The purpose of this paper is to develop statistical methods that take radiation spread into account in analyzing data from different autoradiographic experiments. The method uses the probability circle analysis of Salpeter and McHenry (1973) to obtain the probable source of each radioactive emission and the circle and point counting method of Williams (1969) to estimate the relative area occupied by each cellular site. Two levels of analysis are presented. The first level of analysis is concerned with estimating relative activities and standard errors for cellular items that are larger than the probability circle. The second level of analysis involves estimating relative activities and standard errors for cellular sites that are smaller than the probability circle and are therefore observed in circles containing another item such as cytoplasmic matrix. Two different tests of hypotheses are discussed. The first null hypothesis is that the radioactivity is randomly distributed among the cellular sites. The second null hypothesis is that there is no difference between two different treatments in the relative activities for a given site.


Data encryption, particularly application-level data encryption, is a common solution to protect data confidentiality and deal with security threats. Application-level encryption is a process in which data is encrypted before being sent to the database. However, cryptography transforms data and makes the query difficult to execute. Various studies have been carried out to find ways in order to implement a searchable encrypted database. In the current paper, we provide a new encrypting method and querying on encrypted data (ZSDB) for different data types. It is worth mentioning that the proposed method is based on secret sharing. ZSDB provides data confidentiality by dividing sensitive data into two parts and using the additional server as Dictionary Server. In addition, it supports required operations on various types of data, especially LIKE operator functioning on string data type. ZSDB dedicates the largest volume of execution tasks on queries to the server. Therefore, the data owner only needs to encrypt and decrypt data.


Nanocrystalline amorphous ribbons of composition Fe70.5Cr3Cu1Nb3Si13.5B9 prepared by rapid solidification technique have been studied in the present work. Amorphicity of the ribbons has been confirmed by X-ray diffraction. Crystallization temperatures were identified by X-ray diffraction and crystallization products were analyzed by XRD. When annealed below the crystallization temperature, i.e. when the sample is in amorphous state, temperature dependence of permeability curves were characterized by sharp increase of permeability and subsequent fall to lower value near ferro-paramagnetic transition temperature, which is typical Hopkinson effect for soft ferromagnetic single phase material. Under devitrification, when the sample is in a two phase state, the sharpness of the descent to lower values of permeability is smeared out. This smearing effect is caused by distribution of the Curie temperature of the Fe-depleted residual amorphous matrix. During heating and cooling, it has been observed from a graph of m'(T) that the value of permeability and TC at cooling had increased slightly faster than the heating due to relaxation of the sample. Above the crystallization temperature, we noticed that the heating and cooling curve of m'(T) are almost superimposed.


Diagnostic error prevention is a long-established but specialized topic in clinical and psychological research. In this paper, we contribute to the field by exploring diagnostic decision-making via modeling physicians' utterances of medical concepts during image-based diagnoses. We conduct experiments to collect verbal narratives from dermatologists while they are examining and describing dermatology images towards diagnoses. We propose a hierarchical probabilistic framework to learn domain-specific patterns from the medical concepts in these narratives. The discovered patterns match the diagnostic units of thought identified by domain experts. These meaningful patterns uncover physicians' diagnostic decision-making processes while parsing the image content. Our evaluation shows that these patterns provide key information to classify narratives by diagnostic correctness levels.


In this study, we developed a low-cost simulated testbed of a physically interactive virtual reality (VR) system and evaluated its efficacy as an occupational virtual trainer for human-robot collaborative (HRC) tasks. The VR system could be implemented in industrial training applications for sensorimotor skill acquisitions and identifying potential task-, robot-, and human-induced hazards in the industrial environments. One of the challenges in designing and implementing such simulation testbed is the effective integration of virtual and real objects and environment, including human movement biomechanics. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the movement kinematics (joint angles) and kinetics (center of pressure) of the human participants while performing pick-and-place lifting tasks with and without using a physically interactive VR testbed. Results showed marginal differences in human movement kinematics and kinetics between real and virtual environment tasks, suggesting the effective transfer of training benefits from VR to real-life situations.


felt that more research in some respiratory diseases such as apnea and sleep disorders and in treatment of noninvasive respiratory support, or the advances in antiinfective drugs implied a certain lack of interest in other airway diseases such as asthma. This general tendency is reflected in a lower number of presentations about asthma at both regional and national congresses in Spain and fewer original articles on asthma submitted to ARCHIVOS DE BRONCONEUMOLOGÍA. It is also true that significant progress has been made in determining the pathogenesis of asthma in last 20 years and that effective treatments are available which, in theory anyway, are able to "control" the disease. As a result, even though heath care professionals may be less concerned about asthma, it remains one of the biggest worldwide health problems with a large social and economic impact on the population. The prevalence of asthma (4%-5% among adults and 6%-8% among children) is increasing in association with our western lifestyle, particularly in urban areas.1 Furthermore, 30% of asthma patients are thought to be unaware that they have the disease2 and the quality of life of 70% of those diagnosed with asthma deteriorates due to repercussions of the disease. Pulmonologists must therefore remain vigilant and be aware of that continued effort will be needed over the years if the outlook is to change. Pharmacoeconomics studies make for disheartening reading. Asthma is estimated to account for between 1% and 2% of the total health care budget in the United States of America and European countries. Half the costs related to asthma can be considered indirect and the other half direct. The largest component of the direct costs (around 37%) is expenditure on drugs, followed by hospital costs (30%). Studies of overall asthma-related costs have not been conducted in Spain: only partial data are available from a study in the district of Osona in the province of Barcelona.3 In that study, indirect and direct costs both contributed 50% each to the overall cost. Expenditure on drugs accounted for 45% of the direct costs and hospital costs accounted for a further 32% (75% for hospital stays, 15% for emergency room services, and 10% for attendance at external clinics). The cost of the disease increased exponentially with increasing asthma severity. The cost of moderate asthma was twice as high as that of mild asthma, whereas the cost of severe asthma was 5 times that of mild asthma. Thus, patients with severe asthma, who represented 14% of asthma patients, accounted for 50% of the total cost of the disease. The sum of the main indirect costs (disability benefit and sick leave) and hospital costs (failure of outpatient treatment) accounted for around 70% of the total, giving an indication of costs generated by poor control of the disease. These figures suggest that more should be done and that we still have a long way to go before achieving the goal of having well-controlled patients with a normal quality of life. In 2002, the board of the Spanish Society for Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) took the decision to designate 2003 as the Asthma Awareness Year,4 with the basic aim of spreading scientific knowledge about the disease among health care professionals at different levels of care and of raising public awareness of the disease. The Asthma 2003 Committee, with links to the Respira Foundation, was set up with the aim of proposing activities to help achieve these objectives. The first decision of this committee was to draft a Spanish consensus document with the collaboration of the different scientific societies representing health care professionals involved in the treatment of asthma patients. The document was to provide an update of the current knowledge of the disease, with reference to the situation in Spain. As a result, the "Asthma Management-Spanish Guidelines" (GEMA in the Spanish abbreviation; www.gemasma.com) were published.5 Under the auspices of SEPAR, in addition to pulmonologists, primary health care physicians, pediatricians, nursing staff, and, occasionally, other specialists also involved in asthma such as Correspondence: Dr. A. de Diego-Damiá. Servicio de Neumología. Hospital Universitario La Fe. Campanar, s/n. 46009 Valencia. España. E-mail: email@example.com


Title of Document: GENERAL AND SPECIFIC DISPLACEMENT EFFECTS OF POLICE CRACKDOWNS: CRIMINAL EVENTS AND "LOCAL" CRIMINALS David Michael Mazeika, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Directed By: Professor Lawrence W. Sherman Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice Geographically focused police crackdowns have widely diffused amongst larger American police departments in the past decade and have been recently cited in a Police Executive Research Forum survey as the most commonly used tactic to combat violent crime. Evidence from a number of randomized control trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses suggests that these interventions have the ability to reduce crime without displacing it to nearby locations. However, virtually every study of crime displacement in response to a geographically concentrated police intervention focuses on small buffer zones immediately surrounding the intervention location. While crime may not displace just around the corner, to date, few studies have tested displacement beyond this limited geographic constraint. During the summer of 2011 the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C. implemented a geographically focused arrest-driven police crackdown called the Summer Crime Initiative (SCI). The current work aims to examine the impact of the SCI on the volume and placement of robbery through a quasi-experimental research design. By developing a theoretically informed framework, a broader set of hypotheses regarding local and non-local crime displacement are tested. The results of this study confirm prior research on crime displacement. Despite reductions in robbery, there is no evidence that these offenses or offenders were displaced within or beyond two blocks of the intervention sites. GENERAL AND SPECIFIC DISPLACEMENT EFFECTS OF POLICE CRACKDOWNS: CRIMINAL EVENTS AND "LOCAL" CRIMINALS


The methods used to extract chord-length distributions from small-angle scattering data assume a structure consisting of spatially uncorrelated and disconnected convex regions. These restrictive conditions are seldom met for a wide variety of materials such as porous materials and semicrystalline or phase-separated copolymers, the structures of which consist of co-continuous phases that interpenetrate each other in a geometrically complex way. The significant errors that would result from applying existing methods to such systems are discussed using three distinct models for which the chord-length distributions are known analytically. The models are a dilute suspension of hollow spheres, the Poisson mosaic and the Boolean model of spheres.


The aim of this paper is to show how and why the method of radical interpretation can solve the problems that are formulated in a variety of sceptical scenarios. First of all, the method of radical interpretation deprives Cartesian sceptical scenario – both in its traditional and more recent versions – of the status of philosophical problem appealing to the difference between intended and unintended lies. The paper also formulates an argument in favour of expanded version of naturalized epistemology due to the introduction of social factors. In particular, there are always at least two necessary limitations imposed by the communication of our hypothesis about knowledge and delusion. In addition, the article explains the need of a moderate externalism (both perceptual and social) for the variants of Descartes and Hume's sceptical scenario.


