Objectives: The stacked hexapod bone transport technique is an effective treatment for infected tibial nonunions with bone loss. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patients' risk factors and timing for requiring adjunctive stabilization. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Level 1 trauma center. Patients/Participants: Seventy-five patients with infected posttraumatic nonunions of the tibia. Intervention: Resection of nonunion with application of stacked hexapod frame for bone transport. Main Outcome Measurements: Parameters measured included age, sex, diabetes, smoking, use of a free flap, bone defect size, length in frame, external fixation index, and direction of lengthening. Outcomes recorded: removal of frame, below knee amputation, or adjunctive stability. Further analysis evaluated location of nonunion, timing of adjunctive stabilization, and type of fixation. Results: The average patient age was 45.7 ± 12.5 years, 76% patients were men, 11% were diabetic, and 44% were smokers. Forty two percent had soft tissue defects that required a free flap. Thirty-eight patients had removal of frame, whereas 36 patients required adjunctive stability of the hexapod frame. Patient receiving adjunctive stabilization had a longer length of time in the hexapod frame (P = 0.026) and were more likely to require a free flap (P = 0.053). Ninety-three percent docking site nonunions occurred after the removal of the frame (P = 0.032); whereas 79% regenerate nonunions occurred before the hexapod frame was removed (P = 0.029). Conclusions: The use of a hexapod frame for the infected tibial nonunions with bone loss is an effective method for achieving union and eradicating infection in a difficult orthopaedic patient population. Use of adjunctive stabilization is a reasonable technique to address delayed regenerate and docking site nonunions. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


Telomerase deficiency in the mouse eventually leads to loss of telomeric repeats from chromosome ends and to end‐to‐end chromosome fusions, which result in defects in highly proliferative tissues. We show that telomere dysfunction resulting from telomerase deficiency leads to disruption of functional meiotic spindles and misalignment of chromosomes during meiotic division of oocytes in late‐generation (G4) mice. However, oocytes from first‐generation (G1) mice lacking telomerase showed no appreciable telomere dysfunction and exhibited chromosome alignment at the metaphase plates of meiotic spindles, in a manner similar to that of wild‐type mouse oocytes. These findings suggest that telomerase does not directly influence chromosome alignment and spindle integrity. Rather, functional telomeres may be involved in mediating metaphase chromosome alignment and maintaining functional spindles during meiotic division.


We summarize the recent developments in the model design and computation for a few representative quantum many-body systems, encompassing quantum critical metals beyond the Hertz-Millis-Moriya framework with pseudogap and superconductivity, SYK non-Fermi-liquid with self-tuned quantum criticality and fluctuation induced superconductivity, and the flat-band quantum Moiré lattice models in continuum where the interplay of quantum geometry of flat-band wave function and the long-range Coulomb interactions gives rise to novel insulating phases at integer fillings and superconductivity away from them. Although the narrative choreography seems simple, we show how important the appropriate model design and their tailor-made algorithmic developments – in other words, the scientific imagination inspired by the corresponding fast experimental developments in the aforementioned systems – compel us to invent and discover new knowledge and insights in the sport and pastime of quantum many-body research.


We study the problem of linear instability in non-vacuum spacetimes. For vacuum spa.cetimes linear instability occurs when the spacetime has Killing vectors. In the non-vacuum case, one must prescribe how the sources are to vary. For one natural choice, we show that the signal for instability is the existence of Integral Constraint Vector fields. These vector fields lead, as in the vacuum case, to nonlinear constraints on the first order perturbations to the metric and momentum. For other choices for variations of the sources, we show how to modify the definition of Integral Constra,int Vectors appropriately. Since Robertson-Walker spacetimes have Integral Constraint Vectors our results may have cosmological applications.


We have investigated the growth mechanism of coronene-derived graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) using two different precursors: coronene and a dimer form of coronene, so-called dicoronylene (C48H20). For both of the precursors, the formation of nanoribbon-like materials inside carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was confirmed by transmission electron microscope observations. Experimental and theoretical Raman analysis reveals that the samples also encapsulated dicoronylene and linearly condensed other coronene oligomers, which can be regarded as analogues to GNRs. Interestingly, it was found that the present doping condition of coronene yields dicoronylene prior to encapsulation due to the thermal dimerization of coronene. These results indicate that the dimerization before the encapsulation drives the preferential formation of the coronene-based GNRs within CNTs.


Over the last 60 years, innovation and improvements in India's public services have frequently emerged in the absence of state intervention or involvement. Social enterprises have stepped in to address the challenges where the government has failed. As a consequence, radical new perspectives have developed that might not have emerged if governments had imposed top-down initiatives adopted from the West. "Frugal Innovation" is the idiom applied to this sweeping revolution in public service design and delivery. The term is used in India and other developing economies to describe innovation that minimises costs by creating frugal solutions to deliver improved or previously non-existent public services. Frugal innovation has given more people access to a wider range of services. This paper provides insights into how solutions developed from the bottom-up in some of the most challenging public service environments can better meet the needs of citizens. It investigates a range of new perspectives applied to services by over 40 social enterprises in India. It challenges the notion that uniformity in delivering public services driven by a top-down centralist ideology translates into good value for money.


In an attempt to create a model of human infantile beriberi, pregnant rats were fed, from the 10th day of pregnancy through lactation, a low-thiamine diet. Controls were either pair-fed or offered a nutritionally complete diet ad libitum. Dams exhibited symptoms of thiamine deficiency after 30 days on the experimental diet, whereas the their pups displayed signs of thiamine deficiency from the 14th postnatal day. Brain transketolase activity was depressed in day-old thiamine-deficient pups, and brain pyruvic acid levels were elevated after the 7th postnatal day. From the 14th postnatal day, brains of thiamine-deficient pups contained less phospholipids, cerebrosides and cholesterol than those of both controls. On the 21st day, weight and lipid content of brains of thiamine-deficient and of pair-fed pups were lower than those of normal controls. In some rats rehabilitation with thiamine was begun on the 19th day, and after 23 days, brain cerebroside content was still lower in the experimental group than in both controls. Since cerebrosides are an essential component of myelin, this finding may suggest damage of the myelin sheath.


The framework of Donabedian is widely applied to performance assessment at the healthcare system level. Donabedian categorised the care quality measurement around three dimensions, namely structure, process, and outcomes. The first dimension concerns the inputs; the second one, the combinations of factors and inputs; the last one, the effectiveness in terms of patients' health status. Donabedian early included in the last dimension the patient satisfaction. Nevertheless, nowadays, outcomes are generally measured through hard endpoints, such as re-admissions and mortality indicators. Recently, the Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) have been included among the outcome measures within the Donabedian framework. How to move the concept of patient-centeredness to a macro level, including the patient point of view in care quality measurement, evaluation, and improvement? This paper integrates the Donabedian structure-process-outcome framework, by incorporating in the proper dimension the patient-indicators, namely the abovementioned PROMs and Patient-Reported Experience Measures (PREMs). While PROMs are clearly measures of outcome, PREMs can be collocated in the process dimension, since they can be useful for mapping processes and care pathways, in a lean perspective, as well as in the outcome dimension, because inherently linked to outcome, and enablers of patient-centeredness.


Detecting the effects of transient faults is a key point in many processor-based safety-critical applications. This paper proposes to adopt the debug interface module existing today in several processors/controllers available on the market. In this way, we can achieve a good detection capability and small latency with respect to control flow errors, while the cost for adopting the proposed technique is rather limited and does not involve any change either in the processor hardware or in the application software. The method works even if the processor uses caches and we experimentally evaluated its characteristics demonstrating the advantages and showing the limitations on two pipelined processors. Experimental results performed by fault injection using different software applications demonstrate that the method is able to archieve high fault coverage (more than 95 percent in nearly all the considered cases) with a limited cost in terms of area and performance degradation.


An oxytetracycline-tolidin-bovine serum albumin (OTC-tolidin-BSA)-conjugate was synthezed as immunogen for producing specific antibodies in immunized rabbits that would be used as reagent for development of OTC residue detection with enzym-linked immunoassays technique. The immunogen was prepared through diazotization tolidin and subsequently reacted with OTC. The red purple immunogen of OTC-tolidin-BSA absorbed at wave lengths of 277 nm and 488 nm under UV screening absorbances and confirmation with the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) showed the absence of peak at retention time of 3.46 minutes. Characaterized result with SDS-PAGE showed the molecular weight of the OTC-tolidin-BSA at 69.79 kDA. Subsequently, the immunogen was immunized into New Zealand rabbits in order to produce the polyclonal antibodies. The antibodies were purified using a protein A sepharose column. The OD optimum responses of 0.92 to 1.20 were obtained from the second fractionation at dilution of 1/1000 by titrating the antibodies and OTC-tolidin-BSA coating antigen at concentration of 10 µg/mL on several bleeding times. Key Words: Oxytetracycline, OTC-Tolidin-BSA, Immunogen, Immunization, Antibodies


AbstractThe purpose of this research paper is to study which methods teachers are using to develop children's reading and writing skills. The purpose is also to investigate necessarily conditions to individualize the teaching of reading and writing.The qualitative research is based on interviews with six elementary school teachers. The interviewed teachers think that it is important to see every child individually to be able to develop the reading and writing skills. Education can only be stimulating and delightful when it is individualized. In spite of this, the result shows that the majority of the teachers are using only one method when teaching children reading and writing. The teachers agree that there should be collaboration with the children's previous teachers to be able to know each child faster. Mapping and documentation are also useful for teachers. The result of the study also shows that computers and fiction books are good complements to the regular reading and writing teaching. The most common reading and writing methods among the teachers are a combination of the sound imitating method and the full word method. Success in individualizing depends on the access of remedial teacher and the number of stand by teachers. Furthermore, it is immensely important that all teaching is well thought-out and well planned, according to the interviewed teachers.My conclusions are that teachers have to offer a lot of different methods in order to get all children the same conditions for their learning. I feel that it's important to meet and see every child and their needs. To be able to do so teachers must vary their approach when children learn to read and write.


