Lynch syndrome (LS) is a tumor predisposing condition caused by constitutional defects in genes coding for components of the mismatch repair (MMR) apparatus. While hypermethylation of the promoter of the MMR gene MLH1 occurs in about 15% of colorectal cancer samples, it has also been observed as a constitutional alteration, in the absence of DNA sequence mutations, in a small number of LS patients. In order to obtain further insights on the phenotypic characteristics of MLH1 epimutation carriers, we investigated the somatic and constitutional MLH1 methylation status of 14 unrelated subjects with a suspicion of LS who were negative for MMR gene constitutional mutations and whose tumors did not express the MLH1 protein. A novel case of constitutional MLH1 epimutation was identified. This patient was affected with multiple primary tumors, including breast cancer, diagnosed starting from the age of 55 y. Investigation of her offspring by allele specific expression revealed that the epimutation was not stable across generations. We also found MLH1 hypermethylation in cancer samples from 4 additional patients who did not have evidence of constitutional defects. These patients had some characteristics of LS, namely early age at onset and/or positive family history, raising the possibility of genetic influences in the establishment of somatic MLH1 methylation.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
This review examines recent studies in poststroke fatigue that might contribute in understanding the pathophysiology of poststroke fatigue. Poststroke fatigue is a common problem in stroke survivors. Little is known about the pathophysiology of chronic fatigue in stroke survivors. It has long been thought of as a neuropsychiatric problem. However, there is gathering evidence to the contrary. In this study, we propose a new model of poststroke fatigue based on recent findings of corticomotor neurophysiological, behavioural, and perceptual deficits in the poststroke fatigue population.

SUMMARY
The current evidence suggests that poststroke fatigue may not be a neuropsychiatric problem but a problem of the sensorimotor system. Future studies need to address the causal link between sensorimotor deficits and poststroke fatigue.


Treatment of cyclotrisilathiane (Me2SiS)3 with 3 equiv. of RLi (R = Me, But) in hexane-Et2O afforded the lithium silanethiolates LiSSiMe2R, and the tmeda adduct [(tmeda)LiSSiMe2But]2 1 (tmeda =N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylenediamine) was isolated in the case of R = But. Reaction of Fe(CH3CN)2(CF3SO3)2, CoCl2, and [Cu(CH3CN)4](PF6) with 1 gave rise to the silanethiolato complexes M(SSiMe2But)2(tmeda)(M = Fe 2, Co 3), and [Cu(SSiMe2But)]4 4, respectively. Complexes (C5H5)2Ti(SSiMe2R)2(R = Me 5, But 6) and Ni(SSiMe2R)2(dppe)[R = Me 7, But 8; dppe = 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane] were prepared from treatments of (C5H5)2TiCl2 and NiCl2(dppe) with the corresponding lithium silanethiolates. Complex 7 readily reacted with (C5H5)TiCl3 to produce the Ti-Ni heterobimetallic compound (C5H5)TiCl(mu-S)2Ni(dppe) 9, in which silicon-sulfur bond cleavage took place. Characterization of all compounds through spectroscopic techniques and elemental analyses are also described. X-Ray structural data for compounds 1 and 3-9 are reported.


Performance of trickle-bed and up-flow reactors was studied experimentally and theoretically for an exothermic multistep hydrogenation of 1,5,9-cyclododecatriene (CDT) in n-decane as solvent over 0.5% Pd/alumina catalyst. Intrinsic kinetics was studied in a batch stirred slurry reactor using the powdered catalyst, and a Langmuir-Hinshelwood-type rate model is proposed. Using this rate equation, a trickle-bed-reactor model was developed that incorporates contributions of partial wetting and stagnant liquid holdup, in addition to the external and intraparticle mass transfer for the gas-phase reactant (hydrogen). It was also modified to describe the behavior of the upflow reactor. Experimental data were obtained in both upflow (trickle-bed) and down-flow modes at different liquid velocities, pressures, and inlet feed concentrations at 373-413 K. Reactor performance of the two modes was compared in terms of global hydrogenation rate, CDT conversion, selectivity to cyclododecene and the maximum temperature rise observed in the catalyst bed. The conversions and global hydrogenation rate were significantly higher in a trickle-bed reactor than in the upflow reactor. Similarly, a significant temperature rise in the catalyst bed was observed for the downflow operation compared to the upflow mode, which is explained from wetting characteristics of the catalyst bed. Model predictions for both reactors agreed well with experimental data.


We propose a scheme to implement quantum controlled SWAP gates by directing single-photon pulses to a two-sided cavity with a single trapped atom. The resultant gates can be used to realize quantum fingerprinting and universal photonic quantum computation. We present a theoretical model for our scheme and analyze its performance under practical noise, including spontaneous emission and randomness of atom-cavity coupling strength. It is shown that our scheme should be robust against practical imperfections in current cavity QED experiment setup.


Neural networks are a computational paradigm model of the human brain that has become popular in recent years. We have tried to address the problem of Gliomaby creating a more accurate classifier which can act as an expert assistant to medical practitioners. Brain stem gliomas are now recognized as a heterogenous group of tumors. In this paper, proposed a prediction of Glioma in MR images using weight optimized neural network. Magnetic Resonance (MR) images are affected by rician noise which limits the accuracy of any quantitative measurements from the data. A recently proposed filter for rician noise removal is analyzed and adapted to reduce this noise inMR images. This parametric filter, named Non-Local Means (NLM), is highly dependent on setting its parameters. Experimental results reveal the efficacy of the adduced methodology as compared to the related work.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of iodine and/or selenium deficiency on cerebral enzyme levels/ activities responsible for xenobiotic metabolism on rats. Three-week old male Wistar rats were used and feeding period was 7-weeks. Selenium deficiency was introduced by a diet containing <0.005 mg/kg selenium, and iodine deficiency was produced by sodium perchlorate containing drinking water. The levels of total microsomal cytochrome P450 (CYP450) and cytochrome b5 (CYP b5) as well as the activities of microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase (P450R), aniline hydroxylase (CYP2E1), and cytosolic glutathione S-transferase (GST) were determined. Significant decreases in CYP2E1 activity of iodine deficient, and combined iodine/selenium deficient groups, and marked increase in P450R activity of selenium deficient animals were observed. The generated data suggested that cerebral xenobiotic metabolizing system was affected by the iodine and/or selenium deficiency states which might alter the pharmacological response of central nervous system acting drugs and other xenobiotics in rats.


Recent experiments in DIII-D have obtained low density, hot ion plasmas. It was found that the ion thermal diffusivity was substantially smaller than the electron thermal diffusivity in the central plasma region. Previously it was suggested that this result is a consequence of hot ion trapped ion mode turbulence. This effect has been incorporated into a steady state transport code. Simulations of L-mode and H-mode DIII-D hot ion plasmas have been performed. The simulation results for the temperature profiles are found to be in reasonably good quantitative agreement with the experiment


Since 1960's the government of Indonesia has intensively built structural mitigation infrastructure on the slopes of Merapi before it erupted in 2010. In the other hand, the community has been introduced cultural mitigation inherited by their ancestors. The problem is the way how they understand both mitigation models.This study aims to determine people's interpretation towards cultural and structural mitigation before and after the eruption of Merapi volcano in 2010. The study used in-depth interviews method to victims of Merapi eruption in 2010, who live in disaster prone areas (KRB) II and III on the southern slope of Kepuharjo and Umbulharjo village, Cangkringan, Sleman, Yogyakarta. The hermeneutic analysis is applied to interpretative ideas associated with an analog understood from the oral and textual data. The analysis is supported by the historical literature, which gives an overview of Merapi for its community in the past.The study results that people's interpretation of cultural and structural mitigation in Merapi society can be divided into two based on time before and after its eruption in 2010. The first groups or ones with ideas before the eruption, cultural mitigation is more meaningful for them and after eruption they combine it as an integrated cultural and structural mitigation. While the second community, before and after eruption, they have already made sense of integrated cultural and structural mitigation. In cultural mitigation, in interacting with nature, they understand about the fate of life that comes from the Javanese philosophy and beliefs of the Merapi volcano. In structural mitigation, the government constructs people to make sense that based on scientific rationality their life with nature on the slopes of Merapi volcano can emerge a risk of disaster anytime.


AIM
This study aimed at evaluating the influence of cortical layer and surgical techniques on the primary stability of implants in low-density bone.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Two solid rigid polyurethane blocks with a density equivalent to 0.32 g/cm3 simulating cancellous bone were used. A short fiber-filled epoxy resin sheet of 2 mm was layered to one block to simulate cortico cancellous bone. A total of 40 implants were used in this study (n = 40). Twenty implants each (n = 20) were inserted in cancellous (Group 1) and cortico-cancellous bone (Group 2), of which 10 implants each (n = 10) were placed using undersized preparation technique with surgical drills-A and osteotomes-B, in both the groups. Insertion torque (IT) and implant stability quotient (ISQ) for each implant placed were assessed to determine the primary stability of each implant using a digital torque meter and resonance frequency analyzer, respectively. The values were statistically analyzed using an independent t-test (p < 0.05). Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to correlate between IT and ISQ.

RESULTS
Technique B resulted in significantly higher IT and ISQ values in Group 1 (27.69 ± 1.2 N cm; 52.5 ± 1.05 ISQ) and Group 2 (38.8 ± 0.87 N cm; 70.1 ± 1.04 ISQ) compared to those with technique A (22.40 ± 1.62 N cm; 41.75 ± 1.20 ISQ and 33.24 ± 0.67 N cm; 63.72 ± 1.33 ISQ), respectively. Group 2 exhibited significantly higher IT and ISQ values as compared to Group 1 irrespective of the surgical technique employed (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The presence of the cortical layer significantly influenced the primary stability and preparing low-density bone with an undersized preparation technique using osteotomes that significantly increased the IT and ISQ.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Undersizing the preparation site considerably will help achieve a significant increase in primary stability in the poor quality bone as in the posterior maxilla, thereby contributing to the success of the implant.


