finite state machine (HFSM). Parallel processing is achieved by constructing N binary trees (N>1) and applying concurrent sorting to N trees at the same time with the aid of N communicating HFSMs. The paper presents new results in: 1) parallel sorting algorithms, 2) FPGA-based parallel architectures, and 3) the analysis and comparison of alternative and competitive techniques for implementing parallel recursive algorithms. Experiments demonstrate that the performance of sorting operations is increased compared to previous implementations.


Abstract This study investigates whether exposure to delinquent peers increases the risk of committing delinquent acts. To incorporate a balance argument in a conventional setting, we develop an adjusted exposure level to study an individual's delinquency choice. We show this choice is affected by not only how many delinquent peers an individual directly and indirectly connects with, but also who those peers are. Specifically, exposure to delinquent peers is not universally risky, and could even be protective if the average exposure level of the individual's delinquent peers is significantly less than her own exposure level. In addition, we show that individuals with high exposure levels are more sensitive to structural changes in the delinquent network. Therefore, a policy aiming to isolate key players in the network could be more cost-effective than strengthening the law-enforcement system.


This investigation predicted adolescents' delay of intercourse onset from attitudes, social norms, and self-efficacy about refraining from sexual intercourse. Age, gender, ethnicity, and parental education were also examined as predictors and moderators of the relationships among the 3 psychosocial determinants and onset. The participants (N = 827), part of a cohort initially surveyed in the 9th grade, reported at baseline that they had never engaged in intercourse. The multivariable proportional hazards regression model suggested that adolescents with more positive attitudinal and normative beliefs, as well as those with a parent who graduated from college, were less likely to engage in intercourse in the follow-up period (up to approximately 2 years). Interventions that include an objective to delay onset may benefit from addressing psychosocial determinants, especially attitudes and norms about sexual intercourse.


The problem of decoherence in quantum gravity is discussed in the framework of third quantization. We propose an interpretation of the theory in which the probabilities in our observable universe have to be calculated with the use of the one-universe density matrix, which appear after tracing out irrelevant universes from the 'googolplexus' pure state. Many separate classical universes can emerge in this one-universe density matrix only after subsequent tracing in irrelevant variables.


Introduction. Authoritarianism that desire or tendency to impose its will on others. Is a feature of personality and is an aggressive domination. Authoritarianism represents something more than authoritarianism, as corresponds to such features as: aggressiveness, achievement motivation, assertiveness, discrimination, prejudice and power. Prescriptive attitude seems to have influenced the development of diseases, especially cardiovascular. Aim. The purpose of this study is to understand the level of authoritarianism and quality of life in patients of different branches of the Regional Hospital in Ciechanow and establish a link between hope and subjective health status of patients. Material and methods. The study was conducted among 114 patients in the Regional Hospital in Ciechanow. The control group consisted of healthy people. The method of diagnostic survey. Research tools included: scale of authoritarianism (D-15), Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) and a questionnaire for subjective assessment of health. The obtained results were statistically analyzed and statistical verification of hypotheses. Results. Authoritarianism level among those not hospitalized is significantly lower than in the control group of healthy people. Among the patients staying at the various branches of the lack of statistically significant differences in the level of primary hope. There is a statistically significant relationship between the level of quality of life and the seriousness authoritarianism. Evaluation of quality of life for patients with high scores on the scale is higher. Conclusions. Authoritarianism, as a personality trait may affect the assessment of the quality of life for patients.


OBJECTIVE
Adenomyosis is the consequence of the myometrial invasion by endometrial glands and stroma. Transvaginal ultrasonography plays a decisive role in the diagnosis and monitoring of this pathology. Our study aims to evaluate the efficacy of LNG-IUS (Levonorgestrel Releasing Intrauterine System) as medical therapy. We analyzed both clinical symptoms and ultrasonographic aspects of menometrorrhagia and dysmenorrhea in patients with adenomyosis and the control group.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A prospective cohort study was carried out on 28 patients suffering from symptomatic adenomyosis treated with LNG-IUS. Adenomyosis was diagnosed through transvaginal ultrasonography by an expert sonographer. A control group of 27 symptomatic patients (menorrhagia and dysmenorrhea) without a transvaginal ultrasonographic diagnosis of adenomyosis was treated in the same way. The two cohorts were compared to the efficacy of LNG-IUS on menorrhagia and dysmenorrhea.  Patients are evaluated at the time of LNG-IUS insertion and six months after for: increased uterine volume, globulous uterine morphology, uterine symmetry, alterations in the junctional zone, heterogeneous myometrial texture, presence of myometrial cysts, hyperechogenic lines crossing the myometrium, adenomyomas, menstrual blood loss and dysmenorrhea.

RESULTS
After six months, the uterine volume decreased significantly in both cohorts (p=0.005; p=0.005). Furthermore, uterine symmetry, visibility of the junctional zone, heterogeneity of myometrial texture, presence of myometrial cysts, hyperechogenic lines and adenomyomas improved in patients affected by adenomyosis (p>0.001; p>0.001; p>0.001; p=0.014; p=0.025; p=0.014). The blood loss decreased significantly in both the cohorts (p<0.001) and particularly in adenomyotic patients. Pain relief was observed in all the patients (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
LNG-IUS can be considered an effective treatment for managing symptoms and improving uterine morphology.


Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide and is believed to arise from combinations of genetic and epigenetic disorders. However, besides APC, KRAS, and p53, which are highly targeted by somatic mutations, other genes altered in mutations in CRC patients are under interpreted in their effects and relevance with CRC tumorigenesis. Out of the genes in which we identified 453 nonsynonymous somatic mutations in this exome sequencing study, PCDHB3 was mutated in 30% exome-sequenced cases and was screened in another 104 CRC cases with a 7.02% mutation rate. Meanwhile, PCDHB3 is lowly expressed in 83.7% tumor of CRC patients and CRC cell lines compared to normal controls, which is detected to be caused by loss of heterozygosity and CpG island hypermethylation. In vitro and in vivo experiments revealed that over-expression of wildtype PCDHB3 in DLD1 cells inhibited tumor cell proliferation and migration (56.8% and 47.5% of control), whereas mutant PCDHB3 lacked of the functions. Furthermore, SW480-shRNA cells, which demonstrated a lower level of endogenous PCDHB3, exhibited a larger growth and migration advantage (2.28-fold and 2.26-fold of control). In summary, our study identified PCDHB3 as a tumor suppressor gene in CRC. Loss of PCDHB3 suppressor function results from uncommon genetic mutations affecting the protein sequence as well as decreased expression of functional protein. Citation Format: Wen Ye, Ranyi Liu, Jiangxue Wu, Yingchang Li, Wenlin Huang. Identification of PCDHB3 as a potential tumor suppressor in colorectal cancer by exome sequencing. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 581. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-581


Two new C-glycosylflavonoids celtisides A (1) and B (2) have been isolated from n-butanol-soluble fraction of Celtis africana, along with five known C-glycosylflavonoids vitexin (3), orientin (4), isoswertiajaponin (5), isoswertisin (6), and 2″-O-rhamnosyl vitexin (7) reported for the first time from this species. Their structures were assigned from 1D and 2D NMR spectra. These compounds were investigated for biological activities and showed significant antioxidant and urease inhibitory activities.


This article analyzes Immigration through Collaborative Management both from the theoretical and empirical perspective. First, it describes the key elements for defining the Collaborative Management. Secondly, it tries to verify how to articulate an effective relationship between public - private partnership in the "Program of the Centers for Participation and Integration of Immigrants" into the Community of Madrid.


There are often ideas suggested for consideration, which seem to carry absurdity on their very face. One would smile, who should be asked if the art of swimming could not be acquired without venturing into the water, or if the deaf and dumb were not often fine musicians, or if Washington were not a finished city. The writer is not without his apprehensions, lest there be some, who will be disposed to regard the question he now presents, as absurd on its face; who will speak of the natural language of the deaf-mute, and wonder how there can be an abuse by him of that which constitutes his native vehicle of expressing thought. It was a grand achievement of De l'Epee, when he grasped the crude pantomimic utterances of his first two pupils, and, making their difficulties his own, built up a language of gestures, by means of which he might place himself in ready communication with the class of persons to which he devoted his life. And Hill, of Weissenfels, speaks truly, when he says of the sign language, "it is the element in which the mental life of the deaf-mute begins to germinate; the only means whereby he, on his admission to school, may express his thoughts, feelings and wishes; hence, at first, the only, and consequently, indispensable means of comprehension between teacher and pupil;" and, again, "the most convenient, quick, and ceratin means, in many cases, of making one's self understood by deaf-mutes, whether during tuition or out of school-hours." Far be it from the writer of this article, to deny to the sign language that position of great dignity and importance, which it deserves, in the instruction of the deaf and dumb. Indispensable in the early stages of the course, it is of great value at every step. In explanation, in narration, in correction, in discipline, in free social intercourse, and, above all, in the imparting of religious and moral instruction, the beautiful language of pantomime supplies a lack, the existence of which contributed, probably, more than any other single cause, to that long enthrallment in ignorance, from which the deaf and dumb have but just emerged. In advocating the use of sign language, at almost every stage of progress in the training of a deaf-mute, the writer could be counted as second to none; in acknowledging the force, clearness, and beauty of expression possible in this language, he could be ranked among its most enthusiastic admirers; while he would, at the same time, maintain, with all respect to those of a contrary opinion, that in the abuse of signs, and by this meant their excessive use, may be found one of the gravest defects under which our national system of teaching the deaf is laboring. In advancing this idea, no claim is made to novelty; for the early readers of the Annals will remember the setting forth of a similar view by the first editor (Mr. Luzerne Rae), in an article published eighteen years ago, in which the ground was taken, that "a too abundant and too constant use of signs, to the neglect of dactylology and written language, is the grand practical error of the American institutions for the deaf and dumb." "By the aid of signs," says Mr. Rae in the able paper referred to, "we can fill the minds of our pupils, to almost any extent, with the raw material of knowledge. We can tell them of things in heaven and things on earth, and we find little difficulty in securing an intelligent reception of what we say. This is well, indeed; but they come to us for something far more essential to their welfare than this alone. They come to be provided with a means of communication with the great world which lies beyond the walls of our institutions; and the years which they spend under our care are spent to little purpose, unless the language of words is so far acquired as to put them into close and easy connection with their fellow-men. "But do they really make this acquisition? In answer, I am compelled to say that the general body of our pupils, after a course of instruction extended over several years, leave our school with a very imperfect knowledge of the language of books and of men. …


OBJECTIVE
To study on the DNA damage of p53 induced by dichloroacetic acid(DCA) and trichloroacetic acid( TCA), approve their genotoxicity and discuss molecular mechanism of their carcinogenic action.