In the present study, the hypoglycemic effects of wheat bran alkyresorcinols (ARs) were investigated in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) mice induced by a high-fat/high-sucrose diet (HFSD) combined with low dose streptozotocin (STZ). After the consumption of 5 mg kg-1 d-1 acarbose (positive control) and different doses of wheat bran ARs (50, 200 and 500 mg kg-1 d-1) for 4 weeks, the fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels in T2DM mice were found to be reduced significantly (p < 0.05), and the effects of 200 and 500 mg kg-1 d-1 administration were better than that of 50 mg kg-1 d-1. The results of the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) also showed that both acarbose and AR administration significantly increased the glucose tolerance of the T2DM mice. Then, the fasting serum insulin levels (FINS) were significantly reduced by AR treatment, and the effect of 500 mg kg-1 d-1 AR administration was better than that of 5 mg kg-1 d-1 acarbose. The profile of plasma lipids was analyzed simultaneously, and the results showed that the contents of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were significantly decreased, while the content of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was increased significantly after 200 and 500 mg kg-1 d-1 AR treatment (p < 0.05). Furthermore, 200 and 500 mg kg-1 d-1 ARs significantly increased the content of hepatic glycogen and the activity of glucokinase (p < 0.01) in T2DM mice. The relative mRNA levels of glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2) in the liver tissue were increased markedly in 200 and 500 mg kg-1 d-1 AR treatment groups (p < 0.01), and the relative mRNA levels of glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) in the epididymal adipose tissue were increased significantly in all AR treatment groups, especially significantly higher than acarbose (p < 0.01). Histological analyses revealed that treatment with ARs exerted a protective role on pancreatic β-cells. The results indicated that ARs could be an effective hypoglycemic active ingredient in whole grain diets.


OBJECTIVE
Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a potentially fatal zoonotic viral disease involving fever and hemorrhage. Our aim was to investigate the relationship between interleukin (IL)-1 and IL-1 receptor antagonist (RA) levels in patients with CCHF and the course of the disease and mortality, as well as to contribute to the literature at a time when new therapeutic protocols are being investigated.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Sixty-one patients with CCHF were admitted to our hospital's infectious diseases ward between March and September 2022, and 40 healthy people were included in the control group in our study. The patients were divided into mild/moderate (n=35) and severe (n=26) CCHF groups depending on the clinical course. The patients with CCHF were also divided into surviving and exitus groups. IL-1 and IL-1RA levels were measured from blood specimens using the ELISA method.

RESULTS
Significant elevation in IL-1 and IL-1RA levels was observed in CCHF cases with a severe manifestation compared to those with moderate disease. Both patient groups' IL-1 and IL-1RA levels were also significantly higher than those of the control group. In addition, IL-1 and IL-1RA levels were significantly higher among the exitus patients compared to the surviving CCHF patients. The laboratory values of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), creatinine phosphokinase (CK), platelet count, prothrombin time (PT), and activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) were also significantly higher among the patients with severe manifestations compared to the moderate severity patient group, and in the exitus patients compared to the survivors. However, platelet count and fibrinogen levels were lower in the patients with a severe manifestation compared to the moderate severity group and in the exitus patients compared to the survivors. White blood cells (WBC) were higher in exitus patients than in survivors.

CONCLUSIONS
IL-1 and IL-1RA levels were elevated in all the CCHF patients, while the higher values in patients with a fatal course suggest that the inflammatory process is very severe and that IL-1 receptor antagonists may be needed in the treatment.


Forensic psychiatry is now an " acceptable " subject. Its practitioners have grown in numbers and in stature over the past several years. Commensurate with this growth an increasing literature of first-class importance has emerged, to which Dr. Nigel Walker has been a most important contributor. The book under review is one that had to be written, and it is difficult to imagine anyone better qualified to write it than Dr. Walker. As reader in criminology at Oxford his claim to eminence here is undisputed, but, if the truth be known, his claim to psychiatric authority is scarcely less great; and both towers of this learning are embeddedin scholarship a mile thick. The amount of his original documentary research at the Public Record Office, albeit " accessible only from half-past nine till five on weekdays," into the Old Bailey session papers and other sources is prodigious and has produced a rare harvest. Thus, he unearths documents in mediaeval Latin, which he has himself translated, relating to a Richard of Cheddestan, who in 1270 slaughtered his wife and children-the first account in all probability of a depressive murder. Again, his reproduction of a Times report of 18 July 1795 of a Miss Broadric's trial is as good a description of the thought-disorder and bizarre behaviour of a schizophrenic as could be wished for. Amid the complex tapestry of social England, Dr. Walker traces the pattern of the development of the criminal law in relation to the mentally abnormal offender over the past thousand years. In pre-Norman England this pattern is almost imperceptible, but there is sufficient to trace its beginning in that in considering liability for wrongdoing the idea of intention, or absence of it, becomes relevant. From then on it becomes better defined although it is never simple, and is seen at times to double back on itself before going forward. The influence of reigning monarchs is clearly detected, as, for example, with Henry VIII, who in his sublimely imperious way snapped the law in order to match his personal whim, and with Queen Victoria, who, with more prejudice than pride, requested her ministers to bend it. In the course of his journey through history Dr. Walker pauses at well-known milestones and always succeeds in shedding a little more light as he goes. This is particularly so when he reviews the business of the McNaughton rules. He points to the irony which is rarely appreciated that nobody was tactless enough to point out that if the judges' answers represented the law at the time of McNaughton's trial he should have been convicted. Few will weep today for the substantial decline in the importance of the McNaughton rules as a result of the new defence of diminished responsibility. McNaughton is a rack over which too many doctors have been stretched. Dr. Walker intended this book as a mere introduction to a second volume which is a report on a major inquiry into the working of the Mental Health Act, 1959, perhaps the most humane charter designed for the amelioration of the lot of the mentally abnormal offender. This is now anxiously awaited. It may well add another twist to a history he has so adroitly sketched.


Abstract : The world was easy to understand in the 1980s. They were over there and we were over here. Money was spent by both sides, all too easily, on weapons of both minimal and mass destruction. In retrospect, no one doubts that it was a more peaceable world, although certainly not more peaceful. More explicitly, the nations of the world, particularly those under communist influence, were more inclined to avoid internal conflict, albeit we still had an east-west confrontation that was anything but free of dissension. Today, without the "shelter" of Soviet authority, the lid has blown off all the pressure cookers. Bosnia is merely the beginning of civil unrest; small national conflicts on a large global scale seem to be the foreseeable future. But what of the unforeseeable future? Boldly, what does the 21st century hold in store for intra-national conflict, for attaining and maintaining regional stability, and for collective-security? This paper proposes a United Nations design for attaining regional stability and then offers a United Nations military force, strongly supported by U.S. resolve, to compel that stability. Such a proposal is neither simplistic nor naive; regional stability can be achieved even in the most gruesome of territorial conflicts. Idealistic indeed, but why bother at all if world peace isn't the ultimate goal? The paper is divided into the following sections: Attaining Regional Stability, United Nations Forces, Future Collective Security, Standing By Forces, Permanent Standing Force


The reuse of wastewaters of urban communes of Khmissa (Site 1), Hannancha (Site 2) and Souk Ahras (Site 3) rejected in the Medjerda wadi of Souk Ahras region (North-East Algeria) for agricultural purposes in the far North-East of Algeria is accompanied by health and environmental risks, the evaluation of which requires physico-chemical and parasitological characterization. Biweekly samples were taken from March to August 2019 at the three studied sites wastewaters discharges. The results revealed that the waters studied are characterized by high salt contents, negative redox potential and high levels of turbidity (97.28 ± 18.12 to 111.57 ± 13.11 NTU ), suspended matter (TSS) (351.6 ± 15.52 to 397.33 ± 20.6 mg.L־1), ammonium (8.51 ± 1.94 to 11.19 ± 3.18 mg.L־1) and orthophosphates (3.69 ± 1.40 to 5.29 ± 1.78 mg.L־1), high values in BOD5 (120.62 ± 43.17 to 170.25 ± 32.34 mg.L־1of O2), and COD (286.73 ± 39.65 to358.9 ± 32.81 mg.L־1of O2) as well as the presence of some metallic trace elements such as cobalt (Co) and cadmium (Cd). Parasitological analysis shows high contamination of these irrigation waters by helminthes eggs, which exceed widely the standards of use of waste water in agriculture. The application of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) allowed to conclude that the waters of Medjerda wadi receive urban wastewater from surrounding areas and should not be reused directly in agriculture before being subjected to a processing, in order to improve their quality by meeting the required standards.


The measure of correlation coefficient (r or R) provides information on closeness of two variables. Irrespective of non-linear correlation, this paper mainly considers the linear correlation analysis, as it is most likely applied in social science studies. Explicitly, the purpose of carrying out correlation analysis is almost the same in quantitative analytical studies, thus becoming useful to explore the association between independent and dependent variables. This paper, as an extension, attempts additionally to explain the usefulness of linear correlation coefficient between two variables in the context of identifying the level of multicollinearity and mediating/moderating status of independent variables in a model. This paper also demonstrates how the level of multicollinearity can be explored by using correlation coefficient of two independent variables in a regression model.


