Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer in the world, and includes oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), which is the fourth leading cause of male cancer death in Taiwan. Metastasis is the end of neoplasm progression and the major cause of mortality of HNSCC. Prevention or elimination of metastasis may improve the morbidity and mortality caused from HNSCC. However, systemic cellular model for investigation on the metastasis of oral cancer is unavailable at present. To compromise the deviations between cell lines, we established a series of cell lines derived from an established OSCC cell line, SAS cells, which possess activity of low-tumorigenicity (SAS), highly-tumorigenicity (SASVO3 (Chen et al., J Biomed Sci 16:100, 2009)) or metastasis (SASVO3M-1 and SASVO3M-5). Metastatic SASVO3M-1 and M-5 cells were generated by i.v. injection of SASVO3 cells into the tail vein of nude mice, and the metastatic tumor in lung was collected, then, the isolated tumor cells were grown for further studies. The invasiveness activities of SASVO3M-1 and M-5 cells in lung tumor were confirmed by both in vivo and in vitro pathological examination. Metastatic cells possess increased activities of foci formation, filopodia formation, and wound healing. In the mean time, the signature of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) properties, including upregulation of transcriptional factor (Slug) and downregulation of E-cadherin, was observed. Further, metastatic cells (SASVO3M-1/-5) enhanced tumor formation in lung and shortened life span of tumor bearing mice. Next, the transcriptome of above cells was determined and then subjected to pathway analysis (Ingenuity Pathway Analysis). The group of genes specifically up-regulated in metastatic cells was centered to ERK1/2, interleukin 1α, and focal adhesion kinase. The protein level of integrin, uPAR and phosphorylated FAK was augmented in metastatic cells by immunoblot analyses. Lines of evidence support that gain of EMT properties enhances the stemness properties of cancer cells. We thus determined the stemness properties of the above three cell lines. Sphere-formation activity and the expression of stem cell marker, CD 133, were significantly induced in metastatic SASVO3M-1 and M-5 cells indicating an increase in stemness of these cells. Taken together, our data show enhanced epithelial-mesenchymal transition and stemness properties associate with the development of metastatic activity of SASVO3M-1 and M-5 cells. Further, this metastatic cell line would be an instrumental tool for further investigations on the development of diagnostic biomarkers or therapeutic targets on HNSCC. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2349. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-2349


With the development of economy, some domestic big cities are going to plan or build CBD and exhibition center. Traffic problem is very important to be faced in CBD and exhibition center for its limited space. In order to coordinate the relationship between CBD and exhibition traffic and urban complex traffic and to set up the traffic network conforming with the function of CBD and exhibition center, traffic major's demonstration analysis and quantitative analysis are used for the phases of the urban conception design, the traffic planning and design of Pazhou-Yuancun in Guangzhou city. The paper focuses on studying traffic development 's target and strategy from the side of traffic time and space circle, integration strategy, optimizing the configuration of traffic mode and so on. The realistic program is proposed for improving road accessibility, increasing the coverage of rail network, strengthen the public transit hub, rational layout parking, separating the exhibition traffic and daily traffic based on target guidance. It reflects the characteristics of CBD traffic with high density and trafficability, and the characteristics of exhibition traffic with high strength and instantaneity, which provides good experience for planning or building CBD and exhibition center in domestic big cities.


Voltage scheduling is indispensable for exploiting the benefit of variable voltage processors. Though extensive research has been done in this area, current processor limitations such as transition overhead and voltage level discretization are often considered insignificant and are typically ignored. We show that for hard, real-time applications, disregarding such details can lead to sub-optimal or even invalid results. We propose two algorithms that guarantee valid solutions. The first is a greedy yet simple approach, while the second is more complex but significantly reduces energy consumption under certain conditions. Through experimental results on both real and randomly generated systems, we show the effectiveness of both algorithms, and explore what conditions make it beneficial to use the complex algorithm over the basic one.


OF DISSERTATION MITOCHONDRIAL AND NUCLEAR PATTERNS OF CONFLICT AND CONCORDANCE AT THE GENE, GENOME, AND BEHAVIORAL SCALES IN DESMOGNATHUS SALAMANDERS Advancements in molecular sequencing have revealed unexpected cryptic genetic diversity and contrasting evolutionary histories within genes and between genomes of many organisms; often in disagreement with recognized taxonomy. Incongruent patterns between the mitochondrial and nuclear evolutionary history can have several plausible explanations, but widespread systematic conflict inevitably challenges our conceptions of species boundaries when there is discordance between coevolving and coinherited genomes. It is unknown to what degree mitonuclear conflict drives the process of divergence, or how ubiquitous these patterns are across the tree of life. To understand the evolutionary relevance of intergenomic discordance we must identify the conflicting patterns that exist in natural systems by generating robust estimates of the underlying species history, quantify support for alternative hypotheses of lineage formation, and describe patterns of genetic variation present in robust nuclear genomic datasets. Empirically testing correlations between mitonuclear genomic conflict and reduced gene flow at the organism level will contribute toward a better understanding of lineage boundaries and how intergenomic interactions shape the process of divergence. Mitochondrial introgression has been inferred in many salamander systems with limited perspective from nuclear sequence data. Within dusky salamanders (Desmognathus), these patterns have been observed between morphologically and geographically disparate populations. I sequenced regions throughout the nuclear genome to reconstruct species trees, performed population-level analyses testing concordance between the mitochondrial, nuclear datasets, and nuclear genes with mitochondrial functions with the expectation that coevolutionary interactions among genomes are more likely to manifest in these regions. I also estimated migration rates between populations that may have experienced historical mitochondrial introgression to evaluate phylogeographic patterns. Using these data we definitively reject species models in which genetic boundaries are based solely on mitochondrial data, favoring geographic models instead. Furthermore, analyses soundly reject current taxonomic models based on morphological characteristics, suggesting there is greater lineage diversity than is currently recognized. I also used empirical assays of pre-zygotic reproductive mating behavior within and among populations containing diverse mitochondrial lineages to test metrics of reproductive isolation, and to determine if introgression shapes the evolution of complex traits directly influencing rates of divergence. These results may explain incongruent patterns observed between the mitochondrial and nuclear data as a function of inheritance and population dynamics rather than directly functioning to suppress nuclear gene flow. This research builds upon recent studies suggesting that speciation is a highly complex and often non-bifurcating process in which introgression can have a profound and lasting signature on the nuclear evolutionary history. Mechanisms responsible for divergence with gene flow challenge evolutionary biologists to reevaluate our notions and definitions of species boundaries to accommodate seemingly conflicted genomic patterns within and between genomes.


As the Concept "how environmental friendly" becomes more and more important in road construction. However, so far there is no estimation method. Environmental friendly concept can be incorporated at the plan level in order to influence decision making, and support policies that affect environment. The overall goal of this study was to develop environmental friendly concept measures for the national highway and to develop a methodology to implement a more environmental friendly concept. The research identified 8 performance measures through a project analysis that could address environmental impact assessment system's ten strategic goals - Topography, Wildlife, hydrology, landuse, air quality, water quality, soil, waste, noise, landscape. The qualitatively and quantitatively evaluation approach was selected as the decision support framework and performance measure were investigated using the AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) and pilot corridor for a 10 section and calculate the index values. The methodology was applied to a pilot corridor comprised of a 120km section of national highway in korea. The methodology made it possible to identify the specific performance measures that need improvement to enhance the overall environmental friendly concept. It is fairly intuitive, based on readily available data, and is easy to apply. It provides a powerful tool for government to assess the relative environmental friendly conceptof their transportation corridors now and in the future. It allows for comparisons within a corridor and with other corridors and identifies the improvements needed to enhance the environmental friendly concept.


1,6-Anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid kinase (AnmK) is a homodimeric enzyme that can convert 1,6-Anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid into N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate by consuming one molecule of ATP in murein recycling in Gram-negative bacteria. Structural data indicate that each subunit of AnmK is comprised of two domains that are separated by a deep active site cleft, which bears similarity to the ATPase core of proteins belonging to the hexokinase-hsp70-actin superfamily of proteins. These data also show that binding of ATP analogue changes the structure of AnmK. Our data suggest that AnmK is an allosteric enzyme and ATP binding follows Monod-Wyman-Changeux model (MWC). The apo-AnmK has two different conformations, one is more open (R state) and the other one is closed (T state). Binding of ATP to AnmK stabilizes the more open (R state) and makes AnmK prone to bind to anhMurNAc sugar.


Airway smooth muscle plasma membranes contain a variety of functional K+ channels. In particular, there is a predominance of Ca(2+)-activated K+ channels (maxi-K). Inhibition of these K+ channels has been postulated to account for the ability of charybdotoxin (ChTX) to produce contraction of airway smooth muscle and to modify the relaxant effects of beta-adrenoceptor agonists and sodium nitroprusside (SNP). Iberiotoxin (IbTX) is more selective and more potent than ChTX at blocking maxi-K channels. In this study, pharmacological experiments were performed on guinea pig trachea to determine whether IbTX produced effects similar to ChTX. The concentration-response curves to salbutamol were markedly affected by IbTX, with a > 60-fold rightward shift being produced with 20 nM IbTX. The maximal relaxation to salbutamol was reduced to 49.3 +/- 0.9, 22.3 +/- 4.7, and 15.0 +/- 2.7% of control maximum in the presence of 20, 60, and 180 nM IbTX, respectively. Similar to salbutamol, the maximal relaxation to SNP was reduced to 80 +/- 1.6, 19 +/- 1.7, and 12 +/- 2.1% of control maximum in the presence of 20, 60, and 180 nM IbTX, respectively. IbTX (180 nM) failed to produce a significant alteration of relaxation to the ATP-dependent K+ channel agonist BRL-34915. Exposure of tissues to K(+)-rich medium (80 mM) inhibited responses to salbutamol > or = SNP > isoproterenol. These results confirm and extend our earlier observations that maxi-K channels may be involved in regulating tone and relaxation of carbachol-contracted guinea pig tracheal smooth muscle. This mechanism is of particular importance for beta 2-adrenoceptor- and SNP-induced relaxation.