METHODS
Administered SD rats with DCA or TCA by i.p. injection, extracted DNA from rat's liver, and then used RDPCR to detect DNA damage of exon 70f p53 gene.

RESULTS
Two hybridization bands were detected in treated group induced by DCA. It was indicated that DCA can result in DNA damage of exon 7 of p53 gene of rat's liver tissue, and there were two broken sites. It was not detected damage of exon 7 of p53 gene of rat induced by TCA.

CONCLUSION
There may be the relationship between DCA carcinogenic action and the damage of p53. The result that the damage of p53 of target tissue detected by RDPCR was consistent well with rat carcinogenic test.


FUNCTIONAL COMPARISON OF CARDIAC TROPONIN C FROM REPRESENTATIVES OF THREE VERTEBRATE TAXA: INVESTIGATING THE EVOLUTION OF CARDIAC CONTRACTILE FUNCTION Elizabeth Jane Sears Advisor: University of Guelph, 2014 Dr. Todd E. Gillis Trout cardiac troponin C (cTnC) contains differences in amino acid sequence that are partially responsible for the disparity in function between trout and mammalian hearts. Interestingly, the physiological temperature and amino acid sequence of cTnC from Xenopus laevis are intermediate between trout and mammals. As a result, the study of Xenopus cTnC may provide insight into the influence of physiological temperature on the evolution of cardiac function. Circular dichroism demonstrated that the melting temperature of the rat troponin complex was 6°C higher than one containing trout components, with Xenopus falling between. Ca-binding measurements indicated that Xenopus and trout troponin components increase the Ca-affinity of the troponin complex. The Ca off-rates (koff) of the complexes containing trout and Xenopus components were also lower than the rat complex. This suggests that the Ca-affinity and thermal stability of the troponin complex are both related to the physiological temperature of the species.


In the Italian western Alps, asbestos mineralization (both chrysotile and tremolite amphibole) takes place from serpentinites, together with other less common asbestiform minerals not regulated by the current legislation. In the context of a study on the evaluation of the asbestos risk in this area, the possible role played by the associated asbestiform minerals in the overall toxicity of the airborne fraction has been examined. The first mineral investigated was balangeroite [(Mg,Fe2+,Fe3+,Mn2+)42Si16O54(OH)36], an iron-rich asbestiform contaminant of chrysotile from the Balangero mine (Piedmont), which crystallizes as rigid and brittle fibers. In order to prepare a sample in a form appropriate for chemical and cellular tests, the fibers were separated from the rock and comminuted without damage to their crystalline structure and surface state (as confirmed by X-ray diffraction [XRD] and ultraviolet–visible [UV-Vis] spectroscopy). The first properties examined were durability in simulated body fluids (Gamble's solution) and toxicity to epithelial cells. When compared to UICC crocidolite (the amphibole blue asbestos, regarded as the most pathogenic form), balangeroite appears even more durable than crocidolite. Balangeroite and UICC crocidolite showed a similar in vitro cytotoxic effect on a human epithelial cell line, as evidenced by leakage of intracellular lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, which, observed after a 24-h incubation, was dose dependent and maximal at 12 μg/cm2 for each fiber type. Data show that chemical composition, form, durability, and cell toxicity indicate balangeroite as a potentially harmful fibrous mineral that needs to be examined by further chemical and cellular tests.


ABSTRACT Background: PTH is an anabolic agent that promotes new bone formation and offers additional therapeutic options for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. Two forms of PTH are licensed for treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis and are available in most European countries. Both demonstrate safety and efficacy in clinical trials with similar increases in bone mineral density (BMD) at the spine, total hip and femoral neck, and reductions in the number of vertebral fractures in postmenopausal women. The effect on the number of patients treated with PTH is analysed in terms of the total number of osteoporotic patients and total number of eligible patients, as defined by a literature review of vertebral fracture incidence in European populations. Aims: To analyse the management and treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis with PTH in terms of the prescription patterns for PTH in five European countries and the underlying reasons for observed rates of prescription in each country. Findings: Osteoporosis patients with low vertebral BMD and two fractures are at appreciable risk of sustaining further fractures, particularly hip fractures. Hip fractures are associated with significant mortality and huge economic cost to society. These patients are approved for treatment with PTH but the availability of this therapy varies considerably across Europe. The number of patients receiving PTH varies from 0.24% of eligible patients in the UK to approximately 5% of eligible patients in Spain. Conclusion: Large differences (up to 20-fold) exist in the number of patients receiving PTH across the five European countries. The reasons for the different accessibility to PTH arise from a combination of restrictive schedules of reimbursement, high cost and lack of knowledge of the potential benefits of PTH by physicians.


