One of the thickest and most extensive tufa deposits in northern France occurs at Daours, about 8 km upstream of Amiens at the confluence of the River Somme and its tributary the Hallue. It covers an area of about 80 ha and reaches 10 m above the level of the present valley, probably owing to the construction of a tufa barrage, which caused periodic damming of the valley. The molluscan succession from a 4‐m section through the Daours tufa provides an unusually detailed record of environmental change during the Holocene. The faunal record, supported by four radiocarbon dates, indicates that the tufa sequence at this location does not extend back to the early Holocene but began c. 7340 cal. a BP and ceased to form shortly after c. 4938 cal. a BP, consistent with the notion of a NW European 'late Holocene tufa decline'. The molluscan record is divisible into six zones that define three aquatic phases separated by three terrestrial episodes, when the tufa surface dried out sufficiently to allow colonization by dry‐ground species, including some shade‐demanding elements. These events are also reflected by differences in the lithology of the tufa. The earliest aquatic phase at the base of the sequence represents the most stable and permanent water‐body. The two subsequent aquatic phases appear to represent smaller, more ephemeral, water‐bodies surrounded by marsh. The land snail assemblages show ecological changes within each terrestrial episode, as well as faunal differences between them. These events, which reflect changes in the local hydrology, were short‐lived, each lasting for only a few hundred years. The tufa at Daours has also yielded flint artefacts and pottery, but it seems unlikely that the dynamic environmental record of the site results from anthropogenic activity.


Hierarchical sentence structure plays a role in word-by-word human sentence comprehension, but it remains unclear how best to characterize this structure and unknown how exactly it would be recognized in a step-by-step process model. With a view towards sharpening this picture, we model the time course of hemodynamic activity within the brain during an extended episode of naturalistic language comprehension using Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG). CCG has well-defined incremental parsing algorithms, surface compositional semantics, and can explain long-range dependencies as well as complicated cases of coordination. We find that CCG-derived predictors improve a regression model of fMRI time course in six language-relevant brain regions, over and above predictors derived from context-free phrase structure. Adding a special Revealing operator to CCG parsing, one designed to handle right-adjunction, improves the fit in three of these regions. This evidence for CCG from neuroimaging bolsters the more general case for mildly context-sensitive grammars in the cognitive science of language.


This research tries to investigate bilateral relationship between the two sister countries in terms of economic cooperation. Although Turk-Malay relations goes back to the 13th century and have great deal of relationship in terms of cultural, political and social, the current economic cooperation is not the desired level. We emphasize that Turkey and Malaysia have steadily growing economic relations over the last decade; although the annual turnover is not as much as it should be, the increase is 994 million dollars in 2006 from a modest figure of 242 million dollars recorded in 2000 which makes Malaysia today the 7th largest trade partner for Turkey in the Far East. Furthermore, the trade volume exceeded 1.3 billion dollars with an increase by % 34 as against 994 million dollars in 2007. In spite of growing trade figures, the trade balance has long developed in favour of Malaysia. Turkey's trade deficit amounted to 1.2 billion dollars with an increase by % 33 in comparison to the corresponding figures of the year 2009. Surprisingly Turkish exports to Malaysia had risen to $93 million with imports more than doubling to $498 million in 2010. It's hoped that bilateral trade is expected to rise to $2.5 billion, with Malaysian exports making up a large portion in 2012. As Turkey and Malaysia are members of OIC countries, strategic partnership need to be developed bilaterally. For this, the Turkish Government has introduced initiatives like A Strategy to Improve Commercial and Economic Relations with Asia Pacific Countries; The Turkish and Malaysian Joint Economic Commission (JEC); The Turkish-Malaysian Business Council etc. This research will try to find ways to increase bilateral economic cooperation between the two sister countries of OIC.
The objective of this research is to investigate how the two sister countries of OIC, Turk-Malay economic cooperation can be developed. The economic development would strength their cultural, social as well as their ummatic relationship which would be a model trade partner among the OIC countries.
An expected result of this research would be to provide some ways to increase economic cooperation among the OIC countries especially between two sister countries Turkey and Malaysia.
Methodology of the research is conducted to first collecting trade output of the two countries among them which involves in library sources, media sources and sources of the trade councils like Turkish and Malaysian Joint Economic Commission (JEC); The Turkish-Malaysian Business Council etc. The collected data will be inshaAllah critically analyzed accordingly in order to help to increase business cooperation of the two countries for the betterment of the Muslim Ummah.
The Significance of this research is highly significant for its uniqueness and for providing ways to increase economic cooperation of the two sister countries of OIC.
The expected research output is at least to highlight the importance of economic cooperation between OIC countries to strength their power in order to create better atmosphere and relationship among them that would open a way for the unity of Ummah Islam inshaAllah.

Keywords: Economic Cooperation; OIC countries; Turk-Malay; Bilateral Trade; Business.


A novel method is proposed for the problem of frame-to-frame correspondence search in video sequences. The method, based on hashing of low-dimensional image descriptors, establishes dense correspondences and allows large motions. All image pixels are considered for matching, the notion of interest points is reviewed. In our formulation, points of interest are those that can be reliably matched. Their saliency depends on properties of the chosen matching function and on actual image content. Both computational time and memory requirements of the correspondence search are asymptotically linear in the number of image pixels, irrespective of correspondence density and of image content. All steps of the method are simple and allow for a hardware implementation. Functionality is demonstrated on sequences taken from a vehicle moving in an urban environment.


Over the past two decades, Germany has created a sophisticated climate change legislation framework which in many instances implements international and particularly EU requirements. In some areas, Germany has played a pioneer role in shaping the development of EU law. As an environmental problem of truly global scale, climate change mitigation is heavily reliant on the achievement of international consensus. But it also requires effective, level-specific solutions to problems at all rungs of the multi-level policy hierarchy comprising the international community, the European Union and the Federal Republic of Germany with its sixteen states and numerous cities and municipalities. Much progress has therefore already been made, but efforts must be greatly intensified right across the board.


The SPIRAL2 project aims to provide a new facility able to produce and study rare ions. To ease collaboration between laboratories involved in software development, the command control team has chosen the EPICS software. At an upper layer, high level applications will be programmed in Java while the XAL framework is currently under investigation. A development skeleton, programming rules, subversion development tools are about to be fixed on to achieve the whole organization. Program developers will be able to generate generic EPICS applications which can be integrated in each IOC VME crate or LINUX box. Furthermore, Spiral2 beam control equipment will be described in a relational database and a program will be provided to automatically generate EPICS flat databases. The aim of this paper is to describe this organization and the benefits for the Spiral2 command control team.


—Innovations in electronics and hardware have led to the scenario of multiple softwares running on the same hardware resulting in multiuser, multitasking and virtualized environments. The reliability of such high performance computing systems depends both on hardware and software. The software systems, during operation accumulate errors or garbage leading to software aging which may lead to system failure and hazardous consequences. Software aging needs to be dealt with specialized techniques. To deal with software aging, a technique called software rejuvenation exists that reboots or re-initiates the software to avoid fault or failure. The detection of software aging is one of the important steps before rejuvenating the system as the rejuvenation process may lead to downtime which has a business impact. Hence, software aging prediction is gaining importance and is one among the trends in the recent research area in the field of software aging and rejuvenation. In this paper, it is explored how the machine learning technology can be used to predict software aging. The predictive power of the built in algorithms of machine learning tools can be used for software aging forecasting. The software aging model has been built using machine learning tools. The developed software aging detection model can be used to schedule the rejuvenation to prevent crash or performance degradation of software systems.


Necrotizing stomatitis (NS) is an uncommon oral ulcera- tion associated with reduced immunity, recent illness, and unusual life stress. It can be seen in malnourished children and HIV-infected adults, but it is very uncommon in non-HIV adults. Objective. To present a case of NS in a non-HIV adult. Methodology. We present a pre- viously misdiagnosed case of NS in a non-HIV 27-year-old female whose immunity was compromised by several factors including mal- nutrition, chronic anemia, drug treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and fibrous TMJ ankylosis. Several factors mitigating the diagnosis and successful treatment of this patient are discussed. Conclusion. This presentation highlights a challenging case of NS complicated by sev- eral unusual factors. It serves to educate the dental practitioners on the interplay of factors which if not addressed will mitigate successful management of the patient.


Dissatisfaction with tap water has gradually grown over time and in many places in Canada bottled water and various tap water filtering systems have become increasingly popular. In Newfoundland, road side springs are another popular alternative drinking water supply, yet the Provincial Government does not test or treat this water. This study examines 18 communities in Western Newfoundland to determine why people don9t drink tap water, the frequency of use of road side springs, and the bacteriological safety of a sampling of road side springs. The results indicate that the main reason for not drinking tap water was that it was perceived to be unsafe. But springs were used by 23 % of those surveyed and these springs were found to contain E. coli and/or coliforms 43 % of the time. By comparison, tap water testing by Newfoundland Environmental Health Officers found that between 5-6% of the community water supplies in Western and Central Newfoundland recorded the presence of coliform and/or E. Coli in 2007.


Variations in gene promoter/enhancer activity in different muscle fiber types after gene transduction was noticed previously, but poorly analyzed. The murine stem cell virus (MSCV) promoter drives strong, stable gene expression in hematopoietic stem cells and several other cells, including cerebellar Purkinje cells, but it has not been studied in muscle. We injected a lentiviral vector carrying an MSCV-EGFP cassette (LvMSCV-EGFP) into tibialis anterior muscles and observed strong EGFP expression in muscle fibers, primary cultured myoblasts, and myotubes isolated from injected muscles. We also generated lentiviral-mediated transgenic mice carrying the MSCV-EGFP cassette and detected transgene expression in striated muscles. LvMSCV-EGFP transgenic mice showed fiber type-dependent variations in expression: highest in types I and IIA, intermediate in type IID/X, and lowest in type IIB fibers. The soleus and diaphragm muscles, consisting mainly of types I and IIA, are most severely affected in the mdx mouse model of muscular dystrophy. Further analysis of this promoter may have the potential to achieve certain gene expression in severely affected muscles of mdx mice. The Lv-mediated transgenic mouse may prove a useful tool for assessing the enhancer/promoter activities of a variety of different regulatory cassettes.


