Introduction England introduced a tobacco display ban for shops with >280 m2 floor area ('partial ban') in 2012, then a total ban in 2015. This study assessed whether these were linked to child awareness of and access to cigarettes. Methods Data come from the Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use survey, an annual survey of children aged 11–15 years for 2010–2014 and 2016. Multivariate logistic regression models assessed changes in having seen cigarettes on display, usual sources and ease of access to cigarettes in shops Results During the partial display ban in 2012, 89.9% of children reported seeing cigarettes on display in the last year, which was reduced to 86.0% in 2016 after the total ban (adjusted OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.66). Reductions were similar in small shops (84.1% to 79.3%)%) and supermarkets (62.6% to 57.3%)%). Although the ban was associated with a reduction in the proportion of regular child smokers reporting that they bought cigarettes in shops (57.0% in 2010 to 39.8% in 2016), we did not find evidence of changes in perceived difficulty or being refused sale among those who still did. Discussion Tobacco point-of-sale display bans in England reduced the exposure of children to cigarettes in shops and coincided with a decrease in buying cigarettes in shops. However, children do not report increased difficulty in obtaining cigarettes from shops, highlighting the need for additional measures to tackle tobacco advertising, stronger enforcement of existing laws and measures such as licencing for tobacco retailers.


Research has demonstrated that people who embrace different ideological orientations often show differences at the level of basic cognitive processes. For instance, conservatives (vs. liberals) display an automatic selective attention for negative (vs. positive) stimuli, and tend to more easily form illusory correlations between negative information and minority groups. In the present work, we further explored this latter effect by examining whether it only involves the formation of explicit attitudes or it extends to implicit attitudes. To this end, following the typical illusory correlation paradigm, participants were presented with members of two numerically different groups (majority and minority) each performing either a positive or negative behaviour. Negative behaviors were relatively infrequent, and the proportion of positive and negative behaviors within each group was the same. Next, explicit and implicit (i.e., IAT-measured) attitudes were assessed. Results showed that conservatives (vs. liberals) displayed stronger explicit as well as implicit illusory correlations effects, forming more negative attitudes toward the minority (vs. majority) group at both the explicit and implicit level.


The article deals with the description of mathematical model of the system of traction electric power supply with load in the short circuit condition as well as the calculation results of this emergency process. The transition values as well as the character of their change, which can be used for detection of emergency processes, have been determined.


The influence of torsional waves propagating along a thin, vertical, photospheric flux tube on Zeeman-split polarized line profiles (Stokes profiles) is investigated using a simple MHD model. In the presence of such a wave spatially resolved Stokes profiles are found to oscillate strongly in wavelength , amplitude and blue-red asymmetry. Qualitatively, tor-sional waves induce similar changes into the line profiles as kink waves (Ploner & Solanki 1997). The magnitude of the line parameter variation depends strongly on the observed location with respect to the flux-tube axis. The spatially averaged Stokes V and Q profiles are found to follow the torsional wave with double the wave frequency, some parameters of Stokes U fluctuate directly at the wave frequency , however. The other main feature of the spatially averaged profiles is their comparatively small reaction to the wave. The reason for the latter is that most polarized light is produced near the centre of the flux tube where, however, the torsional wave produces only weak perturbations. Temporally and spatially averaged Stokes profiles are found to be only negligibly shifted, but strongly broadened. The sign of the small remaining asymmetry is opposite in Stokes Q to that in V and U. The amplitude of the wave and the location of the flux tube on the solar disk have a strong influence on the magnitude of the perturbation of the Stokes profiles.


The demonstrations of solidarity with East Timor that occurred in Lisbon in September 1999 were the first major political demonstrations since the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. Solidarity with East Timor demonstrated the importance to the Portuguese of emotional and cultural ties to people whom they saw as sharing their language and Catholic religion. These commonalities have a clear colonial history and are now being reconstructed around the idea of Lusophony, which is taken to be the core of a Portuguese postcolonial identity. East Timor, a Portuguese colony that was occupied by Indonesia after the Portuguese revolution of 1974, used diacritical signs such as Portuguese and Catholicism in its nationalist struggle against Indonesia. These signs are the cultural patrimony of a local creole elite and are exaggerated in Portuguese perceptions of East Timor. The colonial and postcolonial ironies of this case of mutual constitution of identity are analyzed.


Whether nicotine has therapeutic effects on Parkinson's disease (PD) symptoms is controversial, but high doses and chronic treatment have never been tested. We report the results of a pilot, open‐label trial to assess the safety and possible efficacy of chronic high doses of nicotine. Six patients with advanced idiopathic PD received increasing daily doses of transdermal nicotine up to 105 mg/day over 17 weeks. All patients but one accepted the target dose. Nausea and vomiting were frequent but moderate, and occurred in most of the patients (four of six) who received over 90 mg/day and 14 weeks of nicotine treatment. During the plateau phase, patients improved their motor scores and dopaminergic treatment was reduced. These results confirm the feasibility of chronic high dose nicotinic treatment in PD but warrant validation of the beneficial effects by a randomized controlled trial.


Distinctive operational competencies from the civilian and military sectors provide usable knowledge to both. (1) When military voice (in the form of counsel, advice, guidance, and suggestions) is given appropriate credence, unique capabilities flow easily back to the civilian leaders of the armed forces. When voice and counsel are muted or constrained, the information flow will entropy and valuable knowledge will be lost. Using military experience as case studies, this article discusses the principal form of error occurring due to the principals' ineffective engagement of the military voice. This is referred to as "The Error of the Third Kind--[E.sub.III]." (2) This article examines two sources of [E.sub.III]: principal-agent dynamics and administrative structures. We then apply the construct of organizational justice to the process associated with engagement of military voice. Providing examples of cases that examine the consideration of the military voice will inform leader-follower, advice-and-consent dynamics in the private and nonprofit sectors of enterprise. Knowledge Transfer and Sharing It is important for the public administration community--academic scholars as well as civilian and military practitioners--to take account of, understand, and appreciate the realities of leader-follower relationships with respect to voice dynamics. The military is the largest public-sector organization in the United States in terms of personnel and funding. There are over 1.5 million active-duty service members and 800,000 supporting civilians, with defense accounting for more than 50 percent of discretionary funding in the federal budget. As a public entity, it has significant impact on a number of the managerial and operational aspects of other organizations. In diplomatic and security endeavors, the military is the globe-spanning arm of the nation vis-a-vis its operations around the world. It often plays a critical role in terms of its contributions to best practices in public and business administration, as well as a number of other disciplines. It experiments with new technologies and innovates. The military has a strong training and educational component that develops its professional personnel (officers, senior enlisted, and civilians) throughout their careers. The organizations in the military are heavily invested in after-action-reviews (AARs). The AAR tools of the military are arguably among the best of their kind when it comes to "organizational learning." (3) The military's distinctive competencies set it apart from ordinary organizations and establish it as unique. From the revised resource-based view of the firm presented by organizational researchers Jay Barney and William Hesterly, the distinctive competencies of valuable, rare, inimitable, and organizationally integrated (VRIO) capabilities of the firm are necessary for competitive advantage. (4) Transferring this concept to the military, we see that it has distinctive capabilities unmatched by other organizations. These are: * Rare and Inimitable Operational and Tactical Planning Expertise: This competency is found in the military's unique ability in technical planning and executing operations. When given an assignment, the military will invariably perform the task with unmatched and inimitable efficiency and effectiveness, which can be challenging for any large organization. (5) This expertise is developed through education and deliberate practice in the application of military force to achieve task, mission, and policy objectives. As noted by civil-military relations scholar James Burk, the military exercises professional jurisdiction "defined by the boundaries of the domain within which expert knowledge is applied" and that is acknowledged by the stakeholders in national defense. (6) The legitimacy of military professionals is derived from development of objective and abstract knowledge for the field of military science. This legitimacy derives from the Constitution and has remained intact for over 200 years. …


A broadband electron spin resonance spectrometer is described which operates at frequencies between 4 and 40 GHz and can be used in superconducting magnets. A tunable cylindrical cavity is connected to a vector network analyzer via coaxial cables, and the radiation is fed into the cavity by a coupling loop. No field modulation is employed. Resonance frequencies below 14 GHz are obtained by inserting dielectrics with different permittivities into the cavity. The setup allows for measurements with the microwave magnetic field either parallel or perpendicular to the external field.


The study aimed to explain Islamic foundations for such ethics and their contemporary applications, including robotics, computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, and expert systems. Using a descriptive analytical design, findings evince that artificial intelligence (AI) represents a civilizational milestone and a civilized face of contemporary man. It is all based on faith in God and observance of the legitimate purposes of the religion of Islam and considering the highest human and civilizational values to preserve the dignity of humanity. It also enhances the values (including God-fearing) of controlling uses of things, human dignity, privacy, honesty and transparency, justice and fairness, responsibility and accountability. The civilizational basis with regard to the uses of artificial intelligence is determined through, benefiting from the data of the universe, and the prohibition of exaggeration in dealing with the unhelpful bids of the universe.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the effect of the off-pump technique in preventing stroke development during the early perioperative period after coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG).

METHODS
Patients undergoing isolated CABG surgery were enrolled from 21 Spanish cardiac-surgery centres. Baseline variables related to perioperative stroke risk were recorded in the preoperative (age, gender, diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, prior stroke, cardiac failure: preoperative New York Heart Association class III-IV and/or left ventricular ejection fraction <40%, non-elective priority of surgery, peripheral arteriopathy, chronic renal failure) and intraoperative periods (on/off-pump performance). The Northern New England Cardiovascular Disease Study Group (NNECDSG) stroke risk schema was used to stratify stroke risk and compare observed neurological outcomes in this study.