The objective of this thesis was to design a power-efficient general purpose SAR ADC. The ADC's requirements were set by Energy Micro, favoring a very high performance-to-power ratio. The requirements are based on the present Energy Micro ADC, but with a 67% reduction in current consumption, a more modern CMOS technology of 90nm and a supply voltage of 1.2V. A full SAR ADC model was made using SPICE and VHDL code for the analog and digital sub-systems, respectively. The comparator was thoroughly designed and optimized, to achieve enough performance with as little power as possible. Then the total capacitor value of the sub-DAC was minimized, using extra reference voltages, minimizing the dynamic power consumption of the reference voltage generator. An asynchronous clock was also implemented, substantially increasing the available settling times of the comparator. The result was a very power-efficient SAR ADC, which fulfills the power-consumption requirement with 114$mu$J per conversion. Compared to other, similar SAR ADC's which has been researched, the ADC designed in this thesis is found to be very power-efficient. There might be some linearity problems in the ADC, partly from the transmission gates used as switches, but the overall design seems promising.


In this paper, we strengthen Hardy's [1995] and Ketland's [2005] arguments on the issues surrounding the self-referential nature of Yablo's paradox [1993]. We first begin by observing that Priest's [1997] construction of the binary satisfaction relation in revealing a fixed point relies on impredicative definitions. We then show that Yablo's paradox is 'w-circular', based on w-inconsistent theories, by arguing that the paradox is not selfreferential in the classical sense but rather admits circularity at the least transfinite countable ordinal. Hence, we both strengthen arguments for the w-inconsistency of Yablo's paradox and present a compromise solution of the problem emerging from Yablo's and Priest's conflicting theses.


itiation of photopolymerization. The third and fourth chapters describe the chemistry, excited state, and reactivity of free radical photoinitiators and cationic photoinitiators, respectively. The fifth chapter describes the type and reactivity of monomers, oligomers in photopolymerization. The effects of chemical structure of monomers and oligomers on the physical and mechanical properties of cured material are described. Light source, film thickness, oxygen, pigment, and light stabilizer toward the kinetics and the mechanism of photopolymerization are also discussed. The sixth chapter describes some practical aspects in photocuring, including benefit of light curable coatings, light curing equipment, chemistry in U V curing and applications. The last chapter includes the latest development and trends. The references were thoroughly listed at the end of each chapter, which provide good sources for detailed information on each subject. This is an excellent resource book for scientists and engineers to start the development of photocurable systems for their specific applications. Unfortunately, the book did not review the development of electrical insulation using photocuring. -R-EA. su


Ziziphora tenuior is an edible medicinal plant which belongs to Labiatae family. It is often used as a treatment for some diseases such as edema, insomnia, and hypertension in Turkey, Iran and China. In this study, the essential oil of Ziziphora tenuior was extracted by using a technique called 'supercritical fluid extraction'. In addition, the components of the essential oil were identified by chromatography analysis. The main components of the essential oil were 53.977% of p-mentha-3-en-8-ol and 38.481% of pulegone. It must be noted that CO2 was used as the supercritical fluid because it has a moderate critical temperature and pressure. In this study, the effects of some extraction parameter variations on the extraction yield were examined. Amongst the said parameters were pressure, temperature and mean particle size.


Oepke Noordmans was a Dutch Theologian (1871-1956) whose Collected Works comprise ten lengthy volumes with only about fifteen references to Dostoyevski (1821-1881). Furthermore, since "humankind" was Dostoyevski's central concern and there is no systematic anthropology in the Works of Noordmans, one would suspect that they have very little in common. This paper, however, shows how the theology of Noordmans finds its counterpart in the anthropology of Dostoyevski where they share one, all-important perspective on humankind: Namely, that one cannot know humankind without God. Both Noordmans and Dostoyevski view humankind in motion and not as an enclosed entity without a relation to God. In the final instance God is the only one who knows the mystery of the double nature of a human person.


On 11 June 2010, ten leading scholars came together at the invitation of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities to discuss the autonomy and recognition of Canada's official language minority communities. In this article, I examine the implications of this workshop for Francophone minority community institutions by emphasizing and contextualizing main ideas and expanding on key proposals. First, I map out and explain how the implementation of horizontal management has increasingly curtailed community autonomy. Next, I catalog and discuss participants' proposals for fostering greater autonomy for Francophone minority communities. Last, I sketch the potential and limitations of horizontal management


This paper presents design and measurement results of power amplifier (PA) for wireless local area network (WLAN) at 5 GHz using standard commercial CMOS 0.18 um process. The two-stage amplifier is implemented with all components fully integrated on chip including output matching network. Test results show that the power amplifier can achieve power gain of 15.1 dB, 1 dB compression power output (P-1) of 15.4 dBm, third order output interception point (OIP3) of 25.0 dBm and maximum power added efficiency (PAE) of 27.1% with low voltage operation of 1.8 V at 5.2 GHz. The die size is 1.2×0.7 mm2. Literature survey indicates that this is probably the first reported CMOS PA at 5 GHz implemented in 0.18 um process working with a 1.8 V power supply, and this is fully-integrated one with high linearity and good efficiency.


ABSTRACT Background: Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are effective treatments for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We present the interim findings of an ongoing post-marketing surveillance (PMS) study in Japanese patients with T2DM receiving empagliflozin. Research design and methods: This 3-year, prospective, observational, multicenter PMS evaluated the safety and effectiveness of empagliflozin in Japanese clinical practice. Patients with T2DM who had not been treated with empagliflozin before enrollment were eligible. Assessments, including the primary endpoint of incidence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs), were based on electronic case report forms (eCRF). Results: Of 8,180 registered patients from 1,103 sites, 7,618 patients had an eCRF including a follow-up visit and were treated (mean age, 58.8 years; 10.5% aged ≥75 years; 63.2% male; mean HbA1c, 8.01%; 41.8% with HbA1c ≥8.0%; 24.8% and 61.8% with at least mild hepatic and renal impairment, respectively). Mean treatment duration was 98.4 weeks; 644 (8.5%) patients had ≥1 ADR, including 8.5% of patients aged ≥75 years. Hypoglycemia, urinary tract infection, genital infections, volume depletion, diabetic ketoacidosis, and lower limb amputation occurred in 0.28%, 0.62%, 0.53%, 0.33%, 0%, and 0.03% of patients, respectively. Conclusions: The reported ADRs were consistent with the known safety profile of empagliflozin. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02489942.


Sterculia urens is a commercially important tree with wide applications. Nodal explants were grown on MS medium supplemented with various growth regulators like 6-benzyladenine (BA), Thidiazuron (TDZ) and Kinetin (Kn). These shoots were subsequently rooted in vitro on half strength MS medium containing various concentrations of auxins like Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) and Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA). Plants were acclimatized to ex vitro conditions and established in the field. Role of peroxidase, poly phenol oxidase, total proteins, total carbohydrates and total phenols were studied during acclimatization by estimating their at an interval of 20, 40 and 60 days. Peroxidase and poly phenol oxidase level decreases from 20 to 60 days where as levels of total proteins, carbohydrates and phenols increases.


BACKGROUND: Vertical hemispherotomy is performed in hemispheric epilepsy to disconnect commissural fibers, projecting fibers, and limbic system from the affected side of the brain with minimal parenchyma removal. However, anatomic understanding of this surgery is generally difficult. OBJECTIVE: To present the vertical hemispherotomy procedures using cadaveric brains and intraoperative photographs. METHODS: Two formalin-fixed adult cadaveric brains were used to demonstrate vertical hemispherotomy. Intraoperative photographs were taken of a 19-year-old man with intractable epilepsy due to head trauma in infancy. RESULTS: After coronal skin incision along the coronal suture, bifrontal craniotomy and a C-shaped dural incision from lateral to medial to the midline are performed. The interhemispheric fissure is dissected from anterior to posterior. Interhemispheric total corpus callosotomy is performed to disconnect commissural fibers. Corticotomy on the cingulate gyrus is performed to approach the lateral ventricle. The lateral border of the thalamus is cut from posterior to anterior until exposing the inferior horn of the lateral ventricle and hippocampal head to disconnect projecting fibers. At the anteromedial side of the hippocampus, the inferior part of the amygdala and uncal gyrus is removed, exposing the basal cistern to disconnect the hippocampus and amygdala. The posterior column of the fornix at the trigone of the lateral ventricle is resected to disconnect the limbic system. Projecting fibers from the anterior frontal lobe are disconnected. CONCLUSION: A step-by-step procedure using cadaveric brains and intraoperative photographs provide a better anatomic understanding of vertical hemispherotomy.