The continuous global growth of Internet of Things devices and deployments constantly produce an equally growing volume of streaming data. This volume puts high pressure on the cloud infrastructure that is expected to manage the storage and processing of such streams. Special purpose IoT data management platforms such as the IoT Framework which is the system under study in this paper, transform raw streaming data into actual information products thus providing value added services to interested users. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and analyse the impact of the OpenID Connect protocol on the performance of the IoT Framework. The OpenID protocol was introduced in order to enable the IoT framework to be transformed into an IoT Information marketplace. The obtained results show that the introduction of an AA mechanism has a considerable impact on the performance of the IoT Framework. The reason is that the AA server is remote with respect to the IoT platform and therefore the network delay impacts the experienced end to end delay by the user. A possible means to alleviate this problem is to create a local AA server closer to the IoT Platform which either maintains local user AA credentials or federates with other public AA servers.


: The punch scalp graft hair transplant procedure is an established, acceptable, and successful method of hair replacement for various forms of alopecia, in both men and women. The surgical skills require discipline, knowledge, and a modicum of surgical training, which allows most physicians, particularly surgeons, to be qualified to perform the procedure. Selection of the patient, objective evaluation of the alopecias and the donor area, and postoperative care and instructions are all essential ingredients to satisfying the hair transplant patient. The punch graft scalp technique hair transplant has become essentially a common operative procedure and is available to almost any qualified and desirous patient. The cost factors have remained reasonable and in keeping with other nonsurgical methods of artificial hair replacement. For the past 15 years, there have been numerous symposia and seminars on hair transplantation conducted by qualified experts in this particular field, which have made such courses available to essentially all physicians. Sufficient journal articles and textbooks have been published to provide any physician with adequate reference material, and ongoing additional publications with updates continue to be made available to all physicians. Many university medical teaching centers have developed free hair transplant clinics or low-cost hair transplant clinics at which residents in training perform the punch scalp graft hair transplant procedure to allow indigent patients likewise to obtain hair transplant procedures. Hence, the day has come when any patient, male or female, of any race, with suitable objective indications, can obtain a hair transplant if he or she is properly motivated and desires to do so.


Abstract:This article considers Samuel Johnson's belief in ghosts--which, when scholars have discussed it at all, has been seen as a psychological quirk related to his religiosity--through the frame of media rather than intellectual history. I argue that Johnson's interest in ghost stories, which always resulted in him discrediting the particular specter under consideration, illustrates the ongoing instability of print and need to incorporate multiple media of authentication even in the second half of the eighteenth century. His fascination with the supernatural is exemplary of a variety of eighteenth-century hoaxes and frauds, from Mary Toft to Elizabeth Canning to the Cock Lane ghost, all of which became media sensations. To illustrate these points, I juxtapose his investigation of the Cock Lane ghost with his better-known involvement in the Ossian controversy, in which he repeatedly enjoined author/translator James Macpherson to "produce the manuscripts." Johnson's ongoing attempts to mediate belief, whether in the literary or supernatural realms, reflected not an eighteenth-century "rise of print" but a nebulous multimedia environment in which the authenticity of any particular form could never be taken for granted.


This paper presents the development of a system aimed to facilitate the communication and interaction of people with severe hearing impairment with other people. The system employs artificial vision techniques to the recognition of static signs of Colombian Sign Language (LSC). The system has four stages: Image capture, preprocessing, feature extraction and recognition. The image is captured by a digital camera TRDB-D5M for Altera's DE1 and DE2 development boards. In the preprocessing stage, the sign is extracted from the background of the image using the thresholding segmentation method; then, the segmented image is filtered using a morphological operation to remove the noise. The feature extraction stage is based on the creation of two vectors to characterize the shape of the hand used to make the sign. The recognition stage is made up a multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP), which functions as a classifier. The system was implemented in the Altera's Cyclone II FPGA EP2C70F896C6 device and does not require the use of gloves or visual markers for its proper operation. The results show that the system is able to recognize all the 23 signs of the LSC with a recognition rate of 98.15 %.


This research studied the effects of race and sex similarity on ratings in one-on-one highly structured college recruiting interviews (N = 708 interviewers and 12203 applicants for 7 different job families). A series of hierarchical linear models provided no evidence for similarity effects, although the commonly used D-score and analysis-of-variance-based interaction approaches conducted at the individual level of analysis yielded different results. The disparate results demonstrate the importance of attending to nested data structures and levels of analysis issues more broadly. Practically, the results suggest that organizations using carefully administered highly structured interviews may not need to be concerned about bias due to the mismatch between interviewer and applicant race or sex.


This article describes some of the techniques museums use to represent the
 suffering body in exhibitions. Some display human remains, but much more common,
 especially in Western museums, are stand-ins for the body. Manikins take many
 forms, including the wax museum's hyperrealistic representations, the
 history museum's neutral grey figures and the expressionistic figures
 that represent enslaved people in many recent exhibits. Symbolic objects or
 artefacts from the lives of victims can serve as counterweights to telling the
 story of their deaths. Photographs can show horror and the machinery of death,
 focus attention on individual lives or recreate communities. The absence of the
 body can call attention to its suffering. All of these techniques can be useful
 for museums trying to display and teach traumatic histories, but must be used
 with care and caution.


This research concerns the exploitation of linguistic context in vision. Linguistic context is qualitative in nature and is obtained dynamically. We view this as a new paradigm which is a golden mean between data driven object detection and site-model based vision. Our solution not only proposes new techniques for using qualitative contextual information, but also efficiently exploits existing image interpretation technology. The design and implementation of a system, ShoweATell, a multimedia system for semi-automated image annotation is discussed. This system, which combines advances in speech recognition, natural language processing and image understanding, is designed to facilitate the work of image analysts (IA). Adaptation of the current prototype to the task of change profiling and change detection is discussed.


Transcripts of teaching episodes can be effective tools to understand discourse patterns in classroom instruction. According to most educational experts, sustained classroom discourse is a critical component of equitable, engaging, and rich learning environments for students. This paper describes the TalkMoves dataset, composed of 567 human-annotated K-12 mathematics lesson transcripts (including entire lessons or portions of lessons) derived from video recordings. The set of transcripts primarily includes in-person lessons with whole-class discussions and/or small group work, as well as some online lessons. All of the transcripts are human-transcribed, segmented by the speaker (teacher or student), and annotated at the sentence level for ten discursive moves based on accountable talk theory. In addition, the transcripts include utterance-level information in the form of dialogue act labels based on the Switchboard Dialog Act Corpus. The dataset can be used by educators, policymakers, and researchers to understand the nature of teacher and student discourse in K-12 math classrooms. Portions of this dataset have been used to develop the TalkMoves application, which provides teachers with automated, immediate, and actionable feedback about their mathematics instruction.


Since their introduction about 25 years ago, machine learning (ML) potentials have become an important tool in the field of atomistic simulations. After the initial decade, in which neural networks were successfully used to construct potentials for rather small molecular systems, the development of high-dimensional neural network potentials (HDNNPs) in 2007 opened the way for the application of ML potentials in simulations of large systems containing thousands of atoms. To date, many other types of ML potentials have been proposed continuously increasing the range of problems that can be studied. In this review, the methodology of the family of HDNNPs including new recent developments will be discussed using a classification scheme into four generations of potentials, which is also applicable to many other types of ML potentials. The first generation is formed by early neural network potentials designed for low-dimensional systems. High-dimensional neural network potentials established the second generation and are based on three key steps: first, the expression of the total energy as a sum of environment-dependent atomic energy contributions; second, the description of the atomic environments by atom-centered symmetry functions as descriptors fulfilling the requirements of rotational, translational, and permutation invariance; and third, the iterative construction of the reference electronic structure data sets by active learning. In third-generation HDNNPs, in addition, long-range interactions are included employing environment-dependent partial charges expressed by atomic neural networks. In fourth-generation HDNNPs, which are just emerging, in addition, nonlocal phenomena such as long-range charge transfer can be included. The applicability and remaining limitations of HDNNPs are discussed along with an outlook at possible future developments.


This qualitative exploratory research examined the processes student-teachers used to address academic language in lessons generated for middle school instruction. Undergraduate student-teachers were provided access to ReadAhead, a technological platform designed to scaffold students' content literacy skills. The studentteachers were serving year-long internships in four content areas and preparing to complete their edTPA teacher certification portfolios. They planned and implemented lessons within diverse middle school settings. They were subsequently interviewed concerning their thought processes in creating and implementing the lessons, and a document analysis was conducted. The findings indicated that the student-teachers approached the lessons with different purposes in mind, and those divergent purposes influenced other critical aspects of the lessons. They also showed a lack of metacognitive awareness concerning the integration of academic language, though they unconsciously addressed it in ways consistent with the literature and the edTPA's expectations. Ultimately, academic language instruction is essential to learning in all content areas, yet the definitions and application of it may still be unclear to aspiring educators in teacher preparation programs. Considering that the incorporation of academic language instruction will be vital to the licensure process and subsequent practice, it becomes imperative that teacher education programs methodically address the issue.


The paper traces the long-term influence of the French language on the formation of Bulgarian phraseology. Distinct periods during which the French influence on Bulgarian is especially strong are analyzed. Hypotheses of individual scholars about the calquing of French phrasemes both in Bulgarian and internationally are commented on. Idioms, conventional metaphors and metonymies, loan translations of verb paraphrases, and other types of collocations are discussed. Since the French influence is both literary and oral in Bulgarian from the National Revival Period to the present day, both slang and colloquial expressions based on the French model are used. Through a comparative study of a translation done during the Revival, an attempt is made to outline the specifics of borrowing in the field of phraseology in the years before the Liberation.


