This study examines the feasibility of deriving the 24-h insulin requirement of insulin-dependent diabetic patients who were devoid of any endogenous insulin release (IDD) from the insulin-production rate (IPR) of healthy man (basal, 17 mU/min; stimulated 1.35 U/12.5 g glucose). To this end, continuous intravenous insulin infusion (CIVII) was initiated at a precalculated rate of 41.2 ± 4.6 (SD) U/24 h in IDD (N = 12). Blood glucose profiles were compared with those obtained during intermittent subcutaneous (s.c.) insulin therapy (IIT) and those of healthy controls (N = 7). Regular insulin (Hoechst CS) was infused with an adapted Mill Hill Infuser at a basal infusion rate of 1.6 U/h (6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.), and of 0.8 U/h from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Preprandial insulin (3.2–6.4 U) was added for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Daily individual food intake totaled 7688 ± 784 kJ (1836 ± 187 kcal)/24 h including 184 ± 37 g of glucose. Proper control of blood glucose (BG) (mean BG 105 ± 10 mg/dl; mean amplitude of glycemic excursions 54 ± 18 mg/dl; and 1 h postprandial BG levels not exceeding 160 mg/dl) and of plasma concentrations of β-hydroxybutyrate and lactate was maintained by 41.4 ± 4.4 U insulin/24 h. Although BG values only approximated the upper normal range as seen in healthy controls, they were well within the range reported by others during CIVII. Therefore, we conclude that in adult IDD completely devoid of endogenous insulin (1) the IPR of normal man can be used during CIVII as an estimate for the patient's minimal insulin requirement per 24 h, and (2) this approach allows for a blood glucose profile close to the upper range of a normal control group. Thus, deriving a patient's daily insulin dose from the insulin production rate of healthy man may add an additional experimental protocol which aids in making general calculations of a necessary insulin dose instead of using trial and error or a closed-loop insulin infusion system.


Antigens in Onchocerca volvulus were characterized using anti-O. vovulus monoclonal antibodies (McAb). A total of 17 McAb which were not species-specific to O. volvulus was examined for the antigenic similarity of O. volvulus with 12 parasitic helminths using indirect immunofluorescence. The range of reactivity of these McAb was wider in nematodes in contrast to species of cestoda or trematoda. The antigenic similarity within helminths examined was generally in agreement with their taxonomic relationships but was not shown in the lower taxonomic hierarchy. The helminth which holds the antigens most in common to O. volvulus was not the filarial parasites but Ascaris suum, an intestinal nematoda. The least antigenic similarity to O. volvulus was found in Schistosoma mansoni and S. japonicum, trematoda, among helminths examined. On the other hand, the existence of a common antigen shared with all the 13 helminths examined was demonstrated by a IgM McAb.


The cAMP-dependent protein kinase Pka1 is known as a regulator of glycogenesis, meiosis, and stress responses in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We demonstrated that Pka1 is responsible for calcium tolerance. Loss of functional components of the PKA pathway such as Git3, Gpa2, Cyr1, and Pka1 yields a CaCl2-sensitive phenotype, while loss of Cgs1, a regulatory subunit of PKA, results in CaCl2 tolerance. Cytoplasmic distribution of Cgs1 and Pka1 is increased by the addition of CaCl2, suggesting that CaCl2 induces dissociation of Cgs1 and Pka1. The expression of Prz1, a transcriptional regulator in calcium homeostasis, is elevated in a pka1∆ strain and in a wild type strain under glucose-limited conditions. Accordingly, higher expression of Prz1 in the wild type strain results in a CaCl2-sensitive phenotype. These findings suggest that Pka1 is essential for tolerance to exogenous CaCl2, probably because the expression level of Prz1 needs to be properly regulated by Pka1. Graphical Abstract


The biliary epithelium is organized as a single layer of biliary epithelial cells lining the biliary tree. Biliary epithelial cells have three major biological functions: protection, secretion and proliferation. These functions are all controlled by nuclear receptors. The biliary tree conveys bile, a complex fluid containing toxics such as endotoxins, from the liver to the duodenum. Active protection against endotoxins can be elicited by the vitamin D receptor or the farnesoid X receptor (FXR), thus avoiding constant inflammation of the biliary epithelium. Anti-inflammatory activities may be triggered by PPAR-α and -γ, which are also able to inhibit the deleterious effect of bacterial products. Secretion, a major function of biliary epithelial cells, is mainly regulated by circulating factors. Luminal factors, such as bile salts, may also control fluid secretion by classical intracellular pathways, membrane receptors or nuclear receptors. FXR or the glucocorticoid receptor have indeed been shown to increase the expression of genes encoding membrane-bound proteins that participate in biliary epithelial cell secretion. Biliary epithelial cells are quiescent cells that are able to proliferate in pathophysiological settings. Inhibition of estrogen receptor signaling decreases pathological biliary epithelial cell proliferation. Furthermore, progesterone, through the progesterone receptor, increases biliary epithelial cells proliferation. Taken together these observations suggest that nuclear receptors are involved in the control of biliary epithelial cell biology. A better delineation of the specific biliary epithelial cell functions controlled by nuclear receptors may shed light on potential therapeutic molecular targets of cholangiopathies.


During the recent years, computer performance has increased dramatically. To measure the performance of computers, benchmarks are ideal tools. Benchmarks exist in many areas and point to different applications. For instance, in a normal PC, benchmarks can be used to test the performance of the whole system which includes the CPU, graphic card, memory system, etc. For multiprocessor systems, there also exist open source benchmark programs. In our project, we gathered information about some open benchmark programs and investigated their applicability for evaluating embedded multiprocessor systems intended for radar signal processing. During our investigation, parallel cluster systems and embedded multiprocessor systems were studied. Two benchmark programs, HPL and NAS Parallel Benchmark were identified as particularly relevant for the application field. The benchmark testing was done on a parallel cluster system which has an architecture that is similar to the architecture of embedded multiprocessor systems, used for radar signal processing.


In this paper we derive a novel fourth-order gauge-invariant phenomenological model of infinitesimal rate-independent gradient plasticity with isotropic hardening and Kröner's incompatibility tensor inc ( ε p ) : = Curl [ ( Curl ε p ) T ] , where ε p is the symmetric plastic strain tensor. Here, gauge-invariance denotes invariance under diffeomorphic reparametrizations of the reference configuration, suitably adapted to the geometrically linear setting. The model features a defect energy contribution that is quadratic in the tensor inc ( ε p ) and it contains isotropic hardening based on the rate of the plastic strain tensor ε · p . We motivate the new model by introducing a novel rotational invariance requirement in gradient plasticity, which we call micro-randomness, suitable for the description of polycrystalline aggregates on a mesoscopic scale and not coinciding with classical isotropy requirements. This new condition effectively reduces the increments of the non-symmetric plastic distortion p · to their symmetric counterpart ε · p = sym p · . In the polycrystalline case, this condition is a statement about insensitivity to arbitrary superposed grain rotations. We formulate a mathematical existence result for a suitably regularized non-gauge-invariant model. The regularized model is rather invariant under reparametrizations of the reference configuration including infinitesimal conformal mappings.


: The aim of the study was to examine whether gender schemas differentiate marital communication and relationship satisfaction. Most analyses are conducted with reference to biological sex. Psychological gender expands the construct of gender differences. The study involved 400 people (200 women and 200 men) who were married, economically active and had at least one child. The respondents completed the Marital Communication Questionnaire (KKM), the Masculinity and Femininity Scale (SMiK), and the Relationship Satisfaction Scale. The results obtained indicate a differential role of gender schemas in terms of preferred conversational styles. Psychological gender does not affect relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, the gender schemas evident in the four psychological gender types differentiate the relationship of spouses' communication with their ratings of relationship satisfaction. To conclude, taking the construct of psychological gender into account in analyses is important from the point of view of research as well as practice. Firstly, it deepens knowledge on relationship satisfaction and communication in marriage; secondly, the knowledge gained may find practical application, e.g., in marriage therapy. biologicznej. (200 (KKM), Skalę (SMiK), Skalę rolę psychologiczna typach psychologicznej


Young's modulus (denoted by E) is an intrinsic and valuable quantity for appropriate estimation of material performance. E can be obtained from the resonant frequency from the vibration of the tested material sample excited by the external forces. In this paper, we present a system design for determining the parameter by using an optical feedback self-mixing interferometry (OFSMI) system. An OFSMI system consists of a laser diode (LD), a micro-lens and an external target. The material sample to be tested is used as the external target. The vibration of the sample causes the variation of the length of the external cavity, and then causes a modulated laser power of the LD. The modulation contains the vibration information of the tested samples. The OFSMI system can achieve high measurement accuracy with an extremely simple and inexpensive set-up, thus can be thought as a good candidate for the evaluation of material properties. The system design in this work includes the mechanical part for holding and exciting the tested samples and the optical part for picking up the vibration information from the samples. In order to accurately determinate E, the exclusive supporting system is used for holding the material sample of specific dimension. The complex waveform of the LD output power is studied and simulated by using our proposed system model. The proposed method is verified by simulation and experiments, and satisfied accuracy of the experiments is achieved.


The coupled processes – the ππ scattering and ππ → KK in the I G J PC = 0 + 0 ++ channel – are analyzed (both separately and combined) in a model-independent approach based on analyticity and unitarity and using a uniformization procedure. It is shown: 1) a structure of the Riemann surface of the S -matrix for considered coupled processes must be allowed for calculating both amplitudes and resonance parameters, such as the mass and width; 2) the combined analysis of coupled processes is needed as the analysis of only ππ channel does not give correct values of resonance parameters even if the Riemann surface structure is included.