OBJECTIVE Tumor was reported to correlate with inflammation and the host's inflammatory response to tumor has been shown to independently predict the outcome. Many measures of the systemic inflammatory response have been studied in recent years. In the present study the full blood count (leukocyte, neutrophil, lymphocyte) of colorectal cancers (CRCs) adenomatous polyps, and healthy people were collected, and the difference of ratios was studied. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 752 individuals (242 colorectal cancers, 248 adenomatous polyps, and 262 healthy people) were randomized enrolled in the present study. The full blood counts (leukocyte, neutrophil, and lymphocyte) of each individual were collected and the NLRs were calculated. RESULTS The leukocyte count, neutrophil ratio and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio were the highest in colorectal cancer group, the second in adenomatous polyp group, and the lowest in healthy control (p < 0.001). The lymphocyte ratio was in the reverse order (p < 0.001). The ROC curve analysis showed that sensitivity and specificity levels of NLR were 66.9% and 77.6% for CRCs, 36.7% and 80.9% for adenomatous polyp. The leukocyte count was higher in the advanced adenomatous polyp compared with low-risk group (p = 0.042). Further analyses of the diagnostic value of NLR are warranted in the future. CONCLUSIONS Difference of leukocyte count, neutrophil ratio and NLR may provide available information in the differential diagnosis of CRC, adenomatous polyp and healthy people.


Emojis have evolved as complementary sources for expressing emotion in social-media platforms where posts are mostly composed of texts and images. In order to increase the expressiveness of the social media posts, users associate relevant emojis with their posts. Incorporating domain knowledge has improved machine understanding of text. In this paper, we investigate whether domain knowledge for emoji can improve the accuracy of emoji recommendation task in case of multimedia posts composed of image and text. Our emoji recommendation can suggest accurate emojis by exploiting both visual and textual content from social media posts as well as domain knowledge from Emojinet. Experimental results using pre-trained image classifiers and pre-trained word embedding models on Twitter dataset show that our results outperform the current state-of-the-art by 9.6%. We also present a user study evaluation of our recommendation system on a set of images chosen from MSCOCO dataset.


Dependency and neo-Marxist theorists have exerted a substantial impact upon development economics. Western development analysts are becoming more aware of the important role that social groups and their political struggles play in the development process. However, controversy over some key issues of world development rages between the neo-Marxist and dependency theorists and neoclassical economists. A chief element in this controversy is a conviction among dependency theorists that development in backward areas is related through the international market to the developed countries and is "blocked" because of its integration into the world capitalist system. Moreover, this integration is hypothesized to lead to the underdevelopment of Third World societies. Dependency theorists contend that because of the introduction of capitalism from outside, Third World economies are weak and national business groups in these countries are unable to launch and sustain industrialization. Furthermore, they argue that relations between developed countries and underdeveloped nations are relations of dependence. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Samir Amin's views on the role of agriculture in the development process of the Third World countries.


To investigate genetic background of current EV71 isolates in Fujian province and track possible mutations occurred in circulating EV71 strains,the complete genome of EV71 strain 2010FJLY008 was sequenced,which were isolated from specimens of an HFMD patient in Fujian in 2010,and the homology comparison and phylogenetic analysis were conducted.Sequence analysis revealed that the full-length of 2010FJLY008 strain was 7403bp,sharing the high homology with Fuyang17.08-2 both in nucleotide and amino acid sequences,with 98.2% identity in nucleotides and 99.5% in amino acids,respectively.The full-length VP1 region and genome-based phylogenetic analysis also indicated that strain 2010FJLY008 had the near genetic relationship with Fuyang17.08-2,in that both belonged to the same subgenotype,C4a.EV71 strain 2010FJLY008 had the close relationship with Fuyang17.08-2 in genomic structure,homology comparison of nucleotides and amino acids,the full-length VP1 region and genome-based phylogenetic analysis,however,no obvious antigenic drift or mutations were observed.


An image after tone mapping (TM) has noise bias, i.e., noise values with a non-zero mean, because of the non-linearity of the TM function. Therefore, noise reduction filters based on the zero-mean assumption do not work well for such images. To overcome this limitation, noise bias compensation (NBC) divides pixels into subsets depending on their values and adaptively adjusts them using a Bayesian approach. However, previous studies on NBC target only gray-scale images and assume that the noise mean before TM is zero. This paper proposes a method for NBC that targets color images processed by TM with a non-zero noise mean. The proposed method adaptively calculates the compensation values based on prior knowledge that represents noise corresponding to each pixel value of RGB channels with a Bayesian approach. Experimental results show this Bayesian approach successfully reduces noise even for color images containing noise with a non-zero mean.


In order to understand enzymatic alteration during the restricted-to-fed feeding schedules in cycles, the modulation of key enzyme activities in digestion was studied in different part of gastrointestinal track of juvenile gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata). Juveniles (6.4 g) were stocked into 12 tanks at a density of 16 fish per tank. Four different feeding schedules were tested on triplicate groups of juvenile fish: (1) fish were fed to apparent satiation twice a day throughout 48 days, (2) starvation for 1 day and then re-fed for 2 days (S1), (3) 50% satiation for 2 days and then re-fed to apparent satiation for 2 days (R2), (4) 50% satiation for 6 days and then re-fed to apparent satiation for another 6 days (R6). The activity of total protease, amylase and lipase in the control group was higher than those S1 and R6 in whole gastrointestinal track. The restricted feeding in R2 enhanced the activities of lipase, amylase, and, to some extent, total protease in fish, with the mostly pronounced effect exhibited in the pyloric caeca. Generally, total protease and lipase activity of fish in R2 exhibited no significant difference compared to the control, except amylase activity in mid-intestine. Thus, because of preserved digestive enzyme activities, some food restriction (R2) cycles may be recommended as a routine procedure in commercial production of juvenile gilthead sea bream.


Proline plays important role in osmo-adjusment and prevention of osmotic stress in plants. In order to analyze osmotic stress resistance, germination and growth pattern in vitro and in vivo, the Arabidopsis thalianaδ-1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase (P5CS) which is the regulatory enzyme of proline biosynthesis, was reverse transcribed, amplified into double stranded cDNA, cloned and transformed into tobacco using Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation. Seeds of chimeric T0 transgenic plants were grown; T1 and the succeeding T2 transgenic plants were obtained. Subsequently, wild type and binary vector transformed control plants along with T2 transgenic lines were exposed to salt concentrations from 0 to 250 mM during germination and growth stages. Results showed a significant difference (P < 0.0001) between T2 and control plants, while the control plants germinated in the presence of salt concentrations up to 50 mM and tolerated 100 mM salt during growth phase. Transgenic T2 lines were able to germinate in 200 mM NaCl and tolerated up to 250 mM salt during growth phase. Assessing proline contents, we observed 7.5 times more proline in T2 transgenic plants than control plants in normal condition which increased up to 3.3 folds in stress condition. This osmotic stress resistance was further assessed for T3 generation against drought and salt stresses in vivo. Results indicated osmotic stress resistance of T3 generation as well as stable expression of P5CS along with achievement of homozygous transgenic lines. Key words : δ-1-Pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase (P5CS), osmotic stress, transgenic plants, germination, growth phase.


Compositional variations between chondrite groups and the inventory of short–lived nuclides once present in them are consistent with an origin in the accretion disc of a T Tauri protosun. T Tauri outbursts reprocessed infalling matter, part of which was recycled back into the disc. Chondrites and rapidly cooled igneous meteorites together form the basis of a chronology of events over the first 50 Myr of Solar System history. Chondrites contain evidence of hypervelocity impact within 2 Myr of the formation of the Solar System. This requires the local presence of a Jupiter–massed object to pump up relative velocities. Capture of an interstellar cloudlet, which subsequently underwent gravitational collapse, or of an unbound planet is implied. Capture at a low inclination and high eccentricity would have stirred the matter in the accretion disc, triggered planetesimal formation and growth, stabilized the orbit of the proto–Jupiter, and ended the T Tauri phase of the protosun.


A
photoacoustic (PA) imaging that utilizes acoustic detection of sound generated
by a specimen due to the absorption of modulated light was applied to measure
the amount of the pollen of the Cryptomeria
japonica, Asian allergic plant.
High-sensitivity PA imaging can measure pollen particles with a large dynamic
range from single particle to several hundred micrograms. The PA signal
dependence on the amount of the pollen showed good correlation with the amount
of pollen.


Earth's geomagnetic field has undergone critical changes in the past. Studies on the influence of the magnetic field on Earth's organisms are crucial for the understanding of evolution of life on Earth and astrobiological considerations. Numerous studies conducted both on plants and animals confirmed the significant influence of the geomagnetic field on the metabolism of living organisms. Water bears (Tardigrada), which are a mong the most resistant animals due to their cryptobiotic abilities, show significant resistance to a number of environmental stressors, but the influence of the geomagnetic field on their fitness has not been addressed before. In our studies, we used eutardigrade Hypsibius dujardini to analyse whether isolation from the geomagnetic field had an effect on mortality. We found that Hypsibius dujardini specimens demonstrated relatively high mortality during anhydrobiosis, also in control groups exposed to the normal geomagnetic field. Moreover, similar mortality was observed in anhydrobiotic specimens isolated from the geomagnetic field. However, a significant difference was noted between tardigrade survival and the moment of their isolation from the geomagnetic field. In particular, tardigrade mortality substantially increased in absence of a magnetic field during the process of entering anhydrobiosis and returning to active life. Our results suggest that these processes rely on complex metabolic processes that are critically influenced by the geomagnetic field.


This article considers the case of Virginia, a social work practicum student who experienced conflict in her field placement, in light of Heilbrun's notion of liminality—that is, being poised on uncertain ground, leaving one condition or self and entering another. In addition, Virginia's experience is explored within the complex web of power and resistance that characterized her relationship with the field instructor, the agency director, and the school.