The efficient production of LSI realizations of Boolean functions is studied and two interconnection procedures are presented. The first procedure is a modular method using planar circuits. The second procedure, which stresses a minimum number of gates, results in an "all purpose" chip which can be personalized externally by the customer.


The invention relates to a method for emitting a signal formed by successive vectors that each comprise N symbols to emit, using at least two emission antennae. According to the invention, a distinctsub-matrix is associated with each antenna, said sub-matrices being obtained by cutting a unitary square matrix, and each of said antennae emits sub-vectors that are obtained by cutting said vectors and are respectively multiplied by the sub-matrices in such a way as to form, as seen from a receptor, a unique combined signal that is representative of the multiplication of the vectors by the unitarymatrix.


Cloud computing represents the next generation of disruptive technologies in computing. However, there are several barriers to massive adoption of cloud and among them security remains one of the principal concerns. Traditional failure analysis and prevention frameworks fall exceedingly short to address cybersecurity as is evident by every increasing cybersecurity breaches. New frameworks for cybersecurity are required which take a holistic view of the problem and a systems perspective. Migrating to cloud also represents a key decision point for CEO/CTO's today, especially from security perspective. The objective of this thesis is to illustrate the effectiveness of taking a Systems Approach to cybersecurity and provide a framework for migration to cloud with specific emphasis on critical cybersecurity issues pertaining to various cloud deployment models and delivery services. The thesis is divided into three phases. Firstly, it will aim to explore the major security threats and critical areas of focus for security in cloud. It will explore the major security frameworks, metrics and controls, especially the major ones from NIST, CIS and CSA. SLA's for different cloud service models will then be presented. A high level cloud migration framework strategy and framework, with special emphasis on cybersecurity will also be discussed. In the second phase, SystemTheoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) which is based on Systems Theory will be applied to Target security breach and key recommendations as well as new insights will be presented. The analysis will highlight the need for holistic approach and Systems Thinking to cybersecurity and new insights that are not produced by traditional methods will be presented. Finally, in the third phase, the cloud migration framework discussed in phase one will be applied to Target. A case will be made that in certain scenarios, moving the less critical applications to cloud and utilizing the security benefits of cloud can actually reduce the threat vectors and security exposures and bring IT systems from a higher risk state to lower risk state. The thesis integrates cybersecurity methods and frameworks as well as security metrics with the cloud migration strategy. Additionally, it also presents STAMP/CAST failure model for cybersecurity breaches and highlights the need for integrated view of safety and security and Systems Thinking in cybersecurity both in traditional systems and cloud. Thesis Supervisor: Stuart Madnick John Norris Maguire Professor of Information Technologies, MIT Sloan School of Management And Professor of Engineering Systems, MIT School of Engineering


We investigate object naming, which is an important sub-task of referring expression generation on real-world images. As opposed to mutually exclusive labels used in object recognition, object names are more flexible, subject to communicative preferences and semantically related to each other. Therefore, we investigate models of referential word meaning that link visual to lexical information which we assume to be given through distributional word embeddings. We present a model that learns individual predictors for object names that link visual and distributional aspects of word meaning during training. We show that this is particularly beneficial for zero-shot learning, as compared to projecting visual objects directly into the distributional space. In a standard object naming task, we find that different ways of combining lexical and visual information achieve very similar performance, though experiments on model combination suggest that they capture complementary aspects of referential meaning.


While traumatic Covid-19 epidemic affects many people's everyday lives, it is very important to recognize vulnerable groups' needs during coronavirus crisis. Individuals' social-emotional, psychological, spiritual-religious and economic needs in coronavirus crisis should be examined. Vulnerable groups often face additional struggles during traumatic events. This article aims to investigate available evidence on key experiences of social and psychological well-being among vulnerable groups including elderly people, children, youths and pregnant women during the pandemic. The critical literature review was the method of this article. This investigation concentrates on vulnerable groups' key lived experiences during lockdown linked to the outbreak. Also, it examines available literature on how elderly people, children, youths and pregnant women face Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and lockdown by focusing on their wellness. This article found that vulnerability among children, young people, pregnant women and elderly people was associated with their developmental circumstances. Importantly, these groups were frequently face social and psychological difficulties based on their vulnerable positions during coronavirus crisis. It suggests that social policymakers need to develop available and accessible tools and sources for vulnerable groups during Covid-19 to meet their social and psychological needs.


Assessment of finger range of motion (ROM) is often required for monitoring the effectiveness of rehabilitative treatments and for evaluating patients' functional impairment. There are several devices which are used to measure this motion, such as wire tracing, tracing onto paper and mechanical and electronic goniometry. These devices are quite cheap, excluding electronic goniometry; however the drawbacks of these devices are their lack of accuracy and the time- consuming nature of the measurement process.

The work described in this thesis considers the design, implementation and validation of a new medical measurement system utilized in the evaluation of the range of motion of the human finger joints instead of the current measurement tools.

The proposed system is a non-contact measurement device based on computer vision technology and has many advantages over the existing measurement devices. In terms of accuracy, better results are achieved by this system, it can be operated by semi-skilled person, and is time saving for the evaluator.

The computer vision system in this study consists of CCD cameras to capture the images, a frame-grabber to change the analogue signal from the cameras to digital signals which can be manipulated by a computer, Ultra Violet light (UV) to illuminate the measurement space, software to process the images and perform the required computation, a darkened enclosure to accommodate the cameras and UV light and to shield the working area from any undesirable ambient light.

Two calibration techniques were used to calibrate the cameras, Direct Linear Transformation and Tsai. A calibration piece that suits this application was designed and manufactured. A steel hand model was used to measure the fingers joint angles. The average error from measuring the finger angles using this system was around 1 degree compared with 5 degrees for the existing used techniques.


Shearer provide an effect solution for mining coal, and the cutting performance of pick largely accouts for the ability of a shearer and mining performance. We conducted pick cutting coal experiments in different seam forms on the coal and rock cutting teasted. According to the rotary cutting mechanical model of single pick cutting coal seam, combined with the strength condition of coal seam and coal-rock interface, the rotary cutting mechanical model of pick cutting coal seam with coal-rock interface is established. The stress strain and strength condition of the area in and around the interface are analyzed based on the coal-rock interface crushing theory, which provides basis for further research on the cutting mechanical model of single pick crossing the coal-rock interface. According to the analysis on the ampulitude domain, the phenomenon that force increment between the pick cutting rock and uniform coal seam linearly increases with the increase of compressive strength difference between coal seam and coal-rock interface, and the load fluctuation keep a positive correlation with the compressive strength. Analysis on the signals of the pick cutting coal seam with coal and rock interface at different conditions shows that some basic properties of the cutting load changes over times. In addition, the coal seam with coal-rock interface appears larger impact load and other time-domain characteristics.


PURPOSE
Candidates for diabetic vitrectomy often have concurrent renal dysfunction and have undergone hemodialysis. The influence of hemodialysis on the surgical outcome of vitrectomy was investigated.

METHODS
Vitrectomy was performed on 76 eyes with proliferative diabetic retinopathy in 66 patients with end-stage renal failure who had undergone hemodialysis. Follow-up was longer than 1 year.

RESULTS
No uncontrollable hemorrhage occurred either during or immediately after the surgery. Final visual acuity after surgery was the same as preoperative visual acuity in 31.5% of the eyes; improvement was seen in 60.5% of the eyes. A final visual acuity of 0.2 or better was observed in 57.6% of the eyes. Major postoperative complications included recurrent vitreous hemorrhage, rhegmatogenous retinal detachment, fibrin clot formation, neovascular glaucoma, flat anterior chamber, and a transient rise in intraocular pressure.

CONCLUSION
Renal failure and hemodialysis do not appear to have a deteriorative influence on the outcome of vitrectomy for proliferative diabetic retinopathy. A flat anterior chamber seems to be a rare and perhaps unique postoperative complication of gas-filled eyes in patients who have undergone hemodialysis.


Oxygen-dependent radiosensitivity of tumour cells reflects direct oxidative damage to DNA, but non-nuclear mechanisms including signalling pathways may also contribute. Mitochondria are likely candidates because not only do they integrate signals from each of the main kinase pathways but mitochondrial kinases responsive to oxidative stress communicate to the rest of the cell. Using pharmacological and immunochemical methods, we tested the role of mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) and the Bcl-2 proteins in oxygen-dependent radiosensitivity. Drug-treated or untreated cervical cancer HeLa, breast cancer MCF-7 and melanoma MeWo cell lines were irradiated at 6.2 Gy under normoxic and hypoxic conditions then allowed to proliferate for 7 days. The MPT blocker cyclosporin A (2 microM) strongly protected HeLa but not the other two lines against oxygen-dependent radiosensitivity. By contrast, bongkrekic acid (50 microM), which blocks MPT by targeting the adenine nucleotide transporter, had only marginal effect and calcineurin inhibitor FK-506 (0.1 microM) had none. Nor was evidence found for the modulation of oxygen-dependent radiosensitivity by Bax/Bcl-2 signalling, mitochondrial ATP-dependent potassium (mitoK(ATP)) channels or mitochondrial Ca(2+) uptake. In conclusion, calcineurin-independent protection by cyclosporin A suggests that MPT but not mitoK(ATP) or the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway plays a causal role in oxygen-dependent radiosensitivity of HeLa cells. Targeting MPT may therefore improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy in some solid tumours.


Immediate loading of oral implants has been extensively described in the international literature and the requirements for long-term success are evaluated. The author presents here the critical aspects of the criteria for success as well as describes the characteristics of an implant macro- and microdesign for immediate loading to control the periimplant crestal bone loss and secure the long-term stability. Information from the literature and the clinical experience will be presented.