RESULTS
A total of 26 347 patients were included in the study. Global perioperative stroke incidence was 1.38%. Non-elective priority of surgery (OR = 2.37), peripheral arteriopathy (OR = 1.62), cardiac failure (OR = 2.98), prior stroke (OR = 1.57) and chronic renal failure (OR = 6.16) were found to be independent risk factors for perioperative stroke in uni- and multivariate models; Hosmer-Lemeshow test: χ(2) = 4.62, P = 0.59. Perioperative stroke incidence increased whenever NNECDSG score or the number of preoperative risk factors increased. However, on- vs off-pump surgery did not show statistical differences in NNECDSG strata. For patients with two or more preoperative independent risk factors, off-pump surgery showed a significant reduction in perioperative stroke incidence (4.29 vs 6.76%, P < 0.05), particularly when one of these factors was chronic renal failure or preoperative cardiac failure. However, when both factors were present concomitantly there was no difference between on and off-pump techniques, P < 0.0001.

CONCLUSIONS
Off-pump surgery has a lower perioperative stroke incidence than on-pump only in cases associated with cardiovascular stroke-risk factors, in particular, with chronic renal failure and preoperative cardiac failure, but also with peripheral arteriopathy, prior stroke and non-elective surgery. The perioperative stroke rate remains high in cases with two or more preoperative stroke risk factors, even when using the off-pump technique, particularly when chronic renal failure is present.


The article is dedicated to cluster method characteristics during studying the subject "Russian Language and Culture of Speech" in university. The author considers structural and semantic aspects of cluster focusing on patterns of complaining and mode ways.


A study was performed to compare measurement capabilities of two commercially available in-use portable emissions measurement systems, from different generations, in order to determine how or if changes to emissions testing standards have affected in-use equipment. The two in-use systems from different generations were the Sensors, Inc. SEMTECH-D, which would be considered first generation because it was built under the CFR 40, Part 86 standard, and the Horiba, Ltd. OBS-2200, which was considered second generation because it was built under the updated CFR 40, Part 1065 standards. Both systems underwent a series of tests in the laboratory and on-road. For the tests, five cycles were developed from on-road data collection and created into dynamometer cycles. Then those same five cycles were run on-road to generate a comparison to show differences in test methods. For the equipment comparison, both systems were tested against West Virginia University's Transportable Laboratory, which was developed according to CFR 40, Part 1065 standards for emissions testing. The comparisons were completed using both distance specific and brake specific measurements. The SEMTECH-D performed well and measured CO2, THC, and NOx within five percent of the laboratory. The SEMTECH-D was not as accurate with the CO measurement, which was greater than 70 percent from the laboratory readings. The OBS-2200 measured well in comparison to the laboratory for CO2 and NOx. These constituents were measured within four percent of the laboratory. CO and THC emissions were measured with a percent difference greater than 20 and 32 percent, respectively. Overall, neither unit outperformed the other. Each measured certain parameters and constituents better than the other but not with complete consistency. Therefore, no conclusion could be drawn on the influence of the equipment's generation on emissions testing.


Graph generative models have been extensively studied in the data mining literature. While traditional techniques are based on generating structures that adhere to a pre-decided distribution, recent techniques have shifted towards learning this distribution directly from the data. While learning-based approaches have imparted significant improvement in quality, some limitations remain to be addressed. First, learning graph distributions introduces additional computational overhead, which limits their scalability to large graph databases. Second, many techniques only learn the structure and do not address the need to also learn node and edge labels, which encode important semantic information and influence the structure itself. Third, existing techniques often incorporate domain-specific rules and lack generalizability. Fourth, the experimentation of existing techniques is not comprehensive enough due to either using weak evaluation metrics or focusing primarily on synthetic or small datasets. In this work, we develop a domain-agnostic technique called GraphGen to overcome all of these limitations. GraphGen converts graphs to sequences using minimum DFS codes. Minimum DFS codes are canonical labels and capture the graph structure precisely along with the label information. The complex joint distributions between structure and semantic labels are learned through a novel LSTM architecture. Extensive experiments on million-sized, real graph datasets show GraphGen to be 4 times faster on average than state-of-the-art techniques while being significantly better in quality across a comprehensive set of 11 different metrics. Our code is released at: https://github.com/idea-iitd/graphgen.


The objectives of this research was to analyze whether the problem based learning model has a better effect than the direct instructional model towards physics learning outcomes. It also aims at using the problem based learning model for analyzing the student learning activity in an experimental class. The populations used in this research are three classes of high school students in SMAN 2 Balige, Indonesia (Classes X1, X2, X3, A.Y. 2014/2015). The control sample was class X1 whereas the experimented class was class X3. The analysis of the experiment in this research was based on the quasi-experimental method with two groups were being used for pretest and posttest designs. The data were collected using learning outcomes of seven essay writing tests and the learning activities were observed using some predesigned observation sheet. The data were analyzed using the descriptive and inferential statistics of obtained from the t-test of independent samples. The test was done using a significance level of 0.05. The result of the test showed that both of the students' samples have normal distribution when the population was assumed to be homogeneous. The test showed that the problem based learning model provides better effects than the direct instructional model when used to assess the student learning outcomes in a dynamic electricity class.


A method to prepare high-quality pyrrolidine-functionalized fluorine-containing single- or few-layer graphene sheets was presented. Natural graphite powder was firstly treated with sarcosine and pentafluorobenzaldehyde in ortho-dichlorobenzene (ODCB) via 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition to afford surface-modified graphite. This surface-functionalized graphite was successively dispersed and exfoliated in various solvents by bath sonication and a stable homogeneous dispersion of pyrrolidine-functionalized graphene sheets was obtained after centrifugation. These fluorine-containing graphene sheets can be dispersed in various solvents with a concentration up to 0.7 mg mL(-1).


New data on four poorly known species of the genus Leia Meigen (L. nigricornis van Duzee, L. flavipennis Laštovka & Matile, L. iturupensis Zaitzev and L. rufiptera Ostroverkhova) are presented. Detailed redescriptions and terminalia figures are provided. Leia nigricornis is reported for the first time from the Palaearctic region and L. automnala Ostroverkhova & Grishina is found to be a junior synonym of L. flavipennis. A variation in the male terminalia of L. bimaculata Meigen is illustrated, based on specimens from several European countries.


Background Spironolactone treatment reduces mortality in haemodialysis (HD) patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate if spironolactone affects cardiac electric activity in this population. Methods Participants were randomised to start with spironolactone 50 mg daily or observation (12 weeks) with subsequent washout (6 weeks) and crossover to the other intervention (12 weeks). Long-term electrocardiograms were recorded and assessed with blinding to treatment. The primary outcome was premature ventricular complexes (PVC), and secondary outcomes were atrial premature contractions (APC) and heart rate variability (HRV). Results Thirty participants were recruited, and data for 16 participants were included in the analysis. Treatment was associated with an increase in PVCs by 9.7 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5 to 18] h−1. HRV time-domain variables increased during treatment, the standard deviation of all beat-to-beat intervals by 18 (95% CI: 3.3 to 32) milliseconds (ms) and the standard deviation of the averages of beat-to-beat intervals in all 5-min segments of the entire recording by 16 (95% CI: 1.5 to 30) ms. There were no significant differences in other variables. Conclusion Spironolactone treatment increases PVCs in HD, indicating a possible proarrhythmic effect. However, improved cardiac autonomic function, as indicated by an increased HRV, may contribute to the survival benefit from spironolactone treatment in HD patients.


Through a qualitative study of a sample of Weight Watchers dieters, this research provides insight about the relationship between goal setting and lay theories—people's basic assumptions about the malleability of their personal attributes. We find that dieters set very different types of superordinate and subordinate goals depending on the lay theory (entity vs. incremental) they hold. Dieters who hold entity theory, which underscores immutability of abilities, set superordinate goals focused on avoiding negative social evaluations. These dieters also seem to set subordinate goals that minimize effort in diet, physical activity, and the use of group meetings necessary for weight loss. Among dieters holding incremental theory, which emphasizes malleability of abilities through learning, weight loss is guided by superordinate goals that promote change in the self. Incremental-theory dieters also set subordinate goals that encourage rather than limit revamping lifestyle. These findings offer contributions to lay theories and goal setting in consumer research as well as implications for developing more successful weight-loss practices. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


An inhibitory substance was obtained from culture filtrates of Platydorina caudata Kofoid, (a colonial, green flagellate), in which death of the culture had occurred. The cessation of growth occurs before, and is seemingly independent of, medium depletion. The substance can be detected as early as the 15th day, and by the 25th day growth is completely suppressed. A bioassay method for quantitating the activity of the substance was devised. The substance is heat-labile, nondialyzable, acid-labile, and apparently specific for Platydorina. The substance resists short periods of freezing and bacterial contamination. Preliminary results suggest that trypsin destroys activity of the substance.


This paper reviews recent retirement and retirement intention literature, with a view to assessing the acceptability of growing calls for later retirement and the conditions that may lead to a change in present plans. The review finds broad consensus with regard to the key factors that enter the retirement decision, significant among which are that financial considerations are not always prioritised, and that high rates of involuntary retirement may hold the key to understanding the recent trend to early retirement. Across a broad range of studies, many external factors serve to disrupt retirement intentions, which exceed actual retirement by 1-3 years and desired retirement age by double that margin. The findings indicate an elasticity of around 6 years wherein actual retirement could now move up or down depending on how well revisions to retirement - and labour market policy - accord with the needs and interests of older workers. They also illustrate a related need for more information on the retirement intentions and circumstances of women, whose increasing labour force participation at older ages appears to account for the recent small increase in Australia's average retirement age.