Investigation of the relationships between information, reality and cognition targets the structural-procedural properties of organisms as living systems. Nature tends towards hierarchical forms of both structure and process, and consequently any study of information in this context must of necessity take account of the characteristics of existing scales and their interfaces. The situation is complicated by the pragmatic tendency of evolution to scavenge prior existing features in creating new ones, and consequently biology does not uniquely exhibit hierarchical configurations. This paper addresses the nature of hierarchical organization and the origin of information in a biological context; although the ideas presented here can be applied almost equally well to non-biological entities where hierarchy is less-well defined or extant.
We have previously published [1, 2] extensive details of the relationships between different scales or levels of organization in living systems, and here we will only refer to those characteristics which are relevant to our present purpose. Dodig-Crnkovic and Giovagnoli [3] have described Nature as a hierarchically-organized network of networks, which corresponds well to our own viewpoint. Multi-scalar systems are by their very nature unified, and this unification is a real characteristic of any system [4], which integrates all of the system's scales into a scale-free hyperscalar representation in which simplified replicas of the 'real' scales are 'objectively' (more-than-subjectively) accessible, in the sense that Havel [5] has (socially) defined 'objective' as a 'group subjective'. The transition from multiple scales to their integration in hyperscale is an example of the one-out-of-many interpretation of information referred to by Schroeder [6].
Natural hierarchy decomposes into two partial hierarchies, one corresponding to the entity under consideration, the other corresponding to its context. Consequently, there are two partial integrations leading to hyperscale, and two (partial) hyperscales. These make up a ubiquitous duality in system representation. Ultimately, these two partial hyperscales re-integrate to give a singular metascalar representamen of the entire system. Peircian semiotics [7] treats all interactions as interpretations of signs. In the (biosemiotic) context of organismic system unification, individual scales, their hyperscalar representations and the metascalar outcome all appear as signs. We hypothesize that hyperscalar representations correspond to secondness in Peirce's scheme of things, and that metascale corresponds to Peirce's thirdness.
Salthe has published extensively on the concept of hierarchy [see, for example, 8]. His position has consistently been that hierarchy is a human mental construct, devoid of any other reality. We beg to differ. Hierarchy permits the generation of simple representations of complex informational domains, thus supporting faster survival-promoting reactions to environmental stimuli, and as such it is a primary cognitive mechanism used by all living systems, not just humans. This, of course, raises the question of the validity of representation in information theory. Our own position is clearly that representation is a necessary 'computational' device for survival and therefore for evolution itself. Any other position would negate the importance of hierarchy in Nature. As Dodig-Crnkovic and Giovagnoli [3] comment in their discussion of connectionist approaches, "… it is correct that there is 'no computation without representation'".
We hypothesize that the reality of a singular metascale corresponds to information per se: as Schroeder [9] points out, "…information has been formulated as identification of a variety, where identification is understood as that which either selects, distinguishes one out of many, or that which makes the many into one (a whole)." This high-level metascalar formulation incorporates the properties of all of a living system's scalar properties in such a unified form that individual selection is also possible: it combines Schroeder's [6] "two complementary manifestations of information."
References
1     Cottam, R.; Ranson, W.; Vounckx, R. Autocreative hierarchy II: dynamics - self-organization, emergence and level-changing. In International Conference on Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi-Agent Systems; Hexmoor, H., Ed.; IEEE: Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2003, pp. 766-773.2     Cottam, R.; Ranson, W.; Vounckx, R. A framework for computing like Nature. In Computing Nature; Dodig-Crnkovic, G., Giovagnoli, R., Eds.; Springer SAPERE series: Berlin, Germany, 2013; pp. 23-60.3     Dodig-Crnkovic, G.; Giovagnoli, R. Computing nature – a network of networks of concurrent information processes. In Computing Nature; Dodig-Crnkovic, G., Giovagnoli, R., Eds.; Springer SAPERE series: Berlin, Germany, 2013; pp. 1-22.4     Cottam R.; Ranson W.; Vounckx R. A biosemiotic view on consciousness derived from system hierarchy. In The Unity of Mind, Brain and World: Current Perspectives on a Science of Consciousness; Pereira Jr, A., Lehmann, D., Eds.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 77-112.5     Havel, I.M. Scale dimensions in nature. International Journal of General Systems 1995, 23, 303-332.6     Schroeder, M.J. From philosophy to theory of information. Information Theories and Applications 2011, 18, 56-68.7     Peirce, C. S. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce; Hartshorne, C., Weiss, P., Eds., Volumes 1-6; Burks, A., Ed., Volumes 7-8, Belknap Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1931-1958.8     Salthe, S.N. Hierarchical structures. Axiomathes 2012, 22, 355-383.9     Schroeder, M.J. Foundations for science of information: reflection on the method of inquiry. tripleC 2011, 9, 377-384.


A family of localized solutions of the homogeneous equation for waves in lossy media is derived. These solutions are analogues to the set of Brittingham's focus wave modes (J. Appl. Phys. 54, 1179 (1988)).


The occurrence of MYC-negative Burkitt lymphoma (BL) has been discussed for many years. The real frequency of the MYC insertion in MYC-negative BL is still unknown. Fine-needle aspiration biopsies of 108 consecutive patients with clinicopathologically suspected BL (suspBL) were evaluated by flow cytometry, classical cytogenetics, and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). We found 12 cases (11%) without the MYC rearrangement by FISH with a MYC breakapart probe: two patients (1.9%) with cryptic MYC/IGH fusion (finally diagnosed as BL) and 10 patients (9.3%) with 11q gain/loss (finally diagnosed as Burkitt-like lymphoma with 11q aberration). The exact breakpoints of the cryptic MYC/IGH were investigated by next-generation sequencing. The MYC insertions' breakpoints were identified in PVT1 in the first case, and 42 kb upstream of 5′MYC in the second case. To date, a molecular characterization of the MYC insertion in BL has only been reported in one case. Detailed descriptions of our MYC insertions in a routinely and consecutively diagnosed suspBL cohort will contribute to resolving the issue of MYC negativity in BL. In our opinion, the presence of the MYC insertions in BL and other lymphomas might be underestimated, because routine genetic diagnostics are usually based on FISH only, without karyotyping.


In this paper, we aim to efficiently and accurately predict the static channel impulse response (CIR) with only the user's position information and a set of channel instances obtained within a certain wireless communication environment. Such a problem is by no means trivial since it needs to reconstruct the high-dimensional information (here the CIR everywhere) from the extremely low-dimensional data (here the location coordinates), which often results in overfitting and large prediction error. To this end, we resort to a novel physics-inspired generative approach. Specifically, we first use a forward deep neural network to infer the positions of all possible images of the source reflected by the surrounding scatterers within that environment, and then use the well-known Gaussian Radial Basis Function network (GRBF) to approximate the amplitudes of all possible propagation paths. We further incorporate the most recently developed sinusoidal representation network (SIREN) into the proposed network to implicitly represent the highly dynamic phases of all possible paths, which usually cannot be well predicted by the conventional neural networks with non-periodic activators. The resultant framework of Cosine-Gaussian Radial Basis Function network (C-GRBFnet) is also extended to the MIMO channel case. Key performance measures including prediction accuracy, convergence speed, network scale and robustness to channel estimation error are comprehensively evaluated and compared with existing popular networks, which show that our proposed network is much more efficient in representing, learning and predicting wireless channels in a given communication environment.


A primary carcinoid tumour of the testicle without carcinoid syndrome was recorded from a patient aged 48 years. The tumour was made up of solid and acinar structures which exhibited strongly pronounced argyrophilia. Teratogenic structures were not established. Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and chromogranin were immunohistologically recorded from tumour cells. The carcinoid had not spread metastases. Semi-castration was chosen as therapeutic approach. Orchidectomy was not followed by complications.


FDA approved rotigotine transdermal system (Neupro, UCB) for the treatment of the signs and symptoms of advanced stage idiopathic Parkinson?s disease and as a treatment for moderate-to-severe primary restless legs syndrome.


Impaired brain glucose metabolism characterizes most severe brain diseases. Recent studies have proposed deuterium (2H)-Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging (MRSI) as a reliable, non-invasive, and safe method to quantify the human metabolism of 2H-labeled substrates such as glucose and their downstream metabolism (e.g., aerobic/anaerobic glucose utilization and neurotransmitter synthesis) and address the major drawbacks of positron emission tomography (PET) or carbon (13C)-MRS. Here, for the first time, we show an indirect dynamic proton (1H)-MRSI technique in humans, which overcomes four critical 2H-MRSI limitations. Our innovative approach provides higher sensitivity with improved spatial/temporal resolution and higher chemical specificity to differentiate glutamate (Glu4), glutamine (Gln4), and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA2) deuterated at specific molecular positions while allowing simultaneous mapping of both labeled and unlabeled metabolites without the need for specialized hardware. Our novel method demonstrated significant Glu4, Gln4, and GABA2 decreases, with 18% faster Glu4 reduction in the gray matter than white matter after ingestion of deuterated glucose. Thus, robustly detected downstream glucose metabolism utilizing clinically available MR hardware without the need for radioactive tracers and PET.


Like homes, neighborhoods, and cities, retail locations offer significant opportunities for attachment far from domestic spheres. In commercial settings, consumers construct personal geographies, and find stable references for their lives. Our work advances previous consumer research by showing how these relationalities are situated, implicitly unstable and often impermanent. Individuals attach to commercial spaces in multiple ways, through both immediate and slow processes. We theorize that multiple affordances of spaces—whether sensual, symbolic, or cerebral—trigger meaningful ties, stimulate new affective and practice repertoires and may exert a transformative power in personal biographies. Bonds evolve in tandem with individuals' life courses and are also impacted by events beyond consumers' control, such as store closures. Whether disruptive or constructive, detachments can precipitate constructive change, allowing individuals to mobilize the emotional and cognitive resources at the base of their affective bond with treasured places, and redirect these assets more effectively. Forced and voluntary detachment from retail spaces are thus interpreted as integral and complementary components of attachment.


The Global Goals come with challenging implications for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in international development and their capacity for high quality evaluation practice and evaluative thinking. NGOs are pressured to work efficiently, be accountable to donors and beneficiaries, and to demonstrate impact. They must also critically examine the underlying assumptions behind their work, or else the sustainability of their work becomes jeopardized. Using previously collected evaluation data from a small NGO in water-based development, this paper highlights perceived facilitators and barriers to evaluative thinking and where they might occur in the evaluation process for an NGO constrained by time and resources.