Abstract The research purpose of the study aims to propose a solution to the interference between wireless microphone users and a LTE operator, as a compensation to the coexisting situation of the services. Pursuing a better spectrum efficiency, he national communication committee (NCC) has re-farmed part of the 700MHz radio band, which was used by the license-exempted wireless microphone users, for LTE download carriers. As secondary users, wireless microphone users are asked to do no harm to the LTE operator signal, and have to endure the interference cause by LTE. The double act of Taiwan NRA in telecommunication is responsible for the flawed auction. The spectrum planning authority, as known as the Minister of transportation and communication(MOTC), viewed the operator as a primary user in that radio band. However, the wireless microphones are not cognitive devices that avoid causing interference. In the other side, the regulatory authority, as known as the National Communication Committee(NCC), has no effective method to deal with the unpredictable interferences. NCC could only propose other possible locations for those wireless microphone users. Therefore, the broadcasters who invested a lot in wireless microphones and involved in tremendous amount of the devices, would only have two ways to go. Either to accept the sorely high cost of upgrading equipment or re-investments, or to accept the risk of bad reception. The research first analysis and comparison similar re-farming policies of license-exempted wireless microphone radio bands from USA, UK and Australia. Second, the research collected the models of spectrum secondary markets, and modified them due II to few of them are either technologically or perfectly legitimate to the case of wireless microphone and LTE coexistence. The modification is mainly focus on the difference of wireless microphone to a cognitive service. Nevertheless, this research proposed a third option as bandwidth reduction and peak and non-peak time pricing mechanism. This research also applied game theory and simulation for finding the equilibrium. The conclusion is that the broadcasters would finally accept the bad reception because of the high cost of upgrading. But they would also consider the peak and non-peak pricing based bandwidth reduction, whenever the upgrading cost is relatively low or the value of news event is relatively high. Besides, the research shows national regulation authorities (NRAs) a way of fixing flowed policies through administrative orders and business models. The NRAs could increase the spectrum efficiency and protect the cultural and creative industry all at once. To a LTE operator, the mechanism proposed could create value, reduce risk of bad network quality, the cost is relatively low. Instead of the high re-investment in the same equipment, to pay for the spectrum leasing fee and get a guaranteed reception, the broadcasters are also benefited from the mechanism proposed. Generally speaking, the spectrum leasing mechanism proposed in the research is consistent with the concept of digital convergence. Namely, to loosen control of spectrum usage on certain industries.


Optimal treatment of heart failure is important to reduce hospitalization and mortality. In according to recommendation for treatment from major guideline, most patients with HF should be routinely managed with a combination of 3 types of drugs: a diuretic, an ACEI or an ARB, and a beta blocker. The value of these drugs has been established by the results of numerous large-scale clinical trials, and the evidence supporting a central role for their use is compelling. This review is focused on the drug treatment based on the evidence and practical implication. (Korean J Med 2011;81:716-719)


Introduction: Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is the standard of care for treating patients with advanced lymphomas. The most commonly employed preparative regimens are BCNU (Carmustine), etoposide, cytosine arabinoside, melphalan (BEAM), and BCNU, etoposide, cyclophosphamide (CVP). Both regimens use BCNU, but this medication is associated with pulmonary toxicity, besides, in some underdeveloped countries there is a serious shortage of it. Carboplatin is an agent with good activity in Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin´s lymphomas and has a tolerable toxicity profile. Here we present our experience in a bone marrow transplant service in Colombia (South America) a country with shortage of BCNU. We evaluated the effects of a high-dose chemotherapy regimen with carboplatin replacing BCNU in the CVP regimen. Methods: After peripheral blood progenitor cells were mobilized with filgrastim 10 µg/kg for five days, twenty four patients with advanced lymphomas were conditioned prior to ASCT. The conditioning regimen consisted of carboplatin (450 mg/m2/ days -5,-4), etoposide (330 mgs mg/m2/days -4,-3,-2) and cyclophosphamide (2.000 mg/m2/days -3,-2,-1). After the autograft all patients received filgrastim or pegfilgrastim from day +5. Results: 24 consecutive patients were transplanted, median age 39.2 years (range 5-70), eleven were female. 11 patients (46%) had Hodgkin lymphoma; 7 in CR2 and four in partial remission or with refractory disease. 13 (54%) had non-Hodgkin´s lymphoma classified as: 6 diffuse large B cell, 5 mantle cell, 2 transformed follicular. Patients with mantle cell lymphoma were in CR1 while the rest were in CR2. The median CD 34+ cells infused was 4.09 x 106 cells/kg. The median time to achieve 500/µL absolute granulocyte count and 20.000/µL platelets was 11.7 days (range 8-17), and 16.5 days (range 7-23) respectively. 20 out of 24 had febrile neutropenia, the other toxicities were mild; grade II mucositis in three patients, neutropenic colitis in two and hemorrhagic cystitis in one. There were no pulmonary or renal toxicities and the transplant related mortality was 0%. The four patients with active disease achieved complete remission after transplant but two of them have relapsed. The one year overall survival is 100%, with a median follow-up of 12 months (range 5-18), and the disease-free survival, estimated by Kaplan-Meier is 90%. Conclusions: The use of carboplatin replacing BCNU in the CVP regimen seems to be a safe and effective conditioning protocol followed by ASCT in patients with various types of lymphomas. This treatment option seems an adequate alternative for underdeveloped countries with shortage of BCNU. The regimen shows good anti-tumor activity, with a tolerable toxicity profile. These promising results must be confirmed with the inclusion of more patients and a longer follow-up. Citation Format: Miguel Gonzalez Velez, Amado Jose Karduss-Urueta, Rosendo Perez, Luis Rodolfo Gomez, Juan Alejo Jimenez, Pedro Alejandro Reyes, Ana Cardona, Liliana Hurtado, Hilda Deossa, Clara Fernandez. Carboplatin replacing BCNU in the BCNU, etoposide, cyclophosphamide (CVP) regimen for autologous stem cell transplant in patients with advanced lymphoma. Very low toxicity and encouraging results. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr C82.


Alleles subject to strong, recent positive selection will be swept toward fixation together with contiguous sections of the genome. Whether the genomic signatures of such selection will be readily detectable in outbred wild populations is unclear. In this study, we employ haplotype diversity analysis to examine evidence for selective sweeps around knockdown resistance (kdr) mutations associated with resistance to dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and pyrethroid insecticides in the mosquito Anopheles gambiae. Both kdr mutations have significantly lower haplotype diversity than the wild-type (nonresistant) allele, with kdr L1014F showing the most pronounced footprint of selection. We complement these data with a time series of collections showing that the L1014F allele has increased in frequency from 0.05 to 0.54 in 5 years, consistent with a maximum likelihood-fitted selection coefficient of 0.16 and a dominance coefficient of 0.25. Our data show that strong, recent positive selective events, such as those caused by insecticide resistance, can be identified in wild insect populations.


Abstract The analysis of the seismic attenuation is a prominent and problematic component of hazard assessment. Over the last decade it has become increasingly clear that the intrinsic uncertainty of the decay process must be expressed in probabilistic terms. This implies estimating the probability distribution of the intensity at a site I s as the combination of the distribution of the decay ΔI and of the distribution of the intensity I 0 found for the area surrounding that site. We focus here on the estimation of the distribution of ΔI . Previous studies presented in the literature show that the intensity decay in Italian territory varies greatly from one region to another and depends on many factors, some of them not easily measurable. Assuming that the decay shows a similar behavior in function of the epicenter-site distance when the same geophysical conditions and building vulnerability characterize different macroseismic fields, we have classified some macroseismic fields drawn from the Italian felt report database by applying a clustering algorithm. Earthquakes in the same class constitute the input of a two-step procedure for the Bayesian estimation of the probability distribution of ΔI at any distance from the epicenter, conditioned on I 0 , where ΔI is considered an integer, random variable, following a binomial distribution. The scenario generated by a future earthquake is forecast either by the predictive distribution in each distance bin or by a binomial distribution whose parameter is a continuous function of the distance. The estimated distributions have been applied to forecast the scenario actually produced by the Colfiorito earthquake on 26 September 1997; for both options the expected and observed intensities have been compared on the basis of some validation criteria. The same procedure has been repeated using the probability distribution of ΔI estimated on the basis of each class of macroseismic fields identified by the clustering algorithm.