Advanced electronics, energy storage and harvesting, etc. applications employ devices combining nano-thick layers of dielectric, semiconductor and metal materials. Electrical characteristics of such highly-scaled materials stacks are found to be strongly influenced by the charge transfer across the layers. Charge transfer processes are controlled, to a great degree, by the interface regions, their structure and composition being modified by the inter-materials interaction affected by stack fabrication conditions. These complex systems pose new challenges for analyzing charge transfer processes, which are sensitive to even extremely small concentrations of electrically active defects. In order to identify these defects, the critical task is to link the atomic-level structural features of multicomponent ultra-thin material stacks to their electrical characteristics affected by charge transfer. We focus on analyzing oxide structural features responsible for the charge transfer by combining a variety of electrical measurement techniques with high time and spatial resolutions that allow capturing fast transient charging processes and differentiating signals from different regions through the depth of the multi-layer stacks. These data are used to fit the results of simulations of the physical processes underlying the electrical measurements in order to extract spatial and energy profiles of electrically active centers. The extracted characteristics are, in turn, compared to the atomic-level material modeling data to pinpoint atomic and energy material characteristics responsible for the electrical properties, thus, providing a helpful feedback to optimize the device fabrication process. We discuss examples of implementations of this approach for analysis and optimization of a variety of ultra-thin layers devices.


ABSTRACT This article presents a novel approach for estimation of the residual attitude of a remote-sensing satellite based on satellite images with ancillary information and ground control points (GCPs). First, a non-linear model which translates the residual errors in roll, pitch, and yaw to scan-errors and pixel-errors in the image space is established. Subsequently, using the model and given scan-errors and pixel-errors at GCPs, an estimate of residual roll, pitch, and yaw based on the least square minimization of residuals in conjunction with the Newton's method for non-linear optimization is proposed. A simulation is carried out to show that the estimates of residual roll and pitch are within 0.0008° (equivalent to 0.5 pixel) and the residual yaw is within 0.015° (equivalent to 0.75 pixel at the extreme ends) to its true values. The results of the article can be applied to determine the residual attitude of any remote-sensing satellite. We demonstrate our results by estimating the residual attitude based on the data-products of various Indian remote-sensing satellites. The effectiveness of the approach is shown by comparing the results with that of existing technique and it is concluded that the presented technique estimates residual attitude more accurately than the existing method.


SIR,-In a recent leading article on headache (April 1, p. 957) a paper which I and a colleague wrote was quoted.' In this paper we stressed the fact that facial pain could sometimes be relieved by putting sufferers in a plaster collar of the Minerva type. Since this date we have seen a large number of patients complaining of constant unilateral facial pain, usually in the cheek and orbit, many of whom have had a series of treatment without success, including psychotherapy, and in whom the wearing of a plaster collar has dramatically relieved the symptoms. All these cases have been elderly people suffering from severe cervical spondylitis, and I am certain that they are not merely tension states but that the pain is organic referred pain associated with the abnormality of the cervical spine. It is difficult to explain the exact anatomical mechanism, but there is no doubt at all in my mind that in this group facial pain can be dramatically relieved by the application of a plaster collar. This is not denying the fact that there is a group of people with facial pain who become obsessional and have a psychological motivation, but many of the cases we have had to deal with have had no evidence of psychological instability.-I am, etc.,


An extensive body of evidence exists of the impact that specific edge labelings have on the communication complexity of distributed problems. It has been long suspected that these very different labelings share a common property, named sense of direction. In spite of the large number of investigations, and of the obvious practical importance, a formal characterization of this property did not exist. In this paper, we finally provide a formal definition of sense of direction, making explicit the very specific relationship between three factors: the labeling, the topological structure, and the local view that an entity has of the system. In a way, sense of direction is the capability of a node in the system to use the labeling to translate the local view of its neighbors into its own. Using the formal definition as an observational platform, we describe several properties which allow the translation process to be possible beyond the immediate neighborhood. Finally, we identify four general classes of labelings and analyze their properties; these classes include all the labelings used in the literature.


Arteriovenous fistula is defined as an abnormal communication between the arterial and venous systems. The complexity of congenital arteriovenous malformations makes treatment challenging. We present the case of a 23-year-old woman who had a complex congenital arteriovenous malformation in her left leg and a history of 2 unsuccessful coil-embolization procedures. We ligated all the feeding arteries of the arteriovenous malformation in the region of the superficial femoral artery, and the surgery was successful without sequelae. The patient returned 2 years later with thrombosis of the great saphenous vein and underwent a second operation. The thrombosed vein and all varicosities were excised successfully. Surgery can be an effective method for correcting complex congenital arteriovenous malformations, especially in the lower limbs. A 2-staged surgical approach like ours might be a good option in suitable patients.


A formal haloalkynylation of allenamides has been described for the synthesis of highly stereo- and regioselective skipped halo enynes. Exclusive γ-regioselectivity is achieved through the intermediacy of a conjugated N-tosyliminium intermediate-direct evidence for the formation of which was validated by NMR and HRMS. Quantum mechanical computations reveal that the reactive intermediate geometry is key to controlling the 1,2- or 1,4-regioselectivity of alkyne interception. Divergent access to elusive unsaturated systems has also been reported.


OBJECTIVE In view of the recognised clustering of autoimmune diseases (AID), the chronology of development of other autoimmune diseases in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients was considered. METHODS A retrospective review of a well documented population of 215 patients with SLE was undertaken. The duration of follow up ranged from 2 to 18 years. RESULTS Of these 215 patients, 65 (30%) had at least one other AID—including 51 (24%) having one other AID, 12 (6%) having two and two (1%) having three other AID in addition to their SLE. Twelve different autoimmune diseases were identified. The majority of patients developed a further AID after SLE had been diagnosed (62%) reflecting the relatively early age of onset of SLE. There was no significant difference in the age of onset of rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren's syndrome and hypothyroidism that had developed before SLE compared with those who developed these diseases after SLE. However, those who developed autoimmune thrombocytopenia (AITP) before SLE were significantly younger than those who developed AITP after SLE (16.7 v38.7 years respectively, p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Physicians caring for SLE patients should remain alert to the possible development of a second AID during follow up. Further well matched case-control studies are required to define the exact relation between SLE and other AID.


We study isochronous centres of plane polynomial Hamiltonian systems, and more generally, isochronous Morse critical points of complex polynomial Hamiltonian functions. Our first result is that if the Hamiltonian function H is a non-degenerate semi-weighted homogeneous polynomial, then it cannot have an isochronous Morse critical point, unless the associate Hamiltonian system is linear, that is to say H is of degree two. Our second result gives a topological obstruction for isochronicity. Namely, let be a continuous family of one-cycles contained in the complex level set , and vanishing at an isochronous Morse critical point of H, as . We prove that if H is a good polynomial with only simple isolated critical points and the level set contains a single critical point, then represents a zero homology cycle on the Riemann surface of the algebraic curve . We give several examples of `non-trivial' complex Hamiltonians with isochronous Morse critical points and explain how their study is related to the famous Jacobian conjecture.


Sweetener is one of the food ingredients that consumed the most by humans. Sweeteners are classified into artificial and natural sweeteners. The excessive consumption of artificial sweeteners could lead into many diseases, such as obesity, cancer, etc. Moreover, the consumption of sweeteners increases significantly, but the sweeteners production in Indonesia still couldn't balance the populations' demand. Stevia contains glycosides which are up to 450 times sweeter than sucrose, but with low calories. The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of feed to solvent ratio (F:S) and Stevia leaves' size variation to the extract's concentration. This research was carried out using solid extraction method with an agitated tank. Stevia leaves were extracted with aquadest as the solvent at 60°C for 2 hours with feed to solvent ratio variations (1:100, 1:150, and 1:200) and leaves' sizes variations (without mesh, -20+30 mesh, -40+60 mesh). The extracts then were analyzed using colorimeter and turbidimeter to determine the extracts' concentrations, and also organoleptic testing. The results showed a tendency. From F:S=1:100, 1:150, and 1:200, the higher F:S, the lower the extract's concentration obtained. On the other hand, the smaller the Stevia leaves, then the higher the extract's concentration obtained.


Multi-chip scheduler implementation in IQ switches are suited to reduce the hardware complexity in very large, high-speed, switches. However, this implies introducing a RTTs (Round Trip Time) among input and output selectors used to determine a matching due to inter-chip latency. This delay requires modifications to scheduling algorithms to allow a fully distributed implementation while keeping good performance. We propose a novel multicast scheduler, named IMRR, an extension of a previously proposed multicast scheduling algorithm named mRRM, making it suitable to a multi-chip implementation, and examine its performance by simulation.


Background: Metastatic tumors are the most common central nervous system (CNS) tumors wherein the primary site remains unknown in most of the cases. Aim: The study was carried out to evaluate metastatic CNS tumors with unknown primary by using simplified diagnostic (clinico-histopathologic) approach. Material and Methods: A 2 years study was conducted on 32 cases of CNS metastases having unknown primary tumors in a neurosciences institute. Statistical Analysis: All the results were prepared using software version of SPSS 22. Results: The most common metastatic site found in brain was cerebrum (59.3%) [frontal > frontoparietal > parieto-occipital > temporal] [left cerebrum > right cerebrum], followed by cerebellum (12.5%), spinal cord (9.3%), and leptomeninges (3.12%). Most of the metastatic tumors presented as ill-defined (34%) rather than well-defined (22%) lesions with ring enhancement seen only in 16% of the cases on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).On histopathology findings with targeted immunohistochemistry, most common histological tumor type identified irrespective of site was adenocarcinoma (68.7%), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (15.6%) and poorly differentiated carcinoma (12.5%). Only one case of lymphoma was reported. Corroborating all the above findings along with clinical history and other relevant investigations, primary sites could be detected in 23 cases (71.8%).The most common primary site deduced was lungs (39.1%), followed by thyroid (17.3%), breast in females (13.0%), gastrointestinal tract (8.6%), and prostate in males (4.3%). Only in nine cases (28.1%) with mainly poorly differentiated histopathological type, primary site remained unknown. Conclusion: Detection of the primary site in metastatic CNS tumors is possible by adopting this simple and effective diagnostic approach at centers/hospitals having cost and other constraints.