This paper analyzes the performance, of a frequency division multiple access (FDMA) scheme for indoor broadband power-line communications based on discrete multitone (DMT) modulation. Bit-rate loss due to multiple access interference (MAI) is assessed for a synchronous and an asynchronous scheme. Improvements obtained by means of pulse-shaping at the transmitter and windowing at the receiver in the presence of symbol and frequency asynchrony are given. Performance is evaluated for carrier assignment strategies based on individual carrier allocation and on the assignation of groups of tones. The analysis is carried out with the help of a novel analytical procedure that allows separate calculation of the distortion terms (intersymbol and intercarrier interference and MAI) of a DMT system operating over a linear time-invariant (LTI) channel


There has been persistent confusion among European and US diplomats over the public statements of Ayatollah Khamenei on matters of foreign policy. Despite significant Iranian pragmatism in negotiations, Khamenei's pronouncements are consistently combative. P Sadeghi and Jack Watling examine the evolution of the concept of velayat-e faqih, which underpins the position of the Supreme Leader, and how it has been promulgated, and argue that Khamenei has developed a narrative of infallibility. This, combined with the obligations pertaining to his office as an Ayatollah, have made him uniquely constrained in his ability to publicly alter his language. At the same time Khamenei has worked to centralise power around his office, thereby creating a paradox by which the most powerful decision-maker in Iran is unable to offer clear public leadership for fear of being proven wrong.■


The purpose of this study was to use a noninvasive method to determine the effect of pelvic tilt on the lumbar spine geometry in the sagittal plane. Five healthy male subjects were instructed in performing active forward and backward pelvic tilt manoeuvres in the standing position. The lumbar spine geometry (severity of lordosis, pelvis and lumbar vertebrae orientations) was estimated with a lumbar spine geometric model. The voluntary backward pelvic tilt succeeded in reducing the depth of the lumbar spine curvature, but the forward tilt did not change it. Both pelvic tilt manoeuvres influenced the absolute orientations of the lower lumbar vertebrae and the relative orientations of some lumbar vertebrae. Interestingly, the L5/S1 joint showed was little affected by the pelvic tilt manoeuvres.


A third summer of coastal upwelling observations was recently completed by researchers at LEO-15, the Long-term Ecosystem Observatory established in 15 m of water offshore of Tuckerton, New Jersey. Each year, real-time satellite images of wind-driven upwelling events trigger fast-response shipboard surveys to study the subsurface structure of the upwelled features and their relationship to bottom dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations (Figure 1). The LEO-15 observations indicate that recurrent up-welling centers develop on the downslope sides of topographic highs and coincide with the historically observed regions of recurrent low DO. Recent modeling suggests that because of the along-shore topographic variations, a cyclonic eddy in the upwelling center forms that may concentrate nutrients, leading to phytoplankton blooms and subsequent reductions in DO as the resulting organic material decays below the thermocline.


Abstract This paper argues that climate migration-in case of climate refugees in a strict sense-differs from other forms of migration not only by its finality but also by the fact that entire communities are forced to resettle elsewhere. For such communities to migrate with dignity-that is in a way that protects the social bases of their self-respect-their host countries are required to ensure the necessary institutional arrangements enabling these people to become full and equal members within a reasonably short time. Ensuring that their equal participation rights are not merely formal but have 'fair value' requires taking cultural differences into account to ensure that they do not pose substantial disadvantages for participation in the political and social sphere.


This section will look at differing concepts of pedagogy using research data collected at a college that is at the forefront of using technology as a tool for learning. The data collected was originally analysed using the concepts of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK), Signature Pedagogies and expansive vocational education to see how these concepts applied to practice. The research indicated that whilst there were differences in the pedagogical content approach, the concept of signature pedagogies was strong across all the vocational curriculum areas looked at. It highlighted several instances where the teachers were using an 'implicit structure' in their pedagogy to draw out the moral aspects of the profession and the inherent principles that guide a professional in a particular field. Finally, it confirms that through using signature pedagogies teachers are able to develop habits of the heart, mind and hand in their learners and to cultivate learners who 'think like professionals'.


Electrochemical energy storage devices are one of the main protagonists in the ongoing technological advances in the energy field, whereby the development of efficient, sustainable, and durable storage systems aroused a great interest in the scientific community. Batteries, electrical double layer capacitors (EDLC), and pseudocapacitors are characterized in depth in the literature as the most powerful energy storage devices for practical applications. Pseudocapacitors bridge the gap between batteries and EDLCs, thus supplying both high energy and power densities, and transition metal oxide (TMO)-based nanostructures are used for their realization. Among them, WO3 nanostructures inspired the scientific community, thanks to WO3's excellent electrochemical stability, low cost, and abundance in nature. This review analyzes the morphological and electrochemical properties of WO3 nanostructures and their most used synthesis techniques. Moreover, a brief description of the electrochemical characterization methods of electrodes for energy storage, such as Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Galvanostatic Charge–Discharge (GCD), and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) are reported, to better understand the recent advances in WO3-based nanostructures, such as pore WO3 nanostructures, WO3/carbon nanocomposites, and metal-doped WO3 nanostructure-based electrodes for pseudocapacitor applications. This analysis is reported in terms of specific capacitance calculated as a function of current density and scan rate. Then we move to the recent progress made for the design and fabrication of WO3-based symmetric and asymmetric supercapacitors (SSCs and ASCs), thus studying a comparative Ragone plot of the state-of-the-art research.


INTRODUCTION
Sterilization of females is considered one of the most prevalent contraceptive techniques among women in the United States. There are many surgical sterilization procedures including salpingectomy, tubal ligation, and hysteroscopic occlusion of the fallopian tubes. We provide an overview of these methods from the clinical data and latest studies available on this topic.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION
In order to review the latest literature on the topic, we searched electronic databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane library for all eligible studies from May 1st 2018 until May 1st 2022 using the following strategy: ("fallopian tube removal" OR Salpingectomy OR "fallopian tube excision" OR "tubal sterilization") AND ("tubal ligation" OR "bipolar coagulation" OR "tubal clip" OR "tubal ring" OR fimbriectomy). We reviewed every study that met our criteria and subjectively considered their results and methodology into this narrative review.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
In addition to reviewing major guidelines in the United States, 19 recent studies met our eligibility criteria and were included in this review. We grouped the findings under the following headings: anatomical and physiological considerations, sterilization, salpingectomy, tubal ligation, and hysteroscopic tubal occlusion.

CONCLUSIONS
Bilateral salpingectomy and techniques of tubal ligation or occlusion continue to be effective procedures with good safety profiles. All techniques have similar surgical outcomes and long-term success rates. As salpingectomy has the advantage of reducing the risk of occurrence of ovarian cancer, this is preferential when feasible. Hysteroscopic occlusion techniques may be more minimally invasive but have the disadvantages of delayed efficacy, the need for a second invasive diagnostic procedure, and limited availability.


Introduction: Substance abuse is a serious problem .Incidence of substance abuse in Iranian students is high. The current study surveys of substance abuse in medical students in southern Iran. Patients and Methods: From April 2008 to June 2009 in Iran, prevalence of substance use among 1000 Shiraz University medical students were assessed by a questionnaire based on DSM-IV. Results: Overall 971 medical students completed the questionnaire. (54.8 %were males).. 22% of the male and 8% of the female students had a history of at least one episode substance abuse. The rate of substance abuse among the male students was significantly higher than females. (P value<0.05) The most important substance which was used was cigarette followed by water pipe. Discussion: Overall prevalence of substance use among the medical students in Iran is lower than west. In this study prevalence of substance use was significantly higher among the males and such as the other studies in Iran cigarette, water pipe, Alcohol and opium, were the most prevalent substances which used.


Neutron scattering techniques provide unique insights into the active layer morphology of organic solar cells. The nanoscale morphology, the thin film vertical composition, and the intermixing on a molecular level, which all strongly have an impact on the performance of organic solar cells, can be probed with neutrons. In addition to the static structure, also fast dynamics occurring in the active material is accessible with neutrons. This perspective letter highlights the power of grazing incidence small angle neutron scattering and quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiments after shortly introducing into the working principle of organic solar cells.


Vast metropolitan areas include both urban areas and rural outskirts. Between these areas, there are strong links to the point which they cannot be examined separately. There is a contemporary presence of residential function and working activity in the rural outskirts, as well as in the typical sector of agriculture. Therefore, the production of goods and services for the city requires a combined analysis, due to the large territory which it has to consider. The evolution of the population of such a large territory can be studied in great detail, with reference to the single census area and with the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This means that such a demographic development produces an effect on the values of the urban real estate. This work demonstrates the existing interconnections between urban areas and rural outskirts. Data collection on trends of the population living in the Naples metropolitan area and the house prices associated with this area, and the post spatial processing of such data, allows for the establishment of thematic maps according to which a model capable of interpreting the population development is defined. A study of the statistical correlations shows the consequences that the population dynamics produce for property prices. In addition, the diachronic analysis of the sales prices of residential buildings demonstrates that economic functions, exclusive of certain urban or rural territories, end up distributing and integrating.


Various modes of sensory feedback to the user have the potential to enhance performance in robot-assisted surgery. In this paper, it is hypothesized that substituting or augmenting force feedback by visual representation of the force levels can potentially assist the user in limiting the amount of applied forces. In addition to confirming the above for a telemanipulated suturing task, the results indicate that there is a trade-off between the magnitudes of applied forces and the time required, to complete the task.


Affect recognition based on subjects' facial expressions has been a topic of major research in the attempt to generate machines that can understand the way subjects feel, act and react. In the past, due to the unavailability of large amounts of data captured in real-life situations, research has mainly focused on controlled environments. However, recently, social media and platforms have been widely used. Moreover, deep learning has emerged as a means to solve visual analysis and recognition problems. This paper exploits these advances and presents significant contributions for affect analysis and recognition in-the-wild. Affect analysis and recognition can be seen as a dual knowledge generation problem, involving: i) creation of new, large and rich in-the-wild databases and ii) design and training of novel deep neural architectures that are able to analyse affect over these databases and to successfully generalise their performance on other datasets. The paper focuses on large in-the-wild databases, i.e., Aff-Wild and Aff-Wild2 and presents the design of two classes of deep neural networks trained with these databases. The first class refers to uni-task affect recognition, focusing on prediction of the valence and arousal dimensional variables. The second class refers to estimation of all main behavior tasks, i.e. valence-arousal prediction; categorical emotion classification in seven basic facial expressions; facial Action Unit detection. A novel multi-task and holistic framework is presented which is able to jointly learn and effectively generalize and perform affect recognition over all existing in-the-wild databases. Large experimental studies illustrate the achieved performance improvement over the existing state-of-the-art in affect recognition.