PURPOSE this pilot study explored health professionals' and patients' perceptions of diabetes through the development of the Diabetes Semantic Differential Scales (DSDS). These scales evaluate the meaning of diabetes-related concepts. METHODS Health professionals (n=39) attending a CME course completed the health professional version of the DSDS. Patients (n=70) completed the patient version of the DSDS. RESULTS The reliability of the DSDS was supported. The scale scores of health professionals, African American patients, and Caucasian patients, examined initially by one-way analyses of variance, showed significant differences among the groups for 4 of the 18 diabetes concepts. Effect sizes were also examined among these groups. For 7 concepts, there was a significant practical difference between the perceptions of the health professionals and the African American patients. For the Caucasian patients, differences were noted for 6 concepts. CONCLUSIONS There are 3 primary inferences from this pilot study. First, health professionals and patients are likely to hold different perceptions of key diabetes concepts. Second, the concepts on which professionals and patients differ are not always what one would expect. Third, health professionals should clarify patients' understanding of diabetes to minimize the potential for miscommunication.


Error analysis (EA) has been broadly applied to the researches of writing, speaking, second language acquisition (SLA) and translation. This study was carried out based on Carl James' error taxonomy to investigate the distribution of lexical errors in Chinese-English (C-E) translation of drug package inserts (DPIs)(1), explore the underlying causes and propose some translation strategies for correction and reduction of lexical errors in DPIs. A translation corpus consisting of 25 DPIs translated from Chinese into English was established. Lexical errors in the corpus and the error causes were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Some examples were used to analyze the lexical errors and their causes, and some strategies for translating vocabulary in DPIs were proposed according to Eugene Nida's translation theory. This study will not only help translators and medical workers reduce errors in C-E translation of vocabulary in DPIs and other types of medical texts but also shed light on the learning and teaching of C-E translation of medical texts.


In the above-titled paper (see ibid., vol. CAS-34, p.1191-1198, Oct. 1987) there are some errors in Tables I and II. Unfortunately, the computer outputs for the original designs were not saved, and to be able to correct the error, new designs were carried out for certain functions. The new designs are slightly different from the original ones owing to differences in the initialization of the optimization algorithms. Consequently, the data given in Table II and the 3-D plots are also revised. >


Federated learning (FL) aided health diagnostic models can incorporate data from a large number of personal edge devices (e.g., mobile phones) while keeping the data local to the originating devices, largely ensuring privacy. However, such a cross-device FL approach for health diagnostics still imposes many challenges due to both local data imbalance (as extreme as local data consists of a single disease class) and global data imbalance (the disease prevalence is generally low in a population). Since the federated server has no access to data distribution information, it is not trivial to solve the imbalance issue towards an unbiased model. In this paper, we propose FedLoss, a novel cross-device FL framework for health diagnostics. Here the federated server averages the models trained on edge devices according to the predictive loss on the local data, rather than using only the number of samples as weights. As the predictive loss better quantifies the data distribution at a device, FedLoss alleviates the impact of data imbalance. Through a real-world dataset on respiratory sound and symptom-based COVID-19 detection task, we validate the superiority of FedLoss. It achieves competitive COVID-19 detection performance compared to a centralised model with an AUC-ROC of 79%. It also outperforms the state-of-the-art FL baselines in sensitivity and convergence speed. Our work not only demonstrates the promise of federated COVID-19 detection but also paves the way to a plethora of mobile health model development in a privacy-preserving fashion.


Extra phase-pure Li4Ti5O12 spinel with particle sizes less than 500 nm was synthesized by solid state reaction of mechanochemicaly activated mixture of nano anatase and Li2CO3 for a very short annealing time, 4 h at 800 °C. Structural and microstructural properties, the mechanism of solid state reaction between anatase and Li2CO3 as well as thermal stability of prepared spinel were investigated using XRPD, SEM and TG/DSC analysis. The mechanism of reaction implies decomposition of Li2CO3 below 250 oC, formation of monoclinic Li2TiO3 as intermediate product between 400 and 600 °C and its transformation to Li4Ti5O12 between 600–800 oC. The spinel structure is stable up to 1000 oC when it is decomposed due to Li2O evaporation.


A dynamic model for the demonstration of planetary motion is described. It is a rubber membrane strained on a ring and pulled down in its middle. The 'planets' of the model are small balls moving on the rubber surface. The force acting on the balls is inversely proportional to the distance from the centre so only Kepler's second law is valid for the motion of the balls. The velocity hodograph of the Kepler motion is analysed theoretically and experimentally. The phenomenon of the perturbation of the real planet's motion is modelled, too, with the help of a somewhat bigger ball which also deforms the rubber-surface in its neighbourhood. All the essential cases of the perturbation are modelled, as is the special case: the motion in the Lagrangian-5 resonance point.


Aim of the study: To evaluate the in vitro inhibition of different Intravenous γ-Globulin (IVIgG) preparations and of their F(ab′)2 fragments on the anti-GM1 IgM binding to GM1. Methods: Amounts of three commercially available IVIgG preparations (Sandoglobulin, Ig Vena and Flebogamma) were digested by 10 mg/mL pepsin acetate buffer. Dialyzed digests were gel filtrated by a Sephadex G-150 column and PBS to obtain purified F(ab′)2 fragments. Two patients with a distal lower motor neuron syndrome (A.B., female with motor conduction blocks at the electrophysiological examination; P.M., male without motor conduction blocks) with high anti-GM1 IgM titer (1:84,000 and 1:52,000) were studied. Serum amounts of these patients were mixed with increasing amounts (from 0.25 to 5 times IgG patient molar concentration) of the three IVIgG preparations or their gel filtrated F(ab′)2 fragments, or with 2% bovine serum albumin. One hundred μL of each mixture was incubated in microtiter wells coated with 500 ng/mL GM1 methanol solution. Peroxidase conjugated goat anti-human IgM and O-phenylenediamine solutions were added according to the ELISA procedure and anti-GM1 IgM titer was calculated by absorbance at 490 nm, extrapolating the value from a standard curve. Each mixture percent of inhibition of anti-GM1 IgM to GM1 was expressed as a ratio between the difference of anti-GM1 titer before and after IVIgG or F(ab′)2 incubation and the baseline anti-GM1 titer. Results: Intact IVIgGs were able to inhibit binding of anti-GM1 IgM to GM1 in a quite dose-dependent manner, but at a different extent either between patients than among different IVIgG preparations: in patient A.B. the inhibition ranged from 8% to 71% using Sandoglobulin, 2% to 54% using Ig Vena and 9% to 65% using Flebogamma, while in patient P.M. the inhibition ranged respectively 0% to 35%, 3% to 62% and 8% to 74%. Similar results were reached using F(ab′)2 fragments: in patient A.B. the inhibition ranged respectively from 7% to 76%, 5% to 68% and 8% to 59%, while in patient P.M. the inhibition ranged respectively from 1% to 40%, 5% to 59% and 10% to 81%. Conclusions: IVIgG preparations inhibit the in-vitro binding of anti-GM1 IgM to GM1 supplying a possible explanation of IVIgG therapy in-vivo efficacy. This inhibition is due to F(ab′)2 fragments and probably involves an idiotypic - anti-idiotypic interaction, because the same IVIgG or F(ab′)2 preparations give different percent inhibition of anti-GM1 to GM1 binding according to the treated patient anti-GM1 idiotopic pattern.


A movement during measurements can generate motion artifacts in photoplethysmography(PPG) signals. The motion artifacts reflect some information of tester's motion. If we can extract the relevant information from these interferences, it probable will be a new information collection method for portable physiological monitor. This paper first analyzes the relationship between the motion artifact and the PPG signals form the Beer-Lambert law. Then, compare the influence of PPG signals by different direction of movement. Finally, extract the information of motion through the reconstruction of wavelet transforms modulus maxima. Through compares the extracted signal and the real motional signals collected by accelerometer (ACQ), two signals have certain relativity. The extracted signal can basically reflect the tester's movement. It will be a new way of community and athletes medical care.


Falls are the leading causes of accidental injury in older adults and directly contribute to more than 600,000 deaths each year worldwide. Although the issue of falls is complex, balance dysfunction is one the principal contributors to the heightened incidence of falls in older adults. A nationally representative survey of older adults in the United States showed that an inability to stand on a foam pad with the eyes closed was associated with more than a six-fold increase in the odds of reporting "difficulty with falls." As stability in the "eyes closed, on foam" condition is reliant upon intact vestibular cues, these data implicate age-related vestibular loss as a potential contributor to falls, yet, the specific causal mechanism explaining the link between age-related vestibular loss and imbalance/falls was not known. Here we review recent data showing that, vestibular perceptual thresholds, an assay of vestibular sensory noise, were found to, (1) account for nearly half of subclinical balance impairment in healthy older adults and (2) correlate with postural sway in healthy young adults. Based upon the identified links between balance dysfunction and vestibular noise in healthy adults, we posit the following causal chain: (a) increased "noise" in vestibular feedback - yielding a reduced signal-to-noise ratio in vestibular feedback-increases sway, (b) excessive sway leads to imbalance, and (c) imbalance contributes to falls. Identifying the "cause" of age-related balance dysfunction will inform the development of interventions tailored to prevent falls, and fall-related injuries, in the growing population of older adults.


In this paper focuses on realizing alternate power supply sources to the academic buildings located at Manipal, Karnataka, India, and analyzing the possible combination of the hybrid energy sources. The main emphasis is on steering the optimization and life cycle cost analysis of the hybrid energy sources. The hybrid energy system optimization and feasibility study are carried out using HOMER Software and the results are verified with Linear Programming. The case study is conducted with the involvement of photovoltaic, Wind turbine and diesel generator (DG) along with the battery bank. Further, the DG was integrated with the renewable energy sources to smoothen the power circulation and enhance the reliability issues. The realistic climate data obtained from the NASA website for the location Manipal (13.347° N, 74.75° E) and estimates the solar and wind power using the models developed.


