Recent developments hallmark the progress in the understanding of tumor immunology and related therapeutic strategies. The administration of interleukin-2 (IL-2) to patients with cancer has shown that immune manipulation can mediate the regression of established cancers. The identification of the genes encoding cancer antigens and the development of means for effectively immunizing against these antigens has opened new avenues for the development of active immunization of patients with cancer. However, an efficient immune response against tumor comprises an intricate molecular network still poorly understood. Only when the code governing immune responsiveness of cancer will be deciphered, new therapeutic strategies could be designed to fit biologically defined mechanisms of immune rejection of cancer. In this review, we propose that the mechanisms regulating tumor rejection in response to vaccination will be more efficiently identified by following the evolution of treatment induced events within the tumor microenvironment taking advantage of recently developed technological tools. As a model, we will discuss the observed immune response to tumor antigen -specific immunization and its relationship with the systemic administration of IL-2.


More than 50% of Egyptian children who die before reaching age 2 years perish as a result of acute infantile diarrhea. Most health experts in Egypt recommend that weaning foods be given to infants beginning at age 4-6 months, the point at which breast milk alone cannot meet an infant's nutritional needs. Findings are reported from an evaluation of the relationship between the weaning period and the possible incidence of diarrheal attacks. 60 cases aged 6-24 months presented with diarrhea after the early introduction of foods during the weaning period. 100 healthy infants matched according to age, sex, and socioeconomic status served as controls. 46.6% of cases were among infants under 1 year old. Only 30% of the children were originally breast-fed. Isonatremic dehydration accounted for 75% of all dehydration among the subjects, while E. coli caused 28.3% of cases, E. histolytica 21.6%, and Giardia lamblia 16%. The presence of polymorph nuclear leucocytes in the stool was a predictive test for the bacterial etiology of diarrhea with a positive predictive value of 87%. Finally, the band/neutrophil ratio of the bacterial group was significantly different from that of the control group, although no statistically significant difference was identified when comparing the parasitic diarrheal group to the control group.


Doubt can modulate our decision-making process. Although conceptually different, conflict (choice similarity: difficult or easy) and uncertainty (individual reward-likelihoods: uncertain or certain) are commonly related and often conflated. By posing as an evidence-accumulation problem, we assessed doubt, dissociating contextual conflict, and uncertainty and showed obsessive-compulsive disorder patients have specific impairments while processing difficult-uncertain contexts. It remains unclear whether this deficit is disorder-specific or a reflection of broader mental-health dimension. Multi-dimensional trans-diagnostic approaches help to tease out the mechanistic nature (specific or usual) of clinical observations and their validity in sub-clinical populations. Here, we first aimed to validate our conflict-uncertainty analysis approach in a larger non-clinical cohort (n>1300). Second, we assessed the relationship between decisional-parameters of difficult-uncertain contexts and a trans-diagnostic factor capturing individual differences in 'compulsive-behavior and intrusive-thoughts'. We replicate our previous findings in a large, general population sample and highlight that the amount of evidence accumulated in difficult–uncertain scenarios increases functionally with compulsive-behavior and intrusive-thought emphasizing greater cautiousness. We further show that those with high social-withdrawal tendencies gather less evidence irrespective of context reflecting a 'jumping to conclusions' tendency in judgment. We attempt to bridge the gap between behavior and psychological markers by integrating trans-diagnostic and computational methods.


Keywords: DNP ; hyperpolarization ; metabolism ; modeling ; acetate ; NMR Reference EPFL-CONF-180071 Record created on 2012-07-13, modified on 2017-05-12


Introduction: Mupirocin is a topical ointment and de-colonizing agent, used to reduce the burden of Staphylococcus aureus from nasal nares. Unjudiciary use of mupirocin has resulted in the emergence of resistance mediated by a gene mupA found to be associated with high-level mupirocin (HLMup R) resistance. The objectives of this study were to find out the prevalence of MRSA/MSSA, mupA gene, and antimicrobial resistance among burn patients and outdoor patients. Material and Methods: A total of 238 non-repetitive specimens were collected from nasal nares and burn wounds of patients in two tertiary care hospitals. S. aureus was isolated by conventional biochemical and molecular methods. Prevalence of resistance gene and antimicrobial susceptibility were identified by PCR and Kirby Bauer disk diffusion method respectively. Results: The prevalence of MRSA was 13% (32/238) and MSS 29% (70/238). We screened 102 isolates for the mupA gene and found 21 MRSA and 12 MSSA with a total of 33 isolates carrying this gene and the p-value was 0.0001. Most strains were found to be MDR. Discussion and Conclusion: MRSA strains are prevailing in hospital environments whereas mupA gene carriage rate shows that antimicrobial use of mupirocin to decolonize bacteria needs to be minimized. Antimicrobial stewardship and closed surveillance may be regulated.


ABSTRACT The research aimed to explore potential entomopathogenic bacteria as biological control agent for insect pest of P. xylostella and Spodoptera sp. in cabbage and broccoli. The indigenous bacteria were explored by taking 103 samples from location around North Sulawesi. Bacteria were selectively isolated by using Ohba and Aizawa method and then identified based on morphology. Subsequently the isolates were screened by their potency to kill test insect of P. xylostella and Spodoptera sp . The isolates were able to kill ≥ 50 % test insect considered  as potential for biological control. The potential isolates were then selected and would be developed  as powder and liquid bio-pesticide through large scale production. The result of the study showed that 145 Bacillus thuringiensis isolates and 202 Bacillus cereus isolates were obtained from 103 samples. The screening of the isolates based on standard test insect for cabbage and broccoli were in progress. The potential isolates would be further selected on the basis of their pathogenicity test. Based on pathogenecity test, chosen isolates will be developed as  bio-pasticide to control insect pest of cabbage and broccoli. Keywords : Exploration, entomopathogenic bacteria, biological control, Plutella xylostella, Spodoptera Sp.


This study examined the contribution of demographic. syndromal and longitudinal course variables to the long‐term prognosis of 165 bipolar patients prospectively observed over 10 years as part of the National Institute of Mental Health Collaborative Study of Depression. Although most baseline clinical and demographic variables were not strong prognostic indicators, switching polarity within episodes was. Most episodes among the poor‐prognosis patients were polyphasic, while most episodes among the comparison group with a better prognosis were monophasic. There was no evidence of shortening of cycle lengths over follow‐up for either the poor‐prognosis group or the entire sample. The relevance of these findings to the 'kindling' model is discussed.


Cooling function is definitely one of the most desirable attribute of clothing. In spite of the recent progress on phase changing material(PCM) research, the final products with sufficient amount of cooling capability have not yet to be developed in market. A new concept of cooling fabrics has been proposed by applying "Peltier effect" to textile materials. It occurs whenever electrical current flows through two dissimilar conductors; depending on the direction of current flow, the junction of the two conductors is absorbed or released heat. This effect has been tested on P-type and N-type conducting polymers. A P-type conductive polypyrrole coated fabric was synthesized by in-situ polymerization on plain weave PET to make conductive fabrics. And an N-type electrically conductive material was synthesized by treatment of MWNT and polyethyleneimine(PEI). A noticeable amount of temperature difference has been found on the fabrics.


Recent molecular studies in Asteraceae have divided tribe Mutisieae (sensu Cabrera) into 13 tribes and eight subfamilies. Each of the major clades is well supported but the relationships among them are not always clear. Some of the new taxa are easily characterized by morphological data but others are not, chief among the latter being three subfamilies (Stifftioideae, Wunderlichioideae and Gochnatioideae) and the tribe Hyalideae. To understand evolution in the family it is critical to investigate potential morphological characters that can help to evaluate the basal lineages of the Asteraceae. The data for this study were taken from 52 species in 24 genera representing the basal groups in the family. Many characters were examined but most of the useful ones were from reproductive structures. Several apomorphies supported a few of the clades. For instance, members of subfamily Wunderlichioideae (Hyalideae and Wunderlichieae) share predominantly ten-ribbed achenes and members of Wunderlichioideae + Stifftioideae share two synapomorphies: 100–150 (200) pappus elements, arranged in (three) four or five series. These apomorphies can be viewed as an indication of a sister-group relationship between the two subfamilies as the placement of Stifftieae was not well resolved by the molecular data. Members of Wunderlichieae are characterized by having a paleaceous receptacle, style branches that are strongly papillose above and below the bifurcation, and a pappus of scales. Hyalis and Ianthopappus (Hyalideae) share venation type and an apiculate anther appendage but these are also found in Gochnatieae. Other clades have fewer supporting characters. These characters are just a beginning. Cladograms with morphology characters plotted, illustrations and a key to the basal grade of Asteraceae are provided. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 171, 568–586. ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: character evolution – Compositae – morphology – phylogeny.


BACKGROUND
Civilian population of Yugoslavia was exposed to massive stressors of air raids by NATO in 1999. The aim of this study was to investigate somatic complaints and their predictive factors during stresses of air raids.

METHODS
Random sample of 434 subjects, consisting of 139 inhabitants of several Belgrade municipalities and 295 employees of Military Medical Academy, were assessed in the cross-sectional study. The basic factors of interest were stress severity, variables of personality and habits and behaviour relevant for somatic complaints. Self-report of stress severity and the most common somatic complaints were performed by Questionnaire specially designed for this purpose and personality evaluation by EPQ-38. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the influence of predictors on dependent variable (psychosomatic symptoms).

RESULTS
Personality was the most important predictor that explained 29% of variance in somatic symptoms (with the strongest impact of neuroticism); 11% was explained by habits and behaviour and only 1% of variance by stress.