The non-Markovian collision integral is obtained on the base of the Kadanoff–Baym equations for Green functions in a form with allowance for small retardation effects. The collisional relaxation times and damping width of the giant isovector dipole resonances in nuclear matter are calculated. For an infinite Fermi liquid the dependence of the relaxation times on the collective vibration frequency and the temperature corresponds to the Landau prescription.


The objective of this study was to report comprehensive quantitative morphometric measurements of the trachea of young camels (Camel us dromedarius). Tracheas from 15 young male camels aged between 9 to 12 months were used to measure the length, number of tracheal cartilage rings, inner and outer diameters and thickness of the cartilage rings at four different tracheal regions (cranial cervical, middle cervical, thoracic inlet and intrathoracic). Furthermore, cross sectional area (CSA) of the tracheal rings were measured by two methods; a mathematical equation and a digital image analysis. The mean length of the trachea was 87 ± 0.83 em, while the mean number of the cartilage rings was 77.1 ± 0.35. Diameters of the cartilage ring were smallest at the thoracic inlet regio;l due to changes in tracheal direction and the narrow bone-surrounded thoracic inlet where the trachea enters the thoracic cavity. The ratios of the inner transverse to inner vertical and the outer transverse to outer vertical diameters ranged between 1.08 and 1.34. This indicates that the shape of the trachea in these young camels is near-circular. The CSA measurements obtained by the digital image analysis were 11-14% smaller than the CSA calculated by the mathematical equation (P < 0.01). Using digital image analysis to measure the CSA of tracheal rings provides accurate and reliable measurements. The CSA and cartilage thickness were smallest and thinnest at the thoracic inlet, respectively. This may be an important predisposing factor for tracheal disorders at this region.


Floods caused by ice‐jams on the Peace River are considered to be important for maintaining hydro‐ecological conditions of perched basins in the Peace‐Athabasca Delta (PAD), Canada, a highly productive and internationally recognized northern boreal ecosystem. Concerns over the potential linkages between regulation of the Peace River in 1968 for hydroelectric production and low Peace River discharge between 1968 and 1971 during the filling of the hydroelectric reservoir, absence of a major ice‐jam flood event between 1975 and 1995, and low water levels in perched basins during the 1980s and early 1990s have sparked numerous environmental studies largely aimed at restoring water levels in the PAD. Lack of sufficient long‐term hydrological records, however, has limited the ability to objectively assess the importance of anthropogenic factors versus natural climatic forcing in regulating hydro‐ecological conditions of the PAD. Here, we report results of a paleolimnological study on laminated sediments from two oxbow lakes in the PAD, which are located adjacent to major flood distributaries of the Peace River. Sediment core magnetic susceptibility measurements, supported by results from several other physical and geochemical analyses as well as stratigraphic correspondence with recorded high‐water events on the Peace River, provide proxy records of flood history spanning the past ∼180 and ∼300 years in these two basins. Results indicate that inferred flood frequency has been highly variable over the past 300 years but in decline for many decades beginning as early as the late nineteenth century, well before Peace River regulation. Additionally, several multi‐decadal intervals without a major flood have occurred during the past 300 years. While climate‐related mechanisms responsible for this variability in flood frequency remain to be determined, as does quantifying the relative roles of river regulation and climate variability on hydro‐ecological conditions in the PAD since 1968, these results suggest that ecosystem management strategies for the PAD need to explicitly account for natural variations in flood recurrence intervals. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Studies based on the role of context and stakeholder pressures on the relationship between CSR practices and financial performance are few and inconclusive. Aimed at contributing to filling this gap, the paper is based on data collected in 2013 from the sixth round of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS-VI). Hierarchical regression is used to investigate three hypotheses on the relationships between CSR practices, financial performance and the influence of context and stakeholder pressures. The results show that CSR practices affect financial performance positively, while stakeholder pressures do not moderate this relationship.


Non-pharmacological interventions are not always considered as a primary or concurrent treatment for complex physical symptoms. Work carried out within the hospice setting has shown marked improvements in the physical and psychological condition of patients who have difficult to control symptoms, by using alternative patient-centred, holistic techniques. The hospice employed an autogenic psychotherapist to treat a patient who was in a chronic state of stress. It was identified that stress management would have a profound effect on the patient's overall condition. Teaching sessions were provided to staff enabling them to use techniques that have shown positive symptom management results. Conventional practice is to treat with medication – analgesia and anxiolytics. The aim was to introduce a variety of techniques giving both patients and their carers strategies to use to help relieve symptoms of anxiety and pain within palliative care. Training sessions included experiential learning and reflective practice, taught staff to use simple breathing exercises, progressive muscular relaxation, guided imagery and visualisation techniques. Staff discovered a powerful tool to help patients and their carers to take control of their own situation, using non pharmacological interventions to give control over physical responses to symptom management. Using a toolkit of techniques, patients are supported to use the techniques on a face-to-face basis, using technology with CDs, and personalised recordings that they can use when and where required. Enabling patients when they feel most out of control has shown improvements in psychological distress and physical symptom control. Staff have felt more empowered and able to introduce accessible psychological interventions alongside conventional pharmacological prescriptions.


Scotland's economic performance and fiscal make-up are key elements in the debate leading up to the forthcoming referendum on independence. However, in terms of understanding Scotland's economic performance, the situation is complicated by the high degree of overseas ownership, especially with regards to North Sea activity, and the importance of a natural commodity, oil. This makes the use of traditional measures of economic performance, like GDP or GDP per capita, less relevant than for most countries and suggests a greater need to use both constant price and cash GNI, neither of which are currently available. In terms of its fiscal balance, Scotland's independence would require taxes derived from its offshore (North Sea) activity to be sufficient to offset the extra monies (in per head terms) currently transferred from the rest of the UK (via the Barnett formula system) in order to pay for the current level of public services. Based on current projections, such North Sea related tax revenues would amount to less than the likely Barnett transfer, leading to a net loss in funding at the time of independence. Under such circumstances the question of whether or not Scotland could afford to initiate the building up of an 'Oil Fund', is largely a redundant one. However, uncertainties over both future oil and gas revenues and over the continuation of the existing Barnett system make it difficult to predict with any great certainty whether Scotland would see a longer-term net fiscal gain or loss post-independence. Apparent inconsistencies between official GNI and Scottish revenue figures also means that the existing fiscal balance position remains open to question.


Neutron diffraction is a powerful technique to clarify the relationship between the crystal structures and the properties of functional materials. Since neutron atomic scattering factors do not depend on atomic numbers, neutron diffraction gives more reliable structural information than X-ray to detect light elements among heavy ones. In 2007, the proton accelerator project, J-PARC, will be completed and start delivering the most intense pulsed neutron in the world. Instrument proposals are being reviewed in the viewpoint of science, instrumental designs, and manpower, etc. This article was written to introduce the technique of pulsed neutron powder diffraction to promote high-pressure science in J-PARC.


The clinical significance of L-fucose was investigated in serum of a well characterized cohort of 135 RA patients and 60 healthy controls. In RA patients, serum L-fucose was significantly decreased to a mean of 5.57 +/- 0.97 mg%, (range 2.2-7.5 mg%), compared with 7.5 +/- 1.04 mg% (range 5.7-9.8 mg%) (p < 0.001) in normal controls. In early RA serum L-fucose was significantly depressed to a mean of 6.08 mg%, a value which was significantly higher than the mean concentration of L-fucose in patients with advanced RA. Serum L-fucose was significantly correlated with the rheumatoid disease activity, duration, number of involved joints, and bone erosions. No statistically significant difference was found between seropositive and seronegative RA patients. However, a significant difference (p < 0.001) between female (5.57 mg%) and male (6.59 mg%) patients with advanced RA, and between male (6.08 mg%) and female (5.99 mg%) patients with early RA was found. These findings suggest that serum L-fucose is depressed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, a promising observation since L-fucose is a safe and simple natural sugar. It may be used as an additional parameter and as an indicator for the disease activity in the follow up of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.


Brazil offers a complex and unique example of tropical landscapes. The country has considerably decreased deforestation since 2004, but Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is arguably under question, both as a concept and as a tool to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as deforestation levels have increased over the last five years. This article investigates how different policy actors have perceived REDD+ over time, how they have engaged in REDD+ efforts over the past decade, and how REDD+ implementation in Brazil should move forward accordingly. We analyzed qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and actors' "stances", i.e., their positions—with regards to key issues connected to REDD+ governance and its challenges—over three different time periods (Phase 1: 2010–2011, Phase 2: 2015–2016, and Phase 3: 2019), so as to identify the practical implications of these diverse interpretations. We argue that the way actors perceive REDD+ is intimately related to the way they interpret and assign meanings towards it and, in consequence, the way they coordinate REDD+-related practices and efforts. We focus on the link between perceptions and efforts so as to comprehend the relevance that different interpretations have to both the concept and implementation of REDD+ in Brazil. Our analysis concentrates on the potential to improve the coordination and integration of REDD+ implementation and diverse actors' efforts with regards to REDD+ activities. Results suggest that actors' perceptions of REDD+ generated a plurality of meanings, highlighting a range of dialectical and ontological interactions that have, in turn, resulted in multiple REDD+ interpretations. Findings highlight that different actors have the same interests when it comes to their organizational efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, suggesting that there is room for a better coordination of efforts towards this end, as well as increased collaboration.


