We investigated the extent to which second-language (L2) learning is influenced by the similarity of grammatical features in one's first language (L1). We used event-related potentials to identify neural signatures of a novel grammatical rule – grammatical gender – in L1 English speakers. Of interest was whether individual differences in L2 proficiency and age of acquisition (AoA) influenced these effects. L2 and native speakers of French read French sentences that were grammatically correct, or contained either a grammatical gender or word order violation. Proficiency and AoA predicted Left Anterior Negativity amplitude, with structure violations driving the proficiency effect and gender violations driving the AoA effect. Proficiency, group, and AoA predicted P600 amplitude for gender violations but not structure violations. Different effects of grammatical gender and structure violations indicate that L2 speakers engage novel grammatical processes differently from L1 speakers and that this varies appreciably based on both AoA and proficiency.


Pure and Zn-doped SnO2 nanocrystals were prepared through a facile solid-state reaction, in which zinc doping can induce the generation of orthorhombic SnO2 and control the crystallite size of nanocrystals. Most Zn-doped SnO2 nanocrystals showed tetragonal rutile structure as well as a few orthorhombic structures. With an increase in the molar ratio of Zn/Sn from 0 to 0.133, the content of orthorhombic structure in the product gradually increased and the crystallite size of nanocrystals decreased, accompanied by an increase in sensor response of the nanocrystals to acetone. When the molar ratio of Zn/Sn was 0.133, the obtained nanocrystals had minimum crystallite size of 9.7 nm and showed the highest response of 48–100 ppm acetone, which is four times larger than that of undoped SnO2. With increasing the molar ratio of Zn/Sn to 0.4, a small amount of hexagonal ZnO was produced and the crystallite size increased although more orthorhombic structures were formed, resulting in a decrease of sensor response. Furthermore, the effects of crystallite size and the content of orthorhombic SnO2 on the gas-sensing properties of Zn-doped SnO2 nanocrystals were also discussed in detail.


A simple 2-dimensional architecture is derived for highly concurrent systolization of the 2-dimensional (2D) discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The concurrency of computation has been enhanced and complexity is minimized by the proposed algorithm where an N-point DFT is computed via four inner-products of real-valued data of length ap (N/2). The proposed structure offers significantly lower latency, twice the throughput, and involves nearly the same area-time complexity of the existing multiplier-based DFT structures


We propose an approach to utilize idle computational resources of supercomputers. The idea is to maintain an additional queue of low-priority non-parallel jobs and execute them in containers, using container migration tools to break the execution down into separate intervals. We propose a container management system that can maintain this queue and interact with the supercomputer scheduler. We conducted a series of experiments simulating supercomputer scheduler and the proposed system. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed system increases the effective utilization of supercomputer resources under most of the conditions, in some cases significantly improving the performance.


The soil environment is a vast reservoir that harbours microorganisms that represent virtually all the microbial groups including actinomycetes. An investigation was carried out to determine the species of antibiotic-producing actinomycetes found in the soil environment of Keffi Metropolis, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Soil samples were obtained from ten different locations of Keffi town for the isolation of actinomycetes. Eight species belonging to two genera were isolated from the soil samples and these include Actinomyces israelii, Actinomyces viscosus, Streptomyces antibioticus, Streptomyces aureofiens, Streptomyces caespitosus, Streptomyces exfoliatus, Streptomyces griseus and Streptomyces hygroscopicus. All except S. aureofiens were found to have antimicrobial activity against at least one of the four pathogenic organisms tested for sensitivity. The pathogenic organisms tested for sensitivity were Candida albicans, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The results of this investigation revealed that species of antibiotic-producing actinomycetes are found in the soil environment of Keffi Metropolis, and these could be harnessed for the industrial production of novel antibiotics.


Extant trust research champions 3 different centers of action that determine perceptions of trust: the trustor (the individual rendering trust judgments), the trustee (the party being trusted), and the trustor-trustee dyad. We refer to the centers of action as loci of trust. Thus far, researchers have investigated determinants residing within each locus independently but have not concurrently investigated all 3 loci. Thus, the relative influence of each locus on perceptions of trust is unknown. Nor is it known how the influence of each locus changes with time. Where is the dominant locus of trust? And how does it change over time? We address these questions by examining the influence of trustors, trustees, and dyads on perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity. We find that trustor influence decreases over time while trustee and dyadic influences increase. We also find that the trustor is the dominant locus for perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity initially, but over time the trustee becomes the dominant locus for perceived ability and integrity. For perceived benevolence, the trustor remains the dominant driver over time.