B228 Chk1 and Chk2 kinases activate cell cycle checkpoints and promote DNA repair in response to genotoxic stress. Using quantitative RT-PCR (QPCR) and immunhistochemical analysis (IHC), we show here that both Chk1 and Chk2 are substantially overexpressed in many tumor tissues. Although checkpoint activation may have a protective effect on pre-neoplastic cells, chronic expression of Chk1 and Chk2 may confer a survival advantage on established tumors. In particular, upregulation of Chk1 and Chk2 may enable tumor cells to replicate productively despite the profound replication stress induced by genotoxic agents. Therefore inhibiting these checkpoints in combination with chemotherapy may be a particularly effective method of overcoming cellular resistance to treatment.
 XL844 is a potent, orally available inhibitor of Chk1 and Chk2. In combination with the S-phase active agent gemcitabine, XL844 treatment leads to premature mitotic entry, increased DNA damage and enhanced anti-tumor efficacy1,2. We show here that XL844 also potentiates cell killing by several genotoxic agents that activate other cell cycle checkpoints. In vitro, SN38 (the active metabolite of irinotecan) and cisplatin induce Cdc2 phosphorylation and G2 cell cycle arrest. Co-treatment of these agents with XL844 leads to decreased levels of phospho-Cdc2, decreased G2 arrest and an increase in the sub-G1 apoptotic fraction in tumor cells. In clonogenic assays that measure long-term cell viability, XL844 has modest effects as a single agent in most tumor cells but potentiates the activity of cisplatin and other genotoxic agents. In contrast, combining SN38 with XL844 in clonogenic assays has little impact on cell survival in vitro. Cell cycle checkpoints are also activated in human xenograft tumors in vivo following administration of irinotecan and cisplatin. Oral administration of XL844 leads to abrogation of these checkpoints, with extended duration of action as measured by inhibition of Cdc2 phsophorylation. In a xenograft efficacy study in combination with irinotecan, XL844 produced a significant, although transient, increase in tumor growth inhibition compared to irinotecan alone. The in vivo efficacy of XL844 was also assessed using docetaxel, a microtubule-stabilizing agent that causes activation of the mitotic spindle checkpoint. Co-treatment with XL844 substantially enhanced the efficacy of docetaxel without a concomitant increase in toxicity. Collectively, these data indicate that cell cycle checkpoint inhibitors such as XL844 may have substantial utility in combination with a wide variety of cytotoxic agents. A Phase I clinical study of XL844 in combination with gemcitabine is currently in progress in patients with advanced solid malignancies.
 1. Matthews DJ et al. (2007) Cell Cycle 6(1):104-110
 2. Clary DO (2007) Proc AACR 48:Abs 5385


The analysis of the South-East Moluccas development plan 2008-2013 shows that one of the problems in developing tourism is the low quality of tourism services. This research will provide an analysis of services quality according to five dimensions; which include tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. This research also aims to analyze the satisfaction of tourists toward services quality tourism industry in South-East Moluccas. This research employs qualitative approach, cross sectional descriptive study. The subject of this research is four tourists who had their vacation in South-East Moluccas and experienced the tourism service and facilities. The data were collected by interviewing the subjects and recording the events, then the results was analyzed by using the model of Miles and Huberman. Most the tourists state that they are motivated to visit South-East Moluccas after reading other tourists recommendation in website (online word-of- mouth) most of these tourists value the beauty of nature and relax atmosphere of the South-East Moluccas. The result of this research also reveals areas of improvement amongst five service quality dimensions.


We demonstrated a high-power GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) which have micro-hole array and nano-rods compound structure by nanoimprint lithography (NIL). The nanorods structure inside the micro-hole could efficiently guide the trapped light from the GaN epilayer. Therefore, the light output power of LED with micro-hole array and nanorods was as high as 1.27 times, as compared with standard LED.


A thin GaAs/AlGaAs plate was studied by the resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) in the temperature range 0.3–10 K and in magnetic fields of up to 18 T. The resonance frequencies and linewidths were measured. Quantum oscillations of both these values were observed and were associated with the quantum Hall effect occurred in the 2D electron system. For an analysis the sample was treated as a dielectric piezoelectric plate covered on one side by a film with a field dependent conductivity. Screening of the strain-driven electric field was changed due to the variation of the electron relaxation time in the vicinity of the metal-dielectric transitions caused by the magnetic field in the 2D system. The dielectric film does not affect properties of GaAs and thus the resonance frequencies are defined only by the elastic, piezoelectric and dielectric constants of GaAs. A metallic 2D sheet effectively screens the parallel electric field, so the ultrasound wave velocities and resonance frequencies decrease when the sheet conductivity increases. Oscillations of the resonance linewidth reflect the influence of the 2D system on the ultrasound attenuation, which is proportional to the linewidth. A metallic film as well as a dielectric one does not affect this attenuation but at some finite nonzero value of the conductivity the linewidth approaches a maximum. In high magnetic field each oscillation of the conductivity produces one oscillation of a resonance frequency and two linewidth peaks. The observed phenomena can be described by the relaxation type equations and the resonant ultrasound spectroscopy opens another opportunity for contactless studies on 2D electron systems.


Objective: Inflammatory processes plays a pivotal role in pathogenesis of hypertension. Previous study have indicated that A2A receptor is closely related with immunogenic anti-inflammation process. The present study aimed to elucidate whether the activation of A2A receptor is involved in the regulation of hypertension-induced cardiovascular consequence via regulating immunoresponse. Design and Method: Deoxycorticosterone acetat (DOCA)-salt hypertensive mice were injected intraperitoneally with specific A2A receptor agonist (CGS21680) or antagonist (istradefylline) or PBS respectively. Fourteen days after DOCA-salt infusion, the expressional diversity of immune-related cytokines and chemokines were detected by quantitative real time PCR and western blot. Flow cytometric analysis was used to assess spleen CD4+, CD8+ and Foxp3+ T cells. The cardiovascular function of DOCA-salt mice was detected by wire myography and echocardiography. Results: The treatment of CGS21680 resulted in a dramatically increase of regulatory T cells (Tregs,CD4+Foxp3+) in spleen, accompanied by the increased volume and weight of spleen (Figure), while istradefylline accelerated DOCA-salt induced hypertension inflammation. CGS21680 stimulation also resulted in decreased inflammatory cytokins level as IL-1&bgr;, IL-6 and MCP1 in heart. Relax function of aorta significantly elevated in CGS21680-treated DOCA-salt mice and the echocardiographic results display an obvious improvement of cardiovascular functions. Conclusions: These data indicates that CGS21680 acts through A2A receptor to increase regulatory T cells, causing the attenuation of hypertension-induced cardiovascular injury. Overall, A2A receptor may be a novel role in hypertension therapeutic strategy. Figure. No caption available.


With comparison of the differences of light absorption and active oxygen metabolism between super-hybrid rice "Liangyoupeijiu" and its parents, this paper provided a physiological foundation of matching and grouping for cultivating anti-photooxidized hybrid rice. TPS-photosynthetic system and FMS2-fluorescence (Hansatech, UK) were used to respectively determine the photosynthetic rate and the chlorophyll fluorescence in the rice leaves that had been processed in artificial photooxidization. Meanwhile, the contents of chlorophyll, protein and malonaldehydic acid (MDA) as well as the activation of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) were determined. The results showed that the photosynthetic rate of "Liangyoupeijiu" was 2.4% lower than that of its female parent, and 23% higher than that of its male parent. After eight days anti-photooxidization process, its chlorophyll content was higher than that of its female parent by 33%, protein by 15%, initial photochemical efficiency by 30%, SOD by 32% and POD by 100%, while its photochemical quince coefficient was lower than that of its female parent by 9% and MDA by 50%. It showed that there was not much difference between the filial generation and its male parent. The super-hybrid rice "Liangyoupeijiu" was very efficient for solar energy utilization under the condition of photooxidization, and had outgrown its parents in the aspect of anti-photooxidization.


Rock glaciers in the semi-arid Central Andes ofChile and Argentina (approx. 28-34°S) are wide-spread elements of the high mountain landscape butthey still need to be studied more thoroughly. Thepresence and activity of this type of ice-rich and creep-ing permafrost has potential consequences for the hy-drological functioning of the watersheds as well asfor the stability of the debris slopes (Trombotto etal, 1997; 1999). Indeed, some cases of rock glacierdestabilization observed in this region (Iribarren, 2010;Bodin and Iribarren, 2012) suggest that the geomor-phological processes related to rock glacier dynamicsmay be changing because of warming conditions intothe ground (Trombotto& Borzotta, 2009). Neverthe-less, up to now, knowledge on rock glacier kinematicsin the Central Andes was restricted to a few sites(Apaloo et al., 2012; UGP-UC, 2011; Arenson et al.,2010) where study and monitoring efforts took placesince generally less than 10 years. On the other side,ongoing human activities in high altitude areas, likemining, are increasingly impacting rock glaciers (Bren-ning, 2008; Brenning and Azocar, 2010), which hasled to substantial efforts from public authorities toevaluate the cryospheric resources in their respectiveterritories. For that purpose, in both Chile and Ar-gentina, inventories of rock glaciers have recently beenreleased (UGP-UC, 2011; IANIGLA, 2010) based onaerial and satellite imagery. Morphological features in-dicatives of the presence of ice-rich permafrost, mainlyrock glaciers, have therefore been mapped. The assess-ment of the activity status of those landforms, whichis of crucial importance for further studying theirsensitivity to climate- and human-induced impacts,is generally done thanks to expert knowledge. Basedon visual interpretation of optical imagery, sometimescombined with in situ observations, this approachinduces subjectivity-related biases and a limited reli-ability of the analysis.To overcome those limitations, and under certainconditions (e.g. orbital geometry, weather conditions,slopes orientation), the space-borne imagery methodcalled differential radar interferometry (d-InSAR) canbe used to produce raster maps of surface changesover large areas and for periods covering a few daysto some months. In our work, we used 17 TerraSAR-X images acquired between April 2014 and January2015 over two zones of the Central Andes (Cordondel Plata: 33°S; El Tapado: 30°S) to generate 15interferograms (8 in descending mode and 7 in as-cending mode) with a pixel size of 10 m, at 11, 22and 33-day intervals and a baseline of the SAR pairsranging from a few meters to some hundreds of meters.The topographic fringes were removed using the 90-mSRTM global DEM and a smoothing filter has beenapplied to the generated interferometric signal. Thed-InSAR dataset has been locally validated thanksto in situ dGPS measurements (Tapado rock glaciersite) performed between 2010 and 2014. We were ableto evidence several areas of distinct velocity patterns,depending on the glacio-geomorphological activity(glacier/debris-covered glacier/rock glacier) for whicha clear d-InSAR signal could be associated, as alsoobserved in other high mountain sites in the Alpswhere such approach has been previously used.The dataset covers a surface of almost 5100 km2,with a median elevation of 4120 m asl (25-75%quantiles = 3464-4606 m asl) and several hundreds offresh rock glaciers inventoried. We present here a syn-thetic overview of the regional rock glacier's activitybased on the interpretation of the TSX interferograms.The kinematic characteristics of some interesting rockglaciers is further presented and discussed, especiallyin terms of the correspondence between geomorpho-logical observations and d-InSAR signal, as well asfuture research directions


The properties of singular graphs obtained in a previous paper "On the construction of graphs of nullity one", lead to the characterization of graphs of small rank. The minimal conflgurations that are contained in singular graphs were identifled as "grown" from certain cores. A core of a singular graph G is a subgraph induced by the vertices corresponding to the non-zero components of an eigenvector in the nullspace of the adjacency matrix of G. In this paper it is shown that an arbitrary singular graph Z without isolated vertices has core-sizes corresponding to a minimal basis for the nullspace of A bounded below by 2 and above by r(Z) + 1, r(Z) being the rank of Z. For r(Z) µ 6, these bounds are sharp.