This study has adopted an agent-based model to examine the factors that influenced the learning experiences in online learning communities. A community of inquiry (CoI) is an online learning framework which posits that positive learning experiences are created through cognitive, social, and teaching dimensions. It is based on the distance learning system during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this challenging time, schools worldwide have shifted to the distance learning system. The factors of this model are carefully translated to correspond with the parameters from Netlogo's HIV model through a coherent approach. These are the number of contacts, the length of time for online unreadiness, and the absence of learner control measures. This paper used a three-factorial research design where a series of simulations are carried out in the Netlogo software. The generated data reveal how these factors significantly contribute to the students' meaningful learning experiences. It has shown that CoI supports deep learning and how it provides meaningful learning experiences. Hence, this paper calls for further research in online learning to sustain a quality online learning environment based on the CoI framework, equipping tutors to varying teaching methods in online learning and contextualizing CoI from perspectives across disciplines.


Aims: Paying attention to entrepreneurial characteristics is one of the present time necessities and appropriate theme to implement it is turning the universities into learning organizations debate. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between entrepreneurial characteristics and the parameters of the learning organization at Kashan University. Methods: In this descriptive correlational study 98 samples were selected among Kashan University faculty members using stratified random sampling proportional to the size using Cochran formula in 2011-12 that 95 persons were studied finally. Data were collected by two researcher-made questionnaires including learning organization questionnaire with 37 items and the entrepreneurship questionnaire with 47 items based on five-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation, linear regression, one-sample T and one-way ANOVA tests. Findings: The characteristics of entrepreneurial of Kashan University faculty members mean were above the average. There was positive and significant correlation between all entrepreneurial characteristics and learning organization. A significant and positive correlation was observed between characteristics of entrepreneurship mean based on employment status, field of study and gender differences were, but it was not significant based on academic rank. From Kashan faculty members point of view all parameters of entrepreneurship i.e. the need for achievement (27%), internal locus of control (18%), independence (35%), tolerance of ambiguity (44%), creativity (21%) and risk taking (30%) were capable of predicting the learning organization. Conclusion: There is a direct correlation between characteristics of entrepreneurship and learning organization from Kashan University faculty member's viewpoint.


The photocatalytic activity in the degradation of 4-chlorophenol (4-ClPh) in aqueous medium (80 ppm) using 2.0 wt% Ag/Al2O3–Gd2O3 (Ag/Al–Gd-x; where x = 2.0, 5.0, 15.0, 25.0 and 50.0 wt% of Gd2O3) photocatalysts prepared by the sol–gel method was studied under UV light irradiation. The photocatalysts were characterized by N2 physisorption, X-ray diffraction, SEM, HRTEM, UV-Vis, XPS, FTIR and fluorescence spectroscopy. About 67.0% of 4-ClPh was photoconverted after 4 h of UV light irradiation using Ag/γ-–Al2O3. When Ag/Al–Gd-x photocatalysts were tested, the 4-ClPh photoconversion was improved and more than 90.0% of 4-ClPh was photoconverted after 3 h of UV light irradiation in the materials containing 15.0 and 25.0 wt% of Gd2O3. Ag/Al–Gd-25 was the material with the highest efficacy to mineralize dissolved organic carbon, mineralizing more than 85.0% after 4 h of UV light irradiation. Silver nanoparticles and micro-particles of irregular pentagonal shape intersected by plane nanobelts of Al2O3–Gd2O3 composite oxide were detected in the Ag/Al–Gd-25 photocatalyst. This material is characterized by a lowest recombination rate of electron–hole pairs. The low recombination rate of photo-induced electron–hole pairs in the Ag/Al–Gd-x photocatalysts with high Gd2O3 contents (≥15.0 wt%) confirmes that the presence of silver nanoparticles and microparticles interacting with Al2O3–Gd2O3 composite oxide entities favors the separation of photo-induced charges (e− and h+). These materials could be appropriate to be used as highly efficient photocatalysts to eliminate high concentrations of 4-ClPh in aqueous medium.


Abstract In Japanese, numeral classifiers-or measure words-co-occur with numbers in counting phrases. Th e present study characterized parent numeral classifier use and its relation to children's classifier acquisition and number learning. Twenty-four Japanese-speaking parents and their two- to six-year-old children viewed and talked about two wordless picture books about counting to each other. Children also participated in a Counting task and Give-N task. Results revealed (1) parents' classifier use changed in relation to children's age and classifier use, and (2) parents' increased use of specific classifiers was uniquely associated with children's number understanding. These results suggest that aspects of children's language and numerical development are related to parents' language input, demonstrating the importance of examining the relation between language and cognition in a developmental context.


Abstract Meeting the needs for a growing world population calls for multifunctional land use, which can meet the multiple demands of food and fuel production, environmental and biodiversity protection, and has the capacity for adaptation or resilience to climate change. Agroforestry, a land-use system that integrates trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock production, has been identified by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) as a 'win–win' approach that balances the production of commodities (food, feed, fuel, fiber, etc.) with non-commodity outputs such as environmental protection and cultural and landscape amenities. Evidence is now coming to light that supports the promotion of agroforestry in temperate developed countries as a sustainable alternative to the highly industrialized agricultural model with its associated negative environmental externalities. This paper reviews this evidence within the 'ecosystem services' framework to evaluate agroforestry as part of a multifunctional working landscape in temperate regions. Establishing trees on agricultural land can help to mitigate many of the negative impacts of agriculture, for example by regulating soil, water and air quality, supporting biodiversity, reducing inputs by natural regulation of pests and more efficient nutrient cycling, and by modifying local and global climates. The challenge now lies in promoting the adoption of agroforestry as a mainstream land use through research, dissemination of information and policy changes.


Abstract The known navigational systems in use and methods of navigational decision support perform information functions and as such are helpful in the process of safe conduct of a vessel. However, none of these known systems provides a navigator with ready solutions of collision situations taking account of all the vessels in the proximity of own ship, where the Collision Regulations apply. This paper presents verification results of NAVDEC — new Navigational Decision Supporting System created by research team from Szczecin Maritime University both for ocean going ships and pleasure crafts. Verification was carried out in real condition on board Motor Ferry 'Wawel' (m/f 'Wawel'), which belongs to shipowner Polferries (PŻB). During the journey to/from Nynashamn system was tested from customer perspective. Few suggestions for improvements were issued, which were discussed in this article.


Brushless DC (BLDC) motor control system is a multi-parameter nonlinear systems, and the ultra-low inductance of it makes more stringent requirements on the performance of the control system, which make it difficult using the traditional PI control method and the intelligent control methods, such as fuzzy control method and neural network control method, to effectively control a low-inductance BLDC motor with high performance demands. Considering this, we propose a new dual-loop control strategy in which the current hysteresis control is adopted for the current loop, and the speed loop control is realized based on the exponential approach law sliding mode speed controller and sliding mode observer to construct the control system for a low-inductance BLDC motor. The simulation and experimental verification show that compared to the traditional PI control strategy, the proposed control strategy shows obvious advantages in overshoot control, response speed and adaptability to load variations.


Autoreactive T cells responding to systemic autoantigens have been characterized in patients and mice with autoimmune diseases and in healthy individuals. Using peptides covering the whole sequence of histone H4, we characterized several epitopes recognized by lymph node Th cells from nonsystemic lupus erythematosus-prone mice immunized with the same peptides, the H4 protein, or nucleosomes. Multiple T epitopes were identified after immunizing H-2d BALB/c mice with H4 peptides. They spanned residues 28–42, 30–47, 66–83, 72–89, and 85–102. Within the region 85–102, a minimal CD4+ T epitope containing residues 88–99 was characterized. Although Abs to peptide 88–99 recognized H4, this peptide does not contain a dominant B cell epitope recognized by anti-H4 Abs raised in BALB/c mice or Abs from NZB/NZW H-2d/z lupus mice. Th cells primed in vivo with H4 responded to H4, but not to peptide 88–99. However, this peptide was able to stimulate the proliferation and IL-2 secretion of Th cells generated after immunization with nucleosomes. H488–99 thus represents a cryptic epitope with regard to H4 and a supradominant epitope presented by nucleosome, a supramolecular complex that plays a key role in lupus. This study shows that in the normal repertoire of naive BALB/c mice, autoreactive Th cells specific for histones are not deleted. The reactivity of these Th cells seems to be relatively restricted and resembles that of Th clones generated from SNF1 ((SWR × NZB)F1; I-Ad/q) lupus mice described earlier.


1. Introduction The Lower Carboniferous outlier of the Kirkbean district lies some 11 miles due south of Dumfries on the south-east flank of the Criffel granite, and covers an area of about ten square miles (Fig. 1). The strata are well exposed on the shore between Carsethorn and Southerness for a distance of nearly four miles, but, apart from sections in streams flowing off Criffel, inland exposures are few. The area lies athwart the boundary of the one-inch Geological Survey Sheets 5 and 6 (published in 1879, second edition Sheet 5 in 1927) and the first detailed account of the geology is contained in the Explanation to Sheet 5 (1896), in which Horne recognised four divisions of the strata on the shore, assigning them to the Calciferous Sandstone Series: 4. Coralline limestones of Arbigland Bay. 3. Sandstones, shales and thin marine limestones. 2. Thirlstane sandstones. 1. Sandstones and shales with marine bands and cementstones. In the Regional Geology handbook for the South of Scotland (1935, 2nd edition 1948), Pringle, adopting Horne's division of the shore strata, correlated the basal beds with the upper part of the Cambeck Series of North Cumberland, and the Coralline Limestones with the Lawston Linn and Lewisburn Coal Group of the Eskdale-Liddesdale district. The Thirlstane Sandstone was taken as the equivalent of the Fell Sandstone of Liddesdale. The succession now established by the present writer for the Kirkbean outlier is shown below:— Early accounts of the geology of the district are to be found in Jameson This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract


Abstract This paper reviews the measures adopted by central banks from the most important economies during the crisis and assess their effectiveness. It is important for policy makers to identify which measures were effective in limiting the financial system distress in order to adopt the appropiate measure during future crisis. In case of US, TARP was the most important program for banking system and it was effective in reducing banks' contribution to systemic risk and banks' default probabilities. But TARP also conducted to a reduction in loans growth and create incentives for higher risk-taking behavior. The unconventional monetary policies adopted by ECB during the period 2008- 2016 reduced the impact of the crisis on the European economy and achieved their objectives: to support banks' funding and to increase lending to real economy (LTROs), to calm tensions from bond markets (CBPP, SMP, OMT), to support economic activity and to stabilize inflation rate (SMP, OMT, LTROs, APP).