IT IS NOW twenty-three years since the Dicks proved the etiology of scarlet fever and perfected methods by which susceptibility to the disease could be ascertained and by which the disease could be prevented. They also produced a successful antitoxin for treatment of the active phase. It is surprising that immunization to scarlet fever is still a controversial subject. In the present discussion some of the questions still in the minds of physicians about scarlet fever will be examined. EFFICACY OF IMMUNIZATION TO SCARLET FEVER Do the present methods of immunization against scarlet fever actually immunize against the disease? If one specifies the Dick method in which, according to the old formula, unchanged scarlet fever streptococcus toxin U. S. P. was administered in five doses increasing from 500 to 80,000 skin test doses and which, in the past three years, has been increased to an initial dose of 650 skin


This article argues that Salafi-Wahhabism's political ideology has major effects on Malaysia's socio-political orders. It also argues that the levels of resilience to the Salafi-Wahabi expansion are varied between state and society. At the level of society, resilience is weakened by multiple layers of grievances, which produced various effects brought by stages of reformist movements and terrors of neo-Salafi groups. The crucial indicator is its changing characteristics from being accommodative to a defensive one. The increasing tendency of Muslims embracing Salafi-Wahabism is the result of years of indoctrination, transnational Islamist networking, an external source of religious-funded activities, and the politicization of Islam. Yet this has been outweighed by the state's resilience. Several attributes could explain the state's ability to resist internal and external sources of radical ideologies, among others, long experience with terror threats, the state's defined Islam, strong control on religious affairs, and the law enforcement that existed since the colonial periods.


Tradition has painted a portrait of a Savior who stands aloof from governmental concerns and who calls his disciples to an apolitical life. But such a picture of Jesus is far from accurate, according to John Howard Yoder. This watershed work in New Testament ethics leads us to a Savior who was deeply concerned with the agenda of politics and the related issues of power, status, and right relations. By canvassing Luke's Gospel, Yoder argues convincingly that the true impact of Jesus' life and ministry on his disciples' social behavior points to a specific kind of Christian pacifism in which "the cross of Christ is the model of Christian social efficacy." This second edition of The Politics of Jesus provides up-to-date interaction with recent publications that touch on Yoder's timely topic. Following most of the chapters are new "epilogues" summarizing research conducted during the last two decades - research that continues to support the outstanding insights set forth in Yoder's original work.


ABSTRACT Anthropometric measurements such as breast volume are directly associated with the product development for bras. However, a non-contact method that accurately detects the upper boundary of breasts has not been reported. By taking advantage of the time delay in the vertical displacement between the breasts and the chest wall during physical activity, we 4D-scanned 26 female participants using Temporal 3dMD system and proposed a method to visualise the amount of variability for this relative displacement, so as to reveal the upper boundary of breasts on static 3D body scans. This is also one of the first studies that investigate the vertical displacement and the shape deformation of breasts during running using 4D scanning technology. Ultimately, the method and results can increase the understanding of breast kinematics, and benefit the product design of bras, especially for sports bras, and other products for women that require a close fit to the torso.


with obstructive deafness with similar degree of deafness. In many cases he found a negative Einne in otosclerosis with the highest forks of Edelmann series, even when the hearing of conversational voice was good at 24 feet. He regarded the raising of the low-tone limit as a sign of obstructive deafness element appearing. The internal-ear deafness was a variable element. He would like to object to describing a certain progressive internal-ear deafness as otosclerosis. These cases of almost pure internal-ear deafness clinically behaved certainly very like otosclerosis in many ways, but he would like pathological evidence before classifying them as otosclerosis as is being done on the continent. He would rather that such cases be described as progressive internal-ear deafness in the meantime.


A comparison is made of various local and gradient-corrected correlation energy functionals, Ec(n,m), for positive, neutral and negative ions with atomic numbers between 1 and 30. The improvement in the total correlation energy, in c, from the gradient corrected Ec(n,m) is not always transferred to the correlation energy differences, e.g. correlation energy contributions, Delta in c, to ionisation potentials (IP) and electron affinities (EA). Particular attention is given to the 3d transition series, where none of the presently Ec(n,m) reproduce the experimental Delta in c very well. An identity for differences in energy functionals of Vosko and Lagowski (1986) is used to express Delta Ec directly in terms of the number and spin magnetic moment density differences and 'effective potentials'. The trends in the IP and EA Delta in c for the 3d transition series elements are analysed using this identity, and the inadequacies of presently available Ec(n,m) are discussed.


In analyzing the historical and cultural factors defining the specific situation of women in Maghreb, it is shown that economic, political, and structural changes are occurring in the countries of Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya), but that the traditional patriarchal conception of life is even more conservative in reaction to these changes. In the patriarchal lineage structure, where the power of a family depends on the number of its males, the role of women is essentially reproductive. A woman has a social value once she becomes the mother of several sons. This was, and still is, the only way out of the lowest position in the social hierarchy for women. This situation has been leading to an intensive fertility (The birth rate was 50% in Morocco, in 1975; it was 46% in Algeria, in 1981; 32% in Tunisia, in 1983; and 47% in Libya, in 1981). It also has led to a high rate of maternal mortality, and morbidity, as well as puerperal psychosis. The sexual discrimination in favour of men in this reproductive context, has been immobilizing the relation between the sexes. The only affective relation between woman and man has been the relation between mother and son. The perpetuation of this conception in people's mind, by the weight of habits and of religius ideology, has been the strongest obstacle to demographic transition and to the necessary decline of the birth rate in these countries. Nevertheless, the possibility of changes in mentality has been growing through the slow development of women's education, and through State demographic policies favoring birth limitation.


Much of the variation seen in outcomes among infants born at 22, 23, or 24 weeks of gestation can be explained by differences in hospitals' practices on whether to initiate active treatment to save the lives of these extremely premature newborns, concludes a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine .1

The study found that hospitals at which active treatment was more often started had higher rates of risk-adjusted survival, both with and without impairment, than hospitals at which active treatment was less often started.

Currently, active intervention, such as the administration of surfactant therapy, intubation, ventilatory support, resuscitation, and parenteral support, is generally not recommended for infants born before 22 weeks of gestation. But for infants born at or after 22 weeks practice varies from institution to institution, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Congress of Obstetricians and …


Many children like watching animation and gain knowledge from it. However, many animations contain violence in their scenes. Therefore, parents need to be aware that the scenes potentially give negative impact on children attitude and behaviour. This research focuses on the analysis of positive and negative side of "Oscar Oasis" animation movie based on exaggeration principle. Quantitative content analysis is employed as the method.  The result shows several types of violence in the movie such as beating, persecution, raiding, slaughtering, rough / sharp throwing, kicking, and fights. The duration of the violence is also counted.


Commercial dodecylbenzene cable fluid was aged at temperatures of 105 and 135degC in dry oxygen-free nitrogen. In addition, selected samples were aged at 135degC under sealed conditions where air was excluded from the headspace above the oil. A variety of analytical techniques, such as ultra-violet visible and infra-red spectroscopy, acid number and water content measurements, were then used to characterize the aged oils. In addition, their electrical properties were assessed by dielectric spectroscopy. Compared with ageing in air, the ageing rate was reduced significantly and, as expected, no major oxidation peaks were detected in the infrared spectrometer. Significantly, very little absorbance at 680 nm ("red absorbers") was detected in samples aged with copper and, consequentially, no large increases in dielectric loss were recorded within the ageing times considered here. This study compliments previous investigations on cable fluid and 1-phenyldodecane aged in air and show that the same ageing indicators are valid in oils aged under conditions which more closely resemble those found in high voltage plant.


We characterize the morphogenic process of convergent thickening (CT), which occurs in the involuting marginal zone (IMZ) during gastrulation of Xenopus, the African clawed frog. CT was described previously as the tendency of explants of the ventral IMZ of Xenopus to converge their circumblastoporal dimension and thicken their radial dimension (Keller and Danilchik 1988). Here we show that CT occurs from the onset of gastrulation, initially throughout the pre-involution IMZ. We suggest that CT is driven by an increase in the interfacial tension between the deep IMZ and its epithelium, resulting in cells of the deep IMZ tending to minimize their surface area. In explants, this results in a progressive shortening (convergence) of the IMZ along its longer mediolateral axis and thickening in the orthogonal planes, and can generate tensile force (Shook et al. 2018). In vivo, convergence of the annular IMZ generates circumferential tension, closing the blastopore. These results provide the first clear example of a tensile morphogenic force from a Holtfreterian/Steinbergian change in tissue affinity.


The mechanism for single-event burnout (SEB) of bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) was investigated with EPICS (Energetic Particle Induced Charge Spectroscopy) technique. The result indicated that the SEBs were triggered by newly identified electron injection mechanism that could not be predicted by usual numerical device simulators. Additionally the two stage SEB mechanism was proposed for BJTs.