As more and more organizations realize the benefits of dynamic data distribution over the internet, the need for being able to retrieve this information at any time and place increases. The widespread deployment of the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) throughout Europe and other parts of the world provides a common infrastructure which provides a travelling, or rather non-stationary, user with suitable gear near ubiquitous access to this information. The idea is to use a device driver implementing the Radio Link Protocol, and making a transparent virtual serial port under Linux, which may be connected to PPP and TCP/IP, thus facilitating data communications over a GSM cellular telephone without the need for additional hardware, except for a cable. Basics of GSM are discussed, and some of the issues regarding the real-time demands on operating systems in general and Linux in particular are discussed. This paper is the result of a thesis project carried out at Ericsson Research for a little more than 6 months, as a final part of the authors Master of Science degree from the Royal Technical institute of Technology (KTH) of Stockholm, Sweden.


Larvae of the genus Pseudocotalpa Hardy, 1971 are described for the first time based on the larva of P. sonorica Hardy 1974. Characters used to separate Pseudocotalpa from similar genera are given. Life history observations of adults of P. sonorica are also given. The genus Pseudocotalpa described by Hardy, 1971, now consists of three species: Pseudocotalpa andrewsi Hardy, 1971; Pseudocotalpa giulianii Hardy, 1974; and Pseudocotalpa sonorica Hardy, 1974. This genus is strongly associated with sand dunes of the southwest deserts. The only previous mention of Pseudocotalpa larva in the literature was that of Rust (1985) on P. giulianii. Rust also gives detailed description of life history habits. The life history of P. andrewsi was discussed by Hardy and Andrews (1986). Ritcher (1966) described the larvae of genera closely related to Pseudocotalpa. Material and Methods Adults of Pseudocotalpa sonorica were collected north of the Osborne Overlook in the Algodones Sand Dunes, Imperial Co., California, USA (32859.2639N 115808.1019W) on 22 March 2002. An adult female was placed in a coffee can filled with moist sand from the dunes and subsequently deposited about 25 eggs. The resulting larvae were raised to the third instar on oak leaf mulch. The following description is based on two of these larvae. Specimens of adults and larvae are deposited to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and Entomological Research Museum University of California Riverside. Description. Head. Cranium (Fig. 11) Greatest width of head capsule 6.8 mm. Epicranium light reddish-brown; surface smooth with setose punctures. Frontal suture absent. Epicranial suture only present at occiput. Setae spinelike or thin hairlike (Fig. 11), becoming longer laterally. Two distinct pits on side of cranium. Genal margins marked with fine setae. Ocellus absent. Clypeus: Form subtrapezoidal. Preclypeus smooth pale, tan, with row of minute setae bordering top; postclypeus same color as cranium. Labrum: Form subovate, right side with indentation on edge. Surface convex, except distal third flattened, setigenous punctate. Only distinct setae on surface are fine, hairlike setae, all in deep pits; two on upper half near center; one seta on each side of 31 The Coleopterists Bulletin, 60(01):31–36. 2006.


Generally, impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry and polarographic methods are used to study the pitting corrosion of steel, stainless steel and many different alloys. But one can also use linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) to investigate the pitting corrosion phenomenon. LSV is having many advantages over other traditional methods; but more research should take place in this area to foreshorten the lacuna. It is an important electrochemical method that involves solid electrode, fixed potential and fast scan rate. The advantage of using LSV in determining the pitting corrosion is less time required in the order of few seconds, and there is no need of keeping the samples in NaCl or any other electrolytes for many months.


A correlation between gestosis and increase of serum uric acid level has been known for a longtime. From the 6th month of pregnancy we found significantly increased values in all hypertensive pregnant women. In the 7th and 8th month of pregnancy there was a high significant deviation in gestoses second degree (classification of the organisation gestosis). In the two last months of pregnancy all gestoses deviated high significantly from the uric acid level in serum of the normal collective. There is a correlation between pathologically increased mean uric acid values in the 9th and 10th lunar month and increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure values. The uric acid level in pregnant women with gestosis, whose illness or its consequences led to cesarean section, is significantly higher than in patients with normal delivery. In accordance with literature we could not find a limit above the fetus dies. In our opinion determination of plasma uric acid in late pregnant hypertensive women is one additional parameter calculating both maternal prognosis and fetal risk.


Under study is a problem of the line structure routing of roads, railways and other linear constructions. Designing a trace plan and longitudinal profile are considered as non-linear programming tasks. Since the number of elements of the plan and the longitudinal profile is not known, the problem is solved in three stages. First, a search is performed for a polyline consisting of short elements. On the second stage it is used to determine the initial approximation of the desired line, which is optimized at the last stage. The required line consists of a given type elements and it is a spline with a number of features: - In contrast to the polynomial elements considered in the theory of splines, when designing roads unknown spline is a sequence of elements: straight, clothoid, circle, clothoid, straight and so on. - In this task, the spline does not have to be a single-valued function. - The parameters of the elements of the desired spline must satisfy the constraints in the form of inequalities. These features of the task do not allow the use of non-linear programming methods to solve it. Converting a broken line to a spline is carried out using dynamic programming. For this purpose a special formalization of this task is proposed. A new algorithm of dynamic programming is given. The result is used as an initial approximation to optimize the parameters of the spline using a previously developed non-linear programming program.