CONCLUSION
The finding that personality had higher impact on stress reaction outcome could be important for preventive and therapeutic aspects of stress reactions.


Photosynthetic performance in air-dried green microalgae Chlorella vulgaris was investigated. We attempted to identify how air-drying treatment affects chlorophyll a fluorescence OJIP transient and its derived fluorescence parameters. The recorded OJIP fluorescence transients showed a decrease of the variable fluorescence yield at all fluorescence transitions mainly after 4 h treatment compared to measurement at 0 h. The amplitude of the I–P phase from OJIP transient induced by a down-regulation at the PSII level. We suggest that the photochemical state responsible on the variable fluorescence during the first hours (up to 4 h) was maintained by turgid cells. However, the loss of variable fluorescence at sever air-drying treatment was caused by reducing the conversion of light energy in active reaction centers. Furthermore, the performance index (PIABS) parameter used here to quantify the PSII behavior decreased from 0.15 to 0.016 respectively at 0 h and 24 h treatment.


Prostate cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancer entities in men. It can be estimated that in 80% of all men reaching the age of 80 years prostate tumors are present. Since a depletion of testosterone in prostate cancer therapies is often performed, androgen-dependent and -independent prostate carcinoma cell lines have been widely used to establish mouse in vivo xenograft models in order to identify novel drugs helping to eliminate prostate tumors. A commercially available LNCaP cell line was shown to be androgen-dependent since addition of synthetic androgens to androgen-free culture medium was able to restore proper cell proliferation in cell culture. However, when implanted in SCID mice in order to establish a xenograft model, the take rate turned out to be very low and tumor growth was highly heterogeneously. Therefore, we resected and recultivated one of the few well-growing tumors and reimplanted the arising subpopulation subcutaneously in mice. After performing two rounds of this "subpopulationing" procedure we could generate a new cell line, LNCaP-(Z2), which was able to form tumors in mice with a take rate of nearly 100%, but still shows heterogenous tumor growth similar to other subcutaneously implanted prostate cancer cells (e.g. PC-3). In order to demonstrate an androgen dependency of our new LNCaP subpopulation model in vivo we used castrated mice and implanted them subcutaneously in the absence or presence of also subcutaneously inoculated testosterone pellets. For comparison PC-3 prostate cancer cells were also implanted subcutaeously in the presence or absence of testosterone. Whereas no influence of testosterone was detectable on the growth behavior of subcutaneous PC-3 xenograft tumors, the development of the LNCaP-(Z2) xenografts was strictly dependent on testosterone release. We then implanted fire fly luciferase expressing LNCaP-(Z2)-luc cells orthotopically into the prostate of castrated male SCID beige mice with or without testosterone supplementation to show testosterone-dependency. Finally, treatment of Bicalutamide, a typical member of the class of anti-androgens, which is frequently used in the treatment of prostate cancer, led to significant inhibition of tumor growth using our improved subpopulation LNCaP-(Z2) in vivo model. Bicalutmid and Flutamid, another anti-androgen agent, were used for treatment in the orthopical in vivo model. Both compounds showed a noticeable anti-tumoral effect at necropsy. Thus, we could demonstrate the model9s potency as a testosterone-dependent in vivo tool suitable for screening and development of novel anti-prostate cancer drugs. Citation Information: Mol Cancer Ther 2013;12(11 Suppl):B14. Citation Format: Andreas Lingnau, Sandra Moor, Steffen Hoffmann, Cynthia Schaefer-Obodozie, Ulrike Leisegang, Klotzbuecher Andrea, Schaechtele Christoph. Characterization of an in vivo generated subpopulation of human LNCaP prostate cancer cells as an improved testosterone-dependent subcutaneous as well as orthotopic in vivo mouse xenograft model for compound testing. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2013 Oct 19-23; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2013;12(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B14.


This article below constitutes author's dissertation that discusses the "unregistered marriage ( nikah sirri ) in perspective of Islamic law a critical study of Islamic Law Compilation". The problem statement of this, namely: how is nikah sirri in the perspective of Islamic law, what factors denote the background of nikah sirri, and how is the impact for those who do marriage nikah sirri? Unregistered marriage or nikah sirri according to Islamic law is valid if it meets the requirements harmonious and marriage. As for the cause, among others: economic factors, social status and moral crisis. Meanwhile the impact that would arise from a marriage that is not recorded are nominally: the marriage is considered invalid, even though the marriage was performed according to the religion and beliefs, but in the eyes of the state of marriage is invalid if it has not been noted by KUA or Civil Registry Office, Children born from such marriage only have a civil relationship with the mother and the mother's family, while a civil relationship with his father was not there. It means that the child can not claim the rights of the father. By being born in a marriage that is not recorded, the birth of a child becomes legally registered also in violation of the rights of children. Children's status as children outside of marriage. Further result of marriage is not recorded, both wife and children were born of the marriage is not entitled to demand a living or inherited from his father.


Presently, there are a growing number of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools. This article examines teachers' views of the cross-cultural experience of ethnic minority students, their influence on the performance of these students, and how the diverse learning needs of these students are being addressed. Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews with 32 teachers from three secondary schools. This study shows that teachers struggle to conceptualize a new rationale for responding to cultural diversity. They develop a sense of intercultural sensitivity, promote cultural responsiveness to diversity, and strengthen the home–school connection. This article argues that, like students, teachers simultaneously engage in a cross-cultural process through which they learn the culture of ethnic minority students, relearn their own culture and reexamine the relevant rationale underlying cultural responsiveness. Finally, a framework for the creation of culturally responsive classrooms, based upon the teachers' new rationale of cultural responsiveness, is proposed.


More than 20% of the U.S. population is composed of people with disabilities. When such people interact with certain marketplaces, such as commercial Web sites, some become "consumers with constraints," and others become liberated, experiencing the freedom to search for information independently for the first time. While accessibility in physical stores is mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act, commercial Web sites do not fall under its jurisdiction, because they are not considered "public places." This research challenges this view and examines whether actual consumers interpret Web sites as public places. The authors examine this question in the context of experiences of consumers with visual impairments in online shopping. The authors apply the concepts of consumer normalcy and consumer vulnerability to the technology acceptance model as theoretical lenses through which to interpret this context. The findings form the basis for recommendations to policy makers to develop and enforce standards for Web site accessibility and to the marketplace to create a level playing field for people with visual impairments.


Novice special education teachers often face challenges in developing high-quality Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals for children with autism. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, has shown potential in supporting teachers in IEP development. This study aimed to investigate the impact of ChatGPT on the quality, content, and time spent on IEP goal development for novice special education teachers. Moreover, impact of previous training on IEP and goal development was examined. 22 novice special education teachers were randomly assigned to either the ChatGPT group or the control group. Participants developed IEP goals for five children with autism, and the quality of the goals was assessed using the Revised IEP/IFSP Goals and Objective Rating Instrument. The use of ChatGPT significantly improved the quality of IEP goals developed by novice special education teachers, regardless of previous training status. Moreover, novice teachers who used ChatGPT spent significantly less time developing IEP goals compared to those who did not use ChatGPT. Furthermore, the IEP goals developed by the ChatGPT group were more comprehensive, addressing specific strengths and needs of children with autism, in comparison to the goals developed by the control group. The findings suggest that the use of ChatGPT can be a valuable tool in supporting novice special education teachers in developing high-quality IEP goals efficiently. The study highlights the importance of providing training on IEP development and the potential benefits of AI tools in general and special education practice.


The present paper is the second part of a series of papers on the ncmatodcs of donkeys in Peking. Eight species belonging to the family Trichonematidae are reported, namely, Trichonema labratum, T. labiatum, T. labiatum var. digitatum, T. coronatum, T. longibursatum, T. mimttum, T. tsengi sp. nov., and Petrovinema peculation.Trichonema tsengi sp. nov.A moderately small species. Male 6.4-7.6mm; maximum breadth 0.275-0.345 mm. Female 6.6-8.4mm; maximum breadth 0.275-0.36mm. The anterior extremity tapers slightly to the head; there is no definite neck. Mouth collar moderately high and is marked off from the rest of the body by a constriction. Circumoral papillae projected forward and are as long as the external leaf-crown. The external leaf-crown composed of about 18 long pointed elements, projecting well beyond the mouth collar. The elements of the internal leaf-crown are about 36 short refractive rods. The region of origin of the elements of the internal leaf-crown extends back to 0.005 mm behind the anterior border of the buccal capsule. Buccal capsule is general long and is somewhat narrower anteriorly than posteriorly. It has a depth of 0.037-0.046 mm in the male, 0,038-0.048 mm in the female, with a maximum breadth of 0.032-0.036 mm in the male and 0.033-0.038 mm in the female at its posterior extremity. The walls are thick and swollen at the posterior end and decrease in thickness anteriorly. Dorsal gutter well developed, and projects far into the buccal capsule, extending nearly to the level of the anterior fourth of the buccal capsule. Length of the oesophagus is 0.276-0.348 mm in the male, and is 0.314-0.407 mm in the female. The breadth of the oesophagus is 0.057-0.067 mm at the anterior extremity, and the greatest breadth is 0.081-0.101mm.Excretory pore and cervical papillae are at about the same level behind the nerve ring, and are 0.247-0.379 mm from anterior extremity. Distance from the extremity to the nerve ring is 0.18-0.23 mm.Posterior extremity, male,-fairly long median lobe; lateral lobes marked off from the dorsal lobe by a shallow notch. Main dorsal ray, measured from point of insertion of the externo-dorsal ray is 0.47-0.555 mm in length. Genital cone is well developed, with about 16 processes on its posterior surface.Posterior extremity, female,-straight. Distance of anus from tip of the tail is 0.0875-0.125mm. Distance between anus and vulva is 0.063-0.11mm. Vagina is 0.215-0.39mm in length.Relationship-This worm is more closely allied to T. calkatum than to either of the other species in the calkatum group (of Ihle), but it differs from T. calkatum in the shape of the buccal capsule, in its much greater depth of the buccal capsule in proportion to its width, in the shape of the wall of the buccal capsule, in the number of elements of the external leaf-crown, and in the different shape of the distal ends of the external leaf-crown elements.Host-Equus asinus. Locality-large colon. Place of distribution-Peking.