Objective: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of Azadirachta indica leaves on the ultrastructural changes in the prostate gland and vas deferens of albino rates. Materials and methods: Male adult albino rats (Wistar strain) were administered A. indica leaf powder (orally) at a daily dose of 100 mg/rat for 24 days. At autopsy, the tissues after fixation by vascular perfusion were processed for the ultrastructural studies. The section were scanned on the electron microscope. Results: The ultrastructural observations revealed structural changes in the cytoplasmic organelles. The microvilli were lacking and hte lysosomal bodies were scattered and disturbed. Chromatin material in the nuclei was decreased and the cytoplasm was highly vacuolated. The nuclei were indented and the mitochondria were atrophic. The microfilaments in the lumen were lacking, coated pits and the pear shaped vesicles were disturbed. Lipid droplets and lipofusion material was seen in the electron dense bodies of the cell and the Golgi complex was highly disturbed. These changes indirectly indicate androgen deficiency. Conclusion: It is suggested that the effects may be possibly, due to direct or indirect action of antiandrogenic properties of A. indica leaves leading to androgen deficiency.


The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of various socio-demographic factors on leisure attitude among undergraduate students. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 430 undergraduate students enrolled at a South African university during the first semester of 2014. Leisure attitude was measured using the Leisure Attitude Scale by Ragheb and Beard (1982). Descriptive statistics and a binary logistic regression were used to analyse the data. Results showed that factors such students' expenditure, race, mode of transport to and from campus age, and level of study have a significant influence on leisure attitude among students. There was no statistical evidence supporting the effect of place of residence during school time, gender and field of study on leisure attitude status. This study concluded that socio-demographic factors do not only influence leisure attitude but may also affect the level of participation in leisure activities.


Mg alloy sheet exhibits significant differences in tensile and compressive yield stress depending on the temperature, as well as variations in its hardening behavior. Such unusual behavior makes it difficult to simulate the forming process of Mg alloy sheets. Results of analysis tend to deviate significantly from the experimental data because commercial software do not completely implement the unusual hardening behavior, yield asymmetry and temperature dependent changes in the Mg alloy's material properties. In the previous study, an in-plane tension-compression cyclic tester was developed to predict the cyclic behavior of Mg alloy sheets at an elevated temperature of up to 250 °C. A new constitutive equation was suggested to analyze the unusual behavior, and was implemented in the commercial software in the form of user subroutine. In this paper, a stamping process of Mg seat cushion panel for automotive parts was simulated using the experimental data and user subroutine. Based on the analysis, an optimal temperature condition was determined and a stamping die shape at each step was suggested in the non-isothermal stamping of Mg alloy sheets.


The Qurân was revealed with justice and equality for human beings regardless of their sex, race, social class and ethnicity, as cardinal principles and intrinsic values in Islamic sharia. If this is the case, modern Muslim society with Islamic law is necessarily of equality and justice. However, their family laws which are grounded on assumptions of past centuries and have little bearing on contemporary realities have not reflected gender relations. Inequality that occurs within the context of Muslim family laws is one of the subtle but most pervasive areas of discrimination against women. It has resulted in a different set of dynamics that help create new demands in favor of change of laws. This study explores the reform strategy through legal mobilization in the Muslim family laws around the world. The findings of the study reveal that the substantive and pluralistic legal mobilization is important to Muslims, and the reinterpretation and renewal of laws have been mobilizing debates among both proponents and opponents, framed by orientations to the modernists who advocate reinterpretation of the original sources and the traditionalists who insist on literal adherence to the received doctrinal corpus.


The COVID-19 pandemic is exerting a high pressure on healthcare systems all over the world. Italy, in particular, being one of the first Western countries to be struck by the contagion, has seen the number of recovered -and deceased- patients increase alarmingly, thus increasing the workload and the demands for healthcare professionals. This situation has the potential to put several healthcare operators at risk of developing high levels of work-related distress and burnout due to the exposure to emotionally difficult situations, uncertainty, and personal risk. A sample of 532 Italian physicians, nurses, and other professionals answered an online survey addressing their levels of burnout (through the Maslach Burnout Inventory) and frequency of experienced psycho-somatic symptoms, along with some ad hoc items regarding job demands. Results show that levels of burnout and experienced symptoms are correlated with the increased demands due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while finding a meaning in one's own work is correlated with personal gratification. Urgent measures to address concerns regarding the wellbeing of health workers are a necessary key point of the response to the current pandemic.


ge-ringste Empfehlungsstärke). Dies zeigt den Bedarf an mehr und besser durchgeführten kontrollier-ten Studien auf dem Gebiet der parenteralen Er-nährung. Abstract ! In August 2009 the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) published Guidelines on Parenteral Nutrition. They reflect the current scientific knowledge in the field of parenteral nutrition and mainly address physicians, but also nurses and other health care workers. Eleven multidisciplinary working groups with 87 experts from 16 European countries and Israel developed recommendations and comments in an evidence and consensus based process. The following chapters on technical considerations and on the indication for parenteral nutrition and its anticipated outcomes in respect of the underlying disease, nutritional state and quality of life are now available: central venous catheters, surgery, intensive care, renal failure, gastroenterology, pancreas, hepatology, non-surgical oncology, cardiology and pneumology, ger-iatrics, home parenteral nutrition. The recommendations and their grades were summarized in table form and are given in German translation in this journal. The full text and the comments are available in " Clinical Nutrition " as well as on the internet under www.espen.org/espenguidelines. html. The guidelines comprise more than 300 evidence-based recommendations. Less than one sixth are recommendations Grade A (highest level) and more than 50% were Grade C (lowest level). This shows the need for more and better performed controlled trials in the field of parenteral nutrition.


This paper describes the sources and methods used for the compilation of the new Global Transport Costs Dataset on International Trade (GTCDIT), a beta version of which is publicly available on UNCTADstat. GTCDIT records bilateral international merchandise trade in value and quantity, broken down by commodity group and mode of transport (air, sea, railway, road, other modes), alongside its associated transport costs, for 2016. The compilation of GTCDIT has been made possible by the availability of new variables in a recent upgrade of the UN Comtrade database and of new estimates on global transport distances derived with the help of geographic information systems. To obtain global coverage, the primary data on the new variables in UN Comtrade reported by some countries have been used to develop models that estimate the missing values of most other countries. As a result, GTCDIT covers around 87 per cent of global trade in terms of value.


Objective: To analyze the relationship between insufficient sleep and obesity or central obesity in Chinese Han children and adolescents aged 9-18 years. Methods: A total of 172 710 students who participated in the 2014 Chinese National Survey on Students Constitution and Health with complete data of sleep duration and physical examination, were selected as study subjects. Insufficient sleep was defined, according to the amount of sleep for pediatric populations recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Obesity and central obesity of children and adolescents were judged by experts from the Group of China Obesity Task Force and Health Industry Standards in China. Differences between groups were compared by using the t test or χ(2) test. Logistic regression method was applied to assess the relationship between insufficient sleep and obesity or central obesity. Results: In 2014, numbers of students with insufficient sleep, obesity and central obesity among Chinese Han children and adolescents aged 9-18 years appeared as 133 410 (77.2%), 11 145 (6.5%), and 12 603 (17.8%), respectively. Among the students with insufficient sleep, 8 358 (6.3%) were with obesity and 12 244 (17.9%) were with central obesity. The prevalence of obesity and central obesity among boys with insufficient sleep was higher than that in girls. Pupils with insufficient sleep showed the highest prevalence of obesity and central obesity. After controlling for potential confounders, the risk of obesity appeared an increase of 14.5% (OR=1.145, 95%CI: 1.092-1.200) and the risk of central obesity increased by 12.7% (OR=1.127, 95%CI: 1.078-1.178) in students with insufficient sleep, when compared with those with adequate sleep. Compared with those whose daily sleep duration was less than 6 hours, the ones who slept 7-10 hours per day showed significantly reduction on the risk of obesity and central obesity in students. Conclusions: Insufficient sleep significantly increase the risk of obesity and central obesity in children and adolescents while adequate sleep of 7-10 hours per day would reduce the risk of obesity and central obesity in students.


The Helicobacter pylori Neutrophil Activating Protein (HP-NAP) is endowed with immunomodulatory properties that make it a potential candidate for anticancer therapeutic applications. By activating cytotoxic Th1 responses, HP-NAP inhibits the growth of bladder cancer and enhances the anti-tumor activity of oncolytic viruses in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer and neuroendocrine tumors. The possibility that HP-NAP exerts its anti-tumor effect also by modulating the activity of innate immune cells has not yet been explored. Taking advantage of the zebrafish model, we examined the therapeutic efficacy of HP-NAP against metastatic human melanoma, limiting the observational window to 9 days post-fertilization, well before the maturation of the adaptive immunity. Human melanoma cells were xenotransplanted into zebrafish embryos and tracked in the presence or absence of HP-NAP. The behavior and phenotype of macrophages and the impact of their drug-induced depletion were analyzed exploiting macrophage-expressed transgenes. HP-NAP administration efficiently inhibited tumor growth and metastasis and this was accompanied by strong recruitment of macrophages with a pro-inflammatory profile at the tumor site. The depletion of macrophages almost completely abrogated the ability of HP-NAP to counteract tumor growth. Our findings highlight the pivotal role of activated macrophages in counteracting melanoma growth and support the notion that HP-NAP might become a new biological therapeutic agent for the treatment of metastatic melanomas.


A finite element/analytical based technique for the prediction of cogging force in a novel topology of slotted linear brushless permanent magnet motor has been developed and validated. The various force components, which influence cogging are pre-calculated by the finite element analysis of some basic magnetic structures, facilitate the analytical synthesis of the resultant cogging force. The technique can be used to aid design for the minimisation of cogging.