Patients who suffer from epiphora can benefit from reconstructive surgery in many cases of obstructive and nonobstructive lesions of the lacrimal apparatus. We describe our technique of digital subtraction macrodacryocystography (DSM) and discuss its efficacy in the evaluation of various abnormalities involving the lacrimal drainage pathway. A variety of pathologic conditions of the lacrimal apparatus are portrayed. DSM is an accurate, easy to perform, but relatively unrecognized method of anatomic localization of obstructive lesions within the lacrimal drainage system.


Background Parachuting is known to be relatively safe and has a low injury rate. There are some parameters influencing parachuting casualties. In order to determine the influences of type of jump and parachute, effect of equipment carried, time of jump and wind speed, we conducted a retrospective study at the Parachuting Training Center of Israel, assessing 53832 military parachute jumps. Methods Two categories of injuries were defined: major (fractures, dislocation, head trauma, ligamentous tears) and minor (contusion, bruises, sprain injuries). Results The overall injury rate was 0.6 percent. The commonest major injuries were ankle fractures and head trauma, while ankle sprain was the most common minor injury. The lowest rate of injury was found in free falls jumpers (0.2 percent) and highest amongst manoeuvres (1.1 percent). The highest injury rate occurred when using an Israeli version of "T-10" military parachute (0.7 percent) and the lowest with free fall parachutes (0.2 percent). Extra equipment carried during jumps caused higher injury rate (0.8 percent) compared to jumps without equipment (0.5 percent) using the "T-10" military parachute. Injury rates were greater at night (1.0 percent) compared to day jumps (0.5 percent). In day jumps commonest major injury was ankle fracture, while in night jumps it was head trauma. The commonest minor injury in day and night jumps was ankle sprain. At wind speed of 0-4 Knots parachuting injuries were higher compared with wind speeds of 5-8, 9-12 and 13-16 Knots with injury rates of 0.8, 0.5 and 0.6 percent respectively. Conclusions Diverse factors influence the injury rate in parachuting. Identifying such factors may enable us to change them in order to minimize the number of injured parachutists.


Measuring the total impact of health insurance receipt on household labor supply is important in an era of increased access to publicly provided and subsidized insurance. Although government expansion of health insurance to older workers leads to direct labor supply reductions for recipients, there may be spillover effects on the labor supply of uncovered spouses. While the most basic model predicts a decrease in overall household work hours, financial incentives such as credit constraints, target income levels, and the need for own health insurance suggest that spousal labor supply might increase. In contrast, complementarities of spousal leisure would predict a decrease in labor supply for both spouses. Utilizing a mid-1990s expansion of health insurance for U.S. veterans, we provide evidence on the effects of public insurance availability on the labor supply of spouses. Using data from the Current Population Survey and Health and Retirement Study, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy to compare the labor market behavior of the wives of older male veterans and non-veterans before and after the VA health benefits expansion. Although husbands' labor supply decreases, wives' labor supply increases, suggesting that financial incentives dominate complementarities of spousal leisure. This effect is strongest for wives with lower education levels and lower levels of household wealth and those who were not previously employed full-time. These findings have implications for government programs such as Medicare and Social Security and the Affordable Care Act.


Marine-derived microbes have yielded a variety of metabolites so far. In the course of the project to find metabolites from marine microbes, an isolate of Aspergillus protuberus (SF 5767) was selected for chemical investigation. A large scale culture of this strain in PDA media was extracted with an organic solvent and the extract was fractionated by silica gel column chromatography. Repeated reverse phase HPLC of the fractions led to the isolation of three metabolites. Their chemical structures were elucidated as deoxybrevianamide E (1), brevianamide V (2), and ergosterol peroxide (3) on the basis of spectroscopic data including MS, NMR, and UV. To the best of our knowledge, chemical investigation of A. protuberus was conducted for the first time in this study.


In activating flux plasma arc welding the welding arc was analyzed by spectra analysis technique, and the welding arc temperature field was measured by the infrared sensing and computer image technique. The distribution models of welding arc heat flow density of activating flux PAW welding were developed. The composition of welding arc affected by activated flux was studied, and the welding arc temperature field was studied. The results show that the spectral lines of argon atom and ionized argon atom of primary ionization are the main spectra lines of the conventional plasma welding arc. The spectra lines of weld metal are inappreciable in the spectra lines of the conventional plasma welding arc. The gas particle is the main in the conventional plasma welding arc. The conventional plasma welding arc is gas welding arc. The spectra lines of argon atom and ionized argon atom of primary ionization are intensified in the activating flux plasma welding arc, and the spectra lines of Ti, Cr and Fe elements are found in the activating flux plasma welding arc. The welding arc temperature distribution in activating flux plasma arc welding is compact, the outline of the welding arc temperature field is narrow, the range of the welding arc temperature distribution is concentrated, the welding arc radial temperature gradient is large, and the welding arc radial temperature gradient shows normal Gauss distribution.


Ornamentations in music play a significant role for the emotion which a performer or a composer aims to create. The automated identification of ornamentations enhances the understanding of music, which can be used as a feature for tasks such as performer identification or mood classification. Existing methods rely on a pre-processing step that performs note segmentation. We propose an alternative method by adapting the existing two-dimensional COSFIRE filter approach to one-dimension (1D) for the automatic identification of ornamentations in monophonic folk songs. We construct a set of 1D COSFIRE filters that are selective for the 12 notes of the Western music theory. The response of a 1D COSFIRE filter is computed as the geometric mean of the differences between the fundamental frequency values in a local neighbourhood and the preferred values at the corresponding positions. We apply the proposed 1D COSFIRE filters to the pitch tracks of a song at every position along the entire signal, which in turn give response values in the range [0,1]. The 1D COSFIRE filters that we propose are effective to recognize meaningful musical information which can be transformed into symbolic representations and used for further analysis. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in a new data set that we introduce, which comprises five monophonic Cypriot folk tunes consisting of 428 ornamentations. The proposed method is effective for the detection and recognition of ornamentations in singing folk music. 6.


Background Review of discharge processes was identified as a workstream within an overall in-patient unit project modernising ways of working to meet current service demands. Staff feedback showed increasing anxiety relating to completion of the discharge process and documentation, in particular relating to continuing health care funding. Anecdotally it was also felt that patient and family expectations of ongoing hospice care were a barrier to timely discharge planning. Aims Increase in number of patient discharges Reduction in length of stay Increase staff understanding of discharge processes Produce patient information leaflet. Method A senior staff nurse led the work stream and undertook a retrospective base line audit of patient discharges and a staff survey to explore their experience of discharging patients from the in-patient unit (IPU). Using these results a patient leaflet has been produced, clearly outlining hospice expectations, discharge details and funding streams.A part- time discharge educator, with extensive experience of continuing health care, has been employed to review discharge processes and provide staff education. Education has been delivered one-to- one in relation to patient discharges in real time and within a formal setting. Results Audit results have shown that the uncertainty of end of life care, family concerns and timely access to nursing home placements and care packages are significant factors when planning discharge from the IPU. It was also identified that clinical pressures affected timely completion of discharge documentation. Achievements at six months: Increased patient discharges Reduction in average length of stay to 14 days All qualified staff have received training and awareness training for nursing assistants planned Patient leaflet completed. Conclusion Patient flow and staff confidence have increased significantly following commencement of the project and the discharge educator post has been extended for an additional six months.


An in‐depth investigation of how various illumination conditions influence microalgal growth in photobioreactors (PBR) has been presented. Effects of both the light emission spectrum (white and red) and the light incident angle (0° and 60°) on the PBR surface were investigated. The experiments were conducted in two fully controlled lab‐scale PBRs, a torus PBR and a thin flat‐panel PBR for high cell density culture. The results obtained in the torus PBR were used to build the kinetic growth model of Chlorella vulgaris taken as a model species. The PBR model was then applied to the thin flat‐panel PBR, which was run with various illumination conditions. Its detailed representation of local rate of photon absorption under various conditions (spectral calculation of light attenuation, incident angle influence) enabled the model to take into account all the tested conditions with no further adjustment. This allowed a detailed investigation of the coupling between radiation field and photosynthetic growth. Effects of all the radiation conditions together with pigment acclimation, which was found to be relevant, were investigated in depth. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 32:247–261, 2016


The knowledge of the spatial distribution of the snow accumulation rate and isotopic composition in different scales, from local to continental, over the Antarctic Ice Sheet is critically important for the interpretation of the paleoclimate data obtained from deep ice cores, for correct assessment of the ice sheet mass balance, etc. With this in mind, we have synthesized geodetic, glaciological and geochemical data collected in the vicinity of central Antarctic Vostok station in 1970–2017 in order to shed light on the processes governing the spatial distribution of snow isotopic composition and accumulation rate in the spatial scale from 100 to 1000 m. First, we have discovered that snow surface height and snow accumulation rate field are strongly affected by the influence of the logistic convoy route annually operating between Russian Antarctic stations Vostok and Progress. This influence is detectable up to 1 km leeward from the route. At the same time the isotopic composition of the upper 10 cm of the snow does not show any anomalies in the vicinity of the route. This is an unexpected result, because large anomalies of the ice sheet surface (e.g., megadunes) are known to affect the snow isotopic composition. Second, in the undisturbed part of the snow surface near Vostok station we have discovered quasi-periodic (with the wavelength of about 400 m) low-amplitude variations of the surface height that are covariant with the corresponding waves in snow accumulation and isotopic composition. We suggest that spatial variability of the snow isotopic composition is due to the different ratio of summer and winter precipitation deposited in different locations, as evident from a strong negative correlation between δD and dxs parameters. The results of this study may explain the nature of the low-frequency noise (with the time-scale from decades to centuries) observed in the climate records obtained from shallow and deep ice cores in central Antarctica.