We propose an AC voltage driving scheme which can improve the brightness uniformity of active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays. Through the use of a charge feed-through mechanism and an AC driving voltage, the voltage drop caused by the parasitic resistance can be compensated. A 2.2 in AMOLED panel with a resolution of 176/spl times/RGB/spl times/220 has been fabricated by low temperature polycrystalline silicon technology to evaluate the performance of the AC driving scheme. Experimental results show that a brightness uniformity of higher than 91.6%, achieved by the AC driving scheme, in contrast to that of 74% achieved by a DC driving scheme.


The Flexion extension task is a perceptual motor skill task which requires participants to use their right hand and forearm to perform a series of movements with a mechanical lever. The present research was designed to investigate the influence of several factors on reaction time in the Flexion-Extension task. The research design was based on the findings of previous studies by other researchers on key-press tasks, reaching tasks and the Flexion-Extension task. In the present experiment participants were given a randomized sequence of 1200 movements, split into 10 blocks of 20 six-movement sequences each, containing different movement distances, directions and two different precue conditions. All participants received the same randomized sequence with the same combination of conditions. Participants reacted to the appearance of a stimulus by moving the lever to the stimulus position. Prior to each stimulus, a neutral precue was presented. The present research focused especially on the effect of different precue durations and on the effect of practice on reaction times. 17 young adults aged 18-30 participated in this research. It was found that the reaction times differed significantly between the two precue conditions, showing a benefit of a 100 ms precue compared to a 1000 ms precue. While average reaction times generally decreased with practice, the differences between precues increased resulting in a difference between conditions during the last three blocks that was three times bigger on average than the difference in the first three blocks. The general cost in reaction time in the longer precue condition is likely to be due to the difficulty of maintaining visual attention. The growing difference in RT between the two precue conditions could be the result of growing fatigue which works against the beneficial effect of practice in the 1000 ms precue condition. The, already more demanding, longer precue condition is likely to be more prone to fatigue than the condition with the alerting short precue. The results of this study are going to be a basis for the re-LOAD project by Prof. Dr. Ing. Willem Verwey.


BackgroundPatients eventually shown to have pulmonary tuberculosis often grow both Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) from sputum. If the MAC grows first, patients may erroneously be assumed to have MAC disease, with discontinuation of isolation, contact investigation and alterations in chemotherapy. In patient with compatible disease, it would be helpful to know the likelihood of recovering both MAC and MTB as well as the predictive value of a positive sputum smear. MethodsDuring 2012 and 2013 the Tuberculosis Control Program of the Philadelphia Department of Public health evaluated the relative incidence of MAC versus MTB in patients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis, the time to culture growth from the initial smear for MTB and MAC, and determined the positive predictive value of a positive acid fast smear. ResultsIn this setting, 22% of patients that were culture positive for MTB also grew MAC, with 78% of them growing MAC before MTB. The positive predictive value of a positive acid fast smear was 89% for MTB versus MAC. ConclusionsThere is a relatively high frequency of recovering MAC in TB patients Therefore, the recovery of MAC in a patient with a positive acid fast smear and compatible disease should not rule out MTB until cultures are final.


Recently, the reconfiguration technology has been applied to the network control so that the ability of recovery, self-healing and survivability in the failure and unsafe environment can be supplied. However, it is not adequate for mobile ad hoc network because of a kind of active and autonomic behavior ignored in the normal network operation. Therefore, a new reconfiguration based on the 3-phase policy is proposed for supporting the relative stabilization, reliability and adjustment in the network clustering. Besides, the clustering algorithms for mobile ad hoc network are evaluated on the opinion of reconfiguration planning.


We study in detail the effect of different particle release times from sources on the cosmic ray (CR) spectrum below 1015 eV in the Galaxy. We discuss different possible forms of particle injection such as burst-like injection, continuous injection for a finite time, injection from a stationary source and energy-dependent injection. When applied to the nearby known supernova remnants, we find that the observed CR anisotropy data favour the burst-like particle injection model for the CR diffusion coefficient D(E) ∝Ea with a= 0.3 –0.6 in the local region. In this study we have also found that the contribution of the sources G114.3+0.3 and Monogem dominate if the observed anisotropy is a result of the effect of the nearby sources. Further study shows that we should not neglect the contribution of the undetected old sources to the local CR anisotropy.


Background: Trypsin has a plenty application in food and pharmaceutical manufacture. While, the commercial trypsin is usually extracted from pork pancreas, which has the risk of infectious and immunogenicity. Therefore, the microbial Streptomyces griseus trypsin (SGT) is a prior alternation because it processes efficient hydrolysis activity without the aforementioned risk. The remarkable hydrolysis efficiency of SGT caused its autolysis, and five autolysis sites R21, R32, K122, R153, and R201 were identified from its' autolysate. Results: The tbcf (K101A, R201V) mutant was screened by directed selection approach for improved activity in flask culture (60.85 ± 3.42 U·mL -1 , increased 1.5-fold). From the molecular dynamics simulation, the K101A/R201V mutation shortened the distant between catalytical residues D102 and H57 from 6.5 Å vs 7.0 Å, which afforded the improved specific activity 1527.96 ± 62.81 U·mg -1 . Further, the production of trypsin was increased 302.8% (689.47 ± 6.78 U·mL −1 ) in 3-L bio-reactor, with co-overexpression of chaperones SSO2 and UBC1 in Pichia pastoris. Conclusions: The SGT protein could be an adequate trypsin for insulin production. When working with hydrolysates analysis and direction selection, the tbcf (K101A, R201V) mutant increased 1.5-fold activity. Further, the production of trypsin was improved 3-fold by overexpressing chaperone protein in Pichia pastoris . The future study should be emphasized on the application of SGT in insulin manufacture and pharmaceutical.


Over the past decade there has been a move amongst critical cartographers to rethink maps
from a post-representational perspective – that is, a vantage point that does not privilege
representational modes of thinking (wherein maps are assumed to be mirrors of the world)
and automatically presumes the ontological security of a map as a map, but rather rethinks
and destabilises such notions1. This new theorisation extends beyond the earlier critiques
of Brian Harley (1989) that argued maps were social constructions. For Harley a map still
conveyed the truth of a landscape, albeit its message was bound within the ideological
frame of its creator. He thus advocated a strategy of identifying the politics of representation
within maps in order to circumnavigate them (to reveal the truth lurking underneath), with
the ontology of cartographic practice remaining unquestioned. As Jeremy Crampton (2003:
90) has argued, Harley's approach 'provided an epistemological avenue into the map, but
still left open the question of the ontology of the map.' Recent work has started to probe cartography's
ontology and in this short paper, I detail in brief five such attempts to rethink the
ontology of maps to provide a new perspective on how they are conceived, made and used.


Platelets are cells which develop adhesive properties following stimulation. Since fibronectin (fn) mediates adhesive properties of several cells, we sought evidence for platelet associated fn. Lysates of suspensions of washed human platelets containing less than or equal to 50 ng soluble fn/10(9) cells contained 2.85 micrograms fn antigen per 10(9) cells. The platelet fn antigen competition curve showed a similar slope to the curve for purified plasma fn suggesting antigenic identity. Immunofluorescent staining for fn was minimal in intact cells suggesting that the majority of fn antigen is intracellular. In permeable platelets, fluorescent staining for fn was seen in a punctate distribution suggesting a granule localization. Stimulation of platelet secretion by thrombin released platelet fn antigen. Suramin, a drug which inhibits platelet secretion, inhibited fn release. The apparent secretion of platelet fn, taken with the immunofluorescent data, support the localization of a portion of platelet fn antigen in a storage granule.


Although Web Service already can be implemented by decentralized control, its publication and discovery with Universal Description, Discovery and Integration for Web Service is still based on a centralized structure. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism for decentralized Web Service by employing the efficient dynamics performance of Semantic Web and the efficient online explore capabilities of Peer to Peer networks. We furnish enriched semantic Web annotation with domain ontology, which indexes are contained in a distributed hash table based on classified service for efficient publication and discovery for Web Service. Moreover, we have proposed the decentralized Web Service framework mechanism by using classified ontology to coordinate definite requirement.


Super-infection of an exogenous lipoid pneumonia by nontuberculous mycobacteria has been described in the literature. It produces a distinctive histologic picture with suppurative, noncaseating granulomas surrounding lipid vacuoles containing acid-fast bacilli. Mainly isolated cases have been found, but seldom in children. We describe a series of 9 children with similar histological findings. All our patients were under 1 year of age, malnourished, and with chronic respiratory symptoms. The diagnosis, based on the characteristic histology with acid-fast rods, was established at autopsy in 4 cases, on lobectomy specimens in 4 and by open lung biopsy in 1. Mycobacterium fortuitum-chelonei was cultured in 1 case. Gastro-esophageal reflux was documented in all 4 cases in which it was explored. Aspiration of lipid gastric contents or of oil given as medication can result in exogenous lipoid pneumonia, which in turn becomes super-infected with mycobacteria. Recognition of the distinctive histology permits the diagnosis of this complication.