Using the least accurate type of temperature data, temperature anomalies called "hotspots", which are believed to be hydrocarbon temperature anomalies, have been defined by application of a new analytical technique. To date the technique has been successful to a significant degree when applied to known fields using only dry hole data and, in some cases, using only dry hole data for wells drilled prior to field discovery as initial steps toward before-the-fact analysis. Technique testing by the drill has not been done. The hypothesis accepted herein is that heat flows from the earth's hot interior toward its colder surface is nature's attempt to establish temperature equilibrium. The following three facts are accepted. 1. Hydrocarbon fluids have very low thermal conductivities (oil about one-fifth that of water and gas about one-fourteenth that of water). 2. Equal heat input elevates the temperature of a largely hydrocarbon fluid volume relative to a laterally equivalent volume of largely water-filled porosity. 3. There are fewer grams of hydrocarbon fluids to warm than there are grams of water filling an essentially equal porosity volume. Hydrocarbon fluids insulate more (fact 1) and their temperatures are elevated more easily (facts 2 and 3) than contiguous waters. Hydrocarbon reservoirs whose heat flow effects are not obscured by the anisotropic effects of adjacent water reservoirs, may cause definable temperature anomalies. The technique formulated involves the following steps: (1) calculation of geothermal gradient values, (2) creation of a geothermal gradient field areally, (3) vector analysis or contouring of created data, and (4) anomaly definition. Technique application to 10 fields representative of a range of complexities shows promise for this "up-the-odds" exploration tool. Results for three examples (Black Lake field, Louisiana; Haverhill field, Kansas; and Salt Creek field, Texas) may demonstrate the principal use to be as a grading method for prospects based initially on classical study.


We consider a real-time system of multiple tasks, each task having a plant to control. The overall quadratic control cost is to be optimized. We exploit the periodicity of the task response time, which corresponds to a periodic delay pattern in the feedback control loop. Perturbed periods are used as a tool to find a finite hyper period. We present an analytical procedure to design a periodic linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) controller for tasks with fixed execution times as well as a numerical solution to the periodic -- stochastic LQG problem for tasks with variable execution times. The controllers are evaluated using simulations in real-time scheduling and control co-design examples.


A method for the design of nearly linear-phase recursive digital filters is proposed. The recursive filter is assumed be a cascade arrangement of second-order biquadratic sections whose transfer functions are expressed in the polar form. An error function is formulated based on the difference between the actual complex frequency response of the filter and the desired frequency response. Then by using a least-pth minimax algorithm, the required design is obtained. The new method achieves filter stability through the use of a parameterization scheme based on the so-called sigmoid function and it incorporates a mechanism by which an arbitrary prescribed stability margin can be achieved. The optimization engine used in the least-pth algorithm is an unconstrained quasi-Newton algorithm based on the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno updating formula and it incorporates a nonuniform adaptive variable sampling technique to prevent spikes in the error function. Several filter design examples demonstrate that the proposed method is very efficient in terms of computational effort required since it is an unconstrained method and, furthermore, it can yield designs that are superior relative to some of the known state-of-the-art methods.


Synergistic antifungal activity of 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) and amphotericin B was studied using an abbreviated checkerboard titration scheme. 5-FC was titrated in twofold increments (100 to 0.05 μg/ml) in the absence and presence of graded increments of amphotericin B (1.0. 0.5, 0.1, 0.05, and 0.01 μg/ml) in buffered yeast nitrogen base. A limited number of experiments were performed using expanded dual titration checkerboard schemes and growth curve studies. Forty-eight isolates of yeastlike organisms were tested; two were inhibited by the buffer system. Evidence of synergy, as indicated by a fourfold or greater reduction of the minimal inhibitory concentration of 5-FC in the presence of subinhibitory concentrations of amphotericin B, was seen with 11 of 46 isolates, or 24%, at the fungistatic level and with three isolates, or 7% at the fungicidal level. Indifferent results were obtained for 44 and 74% of the isolates, respectively, at the fungistatic and fungicidal levels. Antagonism was observed with three isolates.


Cholera toxin (CT) intoxicates cells by using its receptor-binding B subunit (CTB) to traffic from the plasma membrane to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In this compartment, the catalytic A1 subunit (CTA1) is unfolded by protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) and retro-translocated to the cytosol where it triggers a signaling cascade, leading to secretory diarrhea. How CT is targeted to the site of retro-translocation in the ER membrane to initiate translocation is unclear. Using a semipermeabilized-cell retro-translocation assay, we demonstrate that a dominant-negative Derlin-1-YFP fusion protein attenuates the ER-to-cytosol transport of CTA1. Derlin-1 interacts with CTB and the ER chaperone PDI as assessed by coimmunoprecipitation experiments. An in vitro membrane-binding assay showed that CTB stimulated the unfolded CTA1 chain to bind to the ER membrane. Moreover, intoxication of intact cells with CTB stabilized the degradation of a Derlin-1-dependent substrate, suggesting that CT uses the Derlin-1 pathway. These findings indicate that Derlin-1 facilitates the retro-translocation of CT. CTB may play a role in this process by targeting the holotoxin to Derlin-1, enabling the Derlin-1-bound PDI to unfold the A1 subunit and prepare it for transport.