The hydrophobic polymer NFs could be dispersed in the aqueous solution easily by simple ethanol treatment, which increases the loading of enzyme or antibody effectively. The degree of dispersion of nanofibers was somewhat proportional to the concentration of ethanol, the loading and activity of immobilized enzymes were proportional increased to the degree of dispersion of nanofibers. Next, the feasibility of anti CD4 monoclonal antibodies conjugated on ethanol dispersed nanofibers (anti CD4 mAbs/EtOH-NF) are developed as a useful vehicle for biomedical application such as specific cell capture and separation. The anti CD4 mAbs/EtOH-NF were examined for their ability to bind CD4+ T cells, bound to anti-CD4 mAbs, isolated from the mixture of lymphocytes. The results show that the anti CD4 mAbs/EtOH-NF successfully isolated CD4+ T cells from the mixture of lymphocytes with high specificity. Therefore, biocompatible of alcohol treated nanofibers provide an efficient tool for the cell separation process and further present the potential to be applied to other areas of biomedical application.


Polysilicon fracture mechanics specimens have been fabricated using standard microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) processing techniques, and thus have characteristic dimensions comparable with typical MEMS devices. These specimens are fully integrated with simultaneously fabricated electrostatic actuators which are capable of providing sufficient force to ensure catastrophic crack propagation from blunt notches produced using micromachining. Thus, the entire fracture experiment takes place on–chip, without any external loading source. Fracture has been initiated using both monotonic and cyclic resonance loading. A reduction in the nominal toughness under cyclic loading is attributed to subcritical growth of sharp cracks from the micromachined notches in the fracture mechanics specimens. Fatigue fracture has been observed in specimens subjected to as many as 109 cycles, and environmental corrosion is implicated in at least some aspects of the fatigue.


The 2 objectives of this subchronic study were to determine the arsenite drinking water exposure dependent increases in female C3H mouse liver and lung tissue arsenicals and to characterize the dose response (to 0, 0.05, 0.25, 1, 10, and 85 ppm arsenite in drinking water for 30 days and a purified AIN-93M diet) for genomic mouse lung expression patterns. Mouse lungs were analyzed for inorganic arsenic, monomethylated, and dimethylated arsenicals by hydride generation atomic absorption spectroscopy. The total lung mean arsenical levels were 1.4, 22.5, 30.1, 50.9, 105.3, and 316.4 ng/g lung tissue after 0, 0.05, 0.25, 1, 10, and 85 ppm, respectively. At 85 ppm, the total mean lung arsenical levels increased 14-fold and 131-fold when compared to either the lowest noncontrol dose (0.05 ppm) or the control dose, respectively. We found that arsenic exposure elicited minimal numbers of differentially expressed genes (DEGs; 77, 38, 90, 87, and 87 DEGs) after 0.05, 0.25, 1, 10, and 85 ppm, respectively, which were associated with cardiovascular disease, development, differentiation, apoptosis, proliferation, and stress response. After 30 days of arsenite exposure, this study showed monotonic increases in mouse lung arsenical (total arsenic and dimethylarsinic acid) concentrations but no clear dose-related increases in DEG numbers.


Data center interconnects require cost-effective photonic integrated optical transceivers to meet the ever-increasing capacity demands. Compared with a coherent transmission system, a complex-valued double-sideband (CV-DSB) direct detection (DD) system can minimize the cost of the photonic circuit, since it replaces two stable narrow-linewidth lasers with only a low-cost un-cooled laser in the transmitter while maintaining a similar spectral efficiency. In the carrier-assisted DD system, the carrier power accounts for a large proportion of the total optical signal power. Reducing the carrier to signal power ratio (CSPR) can improve the information-bearing signal power and thus the achievable system performance. To date, the minimum required CSPR is ∼7 dB for all the reported CV-DSB DD systems having electrical bandwidths of approximately half of baud rates. In this paper, we propose a deep-learning-enabled DD (DLEDD) scheme to recover the full optical field of the transmitted signal at a low CSPR of 2 dB in experiment. Our proposal is based on a dispersion-diversity receiver with an electrical bandwidth of ∼61.0% baud rate and a high tolerance to laser wavelength drift. A deep convolutional neural network enables accurate signal recovery in the presence of a strong signal-signal beat interference. Compared with the conventional method, the proposed DLEDD scheme can reduce the optimum CSPR by ∼8 dB, leading to a significant signal-to-noise ratio improvement of ∼5.8 dB according to simulation results. We experimentally demonstrate the optical field reconstruction for a 28-GBaud 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation signal after 80-km single-mode fiber transmission based on the proposed DLEDD scheme with a 2-dB optimum CSPR. The results show that the proposed DLEDD scheme could offer a high-performance solution for cost-sensitive applications such as data center interconnects, metro networks, and mobile fronthaul systems.


The Poisson-Gaussian model can accurately describe the noise present in a number of imaging systems. However most existing restoration
 methods rely on approximations of the Poisson-Gaussian noise statistics. We propose a convex optimization strategy for the reconstruction of images degraded by a linear operator and corrupted with a mixed Poisson-Gaussian noise. The originality of our approach consists of considering the exact, mixed continuous-discrete model corresponding to the data statistics. After establishing the Lipschitz differentiability and convexity of the
 Poisson-Gaussian neg-log-likelihood, we derive a primal-dual iterative scheme for minimizing the associated penalized criterion. The proposed method is applicable to a large choice of convex penalty terms. The robustness of our scheme allows us to handle computational difficulties due to infinite sums arising from the computation of the gradient of the criterion. We propose finite bounds for these sums, that are dependent on the current image estimate, and thus adapted to each iteration of our algorithm. The proposed approach is validated on image restoration examples. Then, the exact data fidelity term is used as a reference for studying some of its various approximations. We show that in a variational framework the Shifted Poisson and Exponential approximations lead to very good restoration results.


The fish species Symphodus bailloni (Valenciennes, 1839) reported in the present study were collected between June 2010 and June 2011 from the western Black Sea coasts which were previously not recorded from the Black Sea coast of Turkey. A total of 717 specimens of S. bailloni were measured, ranging between 8.9 and 15.4 cm TL. Morphometrics, meristics, and diagnostic characteristics of the species are presented.


The biliary tract excretion of three cephalosporins, cefazolin, cephaloridine, and cephalothin, was compared in patients with biliary tract disease. In the absence of obstruction, mean antibiotic levels in bile from gall bladder and common duct in patients undergoing cholecystectomy were highest for cefazolin (17 and 31 μg/ml, respectively) than either cephaloridine (7 and 9 μg/ml) or cephalothin (1 and 4 μg/ml). Biliary tract levels generally paralleled serum levels. In no patient with cystic duct obstruction were any of the cephalosporins detectable in appreciable amounts in gall bladder bile. In patients with T-tube drainage given each of the three different cephalosporins on separate days, concentrations of cefazolin in bile were many-fold higher than either cephaloridine or cephalothin. Peak levels of cefazolin in T-tube bile averaged 51 μg/ml after intravenous and 26 μg/ml after intramuscular administration, whereas mean peak levels of cephalothin and cephaloridine were only 6 and 16 μg/ml, respectively. Here, too, T-tube levels reflected serum concentrations and obstruction to biliary flow impaired excretion of each of the drugs.


Abstract The condition of the environment is one of the most fundamental concerns of cities worldwide, especially when high levels of pollution and environmental destruction exert immense impact on people's quality of life. This paper focuses on Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, which often tops the charts as the world's most polluted city. Despite associated problems such as congestion, ill health, and premature death, Macedonia's scarce resources are instead spent on controversial projects, such as 'Skopje 2014', involving creating a national identity through massive and extremely costly constructions of neo-classical government buildings, museums and monuments. The aim of this paper is to compare the situation of Skopje to environmentally oriented activities conducted in several Polish cities and to discuss the possibility of their implementation in Skopje. Considering the scale and scope of Skopje's environmental problems, the paper offers some priorities for action, including solutions that emphasize institution building, technical input and self-governance. It also highlights a number of economic, ecological, and socio-cultural contradictions involved in the process of achieving sustainable development.


We use the best available X-ray data from the intermediate polar EX Hydrae to study the cooling-flow model often applied to interpret the X-ray spectra of these accreting magnetic white dwarf binaries. First, we resolve a long-standing discrepancy between the X-ray and optical determinations of the mass of the white dwarf in EX Hya by applying new models of the inner disk truncation radius. Our fits to the X-ray spectrum now agree with the white dwarf mass of 0.79 M$_{\odot}$sun determined using dynamical methods through spectroscopic observations of the secondary. We use a simple isobaric cooling flow model to derive the emission line fluxes, emission measure distribution, and H-like to He-like line ratios for comparison with the 496 ks Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating observation of EX Hydrae. We find that the H/He ratios are not well reproduced by this simple isobaric cooling flow model and show that while H-like line fluxes can be accurately predicted, fluxes of lower-Z He-like lines are significantly underestimated. This discrepancy suggests that some extra heating mechanism plays an important role at the base of the accretion column, where cooler ions form. We thus explored more complex cooling models including the change of gravitational potential with height in the accretion column and a magnetic dipole geometry. None of these modifications to the standard cooling flow model are able to reproduce the observed line ratios. While a cooling flow model with subsolar (0.1 $\odot$) abundances is able to reproduce the line ratios by reducing the cooling rate at temperatures lower than $\sim 10^{7.3}$ K, the predicted line-to-continuum ratios are much lower than observed. We discuss and discard mechanisms such as photoionization, departures from constant pressure, resonant scattering, different electron-ion temperatures, and Compton cooling. [Abridged]


The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between lifestyle factors, nutrients intake and all-cause mortality in a chosen group of elderly participants. The study was carried out among 411 participants aged 75-80 years (190 men and 221 women). During this study 78 men (42%) and 79 women (36.6%) died. In men higher risk of death (by 147%) was observed among participants with lower physical activity and intake of saturated fatty acid below median (32.7 g/d). In women higher risk of death was observed among participants with lower level of education (by 109%), lower physical activity (by 96%), smoking (by 336%), supplement used (by 56%), intake of protein below median (74.7 g/d), intake of dietary fiber above median (18.3 g/d) and intake of phosphorus above median (1167 mg/d). Research on survival set one direction for future studies in the field of nutritional epidemiology. Development of this part of science about nutrition in Poland may help to establish specific for elderly people directions for nutrition improving.