The application of centrifugal pumps is found in domestic and petrochemical
industries. Industrial centrifugal pumps are designed and tested using water as working fluid before
supplied to industries, as water is commonly available. However, centrifugal pumps are used in industries
for various applications, which involve the handling of fluids other than water- like saline-water,
crude oil, gasoline, etc. Consequently, hydraulic performance of the pump differs from the designed
and tested values and pump performance becomes unpredictable. Cavitation characteristics of the pump
handling different fluids other than water are also changed and many a time, cavitation starts prematurely.
As a result, the operating cost of pump is increased.

A CFD based computational analysis of a single-stage, single-entry industrial centrifugal
pump having double-volute casing is carried out to compare the performance and cavitation characteristics
for various working fluids, namely water, saline water with varying salinity, gasolene and crude oil.

Multiple Reference Frame method (MRF) available in Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes
(RANS) equations based CFD solver Ansys-CFX is used in the present study. CFD simulation is carried
out for five flow rates with Standard k-ε turbulence model. Rayleigh-Plesset equation describing
the growth of a single vapor bubble in a liquid is used for predicting the cavitation flow behaviour.

Minimum static pressure is computed at the suction side of saline water as compared to the
other working fluids studied here. Hydraulic efficiency of crude oil is found to be the lowest as compared
to other fluids. Supercavitation (excessive formation of vapor bubbles and sudden drop in head
up to 3%) starts early for saline water with 40g/kg salinity.

The results show little variation in pump efficiency when water and saline water are used
as working fluids. However, cavitation characteristics differ considerably with the working fluids. Recent
patents filed/published in this area revealed that efforts are needed to develop effective cavitationresistant
centrifugal impellers and pumps.


Cu impurities are reported to have significant effects on the electrical and optical properties of bulk ZnO. In this work, we study the defect properties of Cu in ZnO using hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM)–embedded cluster calculations based on a multi-region approach that allows us to model defects at the true dilute limit, with polarization effects described in an accurate and consistent manner. We compute the electronic structure, energetics, and geometries of Cu impurities, including substitutional and interstitial configurations, and analyze their effects on the electronic structure. Under ambient conditions, CuZn is the dominant defect in the d9 state and remains electronically passive. We find that, however, as we approach typical vacuum conditions, the interstitial Cu defect becomes significant and can act as an electron trap.


The relationships between standards organizations is expected to change as service boundaries rapidly become vague and media become unified. The collaboration between these organizations and the generation of common texts on recommendations/standards has already begun. This report surveys several standardization activities that have been focusing on new trends in telecommunication technologies and services brought about by remarkable technical advances. It describes what is happening in the areas of network technologies and new services, what standards have been established, and what is expected in the near future.<<ETX>>


Welding structures are designed to endure its expected life. The most important factors are life. Especially on welded structure, fatigue strength is critical. So this study performed a research on Box and T shape weldment specimen to examine the influence of welding type. In this experiment, the results indicate Box shape was available in more than T shape. Fatigue tests were performed to evaluate the fatigue strength of the both as-welded and statically pre-loaded specimens by 3 point bending load. Fatigue life can be improved by using Ultrasonic Impact Treatment(UIT) effect. Ultrasonic Impact Treatment(UIT) is excellent for eliminating the tensile residual stresses and generating compressive residual stresses which elevate fatigue strength of welded structures. Also, this shows that welding part has better fatigue life and welding was performed well. In this study, to evaluate the Ultrasonic Impact Treatment(UIT) effect, for welding structure, the experiment was conducted at various levels of stress range between 100MPa and 500MPa. From the test results, it was indicated that fatigue performance was improving by Ultrasonic Impact Treatment(UIT)


Rivers draining into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon are receiving increased attention from catchment managers and scientists, with the realisation that European land use changes over the last ∼150 years may have increased river sediment yields with resultant adverse effects on the receiving marine environment. Mitigation of the effects associated with such changes is only possible if information on the spatial provenance and dominant types of erosion is known. This study uses fallout radionuclide ( 137 Cs and 210 Pb ex ) and geochemical tracing of river bed sediments to examine sediment sources for Theresa Creek, a subcatchment of the Fitzroy River basin, central Queensland, Australia. Sheetwash and rill erosion from cultivated basaltic land and channel erosion from non-basaltic parts of the catchment were found to be contributing most sediment to the river system. Evidence indicates that the dominant form of channel erosion is gully head-cut and sidewall erosion. Sheetwash and rill erosion from uncultivated land (i.e. grazed pasture/woodland) is a comparatively minor contributor of sediment to the river network. Due to the limited extent of cultivation, on a basin-wide scale, channel sources are likely to be the largest contributor of sediment to the Fitzroy River basin; accordingly catchment managers should focus their efforts on reducing the sediment yield from these sources.


We present a novel face representation based on locally adaptive regression kernel (LARK) descriptors [1]. Our LARK descriptor measures a self-similarity based on "signal-induced distance" between a center pixel and surrounding pixels in a local neighborhood. By applying principle component analysis (PCA) and a logistic function to LARK consecutively, we develop a new binary-like face representation which achieves state of the art face verification performance on the challenging benchmark "Labeled Faces in the Wild" (LFW) dataset [2]. In the case where training data are available, we employ oneshot similarity (OSS) [3], [4] based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) [5]. The proposed approach achieves state of the art performance on both the unsupervised setting and the image restrictive training setting (72.23% and 78.90% verification rates) respectively as a single descriptor representation, with no preprocessing step. As opposed to [4] which combined 30 distances to achieve 85.13%, we achieve comparable performance (85.1%) with only 14 distances while significantly reducing computational complexity.


Experiments were conducted to obtain additional insight into the response patterns of the intestinal crypts to 1-β-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine, a potent inhibitor of DNA synthesis. The results indicate that this interference with nucleic acid metabolism is not lethally toxic to the crypt epithelial cells. This formulation is based on the following observations: ( a ) the absence of definitive ultrastructural manifestations of irreversible cell damage, particularly with respect to the nucleus; ( b ) the presence of labeled thymidine in virtually 100% of the mitotic figures occurring during recovery from the inhibitory effects of the analog; ( c ) the enhanced mitotic activity which closely followed the resumption of a considerable degree of DNA synthesis; ( d ) the failure to find any indication of intestinal epithelial cell death in animals killed 24 and 48 hr after the first of multiple injections of 1-β-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine; and ( e ) the absence of histological evidence of cell death in a number of other epithelial tissues programmed for continuous replication. In contrast, however, stigmata of severe cytotoxic effects were readily discernible in the intestinal lymphocytes. It is therefore concluded that the apparent necrosis of the intestinal crypts noted with conventional microscopy actually represents phagocytosis of degenerating lymphocytic elements by adjacent crypt epithelial cells.


Adverse neurological event particularly seizure after vaccination is not uncommon. The most linked vaccines are Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus toxoid (DPT), Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) and other combination vaccines. It is documented that increased febrile seizure after DPT and MMR vaccine is due to increase febrile episodes precipitating seizure and it is time related. Concomitant administration of vaccines cause seizure due to synergistic effect of those vaccines. When these vaccines are given separately, the risk of seizure is decreased. These type of vaccines are MMR + varicella (MMRV), DTaP-HepB-IPV etc. Regarding etiology, genetic mutation is most important. Some genes are closely related to vaccine induced FS and afebrile seizure like SCN1A, SCN2A, IFI44L, PCDH19 etc. Other causes are endotoxin mediated endothelial damage, IL-1â production and non CNS infection. It is well evident that consequences of not giving vaccine are far more than the adverse events. So Vaccinations should be performed without contraindication in children with previous febrile and afebrile seizures with proper


PZT piezoelectric thin films can be promising candidates for microactuators or microsensors in MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) or NEMS (Nano Electro Mechanical Systems) because of the quick response. In this research, the RF magnetron sputtering method is used for PZT thin films deposition. The sputtering conditions to control the crystalline plane (111) of perovskite structure for PZT to influence the piezoelectric constant can be proposed. Those sputtering conditions such as substrate angle and temperature, Ar/O2 pressure and flow rate were investigated by the heuristic and experimental design method to fabricate optimum PZT perovskite crystal thin film. The condition of substrate temperature was the most important factor to improve piezoelectric constant. The crystalline structure, surface topography and piezoelectric constant of the deposited PZT were observed by X-ray diffraction structural analysis, atomic force microscope and piezoelectric constant evaluation equipment. PZT thin films with only perovskite structure were obtained. PZT (111) was grown with the increase in substrate temperature, and the piezoelectric property was improved. The elastic modulus of 70GPa for the deposited PZT found a good agreement with the quoted value for commercial based bulk PZT. We obtained a piezoelectric constant d31=-28pm/V and a high performance of bimorph actuator.