This paper reflects on the emotional geography of a place; one part of the Yanyuwa people's Indigenous homelands in northern Australia. It offers a biography of a Yanyuwa place that is deemed 'too strong to ever not be there'. There is no discreet past or present chapter in the story of this place, rather there is a continual narrative that exists right here and now, one that is embodied in emotional engagements drawn from people's connections to the spirit ancestors, the 'old people', today's youth, land rights, language and education. It is understood as somewhere of great strength, endurance and power, because such traits are revealed through the very name Manankurra. This is the power of a place name. Manankurra remains in memory, despite colonial actions enforcing a physical alienation from this place. Exile and physical estrangement from homelands are too familiar in colonial settings. Despite this, the cultural engagements and emotional geographies that demarcate Yanyuwa homelands, specifically Manankurra, by way of narrative, knowledge and memory were never lost, nor disembodied from the emotional experience of homelands. They surge back to life again and again, across generations, because of triggers in individual and group remembering.


The manuscript is very interesting and presents a promising dataset for the paleofire field. Its efforts towards proxy calibration of charcoal morphology and morphometry represent a key advance. Its experimental characterization of charcoal produced from several new fuel types and taxa, as well as replication of previous experimental productions of charcoal, make it a useful contribution to the field. Mass retention during charcoal production represents a key gap in our understanding of the source to sink controls of sedimentary charcoal, and this manuscript helps to bridge this gap. Lastly, it improves on some of the methodological approaches of earlier experimental productions of charcoal particles.


Bryde's whales, Balaenoptera edeni Anderson, 1879, were observed on 17 occasions (N = 21 surveys) in the coastal waters off Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil during austral summer through autumn 2014. Five whales were individually identified using photo-identification techniques. The mean interval between resightings for all individuals was 12.8 days, with a minimum of one day and a maximum of 48 days. The comparison between the catalogs of Bryde's whales off Rio de Janeiro and the Cabo Frio region revealed matches for three individuals. The resightings show movements of up to 149.6 km along the coastal waters off the state of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the observations consisted of solitary individuals (82.3% of sightings). Feeding was the predominant behavior observed (47%), followed by milling (35.3%) and travelling (17.6%) in waters up to 48 m deep. Direct observations resulted in the addition of new prey, such as snubnose anchovy, Anchoviella brevirostris (Gunther, 1868) and white snake mackerel, Thyrsitops lepidopoides (Cuvier, 1832), to the known diet of the Bryde's whale. A long time series of photo-identification efforts in the Rio de Janeiro, the Cabo Frio region and other areas can elucidate fundamental aspects of spatial and temporal site fidelity knowledge of Bryde's whales in southeastern Brazil.


Abstract Background. Some studies have shown improved outcomes with helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) transport, while others have not. Safety concerns and cost have prompted reevaluation of the widespread use of HEMS. Objective. To determine whether the mode of transport of trauma patients affects mortality. Methods. Data for 56,744 injured adults aged ≥18 years transported to 62 U.S. trauma centers by helicopter or ground ambulance were obtained from the National Sample Program of the 2007 National Trauma Data Bank. In-hospital mortality was calculated for different demographic and injury severity groups. Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) were produced by utilizing a logistic regression model measuring the association of mortality and type of transport, controlling for age, gender, and injury severity (Injury Severity Score [ISS] and Revised Trauma Score [RTS]). Results. The odds of death were 39% lower in those transported by HEMS compared with those transported by ground ambulance (AOR = 0.61, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.54–0.69). Among those aged ≥55 years, the odds of death were not significantly different (AOR = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.74–1.13). Among all transports, male patients had a higher odds of death (AOR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.10–1.38) than female patients. The odds of death increased with each year of age (AOR = 1.040, 95% CI = 1.037–1.043) and each unit of ISS (AOR = 1.080, 95% CI = 1.075–1.084), and decreased with each unit of RTS (AOR = 0.46, 95% CI = 0.45–0.48). Conclusion. The use of HEMS for the transport of adult trauma patients was associated with reduced mortality for patients aged 18–54 years. In this study, HEMS did not improve mortality in adults aged ≥55 years. Identification of additional variables in the selection of those patients who will benefit from HEMS transport is expected to enhance this reduction in mortality.


We examine transport through a spin-1/2 Kondo impurity, patterned between atomic scale electrodes in the presence of side-coupled nanographene ake. Impurity is attached to the edge of the ake, what allows to test the edge states. The Kotliar Ruckenstein slave boson approach is adopted to describe the strongly correlated impurity. We show that transport measurement of Fano-Kondo e ect can serve as a spectroscopic probe of spin resolved graphene ake energy levels. The edge moments can be completely suppressed by gate voltage.


Abstract A new freely-falling ocean profiler for measuring finescale variations in temperature, salinity and horizontal velocity and microscale variations in temperature, conductivity, velocity and refractive index has been constructed. The High Resolution Profiler (HRP) features: full ocean depth capability, a microcomputer to control sampling, data storage and operations, solid state mass storage, and commercially available sensors. A special handling rig facilitates deployment and recovery at sea. Because the data are transferred electronically to a microcomputer for archiving, the instrument can be redeployed after use without opening the pressure case. Twenty to forty drops can be made before the battery needs to be replaced. Several different sensor configurations are possible, depending on the type of small-scale mixing process of interest. By observing both finestructure and microstructure with one instrument, it is possible to study the relationship between the finescale driving forces and the sm...


In cryptocurrency-based permissionless blockchain networks, the decentralized structure enables any user to join and operate across different regions. The criminal entities exploit it by using cryptocurrency transactions on the blockchain to facilitate activities such as money laundering, gambling, and ransomware attacks. In recent times, different machine learning-based techniques can detect such criminal elements based on blockchain transaction data. However, there is no provision within the blockchain to deal with such elements. We propose a reputation-based methodology for response to the users detected carrying out the aforementioned illicit activities. We select Algorand blockchain to implement our methodology by incorporating it within the consensus protocol. The theoretical results obtained prove the restriction and exclusion of criminal elements through block proposal rejection and attenuation of the voting power as a validator for such entities. Further, we analyze the efficacy of our method and show that it puts no additional strain on the communication resources.


In 2012, the Israel Supreme Court handed down its decision in the appeal of Sabbar Kashur, who had been convicted of rape by deception regarding the perpetrator's identity and of indecent assault. The conviction had been based on a section in the Israel Penal Law that defines rape as consensual sexual intercourse with a woman if her consent was obtained by deception regarding the perpetrator's identity or the nature of the act. Kashur had been convicted for deception relating to national identity, with the court of first instance ruling that he had "falsely" represented himself as a Jew and with regard to his personal status. His indictment and conviction generated intense public and legal debate around questions of sex, nationality, and the link between the two. That same year also saw the partial lifting of the publication ban on a case that had culminated in conviction for rape by deception relating to the perpetrator's identity where the charge had been for gender impersonation. This was the second instance in Israel of a conviction in such circumstances.
In this Article, I will discuss questions that arise with regard to the use of the rape-by-deception charge in cases relating to issues of identity — gender and national — and crossing its boundaries. I will not explore the entire range of criminal law issues that this offense raises. Rather, I will consider how the case law on nationality impersonation and gender impersonation can shed light on how the gender-national order is preserved against boundary crossing by the criminal law rules governing rape by deception regarding the perpetrator's identity.


Guanylate binding protein 2 (GBP2) is a member of the guanine binding protein family, and its relationship with prognostic outcomes and tumor immune microenvironments in glioma remains elusive. We found GBP2 were increased in glioma tissues at both mRNA and protein levels. Kaplan-Meier curves revealed that high GBP2 expression was linked with worse survival of glioma patients, and multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that high GBP2 expression was an independent prognostic factor for glioma. Combined analysis in immune database revealed that the expression of GBP2 was significantly related to the level of immune infiltration and immunomodulators. Single-cell analysis illustrated the high expression of GBP2 in malignant glioma cells showed the high antigen presentation capability, which were confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) data. Additionally, the hsa-mir-26b-5p and hsa-mir-335-5p were predicted as GBP2 regulators and were validated in U87 and U251 cells. Our results first decipher immune-related characteristics and noncoding regulators of GBP2 in glioma, which may provide insights into associated immunotherapies and prognostic predictor.


Comparing space proton event data obtained during 1970-1980 with their identified Ha flare signatures we discover a peculiar correlation between them,according to which weak and small Ha flares can also produce proton events, and we reveal a characteristic "triangle" distribution of Ha flares accompanying proton events. In order to explain such feature of proton events, we accept the acceleration mechanism by DC electric field. To deduce the parallel electric field we use the electric current helicity (or force-free parameter α) determined by the Huairou vector magnetograph. A comparison of E|| with E⊥ shows that the former is negligible in flaring sites. We show that in the flaring current sheet ion-anisotropy is generated, and it, in turn, gives rise to ion-anisotropic instability which competes with electric acceleration to give one possibility: the acceleration by DC electric field or annihilation of the built-up energy. The competition of DC acceleration and ionanisotropic instability annihilation in the current sheet gives a possible explanation for the above-mentioned "triangle" character of the distribution.