Measurement of the pulmonary excretion of trace gases has been used as a simple means of assessing metabolic reactions. End alveolar trace gas concentration, rather than excretory rate, is usually measured. However, the reproducibility of this measurement has received little attention. In 17 healthy subjects, duplicate collections of alveolar air were obtained within 1 minute of each other using a commercially available alveolar air sampler. The concentrations of hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide were measured. When the subject received no instruction on how to expire into the device, a difference of 28% +/- 19% (1SD) was found between duplicate determinations of hydrogen. Instructing the subjects to avoid hyperventilation or to inspire maximally and exhale immediately resulted in only minor reduction in variability. However, a maximal inspiration held for 15 seconds before exhalation reduced the difference to a mean of 9.6% +/- 8.0%, less than half that observed with the other expiratory techniques. Percentage difference of methane measurements with the four different expiratory techniques yielded results comparable to those obtained for hydrogen. In contrast, percentage differences for carbon monoxide measurements were similar for all expiratory techniques. When normalized to a PCO2 of 5%, the variability of hydrogen measurements with the breath-holding technique was reduced to 6.8% +/- 4.7%, a value significantly lower than that obtained with the other expiratory methods. This study suggests that attention to the expiratory technique could improve the accuracy of tests using breath hydrogen measurements.


We propose a DC proximal Newton algorithm for solving nonconvex regularized sparse learning problems in high dimensions. Our proposed algorithm integrates the proximal Newton algorithm with multi-stage convex relaxation based on the difference of convex (DC) programming, and enjoys both strong computational and statistical guarantees. Specifically, by leveraging a sophisticated characterization of sparse modeling structures/assumptions (i.e., local restricted strong convexity and Hessian smoothness), we prove that within each stage of convex relaxation, our proposed algorithm achieves (local) quadratic convergence, and eventually obtains a sparse approximate local optimum with optimal statistical properties after only a few convex relaxations. Numerical experiments are provided to support our theory.


Foreign-born residents constitute approximately eleven percent of the Swedish population. This level has been reached after steady immigration during the post-war years and has been accompanied in recent decades with proportionately more non-European immigrants. Immigration has implications for Swedish regional economic development for two reasons examined here. First, immigrant settlement patterns are somewhat different from those of native Swedes. Second, immigrant internal migration behaviour, after arriving in Sweden, differs from native Swedes. This paper focuses on this second consequence of immigration. It examines the migration decisions of immigrants after initial settlement and the demographic, socio-economic, and cultural variables that influence them. It finds that immigrants differ from natives in migration behaviour, mainly because of the role that the size of immigrant communities plays in the decision to migrate and choice of destination. The implications of these results for regional economic-demographic modelling and regional economic growth are discussed.


Results from an ethnobotany study of Hmong ethnic groups in Bolikhamxay Province, Laos PDR between 2021 and 2023 identifies plant uses for 133 species, 104 genera, and 50 families. The research focusses on specific plant uses. Quantitative analyses are applied with Use Value (UV), Fidelity Level (FL), and Informant Agreement Ratio (IAR). Cluster analysis based on the Jaccard's Similarity Index (JI) are calculated for the similarity of edible plant used in three areas as follows: cultivated, from the forest, and in the market. The most important plant species are Imperata cylindrica (L.) Raeusch. with a UV of 3.45 followed by Calamus viminalis Willd. (2.85) and Curcuma zedoaria (Christm.) Roscoe (2.83). The highest FL value for 23 plant species with 100% FL. The highest consensus within ailment categories is for urinary system symptoms, neurological symptoms and oral syndrome (IAR=1.00). The JI varies between 0.1013 and 0.2981; the highest JI is for pairs of cultivated and in the market. UPGMA cluster analysis indicates that the plants are collected from isolated forests with low similarity to other areas. Considering the numerous useful plants that have been documented, along with the identification of culturally and historically significant species, as well as their distribution and conservation status, it becomes evident that forest conservation is crucial for preserving the livelihoods and associated ethnobotanical knowledge of the local and indigenous people in Bolikhamxay Province.


We study the motion of vortices in the planar Ginzburg-Landau model with Schrödinger-Chern-Simons dynamics. We compare the moduli space approximation with the results of numerical simulations of the full field theory and find that there is agreement if the coupling constant is very close to the critical value separating Type I from Type II superconductors. However, there are significant qualitative differences even for modest deviations from the critically coupled regime. Radiation effects produce forces which are of the same order of magnitude as the intervortex force and therefore have a significant impact on vortex motion. We conclude that the moduli space approximation does not provide a good description of the dynamics in this regime.


The ALICE Time Projection Chamber (TPC) is used for tracking and measuring momentum
and specific energy loss, dE/dx, of charged particles produced in hadron collisions at the
LHC. This Master's dissertation describes the statistical identification of charged hadrons (pions,
kaons and protons) on the relativistic rise (transverse momentum pT > 3 GeV/c) of the
dE/dx curve of the ALICE TPC. Two complementary methods are evaluated and compared.
An effect of track cluster charge falling below the threshold of the read-out electronics is found
to influence the species separation in dE/dx, and methods to recover the separation are suggested
and discussed. Charged pion fractions and invariant charged pion yields in pp collisions
at
p
s = 900 GeV are presented as a function of pT, for pseudorapidity jhj < 0.8 and
3 pT 10 GeV/c.


We describe the synthesis of detailed social contact networks of Delhi, India, and Los Angeles, USA, for urban-scale epidemiological simulations. The network synthesis is done by combining information from multiple data sources, since social contact information cannot be obtained through direct surveys. We compare the two networks on various structural and dynamical metrics. Through the comparison between the two cities, we show important similarities and differences between urban regions in different parts of the world.


Object The COVID-19 outbreak emerged in late 2019 in China, expanding rapidly thereafter. Even in Japan, epidemiological linkage of transmission was probably lost already by February 18, 2020. From that time, it has been necessary to detect clusters using syndromic surveillance. Method We identified common symptoms of COVID-19 as fever and respiratory symptoms. Therefore, we constructed a model to predict the number of patients with antipyretic analgesics (AP) and multi-ingredient cold medications (MIC) controlling well-known pediatric infectious diseases including influenza or RS virus infection. To do so, we used the National Official Sentinel Surveillance for Infectious Diseases (NOSSID), even though NOSSID data are weekly data with 10 day delays, on average. The probability of a cluster with unknown febrile disease with respiratory symptoms is a product of the probabilities of aberrations in AP and MIC, which is defined as one minus the probability of the number of patients prescribed a certain type of drug in PS compared to the number predicted using a model. This analysis was conducted prospectively in 2020 using data from October 1, 2010 through 2019 by prefecture and by age-class. Results The probability of unknown febrile disease with respiratory symptom cluster was estimated as less than 60% in 2020. Discussion The most severe limitation of the present study is that the proposed model cannot be validated. A large outbreak of an unknown febrile disease with respiratory symptoms must be experienced, at which time, practitioners will have to wing it. We expect that no actual cluster of unknown febrile disease with respiratory symptoms will occur, but if it should occur, we hope to detect it.


Introduction Rapid socioeconomic development in Japan since beginning of the Seven Countries Study in 1958 has brought remarkable changes in lifestyle and dietary patterns. We investigated the relationship between time trends in nutrient intake and serum cholesterol levels in a Japanese cohort of the Seven Countries Study, in Tanushimaru, a typical farming town on Kyushu Island. Methods Subjects totalled 628 in 1958, 539 in 1977, 602 in 1982, 752 in 1989, 402 in 1999, and 329 in 2009, and all of the subjects were men aged 40–64 years. Eating patterns were evaluated by 24 h dietary recall from 1958 through 1989, and by a food frequency questionnaire in 1999 and 2009. We also measured serum cholesterol levels in each health examination. Results The total daily energy intake decreased from 2837 kcal in 1958 to 2289 kcal in 2009. The carbohydrate intake in percentage of total daily energy intake decreased markedly, from 84% in 1958 to 58% in 2009, in contrast to large increases during this period in protein intake (from 11% to 16%) and fat intake (from 5% to 22%). In proportion to the dramatic change in protein and fat intake, serum cholesterol levels showed large increases (from 152.5 mg/dl to 207.7 mg/dl). Conclusions In spite of such big dietary changes towards a westernized diet, the incidence of coronary artery disease in a rural Japanese area remains low. However, careful surveillance is needed in the future because of the remarkably increasing intake of fats, especially saturated fatty acids.