Video texts — if available — constitute a valuable source for automatic semantic annotation of large video archives. In this paper, we present our attempts towards the improvement of a text-based semantic annotation and retrieval system for Turkish news videos through automatic Web alignment and event extraction. The results of our initial experiments turn out to be promising and these two features are incorporated into the existing system. Although the ideas of automatic Web alignment and text-based event extraction are not the novel contributions of the current paper, to the best of our knowledge, their first implementation and employment in a system for Turkish news videos is a significant contribution to related work on videos in lesser studied languages such as Turkish. Also overviewed in the current paper is the prospective version of the system encompassing components for several other tasks including topic segmentation, keyphrase extraction, news categorization and summarization to enhance the overall system.


Ever wondered where packets are queued within the kernel or how to achieve lower network latency? Read this article to find out.


The mincing process of raw meat favors microbial spoilage as well as chemical and enzymatic oxidation processes. In order to limit this degradative process, preservatives are routinely added to minced meat products. The role of olive mill wastewater polyphenolic extract as a replacement for synthetic preservatives in beef burger was assessed. The antioxidant capacity of the extract experimentally added to beef burger was evaluated using the oxygen radical absorbance capacity method (ORACFL) to assess the shelf-life, while the lipid oxidation was measured by thiobarbituric reactive substance (TBAR) determination. The antimicrobial activity was assayed by means of classical methods and predictive microbiology. The experimental addition of polyphenolic extract led to 62% lower lipid oxidation and 58% higher antioxidant capacity; it also successfully modulated spoilage microbial populations with an average growth reduction of 15% on day 7. Results indicate that olive mill wastewater polyphenolic extracts could be added to raw ground beef meat to act as natural antioxidants and to modulate microbial growth.


Background
The primary management for nasolacrimal duct obstruction is the combination of lacrimal duct probing with lacrimal duct stent implantation.However, conventional implant is undegradable.New degradable lacrimal duct prosthesis based on biopolymer materials is a research hotspot.

Objective
This study described herein a preparation method of novel degradable lacrimal duct prosthesis and its application.

Methods
A new degradable lacrimal tube stent was prepared with compound of poly L lactic acid (PLLA) and polycaprolactone (PCL) (6∶4) and 15% polyethylene glycol (PEG). Thirty-two Japanese rabbits aged 3-4 months were randomized into postoperative 1-week group, postoperative 4-week group, postoperative 8-week group and postoperative 16-week group.The degradable lacrimal tube stents were inserted into the lacrimal ducts of the left eyes of the rabbits.The prosthesis was removed in corresponding time points according to grouping, and the integrity and weight of the prosthesis were evaluated.The mucosal findings of the operative eyes were examined under the endoscope, and the histopathological and inflammatory reaction was observed by hematoxylin & eosin stain.The ultrastructure of the lacrimal mucosal surface was examined under the scanning electron microscope.The use and care of the rabbits complied with the Regulations for the Administration of Affair Concerning Experimental Animals by State Science and Technology Commission.

Results
The new degradable PLLA: PCL+ 15%PEG lacrimal duct stents were smooth, flexible and hydrophilic tubes.The removed tubes were intact in the postoperative 1-week group, however, the rupture of the tubes appeared in the postoperative 4-week group, while discrete pieces of the tubes were seen in the postoperative 16-week group.The weight-loss rates of the tubes were (13.44±6.59)%, (23.96±6.33)%, (55.08±6.55)% and (78.00±8.74)% in the postoperative 1-week group, postoperative 4-week group, postoperative 8-week group and postoperative 16-week group, respectively, and the weight-loss rate of the tubes was significantly higher in the postoperative 16-week group than those in the postoperative 8-week group (q=4.27, P 0.05). The edema, hyperemia and mild proliferation of the lacrimal mucosal were exhibited in the eyes of the postoperative 4- and 8-week groups, and the mucosal findings were almost normal in the eyes of the postoperative 16-week group under the endoscope.Histopathological examination showed a large number of inflammatory cells in the postoperative 1-, 4- and 8-week groups.However, few inflammatory cells were seen in the postoperative 16-week group.Mucosal folds, microvillus decrease and disorder were displayed in the lacrimal duct of the postoperative 8-week group, and no evident abnormality was seen in the lacrimal duct mucosal surface.No postoperative complication occurred in all the rabbits.

Conclusions
PLLA: PCL+ 15%PEG lacrimal duct stent has an appropriate degradation speed and good biocompatibility after implant in rabbits, and its decay period of mechanical strength could match lacrimal duct healing period.

Key words:
Lacrimal duct; Stents; Polymers/chemistry; Biodegradability; Biocompatibility; Lacrimal duct obstruction/therapy; Rabbits, Japanese


This paper analyzes whether and how transfer of climate mitigation technologies to China occurs, by studying cases of seven technologies that are at the stage of deployment or diffusion. Most of these technologies were already transferred to China in terms of both technology adoption and local production. International division of labor of manufacturing and localization policies by the Chinese government facilitated local production by China, which resulted in deep cuts in production costs. Such cost reduction, coupled with technology diffusion policies by the Chinese government, then accelerated deployment and diffusion in China and other emerging economies that import Chinese products.


In this article, single-machine scheduling problems with learning effects of setup and removal times and deterioration effects of processing time are considered. The objective function of the problem is minimization of the weighted sum of total earliness and total tardiness. To get an exact solution to the problem, a mathematical programming model is proposed. Also the model is tested on an example. To the best of our knowledge, no work exists in the literature that considers the problem presented in this article. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This study establishes a new method for estimating the monthly Average Population Present (APP) in Australian regions. Conventional population statistics, which enumerate people where they usually live, ignore the significant spatial mobility driving short term shifts in population numbers. Estimates of the temporary or ambient population of a region have several important applications including the provision of goods and services, emergency preparedness and serve as more appropriate denominators for a range of social statistics. This paper develops a flexible modelling framework to generate APP estimates from an integrated suite of conventional and novel data sources. The resultant APP estimates reveal the considerable seasonality in small area populations across Australia's regions alongside the contribution of domestic and international visitors as well as absent residents to the observed monthly variations. The modelling framework developed in the paper is conceived in a manner such that it can be adapted and re-deployed both for use with alternative data sources as well as other situational contexts for the estimation of temporary populations.


One notable difference between 3D test flow and 2D test flow mainly lies in the mid-bond test, in which the stacking yield can be further enhanced through optimized bonding arrangement. In contrast to the existing sequential stacking, this paper proposes a novel rearranged stacking scheme which estimates the probability and cost of failed bonding in each stacking step and optimizes the mid-bond order to screen out the failed component as early as possible. The effect of the rearranged stacking has been extensively analyzed using the yield model and cost model of 3D-SICs considering different process parameters such as die yield, stacking size, failure rate and redundancy degree of TSVs. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed rearranged stacking method is only a half of the sequential stacking in terms of Failed area ratio (FAR).


Reaction and retrosynthesis prediction are two fundamental tasks in computational chemistry. In recent years, these two tasks have attracted great attentions from both machine learning and drug discovery communities. Various deep learning approaches have been proposed to tackle these two problems and achieved initial success. In this survey, we conduct a comprehensive investigation on advanced deep learning-based reaction and retrosynthesis prediction models. We first summarize the design mechanism, strengths and weaknesses of the state-of-the-art approaches. Then we further discuss limitations of current solutions and open challenges in the problem itself. Last but not the least, we present some promising directions to facilitate future research. To our best knowledge, this paper is the first comprehensive and systematic survey on unified understanding of reaction and retrosynthesis prediction.


This paper attempts to estimate the causal effect of government enforcement on compliance with minimum wages in South Africa, a country where considerable non-compliance exists. The number of labour inspectors per capita is used as a proxy for enforcement, whilst non-compliance is measured using an index of violation that measures both the proportion of individuals violated, as well as the average depth of individual violation. Due to the potential simultaneity between enforcement and compliance, the number of labour inspectors is instrumented by the number of non-inspectors. The results suggest that there are a variety of factors impacting on violation, including firm-level, sectoral and spatial characteristics. One of the key determinants of violation is found to be the local unemployment rate. However, the number of labour inspectors is found to be insignificant in determining non-compliance.


A 36-year-old man with staphylococcal meningitis had similar symptoms and MRI characteristics as reversible splenium lesion syndrome described in the literature-hyperdensity on DWI and T2WI/FLAIR, hypodensity on ADC, iso-intensity on T1WI, and no contrast enhancement on midline splenium. The splenium lesion on MRI disappeared as the symptoms improved. The etiology of staphylococcal meningitis was different from other reported cases, and the MRS study showed relatively elevated lactate and myo-inositol of splenium as compared to other selective regions in the brain (both white matter and gray matter), which implies increased anaerobic glycolysis and hyperosmolar state on the splenium. The ratios of NAA/Cr, NAA/Cho, and Cho/Cr were abnormal in all selected regions, indicating that the pathologic change involved the whole brain. More series MRS and other advanced exams to correlate intracranial environment (ex. cerebral blood flow, osmolality, inflammatory process, metabolites distribution, and neurotransmitter changes) are needed to confirm the mechanisms of different etiologies with reversible splenium lesion syndrome.