Choosing to pursue one design idea usually requires leaving several others behind. As a design teacher, I have experienced this at close range making me curious about what design students choose not to do and why. In this study, I look at my students' design ideation from the perspective of care and look at the reasons for them abandoning their design ideas. Through this perspective, I will probe the role that the notion of risk plays in students' management or processing of ideas. The findings are based on an empirical study using students' reflections on abandoned ideas as data. Such explorations can bring some of the regulations that students are subjected to into the foreground, thus exposing how the educational system and teachers like myself affect the students' sense of freedom, hampering their ability to experiment with their ideas. Creating awareness about students' abandoned ideas in new and attentive ways can play an active role in strengthening the students' contact with and ownership of their hopes and motivations. This can make a difference in the ongoing negotiations, re-negotiations and struggles about what good design education ought to be.


Built-in self-test (BIST) is a commonly used design technique that allows a circuit to test circuit itself. But for this circuit have to switch in off-line mode which unnecessary waste time and power to avoid this best method is online bist In this paper BIST architecture is implemented for Detection, Diagnosis and Repair of various faulty circuits. A complete and versatile online test solution based on reconfigurable test architecture is presented in this paper. Reconfigurable test architecture works alongside the controllers for online concurrent fault detection. The output vectors of the controllers are concurrently monitored and any fault present is detected in a few cycles from the sensitization of the fault. The architecture is then reprogrammed to a similar set of diagnostic hardware to locate a sub block which is the cause for the fault. The same architecture is then reprogrammed to replace the faulty block thereby completing repair. The test architecture is designed based on configurable logic blocks. The design has several advantages viz. (i) it works well for critical VLSI controllers where shutting down or suspending the operation of a controller for testing is not possible and where the fault needs to be detected at the earliest, during the run time of the system, (ii) after a fault is detected, diagnosis can be performed online, (iii) once a faulty block is located, repair is also done online. Since fault detection, diagnosis and repair are completed online with one test hardware, the effective hardware overhead is negligible and the system can resume its function within a brief period. The applicability of the architecture is demonstrated for the control blocks in OC8051.


We computed the intermolecular electronic coupling and the band structure of three pentacene derivatives that stack cofacially in one or two dimensions. We rationalize the results building a map of the coupling between HOMOs and LUMOs of isolated pentacene molecules as a function of the relative molecular orientation and finding the position on such map of the actual molecular pairs. The apparently chaotic dependence of the intermolecular coupling from the crystal structure is explained, and directions for the design of materials with improved electric transport properties are given. We run molecular dynamics simulations to explore the variation of the intermolecular coupling due to the thermal motions. It is shown that, even in the crystal phase, the limited conformational space explored at room temperature is large enough to produce consistent variation in the intermolecular coupling. The consequences of this finding on the practicability of the transport properties of organic materials are analyzed.


A pregnant woman, at 28 weeks' gestation, has been observed ultrasonographically. A complex mass arising from the umbilical cord was detected. Color Doppler imaging demonstrated the vascular nature of the mass and the strictly connection with the three umbilical vessels. Color Doppler ultrasound provides useful informations for a correct assessment of the masses arising from the umbilical cord.


Background and Aim: A number of studies demonstrated that CD47 was overexpressed in several kinds of tumors including colorectal cancer (CRC). Furthermore, the level of CD47 was positively correlated with tumor proliferation, stemness and metastasis. The aim of this study is to evaluate the role of CD47 in the metastasis and proliferation in CRC. Methods: We used the data from GEO database GSE8671 to analyze the expression level of CD47 and its relationship with prognosis in CRC. The expression levels of CD47 in normal and CRC tissues from our hospital were detected using quantitative RT-PCR and western blot. CD47 was downregulated or overexpressed via lentiviral vector system. Then the RTCA assay and migration assay were carried out to investigate the function of CD47 in cell proliferation and migration. Western blot for cancer related pathways was performed to find out the downstream signaling pathways of CD47. Results: Increased expression of CD47 was found in CRC tissues. Inhibition of CD47 expression in HCT116 by ShRNA attenuated the capacity of cell proliferation and migration. On the other hand, overexpression of CD47 in DLD1 increased the capacity for cell proliferation and migration. CD47 induced cell proliferation and migration was found to be associated with the activation of MAPK/ERK pathway. Conclusions: High expression of CD47 was found to be associated with the proliferation and metastasis in CRC via the activation of MAPK/ERK signaling pathway. These findings provide an SIRPα-independent mechanism for CD47 in the progression of CRC, which may find a novel therapy target for the precise treatment of CRC. Citation Format: Tuo Hu, Yu-feng Chen, Chi Zhou, Jia Ke, Hua-shan Liu, Xiao-bin Zheng, Jian-ping Wang, Xiao-jian Wu, Xian-rui Wu, Ping Lan. CD47 promotes metastasis and proliferation of colorectal cancer via MAPK/ERK pathway [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4866. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4866


This paper assesses the integration between natural gas-fired combined cycles and grate combustors for municipal solid waste (MSW). Saturated steam generated in the grate combustor is exported to the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) of the combined cycle, where it is superheated and then fed to a steam turbine serving both the combined cycle and the Waste-to-Energy (WTE) plant. Using a single steam turbine reduces costs and increases efficiency; in addition, superheating steam with the clean combustion products discharged by the gas turbine avoids all penalties (and extra-costs) caused by the corrosive gases generated in the grate combustor, which follow a path and are discharged from a stack completely separated from those of the CC. The optimal CC/WTE plant match is achieved when evaporation is carried out almost exclusively in the grate combustor, with the HRSG bearing the load for superheat (and reheat) and part of feedwater heating.Performance estimates for a combined cycle centered around a medium-size, heavy-duty gas turbine show that WTE/CC integration increases the efficiency of energy recovery from waste by 50% and more, with MSW disposal costs lower by 30–40%. Higher energy conversion efficiencies imply lower environmental impact, notably greater reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.Copyright © 2000 by ASME


A simple and reliable DNA extraction method for dry seeds of Brassica napus has been developed in our laboratory. The NaCl and PVP were used to remove polysaccharides and polyphenols during DNA purification. The oil and proteins of dry seeds were removed only through centrifugation in this method. The RAPD amplification patterns have no obviously difference between the DNA extracted from dry seeds and fresh leaves extracted with control method. The good results of SSR molecular markers on the DNA of dry seeds of another 12 B. napus indicating that the DNA extracted from dry seeds was freedom from common contaminating compounds. In conclusion, this method could be widely used in DNA extraction from dry seeds of B. napus.


We study the influence of relevant quantities, including the density of dark energy (DE), to the predicted Hubble outflow around a system of galaxies. In particular, we are interested in the difference between two models: 1) The standard $\Lambda$CDM model, with the everywhere constant DE density, and 2) the "Swiss cheese model", where the universe is as old as the standard model, but the DE density is zero on short scales, including the environment of the system.
We calculate the current predicted outflow patterns of dwarf galaxies around the Local Group-like system, using different values for the mass of the group, the local dark energy density, and the time of ejection of the dwarf galaxies, treated as test particles. These results are compared with the observed Hubble flow around the Local Group.
The predicted distance-velocity relations around galaxy groups are not alone very sensitive indicators of the dark energy density, due to the obsevational scatter and the uncertainties caused by the used mass of the group and a range in the ejection times. In general, the Local Group outflow data are in agreement with the local DE density being equal to the global one, if the mass is about $4 \times 10^{12} M_{\odot}$; a lower mass of about $2 \times 10^{12} M_{\odot}$ or less could suggest a zero local DE density. The dependence of the inferred DE density on the mass is a handicap in this and other common dynamical methods. This emphasizes the need to use different approaches together, for constraining the local dark energy density.


Baseband frequency hopping in the combination with downlink power control and discontinuous transmission has been investigated as a quality improving feature in a live GSM network. Using the dropped call rate and the frame erasure rate to measure the network quality, the use of frequency hopping proves a powerful network quality enhancement feature. By optimising the frequency plan and the handover algorithm a reduction in dropped calls is achieved. Along with frequency hopping, downlink discontinuous transmission has been investigated. In this situation an increase in bad quality, partly due to the statistical inaccuracy with discontinuous transmission in GSM and maybe due to poor performance of the mobile stations, was encountered. The current status is therefore to reject the use of downlink discontinuous transmission until more information about the performance of the mobile stations is found. The combination of baseband frequency hopping and downlink power control has also been investigated. Even with a maximum dynamic range of 6 dB a large average base station transmitting power reduction is achieved. However no quality improvements in terms of dropped calls could be found.


Butternut (Juglans cinerea L.), an early successional riparian hardwood species native to Canada and the United States, is under serious threat from a nonnative fungal pathogen, Ophiognomonia clavigignenti-juglandacearum. Since it was first reported in Canada in 1990, this fungal pathogen has spread rapidly and established in New Brunswick in 1997. Apart from the first report in 1997 and another in 2004, no surveys have been conducted to assess the spread of the pathogen in the province. The purpose of this research was to survey butternut throughout its range in New Brunswick, evaluate disease occurrence as well as tree health, and investigate the impact of different topographic and tree health factors on canker incidence. Results showed that the disease has spread throughout the range of butternut in New Brunswick. The disease likely only recently (2007) spread to the northeastern-most populations, given that lower rates of canker occurrence and higher health ratings are found further away from the point of initial occurrence of the disease. Although canker incidence is high throughout the province, tree dieback is minimal, and trees still producing nuts could support opportunities for ex situ conservation. Because of the rate of pathogen spread in the province, implementing a tree improvement strategy might be the only means for maintaining the butternut genome on the landscape.