This paper addresses the development of a new signal processing approach based on the fusion of Hilbert transform and bispectral analysis to extract features of defects in a number of induction motor conditions. The motor conditions considered are a normal motor and motors with outer, inner race and rotor faults. The signal processing techniques based on Hilbert transform have been used to extract the modulating components which are able to characterize the motor fault patterns. The use of bispectral analysis provides great capabilities for detection and characterization of nonlinearity in the motor vibration systems. Feature selection based on principal component analysis are used to extract from the vibration signatures so obtained and these features are used as inputs to probabilistic neural networks trained to identify the motor conditions. The results obtained show that the diagnostic system using a supervised radial basis type neural network is capable of classifying motor conditions with high accuracy recognition rate.


What is critical thinking? It is rather difficult to give an exact definition of this interesting phenomenon as the opinions of scholars vary. The majority of linguists consider that critical thinking is a complex process using inquiry strategies, forming questions, and seeking answers to these questions. It implies not only fixing facts but also clearing up their reasons and results. The essence of critical thinking can be defined as taking care of one's own thinking. Critical thinking starts as soon as the information reaches our mind and ends when we already have our own standpoint regarding this information. The aim of this paper is to study the importance of critical thinking in text understanding. Critical reading strategies, in their way, develop critical thinking skills that are essential for a deeper and successful perception of a text. It supports and encourages pupils and students to be more aware of reading comprehension skills, to explore how to read between lines and behind the words. Critical thinking is independent thinking. When teaching is built on the principle of critical thinking, each pupil or student is able to formulate his/her own ideas, estimations, and convictions independently. Consequently, thinking is critical only when it carries individual character. A pupil or a student should have enough freedom in order to think and solve different problems independently. It is true that people who are able to think critically, always ask a set of questions formulated in a proper way, try to pick up information from different people and make proper conclusions about this or that person, thing, or phenomenon. Critical thinking is not a child's innate quality. Some individuals can develop it as a result of training. In order a person to think critically, an individual has to have a rich imagination, be rather creative, and have background knowledge. All these three qualities are absolutely necessary for a good critical thinker. Critical thinking is an attempt to see through things. It is challenging the existence and making counter-arguments. The main function of critical thinking is to enable a thinker to see the effectiveness of an argument by exploring the reasons, assumptions, and warrants behind a particular stand. One of the most significant peculiarities of critical thinking is that it enables a person to make a claim with a perspective to appreciate the strength of others' arguments and helps recognize how one has reached a particular point while developing arguments. It is worth mentioning that the basic components of critical thinking are properly formulated why and how questions to make pupils/students think profoundly and penetrate into the essence of any kind of text, which leads to its full comprehension.


National Institute on Aging‐Alzheimer's Association workgroups have proposed biological research criteria to identify individuals with preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD). It remains unclear whether cognitively unimpaired individuals with abnormality in both amyloid (A) and tau (T) biomarkers will go on to develop a clinical AD syndrome. In two independent cohorts, we investigated whether elevated tau‐PET signal in persons with elevated amyloid‐PET predicts near‐term conversion to mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We also tested whether neurodegeneration (N), a non‐specific marker typical of later‐stage AD, improved such prediction.


This paper addresses structures of state space in quasiperiodically forced dynamical systems. We develop a theory of ergodic partition of state space in a class of measure-preserving and dissipative flows, which is a natural extension of the existing theory for measure-preserving maps. The ergodic partition result is based on eigenspace at eigenvalue 0 of the associated Koopman operator, which is realized via time-averages of observables, and provides a constructive way to visualize a low-dimensional slice through a high-dimensional invariant set. We apply the result to the systems with a finite number of attractors and show that the time-average of a continuous observable is well-defined and reveals the invariant sets, namely, a finite number of basins of attraction. We provide a characterization of invariant sets in the quasiperiodically forced systems. A theoretical result on uniform boundedness of the invariant sets is presented. The series of theoretical results enables numerical analysis of invariant sets in the quasiperiodically forced systems based on the ergodic partition and time-averages. Using this, we analyze a nonlinear model of complex power grids that represents the short-term swing instability, named the coherent swing instability. We show that our theoretical results can be used to understand stability regions in such complex systems.