Concern for the academic success of undergraduate students with low literacy levels is by no means unique to South Africa. In response to initiatives by the Ministry of Education and Training to standardise and improve the quality of higher education in the country in accordance with international standards, the University of Đa Nẵng in Việt Nam recently tested out a pilot version of the South African designed Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) at its College of Foreign Languages (CFL). This article examines the appropriateness of the TALL for use at an institution such as the CFL in Việt Nam and compares the literacy levels of students studying at the college with those of a similar group of students at the University of Pretoria. The research findings show that the TALL exceeds the set requirements for international language tests in terms of reliability and that it has high construct validity. In addition hereto the test has proven to be highly feasible to administer, particularly with due consideration to time constraints and practicality. Academic literacy levels were found to be lower amongst the cohort of Vietnamese students than amongst a comparable group of South African students. Recommendations for the continued employment of the test in Việt Nam include doing differential item function analyses to explore gender and cultural differences, the minor refinement of less productive task items, and a slightly shorter test version.


Abstract Soft–X-ray (SXR) brightness measurements contain information on a number of physics parameters in fusion plasmas; however, it is nearly impossible to extract the information without modeling. A validated forward model is therefore necessary for the accurate interpretation of SXR measurements and will be critical in the burning plasma era, where medium- and high-Z impurities are ever present. The Atomic Data and Analysis Structure (ADAS) database is a powerful interpretive tool that is extensively used to model and predict atomic spectra, level populations, and ionization balance for fusion plasmas. These predictions are in good agreement with experimental measurements. However, continuum radiation in the X-ray range, while also modeled in ADAS, has not been rigorously verified or tested against experimental data. We therefore performed a systematic comparison of ADAS to a simplified model called PFM. PFM only calculates continuum radiation but shows good agreement with experimental data when only continuum radiation is present. ADAS and the simplified model agree to within 1% to 2% indicating that ADAS is calculating continuum radiation correctly. We have also begun a validation of SXR brightness calculations from ADAS. The SXR brightness measurements modeled by ADAS agree well with experimental measurements from an extreme where the signal is dominated by line radiation continuously through another extreme where the signal is dominated by continuum emission. While this validation work is preliminary, it strongly suggests that ADAS accurately models the physics that lead to SXR radiation.


The recent past has highlighted the influential role of social networks and online media in shaping public debate on current affairs and political issues. This paper is focused on studying the role of politically-motivated actors and their strategies for influencing and manipulating public opinion online: partisan media, state-backed propaganda, and post-truth politics. In particular, we present quantitative research on the presence and impact of these three `Ps' in online Twitter debates in two contexts: (i) the run up to the UK EU membership referendum (`Brexit'); and (ii) the information operations of Russia-backed online troll accounts. We first compare the impact of highly partisan versus mainstream media during the Brexit referendum, specifically comparing tweets by half a million `leave' and `remain' supporters. Next, online propaganda strategies are examined, specifically left- and right-wing troll accounts. Lastly, we study the impact of misleading claims made by the political leaders of the leave and remain campaigns. This is then compared to the impact of the Russia-backed partisan media and propaganda accounts during the referendum. In particular, just two of the many misleading claims made by politicians during the referendum were found to be cited in 4.6 times more tweets than the 7,103 tweets related to Russia Today and Sputnik and in 10.2 times more tweets than the 3,200 Brexit-related tweets by the Russian troll accounts.


The problem of detecting the number of (possibly correlated) narrowband sources of energy and estimating the direction of arrival (DOA) of each detected source using data received by an array of sensors is investigated. A combined detection and estimation approach based on the likelihood function (LF) is used. The approach is motivated by detection theoretic considerations instead of information theoretic criteria and uses maximum likelihood (ML) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimates of hypothesized sources as detection statistics rather than maximizing the LF with a penalty function. Performance comparisons are made to unstructured and structured techniques based on Akaike information theoretic criteria (AIC), minimum description length (MDL), and Bayesian predictive density (BPD) approaches as well as the minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) approach. An important feature that distinguishes this approach is the ability to trade off detection and false alarm performance, which is not possible with the other LF-based approaches, while achieving performance levels comparable to or exceeding the LF-based and MVDR approaches.


Sparse PCA is a widely used technique for high-dimensional data analysis. In this paper, we propose a new method called low-rank principal eigenmatrix analysis. Different from sparse PCA, the dominant eigenvectors are allowed to be dense but are assumed to have a low-rank structure when matricized appropriately. Such a structure arises naturally in several practical cases: Indeed the top eigenvector of a circulant matrix, when matricized appropriately is a rank-1 matrix. We propose a matricized rank-truncated power method that could be efficiently implemented and establish its computational and statistical properties. Extensive experiments on several synthetic data sets demonstrate the competitive empirical performance of our method.


In a single-hop star network based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), a protocol is needed for the transmitter and receiver to coordinate message transmission. This paper proposes a dynamic scheduling protocol which can efficiently support variable-sized messages, where a control channel is used to coordinate transmissions on data channels. The protocol does not require any global information. Therefore, it can operate independently of the change of the number of nodes, and any new node can join the network at any time without requiring network initialization. Moreover, with the protocol, one can avoid data channel and destination conflicts. The protocol is analyzed with a finite population model and the throughput-delay characteristics are investigated as performance measures.


Objective. Autoreactive antibody responses, including the use of several isotypes of autoantibodies, have been shown to be associated with clinical outcome in several rheumatic autoimmune diseases. The goals of this study were to evaluate whether (1) anticentromere antibody (ACA)– and antitopoisomerase antibody (ATA)–specific isotype expression, and (2) organ involvement are associated with the degree of microangiopathy in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Methods. ACA and ATA IgG, IgM, and IgA levels were measured in baseline serum samples of ACA IgG–positive (+) and ATA IgG+ patients with SSc. The degree of microangiopathy was determined based on nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC) images collected at the same point in time. Logistic regression analyses with autoantibodies, clinical characteristics, isotype expression, and ACA and ATA IgG, IgM, and IgA levels as independent variables, and NVC pattern as the dependent variable were performed. Results. In 164 patients, isotype levels and degree of microangiopathy were evaluated. Logistic regression confirmed the association of the degree of microangiopathy with the presence of digital ulcers (OR 3.07, 95% CI 1.43–6.60), interstitial lung disease (OR 3.41, 95% CI 1.11–10.61), and pulmonary arterial hypertension (OR 5.58, 95% CI 2.05–17.81). ATA positivity was associated with more severe microangiopathy (OR 2.09, 95% CI 1.05–4.13). Patients who expressed solely ACA IgG showed a trend towards less severe microangiopathy compared to patients also expressing ACA IgM and/or IgA. Levels of ACA IgG and ATA IgM were found to be associated with microangiopathy severity. Conclusion. We observed an association between ACA and ATA responses and the degree of microangiopathy in SSc. These findings might indicate that the breadth of the autoimmune response, as reflected by autoantibody production and microvascular damage, interacts in the pathophysiology of SSc.


We have calculated the structural and energetic properties of neutral and ionic (singly charged anionic and cationic) semiconductor binary silicon-germanium clusters Si(m)Ge(n) for s = m + n ≤ 12 using the density functional theory (DFT-B3LYP) and coupled cluster [CCSD(T)] methods with Pople's 6-311++G(3df, 3pd) basis set. Neutral and anionic clusters share similar ground state structures for s = 3-7, independent of the stoichiometry and atom locations, but start to deviate at s = 8. The relative energetic stability of the calculated ground state structures among possible isomers has been analyzed through a bond strength propensity model where the pair interactions of Si-Si, Si-Ge, and Ge-Ge are competing. Electron affinities, ionization potentials, energy gaps between the highest and lowest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO-LUMO gaps), and cluster mixing energies were calculated and analyzed. Overall, for a fixed s, the vertical ionization potential increases as the number of silicon atoms m increases, while the vertical electron affinity shows a dip at m = 2. As s increases, the ionization potentials increase from s = 2 to s = 3 and then decrease slowly to s = 8. The mixing energies for neutral and ionic clusters are all negative, indicating that the binary clusters are more stable than pure elemental clusters. Except for s = 4 and 8, cationic clusters are more stable than anionic ones and, thus, are more likely to be observed in experiments.


Purpose: Conjunctival papillomata are squamous epithelial tumors with a strong association with human papilloma virus (HPV) types 6 and 11. They are benign conjunctival tumors that can be treated by surgical excision. We report a case where topical immunosuppressive therapy modified the local T-cell immunity in the conjunctiva resulting in papilloma development in a patient with keratoconus and a strong atopic history. Methods: A case report of a 44-year-old man with a history of severe ocular and generalized atopy is presented. We present the problems encountered in management of his severe ocular allergy and how these impeded the management of his keratoconus. Results: Conventional antiallergy topical medication was not producing symptom relief in this patient, and so topical immunosuppression was commenced using ciclosporin ointment 0.2%. This therapy modified the local T-cell immunity in the conjunctiva resulting in the development of papillomata which contributed to the intolerance of contact lens wear for visual rehabilitation of the keratoconus in the patient. These lesions were surgically removed but typically recurred and required further surgical excision. Adjunct cryotherapy was also performed at the time of the surgery to try to stem the recurrence of the papillomas. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge and following a review of the published literature using key databases that include Medline and PubMed, this is the first report confirming the development of conjunctival papillomas secondary to HPV type 6 in a ciclosporin-treated patient.


Clove is found to possess useful medicinal properties, such as anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-oxidant. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of Syzygium aromaticum (Clove) on cognitive functions in mice. Clove powder was administered orally along with diet in three doses (400, 800, 1600mg/kg) for seven successive days. 250 Swiss young mice divided in 50 groups and 100 aged mice divided in 20 groups were employed in the present study. The learning and memory parameters were assessed using elevated plus maze, passive avoidance apparatus and Hebb-Williams maze. Clove showed significant improvement in the memory of young and aged animals as reflected by decreased TL as well as TRC and increased SDL values. It also reversed the amnesia caused by ethanol (1.0 g/kg, i.p.) and diazepam (1mg/kg, i.p.). Furthermore, Clove reduced significantly the brain cholinesterase activity in young mice by 50.5 % and aged mice by 21.25 % at the dose of 800 mg/kg. Clove also showed remarkable reduction to the extent of 33% and 66.32 % in the total cholesterol levels of young and aged mice at the dose of 800 mg/kg. Diminished cholinergic transmission and high cholesterol levels appear to be responsible for the development of dementia in Alzheimer patients. Since Clove powder enhanced Ach levels and lowered cholesterol levels in the present study; it appears to be a promising candidate for improving memory. Thus it would be worthwhile to explore the potential of this spice (Clove) clinically in the management of Alzheimer's disease.