There is increasing evidence that women with the ability to exercise control over their sexual and reproductive lives have greater access to prompt prevention and treatment of maternal health disorders, resulting in a concomitant reduction in maternal morbidity and mortality. This study assessed the association between indices of women's empowerment and utilization of skilled antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal maternity care in two rural Local Government Areas in Edo State, Nigeria. Data were taken from a household survey conducted in July and August 2017, and the study sample comprised 1245 ever-married women currently in a union who had given birth in the 5 years preceding the survey. A Gender Roles Framework guided the selection of independent women's empowerment variables. Using hierarchical logistic regression, the likelihood of receiving all three levels of skilled maternal health care service (antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal) by women's empowerment variables, grouped into resource, decision-making and influencer domains following the model of Anderson and Neuman, was assessed. Of the resource domain variables, respondent's education and respondent's participation in payment for their own health care positively predicted their use of all three levels of skilled maternal care, whereas their ownership of land negatively predicted this. Two decision-making domain variables were significantly associated with respondent's use of all three levels of service: those who made decisions alone about major household purchases were twice as likely to use all three levels of services than when decisions were made by their partners or others, while respondent making decisions alone about what food to cook each day was a negative predictor. Of the influencer variables, religion and a large spousal education gap were strong positive factors, whereas living in a consensual union rather than being legally married was a negative factor. Although health system factors are important, interventions geared towards changing gender norms that constrain women's empowerment are critical to achieving maternal health-related development goals in Nigeria. A composite strategy that targets all women's empowerment indices is recommended, as Nigeria strives towards achieving SDG-3.


away from the underlying programming language in favour of using graphical means of programming, such as wizards and statecharts. Platforms. Closed frameworks such as DESIRE, strongly based on a platform, provide more complete solutions than others such as Jadex or TuCSoN. They usually offer an agent architecture and a system model, very useful for novel developers, together with the communication infrasA SURVEY OF LANGUAGES AND PLATFORMS. . . Informatica 30 (2006) 33–44 41 tructure and a range of robust services, such as directory facilitators, agent management services, and monitoring facilities. As a drawback, closed frameworks limit the development. For example, the design approach of the framework may not fit certain domain problems. Perhaps that is the reason why most researchers tend to use more open solutions. Currently, the most popular solution is to use JADE as underlying agent infrastructure combined with some other (higher-level) approach to program the agents' behaviour. When dealing with more general frameworks (rather than tied to a platform), their use (i.e., defining the agents that will run within it, together with the required services and resources) should be automated as much as possible, in part to free the developer from low-level details (e.g. location of the configuration files, their concrete syntax, etc.). Despite this, few existing frameworks have IDE support. Concerning the paradigm of communication used, there are several on offer, often being an important issue when choosing which framework to adopt. TuCSoN is representative of tuple-centred communication, JADE of message passing, and DESIRE of data flow among processes. The various approaches mentioned along this survey indicate that there is still much work to be done. Among the major challenges faced by this research community are: – The conception and development of specialised debugging tools, in particular for cognitive agent languages; – The integration of agent tools into existing IDEs, rather than starting from scratch; – The separation of MAS frameworks from agent platforms, so that each framework can be used for deploying systems on a variety of platforms. – The dissemination of the MAS programming paradigm, so that programmers have a better understanding of its foundations as well as practical characteristics. We believe that the recent developments surveyed here show a lively interest in this area of research. Despite the large number of open issues and challenges, we expect that the experience gathered in developing MAS with these tools will take us closer to a more mature programming paradigm. Arguably, this is one of the few concrete ways for allowing wider audiences to use in practice, and in a systematic way, the various techniques that the MAS research community has developed over the last two decades.


Introduction: The number of children with medical complexity CMC residing in rural areas is growing as the life span of CMC increases, placing an increased, unsustainable load on tertiary health services.   Families of children with CMC also experience significant challenges relating to regular, long distance travel to receive health care treatment.  A review of how we deliver care to CMC living in rural and remote locations identified opportunities to deliver care closer to home, avoiding frequent visits for routine care to teritary hospitals.  There remains a knowledge gap about how best to structure a model of care for such children and the specific health care needs of the children and families have nor been adequately described. We aim to address this gap. Method: We conducted semi structured interviews with eighteen parents of CMC.  The interview schedule included questions based on themes from the Agency for Clinical Innovation ACI Patient-Centred Dimensions of Care.  Patients were provided flexible interview method options, including face-to face, phone and email.  In addition two carers were interviewed using a patient story format. Detailed field notes were taken by the interviewer.  Using an inductive approach we conducted qualitative thematic analysis of the field notes. Results: There were several key issues/themes which emerged related to barriers experienced when accessing health care locally, including limited services available, financial constraints and out-of-pocket costs, difficulties navigating systems, poor communication across services, and the impact these barriers had on the child's health and the family unit as a whole. Although these issues were not dissimilar to those experienced by families living in metropolitan locations, geographical isolation heightened the level of complexity and negative impact on providing necessary health care for their child.  This was particularly related to the need to travel long distances to receive specialist treatment and review, and the fragmentation between local and tertiary services. Discussion: Results indicated the need for increased collaboration, better linkage of cross-sector care, coordination of health care and community support services. Patients identified opportunities for building local capacity enabling service delivery closer to home and indicated that this would alleviate the burdens that families currently experienced while up-skilling local services.  Conclusions comprising key findings: Engaging with families of CMC provides an added level of understanding of the effect geographical isolation has on care delivery. Inclusion of the views of patients/parents in the co-design of services is crucial to the success of any new service. Lessons learned: Engaging directly with families can provide a wealth of unique knowledge important in driving successful integration of care. Limitations: The families who took part in the interviews were from a sample area of the district, which excluded children and families located in the most isolated/remote areas. Suggestions for future research: A larger sample group which distinguishes CMC by condition, facility, and those involved with additional clinical supports such as Clinical Nurse Consultant's CNCs would provide a greater understanding of gaps specific to subgroups within this paediatric population.


N FEBRUARY 3, 1872, Talking It Over (Figure 1), a genre painting by Enoch Wood Perry (1831-1915), signed and dated 1872, made its debut at the Century Association exhibition in New York.' The picture reflects a poignant longing for the serene and uncomplicated life of a bygone era. Two farmers sit facing each other in a barn in front of a stall. One figure occupies an upright wooden chair; the other makes do with a sawhorse turned sideways. A horse peers out of the stall between them, its head directed toward the figure at left. A mound of hay is stacked at the right edge of the picture, and on the left there is a large barrel containing wooden rakes and a pitchfork. Some pumpkins have been piled against the stall between the men's feet, and stray ears of corn and bits of hay and straw litter the barn floor. The sun shines in from the upper left, highlighting the men and casting the shadow of a second, unseen horse's head against the barrel. Both men wear white shirts and work pants. The figure on the right holds an unlit clay pipe and wears a soft hat, a neckerchief, a longsleeved red undershirt, blue pants, and leather boots. He seems the younger of the two, with a full, dark beard and a strong profile. The man on the left, shorter and balding, is turned three-quarters toward the viewer. He is dressed in a brown vest and pants and wears soft leather shoes.


A sensitive, convenient and rapid fluorescent sensor for effectively and directly detecting propranolol was proposed based on the fluorescence suppression of 3-mercaptopropionic acid stabilized CdTe quantum dots. The fluorescence suppression mechanism between CdTe QDs and propranolol was studied by time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy, and it was attributed to the simultaneous action of the inner filter effect (IFE) and dynamic quenching effect (DQE). The effects of the concentration of quantum dots, pH value of buffer solution and incubation time on the fluorescence signal of the propranolol/CdTe quantum dot system were also investigated. The results indicated that, when the experiment was conducted under optimal experimental conditions, the linear range of this assay was 0.1 μM to 2 μM and 5 μM to 200 μM, with a corresponding detection limit of 0.055 μM. Moreover, some common drug excipients and analogues of propranolol and stimulants had no apparent effect on the determination of propranolol. The proposed fluorescent sensor could be readily used for effectively and directly detecting propranolol in biological samples.


Requirements Specification is a crucial phase of the software life-cycle. Providing the software engineer with tools and techniques for evaluating quality of Software Requirements may solve some of the problems due to possible lacks of quality of them. In this paper, first a feasible Quality Model is defined for Software Requirements written in Natural Language (NL). The term feasible means that the Quality Properties of this Quality Model can be evaluated by means of Indicators automatically and numerically measurable. Then, the results of the validation of this Quality Model on industrial cases are presented. The encouraging outcomes of the validation have been taken into account for starting the realization of an automatic tool for verifying the adherence to syntax/lexical constraints of the requirement sentences to guarantee the conformance to the Quality Model. This tool should be a valid support for the reviewer of NL Software Requirements. EMAIL:: firstname.lastname@example.com


Abstract
Objective To establish a method that combines a series of techniques including Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FTIR), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), high resolution mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) for identification of unknown substances. Methods The unknown samples (off-white powder and yellow crystal) seized in the actual cases were detected by FTIR, GC-MS (methanol as solvent), high resolution mass spectrometry (methanol as solvent) and NMR (deuterated methanol as solvent). Results The mass spectrum characteristic ions m/z of the main components in the samples measured by GC-MS were 219 (base peak), 363, 307, 304, 275, 145, 131 and 213 (base peak), 357, 301, 298, 269, 185, 171, 145 and 131, respectively. The accurate mass numbers [M+H]+ measured by high resolution mass spectrometry were 364.203 61 and 358.212 34, respectively. The unknown samples were identified as synthetic cannabinoid new psychoactive substances 4F-MDMB-BUTINACA and MDMB-4en-PINACA after data consultation and database retrieval and comparison, combined with infrared analysis and mass spectrometry data analysis, and their structures were confirmed by 1H-NMR. Conclusion The established multi-technology joint identification method can be used to identify 4F-MDMB-BUTINACA and MDMB-4en-PINACA in unknown samples. This method is fast, convenient, accurate, reliable and practical, and can provide reference for the identification of cases involving such substances in the future.