The authors study the tolerance of defects faults in cache memories. They argue that, even though the major components of a cache are linear RAMs (random-access memories), traditional techniques used for fault/defect tolerance in RAMs may be neither appropriate nor necessary for cache memories. They suggest a scheme that allows a cache to continue operation in the presence of defective/faulty blocks. Results are presented of an extensive trace-driven simulation analysis that evaluates the performance degradation of a cache due to defective blocks. From the results it is seen that the on-chip caches of VLSI processors can be organized so that the performance degradation due to a few defective blocks is negligible. The authors conclude that by tolerating such defects without a noticeable performance degradation, the yield of VLSI processors can be enhanced considerably. >


An efficient in vitro regeneration and conservation system depend on the healthy culture induction from the suitable explants. Culture induction is a significant stage when very small plant material exists from the rare species. It is necessary to develop culture induction protocol from various explants to conserve the valuable plant species. Atalantia monophylla is a rare species with life giving properties. Shoots were induced from the shoot tip, node and internode explants. Among these the nodal shoot segments were reported most appropriate explant for the induction of shoots from the nodal meristems. MS medium (Murashige and Skoog) proved better than the Woody Plants (WP) medium in bud breaking. Sucrose at 3% level was optimum concentration for the establishment of cultures than the other concentrations evaluated. Shoot tips responded on MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg L -1 each of BAP and Kin, nodal shoot segments responded better on MS medium augmented with 1.0 mg L -1 BAP . Half strength MS medium supplemented with 2,4-D (1.0 mg L -1 ) induced maximum responsive callus (87%) from the internode explants.


The authors have used behavioural and radioreceptor methods of investigation, that helped to find correlates of the behavioural phenomena on the receptor level.


The spatio‐temporal variability of aerosols over Indian subcontinent is mainly due to transported dust from adjacent deserts (Thar and Middle East deserts), local emission due to anthropogenic activities and prevailing meteorological conditions. On large scale, the quantification of transported and locally emitted aerosol from these regions is complicated. Here, we used empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis to identify these regions and their variability by using 33 years of Total Ozone Monitoring Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite data. The maximum variability in aerosol is explained by first two EOF modes (70.31 and 20.57%) over Indian subcontinent. The major aerosol, i.e. transported dust from adjacent deserts confined to NW India and Pakistan, is observed in first leading mode, whereas biomass burning, industrial and dense populated region of southeast and eastern region of the Indo‐Gangetic Plain (IGP) are revealed in the second dominant mode. The EOF analysis is carried out specifically for the pre‐monsoon and monsoon seasons over Indian subcontinent as maximum aerosol loading is observed during this period. The region of NW India, IGP, Pakistan and northern Arabian Sea explains maximum variability in both seasons. The first three leading modes and their relationship with different atmospheric and surface variables are carried out for pre‐monsoon and monsoon seasons. This study explains the potential role of aerosols on reduction in cloudiness, increased shortwave at the ground, land‐surface tropospheric warming and its feedback to other related processes. This study strongly suggests that there is a need for further appropriate observational as well as modelling study on the role of semi‐direct aerosol effect over Indian subcontinent.


In this paper, a new computational model for transform coding of colour images based on a set of orthogonal polynomials is proposed in different colour spaces. Initially, a three dimensional point spread operator is devised from a set of orthogonal polynomials and a linear transformation is defined in terms of matrix operation that takes less computation time. The proposed model is configured to take not only the interactions in the individual colour planes but also takes into account interactions between the colour planes. Based on the energy grouping property of orthogonal polynomials transform, the single dimensional energy vectors generated by point spread operator of proposed transform coding are rearranged so that the high energy transformed coefficients are grouped to yield higher compression ratio. After the proposed transformation, the transform coefficients of the colour images are subjected to quantization and entropy coding with a new nipple-dictionary substitution technique. The performance of the proposed colour image transform coding is reported by computing the peak-signal-to-noise ratio and is compared with DCT and wavelet based coding schemes. The proposed model is experimented in RGB colour space and extended to different colour spaces such as YCbCr, YIQ, XYZ and HSI models


By using earthquake catalogs, previous studies have reported evidence that some changes in the spatial and temporal organization of earthquake activity are observed before and after of a main shock. These previous studies have used different approaches for detecting clustering behavior and distance-events density in order to point out the asymmetric behavior of foreshocks and aftershocks. Here, we present a statistical analysis of the seismic activity related to the Mw=8.2 earthquake that occurred on 7 September 2017 in Mexico. First, we calculated the inter-event time and distance between successive events for the period 1 January 1998 until 20 October 2017 in a circular region centered at the epicenter of the Mw=8.2 EQ. Next, we introduced the concept of pseudo-velocity as the ratio between the inter-event distance and inter-event time. A sliding window is considered to estimate some statistical features of the pseudo-velocity sequence before the main shock. Specifically, we applied the multifractal method to detect changes in the spectrum of singularities for the period before the main event on 7 September. Our results point out that the multifractality associated with the pseudo-velocities exhibits noticeable changes in the characteristics of the spectra (more narrower) for approximately three years, from 2013 until 2016, which is preceded and followed by periods with wider spectra. On the other hand, we present an analysis of patterns of seismic quiescence before the Mw=8.2 earthquake based on the Schreider algorithm over a period of 27 years. We report the existence of an important period of seismic quietude, for six to seven years, from 2008 to 2015 approximately, known as the alpha stage, and a beta stage of resumption of seismic activity, with a duration of approximately three years until the occurrence of the great earthquake of magnitude Mw=8.2. Our results are in general concordance with previous results reported for statistics based on magnitude temporal sequences.


Microrobots have great application potential in the biomedical field, to realize the precision and efficiency of microrobots in vivo is research focus in this field. Microrobots are accompanied by various disturbances in complex environment. These disturbances will affect the motion control of microrobots, resulting in the inability of the micromanipulation tasks to be completed effectively. To this end, a robust motion control method is proposed for precise path tracking of microrobots in this paper. The extended state observer (ESO) is used to estimate the total disturbances and uncertainties of the system. A path tracking controller is designed by combining sliding mode control (SMC) and disturbances compensation, which is used to eliminate the total disturbances of the system and realize the fast and accurate path tracking of microrobots. Finally, the path tracking experiments are implemented in the gradient magnetic field drive system. The experimental results show that the mean absolute error of the path tracking for microrobots in a simulated vascular structure is less than 14 μm, and the root mean square error is less than 17 μm by using the robust control method proposed in this paper. Compared with the traditional PID control method, it can better suppress external disturbances and uncertainties of the system and improve the path tracking accuracy of microrobots effectively. It shows stronger anti-interference ability and robustness.


Immunoglobulin deposits and DNA were identified by use of immunofluorescence microscopy within the ciliary process and choroid of a majority of (NZB X W)F1 mice with murine lupus. The number of animals with such deposits increased from 57% at 36 weeks of age to 90% at one year of age. Ultrastructural examination showed electron-dense deposits between the basement laminae of the endothelium and pigmented epithelium of the ciliary process, accompanied by alterations in the epithelial basement membranes. Similar electron-dense deposits were also identified in the vicinity of the lamina choroidocapillaris. The titer of antibody to DNA did not correlate with the presence of ocular deposits, suggesting that time is an important factor in the development of ocular immunopathology in these animals.


Constitution of Georgia has 25 years of history but still needs more legitimacy from the people. The problem began from the drafting the basic law and continued with many unnecessary constitutional reforms. Constitution of Georgia now has the same challenge: to deal with the horrors of the past and play the function of social integration, which is so important to unite the nation.


The present article discusses the role of information and communication technologies in inclusive education in accordance with government policies and the need to obtain equal access to quality education. Also, the possibilities and advantages of ICT and their aids in optimizing learning environment are described. Particular attention is focused on the role of new information technologies in this kind of training, and their advantages and disadvantages are listed


Significant progress has been made toward determining the agents of acute, infectious, nonbacterial gastroenteritis. Two distinct types of viruses have been implicated. One of these, a particle about 27 nm in diameter, is involved in the acute epidemic form of the disease of short duration. The other, a 70-nm virus, is rarely involved in acute epidemic gastroenteritis, but it has been associated worldwide with infantile diarrhea and is responsible for a considerable proportion of all nonbacterial diarrheal illness in infants. Experiments with the 70-nm virus have induced disease in newborn piglets, calves, and rhesus monkeys. In addition, this human virus has been antigenically related to four other viruses, three of which cause gastroenteritis in their natural animal host.


The Internet of Things (IoT) propagates the paradigm of interconnecting billions of heterogeneous devices by various manufacturers. To enable IoT applications, the communication between IoT devices follows specifications defined by standard developing organizations. In this paper, we present a case study that investigates disclosed insecurities of the popular IoT standard ZigBee, and derive general lessons about security economics in IoT standardization efforts. We discuss the motivation of IoT standardization efforts that are primarily driven from an economic perspective, in which large investments in security are not considered necessary since the consumers do not reward them. Success at the market is achieved by being quick-to-market, providing functional features and offering easy integration for complementors. Nevertheless, manufacturers should not only consider economic reasons but also see their responsibility to protect humans and technological infrastructures from being threatened by insecure IoT products. In this context, we propose a number of recommendations to strengthen the security design in future IoT standardization efforts, ranging from the definition of a precise security model to the enforcement of an update policy.


SUMMARY Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a primary enteric pathogen infecting both humans and animals. Infection begins with the ingestion of contaminated food or water so that salmonellae reach the intestinal epithelium and trigger gastrointestinal disease. In some patients the infection spreads upon invasion of the intestinal epithelium, internalization within phagocytes, and subsequent dissemination. In that case, antimicrobial therapy, based on fluoroquinolones and expanded-spectrum cephalosporins as the current drugs of choice, is indicated. To accomplish the pathogenic process, the Salmonella chromosome comprises several virulence mechanisms. The most important virulence genes are those located within the so-called Salmonella pathogenicity islands (SPIs). Thus far, five SPIs have been reported to have a major contribution to pathogenesis. Nonetheless, further virulence traits, such as the pSLT virulence plasmid, adhesins, flagella, and biofilm-related proteins, also contribute to success within the host. Several regulatory mechanisms which synchronize all these elements in order to guarantee bacterial survival have been described. These mechanisms govern the transitions from the different pathogenic stages and drive the pathogen to achieve maximal efficiency inside the host. This review focuses primarily on the virulence armamentarium of this pathogen and the extremely complicated regulatory network controlling its success.


Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are G-protein-coupled receptors and are densely expressed in medium spiny projection neurons of striatum. Emerging evidence demonstrates a significant role of mGluRs in the regulation of striatal functions. Activation of mGluRs alters local transmitter release and behaviors of experimental animals. In particular, mGluRs regulate phosphorylation of several key signaling proteins (protein kinases and transcription factors) resulting in significant changes in immediate early gene and neuropeptide gene expression in striatal neurons. The prominent involvement of mGluRs in genomic responses to synaptic stimulation is considered to play a pivotal role in the development of synaptic/neuronal plasticity underlying long-term adaptive changes in cellular physiology related to a variety of neurologic disorders. Available data indicate that the eight subtypes of mGluRs have distinct effects on gene expression. The group I subtypes (mGluR1/5) facilitate, whereas group II (mGluR2/3) and III (mGluR4/6/7/8) subtypes inhibit, gene expression. Due to their significance in regulating drug action, mGluRs have been considered as promising targets for the development of novel therapeutic drugs for the treatment of drug addiction. The present review summarizes the roles of mGluRs in the regulation of behavior, transmitter release and particularly genomic responses in striatal neurons to dopamine stimulation, following a description of anatomical organization of mGluRs in the striatum. The possible pre- and postsynaptic mechanisms that process mGluR modulatory effects are also discussed in detail. Finally, potential of mGluRs as targets for the development of therapeutic drugs for addictive and other mental illnesses concludes this review.


Correction for 'Transfer matrix theory of polymer complex coacervation' by Tyler K. Lytle et al., Soft Matter, 2017, 13, 7001-7012.


As an invasive nuclear medical imaging technology, positron emission tomography (PET) possess the possibility to imaging the distribution as well as the density of selective receptors via specific PET tracers. Inspired by PET, the development of radio-chemistry has greatly promoted the progress of innovative imaging PET tracers for adenosine receptors, in particular adenosine A2A receptors (A2ARs). PET imaging of A2A receptors play import roles in the research of adenosine related disorders. Several radio-tracers for A2A receptors imaging have been evaluated in human studies. This paper reviews the recent research progress of PET tracers for A2A receptors imaging, and their applications in the diagnosis and treatment of related disease, such as cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease. The future development of A2A PET tracers were also discussed.


Sub-Saharan Africa has continued leading in the prevalence and incidence of tuberculosis (TB). The epidemiological triad of infectious diseases includes a susceptible host, pathogen/agent, and environment. Sub- Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence and incidence of TB. It is imperative that all aspects of vertices of the infectious disease triad are analysed to better understand why this is so. Many studies have been done to address this intriguing reality though these have mainly addressed pathogen and environmental components of the triad regarding TB infection. The host factors have not been exhaustively studied in this high TB burden region probably due to lack of the necessary expertise and technologies among African scholars yet three components of the triad interact to determine the disease outcome. Amongst host factors, genetic structure of the host greatly affects progression of disease following exposure. Studies have revealed that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world in addition to being the origin of modern humans therefore it would be important to study genetics of sub-Saharan African population in relation to TB. This review seeks to analyze contribution of host genetics to the observed variation in susceptibility to TB infection in this region.


A case of acute megakaryocytic leukemia in a 13-month-old infant was encountered in whom an abnormal bone scan was associated with abnormal I-131 MIBG uptake in the femoral bone marrow. The normal platelet will take up MIBG and thus, uptake of this radiopharmeceutical by the malignant megakaryocyte, a platelet precursor, may be caused by the same mechanism.


Abstract A machine is described which generates a standard, mosquito-attracting "target" to which controlled additions of various volatile chemicals can be made and the amount needed to repel the insects thereby measured in micromoles per liter of air. The apparatus can be used with both solids and liquids as well as with blends or mixtures. While principally intended for testing mosquito repellents, it can probably be adapted for use with other biting insects and ticks.


Intracellular Ca 2+ signals, including oscillations, regulate proliferation, migration, and other cellular events in cancer cells. Zinc (Zn), an essential micronutrient, has been studied for its chemopreventive effects in several cancers, including esophageal cancer. Although there is a growing research interest in the cross-talk between Ca 2+ and Zn signaling, it remains elusive as to how Zn prevents tumor growth and whether Ca 2+ signaling is involved. Our previous report demonstrated that Orai1, a store-operated Ca 2+ entry (SOCE) channel, is highly expressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) compared to normal tissues, and that the elevated expression of Orai1 is strongly associated with poor prognosis in patients. In the current study, we show that physiological levels of Zn can significantly suppress cell proliferation in KYSE-150, a human ESCC cell line. We also show that Zn is able to inhibit Orai1-mediated SOCE and intracellular Ca 2+ oscillations, both which are known as proliferation signals. Based on the topology information of Orai1, we hypothesized that the histidine residue in linker region between transmembrane 1 and 2 of Orai1 (H113) as well as three cysteine residues may play a critical role in Zn-inhibitory effects. Using a point mutation approach, we exhibit that the Zn-inhibitory effects on both SOCE and cell proliferation are vanished in KYSE-150 cells containing Orai1 H113A mutant. Furthermore, KYSE-150 cells expressing Orai1 with any mutation in cysteine residues (C126A, C143A and C195A) display significant loss of Zn-inhibitory functions. These results indicate that the four amino acid residues are likely to be involved in Zn-inhibitory effects on SOCE and cell proliferation. Taken together, our data suggest that dietary Zn may inhibit Orai1-mediated SOCE and intracellular Ca 2+ signaling, which in turn suppresses cell proliferation in ESCC. Further studies are required to search for novel and effective prevention strategies as well as therapeutic options targeting on Zn and Ca 2+ signaling in ESCC. Citation Format: Sangyong Choi, Chaochu Cui, Yanhong Luo, Jae-Kyun Ko, Jianjie Ma, Liwu Fu, Irina Korichneva, Zui Pan. Zinc inhibits Orai1-mediated Ca2+ signals and proliferation in esophageal cancer cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2612.


The Terascale Simulation Tools and Technologies (TSTT) SciDAC center focused on the development and application on SciDAC applications of advanced technologies to support unstructured grid simulations. As part of the TSTT team the RPI group focused on developing automated adaptive mesh control tools and working with SciDAC accelerator and fusion applications on the use of these technologies to execute their simulations. The remainder of this report provides a brief summary of the efforts carried out by the RPI team to support SciDAC applications (Section 2) and to develop the TSTT technologies needed for those automated adaptive simulations (Section 3). More complete information on the technical developments can be found in the cited references and previous progress reports.


Few studies have examined the role of players in game design. The objective of this paper is to provide some clarity on the issue of player-centred design by analysing the notions on player in current game design literature. This research also discusses the potentials a multifaceted approach on players can offer for the design of games. The article starts by analysing different approaches on player from abstract ideal player to player profiles and players as co-creators. Later, the benefits of involving players in different phases of design process are examined. As a result the paper produces a grouping of different designer-player relationships that reflect the different design ideologies and traditions. This article contributes to the new field of game design research by producing clarity to some of the inarticulate and ambiguous issues related to the role of players in games and their design. At the same time, the analysis is relevant to the larger understanding of players as game cultural actors. Author Keywords Game design research, player research, game design literature, player-centred design


This article considers the feasibility of restoring and maintaining the kinematic accuracy of the support-rotary device drives by introducing a backlash compensation device into the control system. The power electromechanical drives of support-rotary device considered in this article contain two motors, the summation of the torques of which is carried out on a common output shaft. It is shown that the restoration of the required kinematic accuracy of the drives can be achieved by introducing one of two variants of an electronic device for backlash compensation into the control system. In the first variant, equal and opposite displacement signals are introduced into the control signals of the motors. The second variant introduces an electronic cross-connections backlash compensation scheme was into the control system. The study of the operation of the support-rotary device drive system with two backlash compensation devices carried out by a simulation method showed that the use of a cross-connection scheme is the most preferable and effective. As a result of the research, it was shown that the introduction of an electronic backlash compensation device into the control system makes it possible to ensure the operability of the power electromechanical drives of a support-rotary device with initial kinematic accuracy.


Summary: Dramatic changes occur in the neonatal brain during the third trimester and first few years postnatally. The morphological, biochemical, and physiological maturation of the central nervous system is paralleled by distinct developmental changes in the EEG and evoked potentials (EPs). Although there have been few studies correlating specific developmental changes with the developmental changes in clinical neurophysiological studies, it is likely that elaboration of dendritic and axonal branches, formation of synapses, myelination, and biochemical maturation of neurons and glial cells play a key role in the remarkable changes in EEGs and EPs with age. This paper reviews major developmental changes occurring in the newborn brain from the third trimester through the first 2 years postnatally and their possible relationship to maturational changes in the EEG and EPs.


Irregular pyramids are sequences of graphs with decreasing numbers of vertices, edges and faces from level to level. The advantage of describing images with graphs helps to overcome problems which can occur in regular pyramid structures, e.g. shift-variance and rotation-variance. Here we present some ideas and results how a recently developed parallel algorithm to reduce the number of elements (vertices, edges and faces) in a graph can be used for nding connected components in an image. The advantage of using this method to build irregular pyramids is that the degree of vertices in one of two parallel constructed graphs stays bounded, which cannot be provided with other techniques. To achieve this, the conventional region adjacency graph is extended, i.e. additional edges between and around vertices are allowed.