The present study reports the case of a female Chinese patient with Graves' disease (GD) and severe Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO) in its active phase, who was treated with propylthiouracil and oral prednisolone for 2 months at a local hospital. However, a lack of improvement in symptoms meant that the patient was transferred to the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an, China), whereupon the patient received high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone pulse therapy, although with limited efficacy. Subsequently, rituximab (RTX; anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody) combined with orbital irradiation treatment was initiated. The patient responded positively to the combined treatment; the clinical symptoms and enlargement of the extraocular muscles were ameliorated, and there were marked decreases in the clinical activity and NOSPECS grading scores. Furthermore, the serum levels of anti-thyrotropin receptor antibodies (TRAb) were markedly decreased at 2 months following RTX therapy. The patient was maintained in a euthyroid state by treatment with methimazole during and following RTX therapy. It was concluded that RTX treatment may attenuate severe GO by depleting lymphocytes, and may promote the recovery of GD by reducing the serum levels of TRAb.


The Greater Flamingo, Phoenicopterus antiquorum, feeds by filtering chironomid larvae, seeds, etc., from mud; the Lesser Flamingo, Phoeniconaias minor, has a much finer filter, previously undescribed, by which it feeds on the blue-green alga, Spirulina platensis, and diatoms. The two flamingoes can therefore feed in the same lake without competing for food. Data from observations on living birds, from detailed anatomy of the bill, and from analyses of stomach contents of birds feeding in localities with known ecology, have been used to elucidate the process of filtration in these species, seen in Kenya, and in Phoenicopterus ruber, Ph. chilensis, Phoenicoparrus andinus and Ph'parrus jamesi, of the New World. The bill structure is of two distinct types, though always bent in the middle, with the lower jaw large and trough-like and the upper small and lid-like. The shallow-keeled upper jaw of Phoenicopterus is as wide as the lower; the gape is at the side, crossed by distal outer lamellae curling downwards to prevent its closing completely. The inner surface carries a concave lamellated area on either side of the keel, but does not touch the similar area on the convex, inflexed border of the lower jaw. The deep-keeled upper jaw of Phoeniconaias, and Phoenicoparrus, is much narrower and lies flush between the rami of the lower; the dorsal gape is crossed by horizontal, distal outer lamellae. Internally, the upper jaw has a deep keel that is flat-sided, so that in section it is an equilateral triangle. The flattened, inflexed borders of the lower jaw turn downwards for 15 mm parallel with the sides of the keel throughout the length of the gape; the central tongue-groove is thereby much constricted. These flat lamellated areas, three times the size of those of Phoenicopterus, are in close contact across the gape. Bills of the three species of Phoenicopterus are much alike; those of Ph'naias minor and Ph'parrus andinus are similar in form and size; that of Ph'parrus jamesi is shorter, with a narrow upper jaw and consequently reduced lamellated areas. Measurements show much individual variation. The lamellae are horny thickenings running transversely across the lamellated areas; they form smooth ridges, serrated ridges, or separate triangular platelets, fibres of which may separate to form a fringed edge projecting towards the tongue. Their variations in form, size and spacing, in different parts of the bill and from species to species, are described and illustrated with figures and tabulated measurements. Outer lamellae, near the margins of the upper jaw, are large leaflets or hooks projecting across the gape: vertically, to form the filter in shallow-keeled bills; horizontally, to form the excluder in deep-keeled bills. They are fringed, in species with fringed inner lamellae. Outer lamellae of the lower jaw are smaller and less distinctive but subdivide the filter in Phoenicopterus. They are integrated with the inner lamellae in other genera. Inner lamellae are smaller and more closely spaced than outer. On the lower jaw of Phoenicopterus they form smooth or serrated ridges; on the upper jaw they form platelets, diagonally alined to leave channels leading inwards and backwards from gape to tongue. In Phoeniconaias and Phoenicoparrus most inner lamellae on both jaws form small, tall, closely set platelets, also diagonally alined, making a velvety pile on the flat lamellated areas. The platelets of Ph'parrus andinus are smooth, those of Ptinaias minor and Ph'parrus jamesi are fringed; all form fine-meshed filters, small in area in the last-named. The tongue and palate in Ph. antiquorum are larger than in Ph'naias minor; they have a similar armature of spines directing food towards the gullet, and a transverse epiglottis. The tongue is large and fleshy; the distal half, packed with oily fat, has only the thin hypoglossus muscle below the broad lingual cartilage; the other muscles are straight and confined to the base, and aid its fore and aft pumping action. The bill is reputed to be rich in tactile organs; Herbst corpuscles occur under the dorsal surface of the upper jaw of Ph'naias minor, but are rare under the inner lamellae. Their position in Phoenicopterus is uncertain. A large olfactory foramen suggests that there may be a welldeveloped 'oral' sense to be investigated. Ph. antiquorum feeds in bottom mud, whereas Ph'naias minor sweeps near the water surface. Both use a 'jig' movement to stir particles off the bottom ; in Ph. antiquorum this is also associated with eating mud. Birds in captivity show the jaw movements and the forceful tongue pulse, expelling jets of filtered water four times a second. Records of the kinds and sizes of food organisms, mostly based on stomach contents, are tabulated for all species. In Phoenicopterus the kind of food varies widely (contrary to the belief that Ph. ruber eats only the gastropod Cerithium) ; but the size is between 1 and 10 mm in length. Claims that they also feed on algae are dubious; but Ph. antiquorum and Ph. ruber can survive, and feed their young, on organic mud. In East Africa healthy specimens of Ph'naias minor always feed on blue-green algae or diatoms, with dimensions between 0.02 and 0.1 mm. Entomostraca or water-mites are probably eaten by Ph'parrus andinus, and algae of unknown dimensions by Ph'parrus jamesi, but the evidence is inconclusive. Analysis by British Standard Sieves shows that 80% of the grit from gizzards of Ph.antiquorum measures more than 0.5 mm, and from Ph'naias minor less than 0.5 mm. To identify the structures used in filter-feeding, their sizes are compared systematically with those of the grit and food. For Phoenicopterus, grit provides the more exact measure, and food confirms it; for Phoeniconaias, diatoms taken from the stomach provide the exact measure. In Phoenicopterus the filter is formed across the practically closed gape by the outer hooks and leaflets on the upper jaw, aided by the intermediate submarginals above and the serrated ridges on the margin of the lower jaw below. All the spaces then have one dimension less than 0.5 mm, except near the tip of the bill, where the minimum increases to 1.0 mm. This is commensurate with the smallest dimensions of most of the food (theoretically, cylindrical objects could be caught by any mesh smaller than their longest dimension, i.e. 3 to 5 mm in this case). The excluder must be formed by opening the gape to about 4 or 6 mm at the bend, the shape of which prevents the tips from separating as widely as they would in a straight bill. In Ph'naias minor the fine filter is formed by fringes on the inner platelets enclosing spaces measuring 0.01 by 0.05 mm. The excluder is formed by the outer lamellae, with spaces measuring about 1.0 by 0.4 mm. The same structures give a filter measuring 0.005 by 0.05 mm and an excluder of 2.5 by 0.25 mm in Ph'parrus jamesi; the intermediate filter in Ph'parrus andinus is formed by smooth platelets with spaces measuring between 0.3 by 0.06 mm and 1.2 by 0.14 mm. This filter therefore has spaces smaller than the smallest of those in Ph. antiquorum, but linear dimensions about ten times larger than those in Ph'naias minor. The excluder is also intermediate and has dimensions between 1.5 by 0.7 mm and 2.5 by 1.0 mm. There is no direct evidence on the process of filtration within the closed bill in its inverted feeding position; but the filters and excluders already identified are correlated with the movements of the jaws and tongue to postulate three methods of feeding, differing with the kind of food and the type of bill. (i) When Phoenicopterus, with its shallow-keeled bill, feeds on whole organisms, water is actively pumped by the tongue through the stationary outer lamellar filter, while the bill is swept through the water to reach new food supplies. Raising the upper jaw admits the food through the narrow gape, acting as excluder; closing the bill re-forms the filter. The inner lamellae may help to detect and hold organisms in the bill. (ii) But when Phoenicopterus feeds on mud, the process is reversed and apparently ceases to be true filtration, for there is no filter fine enough to retain mud, which must therefore be gulped down together with admixed brine. The outer lamellae form the excluder for the coarse sand, which is then left in cones marking the feeding places. (iii) When Ph'naias minor, with its deep-keeled bill, feeds on algae, the upper jaw must not move far, for its outer hooks and leaflets form the excluder; the tongue pumps water, carrying food, inwards along channels between the diagonally alined inner platelets. Pressing the extensive lamellated areas together, on one side of the bill at a time, helps to force the outgoing water through and around the filtering fringes of the inner lamellae. The volume of water moved by each tongue stroke about fills the deep gape; it will therefore oscillate about the filters, rather than be drawn through them for long distances in either direction; small vortices will help to entangle and retain the food. This is collected from the filters by rubbing them up and down on each other, like collecting wool from 'carders'; thus it is brought within reach of bristles on the tongue. Filtration in Phoenicoparrus is presumably similar. It is suggested that the reversed use of marginal hooks as excluders, when Phoenicopterus feeds on mud, may be a clue to the evolution of the deep-keeled species, which combine this use of the marginals with use of the inner platelets as a fine filter. There is no fossil evidence upon this point and little upon the evolution of the flamingo's bill as a whole, with its many specializations. The suborder had most of its present characteristics in the Miocene, except the bend in the bill, which still appears late in individual development. The affinities of flamingoes with other birds are certainly obscured by their specialization for filter-feeding, in which they are only rivalled


In their monumental journey across North America and back, the explorers Lewis and Clark encountered and treated a Native American Chief with flaccid paralysis of about five years duration. The etiology of the paralysis is unclear from the historical sources. Intracranial, spinal cord, neuropathic, neuromuscular and muscular diagnoses are possible. The diagnosis that appears best to fit the case, however, is conversion disorder. In spite of limited diagnostic and treatment resources, the unfortunate man was apparently treated successfully.