We present a revised measurement of the optical extragalactic background light (EBL), based on the contribution of resolved galaxies to the integrated galaxy light (IGL). The cosmic optical background radiation (COB), encodes the light generated by starformation, and provides a wealth of information about the cosmic star formation history (CSFH). We combine wide and deep galaxy number counts from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey (GAMA) and Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS), along with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive and other deep survey datasets, in 9 multi-wavelength filters to measure the COB in the range from 0.35 μm to 2.2 μm. We derive the luminosity density in each band independently and show good agreement with recent and complementary estimates of the optical-EBL from very high-energy (VHE) experiments. Our error analysis suggests that the IGL and γ-ray measurements are now fully consistent to within ∼10%, suggesting little need for any additional source of diffuse light beyond the known galaxy population. We use our revised IGL measurements to constrain the cosmic star-formation history, and place amplitude constraints on a number of recent estimates. As a consistency check, we can now demonstrate convincingly, that the CSFH, stellar mass growth, and the optical-EBL provide a fully consistent picture of galaxy evolution. We conclude that the peak of star-formation rate lies in the range 0.066 − 0.076 M⊙yr−1 Mpc−3 at a lookback time of 9.1 to 10.9 Gyrs.


Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome (DS), is a genetic disorder affecting approximately 1 in 500–750 live births. The prevalence of DS has increased over the past two decades, correlating with a rise in the proportion of pregnancies complicated by advanced maternal age. There is also a correlation between advanced maternal age and dizygotic twinning rates. There is an increased risk of at least one twin being affected in dizygotic pregnancies compared to singletons. However, despite this greater relative risk, reports of concordance of DS in both dizygotic twins are very rare. Congenital heart disease (CHD) occurs in roughly 40% of individuals with DS, but there can be considerable phenotypic variation. The most common, atrioventricular septal defect accounts for only 40% of CHD seen in DS. There is also a higher incidence of CHD in twins, but also with a low incidence of concordance. There have been only five reported cases of concordant DS in dizygotic twins with confirmed chromosomal analyses; none of which describe concordant congenital heart disease. Here, we describe an unusual case of dizygotic twins of differing genders concordant for both Down syndrome and congenital heart disease of a strikingly similar presentation.


Interpretation of aerial images is an important task in various military and non-military applications. Image segmentation can be viewed as the essential step of extracting features in aerial images. Among many developed segmentation methods, the clustering methods have been extensively investigated and used. The determination of the number of clusters in a dataset is inherently a difficult problem, especially when the a priori information on the dataset is unavailable. In this paper, we propose a genetic algorithm-based clustering approach for aerial image segmentation. Our approach has two advantages: it can automatically determine the proper number of clusters and cluster the data according to the cluster validity index. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated in conjunction with two cluster validity indices, namely Davies-Bouldin index and Xie-Beni index, respectively. Experimental results are provided to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.


We propose a framework grounded in Logic Programming for representing and reasoning about business processes from both the procedural and ontological point of views. In particular, our goal is threefold: (1) define a logical language and a formal semantics for process models enriched with ontology-based annotations; (2) provide an effective inference mechanism that supports the combination of reasoning services dealing with the structural definition of a process model, its behavior, and the domain knowledge related to the participating business entities; (3) implement such a theoretical framework into a process modeling and reasoning platform. To this end we define a process ontology coping with a relevant fragment of the popular BPMN modeling notation. The behavioral semantics of a process is defined as a state transition system by following an approach similar to the Fluent Calculus, and allows us to specify state change in terms of preconditions and effects of the enactment of activities. Then we show how the procedural process knowledge can be seamlessly integrated with the domain knowledge specified by using the OWL 2 RL rule-based ontology language. Our framework provides a wide range of reasoning services, including CTL model checking, which can be performed by using standard Logic Programming inference engines through a goal-oriented, efficient, sound and complete evaluation procedure. We also present a software environment implementing the proposed framework, and we report on an experimental evaluation of the system, whose results are encouraging and show the viability of the approach.


Religion is often regarded as posing a distinct challenge to the occupational norms of cultural production and journalism due to its subjectivities and complexities. Based on research with staff involved in the production of content for BBC television and radio, this article explores the occupational context in which they work. In particular, it focuses on the experiences and strategies of the BBC's Department of Religion and Ethics as it attempts to secure its survival as an autonomous production unit. This group of executives, producers, presenters and production staff are in many ways unique because of the professional and social role that they fulfil, most notably through the close historical and ideological ties between religion and the principles of public service.

This research finds a distinct professional identity built around a fusion of public service logic and commercialism, along with the mobilization of specialist knowledge. This allows the department to symbolically and discursively separate itself from other actors in this field as it attempts to reinforce religious broadcasting's professional distinctiveness at a crucial time in the survival of the unit and to highlight the uniqueness of religion as a topic within cultural production.


This paper deals with experimental methods for the identification of linear synchronous reluctance motor (LSRM) parameters. A magnetically nonlinear two-axis dynamic LSRM model is derived. This model accounts for the effects of slotting, saturation, cross-saturation, and the end effects. The parameters of the obtained model are not constant. They are given by the characteristics of the flux linkages, thrust, and friction force depending on the mover position and the direct (d) and quadrature (q) axis currents. These characteristics are determined experimentally by a controlled voltage-source inverter employing closed-loop current control in the d-q reference frame. The proposed model, experimental methods, and determined characteristics are confirmed through a comparison between the measured and calculated results. Two tests are performed: a test at the locked mover, and kinematic control at low speed. The effects of cross saturation under dynamic operating conditions and the effects of slotting can be clearly seen in the measured and calculated results.


Introduction: Malnutrition though prevalent during hospitalization is often unrecognized in geriatric population. The study aimed to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among hospitalized geriatric patients undergoing elective surgery using a standardized nutritional tool and to find association between the pre-operative nutritional status and post-operative clinical outcomes.
Materials and Methods: This observational follow up study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital of Central India. Total 90 patients were included. Each patient's nutritional status was determined by MNA (Mini Nutritional Assessment) scale within 24 hours of admission and required anthropometric and biochemical parameters were also collected preoperatively. Patients were followed with respect to surgical wound healing and length of hospital stay.
Results: MNA tool detected the prevalence of malnutrition (under-nutrition) at 60%, and at risk of Malnourishment at 24%. These patients experienced significantly prolonged hospital stay after surgery (p
Conclusion: Large number of geriatric surgical patients are malnourished or at risk for malnutrition. MNA, a simple low skilled tool that can be conducted by paramedics can identify this with good accuracy and help in nutritional planning and lowering postoperative complications.

Keywords: Nutritional status. Surgical geriatric in patients, MNA.


The factors in this paper aim to explain the decrease in revenues for one of McDonald's international lead markets despite having a huge pool of assets, resources and knowledge in the fast food industry. The paper aims to analyze McDonald's operations in Germany. In particular, this paper focuses on the importance of franchising strategies and market expansion of McDonald's scale. This case contains concepts for senior level undergraduate and graduate students. This paper can be used for discussion on strategic management and international business classes.


We studied 40 patients, 18-60 yr, undergoing orthopaedic surgery of the lower limb under spinal anaesthesia. A midline lumbar puncture was performed in the L3-4 interspace using a 27-gauge needle with the patient in the lateral horizontal position. Plain bupivacaine 3 ml at room temperature was injected. The cephalad level of analgesia was assessed by pinprick 60 min after injection of local anaesthetic, at the end of surgery and again after the patient was moved into bed. All patients had a segmental level of the block of L1-T5 at the beginning of the study. The upper half of the patient's body was then tilted to a 30 degrees head-up position. Segmental spread was subsequently assessed by pinprick at 5-min intervals for 30 min. In six of the 40 patients (15%), increased cephalad spread of spinal analgesia occurred. The mean time from induction of spinal anaesthesia was shorter in these six patients (mean 92 min, range 80-115 min) than in the patients whose block did not change or was decreasing during the 30-min test (mean 119 min, range 83-210 min) (P < 0.05). We conclude that the patient should remain in the supine horizontal position until recovery from the spinal block.


Abstract The proper functions and values of a two-dimensional field (pollution concentration over St. Louis) were found using the discrete matrix method and a continuous integral equation method. For the matrix case, statistical tests were applied to determine the number of significant proper values/functions. In the integral equation case, the number of significant proper functions were determined from the self-consistency of equally valid quadrature methods. It was found that there were only about half as many significant proper functions using the integral equation formulation as were found using statistical methods.