Diet is a key determinant of several common and serious disease complications in hemodialysis (HD) patients. The recommended balance and variety of foods in the HD diet is designed to limit high potassium and phosphorus foods while maintaining protein adequacy. In this report, we examine the potassium, phosphorus, and protein content of foods, and identify critical challenges, and potential pitfalls when translating nutrient prescriptions into dietary guidelines. Our findings highlight the importance of individualized counseling based on a comprehensive dietary assessment by trained diet professionals, namely renal dietitians, for managing diet‐related complications in HD patients.


Recently, fluid jets have become widely used in medical devices and have been created and evaluated in clinical environments. Such devices are classified into two broad groups; those adopting continuous jets and those adopting discrete (or pulsed) jets. We developed a discrete jet device for brain cancer treatment, called a laser-induced liquid jet (LILJ) system. Although several studies have evaluated the availability and described the treatment mechanisms of fluid jet devices, the mechanisms of the fluid and injected material remain under-investigated. In this paper, we report the mechanism of frequent pulsejet injections into a viscoelastic biological material; namely, simulated gelatin brain tissue. The mechanism is evaluated by the injection depth, an easily measured parameter. To explain the injection mechanism, we propose that the pulsejet is pressured by forces introduced by resistance on the side surface of the hole and the reaction force proportionate to the injection depth. The pulsejet generated and propagated cracks in the gelatin, and the resistance eventually fractured the side surface of the hole. We evaluated the proposed model by measuring the behavior of pulsejets injected into gelatin by the LILJ. From the results, the following conclusions were obtained. First, the proposed model accurately describes the behavior of the injected pulsejet. Second, whether the hole or crack growth largely increases the final injection depth can be evaluated from differences in the decay constant. Finally, crack growth increases the final injection depth when the number of the injected pulsejets is greater than the inverse of the decay constant.


This report is the first in a series of coal reference manuals designed to serve as a benchmark reference work to data on the Illinois coal industry. Time-series data are generated for over the most recent five year period where data were available. Individual sections are devoted to Illinois coal reserves, mining, transportation, distribution, consumption, and individual county profiles. Comparative data on other coal producing states have also been included, where applicable.


Enabled by recent improvements in generation methodologies, DeepFakes have become mainstream due to their increasingly better visual quality, the increase in easy-to-use generation tools and the rapid dissemination through social media. This fact poses a severe threat to our societies with the potential to erode social cohesion and influence our democracies. To mitigate the threat, numerous DeepFake detection schemes have been introduced in the literature but very few provide a web service that can be used in the wild. In this paper, we introduce the MeVer DeepFake detection service, a web service detecting deep learning manipulations in images and video. We present the design and implementation of the proposed processing pipeline that involves a model ensemble scheme, and we endow the service with a model card for transparency. Experimental results show that our service performs robustly on the three benchmark datasets while being vulnerable to Adversarial Attacks. Finally, we outline our experience and lessons learned when deploying a research system into production in the hopes that it will be useful to other academic and industry teams.


A full characterization of the electrical contact between conductive atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is presented. The dependence of current through the contact on loading force, geometric parameters, bias conditions, and time is studied in a two-terminal configuration, where a gold coated AFM cantilever serves as a movable electrode. We find that for an optimized placement of the cantilever relative to the CNT, the current through the contact becomes independent of the loading force beyond a certain limit, and this behavior is also independent of bias conditions. In that load-independent regime, the contact is stable in time to within the current fluctuations imposed by 1/f and telegraph noise in the CNT channel. Under certain conditions of tip placement, the current through the contact exhibits a non-monotonic behavior with loading, which is well explained by the parasitic planar motion of the cantilever.


This tome is a formal presentation of the unsharp observable approach to quantum mechanics using the positive operator valued (POV) concept of an observable. It is intended for philosophers and mathematicians as well as physicists. This is a very formalistic book. There are, however, portions that should be read by all experimentalists performing quantum mechanical studies as well as graduate students completing their first graduate year quantum mechanics course. If we interpret quantum mechanics as making statistical predictions on the results of states prepared in identical fashions, we will often find that the observed probabilities are nearly, but not exactly, the expected 1 or 0 for measurements that are expected to always give the same result. Hence, rather than demanding sharp measures with probabilities of exactly 1 or 0, quantum mechanics allows a reasonable interpretation of unsharp results of nearly 1 or nearly 0. As the authors point out in chapter II, POV measures and the associated unsharp measures are not essential for an interpretation of quantum mechanical results. However, more sharp variables, and hence a larger Hilbert space, will be needed than are required by the unsharp approach. Also, the theoretical interpretation will often not be as straightforward with only sharp observables. As I have previously stated, all graduate students, both those of a theoretical and those of an experimental bent, should read parts of this book (after they have completed a normal introduction using sharp variables). They should at least read the first chapter which explains the unsharp variable measure concept as well as giving some examples, one of which is the Stern - Gerlach experiment. In chapter VII, the last chapter, the Stern - Gerlach experiment photon polarization and other quantum optical experiments and wave-particle duality experiments for photons are examined in detail using the POV formalism. This would also be an excellent chapter for all graduate students to read. Some sections may send them back to some of the intermediate chapters, hopefully to peruse in greater detail. The intermediate chapters contain the formal development of the POV formalism and compare it to the normal method. There is also a brief introduction to measurement theory using unsharp observables. As the authors state, this is not intended to be a complete solution to the problem of measurement theory. The next two chapters deal with uncertainty and phase space formalism as considered by the unsharp observables. Philosophers of physics and mathematicians will find this an excellent introduction to the POV formalism and the distinction between sharp and unsharp measurements. Many texts will gloss over both the philosophical and mathematical consequences inherent in the full statistical formalism of quantum mechanics. This monograph is not, by the authors' admission, a full treatment of quantum measurement theory. Also, although in the introduction the authors discuss the importance of applying quantum mechanics to individual objects, this book mainly considers the interpretations as statistical measures. There is little attempt to deal with the quantum mechanical interpretations of the behaviour of a single particle. That is, questions about measurements on a single particle or the interpretation of the wavefunction for a single particle are not fully covered. The authors claim that the POV approach is also the best for individual systems, but do little in applications. The major example given is in the last chapter where they consider interference measurements for single photons. They might have referenced more of the current alternative approaches to measurement theory of single particle wavefunctions. The readers of this journal will be disappointed, but not surprised, that the covariant nature of observables is restricted almost entirely to the Galilei group. The only Poincaré group material is the example of photon localization in the last chapter. This is a reflection of the great difficulty of applying the special or the general theories of relativity to the Hilbert space formalism.