Passive ultra-high-frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) has developed rapidly over the past two decades. In 2012 alone, about 4 billion tags were sold worldwide [1]. Manufacture and deployment at this volume has been made possible by minimizing tag cost, making a strong disincentive for the added expense of RF performance testing. As a result, performance metrics and test methods are not yet unified or generally adopted. Large customers in industry and government, however, wish to compare products with parameters like read range and inventory rate, so this problem is attracting more attention, and test standards are improving. This article discusses the history, state of the art, and some future challenges in this rapidly evolving area of study. In particular, we consider two metrics for digitally modulated backscatter of passive UHF RFID tags and how tests can be simplified for reduced costs. Examples for some 860-960 MHz commercial tags and applications are given to illustrate the method.


The nutritional status and ethnic-aloofness (non mixed genomes owing to lack of cross marriages) might have direct impact on the average age and quality of health of the individuals belonging to different racial groupings. North Western region of Balochistan around Quetta, Pakistan, has diverse ethnic populations which afford a unique genomic pattern in addition to specific life style, pattern of eating, average age and quality of health. The biological correlation of this demography is expected to reflect on the overall quality of life of an individual. 100 subjects in each ethnic population belonging to middle social strata were sampled. Serum uric acid, urea and creatinine were determined using kits of Spinreact® according to the instructions of manufacturer. The blood parameters were correlated with body weight and age using standard statistical procedures. The subject from Pushtoons and Punjabis group were of significantly greater body weight compared to Baloch and Hazarajat (Persian-speaking) populations. The mean height of Pushtoons population was significantly greater than for all other groups. Uric acid level was greater in Pushtoons and Baloch compared to Hazarajat and no significant difference was observed between the Punjabis and Hazarajat. Serum urea was significantly greater in Hazarajat population compared to Pushtoons and Baloch, which had no difference from each other. The creatinine levels were very high in Punjabis population with respect to Hazarajat. There were positive differences in creatinine levels among Baloch and Pushtoons populations. It was found that genetic makeup based upon ethnic segregation is instrumental in varied level of various nitrogenous products in the blood. The variation in nutritional status (type of food intake) combined with environmental factors may additionally contribute towards the various nitrogenous products in the serum.

 Key words: Ethnic-aloofness, Balochistan, serum uric acid, urea and creatinine


OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical effectiveness in reducing large overjet between a prefabricated functional appliance (PFA) and a slightly modified Andresen activator (AA).

SETTING AND SAMPLE POPULATION
Public Dental Service, Gothenburg, Sweden.

PARTICIPANTS, STUDY DESIGN, AND METHODS
A multicentre, prospective randomized clinical trial was conducted with patients from 12 general dental practices. One hundred and five patients with an Angle Class II, division 1 malocclusion and an overjet of ≥6mm were eligible for the study. Eight patients were excluded due to various reasons and the sample consisted thus of 97 subjects (44 girls, 53 boys) with a mean age of 10.3 years. The study was designed as intention to treat and the patients were randomly allocated by lottery to treatment with either a PFA or an AA. The PFA and AA group consisted of 57 subjects (28 girls, 29 boys) and 40 subjects (16 girls, 24 boys), respectively. Overjet, overbite, lip seal, and sagittal molar relationship were recorded before, at the end of treatment and 1-year post-treatment. Blinding was not performed. The endpoint of treatment was set to overjet ≤3mm and after this a 6 months retention period followed.

RESULTS
No significant difference was found in overjet, overbite, sagittal relation, and lip seal between the two groups for the total observation period. The treatment of 40 (70 per cent) patients with PFA and 21 (53 per cent) with AA were considered unsuccessful mainly due to poor compliance.

LIMITATIONS
No cephalometric records were taken as only patient-centred clinical outcome were used as an indicator for treatment success. The criteria of reduction of overjet to as low as 3mm could have affected the success rate.

CONCLUSION
No difference in effectiveness could be shown between PFAs and AAs in correcting overjet, overbite, sagittal molar relation, and lip seal. The success rate in treatment with both appliances is, however, low.

REGISTRATION
This trial was registered in "FoU i Sverige" (http://www.fou.nu/is/sverige), registration number: 97131.

PROTOCOL
The protocol was not published before trial commencement.


Phytopathogenic fungi have evolved an amazing diversity of infection modes and nutritional strategies, yet the signaling pathways that govern pathogenicity are remarkably conserved. Protein kinases (PKs) catalyze the reversible phosphorylation of proteins, regulating a variety of cellular processes. Here, we present an overview of our current understanding of the different classes of PKs that contribute to fungal pathogenicity on plants and of the mechanisms that regulate and coordinate PK activity during infection-related development. In addition to the well-studied PK modules, such as MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) and cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate)-PKA (protein kinase A) cascades, we also discuss new PK pathways that have emerged in recent years as key players of pathogenic development and disease. Understanding how conserved PK signaling networks have been recruited during the evolution of fungal pathogenicity not only advances our knowledge of the highly elaborate infection process but may also lead to the development of novel strategies for the control of plant disease.


This article introduces the synergy between theatre, games, and social activism that I have coined "Gamaturgy." Gamaturgy, in both the creative and reflexive realms, as I describe them, is derived from theatrical dramaturgy and provides new ideas for creating and critically analyzing serious videogames, especially social issue games. First, I sketch out the formative dramaturgical influences from Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre, Paulo Friere's transitive pedagogy, and Victor Turner's concepts of the liminoid and social justice. I then expand this unique way of play-making into the realm of creative gamaturgy as a way of creating experiential interactions and constructing meanings in the design and creation of serious videogames. As for the aim of finding a new form of thematic analysis for videogames, I use my original case study The Pipeline Pinball Energy Thrill Ride Game to demonstrate a method of recovering meanings from games through the implementation of reflexive gamaturgy.


Background: Determination of oocyte and embryo quality are one of the most important goals in in vitro fertilization (IVF). Antimullerian hormone (AMH) is secreted by the ovarian granulosa cells into blood flow and follicular fluid. Follicular fluid (FF) AMH level is probably a marker of activity of granulosa cells. Objective: To evaluate whether high level of FF AMH level is related to success of fertilization and better embryo quality. Materials and methods: Sixty-two women, whose FF sample was obtained from a single follicle in each patient, underwent IVF with GnRH-agonist long protocol. Based on oocyte fertilization, the patients were divided into fertilized group (n = 42) and nonfertilized group (n = 20). FF AMH levels were measured in both groups and the quality of embryos was determined in fertilized group. Results: Median of FF AMH level in fertilized group was higher than that in nonfertilized group (5.7 vs 2.7 ng/ml) and a statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups. There was a significant difference between FF AMH level and scores of embryos (p < 0.001). The medians levels of FF AMH were 6.7 ng/ml in good quality embryos and 3.80 ng/ml in fair quality embryos. Conclusion: Our results indicate that FF AMH level has positive correlation with fertilization and embryo quality; therefore, it can be considered as a marker of IVF outcome.


SUMMARY 1. The projections and response properties of a bilateral pair of large visual interneurones in the cockroach Periplaneta are described. The cells are shown to be analogous to the DCMD neurones of locust (Rowell, 1971a). 2. The organization of the afferent input to the cockroach DCMD was explored by examining the response to different types of visual stimuli. The afferent input is organized into an array of parallel channels. Response habitutation occurs within each channel independently of habituation in other channels. 3. The dynamics of habituation and recovery from habituation were examined. A simple model based on these data is proposed that can predict the DCMD response to repetitive stimuli having a wide range of interstimulus intervals. The relation of this model to models of synaptic depression is discussed. 4. Both u.v.-sensitive and green-sensitive photoreceptors in the eye provide input to the DCMD, but this cell remains unable to detect colour.


A novel fiber-coupler fabrication system which automatically processes fusion and elongation is presented. Not only conventional single-mode fiber couplers but also polarization-maintaining fiber couplers with excellent characteristics such as excess losses less than 0.11 dB and coupling-ratio accuracy better than 1.3 percent were obtained. In addition, it was confirmed that polarization crosstalk for polarization-maintaining fiber couplers in the present system was lower than that for the conventional manual method. The fabrication yield and reliability of the present system have been much higher than those of the conventional method and the processing time for fabrication could also be reduced.


This study deals with the use of cyclone separators as air filters in light or heavy duty vehicles. Cyclone separators were compared with the conventional air filters, which provide low particle collection efficiency with high pressure drop, and these characteristics are made worse by contamination. By taking into account the related studies in the literature, tangential inlet cyclones were considered in this comparison. The pressure drop and particle collection efficiency in the proposed tangential inlet cyclone were computed by using the mathematical models given in the literature. Comparison of the computed results of the cyclone with the conventional air filters demonstrated that the tangential inlet cyclones are advantageous because of low pressure drop and high particle collection efficiency and can be used as main or pre-filters in vehicles.