Abstract. Organic matter–mineral associations stabilize much of the carbon (C) stored globally in soils. Metastable short-range-order (SRO) minerals such as allophane and ferrihydrite provide one mechanism for long-term stabilization of organic matter in young soil. However, in soils with few SRO minerals and a predominance of crystalline aluminosilicate or Fe (and Al) oxyhydroxide, C turnover should be governed by chemisorption with those minerals. Here, we correlate mineral composition from soils containing small amounts of SRO minerals with mean turnover time (TT) of C estimated from radiocarbon (14C) in bulk soil, free light fraction and mineral-associated organic matter. We varied the mineral amount and composition by sampling ancient soils formed on different lithologies in arid to subhumid climates in Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa. Mineral contents in bulk soils were assessed using chemical extractions to quantify Fe oxyhydroxides and SRO minerals. Because of our interest in the role of silicate clay mineralogy, particularly smectite (2 : 1) and kaolinite (1 : 1), we separately quantified the mineralogy of the clay-sized fraction using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and measured 14C on the same fraction. Density separation demonstrated that mineral associated C accounted for 40–70 % of bulk soil organic C in A and B1 horizons for granite, nephelinite and arid-zone gabbro soils, and > 80 % in other soils. Organic matter strongly associated with the isolated clay-sized fraction represented only 9–47 % of the bulk soil C. The mean TT of C strongly associated with the clay-sized fraction increased with the amount of smectite (2 : 1 clays); in samples with > 40 % smectite it averaged 1020 ± 460 years. The C not strongly associated with clay-sized minerals, including a combination of low-density C, the C associated with minerals of sizes between 2 µm and 2 cm (including Fe oxyhydroxides as coatings), and C removed from clay-sized material by 2 % hydrogen peroxide had TTs averaging 190 ± 190 years in surface horizons. Summed over the bulk soil profile, we found that smectite content correlated with the mean TT of bulk soil C across varied lithologies. The SRO mineral content in KNP soils was generally very low, except for the soils developed on gabbros under more humid climate that also had very high Fe and C contents with a surprisingly short, mean C TTs. In younger landscapes, SRO minerals are metastable and sequester C for long timescales. We hypothesize that in the KNP, SRO minerals represent a transient stage of mineral evolution and therefore lock up C for a shorter time. Overall, we found crystalline Fe-oxyhydroxides (determined as the difference between Fe in dithionate citrate and oxalate extractions) to be the strongest predictor for soil C content, while the mean TT of soil C was best predicted from the amount of smectite, which was also related to more easily measured bulk properties such as cation exchange capacity or pH. Combined with previous research on C turnover times in 2 : 1 vs. 1 : 1 clays, our results hold promise for predicting C inventory and persistence based on intrinsic timescales of specific carbon–mineral interactions.


The susceptibility of segmented polyurethanes (SPUs) to in vivo oxidative cleavage and hydrolysis constitutes a drawback in the use of these materials in the fabrication of implantable devices. The introduction of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) groups into the polymer main chain has been previously reported to enhance the stability of SPUs. Herein, we evaluated the use of BioSpan-S, a silicone-modified SPU, in the design of membranes for cation-selective electrodes. The resulting electrodes exhibited good potentiometric response with all of the tested ionophores (valinomycin, sodium ionophore X, and nonactin). The obtained selectivity coefficients meet the selectivity requirements for the determination of sodium and potassium in blood. Moreover, as reflected by SEM studies, membranes prepared with BioSpan-S showed less adhesion of platelets than membranes prepared with conventional poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC). These results lead to the conclusion that BioSpan-S would be an appropriate candidate for the fabrication of implantable ion-selective electrodes.


In recent years, many researchers have focused on developing a feasible solution for storing and exchanging medical images in the field of health care. Current practices are deployed on cloud-based centralized data centers, which increase maintenance costs, require massive storage space, and raise privacy concerns about sharing information over a network. Therefore, it is important to design a framework to enable sharing and storing of big medical data efficiently within a trustless environment. In the present paper, we propose a novel proof-of-concept design for a distributed patient-centric image management (PCIM) system that is aimed to ensure safety and control of patient private data without using a centralized infrastructure. In this system, we employed an emerging Ethereum blockchain and a distributed file system technology called Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS). Then, we implemented an Ethereum smart contract called the patient-centric access control protocol to enable a distributed and trustworthy access control policy. IPFS provides the means for decentralized storage of medical images with global accessibility. We describe how the PCIM system architecture facilitates the distributed and secured patient-centric data access across multiple entities such as hospitals, patients, and image requestors. Finally, we deployed a smart contract prototype on an Ethereum testnet blockchain and evaluated the proposed framework within the Windows environment. The evaluation results demonstrated that the proposed scheme is efficient and feasible.


We propose a new approach, CCRBoost, to identify the hierarchical structure of spatio-temporal patterns at different resolution levels and subsequently construct a predictive model based on the identified structure. To accomplish this, we first obtain indicators within different spatio-temporal spaces from the raw data. A distributed spatio-temporal pattern (DSTP) is extracted from a distribution, which consists of the locations with similar indicators from the same time period, generated by multi-clustering. Next, we use a greedy searching and pruning algorithm to combine the DSTPs in order to form an ensemble spatio-temporal pattern (ESTP). An ESTP can represent the spatio-temporal pattern of various regularities or a non-stationary pattern. To consider all the possible scenarios of a real-world ST pattern, we then build a model with layers of weighted ESTPs. By evaluating all the indicators of one location, this model can predict whether a target event will occur at this location. In the case study of predicting crime events, our results indicate that the predictive model can achieve 80 percent accuracy in predicting residential burglary, which is better than other methods.


Inspired by the notion of Center of Mass in physics, an extension called Semantic Center of Mass (SCOM) is proposed, and used to discover the abstract "topic" of a document. e notion is under a framework model called Understanding Map Supervised Topic Model (UM-S-TM). e devising aim of UM-S-TM is to let both the document content and a semantic network - specically, Understanding Map - play a role, in interpreting the meaning of a document. Based on dierent justications, three possible methods are devised to discover the SCOM of a document. Some experiments on articial documents and Understanding Maps are conducted to test their outcomes. In addition, its ability of vectorization of documents and capturing sequential information are tested. We also compared UM-S-TM with probabilistic topic models like Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (pLSA).


Despite garbage collectors, programmers must manually manage many non-memory 'finite system resources' such as file descriptors and database connections. Unreleased resources result in 'resource leaks' that degrade application performance and can even result in system crashes. It is hard to test resource leaks because of their no immediate symptoms in the short run. There are analysis techniques to detect resource leaks statically or dynamically. However, all of them require the formal specification as input, which seriously decrease their practicability for common software developers. In this study, the authors propose an easy-to-use yet effective resource leak testing approach for Java programs based on existing finalisers of Java Application Programming Interface (API) classes. They instrument resource classes to check that the cleanup method of a resource object is called before its finaliser's execution. Otherwise, this resource object is leaked. To use this approach, programmers just add a few lines of code into their programs and no formal specifications are required. They carry out experiments on benchmarks in the literature to evaluate the incidence of object finalisation and performance cost of finalisers. Experimental results show that the authors' approach can test leaks of most system resources with high effectiveness and low overhead.


The NMDA subtype of glutamate receptor serves as an attractive drug target for the treatment of disorders evolving from hyper‐ or hypoglutamatergic conditions. Compounds that optimize the function of NMDA receptors are of great clinical significance. Here, we present the pharmacological characterization of a biased allosteric modulator, CNS4. Results indicate that CNS4 sensitizes ambient levels of agonists and reduces higher‐concentration glycine & glutamate efficacy in 1/2AB receptors, but minimally alters these parameters in diheteromeric 1/2A or 1/2B receptors. Glycine efficacy is increased in both 1/2C and 1/2D, while glutamate efficacy is decreased in 1/2C and unaltered in 1/2D. CNS4 does not affect the activity of competitive antagonist binding at glycine (DCKA) and glutamate (DL‐AP5) sites; however, it decreases memantine potency in 1/2A receptors but not in 1/2D receptors. Current–voltage (I‐V) relationship studies indicate that CNS4 potentiates 1/2A inward currents, a phenomenon that was reversed in the absence of permeable Na+ ions. In 1/2D receptors, CNS4 blocks inward currents based on extracellular Ca2+ concentration. Further, CNS4 positively modulates glutamate potency on E781A_1/2A mutant receptors, indicating its role at the distal end of the 1/2A agonist binding domain interface. Together, these findings reveal that CNS4 sensitizes ambient agonists and allosterically modulates agonist efficacy by altering Na+ permeability based on the GluN2 subunit composition. Overall, the pharmacology of CNS4 aligns with the need for drug candidates to treat hypoglutamatergic neuropsychiatric conditions such as loss function GRIN disorders and anti‐NMDA receptor encephalitis.


Among the various EU research projects concerning the medical application of virtual reality, the project Ist-1999-12175, called IERAPSI (Integrated Environment for the Rehearsal and Planning of Surgical Interventions), specifically addressed the creation of a virtual and interactive surgical field for the temporal bone using three-dimensional images derived from CT data. We report on the experience obtained in the IERAPSI project in simulating a canal wall-up mastoidectomy. A surgeon with extensive experience in surgery of the petrous bone performed the mastoidectomy. The operative field included the mastoid, with its substantial differences in density between the cortex and the pneumatized bone, together with soft tissue structures, both on the border and inside the bone. The simulation is better in the first part of the operation than in the second part, suffering from a lack of haptic feedback from soft tissue and the surgical tool in deeper contexts, and under-representation of the variability inherent in pneumatized bone. This said, the excellent representation of dust production and removal, 3D simulation through color, and very good visual and haptic feedback in the early stage of the procedure are impressive. IERAPSI represents a potential surgical planning theater for the training of students and young surgeons, but is also expected to aid expert surgeons in the preoperative planning of difficult cases.


Scanning electron microscopes can be used to analyze almost anything that conducts electricity and is prone to failure, including relays, coils, inductors, capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes, IGBTS, MOSFETS, and hybrid circuits. As the author of the article explains, SEMs are one of the most versatile tools for failure analysis if used to the full extent of their capabilities. Their operating modes include emissive imaging, backscattering, voltage contrast, EBIC or specimen current, and conductivity resistive mapping. The author describes each operating mode and presents examples of the various ways they can be used.