Query-based document summarization aims to extract or generate a summary of a document which directly answers or is relevant to the search query. It is an important technique that can be beneficial to a variety of applications such as search engines, document-level machine reading comprehension, and chatbots. Currently, datasets designed for query-based summarization are short in numbers and existing datasets are also limited in both scale and quality. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no publicly available dataset for Chinese query-based document summarization. In this paper, we present QBSUM , a high-quality large-scale dataset consisting of 49,000+ data samples for the task of Chinese query-based document summarization. We also propose multiple unsupervised and supervised solutions to the task and demonstrate their high-speed inference and superior performance via both offline experiments and online A/B tests. The QBSUM dataset is released in order to facilitate future advancement of this research field.


The potential operation of a tokamak fusion reactor in a highly efficient steady-state mode is directly related to the achievement of certain types of radial profiles for the current flowing toroidally in the device. The evolution in time of the toroidal current profile in tokamaks is related to the evolution of the poloidal magnetic flux profile, which is modeled in normalized cylindrical coordinates using a nonlinear partial differential equation usually referred to as the magnetic diffusion equation. We propose a robust control scheme to regulate the poloidal magnetic flux profile in tokamaks in the presence of model uncertainties. These uncertainties come mainly from the resistivity term of the magnetic diffusion equation. First, we either simulate the magnetic diffusion equation or carry out experiments to generate data ensembles, from which we then extract the most energetic modes to obtain a reduced-order model based on proper orthogonal decomposition and Galerkin projection. The obtained reduced-order model corresponds to a linear state-space representation with uncertainty. Taking advantage of the structure of the state matrices, the reduced-order model is reformulated into a robust control framework, with the resistivity term as an uncertain parameter. An H ¿ controller is designed to minimize the regulation/tracking error. Finally, the synthesized model-based robust controller is tested in simulations.


Massive and parallel changes have occurred in New York City since the late 1970s and in London and Tokyo since the early 1980s. What transformed these urban centers, with their diverse histories, into "global cities" that share comparable economic and social structures? Saskia Sassen argues that their remarkable similarity arises from their position as command posts in international finance and advanced services for business.


The similarity between the dynamics of the human balance control system in the frontal and sagittal planes during the fixation of visual stimulus and smooth pursuit of its sinusoidal movements in the horizontal plane with a frequency of 0.1 or 0.01 Hz (so-named fast and slow pursuit) has been investigated by the nonlinear method of analysis. The experiments were carried out according to the notion that it is possible to describe the process of orthograde standing by a two-segment model--upper and lower segments which are connected by a hip joint (other joints were fixed). It was shown that during fixation the similarity between the dynamics of orthostatic control system in the frontal plane is higher than in the sagittal plane. A slow pursuit does not influence the similarity, but a fast one decreases the similarity in the frontal plane. The indices of similarity between the dynamics of the system in the sagittal plane for all the conditions are close and do not differ significantly. The changes in similarity during fast pursuit are supposed to be connected with the different inertia of eyes and body movements. The differences between dynamic similarity in the frontal and sagittal planes are probably connected with the peculiarities of both balance control during joint fixation and AP-ML control (Winter et al., 1993) under conditions investigated.


A recent mathematical model developed for ozone production is tackled analytically by asymptotic approximation. The results obtained are compared with existing numerical solutions. The comparison shows good agreement.