The purpose of this study is to examine the validity and reproducibility of impedance body fat measurement devices measuring the body composition of Korean male and female adults using three bioelectrical impedance analyzers. We compared two methods for evaluating body composition: dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), and bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). Subjects were 200 healthy adult Korean males and females whose mean±standard deviation (range) age, standing height, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) were 44.1±14.5 years, 172.8±7.4 cm, 76.0±12.8 kg, and 25.4±3.3 kg/m2, and 44.5±14.7 years, 158.7±5.8 cm, 58.3±8.3 kg, and 23.2±3.0 kg/m2, respectively. As a result, first of all, the reproducibility of the bioelectrical impedance analyzer had very high coefficients at r=0.998, r=0.997 between men and women, respectively. The correlation coefficients among three comparisons for lean body mass (LBM) were provided the following coefficients: r=0.951 for DEXA vs. ACCUNIQ BC720, r=0.950 for DEXA vs. ACCUNIQ BC360, and r=0.946 for DEXA vs. ACCUNIQ BC380 in men. In the results for women, they also had the very high following coefficients: r=0.956 for DEXA vs. ACCUNIQ BC720, r=0.946 for DEXA vs. ACCUNIQ BC360, and r=0.957 for DEXA vs. ACCUNIQ BC380 in LBM. In conclusion, this research showed a higher correlation in terms of accuracy compared to existing BIA-based body composition measurement techniques, and the accuracy of LBM was improved with high correlation coefficients through the algorithm that was improved using the multifrequency BIA method in the ACCUNIQ BC products.


Today's aviation industry is faced with three conflicting goals: First, aeronautics already draws responsible for 2% of all anthropologically induced emissions, (IATA 2013) and the need for reducing those emissions is no point of contention anymore. Second, the irresistible growth of air traffic demand challenges both, airport operations and air traffic flow management. And third, despite all changes, the expectations of safety are constantly increasing. To account for the need of improved, safe and climate friendly aircraft operations, we present a simulation environment, that is capable of optimizing trajectories regarding multiple criteria. Therewith we show the positive impact of 4 D optimized trajectories on the air traffic flow, controller's taskload and airspace complexity and emphasize the importance of an enhanced air traffic flow management considering dynamic sectorization and air space configuration.


In many vertebrates and invertebrates, individuals reared in isolation show biological modifications compared with those reared in groups of two of more. The spider mite Tetranychus urticae is characterised by a communal organization and displays some forms of cooperative behaviour (aggregation and common web spinning). To evaluate the potential fitness cost or gain of group living, we investigated the effect of being in group on life history parameters (silk production, fecundity, death rate, feeding rate). In this respect, virgin single females and grouped females (two to six individuals) were compared every day for 5 days. Grouped mites produced significantly more web/mite per day (since the second day of experiment) and more eggs/mite per day (since the fourth day of experiment) than single mites. Moreover, single mites had a higher death rate than mites living in groups. However, no difference was found concerning feeding rate. We assume that mites could benefit from the web production of other individuals and invested resources in other activities such as egg production. We showed that these group effects already exist in small groups. In natural conditions with a higher group size, the impact of group living might be stronger for the dynamics of T. urticae populations and the colony foundation.


We prove the strong form of the Gaussian product conjecture in dimension three. Our purely analytical proof simplifies previously known proofs based on combinatorial methods or computer-assisted methods, and allows us to solve the case of any triple of even positive integers which remained open so far.


A two-phase ac-ac matrix converter configuration is presented based on direct power conversion without any intermediate dc stage. The modulation strategy is developed to provide sinusoidal output waveforms with two-phase loads. The proposed strategy can generate the two-phase output voltages/currents where the magnitudes are independently controlled, and the phase difference is fixed at 90/spl deg/.


Bike fitting is a rapidly developing profession in the field of sport and well-being. The profession is governed by the International Bike Fitting Institute, which recently announced the creation of a common education syllabus. Although this is a positive step forward, to ensure the integrity of the profession, it is important that the content of the syllabus be evidence based. This, however, may prove challenging as there is currently a paucity of research regarding certain aspects of the bike-fitting role. One area that appears to have been largely neglected is the relationship and importance of communication between the bike fitter and client. This scholarly commentary presents research from other professions that demonstrates both the importance of this omission and the necessity to include training on communication and interpersonal skills in the International Bike Fitting Institute's proposed education provision.


The invention discloses a method for installing a pipeline scaffold of steel roof equipment and a rigid suspended scaffold. The rigid suspended scaffold comprises a plurality of steel pipe upper trusses with same structures and a plurality of suspended scaffolds with same structures, wherein each steel pipe upper truss is built between at least two upper chords of a steel roof along the vertical running direction of an equipment pipeline, and the steel pipe upper trusses are connected with each other into a whole; each suspended scaffold is suspended and built below each steel pipe upper truss along the running direction of the equipment pipeline, and the length of a suspended overhead corridor formed by the longitudinal connection of the suspended scaffolds is the same as that of the corresponding equipment pipeline. In the invention, building floor type scaffolds is not needed, and high-performance special installing machinery is not needed, thereby saving construction period and cost. The invention is suitable for public buildings, such as long-spun sports and culture stadiums and the like, and equipment pipeline construction in the steel roofs of large-scale industrial buildings and the like.


Abstract Adult schistosomes live in the blood vessels and cannot easily be sampled from humans, so archived miracidia larvae hatched from eggs expelled in feces or urine are commonly used for population genetic studies. Large collections of archived miracidia on FTA cards are now available through the Schistosomiasis Collection at the Natural History Museum (SCAN). Here we describe protocols for whole genome amplification of Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosome haematobium miracidia from these cards, as well as real time PCR quantification of amplified schistosome DNA. We used microgram quantities of DNA obtained for exome capture and sequencing of single miracidia, generating dense polymorphism data across the exome. These methods will facilitate the transition from population genetics, using limited numbers of markers to population genomics using genome-wide marker information, maximising the value of collections such as SCAN.


The binding of horse heart cytochrome c (cyt-c) and Thermus thermophilus cytochrome c(552) (cyt-c(552)) to dioleoyl phosphatidylglycerol (DOPG) vesicles was investigated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and turbidity measurements. FTIR spectra revealed that the tertiary structures of both cytochromes became more open when bound to DOPG vesicles, but this was more pronounced for cyt-c. Their secondary structures were unchanged. Turbidity measurements showed important differences in their behavior bound to the negatively charged DOPG vesicles. Both cytochromes caused the liposomes to aggregate and flocculate, but the ways they did so differed. For cyt-c, more than a monolayer was adsorbed onto the liposome surface prior to aggregation due to charge neutralization, whereas cyt c(552) caused aggregation at a protein/lipid ratio well below that required for charge neutralization. Therefore, although cyt-c may cause liposomes to aggregate by electrostatic interaction, cyt-c(552) does not act in this way. FTIR-attenuated total reflection spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR) revealed that cyt-c lost much of its secondary structure when bound to the hydrophobic surface of octadecyltrichlorosilane, whereas cyt-c(552) folds its domains into a beta-structure. This hydrophobic effect may be the key to the difference between the behaviors of the two cytochromes when bound to DOPG vesicles.


Nephrotoxicity limits the use of cyclosporin A for immunosuppression after organ transplantation and may be caused by glomerular hypoperfusion. Indirect studies have shown that cyclosporin A increases renal vascular resistance and reduces total renal blood flow. This study used direct in vivo videomicroscopy to define the efects of the drug on the renal microcirculation of the rat. An intravenous infusion of cyclosporin A (20 mg per kg body‐weight) caused a 13 per cent acute constriction of the proximal interlobular artery and an associated 29 per cent reduction in preglomerular interlobular arterial blood flow. There was a simultaneous increase in mean arterial blood pressure of 34 per cent caused by cyclosporin A and a 23 per cent increase in systemic vascular resistance. Cyclosporin acutely reduces renal microvascular blood flow by vasoconstriction and afects the central circulation, suggesting that a generalized peripheral vasoconstriction is induced.


Chemotherapy resistance is still a serious problem in the treatment of most cancers. Many cellular and molecular mechanisms contribute to both inherent and acquired drug resistance. They include the use of unaffected growth-signaling pathways, changes in the tumor microenvironment, and the active transport of medicines out of the cell. The antioxidant capacity of polyphenols and their potential to inhibit the activation of procarcinogens, cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, and angiogenesis, as well as to promote the inhibition or downregulation of active drug efflux transporters, have been linked to a reduced risk of cancer in epidemiological studies. Polyphenols also have the ability to alter immunological responses and inflammatory cascades, as well as trigger apoptosis in cancer cells. The discovery of the relationship between abnormal growth signaling and metabolic dysfunction in cancer cells highlights the importance of further investigating the effects of dietary polyphenols, including their ability to boost the efficacy of chemotherapy and avoid multidrug resistance (MDR). Here, it is summarized what is known regarding the effectiveness of natural polyphenolic compounds in counteracting the resistance that might develop to cancer drugs as a result of a variety of different mechanisms.


European agriculture is facing increasing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges, from changes in demographic trends to the effects of climate change. In this context of high instability, the agricultural sector in Europe needs to improve its resilience and sustainability. Local assessments and strategies at the farming system level are needed, and this paper focuses on a hazelnut farming system in central Italy. For the assessment, a participatory approach was used, based on a stakeholder workshop. The results depicted a system with a strong economic and productive role, but which seems to overlook natural resources. This would suggest a relatively low environmental sustainability of the system, although the actual environmental impact of hazelnut farming is controversial. In terms of resilience, we assessed it by looking at the perceived level of three capacities: robustness, adaptability, and transformability. The results portrayed a highly robust system, but with relatively lower adaptability and transformability. Taking the farming system as the focal level was important to consider the role of different actors. While mechanisation has played a central role in enhancing past and present system resilience, future improvements can be achieved through collective strategies and system diversification, and by strengthening the local hazelnut value chain.


Existing works, including ELMO and BERT, have revealed the importance of pre-training for NLP tasks. While there does not exist a single pre-training model that works best in all cases, it is of necessity to develop a framework that is able to deploy various pre-training models efficiently. For this purpose, we propose an assemble-on-demand pre-training toolkit, namely Universal Encoder Representations (UER). UER is loosely coupled, and encapsulated with rich modules. By assembling modules on demand, users can either reproduce a state-of-the-art pre-training model or develop a pre-training model that remains unexplored. With UER, we have built a model zoo, which contains pre-trained models based on different corpora, encoders, and targets (objectives). With proper pre-trained models, we could achieve new state-of-the-art results on a range of downstream datasets.