This paper investigates equilibria in a labor market where …rms post wage/tenure contracts and risk-averse workers, both employed and unemployed, search for better paid job opportunities. Di¤erent …rms typically o¤er di¤erent contracts. Workers accumulate general human capital through learning-by-doing. With on-the-job search, a worker's wage evolves endogenously over time through experience e¤ects, tenure effects and quits to better paid employment. This equilibrium approach suggests how to identify econometrically between experience and tenure e¤ects on worker wages.


An appropriate moose management requires knowledge about how the economy of moose, in terms of values (benefits) and costs, responds to alterations in the moose population. This article, that is based on an empirical study, focuses on one segment of this problem field—the value of moose hunting. It deals with the question of how this value, including aspects of recreation as well as meat, is changing when the moose population density is altered. Furthermore, the article discusses the significance to the hunting value of the moose population's age structure. Generally the hunting value increases—but at a decreasing rate—as the moose population density is increased. There are, however, large geographical differences, so that a certain increase in the moose population density means a lot to the hunting value in one region but less in another. Many moose hunters would, in consideration of their own hunting pleasure, prefer an adult/calve ratio for the bag of moose that diverges considerably from what is stipu...


Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a devastating disease.While there is no cure for COPD and the lung damage associated with this disease cannot be reversed, it is still very important to diagnose it as early as possible. Objectives In this paper, we propose a novel method based on the measurement of air trapping in the lungs from CT images to detect COPD and to evaluate its severity. Patients and Methods Twenty-five patients and twelve normal adults were included in this study. The proposed method found volumetric changes of the lungs from inspiration to expiration. To this end, trachea CT images at full inspiration and expiration were compared and changes in the areas and volumes of the lungs between inspiration and expiration were used to define quantitative measures (features). Using these features,the subjects were classified into two groups of normal and COPD patients using a Bayesian classifier. In addition, t-tests were applied to evaluate discrimination powers of the features for this classification. Results For the cases studied, the proposed method estimated air trapping in the lungs from CT images without human intervention. Based on the results, a mathematical model was developed to relate variations of lung volumes to the severity of the disease. Conclusions As a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system, the proposed method may assist radiologists in the detection of COPD. It quantifies air trapping in the lungs and thus may assist them with the scoring of the disease by quantifying the severity of the disease.


The authors present a new laser voltmeter employing a novel Kerr cell for remote measurement of high voltages. Unlike conventional Kerr cells, the proposed cell has no electrodes and is merely a vessel filled with an optically-active liquid. The cell is placed in the strong-field zone of a gap stressed by the voltage under measurement. Optical measurement of the liquid Kerr retardation angle reflects the electric-field value inside the cell which expresses the measured voltage. A sensitive optical system has been used for measuring Kerr retardation angles down to 0.01 degrees. A 'figure of merit' has been proposed to express the sensitivity of the optical liquid. As a new liquid having a relatively low dielectric constant, chlorotoluene is found to be promising. The laser voltmeter has been tested experimentally in uniform- and nonuniform-field gaps. Optical measurement of the AC voltage applied to the gap electrodes agreed well with that obtained by a calibrated potential divider.


Aims To investigate cyclin D1 and fascin immunoreactivity in normal, reactive and neoplastic vulvar skin correlating the findings with p16 protein and Ki67 expression. Methods 66 vulvar biopsy or resection specimens demonstrating normal appearances, reactive epidermal changes, usual-type vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (uVIN), differentiated-type VIN (dVIN), p16-positive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and p16-negative SCC were examined immunohistochemically for cyclin D1, fascin, Ki67 and p16 protein. Where applicable, expression patterns were compared in microanatomically distinct areas, particularly at the invasive front (deep tumour margin) of SCC. Results Normal epidermis showed parabasal Ki67 and cyclin D1 staining while fascin labelled cells in the lower one-third of the epithelium. Reactive and dVIN specimens demonstrated mildly increased Ki67 and cyclin D1 expression that maintained parabasal polarity, whereas uVIN and p16-positive SCC were characterised by loss of cyclin D1 staining. However, in 14 of 20 p16-positive SCC small infiltrative tumour groups and single infiltrating cells at the invasive front showed a cyclin D1-positive/ Ki67-negative phenotype. In contrast, p16-negative SCC generally showed diffuse and concordant cyclin D1 and Ki67 labelling, including at the invasive margin. Fascin expression was increased in all VIN and SCC lesions. Conclusions Variations in cyclin D1 and Ki67 expression between p16-positive and p16-negative vulvar SCCs suggest different mechanisms of invasion in these tumour subgroups. Fascin is upregulated in vulvar squamous neoplasia but immunostaining does not discriminate in situ from invasive lesions nor putative human papilloma virus (HPV)-associated and HPV-independent SCCs.


High-resolution 3D object generation remains a challenging task primarily due to the limited availability of comprehensive annotated training data. Recent advancements have aimed to overcome this constraint by harnessing image generative models, pretrained on extensive curated web datasets, using knowledge transfer techniques like Score Distillation Sampling (SDS). Efficiently addressing the requirements of high-resolution rendering often necessitates the adoption of latent representation-based models, such as the Latent Diffusion Model (LDM). In this framework, a significant challenge arises: To compute gradients for individual image pixels, it is necessary to backpropagate gradients from the designated latent space through the frozen components of the image model, such as the VAE encoder used within LDM. However, this gradient propagation pathway has never been optimized, remaining uncontrolled during training. We find that the unregulated gradients adversely affect the 3D model's capacity in acquiring texture-related information from the image generative model, leading to poor quality appearance synthesis. To address this overarching challenge, we propose an innovative operation termed Pixel-wise Gradient Clipping (PGC) designed for seamless integration into existing 3D generative models, thereby enhancing their synthesis quality. Specifically, we control the magnitude of stochastic gradients by clipping the pixel-wise gradients efficiently, while preserving crucial texture-related gradient directions. Despite this simplicity and minimal extra cost, extensive experiments demonstrate the efficacy of our PGC in enhancing the performance of existing 3D generative models for high-resolution object rendering.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to use a dynamic model to investigate capital structure determinants for 178 firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for the period 1998-2008. The sample of firms is also used to examine the cost and speed of adjustment towards a target debt ratio. Design/methodology/approach - A target adjustment model is estimated using a generalized method of moments technique to examine the cost and speed of adjustment towards a target debt ratio. The determinants of target capital structure for South African listed firms are also examined. Findings - The results show that South African firms adjust relatively fast towards a target leverage level. It is also found that asset tangibility, growth, size and risk are positively related to leverage, while profitability and tax are negatively related to leverage. The results also suggest that capital structure decisions of South African listed firms follow both the pecking order and trade-off theories of capital structure. Research limitations/implications - The sample chosen focused on listed firms, thus the results cannot credibly be generalized to all South African firms (listed and unlisted). Also, whilst a lot can be gleaned from the results, they may not be readily applicable to firms in other African countries. Originality/value - The issue of dynamic adjustment towards a target or optimal debt ratio has not received sufficient attention in developing economies. Using data from an emerging economy, this paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. A target adjustment model is estimated using a generalized method of moments technique.


To meet the environmental requirements, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd. (Doosan) had developed low NOx pulverized coal burner and it was applied to boiler retrofit project, 130 ton/hr coal fired co-generation boiler, in 2003. NOx emissionand unburned carbon (UBC) in fly ash were measured during the commissioning tests. In this paper, the operation results of low NOx pulverized coal burner installed in 130 ton/hr coal fired boiler are presented. Burners emitted 160 ppm (@6 % O₂ basis) NOx and 3 % UBC with Chinacoal containing 0.86 % fuel nitrogen. And also it was shown that NOx emission rate of low NOx pulverized coal burner is linearly increased with fuel-nitrogen fraction of coal.


This paper deals with the structural organization and tectonic evolution of South American Continent basement during the Upper Precambrian. The South American Platform is the old platform of South America. It has more than half of this extension covered by sediments and volcanic rocks of Phanerozoic age; the basement is exposed in three vast shields and several little massifs. In the exposed basement some cratonic nuclei have been distinguished, with structures developed in the Middle Precambrian (Trans-Amazonic) and Lower Precambrian (Jequie and Guriense). The Lower Precambrian structures are described in small scattered nuclei, all the rest seeming to have been remobilized by tectonic, magmatic and thermal processes of Trans-Amazonic age. These processes affected large areas but are still insufficiently understood. In the Upper Precambrian, these cratonic nuclei underwent intense process of reactivation, in large areas, with formation of volcano-sedimentary covers, acid, basic and alkaline intrusive rocks, cataclastic zones and thermally affected zones. During the Upper Precambrian, geosynclinal evolution processes developed at the borders and between the cratons, generating fold belts and regions. The firstly developed belt is located in Central Brazil, related to the Uruacuano Cycle (ca. 1300-1000 m.a.). The Espinhaco and Uruacu Belts are attributed to this cycle. The other units are related to the Brasiliano Cycle ( 1000 m.y. to Cambro-Ordovician time). The fold belts are located in marginal position and the fold regions are between cratonic areas: both show different characteristic of organization, sedimentation, structures, tectonism, metamorphism, magmatism and metallogenesis. In the southern border of the South American Platform a fold region developed, which possibly represents the extension of the Southeastern Fold Region, and continues to the Andean Belt. The South American Platform consolidated during Cambro-Ordovician time. Its western and southern adjacent areas were places of geosynclinal evolution up to the Devonian in the Patagonian Platform and up to the Cenozoic in the Andean Chain. The eastern half of the South American Platform had a platformal evolution since the Silurian


Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is cultivated worldwide and its flour is used in a variety of food products. Although functional analyses of genes in buckwheat are highly desired, reliable methods to do it have yet to be developed. In this study we established a simple and efficient transient gene expression system using buckwheat protoplasts isolated from young hypocotyls using 96-well plates as a high-throughput platform. The transformation efficiency was comparable with that of similar systems, such as Arabidopsis mesophyll protoplasts. Stable results were obtained in a typical example of the experiment to examine transcription factor activity. This system shows potential for the large-scale analysis of gene function using protoplast isolated from fewer and younger plants than the conventional system and may provide novel information for efficient buckwheat breeding.