Abstract : The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects that user task load level has on the relationship between an individual's trust in and subsequent use of a system's automation. Automation research has demonstrated a positive correlation between an individual's trust in and subsequent use of the automation. Military decision-makers trust and use information system automation to make many tactical judgments and decisions. In situations of information uncertainty (information warfare environments), decision-makers must remain aware of information reliability issues and temperate their use of system automation if necessary. An individual's task load may have an effect on his use of a system's automation in environments of information uncertainty. It was hypothesized that user task load will have a moderating effect on the positive relationship between system automation trust and use of system automation. Specifically, in situations of information uncertainty (low trust), high task load will have a negative effect on the relationship. To test this hypothesis, an experiment in a simulated command and control micro-world was conducted in which system automation trust and individual task load were manipulated. The findings from the experiment support the positive relationship between automation trust and automation use found in previous research and suggest that task load does have a negative effect on the positive relationship between automation trust and automation use.


Predictive models for human performance, such as Fitts' Law [2] and the Steering Law [1], are useful tools for developers of interactive applications because they help guide us toward effective and efficient interface designs. In this poster, we present a mathematical model in this style that is meant to characterize performance in precise, continuous 3D input tasks, such as making an exact tracing of a 3D curve presented in virtual reality (VR). This continuous, sweeping style of 3D input has important implications for interactive visualizations. We utilize within our group, direct input of curved 3D paths in several visualization contexts, for example, free-form modeling for designing scientific visualizations and creating 3D illustrations [3] and selecting streamlines and regions of interest in interactive 3D fluid flow visualizations. [5] In addition, a current project seeks to utilize haptic-guided input of 3D curved paths for querying 3D datasets and selecting fine detail within dense visualizations of neural fiber tracts in the brain. Increased knowledge of our ability to control precise 3D input is likely lead to improved interaction and more productive user experiences in these interactive visualizations. One of the challenges in working with this style of input is that it can be difficult to control with precision. In a precursor to this work, we developed two new interaction techniques, a two-handed 3D tape drawing interface and a one-handed 3D drag drawing interface. Each significantly improves the precision of continuous 3D input as compared to standard modes of tracking a moving prop through the air. Full details of these interfaces and of the tracing experiment described briefly below have been presented elsewhere. [4] The novel contribution of the work presented here (and adapted from Daniel Keefe's dissertation [3]) is the derivation of a performance model for this style of input from theory in related disciplines and the verification of this model using experimental data from the tracing experiment.


Exercise testing provides information on physical capacity during exercise in addition to spirometric measures of lung function or assessment on treadmills or ergonomic cycle. The "gold standard" assessment of exercise tolerance is measured in the laboratory using treadmills or ergonomic cycle but the necessary equipment is expensive and may not be readily accessible; such tests require people used to work with children. Walking tests are field tests providing a valid and easily accessible method of measuring function-limited exercise tolerance in patients with respiratory or cardiac chronic diseases. These walking tests are non-threatening, inexpensive, easy to perform and to understand for children. Walking tests performed in daily practice are the following: "time-based" tests (2-, 6- or 12-min walking test), 3-min step test (on a step) and the shuttle walking test. It may be a useful measure to assess therapeutic intervention and provide information on the prognosis. They are simple and safe methods to evaluate quality of life in these patients.


This paper introduces the concept of strong instrumental variables and strong instrumental matrix sequences for the estimation of the transfer function parameters of discrete-time, time-invariant models of linear systems. It is shown that the strong instrumental variable estimators are strongly consistent and a sufficient condition for the estimator to be asymtotically unbiased is given. Moreover, it is shown that with a persistently exciting signal of appropriate order for an input, "virtually" any discrete-time, time-invariant, linear system model of appropriate order can be used to generate strong instrumental variables.