Dialysis‐related amyloidosis (DRA) is caused by the deposition, in target tissues, of β2‐microglobulin (β2M) in fibrillar conformation. Several reports indicate that fibrillar β2M is chemically heterogeneous and such heterogeneity is partially related to the presence of truncated species of the protein. In association with the full‐length species, a β2M isoform lacking six N‐terminal residues is present in all the samples of our collection of ex vivo fibrils. The pattern of proteolytic cleavage in amyloidosis and in other diseases is completely different, as demonstrated by the absence in fibrillar β2M of the cleavage at lysine 58, which is contrary to that described in rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases. The role of limited proteolysis of β2M in the pathogenesis of the disease is uncertain. However, we have shown that the apparently minor modification of the intact protein, such as the removal of N‐terminal hexapeptide, is capable of dramatically affecting its stability, protection from proteolytic digestion, and enhance its capacity to make in vitro amyloid fibrils. The structure, folding dynamic, and function of the truncated species of β2M, peculiar of DRA, could shed new light on the mechanism of β2M fibril formation and reabsorption.


Abstract Employing a work of modern conceptual art, a manipulated photograph entitled 'The Missing Person', the author studies Thomas Aquinas on the concept of human beings as image of (the Triune) God. Typical for Aquinas' approach is the theocentric focus of his Christian anthropology. The threefold (nature, grace, glory) 'image of God', a central and dynamic concept in Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, is both descriptive and prescriptive in nature, corresponding to an account of both analogical naming of the divine ánd living according to the vocation to become more and more image of the Triune God.


Abstract Alluvial rivers are dynamic elements of the landscape in the Pacific Northwest. They expand, contract, and migrate across the bottom of valleys in response to changing flow and vegetation. Channel dynamics fundamentally structure river and floodplain ecosystems. Human activities that affect channel migration—including river regulation, channel revetments, and land use—have the potential for impacting river ecosystems. Active channel width and lateral movement of the active channel centerline was analyzed in 17 km valley segment of the middle Green River in western Washington from aerial photographs for 26 years of unregulated flows (1936–1961) and 41 years of flood regulation by Howard Hansen Dam. Area-based measures proved more robust for characterizing channel dynamics than cross-sectional measurements, though cross-sectional measurements are useful for resolving local processes. Prior to regulation from 1936 to 1961, the active channel width varied from 82 m to 120 m (median 94 m) and the channel migrated laterally a total of 68 m. After flood regulation from 1961 to 2002, the active channel width was generally smaller, varying from 84 m to 52 m (median 69 m) and the channel migrated 48 m. Streamflow greater than about 250 m3/s are most effective for forcing migration and have been reduced since dam construction. The river has re-occupied areas with increasing frequency since dam construction. High flows are essential to create new channel and floodplain habitats in the middle Green River, but land cover/use and revetments in the river corridor are also influential factors for maintaining channel dynamics.


An anastomotic pseudoaneurysm after congenital coarctation repair performed thirteen years ago, combined with an actively bleeding aortopulmonary fistula and an infected artificial graft, were successfully managed by employing an ascending aorta-infrarenal abdominal aortic bypass, and removal of an infected graft of the descending thoracic aorta.


Bovine botulism is a fatal disease that is caused by botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) produced by Clostridium botulinum serotypes C and D and that causes great economic losses, with nearly 100% lethality during outbreaks. It has also been considered a potential source of human food-borne illness in many countries. Vaccination has been reported to be the most effective way to control bovine botulism. However, the commercially available toxoid-based vaccines are difficult and hazardous to produce. Neutralizing antibodies targeted against the C-terminal fragment of the BoNT heavy chain (HC) are known to confer efficient protection against lethal doses of BoNTs. In this study, a novel recombinant chimera, consisting of Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin B subunit (LTB), a strong adjuvant of the humoral immune response, fused to the HC of BoNT serotypes C and D, was produced in E. coli. Mice vaccinated with the chimera containing LTB and an equivalent molar ratio of the chimera without LTB plus aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH)3) developed 2 IU/mL of antitoxins for both serotypes. Guinea pigs immunized with the recombinant chimera with LTB plus Al(OH)3 developed a protective immune response against both BoNT/C (5 IU/mL) and BoNT/D (10 IU/mL), as determined by a mouse neutralization bioassay with pooled sera. The results achieved with guinea pig sera fulfilled the requirements of commercial vaccines for prevention of botulism, as determined by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food, Supply. The presence of LTB was essential for the development of a strong humoral immune response, as it acted in synergism with Al(OH)3. Thus, the vaccine described in this study is a strong candidate for the control of botulism in cattle.


Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) possess two important properties such as self-renewal and differentiation. These properties of HSCs are maintained through hematopoiesis. This process gives rise to two subpopulations, long-term and short-term HSCs, which have become a popular convention for treating various hematological disorders. The clinical application of HSCs is bone marrow transplant in patients with aplastic anemia, congenital neutropenia, sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, or replacement of damaged bone marrow in case of chemotherapy. The self-renewal attribute of HSCs ensures long-term hematopoiesis post-transplantation. However, HSCs need to be infused in large numbers to reach their target site and meet the demands since they lose their self-renewal capacity after a few passages. Therefore, a more in-depth understanding of ex vivo HSCs expansion needs to be developed to delineate ways to enhance the self-renewability of isolated HSCs. The multifaceted self-renewal process is regulated by factors, including transcription factors, miRNAs, and the bone marrow niche. A developed classical hierarchical model that outlines the hematopoiesis in a lineage-specific manner through in vivo fate mapping, barcoding, and determination of self-renewal regulatory factors are still to be explored in more detail. Thus, an in-depth study of the self-renewal property of HSCs is essentially required to be utilized for ex vivo expansion. This review primarily focuses on the Hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal pathway and evaluates the regulatory molecular factors involved in considering a targeted clinical approach in numerous malignancies and outlining gaps in the current knowledge.


A protocol for the representation of traditional crafts and the tools to implement this are proposed. The proposed protocol is a method for the systematic collection and organization of digital assets and knowledge, their representation into a formal model, and their utilization for research, education, and preservation. A set of digital tools accompanies this protocol that enables the online curation of craft representations. The proposed approach was elaborated and evaluated with craft practitioners in three case studies. Lessons learned are shared and an outlook for future work is provided.


PURPOSE
Pediatric cancer survivors often experience long-term adverse health conditions or late effects, including hearing loss, that are attributable to cancer therapy. Ototoxic late effects have been documented in patients with cancer treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy and/or radiation. This study evaluated the late effects of methotrexate as compared to cisplatin and other cancer therapy agents on pediatric cancer survivors at the Children's Hospital of New Orleans in Louisiana (CHNOLA) and patients currently undergoing cancer treatment at Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

METHOD
A retrospective chart review was conducted of medical records from the CHNOLA Audiology Clinic and the Treatment After Cancer Late Effects clinic, which followed patients 2-19 years after cancer treatment completion and current patients with pediatric cancer at OLOL. This study identified pediatric cancer survivors between 2 and 24 years of age with treatment protocol information and audiological evaluations. Association studies were performed to calculate p values using an exact chi-square test.

RESULTS
More than 44% of late-effects patients had significant hearing loss; mild-to-profound hearing loss was observed in 37.5% of patients who received methotrexate treatment without cisplatin or irradiation. Eighty-three percent of the patients who received cisplatin had late-effect hearing loss. In patients currently receiving cancer treatment, 12% had significant hearing loss.

CONCLUSIONS
The results from this study suggest that children who receive therapies not clinically established as ototoxic (i.e., methotrexate) may still be at a high risk of developing long-term hearing loss as a late effect. Due to the high incidence rate of hearing loss among patients with pediatric cancer, we recommend that audiologists be part of the late-effects care team. This study also demonstrates that patients with pediatric cancer treated with methotrexate should receive routine long-term auditory monitoring as part of their standard of care to detect and manage hearing loss early, minimizing adverse outcomes.


Iron is usually produced from its ores using coke in a blast furnace (BF). Coke, a hard and macroporous carbon material, is produced from special coals (coking coals) and acts as fuel, smelting agent, and the permeable support for the charge to the BF. No material can completely replace coke in a BF. Coking coals are becoming harder (and more expensive) to obtain. Victorian brown coal (VBC) is accessible, cheap, with low mineral concentrations, which is favourable for iron production in a BF. However, as-mined, it does not form coke, but a char which is too reactive to be used in a BF. The objective of this project is to produce a substitute for BF coke from VBC by physical and chemical treatments and to investigate the use of cementing agents to reduce the reactivity and strengthen the product finally formed.

VBC from Loy Yang open cut, and its commercial products, briquettes and char, which were obtained from Australian Char Pty Ltd in lump form, were used as starting materials. VBC tar, coking coal tar pitch, and asphaltene (hexane insolubles from VBC tar) were used as binders. Some of the starting material was pre-treated by acid washing (0.5 M H₂SO₄), hydrothermal dewatering (HTD; 320 °C-35 min) or alkali treatment (KOH (aq), 185 °C-10 h). The elemental analysis and NMR of these materials were determined.

Before pelleting, raw VBC, pre-treated VBC, or briquettes were dried at 105 °C under N₂, ground to <0.15 mm, then mixed with the binder in tetrahydrofuran (THF). THF was removed and the mixture was pelleted by a conventional hydraulic press at ambient temperature or using an INSTRON 5569 series Mechanical Tester applying a range of forces, temperatures and times. Some samples were pelleted under N₂ (350 °C-30 min) by "Hot Press Carbonization" (HPC). In some cases, samples were air cured at 200 °C for 2 h. Finally, the samples were carbonised at a range of temperatures and times under N₂ flow, at a low heating rate to minimise cracking of the pellet, then cooled under N₂.

The measurements used to evaluate the suitability of the products as substitutes for BF coke were compressive strength and reactivity. The compressive strengths of pellets were measured by using an INSTRON 5569 series Mechanical Tester. Reactivity was measured using a thermogravimetric balance. The sample was heated to 1000 °C at 20 °C /min under N2 and held at 1000 °C for 1 h in a flow (70 ml/min) of 1:1 CO₂:N₂. The reactivity, R60CO₂, was calculated from the weight loss. Physical properties of the products were measured in order to understand what factors controlled the compressive strength and reactivity.