Model Predictive Control (MPC) is the de facto standard in advanced industrial automation systems. There are two main formulations of the MPC algorithm: an implicit one and an explicit MPC one. The first requires an optimization problem to be solved on-line, which is the main limitation when dealing with hard real-time applications. As the implicit MPC algorithm cannot be guaran- teed in terms of execution time, in many applications the explicit MPC solution is preferable. In order to deal with systems integrating mixed logic and dynam- ics, the class of the hybrid and piecewise affine models (PWA) were introduced and tackled by the explicit MPC strategy. However, the resulting controller complexity leads to a requirement on the CPU/memory combination which is as strict as the number of states, inputs and outputs increases. To reduce drasti- cally the complexity of the explicit controller while preserving the controller's performance, a strategy combining switched MPC with discontinuous simpli- cial PWA models is introduced in this thesis. The latter is proven to be circuit implementable, e.g., in FPGA. To ensure that closed-loop stability properties are guaranteed, a stability analysis tool is proposed which exploits suitable and possibly discontinuous PWA Lyapunov-like functions. The tool requires solving offline a linear programming problem. Moreover, the tool is able to compute an invariant set for the closed-loop system, as well as ultimate boundedness and input-to-state stability properties.


Young children learn words from a variety of situations, including shared storybook reading. A recent study by Horst et al. (2011a) demonstrates that children learned more new words during shared storybook reading if they were read the same stories repeatedly than if they were read different stories that had the same number of target words. The current paper reviews this study and further examines the effect of contextual repetition on children's word learning in both shared storybook reading and other situations, including fast mapping by mutual exclusivity. The studies reviewed here suggest that the same cognitive mechanisms support word learning in a variety of situations. Both practical considerations for experimental design and directions for future research are discussed.


This paper examines data on urbanization. We review the most commonly used data sources and highlight the difficulties inherent in defining and measuring the size of urban versus rural populations. We show that differences in the measurement of urban populations across countries and over time are significant and discuss the methods used for these measurements, as well as for projecting urbanization. We also analyze recent trends and patterns in urbanization. Finally, we describe the principal channels of urbanization and examine their relative contributions to the global urbanization process.


The South African energy supply is highly centralised and largely coal-fired. A transition to renewable energy sources is essential if the country is to adapt to the environmental, social, and economic challenges of climate change. Together with private-sector partners, the South African Government has embarked on a Renewable Energy Independent Power Production programme. However, the volume of private investment in renewable energy generation is still low. This article investigates the major risks and barriers to renewable energy market development. Political risk, human capacity, and corruption, are identified as the most serious and likely risks, as well as the barriers stakeholders perceive in the deployment of renewable energy sources, including governance gaps. The identified risks present obstacles to optimum market development for renewable energy and the attraction of sustainable private investment. The findings suggest that policy should focus more on managing the interface between private and the public partners, through increased consensus building, greater transparency, enhanced stakeholder management, more effective administration and improved decision-making.


Many governments with dual public and private health systems offer subsidies for private health insurance (PHI) with the aim to ease the burden on the public system. Understanding how elderly individuals respond to these PHI subsidies is important because they typically have greater health care needs but often struggle with the affordability of PHI. However, prior studies provide little guidance on this issue because they have mainly focused on the responses to PHI incentives among the general population. This paper leverages a unique age-specific policy intervention in Australia that provided higher rebates for individuals over the age of 65. Using administrative tax data, we examine how this policy affected PHI take-up decisions of elderly individuals under an event study difference-in-differences framework. We find that higher rebates led to a modest increase in PHI take-up. The estimated price elasticities of PHI demand were in the -0.1 to -0.2 range in the first 2 years of the policy. Moreover, the demand responses were more elastic among those with low incomes. Our findings indicate that a more targeted subsidy program, specially tailored to low-income elders, would yield greater effectiveness in increasing PHI take-up.


We evaluated the effects Turkey Conversion Programme in Health in 2004 on drug market used for treatment of asthma. We analyzed the data from IMS the programme following the drug market and the data from the Social Security Institution (SSI) for comparative studies. In 2004 SSI paid nearly 4.0 billion Euro for drugs which increased to 8,5 billion (110%).Inhaler dust asthma drugs was 88.9 million and increased to 280.6 million (3.16 fold). Drug prescribed was 6.037.172 and increased to 20.848.085 boxes (3.45 fold).In the market of subgroup for inhaler dust asthma drugs distribution was; the rescue drugs 31.5%, combined drugs 17.7%, nebules 10.5%.The rates in 2009 were 20.2%, 29.6% and 18% respectively. Economically distribution was; 48.4% for combined drugs, 6.3% for nebules and 6.3% for rescue drugs.Rates for 2009 were 58.4%, 9.2% and 4.1%.The number of rescue drugs increased from 1.901.938 boxes to 4.220.664 (2.22 folds). The financial increase was 4.62 fold from 5.570.177 to 25.739.326.The number for nebules was 631.184 and increased to 3.762.806 (5.96 fold) the cost for them was 5.570.177 increased to 25.739.326 (4.62 fold).The combined drug subgroup the number of prescriptions were 1.066.486 increased to 6.178.315 (5.79 fold).The cost was 43.006.559 and increased to 163.814.343. There has been an increase in the costs for inhaler drugs used for asthma treatment.Our analyses showed that this increase mostly caused by increase in the number of prescribed combined drugs. This increase we believe decreased the need for rescue drugs but had no effect on the nebules that has been used


Background: In the students' school stage can appear many psychological variables that can positively or negatively affect the academic life of the students as well as their learning process. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the relation between school motivation, goal orientation and academic performance in adolescent students. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on adolescent students (N=3512) from 18 public Secondary Education (ESO) centers. The Scale of School Motivation (EME-S), the Perception of Success Questionnaire (POSQ) and academic performance, quanti fi ed by each student ' s mean mark, were instruments used. Results: The results revealed signi fi cant relations among, on the one hand, intrinsic school motivations, task-oriented goal orientations and academic performance in a more adaptive pattern behavior and, on the other hand, relations between extrinsic motivations and ego-oriented goal orientations. The in fl uence of intrinsic motivations, task-oriented goal orientations and low amotivation indices on predicting academic performance was deduced. Conclusion: The importance of promoting adaptive behaviors that improve adolescent students ' academic lives focus on adequate levels of school motivation and task-oriented goal orientations at their education centers was revealed.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate mortality risk in pediatric patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF).

DESIGN
Retrospective chart review.

SETTING
Forty-one pediatric ICUs.

SUBJECTS
Four hundred seventy children with AHRF. We defined AHRF as mechanical ventilation with positive end-expiratory pressure > or = 6 cm H2O and fraction of inspired oxygen greater than or equal to 0.5 for 12 or more hours.

MEASUREMENTS
Physiologic and treatment variables were recorded every 12 h for 14 days. Cases were randomly assigned to score development and score validation subsets. Variables were assessed for their association with mortality in the development subset by logistic regression analysis. The analysis generated a series of logistic equations, which we called the Pediatric Respiratory Failure (PeRF) score, to estimate mortality risk at 12-h intervals over the first 7 days of treatment for AHRF. The predictive ability of the score was assessed in the validation subset by receiver operating characteristic curve area and goodness-of-fit chi 2.

RESULTS
Mortality of the collected cases was 43%. The PeRF score included age, operative status, Pediatric Risk of Mortality score, fraction of inspired oxygen, respiratory rate, peak inspiratory pressure, positive end-expiratory pressure, PaO2, and PaCO2. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.769 at entry and increased to greater than 0.8 after 36 h. When the score was applied to the validation subset of patients, goodness-of-fit chi 2 showed no significant difference between estimated and actual mortality between 0 and 96 h.

CONCLUSIONS
The PeRF Score accurately estimated mortality risk in this retrospectively sampled group of high-risk pediatric patients with AHRF. This score may be useful in studies of newer therapies for pediatric AHRF, though prospective validation is necessary before it could be used to make clinical decisions.


A negative wordline bias scheme is utilized to reduce the subthreshold leakage of deep submicron DRAM cell transistors. With excessive negative wordline bias, gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) could dominate cell leakage and degrade product retention time performance. The dependence of retention time on negative wordline bias for a 256-Mbit DRAM with 0.14/spl mu/m ground rule is investigated. The retention fail bit count in the tail distribution increases as wordline bias goes more negative and as temperature increases. A cell array with a density of 1.14M is also characterized for the device leakage behavior. The negative wordline bias and temperature dependent GIDL is believed to be due to band to defect tunneling. Hence, elimination of traps near the oxide/silicon interface in the gate to drain overlap region during the DRAM fabrication process is important for the negative wordline scheme.


Iran health system indicators including access to medicines have improved significantly over past three decades. Iran pharmaceutical market has experienced several folds increase in value in past decade and has reached to over 4.3 billion USD in 2015. Local pharmaceutical companies play a major role in supplying medicines into the market. Despite obvious support of government of Iran for local manufacturing of medicines, Iran health system still relies on imported medicines for about 40% of its needs. Although Iran government announced a privatization plan of pharmaceutical companies in past years, more than 50% of the local market is still in hands of semi-governmental organizations. Emerge of some privately owned knowledge based companies which manufacture high tech biopharmaceuticals is a new development in Iran market. As a non WTO member government of Iran allows pharmaceutical companies to manufacture patent medicines for local market. Also local pharmaceutical market of Iran is big enough for investment export potential to neighboring countries is also a good opportunity for Pharma industry.