Oil and gas companies consider transforming conventional cable-based seismic acquisition to wireless acquisition as a promising step for cost and weight reduction in reservoir exploration. Wireless seismic acquisition requires large number of wireless geophone (WG) sensors to be deployed in the field. The locations of the WG sensors must be known when processing the collected data. The application of direction of arrival (DOA) estimation helps in localizing WGs and improves received signal level through beam steering and interference avoidance. Conventional DOA algorithms require high computational complexity which renders them inefficient for real-time response. In this paper, deep neural network (DNN) is proposed for DOA estimation of WGs at wireless gateway node (WGN) under different channel conditions. The estimated angle and corresponding coordinates of WGNs are used in least square estimation (LSE) to estimate the position of the WGs. The simulation results depict reasonable estimation and position accuracy in real-time.


The prevention of arterial thrombotic disease has a high priority in developed countries. An inappropriate diet is known to enhance the risk for acute thrombotic events, and a regular diet with proven antithrombotic effects might be a beneficial way to prevent disease. The present study was undertaken as part of a series of in-vestigations to examine various vegetables and fruits for antithrombotic activity, and to add to the previously reported data on different onion varieties produced in the northern part of Japan (Hokkaido). For this purpose, a sophisticated method to assess shear-induced platelet reac-tivity/thrombolysis in vitro (The Global Throm-bosis Test, GTT) was used to screen 5 different varieties of onion produced in the middle part of Japan (Awaji Island). The different onion varie-ties demonstrated a variable effect on thrombo-sis, and one particular variety, designated ONA-03, appeared to exert an antithrombotic effect. Another variety, ONA-01, appeared to have prothrombotic activity by inhibiting spon-taneous thrombolytic activity. The especially effective variety was further investigated using an in vivo, laser-induced thrombosis model in mice. The heat stable antithrombotic activity in vitro and in vivo was demonstrated to be due to antiplatelet activity. The present findings added to the list of antithrombotic fruits and vegeta-bles.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of classified immigrant and refugee (I&R) screening and of contact investigation (CI) of foreign-born TB cases in Seattle--King County (SKC), Washington. We reviewed I&R evaluations from the SKC TB clinic for 1992-1994 and contact evaluation records for 54 randomly selected U.S.-born and foreign-born pulmonary TB patients from 1993. Among 942 I&R evaluated, 693 (74%) had positive tuberculin skin tests (TST). Preventive therapy (PT) was prescribed for 324 (34%) and treatment for 49 (5%). The remaining 377 were dismissed, of whom 96% did not meet American Thoracic Society PT criteria. Contacts of foreign-born cases were more numerous (6.0 versus 3.4 per case, p = 0.04), and significantly more likely to be TST-positive (50% versus 18%) and to be started on PT (40% versus 23%). The large number of I&R eligible for treatment or PT emphasizes the benefit of prompt evaluation of new arrivals. CI provides an excellent opportunity to screen foreign-born persons at high risk for active TB.


Lichen Planus.-GODFREY BAMBER, M.D. R. H., a girl, aged 91. History.-Little white spots were noticed on the upper eyelids about four years ago; these were gradually transformed into the present condition. The patches on the trunk were noticed only recently. The state of the tongue was not known until discovered on examination, and the patches on the lips have appeared since the patient first came under observation. Apart from a somewhat poor appetite, her general health is good. Present condition.-The inner halves of both upper lids are pigmented, purplish, and slightly scaly, with several milia scattered over these areas. On the tongue are more or less circular, opaque white patches. There are ill-defined whitish patches on the lips and on the mucous membrane at the angles of the mouth. In the axillary areas the lesions are slightly raised, rough and pigmented, and their distribution tends to be linear. On the buttocks the lesions are round, -pigmented and slightly atrophic. The Wassermann reaction is negative. Histological report.-Section taken from a lesion on the left posterior axillary fold. Epidermis: Some hyperkeratosis with widening of the granular layer. Cutis: There is some cedema of the papillary body, and there is a lymphocytic infiltration sharply demarcated from the lower part of the cutis.


Truly miraculous medications and antibiotics have helped save untold millions of lives. Antibiotic resistance, however, is a significant issue related to health that jeopardizes the effectiveness of antibiotics and could harm everyone's health. Bacteria, not humans or animals, become antibiotic-resistant. Bacteria use quorum-sensing communication routes to manage an assortment of physiological exercises. Quorum sensing is significant for appropriate biofilm development. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria establish a biofilm on a surface, shielding them from the effects of infection-fighting drugs. Acylated homoserine lactones are used as autoinducers by gram-negative microscopic organisms to impart. However, antibiotic resistance among ocular pathogens is increasing worldwide. Bacteria are a significant contributor to ocular infections around the world. Gram-negative microscopic organisms are dangerous to ophthalmic tissues. This review highlights the use of elective drug targets and treatments, for example, combinational treatment, to vanquish antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Also, it briefly portrays anti-biotic resistance brought about by gram-negative bacteria and approaches to overcome resistance with the help of quorum sensing inhibitors and nanotechnology as a promising medication conveyance approach to give insurance of anti-microbials and improve pathways for the administration of inhibitors of quorum sensing with a blend of anti-microbials to explicit target destinations and penetration through biofilms for treatment of ocular infections. It centres on the methodologies to sidestep the confinements of ocular anti-biotic delivery with new visual innovation.


This paper develops a method for making an image of an object when there are extra point-like scatterers in the environment. Once the location of these scatterers is known, they can be exploited in the imaging process. Here the extra point scatterers are assumed to lie between the sensor and the object of interest. A single-scattering model is used for the object itself. Detailed analysis is carried out for the case of a single extra scatterer in the foreground; the extension to the case of many scatterers is expected to be similar.


Non-collapsible Cu-Sn bumps (Cu pillars capped with a thin layer of Sn) have been studied recently as a means to vertically interconnect device layers, achieving 3D integrated circuits. The use of Cu-Sn bump structures is attractive for 3D integration for two primary reasons: 1) the rigid nature of the Cu bump allows for very fine pitch interconnections to be made with less risk of bridging than would exist with collapsible solder bumps, and 2) the joint created when bonding Cu and Cu-Sn bumps remelts at a higher temperature than the formation temperature, which allows for the stacking of multiple layers of devices without disturbing the interconnections achieved in previous bonding events. In order to understand the optimal structure and bonding process for fine pitch Cu-Sn bumps, a study was done to investigate the effects of Sn thickness and bonding pressure on the thickness and chemical composition of the bondline between Cu and Cu-Sn bumps. The thermal stability of the bondline was studied by subjecting bonded test samples to multiple temperature/pressure cycles. The bonding strength was evaluated through die shear tests, and the results were correlated with the parameters of the bump structure and with process parameters.


The aim of the present study was to evaluate the long‑term effect of copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) on cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzymes in the rat brain. Rats were repeatedly gavaged with different forms of copper sources for 28 days, and the levels of oxidative stress and CYP450 mRNA and protein expression in the rat brain were subsequently analyzed. The results demonstrated that a high dose of CuNPs (200 mg/kg) induced severe oxidative stress in the rat brain along with a decrease in the levels of total superoxide dismutase and glutathione, and an increase in hydroxyl radicals and malondialdehyde. A medium dose of CuNPs reduced CYP450 2C11 and CYP450 3A1 protein expression in the rat brain, whereas high doses of CuNPs resulted in decreased expression of most CYP450 enzyme proteins, and inhibition of pregnane X receptor and constitutive androstane receptor expression. The results suggested that CuNPs may inhibit CYP450 enzyme expression by increasing the levels of oxidative stress and decreasing the expression of nuclear receptors in the rat brain, which affects the metabolism of drugs and endogenous hormones in the brain.


Urban construction and other human activities have been changing the local and regional ecosystems and causing a lot of ecological problems. After reviewing the problems happened, this paper presents a theoretical framework of ecological researches analyzing what should be done to meet the needs and the orders of the natural patterns and processes. This framework is now used in our project of the national park study in the northwestern region of Yunnan province, southwest of China.


Commissural neurons in the spinal cord project their axons through the floor plate using a number of molecular interactions, such as netrins and their receptor DCC (deleted in colorectal cancer). However, the molecular cascades that control differentiation of commissural neurons are less characterized. A homeobox gene,MBH1 (mammalian BarH1) was expressed specifically in a subset of dorsal cells in the developing spinal cord. Transgenic mice that carried lacZ andMBH1-flanking genome sequences demonstrated thatMBH1 was expressed by commissural neurons. To analyze the function of MBH1, we established an in vivo electroporation method for the transfer of DNA into the mouse spinal cord. Ectopic expression of MBH1 drove dorsal cells into the fate of commissural neurons with concomitant expression of TAG-1 (transiently expressed axonal surface glycoprotein 1) and DCC. Cells ectopically expressing MBH1 migrated to the deep dorsal horn, in which endogenousMBH1-positive cells accumulated. These results suggest that MBH1 functions upstream of TAG-1 and DCC and is involved in the fate determination of commissural neurons in the spinal cord.


A temperature-sensitive mutant of E. coli, which cannot synthesize DNA at high temperature but can continue cell division, shows a difference in a membrane protein fraction at high temperature by gel electrophoresis. This mutation of a bacterial membrane protein is unique. The protein may link DNA replication and cell division through the membrane.


The effective localization of sensor nodes can ensure stable operation of sensor networks. The sensor node localization in traditional method does not considers the produced sparse of sensor channel due to the uneven distribution of nodes, resulting in much meaningless zero tap estimation in the positioning process, thereby reducing the efficiency of localization. In this paper, an improved node localization algorithm based on DV-Hop is proposed. In this method, the traditional DV-Hop localization algorithm is improved. Using particle swarm algorithm to optimize the positioning process, the positioning results of sensor nodes are finally obtained. The experimental results show that the improved algorithm can improve the positioning accuracy of sensor nodes, which are satisfactory.