Abstract A longitudinal online questionnaire survey on the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the operation of radiotherapy departments in Japan was conducted. Approximately 26.1–70.9% of the radiotherapy departments participated, and their responses were collected in May, July and November 2020, and February and June 2021. The survey results revealed that while the number of patients receiving radiotherapy decreased in 41.2% and 30.7% of institutions in May 2020 and June 2021, respectively, it increased in 4% and 16.8% of institutions in May 2020 and June 2021, respectively. There were a few institutions limiting or postponing patient treatments in June 2021. The hypofractionated regimen was used more during the pandemic than during the pre-pandemic period, particularly for the treatment of breast and prostate cancers as well as for palliation. Infection control measures for patients and staff were followed. Approximately 20% of the respondent institutions had cases of patients with COVID-19 infection receiving radiotherapy. Most institutions encountered challenges in the continuous provision of radiotherapy for patients with COVID-19. In conclusion, COVID-19 had a multifaceted impact on the operations of radiotherapy departments in Japan. Further follow-up and analysis are warranted to understand the long-term impact of COVID-19 on radiotherapy.


Classification is a data mining task and which is a two-phase process: learning and classification. The learning phase consists of constructing a classifier or a model from a labeled set of objects. The classification phase consists classifying new objects by using the generated classifier. Different approaches have been proposed for supervised classification problems through Formal Concept Analysis, and which is a mathematical theory to build upon hierarchies of formal concepts. The proposed approaches in literature rely on the use of single classifier and ensemble methods. Single classifier methods vary between them according to different criteria especially the number of formal concepts generated. We distinguish overall complete lattice methods, sub-lattice methods and concept cover methods. Methods based on ensemble classifiers rely on the use of many classifiers. Among these methods, there are methods based on sequential training and methods based on parallel training. However, with the large volume of data generated from various sources, the process of knowledge extraction with traditional methods becomes difficult. That's why new methods based on distributed classifier have recently appeared. In this paper, we present a survey of many FCA-based approaches for classification by dividing them into methods based on a mono-classifier, methods based on ensemble classifiers and methods based on distributed classifiers. Different methods are presented and compared within this paper.


Providing clean drinking water is a great challenge worldwide, especially for low-income countries where the access to safe water is limited. During the last decade, new biotechnological approaches have been explored to improve water management. Among them, the use of antimicrobial nanoparticles for designing innovative centralized and decentralized (point-of-use) water treatment systems for microbial decontamination has received considerable attention. Herein, antimicrobial lignin capped silver nanoparticles (AgLNP) were embedded on residual cork pieces using high-intensity ultrasound coupled with laccase-mediated grafting to obtain biofunctionalized nanomaterial. The developed AgLNP-coated cork proved to be highly efficient to drastically reduce the number of viable Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus in liquid medium. Additionally, the coated-cork was characterized using FTIR-ATR spectroscopy and SEM imaging, and further used as a filter bed in a point-of-use device for water disinfection. The constructed water filtering system significantly reduced the amount of viable E. coli and resistant Bacillus cereus spores from filtered water operating at increasing residence times of 1, 4, 6, 16, 24, and 48 h. Therefore, the presented results prove that the obtained cork-based antimicrobial nanocomposite material could be used as a filtering medium for the development of water filtration system to control pathogen dissemination.


Pancopride (LAS 30451, CAS 121650-80-4) is a new selective 5-hydroxytryptamine3 receptor antagonist which has demonstrated antiemetic properties in animal models. The tolerance and pharmacokinetics of pancopride and its effect on the 5-hydroxytryptamine flare test were examined in healthy male volunteers, in three single-dose studies. The studies consisted of two rising dose tolerance and kinetic studies with placebo control, each involving 14 volunteers, and an absolute bioavailability study involving 12 volunteers. The doses used in the rising dose studies were 0.5-20 mg intravenous pancopride in the first study, and 5-40 mg pancopride as oral solution in the second study. For the absolute bioavailability study, 20 mg doses as intravenous infusion, oral tablet and oral solution were compared. Pancopride was well tolerated at these doses in these studies. There were no significant effects on pulse rate, blood pressure, or electrocardiograms, or on haematology or serum biochemistry. Few adverse events were recorded, the most significant being gastrointestinal effects (including diarrhoea and soft stools) seen particularly with the 40 mg oral dose. Pharmacokinetic parameters for the 24 h after dosing were derived from plasma and urine pancopride levels, determined using a capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry method. Linear kinetics appeared to apply over the intravenous dose range 5-20 mg. Urinary recovery of unchanged pancopride was in the order of 10-17% over the 24 h after dosing.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Twenty patients with idiopathic extracapillary glomerulonephritis and 16 pa- tients with other forms of crescentic glomerulonephritis were examined by light and electron microscopy. Crescents were found to be composed of several types of cells which can be divided roughly into two groups: light and dark cells. Most of the crescent cells are apparently derived from the parietal epithelial cells of the Bowman's capsule, but at least in some cases podocytes participate in the cresent formation. Breaks in the glomerular capillary basement membrane were frequently seen (in 11 of 15 patients with idiopathic disease and in 4 of 15 other patients). Such breaks may significantly contribute to the leakage of flbrinogen and red blood cells into the Bowman's space and thus accelerate crescent formation. Proliferation of the epithelial cells appears to be related to precipitation of fibrin, though it is uncertain whether the actual stimulus is provided by the fibrin or by a coprecipitate of some normal or abnormal serum protein. Some of the proliferated cells acquire features of fibroblasts and are presumably responsible for laying down of collagen in the crescent, while other cells demonstrate phagocytic properties. These metaplastic changes of the epithelial cells are briefly discussed (Am J Pathol 72:349-368, 1973).


Objective: To estimate the incidence of excess of body weight in the school period and explore possible association with prenatal factors. Methodology: An epidemiological study with a longitudinal design was carried out. All children from the first to the fifth grade of elementary school, aged between seven and 10 years old, enrolled in public and private schools and from families residing in Palhoça City, Santa Catarina State, who had participated in the previous stage of the study in 2015, were included. To obtain the BMI, weight and height were collected in schools. Data related to the prenatal period were obtained with interviews with mothers or guardians, at home. The analyses were performed using Poisson Regression with a robust estimator. Statistically significant variables and those with p ≤ 0.25 in the bivariate analysis were included in the multivariate. Results: 228 students were included. The incidence rate of excess weight was 19.3%, with 17.1% being overweight and 2.2% being obese. The results of the multivariate analysis showed that students who were born with Apgar in the first minute ≤ 7 had a statistically significant risk and 34% higher relative risk of developing excess weight in the school period. Conclusion: The incidence of overweight was 19.3%. Prenatal factors were not associated with incidence, except for a low Apgar score in the first minute.


In this paper, we present a new fault attack on elliptic curve scalar product algorithms. This attack is tailored to work on the classical Montgomery ladder method when the y-coordinate is not used. No weakness has been reported so far on such implementations, which are very efficient and were promoted by several authors. But taking into account the twist of the elliptic curves, we show how, with few faults (around one or two faults), we can retrieve the full secret exponent even if classical countermeasures are employed to prevent fault attacks. It turns out that this attack has not been anticipated as the security of the elliptic curve parameters in most standards can be strongly reduced. Especially, the attack is meaningful on some NIST or SECG parameters.


In deregulated environment, the transmission network is considered to be the key factor of the electricity markets. One of the important issues in this context is how to charge the users for the use of transmission facilities in the fair way and at the same time allowing the transmission utilities to recover their transmission costs. Several methodologies have been developed to recover the cost of transmission services and to estimate the power contributed by single generating unit in lines and loads. Both developed methods attempt to allocate the charge of the use of the transmission system. This paper describes certain aspects to be considered in pricing the unbundled transmission services. These aspects cover the type of transmission services, the costs related to the services and the methods used to calculate the costs of transmission services. This paper also proposes a new approach to allocate the costs of the transmission services among the transmission user utilising the properties of MW-mile based method. A case study based on a 6-bus system is used to highlight the merit of the proposed approach over the existing approaches. The case study results show that the proposed approach provides a better economic signal in allocating the charges to the transmission user.


In this paper, we show that the temperature-induced performance drop seen in nanoscale CMOS circuitscan be tackled by powering the circuits with adaptively regulated voltage power supplies. Essentially, when temperature rises, the supply voltage will be bumped up to offset otherwise performance degradation. To avoid thermal over-drift as chip temperature exceeds its operation range, a voltage limiteris integrated into the proposed power supply to cap the supply voltage. Using this proposed adaptive voltage source to power individual CMOS logic gates and/or subsystems will free the chips from using expensive high-precision temperature sensors for thermal management and performance tuning. Experiments on various benchmark circuits, which are implemented with a 45nm CMOS technology, have confirmed that the circuit delay variation can be reduced to 15%~30% over a wide temperature range (0°C to 90°C), a sharp contrast to the large delay variations(50%~75%)observed in most IC designs where a constant power supply is employed.


OBJECTIVES
Prism Adaptation (PA) is a technique used in the rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect. Several researchers have reported positive results on a number of tasks, but negative outcomes have also been reported. These conflicting results could be due to the use of prisms of different power. The aim of this study was to investigate the amplitude and duration of the aftereffect induced by prisms of different power by different measures in a series of single cases of neglect.

METHODS
Five neglect patients and ten control subjects participated in the study. Prism adaptation was evaluated with Subjective Straight Ahead (SSA), Open-Loop Pointing (OLP) and Line Bisection (LB) tasks, immediately before prism adaptation, immediately after, and 10/60 minutes after prism adaptation. The procedure was repeated with prisms of 5, 10 and 20 prismatic diopters (Δ).