Panochthus Burmeister is one of the most diversified and widely distributed glyptodonts in the Pleistocene of South America, which includes areas located at high altitudes (>4,000 m a.s.l.). Within the genus, eight species (P. intermedius Lydekker, P. subintermedius Castellanos, P. tuberculatus (Owen), P. frenzelianus Ameghino, P. greslebini Castellanos, P. jaguaribensis Moreira, P. hipsilis Zurita, Zamorano, Scillato-Yané, Fidel, Iriondo and Gillette, and P. florensis Brambilla, López and Parent) are currently recognized. Here, we report a dorsal carapace (UATF-V n/n) from the Pleistocene of the surroundings of Potosí, Bolivia, that shows some morphological particularities when compared to the carapace of P. intermedius, P. frenzelianus, P. subintermedius and P. tuberculatus, including: a) its maximum dorso-ventral diameter is at the anterior half, meanwhile in other species is at mid-point (e.g., Propalaehoplophorus) or at posterior half (e.g., Glyptodon); b) the dorsal profile is different in comparison to other glyptodonts (e.g., Glyptodon, Glyptotherium, Neosclerocalyptus, Propalaehoplophorus); c) the ornamentation pattern of the osteoderms shows a central figure surrounded by small polygonal figures along the most exposed surface of the carapace (except for the mid-dorsal region that shows reticular ornamentation pattern), being different from that of the remaining species: of Panochthus, in which central figures are limited to the caudal/cephalic and most lateral regions of the carapace. In summary, the combination of characters suggests that it could belong to a new species or, alternatively, to P. floriensis or P. jaguaribensis in which the dorsal carapace is not yet known. The phylogenetic analysis confirms its basal position among Panochthus and highlights the importance of these high elevation areas of the Andes in South America in order to understand the complex evolutionary history of glyptodonts.


According to Revans, for an organization to be successful in today's rapidly changing environment, its capacity to learn must exceed the rate of change imposed on it. Through an examination of the processes by which individuals in organizations learn, develops a learning process model to facilitate continuous improvement and innovation in business processes. Draws on relevant theories which provide an understanding of how and why people learn, barriers which prevent learning, and the role managers need to play in the learning process. Provides a vision of what may be achieved by the systematic implementation of the learning process model. Deming's system of profound knowledge provides a focus for learning activity. The model has been developed in a way which will be of practical use to managers working in organizations.


A structure-activity study was performed by synthesis on N,N'-disubstitution of 3-aminobenzo[c] and [d]azepin-2-one 2 and 3 to afford potent and specific farnesyl transferase inhibitors with low nM enzymatic and cellular activities.


PURPOSE
Present technologies are not able to determine which retinas are at risk for the development of neovascularization in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). In this study, the authors evaluated whether a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method could be used to identify differences between control retinas and those that will develop neovascularization in the newborn rat model of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).

METHODS
MRI and a 2-minute carbogen (95% O2/5% CO2) inhalation challenge (see ref. 11) were used to measure noninvasively the change in the posterior vitreous oxygen tension in specific locations across the full extent of the retina in day-12 rats raised in either room air (control, n = 7) or variable oxygen conditions (experimental ROP, n = 7). The experimental ROP animals were examined 2 days before the onset of neovascularization.

RESULTS
In the ROP group, the response to carbogen was lower (P < 0.05) at every distance from the optic nerve than in the control group. Within the ROP group, the vascular midperipheral retinal reaction to carbogen, 1 to 2 mm from the optic nerve, was as low as that from the avascular periphery, 2 to 3 mm from the optic nerve. Although the vascular central retinal response to carbogen, 0 to 1 mm from the optic nerve, was greater than either the vascular midperipheral retina or the avascular periphery in the ROP group, theoretically this difference could be caused by oxygen diffusing from the hyaloidal circulation.

CONCLUSIONS
Carbogen-challenge MRI seems to be a useful tool for assessing the risk of retinal neovascularization in the newborn rat ROP model. This MRI method has potential clinical applicability, for example, because effective laser therapy with retinal sparing may be possible if focal photocoagulation, guided by an MRI map, is performed.


Tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBL) individuals exhibit reduced frequencies of CD8+ T cells expressing cytotoxic markers in peripheral blood. However, the frequencies of cytotoxic marker expressing CD4+, CD8+ T cells, and NK cells at the site of infection is not known. Therefore, we measured the baseline and mycobacterial antigen specific frequencies of cytotoxic markers expressing CD4+, CD8+ T cells, and NK cells in the LN (n = 18) and whole blood (n = 10) of TBL individuals. TBL LN is associated with lower frequencies of CD4+ T cells expressing cytotoxic markers (Granzyme B, CD107a) compared to peripheral blood at baseline and in response to PPD, ESAT-6, and CFP-10 antigen stimulation. Similarly, lower frequencies of CD8+ T cells expressing cytotoxic markers (Perforin, Granzyme B, and CD107a) were also present in the TBL LN at baseline and following (except perforin) antigen stimulation. Finally, at baseline and after antigen (PPD, ESAT-6, and CFP-10) stimulation, frequencies of NK cells expressing cytotoxic markers were also significantly lower in TBL LN compared to whole blood. Hence, TBL is characterized by diminished frequencies of cytotoxic marker expressing CD4+, CD8+ T cells, and NK cells at the site of infection, which might reflect the lack of protective immune responses at the site of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection.