Fast and accurate quantification of gas fluxes emitted by volcanoes is essential for the risk mitigation of explosive eruption, and for the fundamental understanding of shallow eruptive processes. Sulphur dioxide (SO2), in particular, is a reliable indicator to predict upcoming eruptions, and its systemic characterization allows the rapid assessment of sudden changes in eruptive dynamics. In this regard, infrared (IR) hyperspectral imaging is a promising new technology for accurately measure SO2 fluxes day and night at a frame rate down to 1 image per second. The thermal infrared region is not very sensitive to particle scattering, which is an asset for the study of volcanic plume. A ground based infrared hyperspectral imager was deployed during the IMAGETNA campaign in 2015 and provided high spectral resolution images of the Mount Etna (Sicily, Italy) plume from the North East Crater (NEC), mainly. The LongWave InfraRed (LWIR) hyperspectral imager, hereafter name Hyper-Cam, ranges between 850–1300 cm−1 (7.7–11.8 µm). The LATMOS (Laboratoire Atmosphères Milieux Observations Spatiales) Atmospheric Retrieval Algorithm (LARA), which is used to retrieve the slant column densities (SCD) of SO2, is a robust and a complete radiative transfer model, well adapted to the inversion of ground-based remote measurements. However, the calculation time to process the raw data and retrieve the infrared spectra, which is about seven days for the retrieval of one image of SO2 SCD, remains too high to infer near real-time (NRT) SO2 emission fluxes. A spectral image classification methodology based on two parameters extracting spectral features in the O3 and SO2 emission bands was developed to create a library. The relevance is evaluated in detail through tests. From data acquisition to the generation of SO2 SCD images, this method requires only ~40 s per image, which opens the possibility to infer NRT estimation of SO2 emission fluxes from IR hyperspectral imager measurements.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the effectiveness, technical feasibility and incidence of complications after combining pars plana vitrectomy, phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The results of combined vitreoretinal and cataract surgery in 100 eyes of 96 patients were retrospectively and prospectively analyzed. The mean follow-up period was 8.4 months. All patients had clinically significant lens opacities and vitreoretinal pathology requiring pars plana vitrectomy. Indications for vitreoretinal surgery included: persistent vitreous haemorrhage (28 eyes), vitreous hemorrhage combined with tractional retinal detachment (50 eyes), tractional retinal detachment without vitreous haemorrhage caused by proliferative diabetic retinopathy (7 eyes), rheumatogenous retinal detachment with proliferative vitreoretinopathy (10 eyes) and dislocated crystalline lens in the vitreous (5 eyes).

RESULTS
Postoperatively, best corrected visual acuity improved in 81 eyes (81%)- by two lines or more in 31 eyes (31%) - by less than two lines in 50 eyes (50%). In 14 eyes (14%) visual acuity was unchanged and was worse in 5 cases (5%). Postoperative complications included fibrin reaction, posterior synechias of the iris, vitreous hemorrhage, neovascular glaucoma, posterior capsule opacification, redetachment of retina.

CONCLUSIONS
Our cases confirm previous study, that performing phacoemulsification, IOL implantation and vitrectomy in one operation is safe and allows visual recovery with good technical results.


A quick recovery of logical files which provide alternate views of databases is provided. Unchanged logical file pages are journaled before being changed. Transactions affecting databases covered by the logical files are also journaled. To recover a logical file, the journaled unchanged pages of the logical file that correspond to the changed pages are inserted back into the logical file, and the transactions that were journaled are processed to provide the changes to the logical file and to the database. This brings the logical file and the underlying database up to date, and in synchronization with each other.


Non-woven felts are made of networks of individual fibers or fiber bundlesdeposited over a planar surface. Bonds between fibers are introduced by means ofmechanical needles, thermal fusion or chemical bonds to increase the stiffness andstrength of nonwovens. An experimental and computational study of the notchsensitivity of a glass fiber non-woven felt is presented here. To this end, tensiletests were carried out on unnotched and notched specimens. The dominant failuremechanism was fiber-fiber bond rupture and damage was localized in a narrowzone close to the notch tip, whose size was limited by the fiber length. Thefracture behavior was simulated using the finite element method with AbaqusExplicit. Fibers were modeled using standard beam elements and bonds betweenfibers were taken into account using connector elements. The numericalpredictions of the notch sensitivity were compared with experimental results andshowed the potential of computational mechanics to accurately reproduce thedamage pattern and the failure strength.


Abstract. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is an important ozone-depleting
greenhouse gas produced and consumed by microbially mediated nitrification
and denitrification pathways. Estuaries are intensive N2O emission
regions in marine ecosystems. However, the potential contributions of
nitrifiers and denitrifiers to N2O sources and sinks in China's
estuarine and coastal areas are poorly understood. The abundance and
transcription of six key microbial functional genes involved in
nitrification and denitrification, as well as the clade II-type nosZ
gene-bearing community composition of N2O reducers, were investigated
in four estuaries spanning the Chinese coastline. The results showed that
the ammonia-oxidizing archaeal amoA genes and transcripts were more dominant in
the northern Bohai Sea (BS) and Yangtze River estuaries, which had low
nitrogen concentrations, while the denitrifier nirS genes and transcripts were
more dominant in the southern Jiulong River (JRE) and Pearl River estuaries,
which had high levels of terrestrial nitrogen input. Notably, the nosZ clade II
gene was more abundant than the clade I-type throughout the estuaries except
for in the JRE and a few sites of the BS, while the opposite transcript
distribution pattern was observed in these two estuaries. The gene and
transcript distributions were significantly constrained by nitrogen and
oxygen concentrations as well as by salinity, temperature, and pH. The nosZ clade
II gene-bearing community composition along China's coastline had a high level of
diversity and was distinctly different from that in the soil and in marine
oxygen-minimum-zone waters. By comparing the gene distribution patterns
across the estuaries with the distribution patterns of the N2O
concentration and flux, we found that denitrification may principally
control the N2O emissions pattern.


Recent advances in deep learning have had a methodological and practical impact on brain-computer interface (BCI) research. Among the various deep network architectures, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been well suited for spatio-spectral-temporal electroencephalogram (EEG) signal representation learning. Most of the existing CNN-based methods described in the literature extract features at a sequential level of abstraction with repetitive nonlinear operations and involve densely connected layers for classification. However, studies in neurophysiology have revealed that EEG signals carry information in different ranges of frequency components. To better reflect these multi-frequency properties in EEGs, we propose a novel deep multi-scale neural network that discovers feature representations in multiple frequency/time ranges and extracts relationships among electrodes, i.e., spatial representations, for subject intention/condition identification. Furthermore, by completely representing EEG signals with spatio-spectral-temporal information, the proposed method can be utilized for diverse paradigms in both active and passive BCIs, contrary to existing methods that are primarily focused on single-paradigm BCIs. To demonstrate the validity of our proposed method, we conducted experiments on various paradigms of active/passive BCI datasets. Our experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method achieved performance improvements when judged against comparable state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, we analyzed the proposed method using different techniques, such as PSD curves and relevance score inspection to validate the multi-scale EEG signal information capturing ability, activation pattern maps for investigating the learned spatial filters, and t-SNE plotting for visualizing represented features. Finally, we also demonstrated our method's application to real-world problems. Based on our experimental results and analyses, we believe that the proposed multi-scale neural network can be useful for various BCI paradigms, as a starting model or as a backbone network in any new BCI experiments.


It has become increasingly common to collect high-dimensional binary response data; for example, with the emergence of new sampling techniques in ecology. In smaller dimensions, multivariate probit (MVP) models are routinely used for inferences. However, algorithms for fitting such models face issues in scaling up to high dimensions due to the intractability of the likelihood, involving an integral over a multivariate normal distribution having no analytic form. Although a variety of algorithms have been proposed to approximate this intractable integral, these approaches are difficult to implement and/or inaccurate in high dimensions. Our main focus is in accommodating high-dimensional binary response data with a small to moderate number of covariates. We propose a two-stage approach for inference on model parameters while taking care of uncertainty propagation between the stages. We use the special structure of latent Gaussian models to reduce the highly expensive computation involved in joint parameter estimation to focus inference on marginal distributions of model parameters. This essentially makes the method embarrassingly parallel for both stages. We illustrate performance in simulations and applications to joint species distribution modeling in ecology.


The problem of tracking multiple targets with multiple sensors in the presence of interfering measurements is considered. A new hybrid bootstrap filter is proposed. The bootstrap filter is an approach where random samples are used to represent the target posterior distributions. By using this approach, the author circumvents the usual problem of an exponentially increasing number of association hypotheses as well as allowing the use of any nonlinear/non-Gaussian system and/or measurement models.