RESULTS
The OLP task provided the most sensitive measures for the size of the aftereffect. The 20Δ prism proved to be most effective in inducing an immediate aftereffect, while the aftereffect of the 5Δ prism seemed to last longer.

CONCLUSION
We showed that the prism power and the task used for assessing PA effect are relevant variables to be consider in clinical practice of neglect rehabilitation.


This study used data from 818 master's students, organized into 199 teams, to examine the influence of collective emotional intelligence (EI) on team academic performance (measured by a common academic grade based on two project reports at the team level) above the effects of collective general self-efficacy (GSE) and team-level GSE, termed team potency. All three variables predicted team academic performance positively, beyond the effect of each other. The research model explained 20% of the variance in team academic performance. A negative interaction effect between collective EI and collective GSE was detected, indicating that the two variables may replace each other in teamwork. Exploratory analyses of the four EI dimensions showed that particularly other emotion appraisal and regulation of emotions predicted team academic performance. Finally, maximum EI within each team predicted team academic performance at about the same level as collective EI.


Several useful principles guide the systems engineering process. This chapter
describes the concept development that provides the framework in which
many, if not most, of the principles are utilized. 2.1 Lifecycle and Development Framework The first step identifies and understands the key programmatic gates during
the lifecycle of a mission. Figure 2.1 shows the key decision points (KDPs)
used for NASA projects.6 Much of this book focuses on concept studies (pre-phase A) and concept and technology development (phase A). Experience
with previous programs from phase B through phase F is essential to guide the
activities in those first two phases of a new program.


A variety of measurements indicates that Au nanoparticle‐ catalyzed Sonogashira coupling of iodobenzene and phenylacetylene is predominantly a heterogeneous process. Large gold particles are much more selective than small ones, which is consistent with this view. Substantial leaching of Au into the solution phase occurs during the reaction, but the resulting supernatant liquid exhibits immeasurably low catalytic activity; TONs for the nanoparticles are orders of magnitude higher than those for the leached Au, once more pointing to the primacy of heterogeneous chemistry. These properties are independent of the support material, implying that they are intrinsic to metallic Au nanoparticles. Reaction data and quantitative analysis of the solid and solution phases by XPS and ICP‐MS, respectively, showed that catalytic activity ceased when all the metallic Au had dissolved. Conversely, when starting with a soluble Au complex, a long inactive induction phase is followed by the sharp onset of reaction and steadily increasing catalytic activity, consistent with the eventual nucleation and growth of gold particles. Again, the implication is that, for the nanoparticle‐catalyzed reaction, heterogeneous catalysis is by far the most important process.


*Corresponding Author: Shymaa Enany Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Suez Canal University, Egypt. Tel. +201025801366 email@example.com ORCID; Enany: 0000-00027827-6504 & ORCID Background: Bacterial metabolism is the tendency of bacteria to live, function, and replicate fittingly under their current culture and varied environment conditions. Microorganisms have intricated metabolic regulatory mechanisms to ameliorate environmental stresses. Objectives: We examined the effect of acidic pH, as one of stresses, on growth rate and metabolism of five different microorganisms. Methodology: ATP level, as an indicator for microbial viability, and alterations in NADH/NAD + ratio, which plays a critical role in microbial metabolism, were assessed. Results: Our results showed that alterations in pH influence metabolism of different bacterial species with different extent. The growth rate of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Bacillus Subtilis were diminished with an elevation in ATP and NADH/NAD + ratio at low pH. Contrary, MRSA and MSSA showed trivial alterations for ATP and NADH/NAD + ratio. Conclusion: Ultimately, this study affirmed differences in metabolism between different species and confirmed that alterations in pH influenced the metabolism and hence the pathogenesis.


The rich information available in hyperspectral imagery not only poses significant opportunities but also makes big challenges for material classification. Discriminative features seem to be crucial for the system to achieve accurate and robust performance. In this paper, we propose a 3-D Gabor-wavelet-based approach for pixel-based hyperspectral imagery classification. A set of complex Gabor wavelets with different frequencies and orientations is first designed to extract signal variances in space, spectrum, and joint spatial/spectral domains. The magnitude of the response at each sampled location (x, y) for spectral band b contains rich information about the signal variances in the local region. Each pixel can be well represented by the rich information extracted by Gabor wavelets. A feature selection and fusion process has also been developed to reduce the redundancy among Gabor features and make the fused feature more discriminative. The proposed approach was fully tested on two real-world hyperspectral data sets, i.e., the widely used Indian Pine site and Kennedy Space Center. The results show that our method achieves as high as 96.04% and 95.36% accuracies, respectively, even when only few samples, i.e., 5% of the total samples per class, are labeled.


This Research Full paper presents a Systematic Mapping Study of actions that are being carried out in the academic environment, aiming at teaching robotics and programming through collaborative procedures at a distance. Recent studies point to an increasing utilization of collaborative activities in teaching-learning process of robotics and programming, favoring the STEM fields, with encouraging results regarding the improvement of student's skills and better use of educational institutions infrastructure. Our goal is to collect information about state of the art on collaborative learning, employed through Groupware. To carry out this investigation, goals were defined by the Systematic Mapping Process, with the purpose of providing a better process understanding. The Research Questions were stipulated to be answered after the results analysis and the Search Strings, which allowed to select publications that satisfy the objective of this research articles in main digital repositories, all carried out in the last 5 years. After applying filters, 22 articles were considered more relevant according to the research objective. The results show the activities, modalities, methodologies, accomplished pedagogical concepts and the conclusions obtained. This work aims to assist researchers who seek information on referred topic.


This paper discusses the way in which payments from pooled annuity funds need to be adjusted to take account of the fact that future mortality rates are uncertain. Mortalityadjusted annuities, as we describe payments from the pooled fund are variable annuities in which aggregate mortality risk is transferred from the seller of annuitees to the annuitants. If annuitants are risk averse the payments from the fund should be adjusted to reflect this. We show how the adjustment can be calculated and compare the payment profiles from a risk-adjusted funds with alternatives which either ignore uncertainty completely or take account of the uncertainty but assume that annuitants are not risk averse. It is shown that, even for very risk-averse annuitants, initial payments are reduced only slightly to provide acceptable insurance against the implications of uncertainty about future mortality rates.


Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of mortality in middle-income countries, such as Brazil. However, given the diversity in health care systems in Brazil, access to proven services, such as cardiac rehabilitation (CR), varies widely. Purpose To describe and compare multilevel barriers to CR enrollment and participation in three Brazilian cohorts: (1) cardiac outpatients not attending CR (public or private system); (2) cardiac outpatients paying for CR; and (3) residents at high-risk of CVD with access to a free comprehensive exercise program but not making use of the program. Methods Brazilian residents from two cities were invited to participate – Florianopolis, an urban center; and Luzerna, a rural center. Respondents completed a survey including the Cardiac Rehabilitation Barriers Scale. Mann–Whitney U tests were used to compare barriers between cohorts cross-sectionally. Results Six hundred twenty-eight Brazilians consented to participate: 237 (37.7%) from Florianopolis, of which 139 (22.1%) participated in CR; and 391 (62.3%) from Luzerna. The mean total CR barriers for the sample were 1.66 ± 0.6 and differed significantly by cohort (P < 0.001). CR nonattendees from Florianopolis (eg, distance and not knowing about CR) and participants from Luzerna (eg, work and family responsibilities) reported significantly higher barriers than CR attendees from Florianopolis. Conclusion CR nonattendees reported significantly greater barriers than CR attendees. It is hoped that the provision of CR will increase, and that the development of the programs will be in a manner which mitigates the chief barriers identified herein.


Background: High tidal ventilation with inflammation causes ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). We previously found that recombinant thrombomodulin (rTM) has a protective effect regarding non-septic VILI caused by high-tidal-volume (HV) ventilation with high oxygen levels. This study aimed to investigate the preventive effect of rTM on VILI caused by sepsis and HV ventilation. Methods: A total of 46 adult male rats were subcutaneously administered either 3mg/kg of rTM or saline. Twelve hours later, the rats were underwent cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). At 2 h after this procedure, the rats were placed on a ventilator set at either low tidal volume [(LV) 6 ml/kg] or high tidal volume (HV 35 ml/kg) ventilation for another 2 h. Results: After 2 h of mechanical ventilation, the PaO2 was significantly lower and BALF protein was significantly higher in HV rats than in LV rats. The rTM did not improve oxygenation or BALF protein levels. Also in HV rats, lung tissue interleukin-6 and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 mRNA levels were significantly higher in the rTM-treated rats.Conclusion: rTM does not improve oxygenation in a non-DIC, CLP-pretreated, high-tidal-ventilation rat model.