Vps29 is the smallest subunit of retromer complex with metallo‐phosphatase fold. Although the role of metal in Vps29 is in quest, its metal binding mutants has been reported to affect the localization of the retromer complex in human cells. In this study, we report the structural and thermodynamic consequences of these mutations in Vps29 from the protozoan parasite, Entamoeba histolytica (EhVps29). EhVps29 is a zinc binding protein as revealed by X‐ray crystallography and isothermal titration calorimetry. The metal binding pocket of EhVps29 exhibits marked differences in its 3‐dimensional architecture and metal coordination in comparison to its human homologs and other metallo‐phosphatases. Alanine substitutions of the metal‐coordinating residues showed significant alteration in the binding affinity of EhVps29 for zinc. We also determined the crystal structures of metal binding defective mutants (D62A and D62A/H86A) of EhVps29. Based on our results, we propose that the metal atoms or the bound water molecules in the metal binding site are important for maintaining the structural integrity of the protein. Further cellular studies in the amoebic trophozoites showed that the overexpression of wild type EhVps29 leads to reduction in intracellular cysteine protease activity suggesting its crucial role in secretion of the proteases.


At the present stage of computer technology advancement, there are problems of using sequential algorithms and exclusively binaryencoding. These problems require creating computational tools with a new design and using non-binary coding techniques. In this study, a method of formal representation of elementary tests, their domains and pattern systems in the language of predicate algebra was developed for the first time.Formalization of the recalculation rules between the domains of different levels of generality, using the mathematical tool of the algebra of predicates, was carried out. The developed mathematical models, specifying the rules for domain value recalculation, are represented as the corresponding AP structures. For a hardware implementation of the obtained models, the method of presenting algebra-predicate structures in the form of associative-logic converters was used.The obtained AP structures can be used for creating intelligent parallel-action systems, operating in real time


Background A residual dog-ear arising from the traditional Limberg flap transposition sometimes influences the cosmetic outcomes, and the Limberg flap with a subcutaneous pedicle is an innovation applicable to a variety of facial defects and free from the dog-ear. Objective To investigate the outcome of the subcutaneous pedicle Limberg flap for the reconstruction of medium-sized facial skin defects. Materials and Methods From August 2002 to June 2004, the subcutaneous pedicle Limberg flap was designed to repair facial skin defects in 17 patients (19 flaps), and the size of the lesions ranged from 2.0 × 1.9 cm to 5.0 × 4.5 cm. Results All flaps survived with primary healing postoperatively. The patients were followed up from 1 to 22 months, and functionally and cosmetically satisfactory outcomes were achieved. Conclusions This subcutaneous pedicle Limberg flap provides a competitive repair alternative for the treatment of medium-sized skin defects in the face.


A branch-and-cut IP solver is developed for a class of structured 0/1 integer programs arising from a truck dispatching scheduling problem. This problem involves a special class of knapsack equality constraints. Families of facets for the polytopes associated with individual knapsack constraints are identified. In addition, a notion of "conflict graph" is utilized to obtain an approximating node-packing polytope for the convex hull of all 0/1 solutions. The branch-and-cut solver generates cuts based on both the knapsack equality constraints and the approximating node-packing polytope, and incorporates these cuts into a tree-search algorithm that uses problem reformulation and linear programming-based heuristics at each node in the search tree to assist in the solution process. Numerical experiments are performed on large-scale real instances supplied by Texaco Trading & Transportation, Inc. The optimal schedules correspond to cost savings for the company and greater job satisfaction for drivers due to more balanced work schedules and income distribution.


Efficient and cost-effective hardware design of network security processor (NSP) is of vital importance in the present era due to the increasing need of security infrastructure in a wide range of computing applications. Here, the authors propose an NSP in field programmable gate array (FPGA) platform where according to a strict power, throughput, resource, and security priorities, a proposed preferential algorithm chooses a cipher suite to program the hardware. The choice is based on a rank list of available cipher suites depending on efficient system index evaluated in terms of power, throughput, resource, and security data and their given weights by the user. Encryption, hash, and key exchange algorithm along with their architectural variants serve excellent hardware flexibility whose bit files are stored in secure digital memory. The proposed design used an isolated key memory where secret keys are stored in encrypted form along with the hash value. The design is implemented using ISE14.4 suite with ZYNQ7z020-clg484 FPGA platform. The performances of the variants architecture of the crypto algorithms are considerably better in terms of power, throughput, and resource than the existing works reported in the literature.


We report on a case of parthenogenesis in the varanid lizard Varanus panoptes . Parthenogenesis was observed in a female kept alone for three years. A clutch was deposited from which a single egg could be secured and incubated. Incubation was successful and a male specimen hatched. Obviously the newborn was produced without contribution of a father. After the unisexual reproduction, the mother was kept with males and bisexual reproduction was observed, too. We performed DNA Fingerprinting and showed that the parthenogen and its mother exhibit almost identical DNA patterns. The bisexually produced offspring has only a subset of bands in common with the mother and another subset in common with the father. Thus DNA Fingerprinting is in accordance with our observations and confims parthenogenesis. We compare our results with existing cytological models of parthenogenesis and point out the following: 1. The mode of parthenogenesis described here is facultative, as the mother was able to reproduce in the bisexual mode as well. 2. The parthenogen is male and hence not a clone of the mother. 3. Almost complete heredity of maternal Fingerprint markers. All these points considered our case seem to fit to no known model of parthenogenesis exactly. But an additional recombination could result homogamety (would explain the sex of the parthenogen) while expressing almost all maternal bands.


The killing of HIV-infected CD4 T cells by specific CD8 T cells (CTL) requires the presentation of peptide-MHC-I complexes produced during the intracellular degradation of viral proteins by the proteasome and other peptidases, to their cognate T cell receptors. HIV infection induces general cellular activation, which renders cells more susceptible to infection. Whether the activation state of cells alters the expression and activity of the antigen processing machinery and the kinetics and nature of epitopes displayed by MHC-I is not known despite its potential role in altering the efficiency of recognition of infected cells by CTL. We compared the expression and peptidase activities of the antigen processing machinery of primary CD4 T cells upon activation with anti-CD3/CD28 beads or with phytohemagglutinin. In primary CD4 T cells from HIV seronegative individuals, the hydrolytic activities of the proteasome, the expression of several of its subunits and of the peptidase TPP2 significantly increased upon activation. The mass spectrometry analysis of in vitro degradation of 2 long epitope-containing HIV peptides in extracts from CD3/CD28-activated CD4 T cells showed production of smaller and less antigenic peptides than in the non-activated samples. Reduced presentation of peptides by activated cells might lead to reduced recognition and slower clearance of activated infected cells by CTL thus allowing more time for viral replication and spread.


A video clip depicting a burglary was shown to eighty-seven participants. The following day they completed either an enhanced cognitive interview (EcI; n = 43) or a structured interview (sI; n = 44). The participants in the EcI group reported more correct details than those in the sI group (43.12 compared to 32.39) and slightly more incorrect details (1.53 compared to 0.80). no significant differences were observed for the confabulated details. The number of both correct (41.58 compared to 31.59) and incorrect (8.28 compared to 6.07) details of which the participants were confident was higher in the EcI than in the sI group. no differences emerged where the number of details of which the participants were unconfident was concerned. In the structured interview group, the men produced more confabulated details than the women (5.29 compared to 2.56). no other gender differences were observed in either group. The interviewers differed in the quality of testimony obtained in the sI, but not in the EcI.


Nucleate pool boiling experiments for R11 under a constant wall temperature condition were carried out. A microscale heater array was used for the heating and the measurement of high temporal and spatial resolution by the Wheatstone bridge circuit. Very sensitive heat flow rate data were obtained by the control for the surface condition with high time resolution. The measured heat flow rate shows a discemable peak at the initial growth stage and reaches an almost constant value. In the thermal growth region, bubble shows a growth proportional to t^(1/5). The bubble growth behavior is analyzed with a dimensionless parameter to compare with the previous results in the same scale. As the wall superheat increases, the departure diameter and the departure time increase, and the waiting time decreases. But the asymptotic growth rate is not affected by the wall superheat change. The effect of the wall superheat is resolved into the suggested growth equation. Dimensionless parameters of time and bubble radius characterize the thermal growth behavior well, irrespective of wall condition. The comparison between the result of this study and the previous results shows a good agreement at the thermal growth region. The quantitative analysis for the heat transfer mechanism is conducted with the measured heat flow rate behavior and the bubble growth behavior. The required heat flow rate for the volume change of the observed bubble is about twice as much as the instantaneous heat flow rate supplied from the wall.


Over the past 2 decades considerable evidence has accumulated on the association between hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) and several hematologic malignancies, most notably B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). In this review we summarize this evidence, address possible mechanisms whereby hepatitis viruses may contribute to lymphomagenesis, and discuss the therapeutic fallouts from this knowledge. Most of this evidence is on HCV, and this is the main focus of the review. Moreover, we mainly address the association with NHL, the most prevalent hematologic malignancy, and the most extensively investigated with regard to an association with hepatitis viruses. Available evidence on the association with other hematologic malignancies is also addressed briefly.


Although thrombocytopenia in neonatal intensive care patients is rarely due to inherited disorders, the number of genetic variants implicated in platelet defects has grown dramatically with increasing genome-wide sequencing. Here we describe a case of severe, oligogenic neonatal thrombocytopenia and reinterpret a reportedly benign mutation that is likely pathogenic. Despite this patient's synonymous mutation (GFI1B 576 C>T, Phe192=) being annotated as benign, GFI1B is a well-known regulator of megakaryopoiesis, this variant alters splicing and megakaryocyte maturation, and our analysis of existing genome-wide associated studies demonstrates that it likely causes gray platelet syndrome. This variant has not been reported in a case of life-threatening thrombocytopenia. We propose that the severity of this patient's phenotype is due to synergistic epistasis between the intrinsic platelet defect caused by this mutation and her concomitant inherited PMM2 congenital glycosylation disorder neither of which have been associated with such a severe phenotype. This case highlights the importance of whole-exome/genome sequencing for critically ill patients, reexamining variant interpretation when clinically indicated, and the need to study diverse genetic variation in hematopoiesis.