Abstract 2865 We have recently reported that MDM2 levels are increased in PV CD34 + cells as a consequence of JAK2617F, while the p53 levels are reduced in CD34 + cells from both patients with PV and PMF. These observations led us to explore therapeutic approaches by which to up-regulate p53 as a strategy to treat MPN patients. We previously reported that combination treatment with low doses of Peg IFNα 2a and Nutlin-3, an antagonist of MDM2, induced PV CD34 + apoptosis and inhibited PV colony formation significantly. The combination of these agents also decreased the proportion of JAK2V617F-positive HPCs. We demonstrated that these two drugs affect p53 through different pathways with Peg IFNα 2a activating p38 MAP kinase and STAT1 leading to increased p53 transcription while nutlin-3 prevents the degradation of p53 (Lu et al, Blood, 2012; In Press). RG7112 is an orally bioactivity small molecule inhibitor of p53-MDM2 binding which activates the p53 pathway. RG7112 is currently being evaluated in several phase 1 cancer trials. Based on our previous data, we hypothesized that RG7112 would be an effective drug to combine with low doses of IFN alpha to treat MPN patients. In order to evaluate the therapeutic effects of RG7112 alone or in combination with Peg IFNα 2a on hematopoietic progenitor cells from MPN patients, CD34 + cells were isolated from patients with PV and PMF patients and were treated with varying of doses of RG7112 alone or/and in combination with a low dose of Peg IFNα 2a and its effects on PV CD34 + cell proliferation, apoptosis and colony formation was evaluated. The effects of this drug on MPN CD34 + cells was compared to its effects on cord blood CD34 + cells After treatment with RG7112 at doses ranging from 100 nM to 5000 nM for 4 days, the numbers of PV CD34 + cells were reduced to a far greater degree (about 60%) than that observed with cord blood CD34 + cells (90% and 80%) at the doses between 200 and 500 nM indicating that low doses of RG7112 selectively affects MPN HPCs. 200nM of RG7112 and 200 U/ml of Peg-IFNα 2a alone induced cell cycle arrest of PV CD34 + cells, and combination treatment significantly promoted apoptosis of MPN CD34 + cells (2.5 folds). This observation leads us to examine the possibility that low doses of RG7112 might be used in combination with Peg-IFNα 2a to treat MPN patients. Treatment with 200 nM of RG7112 alone decreased PV CFU-GM and BFU-E-derived colony formation by 20% while combination treatment with 200 U/ml of Peg-IFNα 2a decreased PV CFU-GM and BFU-E-derived colony formation by 60% and 70%, respectively. Similarly, treatment with 200 nM of RG7112 alone decreased PMF CFU-GM and BFU-E-derived colony formation by 20% and 40%, respectively, while combination treatment with 200 U/ml of Peg-IFNα 2a decreased PMF CFU-GM and BFU-E-derived colony formation by 60% and 80%, respectively. We also found that treatment with both agents in combination also decreased the size of the hematopoietic colonies. By contrast, treatment with the same low doses of RG7112 and Peg-IFNα 2a alone or in combination did not significantly affect the ability of normal CD34 + cells to generate CFU-GM and BFU-E-derived colonies. Combined treatment with low doses of RG7112 and Peg-IFNα 2a decreased the total number of JAKV617F-positive PV HPC by 9% - 25% (p=0.014) leading to an increased proportion of colonies with wild type JAK2. In conclusion, these data demonstrate that IFNα plus RG7112 specifically target malignant MPN HPC by activating p53 in vitro, which we propose can be exploited therapeutically to eliminate JAK2V617F positive HPC in both PV and PMF patients. These results strongly suggest that combinations of low doses of IFNα and RG7112 might serve as a novel therapeutic strategy for the long term treatment of MPN patients. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The photosensitized polymerization of vinyl chloride in tetrahydrofuran has been studied over the temperature range 25 to 55°C, using either 2, 2´-azo-isobutyronitrile or 1, l´-azo-1-cyclohexane nitrile as initiator. The rate of polymerization is constant over the first 10% reaction and decreases in the later stages. The rate is proportional to the three halves power of the monomer concentration and to a power of the initiator concentration which increases with increase in temperature. The value of the intensity exponent shows a similar rise. This has been attributed to a mixture of monomer and mutual termination, the proportion of the former increasing at higher temperatures.


The aggregation state and endosomal trapping of engineered nanocarriers once internalized into cells remain poorly characterized. Here, we visualized the membrane penetrating dynamics of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) into the cytosol of T cells on a single-cell and single-nanoparticle basis. We water solubilized CdSe/CdZnS QDs with polymer encapsulants functionalized with a cell-penetrating peptide composed of an Asp-Ser-Ser (DSS) repeat sequence. T cells tolerated the 24-h incubation with QDs at concentrations of 5 nM or lower. Single-particle imaging demonstrated that the number of internalized nanoparticles was dependent upon the concentration of the probes for both control (peptide-free) and DSS-QDs. DSS-QDs were mostly distributed as monomers, whereas the control QDs were aggregated into clusters. Single-particle tracking using total internal reflection and highly inclined illumination showed that DSS-QDs were stationary near the activating surface and mobile within the cytosol of the T cell. A correlation exhibited between the mobility and aggregation state of individual QD clusters, with monomeric DSS-QDs showing the highest mobility. In addition, monomeric DSS-QDs displayed much faster diffusion than the endosomes. A small-molecule endosome marker confirmed the absence of colocalization between endosomes and DSS-QDs, indicating their endosomal escape. The ability to deliver and track individual QDs in the cytosol of live T cells creates inroads for the optimization of drug delivery and gene therapy through the use of nanoparticles.


Over the last decade, heritage tourism has established itself as a sector in its own right within the tourism industry. Demand for this sector continues to increase in the tourism-generating regions of the world, while on the supply-side destinations are increasingly including their built heritage into their tourism mix. However, unless this is undertaken in an integrated manner, there are serious implications for the quality of the visitor experience and for the long-term sustainability of such tourism. Unlike the era of the Grand Tour, the impact of current visitor numbers to heritage attractions can turn visits into unpleasant encounters for both tourists and locals, while potentially causing irreversible damage to sites. There has long been a history of human fascination with the past, and travel and tourism over the last fifty years have allowed increasing numbers of people to see many of the material remains of different cultures, not only in the form of souvenir replicas, but the original sites: 'live' and close-up. Archaeological sites, particularly those not belonging to pre-history, can offer the visitor contact with an element of 'otherness' and the possibility of escape to lesser known worlds. While some archaeological sites can offer the visitor aspects of this excitement just because of the scale, setting and architectural skill necessary of their construction, visitors are bound to get even more from their visit if intellectual as well as emotional access is available in the form of quality interpretation. In many developing regions, it is tour guides who are the sole interpreters of all tourism products, including archaeological sites. In order to be a gateway to the visited world, tour guides need to be able to deliver good quality interpretation to their audiences so that their fascination with the past does not turn to frustration. With the correct training, the guide has the potential to be an 'alchemist-interpreter', of an archaeological site where the challenge is to turn the base metal of information about the ancient past into the gold of understanding and satisfaction for a modern audience. With an integrated approach to heritage management, a tour guide also has the potential to bring together the key destination stakeholders. In this way, interpretation can help disseminate the all-important conservation message amongst visitors. The strategic use of interpretation then emerges as a mediator between tourism and archaeology. However, while the use of a tour guide for can have many benefits, poor guiding has several drawbacks. Perhaps more than other types of visitor attractions, archaeological sites require skilful interpretation due to their often-bare appearance and their temporal remoteness to modem audiences. Peru has some world-renowned archaeological sites and many are now important tourist attractions. Yet despite the exponential growth in arrivals, the development of visitor management and the supply of interpretation of the sites remains limited at best and at worst, non-existent. Although this study has Cusco, Peru as its case study area, there may be implications for other developing areas using its archaeology as a basis for its tourism industry. If correctly managed, Peru could use its heritage tourism as a vehicle for cultivating tourism for conservation. There is a tremendous opportunity for both human and cultural development to come from an integrated approach to heritage management. Peru's rural communities, its archaeological treasures, as well as the country's reputation as a outstanding tourism destination all stand to gain from this type of participation.


Collision cascades in matter irradiated with heavy particles (ions, atoms, etc.) are seen to be approximate fractals, and their fractal dimension is calculated and discussed. Experimental and theoretical collision cascades are expected to be useful laboratories for the study of fractals. The fractal dimension of a cascade is calculated in three ways; the results agree whenever they may be expected to. High-energy cascades have low dimension, low-energy ones may become three-dimensional and space filling. Some other fractal aspects of atomic collisions in matter are commented on.


This study was undertaken to determine the ability of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) to differentiate a group of closed head injury patients from a group of controls and determine how injury severity and attentional deficits are associated with WMS-R performance. The relationship of WMS-R performance to everyday memory also was assessed. The head injured group performed more poorly than controls on all five WMS-R indices and exhibited greater impairments on tasks that measure retention. In the original sample only the Visual Memory Index correlated with injury severity; in a larger sample, all four memory indices correlated modestly with injury severity. Patients who performed more poorly on the WMS-R also received poorer ratings on an independent assessment of everyday memory.


Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer death for Chinese Americans, but the CRC screenings rates remain low among them. Chinese Americans are one of the fast growing populations in the U.S. Chinese who migrated to the U.S. have increased risk for developing CRC. Hence, it is important to increase Chinese Americans' awareness of CRC risk and improve their screening behaviors. There is limited knowledge about the homogeneity of Chinese Americans who are non-adherent to recommended CRC screening guidelines. Research indicates that identifying the subtypes of patients is advantageous for healthcare providers to tailor their communication with patients by focusing on their particular needs and barriers and that can consequently promote their health-seeking behaviors.

Objective: We examined the homogeneous subgroups of Chinese-American patients who are non-adherent to CRC screening guidelines to better inform clinical practices to effectively promote screening behaviors.