The newest video coding standard called scalable video coding (SVC) provides broad applications in multimedia communications. SVC encoder consumes great computational complexity when compared to previous video coding standards. This paper presents a fast mode decision algorithm that speeds up the SVC encoding process through probabilistic analysis. The mode of the enhancement layer is first predicted by statistical analysis. Afterward, Bayesian theorem is utilized to detect whether the prediction mode of the current macroblock is the best or not. The mode is further predicted and refined by the Markov process. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces computational complexity with negligible peak signal-to-noise ratio degradation and bitrate increase in the enhancement layers.


Administration of cholinergic agonists increases both basal and GH-releasing hormone (GHRH)-induced GH secretion, probably acting via inhibition of endogenous somatostatin release. The aim of our study was to verify in two groups of children with idiopathic short stature the effect of intranasal administration of neostigmine (inNS; 3 mg), a cholinesterase inhibitor, on basal GH levels as well as on the somatotroph response to GHRH when the peptide was administered either iv (ivGHRH; 1 microgram/kg) or intranasally (inGHRH; 10 micrograms/kg). In group A (n = 6; age, 10.6-16.0 yr) inNS induced a significant GH increase [inNS vs. saline, area under the curve (AUC; mean +/- SEM), 263.7 +/- 60.2 vs. 73.8 +/- 3.1 micrograms/L.h; P less than 0.03] and potentiated the somatotroph response to ivGHRH (inNS with ivGHRH vs. ivGHRH, 1316 +/- 183.0 vs. 644.9 +/- 154.5 micrograms/L.h; P less than 0.03). In group B (n = 6; age, 11.5-15.9 yr) ivGHRH induced a GH rise clearly higher than that induced by inGHRH (604.2 +/- 154.3 vs. 137.1 +/- 28.2 micrograms/L.h; P less than 0.03). Administration of inNS induced a GH rise similar to that occurring after inGHRH (AUC, 239.2 +/- 69.5 micrograms/L.h) and markedly increased the inGHRH-induced GH response (482.4 +/- 103.6 micrograms/L.h; P less than 0.05 and 0.03 vs. inNS and inGHRH, respectively), so that it overlapped with that induced by ivGHRH alone. In conclusion, cholinergic agonists such as neostigmine are able to increase both basal and GHRH-induced GH secretion in short children even when given intranasally. Combined intranasal administration of neostigmine and GHRH (10 micrograms/kg) is able to induce a GH rise similar to that induced by ivGHRH alone (1 microgram/kg), suggesting the potential usefulness of this combination cocktail and route of administration for the treatment of short stature.


Computational soundness results show that under certain conditions it is possible to conclude computational security whenever symbolic security holds. Unfortunately, each soundness result is usually established for some set of cryptographic primitives and extending the result to encompass new primitives typically requires redoing most of the work. In this paper we suggest a way of getting around this problem. We propose a notion of computational soundness that we term deduction soundness. As for other soundness notions, our definition captures the idea that a computational adversary does not have any more power than a symbolic adversary. However, a key aspect of deduction soundness is that it considers, intrinsically, the use of the primitives in the presence of functions specified by the adversary. As a consequence, the resulting notion is amenable to modular extensions. We prove that a deduction sound implementation of some arbitrary primitives can be extended to include asymmetric encryption and public data-structures (e.g. pairings or list), without repeating the original proof effort. Furthermore, our notion of soundness concerns cryptographic primitives in a way that is independent of any protocol specification language. Nonetheless, we show that deduction soundness leads to computational soundness for languages (or protocols) that satisfy a so called commutation property.


Pharmaceutical substances have been discovered by means ranging from serendipitous observation [1,2] to specific engineering [3]. The purpose is nearly always to combat one particular disease, and the approach is most often trial and error. The efficiency of these pharmaceutical hunts has been improved greatly by highthroughput pharmaceutical platforms, but the requirement of physical experiment makes these screens scale in expense linearly at best. The expense of discovering a new chemical entity is estimated at US$0.5B–US$2B [4,5]. More recent successes in computationalmodeling of compound to protein docking open the possibility of nonphysical prelaboratory screens. In our experience this has vastly increased the success rate of bench experiments [6,7] (see Table 13.1, later in this chapter). Computational modeling of protein ligand interactions has been applied to find pharmacologic targets in known drug-disease pairs [8,9]. Themore obvious use of these dockingmethods is to guide discovery of a drug for a disease, asmodeling enables design [3]. Design does not need to be limited to one protein target. Searching for one compound for multiple targets in the same pathogen increases odds for successful inhibition of at least one target, and facilitates discovery of multitarget lead inhibitors, [Note 1], which vastly decreases the probability of developing resistance (or habituation) and decreases toxicity via lowered effective dose [6,10–12] (Table 13.1). Thus far the search for multitarget inhibitors has focused on one organism at a time [6,9,11], but modeling multidisease effects has explained clinical patterns of elimination for twodiseasesbyonedrug [13].Theadvent of computationalmultidisease screens will enable access to the most accurate aspects of computational screening, bearing the possibility of vastly reducing barriers to drug development.


(c) (b) Our eyes provide us with detailed and rich sensory information—the eyes are also a window into various biological processes. Over the past two decades, optical coherence tomography (OCT) has become the standard of care for imaging eye disease.1 However, ocular aberrations limit cellular resolution tomography of the human retina. The introduction of hardware-based adaptive optics (HAO) has enabled diffractionlimited imaging of previously unresolvable structures, such as the three-dimensional visualization of photoreceptor distributions.2 Unfortunately, HAO's sophisticated hardware and controlling software adds considerable complexity and cost to an OCT system. This limits the number of researchers and clinicians who can benefit from HAO technology. Computational adaptive optics (CAO) is a processing method that modifies the complex interferometric data acquired from OCT by applying a digital aberrationcorrection filter in the spatial frequency domain.3 This method is capable of correcting high-order optical aberrations without the use of adaptive optics hardware, such as a wavefront sensor or a deformable mirror, and has previously been demonstrated in ex vivo biological samples. The frequent and unavoidable motion of the eye can corrupt the phase of interferometric data, preventing the use of phase-sensitive techniques such as CAO. We have developed a phase stabilization technique and automated CAO approach to computationally correct strong optical aberrations in the living human retina.4 We acquired retinal data using a standard en face OCT system operating at a 4-kHz en face line rate to overcome transverse motion. We corrected axial motion in post-processing. Next, we used an automated method to determine the optimal aberration correction filter, and then applied the filter to the computational pupil plane. Following computational aberration correction, we obtained a clearly resolved photoreceptor mosaic. These results demonstrate An uncorrected photoreceptor mosaic acquired using en face OCT (a) and after computational aberration correction (b). A surface plot of a computational wavefront correction applied to an en face OCT frame (c). Scale bars = 0.25 degrees. Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: N.D. Shemonski et al. Nat. Photon. 9, 440 (2015)


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: Data regarding opioid prescribing patterns following pediatric orthopaedic procedures is limited. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effects of tiered guidelines for discharge opioid prescriptions following common pediatric orthopaedic procedures. Methods: Quality improvement project conducted at a single academic institution. Guidelines for discharge opioid prescriptions were implemented January 2018 and established 4 tiers of increasing invasiveness for 28 common pediatric orthopaedic procedures. Patients who underwent these procedures in 2017 comprised the preguideline cohort (N=258), while patients treated in 2019 comprised the postguideline cohort (N=212). Opioid prescriptions were reported as oral morphine equivalents (OMEs). Univariate tests were performed to assess statistically significant differences before and after implementation of the guidelines. Results: There was a significant decrease in OME prescribed between preguideline and postguideline cohorts (median OME 97.5 vs. 37.5). When analyzed according to procedure tiers, tiers 1, 2, and 4 showed significant decreases in OME prescribed between 2017 and 2019. The rate of no opioids prescribed at discharge increased from 13% to 23% between preguideline and postguideline cohorts. The 30-day refill rate did not significantly change. After implementation of guidelines, 91% of all prescriptions were within the guideline parameters, and there was a significant reduction in prescription variability. In tier 4 procedures, median OME prescribed decreased from 375 preguideline to 188 postguideline, but was associated with greater opioid refills within 30 days of discharge (10.2% preguideline vs. 28.8% postguideline). Conclusions: Tiered guidelines for discharge opioid prescriptions following pediatric orthopaedic procedures can significantly decrease the quantity of opioids prescribed. Furthermore, we noted excellent adherence and no overall increase in the rates of narcotic refills. Such guidelines may improve pediatric orthopaedists' ability to responsibly treat postoperative pain while limiting the distribution of unneeded opioids. Level of Evidence: Level IV—quality improvement project.


We present a multiwavelength photometric analysis of the globular cluster M2. The data set has been obtained by combining high-resolution (Hubble Space Telescope/WFPC2 and ACS) and wide-field (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) space observations and ground-based (MEGACAM-CFHT, EMMI-NTT) images. The photometric sample covers the entire cluster extension from the very central regions up to the tidal radius and beyond. It allows an accurate determination of the cluster center of gravity and other structural parameters derived from the star count density profile. Moreover, we study the Blue Straggler Star (BSS) population and its radial distribution. A total of 123 BSSs have been selected, and their radial distribution has been found to be bimodal (highly peaked in the center, decreasing at intermediate radii, and rising outward), as already found in a number of other clusters. The radial position of the minimum of the BSS distribution is consistent with the radius of avoidance caused by the dynamical friction of massive (1.2 M☉) objects over the cluster age. We also searched for gradients in the red giant branch (RGB) and the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) populations. At the 2σ level, we found an overabundance of AGB stars within the core radius and confirmed the result of Sohn et al. that the central region of M2 is bluer than the outer part. We show that the latter is due to a deficit of very luminous RGB stars in the central region.