The article presents a brief overview of studies in the field of computational morphology in Latvian, Czech, Russian, and English. A more extensive discussion is provided on such studies carried out in Lithuania. Morphemes are marked in the database developed by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics in Vilnius University by the use of different fonts. A particularly uninformative way of graphical marking of morphemes has been noted in the database of Vytautas Magnus University in which morphemes are separated from each other by using hyphens. Occasionally, such information is even misleading as a result of the use of the same marking in words that have different morphemic structure. Examples of German and Estonian morphological analysers demonstrate that such tools are suitable only for specialists since they include a lot of abbreviations and symbols that are not comprehensible to the wide public. Probably the most comprehensive information in this respect is provided in the Russian morphological analyser. It has been noted that the morphological analysing tools of Lithuanian make a lot of mistakes: in some information systems one may find words that do not exist in Lithuanian, e.g. *blizgėjas ; yet others are unable to recognise a lot of Lithuanian words, e.g.  toliaregis, apyrankė, nebeatsinesdavau,  while the system in such cases reports that "this text is not in Lithuanian or it is grammatically incorrect." The article describes an information system of Lithuanian grammar which is in its initial stages of development and which is targeted at non-professionals and which, for that matter, provides morphological information in a particularly clear and explicit fashion. In addition, one of the key goals of the information system reported is accuracy and reliability of information therefore it makes use of an error-protection tool. The words will be added to the database by putting them into a generalised format of a Lithuanian word. The users of the tool are provided with two types of information about words: morphological and morphemic information. The part on morphology provides all relevant data about the word as a whole, i.e. part of speech the word belongs to and its relevant grammatical features. In the case of a noun, for example, the tool indicates its case, number, gender, etc; whereas relevant grammatical information about verbs indicated by the system includes the tense, person, number, mood, and so on. In addition, the tool shows the lemma of a word and, in the case of derivatives and compounds, it also shows the underlying words. The morphemic part includes a graphic representation of the structure of a word by providing not only its segmentation into morphemes but also indicating detailed information about each morpheme. Different types of morphemes are marked using different colours followed by more detailed information about the relevant features of that morpheme, e.g. suffixes: derivational, inflectional; ending: pronominal ending, shortened ending, etc. The article presents figures with tentative results of word analysis of a test sample. Keywords: computer linguistics, grammar, morphology, morphemic, morpheme, grammatical features, information system.


Rotator cuff repair is one of the most commonly performed surgeries in orthopedics, yet rates of postoperative failure and retear remain relatively high. Poor biology and limited healing potential at the cuff insertion are frequently cited as potential confounders to otherwise technically successful surgeries. Over the past several years, ortho-biologics have been developed in an attempt to augment rotator cuff repairs. The following review will briefly cover normal biomechanics and histology of the rotator cuff and how this is altered in cuff tears, provide an in-depth summary of the available literature on various ortho-biologic agents, outline the limitations of each agent and give an idea on the future of ortho-biologics in rotator cuff.


The sensitivity to chloroquine according to the degree of synchronicity of Plasmodium yoelii nigeriensis, which is considered to be the most resistant of the rodent malaria strains, was studied. The infection was synchronised by means of a Percoll-glucose gradient which separates rings and young trophozoites from other stages. The mid-term trophozoite, when it predominated in the blood at the time of treatment, was shown to be as sensitive to chloroquine as Plasmodium vinckei petteri. According to previous results indicating that part of the population of merozoites is latent and penetrates around midnight, the inoculations were timed in order to obtain a lower or higher degree of synchronisation. The infection appeared to be better synchronised if rings and young trophozoites, were inoculated at 06:00 hrs rather than at 15:00 hrs and consequently the efficacy of chloroquine was higher in the former than in the latter.


The use of large-scale machine learning methods is becoming ubiquitous in many applications ranging from business intelligence to self-driving cars. These methods require a complex computation pipeline consisting of various types of operations, e.g., relational operations for pre-processing or post-processing the dataset, and matrix operations for core model computations. Many existing systems focus on efficiently processing matrix-only operations, and assume that the inputs to the relational operators are already pre-computed and are materialized as intermediate matrices. However, the input to a relational operator may be complex in machine learning pipelines, and may involve various combinations of matrix operators. Hence, it is critical to realize scalable and efficient relational query processors that directly operate on big matrix data. This paper presents new efficient and scalable relational query processing techniques on big matrix data for in-memory distributed clusters. The proposed techniques leverage algebraic transformation rules to rewrite query execution plans into ones with lower computation costs. A distributed query plan optimizer exploits the sparsity-inducing property of merge functions as well as Bloom join strategies for efficiently evaluating various flavors of the join operation. Furthermore, optimized partitioning schemes for the input matrices are developed to facilitate the performance of join operations based on a cost model that minimizes the communication overhead.The proposed relational query processing techniques are prototyped in Apache Spark. Experiments on both real and synthetic data demonstrate that the proposed techniques achieve up to two orders of magnitude performance improvement over state-of-the-art systems on a wide range of applications.


Although several models have been proposed towards assisting machine learning (ML) tasks with quantum computers, a direct comparison of the expressive power and efficiency of classical versus quantum models for datasets originating from real-world applications is one of the key milestones towards a quantum ready era. Here, we take a first step towards addressing this challenge by performing a comparison of the widely used classical ML models known as restricted Boltzmann machines (RBMs), against a recently proposed quantum model, now known as quantum circuit Born machines (QCBMs). Both models address the same hard tasks in unsupervised generative modeling, with QCBMs exploiting the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics and a candidate for near-term quantum computers, as experimentally demonstrated in three different quantum hardware architectures to date. To address the question of the performance of the quantum model on real-world classical data sets, we construct scenarios from a probabilistic version out of the well-known portfolio optimization problem in finance, by using time-series pricing data from asset subsets of the S&P500 stock market index. It is remarkable to find that, under the same number of resources in terms of parameters for both classical and quantum models, the quantum models seem to have superior performance on typical instances when compared with the canonical training of the RBMs. Our simulations are grounded on a hardware efficient realization of the QCBMs on ion-trap quantum computers, by using their native gate sets, and therefore readily implementable in near-term quantum devices.


We study commitment scheme for classical-quantum channels. To accomplish this we define various notions of commitment capacity for these channels and prove matching upper and lower bound on it in terms of the conditional entropy. Our achievability (lower bound) proof is quantum generalisation of the work of one of the authors (arXiv:2103.11548) which studied the problem of secure list decoding and its application to bit-string commitment. The techniques we use in the proof of converse (upper bound) is similar in spirit to the techniques introduced by Winter, Nascimento and Imai (Cryptography and Coding 2003) to prove upper bound on the commitment capacity of classical channels. However, generalisation of this technique to the quantum case is not so straightforward and requires some new constructions, which can be of independent interest.


Experimental tests were conducted to study the influence of natural cooling and water cooling on the physical and mechanical properties of quartz sandstone. This study aims to understand the effect of different cooling methods on the physical and mechanical properties of quartz sandstone (such as mass, volume, density, P-wave velocity, elastic modulus (E), uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), etc.). The results show that the UCS and E of the specimens cooled by natural cooling and water cooling decrease with heating temperature. At 800°C, after natural cooling and water cooling, the average value of UCS decreased by 34.65 and 57.90%, and the average value of E decreased by 87.66 and 89.05%, respectively. Meanwhile, scanning electron microscope (SEM) images were used to capture the development of microcracks and pores within the specimens after natural cooling and water cooling. It was found that, at the same temperature, water-cooling treatment was more likely to cause microcracks and pores, which can cause more serious damage to the quartz sandstone. These results confirm that different cooling methods have different effects on the physical and mechanical properties of quartz sandstone, and provide a basis for the stability prediction of rock mass engineering in cases such as a tunnel suffering from exposure to fire.


IntroductionWhile First Nations communities are well aware of the unique health challenges and requirements of their populations, research evidence is often needed to support this knowledge. First Nations communities face continual challenges accessing data pertaining to the health of their people that is held by the government or other organizations.
Objectives and ApproachThrough the Applied Health Research Question (AHRQ) program at ICES, First Nations communities in Ontario, Canada, have an avenue to access vital population health information about their people. While keeping questions of privacy, data sovereignty, data governance, and the OCAP® principles at the forefront, First Nations partners are active members and collaborators on community driven projects that are of importance to their communities. An Indigenous health data training program has also been developed to run concurrently with these projects, to enhance research knowledge and capacity within partner First Nations communities.
ResultsFirst Nations community partners are the main drivers in deciding and refining the research questions for their projects. They are engaged throughout the project process to ensure the production of results that suit the specific needs of the partners. Project results are only shared with the partners, who utilize and disseminate them as appropriate within their communities.
Conclusion / ImplicationsWith access to previously difficult to access population health data sources, First Nations communities are able to use health system data as an additional tool to better plan and implement community health programs, to lobby for additional funding, and ultimately to contribute to positive policy change.


The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is traditionally thought of as part of a system involved in motor control but recent evidence suggests that it may also play a role in other psychological processes. Here we examined the effects of STN lesions on two measures of impulsivity and found that STN lesions increased 'impulsive action' (produced behavioral disinhibition), as measured by performance on a differential reinforcement of low rates of responding task, but decreased 'impulsive choice' (impulsive decision making), as measured by a delay discounting task. In addition, amphetamine and food restriction increased 'impulsive action' and decreased 'impulsive choice' to a greater extent in STN‐lesioned animals than in sham controls. We speculate that these apparently discrepant effects may be because STN lesions enhance the incentive salience assigned to rewards. These findings suggest that the STN may serve as a novel target for the treatment of psychological disorders characterized by deficits in behavioral control, such as drug addiction and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.


This thesis evaluated the color appearance predictions of four digital color transforms (Hunt, RLAB, CIELAB, and von Kries) between CRT "original" images, viewed in a lighted room, and projected slides, viewed in the dark. Calibrated projection of these images required resolution of several complex issues. Upon projection, the slide colors changed. A rapid color shift (on the order of 75 seconds) was followed by a slower, steady degradation which also had to be minimized for accurate image presentation. Therefore, a model of the film behavior was based upon dye absorptivities and color measurements of slides as they were projected. The psychophysical experiments included a comparison between preference choices and memory matching to the CRT "original." Two CRT white points were evaluated: D93 and D65. The preference choices were, in fact, distinct from the selected matches. RLAB produced statistically superior matches over any other model for both white points. Model performance was image dependent. Occasionally, CIELAB or von Kries images were equivalent to RLAB. However, CIELAB and von Kries predictions ranged widely in their performance. Hunt's image predictions consistently gave the worst results. Interestingly, RLAB was also elected as the most acceptable choice: judged 'acceptable' inmore than 2/3 of all cases,with a maximum approval of 89%.