Methods: We used baseline data from an ongoing intervention trial that enrolled non-adherent Chinese-American patients to CRC screening guidelines from 18 primary care clinics from the metropolitan Washington DC, New York, and Philadelphia areas. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to classify 349 non-adherent patients based on their sociodemographics, screening barriers, psychosocial and clinical access factors for CRC screening. After classes were identified, multilevel regression analyses were conducted for class comparison.

Results: The mean age of the overall sample was 59 years old (SD=7.41). About half of the sample was female and also about half were college graduate. About 42% reported having received doctor recommendation for CRC screening, but only 10% had screened for CRC. The best-fitting LCA model described three distinctive classes: Western Healthcare Class (WHC, 35%), Eastern Healthcare Class (EHC, 18%) and Mixed Healthcare Class (MHC, 46%). WHC patients were highly-educated with average 20 years of U.S. residency, high level of English proficiency, the least Eastern views of healthcare and the greatest exposure to physician recommendations, but many reported having no time for CRC screenings. EHC patients were highly-educated seniors and recent immigrants with the least CRC knowledge and the strongest traditional views. MHC patients had low level of education, resided in the U.S. for 20 years, and had relatively long relationships with physicians, but their knowledge and Eastern views were similar to those of EHC patients.

Conclusions: These findings extend previous literature and demonstrate that there are different sociodemographic and psychosocial factors to account for non-adherent screening behaviors of older Chinese immigrants. Training primary care physicians to understand that there are distinctive heterogeneous subgroups among non-adherent patients and recognize patients' different demographic characteristics (i.e. SES status, years in the U.S.) and healthcare beliefs (e.g. cancer screening) during encounters may facilitate physicians' communication with patients to overcome their barriers and consequently promote their screening behaviors.

Citation Format: Carol Strong, Cheng Shuang Ji, Wenchi Liang, Grace Ma, Roger Brown, Judy Huei-yu Wang. Heterogeneous demographic and cultural profiles of nonadherent Chinese-American patients to colorectal cancer screening: A latent class analysis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fifth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2012 Oct 27-30; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(10 Suppl):Abstract nr A82.


Personal rapid transit (PRT) is getting attention as a new form of transportation. It is energy efficient and provides the high level of passenger service. In this study, the dynamic PRT dispatching and routing problem is dealt with. Passengers request transportation service on a complex network, and an operating system monitors passenger arrivals and coordinates vehicles in real time. A new online dispatching and routing algorithm is proposed, which minimizes the total travel distance of vehicles and the waiting time of passengers. The algorithm dispatches vehicles by considering multiple vehicles' state and multiple passengers at the same time. In particular, finding the shortest-time path is attempted by taking into account the future congestion on lanes. Discrete-event simulation is employed to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results show the algorithm in this study outperforms others.


Abstract : After the attacks on the United States in September 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina acquired a reputation as a country supporting international terrorism. This perception was mostly a result of the 1992-1995 war, when foreign fighters tied to Islamist terrorist groups came to support the Bosniaks and spread radical Islam. The thesis investigates three theories about the development or support of terrorist networks and the radicalization of society. The thesis assesses each theory's explanatory power in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main research findings include the following. Islamist vanguards have succeeded in attracting some young Bosniaks, who abandoned their traditional beliefs, accepted more a puritan and less tolerant form of Islam, and became potential manpower for Islamist extremists. Constant political confrontations among Bosnia and Herzegovina politicians representing different ethnic groups have led to political instability. The country has neither the coercive nor the administrative capacities to provide a safe and stable environment, permitting the development of terrorist cells and affiliates. Even though Bosnia and Herzegovina has a permissive environment where extremist vanguards promote radical ideologies and call for jihad, the Muslim population generally does not support these groups or extremist violence.


8 women, aged 22-28, with normal, ovulatory menstrual cycles, volunteered to take different doses of Lynestrenol to determine its effects on Luteineizing Hormone (LH) secretion, and on plasma progesterone levels. Blood samples were taken in the morning and plasma was immediately separated. Results showed that body temperature varied unpredictably during the cycle, and therefore could not be considered a reliable parameter of ovulation. 0.35 mg of Lynestrenol administered daily was enough to suppress ovulation, as evidenced by the absence of LH during midcycle. Although differences exists in individual reactions, administration of Lynestrenol beyond 0.6 mg. daily always suppresses ovulation because of hypothalamo-pituitary inhibition, while doses below 0.5mg. daily can bring about episodic peaks. It is still not clear how Lynestrenol influences gonadotropins, especially LH, while intermittent bleeding seems to be the only sure side effect.


Abstract Objectives: To explore factors influencing compliance with campus tobacco policies and strategies to increase compliance. Participants: Sixty tobacco smokers (April 2012). Methods: A 22-item intercept-interview with closed- and open-ended questions was conducted with smokers in adjacent compliant and noncompliant areas at 1 university with a 100% tobacco ban. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Results: Most reported that the smoking policy was not enforced. Noncompliant smokers had less knowledge of locations where tobacco use was permitted and were more likely to identify their smoking location as compliant and had knowingly violated the policy. Choice of location to smoke was related to convenience and a desire to follow the policy. Smokers recommended consequences for noncompliance and structures that accommodated smoking to increase adherence to the tobacco ban. Conclusions: Additional education, environmental, and contingency strategies are needed to increase compliance with the policy banning tobacco use on this campus.


abstract:In fiscal year 2017, The Ohio State University Libraries in Columbus piloted the purchase of research data sets to explore how to integrate this format into the standard workflows of the collections strategist and electronic resources officer. The pilot project had few restrictions except that one-time money must be used and purchases must be available to the entire campus community. This pilot enabled the libraries to purchase several large-scale data sets while exploring issues around licensing, technical deployment, support, and assessment in an organization without a data librarian. This article details the pilot process and outlines the resulting considerations for future purchases of data sets.


Patients afflicted with congenital/developmental anomalies of the oral/head and neck regions present the prosthodontist with unique esthetic and functional restorative challenges. This article reviews the various pediatric patient categories that would benefit from placement of "vital" overdentures. A long-term follow-up of patients seen over 25 years of practice is presented with a focus on complications such as temporomandibular joint stability, caries, soft tissue and bony support changes, and denture adaptation. Longitudinal follow-up of these patients indicates that, although problems occur with overdenture therapy, the benefits of this treatment far outweigh the complications.


This paper explores the ways in which social policy is being used to recreate and reproduce a sense of nation and national identity in devolved Scotland and Wales. It argues that devolution has important consequences for our sense of Britishness and of Scottishness and Welshness, not least in relation to the ways in which social policies are presented and legitimated. It is further argued that across the UK there is a marked attempt by New Labour to forge a new sense of nation organized around neo-liberal and market-oriented themes. This is critically mediated within the welfare regimes of these nations in accord with reconstructed 'ways of life' that are centred on the themes of work and enterprise.


To investigate the effects of Angelica polysaccharide on erythrocyte immunity and marrow hematopoiesis in chickens, Angelica polysaccharide was used for the study of immunity and hematinic mechanism in order to provide basis for clinical reference. In this experiment, three gradient dosages (50, 100, 150 mg/kg body weight) of Angelica polysaccharide were drenched to the control group and the anemia groups, respectively. The anemia chickling model was made by abdominal injection of cyclophosphamide (CY) for 6 days (80 mg/kg·day).Red blood cell-C3b receptor (RBC-CR1) and red blood cell-immune complex (RBC-IC) rosette rates were measured and analyzed. Ectogenetic semi-solid culture medium of bone marrow hemopoietic progenitor cells was used to observe Angelica polysaccharide and separated serum fromAngelica polysaccharide treatment on the proliferation of colony-forming unit-erythrocyte (CFU-E), burst-forming unit-erythrocyte (BFU-E) and colony-forming unit-granulocyte macrophage (CFU-GM). The results showed that Angelica polysaccharide can significantly increase RBC-CR1 rosette rate in the healthy chicken groups (p 0.05). At the same time, Angelica polysaccharide can restore the RBC- CR1 rosette rate and the RBC-IC rosette rate caused by cyclophosphamide to the normal level. Serum containing Angelica polysaccharide can significantly facilitate the proliferation on CFU-E (p<0.01), BFU-E (p<0.01) and CFU-GM (p<0.01), but Angelica polysaccharide had no more direct proliferation on CFU-E, BFU-E and CFU-GM. This indicated that Angelica polysaccharide had the proliferation on hemopoietic progenitor cells of marrow by the change of hemopoietic factor.

 Key words: Polysaccharide, chicken, erythrocyte, immunity, hematopoiesis.


A tracheary element (TE) is a typical example of a cell type that undergoes programmed cell death in the developmental processes of vascular plants. The loss of the selective permeability of the tonoplast, which corresponds to tonoplast disintegration, occurred after the cells commenced secondary wall thickening and played a pivotal role in the programmed cell death of TEs in a zinnia (Zinnia elegans L.) cell culture. A search for events specifically associated with the TE vacuole provided an important clue to the understanding of the cell death mechanism. The transport of fluorescein, a fluorescent organic anion, across the tonoplast declined drastically in differentiating TEs. The capacity of the vacuole to accumulate the probe was also impaired. Treatment with probenecid, an inhibitor of organic anion transport, caused rapid cell death of TEs and led to the ultimate disruption of the vacuole even in other types of cultured cells. These changes in vacuolar properties during TE development were suppressed by cycloheximide. Specific mRNA accumulation in cells cultured in a TE differentiation-inductive condition was abolished by probenecid. These results suggest that a change in vacuolar membrane permeability promotes programmed cell death in TEs.