This paper investigated the perceptions of Religious and Moral Education (RME) teachers with regard to the implementation of RME syllabus in Namibia. The paper engages a crucial global debate on paradigms for teaching religion and moral values while contributing to the literature through research in the Ompundja Circuit of Oshana Region, Namibia. Contrary to the previous colonial era when Christianity was the only recognized religion, the Republic of Namibia adopted a new constitution making it a secular state upon independence in 1990. This new constitution, however, brought new challenges to teachers who were previously trained only to teach Biblical Studies as a school subject. With this new constitution, Namibia adopted a policy of teaching a multi-cultural religious and moral education curriculum. The teaching of RME replaced Biblical Studies in the Namibian curriculum. Teachers are now required to make their learners aware of the different religious and moral values of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, African traditional religions, Bahai and others inextricably. This, paper, therefore, presents findings from a case study research conducted at Ompundja Circuit of Oshana Region in Namibia that examined the perceptions of Religious and Moral Education (RME) teachers with regard to the implementation of RME syllabus. Fourteen teachers from selected schools participated in this study. Teachers were interviewed, observed and later completed a set of questionnaire. Findings indicated that teachers'individual religious and moral values shaped the teaching and learning process; teachers' individual religious and moral values played a major role regarding conflicting concerns over RME; and as most RME teachers were Christian, they felt a commitment to share their personal Christian religious beliefs and moral values. The paper recommends that teachers be provided with the necessary teaching resources and be trained to develop more confidence and broad understanding of RME as a subject.


A computer model is presented that performs 4 tasks sometimes impaired by frontal damage: motor sequencing, the Stroop task, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and a context memory task. In each task, patterns of performance typical of frontal-damaged patients are shown to result from the same type of damage to the model, specifically, weakening of associations among elements in working memory. The simulation shows how a single underlying type of damage could result in impairments on a variety of seemingly distinct tasks. Furthermore, the hypothesized damage affects the processing components that carry out the task rather than a distinct central executive.


Affine Transformations (ATs) are a complex and abstract learning content. Encoding the AT knowledge in Game Mechanics (GMs) achieves a repetitive knowledge application and audiovisual demonstration. Playing a serious game providing these GMs leads to a motivating and effective knowledge learning. Using immersive Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to even further increase the serious game's learning outcome and learning quality. This paper compares the effectiveness and efficiency of desktop-3D and VR in respect to the achieved learning outcome. Also, the present study analyzes the effectiveness of an enhanced audiovisual knowledge encoding and the provision of a debriefing system. The results validate the effectiveness of the knowledge encoding in GMs to achieve a knowledge learning. The study also indicates that VR is beneficial for the overall learning quality and that the audiovisual encoding has only a limited effect on the learning outcome.


Effects of the absorber's thickness on the UTC TWPD's performance are investigated. This is an important parameter because it affects both external efficiency and the bandwidth of the device. The analysis of the photodetectors is done using a hybrid drift-diffusion-TLM method, which takes into consideration both, carrier dynamics and RF propagation characteristics. To improve the external efficiency of the UTC TWPD, a thicker absorber is needed. However, a thicker absorber also reduces the transit bandwidth of the photodetector. It is found that the bandwidth of a high frequency UTC TWPD with a thick absorber can be improved by optimizing the length of the device


Bamboo is a source of industrial raw material with wide geographical distribution. Brazil has good soil and climate conditions for its cultivation, in addition to existing reserves. Advantages of bamboo include: versatility, fast growth and good strength properties. One way of using this material would be as a raw material for manufacturing particleboards. Within this context, this article addresses an evaluation of the physical and mechanical properties of particleboards manufactured from bamboo particles ( Dendrocalamus asper (Schult f.). Backer ex Heyne. Particles with 0.50 and 0.85mm granulometry and two conditions (control and treatment by immersion in hot water (70 ± 5 °C) for two hours) were used. Twelve homogeneous particleboards bonded with urea-formaldehyde adhesive with 10% solids were manufactured and the predetermined nominal density for all panels was 650 kg m -3 . The properties analyzed were: water absorption, swelling and non-return rate in thickness, density profile, rupture modulus, elastic modulus, screw withdrawal and internal adhesion. Panels consisting of 0.50 mm granulometry showed higher water absorption rates, while panels made of particles treated with hot water and 0.85 mm granulometry showed higher swelling rates and non-return thickness. The panels made of treated particles showed higher density profile values in both layers of the panels. The granulometry did not influence the mechanical properties of the panels, and those with treated particles exhibited significant performance for the surface and top screw withdrawal properties, and internal adhesion. This last mentioned property reached the minimum value required by the standard. The results showed that it is feasible to use bamboo to manufacture particleboards, but it is necessary to adjust some variables such as nominal density, pressing parameters, adhesive content or the inclusion of a less dense material in the composition of the panels.


Nine patients with large complex paraclinoid aneurysms were treated by hybrid surgery in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University between January 2016 and July 2021. Intraoperative angiography was conducted for real-time evaluation of the aneurysm and its clipping efficacy. A total of 8 aneurysms were clipped under temporary proximal control with balloon occlusion. Suction decompression was simultaneously applied in 2 of these cases. After surgery, 2 patients developed symptomatic cerebral infarction, 3 patients developed transient oculomotor nerve palsy, but no patients had vision deterioration. Postoperative follow-up showed that small neck residue occurred in 1 case, but with the rest of aneurysms were completely occluded without parent artery stenosis. Hybrid surgery was proved to be advantageous in real-time assessment of aneurysm morphology and clipping efficacy. Combination of temporary proximal balloon occlusion and suction decompression technique can help in reducing the difficulty of aneurysm exposure and remodeling, thereby improving the outcome and decreasing the complications.


Within the midwifery profession, intuition has been discussed for many years and examined as both an obstructive and productive element of clinical practice. Intuitive ability is perceived by some to diminish the basis from which good clinical decisions are made, based upon the argument that intuitive knowledge is not evidence based. However, research has shown that midwives frequently rely on their 'gut' instincts or intuitive insights as the foundation of a judgement or action within the clinical practice setting.


Two experiments were conducted to evaluate dry pellet on growth of juvenile Korean rockfish (sebastes schlegeli) by comparing with moist pellet and raw fish-based moist pellet. In the first experiment, three replicate groups of 40 fish averaging 4.7 g were fed one of the following three experimental diets for 11 weeks : d교 pellet (DP) and moist pellet (MP) diets containing white fish meal (WFM) + soybean meal (SM) + corn gluten meal (CGM) as protein sources, or raw fish-based moist pellet (RMP, frozen horse mackerel+ commercial fish feed). No significant differences were found among fish fed different pellet types of diets in daily weight gain and whole body composition (P>0.05). In the second experiment, two replicate groups of 140 fish averaging 10.9 g were fed one of the following three experimental diets for 8 weeks : DP and MP diets containing WFM+ SM+ CGM as protein sources, or RMP. Daily weight gain and feed efficiency from fish fed RMP were significantly (P>0.05) higher than those from fish fed DP diet. These different growth responses between two experiments may be due to dietary protein sources and nutrient content. findings showed that DP can be used as a practical diet for juvenile Korean rockfish.


Glasses have the structures of those liquids from which they formed on cooling. The structures of liquids are the key to the understanding of glass formation. Weyl and Marboe assume three extreme cases of liquid structures. (1) Sodium chloride melts under disproportionation of all binding forces, forming abruptly a very fluid melt which consists of ionic clusters separated by fissures (Frenkel-type liquid). (2) Organic compounds of high molecular weight consist of molecules with strong intramolecular forces and weaker intermolecular forces. Depending on the shape and size of these molecules, the liquids undergo orientation when stretched (orientable liquid of the Stewart type). (3) Cristobalite and many silicates (albite) melt because increased thermal motion gradually overcomes the binding forces in the crystal. Melting is a gradual process; the optical properties of the crystal are retained for long times above the melting temperature. The resulting "flawless" liquid of the Bernal type can be easily supercooled and forms a glass. Glass formation does not take place from atomic liquids (argon, most metals) nor from low molecular-weight liquids (benzene, carbon tetrachloride) but from liquids whose structures correspond to (2) and (3) of the idealized structures. The structure of liquids which can form glasses is discussed on the basis of a ternary diagram, the corners of which are representing the three idealized extreme structures. Conventional thermodynamic treatment can not distinguish between the average bond strength and a distribution of bond strengths. The average bond strength might be the same for (1), (2), and (3). Even if one could derive the distributions of all binding forces within a condensed system, one still cannot distinguish between the structures (2) and (3), because the difference lies in the lifetime of the "clusters" (short life) and the "molecules" (long life).


This paper suggests an improvement to the BB84 scheme in Quantum key distribution. The original scheme has its weakness in letting quantifiably more information gain to an eavesdropper during public announcement of unencrypted bases lists. The security of the secret key comes at the expense of the final key length. We aim at exploiting the randomness of preparation (measurement) basis and the bit values encoded (observed), so as to randomize the bases lists before they are communicated over the public channel. A proof of security is given for our scheme and proven that our protocol results in lesser information gain by Eve in comparison with BB84 and its other extensions. Moreover, an analysis is made on the feasibility of our proposal as such and to support entanglement based QKD. The performance of our protocol is compared in terms of the upper and lower bounds on the tolerable bit error rate. We also quantify the information gain (by Eve) mathematically using the familiar approach of the concept of Shannon entropy. The paper models the attack by Eve in terms of interference in a multi-access quantum channel. Besides, this paper also hints at the invalidation of a separate privacy amplification step in the "prepare-and-measure" protocols in general.