Variations of tissue proportions and fibre dimensions (fibre length, fibre cross sectional area, fibre wall thickness, fibre wall area, percentage of fibre wall area) of 50 Japanese hardwoods are compared. The fibre cross sectional area showed large variations as compared to fibre length. There is no significant correlation between fibre cross sectional area and fibre wall thickness.The multiple regression analysis showed that fibre wall thickness, percentage of fibre wall material and ray volume are the parameters most closely correlated with basic density.


Acute toxicity of 2‐butyne‐1, 4‐diol (BYD) was evaluated in laboratory animals. The evaluation involved acute oral and dermal toxicity in rats, dermal and ocular irritation in rabbits and skin sensitization in guinea pigs. The oral LD50 values for BYD were 132 mg kg−1 in male rats and 176 mg kg−1 in female rats. Post‐mortem histology showed severe damage in lungs, liver and kidneys. In surviving rats, moderate to severe degenerative changes were observed in the liver but only mild lesions in the kidneys. In acute dermal toxicity studies the test chemical was applied either as a solid substance or as 40% aqueous solution at a dose of 5 g kg−1 for 24 h. Within 48 h of application of the diluted test material, half of the rats died. Liver and kidneys were the primary targets and different stages of degeneration, including necrosis, were observed. No deaths occurred after application of the solid substance. In rabbits, BYD was slightly irritant to skin and eyes. No allergic contact dermatitis was observed in guinea pigs.


This paper presents innovative approach for teaching the subject Process instrumentation at the undergraduate level in Instrumentation engineering as a part of an effective teaching learning process. The approach presented attempts to elicit interest of the students on a continuing basis by illustratively bringing out the application perspective of theoretical concepts through a series of learning aids. These learning aids involve industry field visits to identify the process parameters of interest for monitoring and control in different application domains, formulate measurement techniques, identify primary sensors, transducers and their deployment, there by facilitating an opportunity for the students to not only connect the theoretical concepts to the real world application but also to develop an exploratory learning attitude, need analysis, communication skills thus helping them to evolve as a pro-active engineering professional. The details of the said approach are carried out at fourth semester level as an experimental basis; the metrics used for assessing the learning outcomes are presented.


A DEPT pulse sequence is well-known 13C-detected, edited-pulse and cross polarization transfer NMR experiment which offers to selective detection capability of CH, CH2 and CH3 groups from each other. The product operator theory is widely used for analytical descriptions of the cross polarization transfer NMR experiments for weakly coupled spin systems. In this study, analytical descriptions of the DEPT NMR experiment have been presented for ISn(I = 1,S = 1; n = 1, 2, 3, 4) spin systems by using product operator theory. Then a theoretical discussion and experimental suggestions were made. It has been investigated that this experiment can be used to edit 14N sub-spectra of partly or full deuterated 14NDn (n=1, 2, 3, 4) groups.


With today's information overload, it has become increasingly difficult to analyze the huge amounts of data and to generate appropriate management decisions. Furthermore, the data are often imprecise and will include both quantitative and qualitative elements. For these reasons it is important to extend traditional decision-making processes by adding intuitive reasoning, human subjectivity, and imprecision. The International Conference on Fuzzy Management Methods (ICFMsquare) addresses the application of fuzzy logic to managerial decision-making processes. Research papers as well as case studies are of interest in the following areas:


Summary Several types of microscope-mounted drills have been described in literature to obtain pure mineral material from thin sections or polished sections (e.g. Granigg, 1915; Moritz, 1929; Haycock, 1931; Russanow, 1937; Machairas, 1967), but all of them appear to be of limited mechanical stability and reliability. This paper describes an improved drill to extract under the microscope minute quantities of pure material from thin or polished sections. The drilling is performed in a liquid (silicon-oil) to minimize loss of the drilled-out mineral powder. With the help of a micromanipulator the liquid, together with the borings, is drawn up into a microcapillary tube (less than 30 µm in diameter) made of Lindemann glass. For identification of the mineral powder the microcapillary is mounted in a Debye-Scherrer X-ray diffraction camera.


The purpose of this report is to present a case involving a tumor-like mass in the left atrium of a 27-year-old woman in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The mass was discovered by echocardiography carried out after cardiomegaly was detected by roentgenography performed in the context of debilitated general condition, fever and positive serology for HIV1. The patient responded favorably to anti-tuberculosis treatment with complete regression of the mass and improvement of general condition. Based on this outcome, the most likely diagnosis was cardiac tuberculoma, a rare complication of tuberculosis.


Abstract Australian conservation cropping systems are practiced on very large farms (approximately 3,000 ha) where herbicides are relied on for effective and timely weed control. In many fields, though, there are low weed densities (e.g., <1.0 plant 10 m–2) and whole-field herbicide treatments are wasteful. For fallow weed control, commercially available weed detection systems provide the opportunity for site-specific herbicide treatments, removing the need for whole-field treatment of fallow fields with low weed densities. Concern about the sustainability of herbicide-reliant weed management systems remain and there has not been interest in the use of weed detection systems for alternative weed control technologies, such as targeted tillage. In this paper, we discuss the use of a targeted tillage technique for site-specific weed control in large-scale crop production systems. Three small-scale prototypes were used for engineering and weed control efficacy testing across a range of species and growth stages. With confidence established in the design approach and a demonstrated 100% weed-control potential, a 6-m wide pre-commercial prototype, the "Weed Chipper," was built incorporating commercially available weed-detection cameras for practical field-scale evaluation. This testing confirmed very high (90%) weed control efficacies and associated low levels (1.8%) of soil disturbance where the weed density was fewer than 1.0 plant 10 m–2 in a commercial fallow. These data established the suitability of this mechanical approach to weed control for conservation cropping systems. The development of targeted tillage for fallow weed control represents the introduction of site-specific, nonchemical weed control for conservation cropping systems.


Altered MoFe proteins of Azotobacter vinelandii Mo-nitrogenase, with amino acid substitutions in the FeMo-cofactor environment, were used to probe interactions among C(2)H(2), C(2)H(4), CO, and H(2). The altered MoFe proteins used were the alpha-195(Asn) or alpha-195(Gln) MoFe proteins, which have either asparagine or glutamine substituting for alpha-histidine-195, and the alpha-191(Lys) MoFe protein, which has lysine substituting for alpha-glutamine-191. On the basis of K(m) determinations, C(2)H(2) was a particularly poor substrate for the nitrogenase containing the alpha-191(Lys) MoFe protein. Using C(2)D(2), a correlation was shown between the stereospecificity of proton addition to give the products, cis- and trans-C(2)D(2)H(2), and the propensity of nitrogenase to produce ethane. The most extensive loss of stereospecificity occurred with nitrogenases containing either the alpha-195(Asn) or the alpha-191(Lys) MoFe proteins, which also exhibited the highest rate of ethane production from C(2)H(2). These data are consistent with the presence of a common ethylenic intermediate on the enzyme, which is responsible for both ethane production and loss of proton-addition stereochemistry. C(2)H(4) was not a substrate of the nitrogenase with the alpha-191(Lys) MoFe protein and was a poor substrate of the nitrogenases incorporating either the wild-type or the alpha-195(Gln) MoFe protein, both of which had a low V(max) and high K(m) (120 kPa). Ethylene was a somewhat better substrate for the nitrogenase with the alpha-195(Asn) MoFe protein, which exhibited a K(m) of 48 kPa and a specific activity for C(2)H(6) formation from C(2)H(4) 10-fold higher than the others. Neither the wild-type nitrogenase nor the nitrogenase containing the alpha-195(Asn) MoFe protein produced cis-C(2)D(2)H(2) when turned over under trans-C(2)D(2)H(2). These results suggest that the C(2)H(4)-reduction site is affected by substitution at residue alpha-195, although whether the effect is related to the substrate-reduction site directly or is mediated through disturbance of the delivery of electrons/protons is unclear. Ethylene inhibited total electron flux, without uncoupling MgATP hydrolysis from electron transfer, to a similar extent for all four A. vinelandii nitrogenases. This observation indicates that this C(2)H(4) flux-inhibition site is remote from the C(2)H(4)-reduction site. Added CO eliminated C(2)H(4) reduction but did not fully relieve its electron-flux inhibition with all four A. vinelandii nitrogenases, supporting the suggestion that electron-flux inhibition by C(2)H(4) is not directly connected to C(2)H(4) reduction. Thus, C(2)H(4) has two binding sites, and the presence of CO affects only the site at which it binds as a substrate. When C(2)H(2) was added, it also eliminated C(2)H(6) production from C(2)H(4) and also did not relieve electron-flux inhibition fully. Thus, C(2)H(2) and C(2)H(4) are likely reduced at the same site on the MoFe protein. Two schemes are presented to integrate the results of the interactions of C(2)H(2) and C(2)H(4) with the MoFe proteins.


The transparency and privacy behavior of mobile browsers has remained widely unexplored by the research community. In fact, as opposed to regular Android apps, mobile browsers may present contradicting privacy behaviors. On the one end, they can have access to (and can expose) a unique combination of sensitive user data, from users' browsing history to permission-protected personally identifiable information (PII) such as unique identifiers and geolocation. However, on the other end, they also are in a unique position to protect users' privacy by limiting data sharing with other parties by implementing ad-blocking features. In this paper, we perform a comparative and empirical analysis on how hundreds of Android web browsers protect or expose user data during browsing sessions. To this end, we collect the largest dataset of Android browsers to date, from the Google Play Store and four Chinese app stores. Then, we developed a novel analysis pipeline that combines static and dynamic analysis methods to find a wide range of privacy-enhancing (e.g., ad-blocking) and privacy-harming behaviors (e.g., sending browsing histories to third parties, not validating TLS certificates, and exposing PII---including non-resettable identifiers---to third parties) across browsers. We find that various popular apps on both Google Play and Chinese stores have these privacy-harming behaviors, including apps that claim to be privacy-enhancing in their descriptions. Overall, our study not only provides new insights into important yet overlooked considerations for browsers' adoption and transparency, but also that automatic app analysis systems (e.g., sandboxes) need context-specific analysis to reveal such privacy behaviors.


Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger House of Danger...You are a detective. In your free time, you like to investigate cold cases that the police have given up on. The most mysterious case in your area centers round a house whose owner went missing years ago. People say that the house is haunted, or worse. Luckily, you don't believe in ghosts-or do you? The Choose your Own Adventure series is unique new series consists of 30 titles adapted from the wildly popular Choose Your Own Adventure series, which has sold over 250 million copies worldwide, and spawned an entire genre called 'interactive fiction'. What makes Choose Your Own Adventure different is that you, the reader, are the main character. You make the choices that can lead to a happy conclusion-or perhaps to a terrible fate! Each title is made up of several branching storylines, with up to 30 different endings. As a result, most readers read each book again and again, experiencing a different story each time. Originally targeted at reluctant readers, Choose Your Own Adventure has helped to develop critical thinking, literacy skills, and an interest in reading for a whole generation of English native speakers. Now adapted for English language learners of any age, the Choose Your Own Adventure series is a fun addition to any extensive reading library. Indeed, the stories are so engaging we guarantee that even non-ESL learners will enjoy reading them!


In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack and tragic collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, President George W. Bush promised to retaliate against the perpetrators of that national trauma. Not since the attack on Pearl Harbor seven decades earlier had our populace been so unified in its support of retaliation and so willing to make the personal sacrifices that might entail. Rather than focus a military retaliation primarily on the al-Qaeda perpetrators of the terrorist attack, however, the Bush administration persuaded the nation to support an invasion of Iraq. Rather than ask the nation as a whole to make sacrifices to support the war effort, President Bush encouraged the general public to go shopping. Rather than raise taxes to fund the costs of the war, the U.S. Congress left unchanged tax cuts that mainly benefited the affluent. Rather than reinstate a draft to supply the military personnel that would be needed for what came to be known as the "Global War on Terror," the government relied exclusively on our small, all-volunteer armed forces. Doing so necessitated an unprecedented reliance on multiple deployments of National Guard and reservist personnel to provide the troops needed to carry out the longest combat engagement in our nation's history. It also necessitated an unprecedented reliance on lengthier tours of combat duty. The consequent burden experienced by the troops was compounded by the absence of "front lines" during these long tours of duty. Danger was ubiquitous and could come at any time from a roadside bomb or from enemies dressed as civilians. Moreover, the ubiquity of potential attack put female service members in combat situations they had not experienced in previous wars. Needless to say, all this has placed great and unprecedented strains on our military personnel and their families, who have borne the brunt of our nation's sacrifice for the war. As expressed in a New York Times commentary by Timothy Egan (2012), the yellow banners, the halftime tributes, the bloviating by politicians of both parties--it's so easy for the 99 percent of us who aren't serving in the military to act like we support them.... Those 2.3 million men and women who served in one of the two wars ... will be trying to live with the horrors they saw and felt for the rest of their lives.... Their suicide rate--38 per 100,000--is more than three times that of the population at large. [A] Pew poll found that 37 percent of the war veterans suffered from a degree of post-traumatic stress. ... If the Pew poll is accurate, more than 800,000 veterans are re-entering society with some form of psychological trauma. In light of our professional expertise and values, social work practitioners and educators have both the capability and obligation to do more than the general public to support and meet the needs of our returning troops and their families. Although military personnel, veterans, and their families have been served by social workers throughout the history of our profession, perhaps never before has the call for social workers to help this target population been as compelling as it is today. And this help is needed not just from uniformed military social workers or from social workers employed by the Veterans Administration. It is also needed from civilian social workers. As noted in the "Preface" of the Handbook of Military Social Work (Rubin, Weiss, & Coll, in press), Indeed, the vast numbers of service members returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan likely will exceed the capacity of the Department of Veteran Affairs and affiliated programs such as the Vet Centers to serve them all adequately. These clients will be seeking services within the civilian sector, such as in community mental health agencies, [health maintenance organizations] and private practices. …


Radiotherapy is widely used for the treatment of breast cancer. However, we have shown that ionizing radiation can provoke premature senescence in breast stromal cells. In particular, breast stromal fibroblasts can become senescent after irradiation both in vitro and in vivo and they express an inflammatory phenotype and an altered profile of extracellular matrix components, thus facilitating tumor progression. Adipose‐derived stem cells (ASCs) represent another major component of the breast tissue stroma. They are multipotent cells and due to their ability to differentiate in multiple cell lineages they play an important role in tissue maintenance and repair in normal and pathologic conditions. Here, we investigated the characteristics of human breast ASCs that became senescent prematurely after their exposure to ionizing radiation. We found decreased expression levels of the specific mesenchymal cell surface markers CD105, CD73, CD44, and CD90. In parallel, we demonstrated a significantly reduced expression of transcription factors regulating osteogenic (i.e., RUNX2), adipogenic (i.e., PPARγ), and chondrogenic (i.e., SOX9) differentiation; this was followed by an analogous reduction in their differentiation capacity. Furthermore, they overexpress inflammatory markers, that is, IL‐6, IL‐8, and ICAM‐1, and a catabolic phenotype, marked by the reduction of collagen type I and the increase of MMP‐1 and MMP‐13 expression. Finally, we detected changes in proteoglycan expression, for example, the upregulation of syndecan 1 and syndecan 4 and the downregulation of decorin. Notably, all these alterations, when observed in the breast stroma, represent poor prognostic factors for tumor development. In conclusion, we showed that ionizing radiation‐mediated prematurely senescent human breast ASCs have a decreased differentiation potential and express specific changes adding to the formation of a permissive environment for tumor growth.


Always the decision of the government to the private sector is faced with the challenges and high level of importance, because these decisions should be taken at the meeting of standards and functional requirements to overcome investors' interests. These decisions include education, and due to the governance nature of education and the governments' strategies in this area, the private sectors who act in it, have been affected by the consequences of different decisions. In this paper, our motivation is to propose a system to decide on how to develop applied academic educations at the Applied Science Education Centers (ASEC's) which are supervised by the University of Applied Science and Technology (UAST) in Iran. The method used is the Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) to reach this goal. The model performed in this study consists of a two-part FIS for two purposes straight ahead. The first concerns the quantitative development of higher applied education, including the number of Course Request (CR) for each ASEC with 4 inputs and 242 rules. The latter, is related to the qualitative development of higher applied education, including the assessment of the capability and competence of each ASEC for specific CR with the course and student admission background, specialty, committee's and councils opinion, and frequency of course in city or province with 9 inputs, 350 rules, and an output. Each section has its inputs and rules that are determined and used by experts in this domain. Our results show that using this method, provides some cost and time savings. This model analyzes in less than 2 minutes, while in practice it could be gain within 1650 person /hours work in different committees that all of them have their costs. Also, results are very close to reality with the advantage that there is no way to apply personal preferences, which largely meets the needs of research.


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is T.S. Eliot's masterpiece, which marked the beginning of Eliot's career as an influential poet. Prufrock is the image of an ineffectual, sorrowful and depressed western man in twentieth century. Eliot used a lot of images to reveal the city as a wasteland, the tedious life of the western modern people, and the bewildered and split personality of western people. Eliot succeeds in reflecting inner world and spiritual state of modern people with the long, fragmented images,which influence future writers.


Introduction Initial radiological staging imaging frequently detects indeterminate pulmonary nodules (IPNs) in patients presenting with colorectal cancer (CRC). The discovery of such nodules creates a clinical dilemma for multidisciplinary team. We aimed to assess the outcome of initial IPNs during follow up for patients with CRC. Method A prospectively maintained CRC database (2008–2010) at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust was analysed. Clinical, pathological and radiological characteristics were studied for outcome of IPNs during CRC follow up. Nodules were characterised as malignant, benign or indeterminate). Data is expressed as number (n) and percentage (%). Results 2008 patients were studied for IPNs. Median Follow up was 44 months. 180 (8.9%) patients were identified with pulmonary nodules on initial staging scan. In 69 (3.4%) patients, pulmonary nodules were characterised as IPNs. Follow up imaging for IPNs modality was CT chest in 65.2% (24 patients did not have follow up scans) and CT-PET in 13% patients. After follow up scans, 20 cases (30.4%) were found to have metastasis in lung and one case had primary lung cancer. Conclusion This study shows that one third of the indeterminate lung nodule on initial staging scan were characterised as malignant in follow up radiological imaging. Disclosure of interest None Declared.


The need for innovation in research is leading to an increased use of imaging biomarkers, which have shown to reduce timings and increase productivity, thus saving costs. PET and SPECT neurotransmission imaging has shown usefulness in the discovery and development of drugs for the central nervous system, providing unique information on drug-target interactions in the living human brain. Among the different therapeutic areas, antipsychotic drugs pioneered the application of these technologies in early phases of development. PET and SPECT radioligands for the most commonly targeted neurotransmission systems in the development of these drugs, such as the dopaminergic and serotoninergic systems are available, thus fostering the inclusion of PET and SPECT studies in the antipsychotic drug development plans. Radioligands for other neurotransmission systems more recently implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, such as the glutamatergic system, are being currently investigated. This review focuses on neurotransmission PET and SPECT aiming to serve as guidance for procedure requirements and methodology choices to be applied in antipsychotic drug development, through specific examples. Cutting-edge study designs and quantification approaches will be reviewed. Finally, some clues to get the most out of the PET and SPECT studies in the development of antipsychotic drugs will be provided.