Initially, VBC or commercial briquettes were impregnated with tar, pelleted at ambient temperature and carbonized. Products from VBC showed higher compressive strengths (40-60 MPa) and slightly lower reactivity (R60CO₂ 87-89 %) and surface areas (790-800 m²/g) than those from briquettes. The effects of carbonization time, temperature (900 or 950 °C) and tar addition were relatively small. The high reactivity of the samples compared to that of coke (R60CO₂ 13 %) is probably related to their higher surface areas and the smaller extent and greater disorder of their graphitic structure as shown by XRD.

The poor results of ambient pelleting and recent literature suggested that hot pelleting of VBC would be advantageous. Therefore, VBC-tar mixture was hot pelleted (150 °C-20 kN for 10 or 30 min), optionally air cured then carbonized (950 °C for 3 h). Products showed higher compressive strength (90-200 MPa) and bulk density (1.17-1.27 g/cm³) than those obtained following ambient pelleting. A high concentration of tar (10-15 wt%) and air curing increased the compressive strength by a further factor of two. The compressive strength was higher than that of a BF coke (20 MPa), but the surface area remained high and the surface was rough (SEM) and the proportion of graphitic structure was small (Raman spectroscopy). These factors probably contributed to the high reactivity of even the strongest products.

VBC treated by HTD resembles a higher rank coal (e.g. lower O content), suggesting that HTD coal might carbonize to a less reactive product, like a higher rank coal. HTD treatment reduced the reactivity of the carbonization products, without an unacceptable lowering of the compressive strength. More severe briquetting conditions, acid washing before HTD, air curing and severe carbonization conditions (1200 °C-8 h) all together reduced the reactivity to R60CO₂ 34 %, still much higher than that of a BF coke. The surface area was reduced, but only to 100 m²/g, (cf. 18 m2/g for BF coke) and the proportion of graphitic structure was smaller than in BF coke, so that the higher reactivity may be due to these structural factors.

Alkali treated VBC (ATC) appears to melt and fuse upon carbonization, like a coking coal, suggesting that carbonised product might be similar to a BF coke. The ATC with pitch and air curing had a high compressive strength (up to 230 MPa) after carbonization (1200-1300 °C for 2-8 h). The small surface area (as low as 20 m³/g) and smooth surface (SEM) of the products under some conditions suggests that fusion occurred during carbonization. However, the proportion of graphitic structure (Raman and TEM) was lower than for a BF coke and the reactivity of the carbonized products did not fall below R60CO₂ 30 %. Possibly the alkali treatment changed the chemical structure and inhibited graphitisation. Suitable pore structure is necessary for low reactivity, but the chemical structure is also important.

Empirical treatments, modifying the structure of brown coal in the direction of higher rank coals, give carbonised products which approach BF coke in reactivity, surface area and the proportion of graphitic structure while maintaining compressive strength.


An analytical development of the magnetic vector potential is used to investigate the losses in round-wire planar windings. The current distribution in wires is affected by the skin effect and the field created by adjacent wires (proximity effect). This field depends on the current distribution in conductors, resulting in a closed-form problem. In this paper, we obtain the vector potential outside a conductor to estimate the effect of induced currents in the field shape over the neighboring conductors. We use the results to calculate the losses in planar windings such as those in domestic induction heaters. We obtain an equivalent resistance representing the losses in windings and compare it with measurements. This solution provides an accurate analytical approach to modeling the losses in close-packed windings


This study investigated the cytotoxic and genotoxic potential of perfluorododecanoic acid (PFDoA), a perfluorinated carboxylic chemical (PFC) that has broad applications and distribution in the environment in Japanese medaka, Oryzias latipes . Micronucleus (MN) test and Comet assay were used for the toxicity study. Three groups of fish were exposed to 0.1 mg/L, 0.5 mg/L and 2.5 mg/L concentration of the chemical for 28 days. Another group served as control. Sampling of the fish blood and liver were done after days 1, 4, 7, 14, 21 and 28 for analysis of different erythrocyte abnormalities and damage to DNA using the MN test and Comet assay respectively. Results showed that there was a significant time and concentration dependent increase (p  < 0.05) in percent tail length of DNA and frequency of erythrocyte abnormalities. Nuclear abnormalities observed include micronucleus, fragmented apoptotic cells, lobed nuclei, and bean-shaped cells. Increase in induction of erythrocyte abnormalities and percent tail length of DNA peaked at days 14 and 7, respectively, after which there was a gradual decline. The results indicate that sub-chronic exposure of PFDoA to Japanese medaka caused DNA damage with a simultaneous induction of different erythrocyte abnormalities.


Sixteen renal transplant (RT) patients (10 men, 6 women, aged 49 +/- 10 years) with chronic hepatitis C received alpha interferon (IFN alpha) therapy (Intron A, Schering Plough) at a dose of 3 x 10(6) units s.c. 3 times a week, scheduled for 24 consecutive weeks. At the beginning of the study all had a stable renal function since at least 12 months (mean serum creatinine -SCr- 121 +/- 38 mmol/l). Fourteen patients were receiving cyclosporin A (CsA) either alone (1) or in combination with steroids and/or azathioprine -AZA- (double therapy: 8; triple therapy: 5); two patients were on conventional therapy. The mean daily doses of CsA were 2.6 mg/kd i.e. a mean whole blood trough level of 104 ng/ml. Six patients experienced renal failure either acute (5) or subacute (1) within 7 to 24 weeks after the start of IFN alpha therapy. Their mean SCr increased from 105 +/- 31 mmol/l to 207 +/- 63 mmol/l (p = 0.02) with de-novo proteinuria in one case (1 g/d) and an increase in pre-existing proteinuria in 2; 3 remained without proteinuria. The histological study showed in all cases a diffuse interstitial edema associated with dilatation of peritubular capillaries; mild inflammatory infiltrates were present in only 3 cases; mild glomerular lesions were not always found (glomerular ischemia, mesangial hypertrophy). There was no vascular lesions IFN alpha was withdrawn in these 6 patients, associated with methylprednisolone pulses in 5 cases. Renal function improved in two cases, stabilized in one and progressed to end stage renal failure in 3 within 4 to 12 months. Four patients had iterative renal biopsies showing in all cases diffuse interstitial fibrosis. This subgroup of patients did not statistically differ at the start of the study from those who did not develop renal failure according to baseline immunosuppression, HLA matching, total peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) count. PBL subtypes. INF alpha therapy was associated with acute or subacute renal failure in 37% of patients. The most prominent histological finding was a diffuse interstitial edema of rapid onset, without signs of cellular or vascular rejection. Thus we do not recommend to use IFN alpha therapy in RT patients with chronic hepatitis C, until the mechanisms of the subsequent renal failure be more understood.


Evaluation of: Mercer BM, Gilbert S, Landon MB et al., for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Maternal–Fetal medicine Units Network: Labor outcomes with increasing number of prior vaginal births after cesarean delivery. Obstet. Gynecol. 111(2), 285–291 (2008). From a prospective US multicenter cohort of 45,988 patients with a singleton gestation and a prior cesarean, 13,532 women that elected to attempt a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) were selected for this secondary analysis. This study was conducted to estimate the success rates and risks of an attempted VBAC according to the number of previously successful VBAC attempts. Outcomes evaluated included VBAC success, maternal major morbidity (e.g., uterine rupture and surgical complications), neonatal morbidity (e.g., intensive care nursery admission and acidemia) and maternal and neonatal death. The VBAC success rate rose incrementally from 63.3 to 91.6% in patients that had from zero to four or more prior successful VBACs. Uterine rupture and peripartum risks decreased by 50% after the initial successful VBAC and did not increase with increasing prior VBAC number. Neonatal morbidity did not increase with increasing VBAC number.


We conducted a comprehensive analysis of the phylogenetic, phylogeographic, and demographic relationships of Caspian cobra (Naja oxiana; Eichwald, 1831) populations based on a concatenated dataset of two mtDNA genes (cyt b and ND4) across the species' range in Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan, along with other members of Asian cobras (i.e. subgenus Naja Laurenti, 1768). Our results provided strong support that N. oxiana is monophyletic and its divergence from its sister taxon, N. kaouthia, during early Pleistocene. Our results also highlight the existence of only one major evolutionary lineage in the Trans-Caspian region, suggesting a rapid expansion of the Caspian cobra from eastern to western Asia, coupled with a rapid range expansion from east of Iran to the northeast. However, the subdivision of eastern and northeastern populations in Iran was not supported; hence we propose only one evolutionary significant unit across the Iranian range of N. oxiana to be considered for conservation efforts.


Continuous measurements of local blood flow were performed by means of short pulse heated miniature thermistors. Results obtained in rat cerebral cortex or skeletal muscle show good stability of the recordings and the sensitivity of the system to phasic changes in local blood flow. Experiments on perfused rabbit kidney support the possibility of using this method for quantitative measurements.