ABSTRACT Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer among women. LINC00675 and miR-513b-5p has been reported to be abnormally expressed in multiple types of cancers and modulate malignant phenotypes of cancer cells. However, to date, the functional role and underlying regulatory mechanism of LINC00675 and miR-513b-5p in BC remains largely unknown. Here, we found that LINC00675 was significantly downregulated in BC tissues and cell lines. Decrease of LINC00675 expression associated with higher tumor grade, lymphovascular invasion and shorter survival in BC patients. Functional experiments demonstrated that overexpression of LINC00675 suppressed BC cell proliferation, migration and invasion, whereas depletion of LINC00675 exerted opposite effects. Mechanistically, LINC00675 functioned as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to interact with miR-513b-5p and suppress its expression. Moreover, METTL3 increased the m6A methylation of LINC00675, which enhanced the association between LINC00675 and miR-513b-5p. Collectively, the central findings of our study suggest that LINC00675 represses BC progression through the inhibition of miR-513b-5p in a m6A-dependent manner.


Background: Evidence linking microbiome and human health is rapidly growing. Microbiome profile can be a novel predictive biomarker for many diseases. However, bacteria count tables are typically sparse and bacteria are classified at a hierarchy of taxonomic levels, ranging from species to phylum. Existing analysis tools focus on identifying microbiome associations either at the community level or at a specific pre-defined taxonomic level. They fail to incorporate the evolutionary relationship between bacteria and cannot learn from the data to aggregate microbiome contribution, thus leading to less accurate and less interpretable results in prediction, classification or selection. Results: We present DeepBiome, a phylogney-informed neural network architecture for predicting phenotypes from microbiome counts and uncovering the microbiome-phenotype association network. It takes microbiome abundance as the input and let the phylogenetic taxonomy guide the neural network architecture. Commonly used neural network architectures are targeted towards image and text analysis and typically require huge amount of training data, which is scarce in biomedical applications. By leveraging the phylogenetic information, DeepBiome relieves the heavy burden of tuning for the optimal deep learning architecture, avoids overfitting, and more importantly enables visualizing the path from microbiome counts to disease. It is applicable to both regression and classification problems. The simulation study and real-life data analysis demonstrate that DeepBiome is highly accurate and efficient and and provides a deep understanding of complex microbiome-phenotype associations even using small to moderate training sample sizes. Conclusions: In practice, it is unknown at which taxonomic level that microbiome clusters tag the association. Therefore, the central advantage of the presented method over other analytical methods is that it offers an ecological and evolutionary understanding of host-microbe interactions which is important for microbiome-based medicine. DeepBiome is implemented using Python packages Keras and the Tensorflow. It is an open-source tool available at (https://github.com/Young-won/DeepBiome).


The main approaches to the study of mankind, and the corresponding models of man, are sketched and examined. The systemic model of man as a biopsychosocial entity is recommended. Likewise the multilevel approach is favored over the holistic, the analytic, and the synthetic approaches. Finally, the question of the reducibility of psychology to neurophysiology is discussed.


The methanolic extract (SCE) as well as the essential oil (SCO) prepared from the roots of Saussurea costus (Falc.) Lipschitz, were tested for their antimicrobial activity against 14 G+ve and G-ve bacteria implicated in gastro-intestinal (GI), respiratory tract (RT) and urinary tract infections (UTI). Their effects were also compared to standard concentration of antibiotic erythromycin. The in vitro antibacterial activity was assessed qualitatively (by disc diffusion method) and quantitatively (by microdilution method). SCO exhibited better antimicrobial activities as compared with SCE. The GI pathogens viz. Shigella flexneri and Salmonella typhimurium were the strains most susceptible to the oil (strong inhibition zones 25-28 mm). SCO showed also had minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) ranging from 1.09-8.75 il/ml on 10 of the 14 pathogens tested. The overall results provide promising baseline information for the potential use of the oil from the roots of S. costus in the treatment of bacterial infections.


A new system for analyzing sleep data could help future patients by providing a more complete picture of their sleep process.


The authors present a case of extreme brain herniation encountered during decompressive craniectomy in a 21-month-old boy who suffered a trauma event that necessitated temporary scalp closure in which a sterile silicone sheet was placed. Although the clinical situation is usually expected to lead to brain death or severe disability, the patient's 3-year follow-up examination revealed a highly functional child with a good quality of life. The authors discuss the feasibility and advantages of temporary scalp expansion as a treatment option when extreme brain herniation is encountered during craniotomy.


Cloud applications heavily rely on the network communication infrastructure, whose stability and latency directly affect the quality of experience. As mobile devices need to rapidly retrieve data from the cloud, it becomes an extremely important goal to deliver the lowest possible access latency at the best reliability. In this paper, we specify a cloud access overlay protocol architecture to improve the cloud access performance in distributed data-center (DC) cloud fabrics. We explore how linking virtual machine (VM) mobility and routing to user mobility can compensate performance decrease due to increased user-cloud network distance, by building an online cloud scheduling solution to optimally switch VM routing locators and to relocate VMs across DC sites, as a function of user-DC overlay network states. We evaluate our solution: 1) on a real distributed DC testbed spanning all of France, showing that we can grant a very high transfer time gain and 2) by emulating the situation of Internet service providers (ISPs) and over-the-top (OTT) cloud providers, exploiting thousands of real France-wide user displacement traces, finding a median throughput gain from 30% for OTT scenarii to 40% for ISP scenarii, the large majority of this gain being granted by adaptive VM mobility.


Patterns of household mobility across neighborhoods reproduce patterns of racial segregation at the metropolitan level. Substantial literature across the social sciences has explored the scale and predictors of household mobility as well as changes in metropolitan residential segregation over time. This study unifies these two strands of inquiry by connecting the sorting of households across neighborhoods to aggregate changes in segregation levels. Using discrete choice models of intrametropolitan mobility and restricted decennial census and American Community Survey data for 1960-2014, I model the correlates of household mobility and identify the counterfactual scenarios under which lower segregation levels can be achieved. The results show that even though the mobility flows of the White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations across census tracts have become more similar over time, U.S. metropolitan areas are far from experiencing large drops in segregation.


Financial reporting reflects transparency of the firm and if it could not explain the changes in shareholders" value in a timely manner; shareholders need additional monitoring mechanism. This study aims to investigate the effect of financial statements" quality on corporate governance mechanism and to examine the recursive simultaneous effect between both. This study uses earnings timelines as a proxy of financial reporting"s quality; proportion of independent board and board size as proxies of corporate governance mechanism. Using Two Stage Linear Regression (TSLS) and samples consist of manufacturing companies listed on Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2015, this study finds that earnings timelines have significant influence on board size; earnings timelines and proportion of independent board have the recursive simultaneous effect; however, it fails to document the recursive simultaneous effect of earnings timelines and ownership concentration. This study is the first that investigates the recursive simultaneous effects of financial reporting quality and corporate governance.


A post-treatment assay of the umu test was performed to detect genotoxicity of 10 phenylenediamine (PDA) derivatives using Salmonella typhimurium TA1535/pSK1002 with/without S9 mix. Seven chemicals (o-PDA, 4-chloro-o-PDA, 4-nitro-o-PDA, p-PDA, 2-chloro-p-PDA, 2-nitro-p-PDA, and 2,5-diaminotoluene) showed positive results with S9 mix, but three chemicals (m-PDA, 4-chloro-m-PDA, and 2,4-diaminotoluene) were negative with and without S9 mix. Four of 7 chemicals (o-PDA, 4-chloro-o-PDA, 4-nitro-o-PDA, and 2-nitro-p-PDA) that gave positive results with S9 mix were also positive without S9 mix. These results indicate that the genotoxicity of PDA derivative possessing m-position amino substituents was not detected in the umu post-treatment assay using TA1535/pSK1002.


Exploiting multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) diversity, systems with error-prone and bandwidth-limited wireless channels can easily support reliable transmission. We develop optimal cross-layer scheduling that consists of QoS scheduling at the upper layer and optimal antenna selection at the physical layer. For QoS scheduling, we design a framework for optimal scheduling to meet users' QoS requirements. To solve this optimization problem, we consider a clique-searching algorithm for antenna selection that maximally utilizes the characteristics of MIMO systems by adopting the graph theoretical approach. As the clique searching problem becomes NP complete with the increase of transmit antennas in number, we propose a suboptimal antenna selection algorithm to deal with a large number of transmit antennas. We derive some theorems and properties for our approach and, through simulations, we demonstrate the performance of QoS scheduling which is effective to handle real-time traffic.


In this paper the "evidence-based" framework of the field of Family Policy is applied to tax policy. The empirical and scientific data on the role of family in public policymaking is applied to current tax discourse on the family, including the debate over the joint tax return. The proposals by critical tax studies scholars for elimination of the joint tax return are thus opposed, in part, based on the available scientific evidence that families remain a key contributor to modern society notwithstanding an ongoing decline in marriage rates in the United States. Various ideas for the updating of tax theory to incorporate family into the raw individualism of Enlightenment era theory are also explored in detail.


Sunscreen reactions are said not to be uncommon. A population referred to a patch testing clinic was evaluated for reactions to sunscreen by questionnaire initially and then, if relevant, by patch testing to sunscreen products and their components. Irritant reactions were more common than allergic contact dermatitis. Allergic reactions to sunscreens were less common than to non-sunscreen chemicals present in sunscreen products.


The study aims at analyzing the perception of teachers and students about online classes. The work tries to explain the opinions of students as regards the impact of online courses, their comfortability in its usag, and the support received from teachers in online classes along with teachers' opinions on efficacy, teaching practice followed and training received for an online class.,The analysis was carried out using the data collected through two separate structured questionnaires for students and teachers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi District in Karnataka. Data were recorded in SPSS and analyzed by using descriptive statistics.,The study reveals that students are comfortable with online classes and are getting enough support from teachers but they do not believe that online classes will replace traditional classroom teaching. It also finds that teachers are facing difficulties in conducting online classes due to a lack of proper training and development for doing online classes. Technical issues are the major problem for the effectiveness of the online classes.,Most of the colleges think of implementing online classes in their courses. Hence, it becomes essential to obtain the opinions of participants of online classes before applying for it. This study may help colleges to get a general view of online classes among teachers and students.,Internet and new technologies gained importance in all fields including the education sector which gave scope for online classes. In addition to this, the COVID pandemic worldwide has also added to the relevance of online classes. In this light, it is necessary to understand student–teacher perceptions regarding online classes.