We generalize the diffusive model for spin injection and detection in nonlocal spin structures to account for spin precession under an applied magnetic field in an anisotropic medium, for which the spin lifetime is not unique and depends on the spin orientation. We demonstrate that the spin precession (Hanle) line shape is strongly dependent on the degree of anisotropy and on the orientation of the magnetic field. In particular, we show that the anisotropy of the spin lifetime can be extracted from the measured spin signal, after dephasing in an oblique magnetic field, by using an analytical formula with a single fitting parameter. Alternatively, after identifying the fingerprints associated with the anisotropy, we propose a simple scaling of the Hanle line shapes at specific magnetic field orientations that results in a universal curve only in the isotropic case. The deviation from the universal curve can be used as a complementary means of quantifying the anisotropy by direct comparison with the solution of our generalized model. Finally, we applied our model to graphene devices and find that the spin relaxation for graphene on silicon oxide is isotropic within our experimental resolution.


The Tertiary formations of the Islands Margarita and Cubagua comprise fossiliferous sedimentary rocks of Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene age. Remnant blocks of limestone with Midwayan fossils are also reported. The orbitoid-bearing Punta Carnero Formation is about 2000 m thick. The Oligocene Los Vagres limestone contains a coral fauna which is related to that of the San Luis limestone of Falcon. About 300 m of mottled graywacke in Cubagua borehole No. 1 is considered to be Oligocene and is correlated with the San Lorenzo Formation of eastern Falcon. Miocene clays and sands are about 1600 m thick in Cubagua borehole No. 2. On Cubagua and Margarita these rocks are unconformably overlain by the Cubagua Formation with fossils known from the Caujarao, La Vela and Ojo de Agua Formations of Falcon. Pliocene is represented on Cubagua by about 10 m of fossiliferous sandy marl with Lyropecten arnoldi, a marker fossil of the Cabo Blanco Formation. The Eocene and the lower Oligocene rocks are strongly folded. The upper Oligocene Los Vagres limestone appears to rest unconformably on vertical dipping lower Eocene. In the deep structural trough of Cubagua the lower Miocene was found also to be compressed. The middle and upper Miocene was less affected by orogenic movements, of which at least two phases are recognized by unconformities at the base of the Caujarao and of the younger La Vela Formation.


Abnormal psychical disturbances after surgical procedures may either be attributed to the experience of illness or to cerebral dysfunction, directly or indirectly including the brain in the process of the disease. The latter results in somatic psychotic states and "Durchgangssyndrom". The postoperative psychosis is not a nosological entity.


Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a recognized management option for patients with refractory neuropathic pain. Despite randomized controlled trials reporting the effectiveness of SCS, there is a lack of long‐term data reflecting usual SCS practice. The aim of this study is to present the long‐term outcomes of a cohort of patients from a single centre undertaking SCS with devices from a single manufacturer.


Summary: To evaluate the pattern of hemodynamic responses produced by an inhibitor of protein kinase C (PKC), staurosporine 0.03–0.55 mg/kg was administered intravenously (i.v.) to conscious, normotensive rats chronically instrumented with vascular catheters for direct measurement of blood pressure (BP) and i.v. administration of drugs and either an aortic flow probe for measurement of cardiac output (CO) or miniaturized pulsed Doppler flow probes for measurement of hindquarter, renal, and mesenteric vascular resistances. Staurosporine decreased mean arterial pressure (MAP) and total peripheral resistance (TPR) and increased heart rate (HR) in a dose-dependent manner. Because staurosporine decreased resistance in all three vascular beds monitored (hindquarter, renal, and mesenteric), staurosporine is probably a nonselective vasodilator that decreases MAP by decreasing resistance in a number of peripheral vascular beds. Staurosporine produced biphasic effects on CO, dF/dtmaX and peak aortic blood flow; these parameters were significantly increased at doses <0.3 mg/kg and decreased to levels equal to or significantly less than control values at doses >0.3 mg/kg. In comparison, the calcium channel blocker nitrendipine decreased MAP and TPR and increased HR, CO, dF/dtmax, and peak aortic flow in a dose-dependent manner over the entire dose range (0.01–1 mg/kg i.v.). Staurosporine (0.3 mg/kg) and nitrendipine (1 mg/kg) produced similar changes in MAP (-44 ± 3 and −33 ± 2 mm Hg, respectively), yet staurosporine affected dFldtMAX to a lesser extent than nitrendipine (-5 ± 36 and 390 ± 46 ml/s/s, respectively). These data may indicate that the reflex increase in contractility produced by lower doses of staurosporine is limited by a negative inotropic effect of staurosporine which predominates at higher doses. The renal effects of staurosporine were assessed in conscious, hydrated rats. Staurosporine (0.1 mg/kg) significantly decreased urinary potassium excretion and increased the ratio of sodium to potassium, thereby promoting selective excretion of sodium. Staurosporine (0.3 mg/kg) had significant antinatriuretic and antidiuretic effects, however. We conclude that although staurosporine produced a pattern of hemodynamic and renal effects that may be desirable for new antihypertensive agents, it may be cardiotoxic at higher doses. Because staurosporine inhibits other protein kinases, a definitive evaluation of PKC inhibition as a potential method for treating hypertension requires development of more specific PKC inhibitors.


Background Evidence-based interventions (EBIs) seldom fit seamlessly into a setting and are often adapted. The literature identifies practitioners' management of fidelity and adaptations as problematic but offers little guidance. This study aimed to investigate practitioners' perceptions of the feasibility and usability of an intervention aimed to support them in fidelity and adaptation management when working with EBIs. Methods The intervention, the adaptation and fidelity tool (A-FiT), was developed based on the literature, along with input from social service practitioners and social services' Research and Development units' personnel. The intervention consisted of two workshops where the participants were guided through a five-step process to manage fidelity and adaptations. It was tested in a longitudinal mixed-method intervention study with 103 practitioners from 19 social service units in Stockholm, Sweden. A multimethod data collection was employed, which included interviews at follow-up, questionnaires at baseline and follow-up (readiness for change and self-rated knowledge), workshop evaluation questionnaires (usability and feasibility) after each workshop, and documentation (participants' notes on worksheets). To analyze the data, qualitative content analysis, Kruskal–Wallis tests, and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests were performed. Results Overall, the practitioners had a positive perception of the intervention and perceived it as relevant for fidelity and adaptation management (mean ratings over 7.0 on usability and feasibility). The workshops also provided new knowledge and skills to manage fidelity and adaptations. Furthermore, the intervention provided insights into the practitioners' understanding about adaptation and fidelity through a more reflective approach. Conclusion Practical tools are needed to guide professionals not only to adhere to intervention core elements but also to help them to manage fidelity and adaptation. The proposed A-FiT intervention for practitioners' management of both fidelity and adaptation is a novel contribution to the implementation literature. Potentially, the next step is an evaluation of the intervention's impact in an experimental design.


Abstract Image inpainting aims to fill the undetectable domain and has been studied using deep learning in recent years. This study investigates smoothness-informed convolutional neural network models for image inpainting. The total variation (TV) is considered and local smoothness constraints are also explored in this study. The local smoothness constraint is conducted by the fidelity of the low-order derivatives on mostly connected parts of the given image at training stage. Unlike most neural network-based inpainting methods using numerous images for training, only a single local image containing the domain to be filled is required for the whole training here. The convolutional neural network accepts the image and is trained using detectable data. Computational results indicate that the local smoothness constraint can conduct a more satisfactory inpainting in comparison to usual TV-based one. We also demonstrate how a deep learning approach is used to solve the Euler-Lagrange equation-based inpainting.


Previous research on friction calculation models has mainly focused on static friction, whereas sliding friction calculation models are rarely reported. In this paper, a novel sliding friction model for realizing a dry spherical flat contact with a roughness effect at the micro/nano scale is proposed. This model yields the sliding friction by the change in the periodic substrate potential, adopts the basic assumptions of the Greenwood–Williamson random contact model about asperities, and assumes that the contact area between a rigid sphere and a nominal rough flat satisfies the condition of interfacial friction. It subsequently employs a statistical method to determine the total sliding friction force, and finally, the feasibility of this model presented is verified by atomic force microscopy friction experiments. The comparison results show that the deviations of the sliding friction force and coefficient between the theoretical calculated values and the experimental values are in a relatively acceptable range for the samples with a small plasticity index (Ψ≤1).


A dynamic covalent chemistry approach was used for the stereoselective synthesis of 1,10-diaza-3,8,12,17-tetraphosphacyclooctadecanes via condensation reaction of 1,4-bis(organylphosphino)butane, formaldehyde and primary amines. The obtained 18-membered P4N2 macrocycles were isolated in pure form as meso- (RPSPSPRP) or rac- (RPRPRPRP/SPSPSPSP) isomers. The structural features of the individual stereoisomers were revealed by NMR spectroscopy and X-ray structure analysis. All P4N2 macrocycles form square-planar nickel(II) complexes with the RPSPSPRP isomer only, in which the orientation of the lone pairs of electrons at phosphorus favors this coordination mode, independent of the initial configuration of the ligand, indicating the ability of the 18-membered P4N2 macrocycles to stereoisomerise in the course of the complexation.


A new electron bombardment evaporation source for ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) thin film deposition is presented. It is based on an original electrodes configuration (modeled on that of a vacuum triode) featuring, besides anode and filament, a biased grid acting as a power modulator. The presence of a polarized grid helps to minimize space charge problems, to improve electron focusing and to fine control the dissipation on the evaporating material, governing the sublimation rate. The electrodes geometry was optimized by studying electron trajectories and electrical field distribution in the electrodes zone with ray-tracing analysis. Mechanical solutions and electrodes geometry were designed to ensure low outgassing and UHV compatibility, as well as to facilitate maintenance and source cleaning. The evaporator is water cooled and a mechanically operated shutter is present. The working principles and the technical details are presented together with operating data and evaporation performances.