Abstract:  Latanoprost and isopropyl unoprostone, which are analogues of prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α), are promising drugs for the reduction of intra‐ocular pressure. However, they have been reported to have side effects, including hypertrichosis and hyperpigmentation of the eyelashes and periocular skin, and occasionally poliosis. In order to investigate these effects further, PGF2α, latanoprost and isopropyl unoprostone were applied to the dorsal skin of 7‐week‐old C57BL/6 mice, and hair length was measured during the treatment. The three molecules all showed stimulatory effects on the murine hair follicles and the follicular melanocytes in both the telogen and anagen stages, and stimulated conversion from the telogen to the anagen phase. PGE2 is known to act synergistically with PGF2α, and hence the influence of PGE2 was also examined. PGE2 did not induce distinct telogen‐to‐anagen conversion, but showed moderate growth stimulatory effects on early anagen hair follicles. In addition, we observed a case of hypertrichosis and trichomegaly with an excess of melanogenesis, leading to the emergence of white hair, suggesting that poliosis can occur as a side effect of eye treatment with solutions of PGF2α analogues. The stimulatory effects of PGF2αand PGE2 on hair growth have been discussed with regard to the role of protein kinase C and mast cells.


The rate of vacuole formation of Tetrahymena thermophila was tested under different salinity conditions. Tetrahymena thermophila are heterotrophic organisms that synthesize food vacuoles in freshwater conditions. We incubated T. thermophila in 2 mM NaCl and 200 mM NaCl solutions to make comparisons to T. thermophila in plain media, which is the optimal growing conditions for the cells. To determine if the rate of vacuole formation, dye was added to the treatments and samples were taken out every five minutes until the 45th minute. Little to no vacuoles were formed in high salinity conditions (200 mM NaCl) throughout the experiment. There was a statistically significant difference between groups as determined by one-way ANOVA ( p = 9.89 x 10 ^-5). T. thermophila vacuole formation was found to be highest in low salinity (2 mM NaCl) treatments.


Depression is one of the most frequently encountered psychiatric disease in the primary care setting, source of enormous suffering for the ill and for his/her entourage. Classical features of the disease in women are usually well known. This article's goal is to highlight the masculine specificities of depression, sometimes poorly known.


The past decade has witnessed a paradigm shift concerning the study of the cerebellum. Results from various studies employing a variety of methodologies suggest that the functional role of this structure is not limited to motor control. The article by Tesche and Karhu appearing in this issue, provides strong evidence that the cerebellum in humans is activated in anticipation of somatosensory events, even when these events do not require overt responses. In their study, the sensory response is observed when the stimuli fail to occur at expected points in time, consistent with the hypothesis that the cerebellum is specialized for representing the temporal relationships between events, motoric or otherwise. Timing and sensory expectancy likely reflect nested hypotheses, and it remains to be seen if one provides a more encompassing yet specific view of cerebellar function. Hum. Brain Mapping 3:115–118, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This paper presents new implementation of reliable iterative method proposed by Temimi and Ansari namely (TAM) for analytic and numerical solutions of Duffing equations in two types: damping and undamping equations. The solution is obtained in the series form that converge to the exact solution with easily computed components. Several problems are solved to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods without any restrictive assumptions for nonlinear terms. However, for some examples numerical calculations evidenced by tables and figures for the analysis of the maximal error remainder values.The software used for the calculations in this study was MATHEMATICA r 9.0.


ABSTRACT The effects of the anaesthetic agents, clove oil and mixture of clove oil with lidocaine-HCl were evaluated on river puffer, Takifugu obscurus and tiger puffer, T. rubripes. Anaesthesia times of clove oil were affected by water temperature (20℃, 24℃, and 28℃) and salinity (10, 20, and 30 ppt). Anaesthesia times of mixed samples were significantly similar with regard to exposure and recovery times, and all samples satisfied anaesthesia criteria (exposure time within 3 min and recovery time within 5 min) under the various temperatures and salinities, and the lowest to highest concentration of anaesthetics (p<0.05). Both species river puffer and tiger puffer had short exposure time with a high anaesthesia dose, high temperature (28℃) and intermediate salinity (20 ppt), and were highly affected by temperature and salinity (p<0.05). The mixed anaesthetics had rapid exposure times and long recovery times in contrast to the effects of clove oil. Cortisol concentrations under the conditions of various clove oil dosages, salinity, and temperature for both species increased until 12 hrs after recovery from anaesthesia (p<0.05). After 12 hrs, cortisol concentrations decreased until after 48 hrs (p<0.05). During the simulated transportation of both species, control and sedated clove oil groups (5 ppm) were measured for water parameters, dissolved oxygen (DO), CO2, respiratory frequency, NH4+, and pH for 6 hrs in 1 hr intervals. Water parameters of sedated groups and controls were significantly different after 2 hrs (p<0.05).


We have analyzed the performance of 58 kWp photovoltaic (PV) power systems installed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Performance ratio (PR) of 3 PV systems with 3 desert-type PV modules using monitoring data for 1 year showed 85.5% on average. Annual degradation rate of 5 individual modules achieved 0.26%, the regression model using monitoring data for the specified interval of one year showed 0.22%. Root mean square error (RMSE) of 6 big data analysis models for power output prediction in May 2016 was analyzed 2.94% using a support vector regression model.