Despite major improvements in its treatment and diagnosis, sepsis is still a leading cause of death and admittance to the intensive care unit (ICU). Failure to identify patients at high risk of developing septic shock contributes to an increase in the sepsis burden and rapid molecular tests are currently the most promising avenue to aid in patient risk determination and therapeutic anticipation. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the genetic susceptibility that affects sepsis outcome in 72 sepsis patients admitted to the ICU. Seven polymorphisms were genotyped in key inflammatory response genes in sepsis, including tumour necrosis factor-α, interlelukin (IL)-1β, IL-10, IL-8, Toll-like receptor 4, CXCR1 and CXCR2. The primary finding showed that patients who were homozygous for the major A allele in IL-10 rs1800896 had almost five times higher chance to develop septic shock compared to heterozygotes. Similarly, selected clinical features and CXCR2 rs1126579 single nucleotide polymorphisms modulated septic shock susceptibility without affecting survival. These data support the hypothesis that molecular testing has clinical usefulness to improve sepsis prognostic models. Therefore, enrichment of the ICU portfolio by including these biomarkers will aid in the early identification of sepsis patients who may develop septic shock.


Popular Abstract in English The eye is a complex device in charge of producing clear and sharp images of the outside world. While some people need glasses early on in their lives, others have nearly perfect vision until, all of a sudden, they have to hold books or documents further and further away from their eyes to be able to read them and eventually have to resort to reading glasses. This visual impairment, known as presbyopia, usually starts around the age of 40. But why? What happens? To be able to answer those questions, one has to have a closer look at how the eye is build. To ensure sharp, unblurred visual images, all light entering the eye through the pupil, no matter how far away its source, has to be focused onto the retina where the image is formed. If the focal point is shifted away from the retina, the image appears blurred. From optics, it is known that the focal point of a simple lens depends on its curvature and on the distance between the light source and the lens. For an unflexible, rigid lens with fixed curvature, light emitted by close objects thus has a different focal point than light coming from far away objects. For the eye, this means that the lens has to adjust shape to be able to focus light from close, as well as far away sources onto the same focal point (the retina). In order to do so, the lens has of course to be flexible, as is the case in a healthy eye. With age, however, the lens loses flexibility and becomes increasingly stiff, resulting in the inability to focus light emitted by close-by objects onto the retina, thus making those objects appear blurred. But what causes this gradual hardening of the lens? It is the aim of this thesis to answer this question by studying the proteins that make up the eye lens. The lens is formed of fibre cells that are filled with very concentrated solutions of proteins, known as crystallins that can be divided into three major classes: alpha-, beta- and gamma-crystallins. The sizes of these proteins range from 3.6 nm (gamma-crystallin) to 16 nm (alpha-crystallin), where 1 nm = 0.000000001 m (a strand of human hair has a diameter of about 180 000 nm). So-called scattering techniques are ideally suited to study particles as small as the crystallins. They are based on irradiating a sample (with either laser light, X-rays or neutrons) and analyzing the radiation that is scattered by the sample. I used a variety of different scattering techniques, allowing me to analyze the interactions, stability and diffusion (movement) of crystallins in solution. Proteins are rather complex structures, but to analyze the results obtained from scattering experiments, they can be simplified and described as either hard spheres (comparable to tiny billiard balls that do not interact with each other, except for the fact that they cannot occupy the same space at the same time) or short-range attractive hard spheres (comparable to tiny billiard balls that attract each other/stick together when they come close, but do not feel each other at larger separations). This approach was applied to solutions of crystallins at varying concentration, from very dilute to very concentrated. These proteins were purified from calf eye lenses purchased as a by-product from a local slaughterhouse. In a first step, only solutions of the individual proteins were studied and the main focus was put on their dynamic behavior. It was found that at concentrations comparable to those found in the eye lens, these solutions undergo a so-called dynamical arrest, leaving the solution in a glassy or gel-like, rather than fluid, state. In an attempt to further mimic conditions found in the eye, binary mixtures of different proteins were studied and while this study is far from complete, it does point in the same direction as the trend found for individual protein solutions, namely a dynamical arrest at physiologically relevant concentrations. While a lens filled with a fluid-like concentrated protein solution is able to adapt its shape to adjust focus, a lens with a dynamically arrested mixture of proteins becomes stiff and can no longer accommodate for close vision. The study presented here thus provides very compelling evidence for the hypothesis that age-related dynamical slowing down and eventual arrest of the concentrated protein mixture in the eye lens fibre cells leads to the gradual hardening of the eye lens that is at the origin of presbyopia. (Less)


The thermo-hygromechanical densification process changes the chemical composition and the physical and mechanical properties of wood. The aim of this work was to study the impact of the chemical composition of Pinus radiata wood on its physical and mechanical properties following the thermo-hygromechanical densification process. The samples were initially segregated by lignin content. Density, hardness, modulus of elasticity (MOE), and modulus of rupture (MOR), in addition to lignin, α-cellulose, hemicellulose, and extractive contents, were determined before and after the densification process. The results indicated that densified wood with high initial lignin content had greater rate of increases in density and MOE than wood with lower initial lignin content. Additionally, densified wood with lower initial lignin content had greater rate of increases in hardness. The rate of increase of MOR did not show significant differences within both groups. Carbohydrates present in the control and the densified wood played an important role in the mechanical strength of the final product.


EB1 is a microtubule tip-associated protein that interacts with the APC tumor suppressor protein and components of the dynein/dynactin complex. We have found that the C-terminal 50 and 84 amino acids (aa) of EB1 were sufficient to mediate the interactions with APC and dynactin, respectively. EB1 formed mutually exclusive complexes with APC and dynactin, and a direct interaction between EB1 and p150(Glued) was identified. EB1-GFP deletion mutants demonstrated a role for the N-terminus in mediating the EB1-microtubule interaction, whereas C-terminal regions contributed to both its microtubule tip localization and a centrosomal localization. Cells expressing the last 84 aa of EB1 fused to GFP (EB1-C84-GFP) displayed profound defects in microtubule organization and centrosomal anchoring. EB1-C84-GFP expression severely inhibited microtubule regrowth, focusing, and anchoring in transfected cells during recovery from nocodazole treatment. The recruitment of gamma-tubulin and p150(Glued) to centrosomes was also inhibited. None of these effects were seen in cells expressing the last 50 aa of EB1 fused to GFP. Furthermore, EB1-C84-GFP expression did not induce Golgi apparatus fragmentation. We propose that a functional interaction between EB1 and p150(Glued) is required for microtubule minus end anchoring at centrosomes during the assembly and maintenance of a radial microtubule array.


Large basis set local-density-functional calculations on fullerenes, graphene and graphite suggest that fullerene stability increases monotonically with the number of carbon atoms (N), and is nearly linear in 1/N. is less stable energetically than and higher fullerenes, despite the apparent preference for in nature. The heat of formation found here for relative to graphite is in good agreement with experiment, while the heat of formation for graphene relative to graphite is overestimated by a factor of two.


ODR-10, an olfactory receptor protein of C. elegans , was used as a model of olfactory receptors expressed in human embryonic kidney (HEK)-293 cells as a fusing protein with 6×his-tag and rho-tag. The expression of the target protein was analyzed by RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction), Western blot and immunocytochemistry methods. The specific binding to odorant molecules of the olfactory receptor was measured using intracellular Ca 2+ assays. Then the olfactory receptor ODR-10 was immobilized onto the surface of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor to fabricate the olfactory receptor-based gas biosensor. The results demonstrated that this biosensor can detect the natural ligand of ODR-10 (diacetyl) with high sensitivity and specificity. All these results indicated that the olfactory receptor ODR-10 has been expressed successfully in the heterologous cell system and it can be used as the sensitive material in the development of biomimetic olfactory receptor-based biosensors.


Unsupervised representation learning with contrastive learning achieved great success. This line of methods duplicate each training batch to construct contrastive pairs, making each training batch and its augmented version forwarded simultaneously and leading to additional computation. We propose a new jigsaw clustering pretext task in this paper, which only needs to forward each training batch itself, and reduces the training cost. Our method makes use of information from both intra- and inter-images, and outperforms previous single-batch based ones by a large margin. It is even comparable to the contrastive learning methods when only half of training batches are used.(p)(/p)Our method indicates that multiple batches during training are not necessary, and opens the door for future research of single-batch unsupervised methods. Our models trained on ImageNet datasets achieve state-of-the-art results with linear classification, outperforming previous single-batch methods by 2.6%. Models transferred to COCO datasets outperforms MoCo v2 by 0.4% with only half of the training batches. Our pretrained models outperform supervised ImageNet pretrained models on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 datasets by 0.9% and 4.1% respectively.