The relative length of the second and fourth fingers(2D:4D ratio) is a putative biomarker for prenatal testosterone. Low 2D:4D has been known to correlate with morphological, physiological, psychological, and high levels of athletic performance and physical fitness. In this study, it was examined the relationship between the 2D:4D ratio and two important exercise-related fitness components(speed and power) in nonathlete young adults. A total of 108 healthy recreationally active university students(73 male and 35 female, aged 18-20 years) were participated in this study. Body weight and height were measured, and body mass index(BMI) was calculated. The lengths of the second and fourth fingers of the right and left hands were measured, and the 2D:4D ratios were calculated. The difference of the digit ratio between the right and left hands(Dr-l) was also calculated. Speed and power performance were assessed by measuring 100-meter sprint record and handball throwing distance, respectively. Independent t-test was performed to analyze differences between males and females about all variables of physical(height, weight, BMI) and anthropometric(lengths of 2D, 4D, and 2D:4D ratio of both hands, and Dr-l) characteristics. The association between physical and anthropometric characteristics and the speed and power-related performance in each sex(male: speed, power, female: speed only) was determined by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. As the main findings of this study, the lengths of the 2D and 4D of males were significantly longer than those of females(P < .001), while male digit ratios in both hands were significantly lower than females(P < .01). There was no significant sex difference in Dr-l. In males, significant positive correlations were observed between the handball throwing distances and the body weight(P < .05) and BMI(P < .01). In females, there was a significant negative correlation between the length of the fourth digit and 100-meter sprint record(P < .05). However, the 2D:4D ratio was not correlated with the speed and power performance in males and females. These results suggest that the 2D:4D ratio is not a major parameter in predicting exercise potential in the nonathlete young adult, and more research is needed that focuses on other factors that can affect exercise potential in the population that is similarly affected by prenatal sex hormones. [Keywords] Kinesiology, Finger Length, Digit Ratio, Prenatal Testosterone, Sport Performance


Objective To explore the underlying regional brain activity deficits in the visual cortex in patients with primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) relative to normal controls (NCs) using regional homogeneity (ReHo) method, and its relationship with behavioral performances. Patients Twenty PACG patients (10 females, 10 males; mean age ± standard deviation [SD]: 54.42±9.46 years) and 20 age-, and sex status-matched NCs (10 females, 10 males; mean age ± SD: 53.75±9.16 years) were included in this study. Measurements and results Compared with NCs, patients with PACG showed significant atrophic peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) and neuroretinal rim area, increased optic disk cup-to-disc ratio (CDR) and optic disk volume (P<0.05), higher ReHo value in the left fusiform gyrus, left cerebellum anterior lobe, right frontal-temporal space, and right insula, and lower ReHo value in the bilateral middle occipital gyrus, left claustrum, and right paracentral lobule lobe. The receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed these different areas with high value of area under curve, and high degree of sensitivity and specificity. The mean beta values of these different areas were extracted. In PACG, the duration of disease showed a negative correlation with the mean beta value of left cerebellum anterior lobe (r=−0.453, P=0.045) and a positive correlation with right middle occipital gyrus (r=0.586, P=0.007); left middle occipital gyrus showed positive correlations with duration of disease (r=0.562, P=0.01) and left pRNFL (r=0.49, P=0.028); left claustrum had a positive correlation with left CDR (r=0.515, P=0.02); and right paracentral lobule lobe demonstrated a positive correlation with left pRNFL (r=0.623, P=0.003). Conclusion PACG is involved in abnormal spontaneous brain activity in multiple brain areas, and such changes are associated with clinical performances, which may reflect the underlying pathologic mechanism and play important roles in the initiation and progression of PACG.


The present research experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of GnRH and PGF2α administration on post partum fertility in retained placenta buffaloes. Total thirty six Murrah buffaloes with retained placenta condition were selected and the placentas were removed manually and intra-uterine boluses were kept (3 boluses per day for 3 consecutive days post-partum) in experimental buffaloes. The buffaloes were divided into three groups comprising twelve buffaloes in each group. Buffaloes from Group-I were treated with injection buserlin acetate (10 µg) i/m while from Group-II with injection tiaprost-trometamol 0.750 mg i/m on day 14 post calving while buffaloes from Group-III were kept as control. The average days required for involution of uterus were 29.16±0.78, 27.41±0.58 and 31.5±1.05 while average days required for exhibition of first postpartum oestrus were 49.33±5.86, 47.66±4.18 and 67.08±4.42 in Group-I, II and III, respectively. The first service conception rate was highest (33.33%) in Group-II while 25 and 16% in Group-I and III, respectively.


Batch fermentation kinetics of xanthan gum production from glucose by Xanthomonas campestris at temperatures between 22°C and 35°C were studied to evaluate temperature effects on cell growth and xanthan formation. These batch xanthan fermentations were modeled by the logistic equation for cell growth, the Luedeking–Piret equation for xanthan production, and a modified Luedeking–Piret equation for glucose consumption. Temperature dependence of the parameters in this model was evaluated. Growth‐associated rate constants increased to a maximum at ∼30°C and then decreased to zero at ∼35°C. This temperature effect can be modeled using a square‐root model. On the contrary, non‐growth‐associated rate constants increased with increasing temperature, following the Arrhenius relationship, in the entire temperature range studied. The model developed in this work fits the experimental data very well and can be used in a simulation study. However, due to the empirical nature of the model, the parameter values need to be reevaluated if the model is to be applied to different growth conditions.


Fifteen years have elapsed since, on an occasion such as this, we gave to the body of Counsellors assembled in the Holy Land the first intimation of the course the Bahá'í community would have to take, if it was to accelerate the dual process of its expansion and consolidation—a course which its accumulated experience had prepared it to steer with confidence. No need to remark on the distance traversed in a short decade and a half. The record of accomplishments speaks for itself. Today we invite you to begin deliberations on the next stage of the great enterprise on which the Bahá'í world is embarked, a stage that will stretch from Riḍván 2011 to Riḍván 2016, constituting the first of two consecutive Five Year Plans that will culminate at the centenary of the inauguration of the Faith's Formative Age. Over the coming days you are asked to formulate a clear conception of how the Counsellors and their auxiliaries will assist the community in building on its extraordinary achievements—extending to other spheres of operation the mode of learning which has so undeniably come to characterize its teaching endeavours, gaining the capacity needed to employ with a high degree of coherence the instruments and methods which it has so painstakingly developed, and increasing well beyond all previous numbers the ranks of those who, alive to the vision of the Faith, are labouring so assiduously in pursuit of its God-given mission.


The discovery by Birger Bohlin of a series of vertebrate fossil sites in the twin lakes region (Tuosu Nor and Keluke Nor) of eastern Qaidam Basin during the Sino-Swedish Expedition in 1931 and 1932 was a major milestone in vertebrate paleontology for the Tibetan Plateau. Qaidam fossil mammals collected by Bohlin still represent the best collections from the plateau and serve as an important reference point for a period of time that saw dramatic climatic changes. The more than 4600 m of strata in eastern Qaidam, spanning over 13 million years in time, are ideal for establishing a detailed biostratigraphic record, but Bohlin's published specimens lack any reference to stratigraphy, which causes much confusion about the nature of his "Tsaidam Fauna." Bohlin did, however, make a fairly detailed documentation of locality information, much of which remains buried in archival records in Stockholm. This paper is an attempt to reconstruct Bohlin's fossil localities by synthesizing relevant archives and historical accounts, as well as field observations of our own during the past 13 years. Fieldnotes in Swedish are translated to English and several field sketches are published for the first time. As a result, we are able to relocate many fossil localities that are of stratigraphic and taxonomic importance. Bohlin mainly collected in three major areas, along the northwestern shore of Tuosu Nor, south of Huaitoutala, and south of Quanshuiliang train station, each with stratigraphic settings of their own. In his published descriptions, all fossils are included in his "Tsaidam Fauna." With the help of his notes and sketches and our field verification, we are now in a position to recognize at least three faunal horizons among Bohlin's collections: middle Miocene (Tunggurian) Olongbuluk Fauna, early late Miocene (early Bahean) Tuosu Fauna, and early Pliocene (Yushean) Huaitoutala Fauna. Of these fossil sites, Bohlin's Tuosu Nor locality is the best constrained within the modern stratigraphic framework due to the relatively short section present along the northern bank of Tuosu Nor. His fossil localities are confined to a narrow band of about 100 meters in total thickness. Bohlin's Huaitoutala (Ulan-utsur) localities are, however, more scattered both spatially and stratigraphically. Fortunately, only a few localities produced fossils of biochronologic significance, and most are low in the section, probably belonging to the Olongbuluk Fauna. The majority of Bohlin's Qaidam collections comes from what he informally called the "general strips," which is not far from the present day Quanshuiliang railway station. Approximately 250 m of strata extend laterally for several kilometers. Almost all endemic bovids that Bohlin described, such as Tsaidamotherium, Olonbulukia, Qurliqnoria, Tossunnoria, are produced from this area. The Quanshuiliang region also produces some of the earliest occurrences of Hipparion in China. Preliminary correlation of the Quanshuiliang section with an existing magnetic section in Huaitoutala suggests that the local first appearance of Hipparion is close to the boundary between chrons C5r.1r and C5r.1n, about 11.1 Ma.