Experiments at 6-12 GPa showed that San Carlos olivine surrounded by carbon melts incongruently at 1400 and higher temperatures, producing olivine with lower Fe contents, pyroxene, carbide, and carbonate melt. The relatively low melting temperature of 1400 , independent of pressure, is consistent with carbonate melting. The new evidence for the reduced stability of olivine at high temperatures in the presence of carbonate melts is consistent with geophysical observations, and results in a substantially improved agreement between the experimentally determined phase relations and the observed seismic velocity structure of the upper mantle. C o


The spiritual experience is, somehow, closer to what is proper to the contemporary scientific experiment: both are ways of tryout. A follower of such path needs to meet the requirements comparable with those of scientific experiment (in spirituality we can name it "experience"): rules and criteria of verification. Yet the result of this spiritual quest is on another level, because it grants access to a reality beyond our common-sense perception. To express the contents of this experience is extremely difficult, and the normal usage of words is inadequate. And, with any generation in history, expressing the specificity of this experience becomes always a question of novelty. This is due to a different cultural and social background, of a different "field of experience". I consider that nowadays we can better understand the rigor of a spiritual path as well as its concreteness (new scientific researches prove it), tracking the significance of spiritual practice for a more complex understanding of reality. But at the same time, new spiritual experiences, made in the actual contexts, can offer new solutions and new answers to the contemporary social and cultural challenges. Spirituality, understood as a practice following a particular religious tradition and aiming personal and community's betterment, has the ability to provide empathy for the other, because somebody having a spiritual practice can recognize a similar need of any other human. "To reconcile" can have many meanings, from reconciling individuals to reconciling neighborhoods, communities, entire countries, to which the reconciliation with self gathers (since we often have contradictory elements in our formal instruction or in our thinking).


Objective To evaulate the effect of Fufang Dachengqi Decoction on the postoperative gastrointestinal motility in patients with esophageal cancer.Methods Sixty patients with esophageal cancer after surgery were randomly divided into two groups.One hundred and fifty ml of Fufang Dachengqi Decoction versus normal saline was infused through nasojejunal tube once a day for three days in the experimental group and control group,respectively.Results Compared with the control group,the recovery time of bowel sounds,time of first exhaustation and first defecation were significantly earlier in the experimental group.The level of plasma motilin was significantly higher while the level of plasma vasoactive intestinal peptide was significanlty lower in the experimental group.Conclusions Fufang Dachengqi Decoction can effectively promote postoperative gastrointestinal motility in patients with esophageal cancer.


Background: HIV-associated atherosclerosis is a major comorbidity due, in part, to systemic effects of the virus on cholesterol metabolism. HIV protein Nef plays an important role in this pathology by impairing maturation of the main cellular cholesterol transporter ATP-Binding Cassette (ABCA) 1. ABCA1 maturation critically depends on calnexin, an integral endoplasmic reticulum membrane chaperone, and Nef binds to the cytoplasmic domain of calnexin and impairs interaction of calnexin with ABCA1. Overarching goal of the present study was to model Nef–calnexin interaction interface, and identify small molecule compounds potentially inhibiting this interaction. Methods: Molecular dynamics was utilized to build structure model of calnexin cytoplasmic domain, followed by global docking combined with application of QASDOM software developed by us for efficient analysis of receptor–ligand complexes. Structure-based virtual screening was performed for all sites identified by docking. A soluble analogue of a compound from the screening results list was tested for ability to down-regulate ABCA1. Results: We identified major interaction sites in calnexin and reciprocal sites in Nef. Virtual screening yielded a number of small-molecule compounds potentially blocking a calnexin site. Interestingly, one of the compounds, NSC13987, was previously identified by us as an inhibitor targeting a Nef site. An analogue of NSC13987, AMS-55, potently reversed the negative effect of Nef on ABCA1 abundance. Conclusions: We have modelled Nef–calnexin interaction, predicted small molecule compounds that can potentially inhibit this interaction, and experimentally tested one of these compounds, confirming its effectiveness. These findings provide a platform for searching for new therapeutic agents to treat HIV-associated comorbidities.


This report provides an overview of Egyptian politics and current issues in U.S.-Egyptian relations. It briefly provides a political history of modern Egypt, an overview of its political institutions, and a discussion of the prospects for democratization in Egypt, U.S.-Egyptian relations are complex and multi-faceted, and this report addresses the following current topics: the Arab-Israeli peace process, Iraq, terrorism, democratization and reform, human rights, trade, and military cooperation.


Manzanar National Historic Site was established to protect and interpret the resources associated with the internment of Japanese Americans at one often War Relocation Centers during World War II. One of the many challenges facing the National Park Service (NPS) at Manzanar is determining how to tell the story of the internment. Opinions about the role of the NPS in managing and interpreting the site range from suggestions that the NPS needs to serve as the social conscience of the nation to cautions that the NPS not become a ""groveling sycophant"" to the Japanese American community. To address this issue, the park sought diverse forums to engage the public in the management of the site. This paper details how public engagement has affected a number of management decisions.


To evaluate the relationship between atmospheric nitrogen dioxide exposure and the development of allergic diseases, the effects of nitrite as a chemical product of inhaled nitrogen dioxide on mast cell functions were investigated. We have studied nitrite-induced histamine release from two functionally distinct mast cell populations, namely peritoneal mast cells (PMC) and intestinal mucosal mast cells (IMMC) of Nippostrongylus brasiliensis-infected rats. High concentrations of nitrite alone (10, 20, and 50 mM) induced histamine release from IMMC, but not from PMC. Moreover, histamine release from PMC and IMMC stimulated with sensitizing antigen was significantly enhanced by pretreatment with 50 mM nitrite or nitrate. No differences in histamine release from nitrite-treated and control PMC were seen below 1 mM. To investigate the effect of nitrite on tumor cell cytotoxic activity, PMC were incubated with various concentrations of nitrite. Pretreatment with 5 and 50 mM nitrite markedly depressed tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha-dependent natural cytotoxicity of PMC for the tumor target WEHI-164. Thus, high concentrations of nitrite enhanced mast cell histamine release, but depressed TNF-alpha-dependent cytotoxicity. However, low concentrations of nitrite (< 1 mM) that would normally be produced by short-term atmospheric exposure to nitrogen dioxide may have no significant effects on mast cell functions.


Repeated upper limb short latency somatosensory-evoked potential (USSEP) studies were performed in 19 post-stroke patients and correlated with the clinical evaluation. Examinations were performed on admission to the rehabilitation centre, and again about 10 weeks later. Data analysis focused on the temporal changes occurring in each patient, and the relationship of these changes to the patient's clinical condition. In seven of the 19 patients, no cortical potentials could be detected on admission or follow-up. These patients had the worst clinical outcome. Whenever a cortical potential was found in the first examination, it was also detected in the second. Dynamic changes between examinations were mainly seen in the central conduction time (CCT) and showed an opposite trend in each hemisphere. In the second examination, the average CCT lengthened over the damaged hemisphere (p < 0.03) but shortened (insignificantly) over the nonaffected hemisphere, relative to the CCT in the first test. A positive correlation (p < 0.03) was found between the increase in NI/PI amplitude - measured peak-to-peak between the major negative component (NI) of the cortical response and the subsequent positive wave (PI)-and improvement in communication ability, especially comprehension. The USSEP can serve as an auxiliary tool in monitoring the recovery process of stroke patients. Changes in USSEP components occur over both hemispheres and may serve as markers of brain plasticity.


Miloxacin, a novel chemotherapeutic agent, has been reported to have very potent antibacterial activity to E. coli, Klebsiella, Proteus and other Gram-negative rods and be excreted into bile at high levels. Therefore, the effectiveness of miloxacin against biliary tract infections and its excretion into bile in patients were investigated. The results were as follows: i) Comparative studies on the excretion of miloxacin, nalidixic acid (NA) and cephalexin (CEX) into bile of patients operated in gallbladder were performed by a crossover method. The maximum concentration of miloxacin after oral administration of 500 mg ranged from 18.2 to 24.0 micrograms/ml and were much higher than those of NA (5.3 micrograms/ml) and CEX (3.4 micrograms/ml). The mean recovery of miloxacin within 6 hours was 0.256% and much greater than those of NA (0.075%) and CEX (0.027%). ii) Into bile, intact miloxacin and its metabolites (the glucuronides of miloxacin and M-2) were excreted but M-1 was scarcely excreted. Regression analysis of the concentrations by the bioassay compared with those intact miloxacin by the HPLC method gave a good correlation with r = 0.96. iii) The clinical effectiveness against the biliary tract infections was investigated in 29 cases. Miloxacin showed the excellent effect in 8 cases and the good effect in 17 cases, giving an effective ratio of 86.2%. Especially, all of the cases dosed with miloxacin over 34 mg/kg in a day showed excellent or good results. iv) The rates of clinical effectiveness were 85.7, 80.0% and 71.4% in E. coli, Klebsiella and Proteus infections, respectively. The antibacterial activity of miloxacin against 27 strains isolated in this test was more potent than those of NA and CEX. v) During the clinical tests, none of any side effect with miloxacin was observed in both of subjective and objective symptoms. These results show that miloxacin is expected to be fully applicable on the therapy of biliary tract infections.


Prognosis for endometrial carcinoma is closely related to cell type and tumor grade but also to local staging using the FIGO classification. MRI, under specific technical conditions, allows excellent depiction of the degree of myometrial tumor extension. It also has an excellent specificity for the detection of cervical extension. In addition, it allows evaluation of regional nodes, but with sensitivity values that are not perfect. The purpose of this paper is to review the MR imaging features of endometrial carcinoma along with its limitations and pitfalls.


In the present study, a technique to remove arsenic has been developed with a polymer-supported hydrated Fe(III) oxide (HFO) by using a strongly basic anionic exchanger IRA-420 as the host material and FeCl 3 -HCl-NaCl solution as the reaction environment. The optimized conditions were applied to a sample collected from Sonargaon, Dhaka. The removal efficiency of this method was more than 80%, which indicates that this method can be used as an efficient method for arsenic removal in Bangladesh. IRA-420-HFO exhibits more preferential adsorption of arsenic ions which is attributed to the Donnan membrane effect exerted by the host resin (IRA-420) as well as to the loaded HFO particles for specific interaction toward arsenic (III) ions. All the results indicated that HFO polymer derivative is an attractive adsorbent for efficient arsenic (III) removal from contaminated groundwater of Bangladesh. Dhaka Univ. J. Sci. 63(2):85-89, 2015 (July)