Abstract The aim of the study was to investigate the optical coherence tomography (OCT)-identified difference of in-stent restenosis (ISR) tissue characteristics between patients with and without acute coronary syndrome (ACS) at index intervention. The retrospective study included 80 patients with 85 drug-eluting stent (DES) restenosis lesions. Subjects were classified according to clinical presentation at the time of de-novo lesion intervention, namely ACS and non-ACS. OCT was performed at 5 years follow-up. The frequency of malapposition, neointimal characteristics, thrombus, and minimal stent area (MSA) were evaluated. ACS group consisted of 48 (60%) patients. The mean duration from initial intervention to OCT study was 66.15 months. Malapposition was more frequent in the ACS group (25.5% vs 2.9%, P = .006), as well as a higher prevalence of thrombus in the ACS group (21.6% vs 0%, P = .015). MSA of ACS group was significantly less than that of non-ACS group (4.99 ± 1.80 vs 5.62 ± 2.08 mm2, P = .018). Compared with non-ACS group, only MI group was related to smaller MSA (4.37 ± 1.39 vs 5.62 ± 2.08 mm2, P = .048); The unstable angina (UA) group was not associated with a decreased MSA. The occurrence of neoatherosclerosis tended to be higher in ACS group (60.8% vs 41.2%, P = .076). In DES restenosis, an ACS presentation at initial intervention is associated with a higher incidence of malapposition, thrombus, and smaller MSA.


The development of axonal connections between thalamic nuclei and their cortical target areas occurs in a highly specific manner. To explore the mechanisms of thalamocortical axon pathfinding, we investigated the expression of several members of the ephrin and Eph gene families in the forebrain. The Eph ligand ephrin-A5 was expressed in three distinct gradients during the development of the telencephalon. The first gradient occurred in the cortical ventricular zone and established ephrin-A5 as one of the earliest markers distinguishing cells residing in the anterior versus posterior cortical neuroepithelium. The second gradient was apparent in the subplate and occurred in spatial opposition to a distinct gradient for the low-affinity NGF receptor p75. This finding reveals that different regions of the early subplate are molecularly heterogeneous. Third, we confirmed that ephrin-A5 is expressed in a bi-directional gradient in the cortical plate, with highest levels in the somatomotor cortex. Three putative receptors for ephrin-A5 -- EphA3, EphA4 and EphA5 -- showed distinct expression patterns in the developing thalamus. The graded distributions of ephrin-A5 in the developing subplate and cortex and the expression of its receptors in the thalamus are consistent with the notion that the Eph ligands and their receptors may function in the topographic mapping of thalamic axons to specific cortical areas.


Introduction: IMIDs are a cornerstone of multiple myeloma treatment and have a recently expanded role in the treatment of selected lymphomas. However, the safety of chemotherapeutic regimens containing IMIDs in patients with a history of solid organ transplantation (SOT) is uncertain. Recently, several published case reports have described SOT rejection (SOTr) among patients taking IMIDs.
 Methods: To investigate a potential association between IMID exposure and SOTr, we evaluated postmarketing adverse event reports submitted to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) and published in the literature. We descriptively characterized the clinical outcomes and severity of SOTr and utilized the World Health Organization-Uppsala Monitoring (WHO-UMC) scale to assess drug causality.
 Results: We identified 22 cases of SOTr associated with the use of lenalidomide (n=16), pomalidomide (n=3), or thalidomide (n=3) from FAERS and the literature. After IMID initiation, the median time to onset of SOTr was 39 days (range 3-70 days) with 89% of cases occurring by 60 days. Notably, SOTr occurred within 2 weeks of lenalidomide and pomalidomide administration in 5 cases, including 2 patients with a distant history of SOT (lenalidomide, n=1; pomalidomide, n=1). The most commonly affected organs were the kidney (n=13) and heart (n=10), with 3 of these cases involving rejection of both organs. In 12 cases, rejection was confirmed with biopsy findings of acute T-cell mediated rejection. Notably, 6 of these 12 cases provided baseline biopsy findings prior to IMID initiation that indicated stable organ function and showed no signs of rejection. All cases were complicated by serious outcomes including 7 deaths described as related to graft rejection. Other serious clinical manifestations included surgical excision of the original transplanted organ (n=2), requirement of a second transplant (n=3), and dialysis (n=4), including 2 cases that required long-term renal replacement therapy.
 We determined the causality as probable (no confounding factor identified) in 6 cases and possible (confounding factor identified) in the remaining 16 cases. The most frequently reported confounding factor was concomitant change of the baseline immunosuppressive regimen with the initiation of the IMID (n=7). Notably, 5 of the 7 cases with fatal outcome had immunosuppression reduced at IMID therapy initiation, including 2 cases with a distant history of SOT and stable graft function.
 Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the largest case series describing SOTr with the IMIDs. These cases are characterized by serious events including death and reduced long-term survival of the graft. Although this analysis is limited by the quality of spontaneous adverse event reporting, the strong temporal relationship and the histologic findings of T-cell mediated rejection provide reasonable evidence of a contributory role of IMIDs to SOTr. This risk is plausible because IMIDs induce T-cell proliferation, enhance interleukin-2 and interferon-gamma production, and inhibit regulatory T-cell function. Increased surveillance for early signs of acute rejection is warranted for SOT recipients receiving IMID therapy. The US prescribing information is currently being revised to reflect the risk of SOTr across all IMIDs.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The study analyzed the effects of population on economic growth in case of Pakistan. In some years the population has a real problem for all over the world. The study examines the impacts of population and the problems due to population increased and its influence on economic growth. We take the time series data with the sample size from 1981 to 2010. The study used the Unit root test of ADF, co integration and Auto-regressive distributed lags test to analyze the results. The study used economic growth as dependent variable and independent variables are population, investment, fertility rate, employment rate and education expenditure. The study concluded that population creates negative impacts on economic growth of Pakistan and create lot of problems adding more in unemployed population of the country. The study suggested that awareness programs about population control can be effective in controlling the increasing population of the country. Moreover, the Government of Pakistan should take some solid steps towards the overpopulation problem to maintain its economic pace.


Major challenges for forensic experts include selection
of best effective diagnostic tests in the time sensitive
identification of cause of death to avoid delay in
postmortem examination cases. Sudden cardiac death
due to acute myocardial infarction constitutes a
significant portion of the autopsies that are conducted
by forensic pathologists. Lack of specificity of clinical
and conventional markers causes misdiagnosis and
prevents or delays in the detection. Conventional
biochemical markers like creatine kinase (CK),
myoglobin, and lactate dehydrogenase is no longer a
best choice in the detection, because of their low
specificity to cardiac injury. Recent reports indicate
cardiac troponin as an extremely sensitive biochemical
marker which can detect even microscopic zones of
myocardial necrosis. We herein, review cardiac
troponin as a biochemical marker in autopsy cases of
AMI and its impact on postmortem management that
will lead to guidance for early detection with quick and
reliable diagnostics methods.


The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) began operational testing onboard the Earth Orbiter 1 mission in 2003. The ASE software uses onboard continuous planning, robust task and goal- based execution, and onboard machine learning and pattern recognition to radically increase science return by enabling intelligent downlink selection and autonomous retargeting. In this paper we discuss how these AI technologies are synergistically integrated in multi-layer control architecture to enable a virtual spacecraft science agent. We will also discuss the preliminary results from flight validation of this experiment. This software will demonstrate the potential for space missions to use onboard decision- making to detect, analyze, and respond to science events, and to downlink only the highest value science data. As a result, ground-based mission planning and analysis functions will be simplified, thus reducing operations cost.


Research has long recognized that many biases and shortcomings of humans severely limit their ability to accurately detect deception, and this may lead to great risks in government or military operations. One possible method to improve humans? deception detection ability is to train them to recognize cues of deception. To do this, we need to create effective training curricula and educational tools. This paper focuses on describing how we used existing research on deception detection to guide the design, development and evaluation of such a training curriculum. Research- authenticated cues of deception were selected, organized and presented as the core
of the training curriculum. Real-life examples and their analyses were created to illustrate the cues and provide learners with immediate feedback in detection practice.
Besides traditional instructor-led, lecture-based training, we also implemented this curriculum with a Web-based, learner-centered multimedia training system called
Agent99 Trainer. Experiments were conducted to study the effectiveness of our training curriculum and to compare the two training implementations. The initial results showed that our training curriculum significantly improved the accuracy of human deception
detection and the Agent99 Trainer system provided training as effective as the instructor-led, lecturebased training.


Secure identification is a critical system requirement for patients seeking health-related services. In the event of critical, aged, or disabled patients who require frequent health treatments, quick and easy identification is vital. Researchers describe the notion of the unprotected environment in this study, in which patients can receive health services from the hospital's smart and intelligent surroundings without the use of explicit equipment. Patients would interact directly with the environment and be identified through it. We suggest a biometric-based authentication technique for the unprotected hospital environment that also safeguards the patient's identity privacy. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this authentication technique is resistant to many well-known assaults, including insider attacks, replay attacks, and identity privacy. Doctors and other staff members showed enthusiastic responses after installing 2-factor authentications, as it makes their workflow efficient and makes things easier for patients. It also lets them focus on other factors rather than worrying about data security; hence, we need biometric authentication in intelligent and privacy-preserving healthcare systems. The paper deals with two-factor biometric authentication, and despite the added security, two-factor authentication adoption is said to be poor. It is due to a lack of awareness and difficulty to use and configure two-factor authentication (2FA) into a particular application by some individuals who struggle with the concept of authentication and its technology. Also, many 2FA methods in widespread use today have not been subjected to adequate usability testing. Research focuses on the point that there is still a large section of people unaware of the use of biometric systems to protect their online data. Researchers collected quantitative and qualitative data from 96 individuals during a two-week between-subjects usability survey of some common and rarely used 2FA approaches. The survey allowed the researcher to investigate which authentication methods are given higher priority and why, along with the relationship between different usage patterns and perceived usability, and identify user misconceptions and insecure habits to determine ease of use. It was observed that the biometric-based method was given the utmost preferability.