The Journal of Business Administration Research has been focusing on the research and development of global business models and management, contributing highly valued information for professionals engaged in scientific research, application innovation, and enterprise operation. The global economy and business development have been facing unprecedented challenges in seeking new economic models and renewing business models and management practices since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. Traditional industries are forced to transform the standardized management that has already become an essential condition, into smarter, more simplified, and highly effective management to adapt to an environment with mature applications of the Internet of Things (IoT), shifting from offline to online operations, and focusing more on operations at the user end instead of at the platform end. The goal is to integrate resources and improve operation efficiency more effectively by upgrading industries, lowering human resource requirements, and simplifying management models and production processes.


Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the oldest domesticated crop species in the world and is widely recognized as an ideal model plant for the study of grass genetics and genome organization. Rice improvement depends on the conserved use of genetic variability and diversity in plant breeding programmes. Phenotypic variability and genetic diversity was studied in 13 non basmati rice samples collected from Jammu and Kashmir. The length of the seeds varied from 0.5 to 0.8 cm and the seed width varied from 0.1 to 0.3 cm. The weight of the seed varied from 0.36 to 0.77 g. A total of 94 alleles were amplified in 13 rice samples using six simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The analysis and dendrogram construction was performed using the DARWin 5.0 software. The genetic dissimilarity index calculated between samples ranged from 0.00 to 0.63. The generated dendrogram based on the dissimilarity matrix using the neighbor-joining approach of the unweighted pair group with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) method showed three distinct clusters.

 Key words: Oryza sativa, diversity, characterization, molecular markers


In this study, surface modification aimed to enhance the compatibility between a hydrophilic inorganic filler and polypropylene (PP) matrix using hydrophobic treatment. Lauric acid, butyl acrylate, and maleic anhydride were employed to modify the filler surface. After treatment, inorganic filler/PP composites were produced using melt-mixing and extrusion–injection molding processes. The study focused on investigating compatibility and migration behavior between the filler and matrix. The findings indicated that hydrophobic modification, specifically with butyl acrylate and maleic anhydride, improved migration issues in nano-whisker, while maintaining favorable mechanical properties even under accelerated thermal aging. However, excessive hydrophobicity induced by superhydrophobic treatment using lauric acid led to reduced compatibility with the matrix, compromising its effectiveness. Consequently, the study revealed the potential of surface modification to enhance interfacial properties and mitigate migration concerns in PP composites for automotive applications.


The sinusites orbital complications usually associated to ethmoidites are rare in the childhood. We present a revision of 14 adults patients (10 males and 4 females) 18 to 61 years old. Seven presented a preseptal cellulitis, two had a subperiostial abscess and five an orbitary cellulitis in accordance with the Candler classification. We analyse the personal previous history, the clinical data, complementary tests and treatments (medical and surgical) evolution and hospital stay. We realise a literature revision about this subject.


Performing Umrah is very demanding and to be performed in very crowded environments. In response to that, many efforts have been initiated to overcome the difficulties faced by pilgrims. However, those efforts focus on acquiring initial perspective and background knowledge before going to Mecca. Findings of
preliminary study show that those efforts do not support multi-modality for user interaction. Nowadays the computational capabilities in mobile phones enable it to serve people in various aspects of daily life. Consequently, the mobile phone penetration has increased dramatically in the last decade. Hence, this study aims to propose a comprehensive conceptual model for usable multimodal mobile assistance
during Umrah called Multi-model Mobile Assistance during Umrah (MMA-U). Thus, four (4) supporting objectives are formulated, and the Design Science Research Methodology has been adopted. For the usability of MMA-U, Systematic
Literature Review (SLR) indicates ten (10) attributes: usefulness, errors rate, simplicity, reliability, ease of use, safety, flexibility, accessibility, attitude, and acceptability. Meanwhile, the content and comparative analysis result in five (5) components that construct the conceptual model of MMA-U: structural, content
composition, design principles, development approach, technology, and the design and usability theories. Then, the MMA-U has been reviewed and well-accepted by 15 experts. Later, the MMA-U was incorporated into a prototype called Personal Digital Mutawwif (PDM). The PDM was developed for the purpose of user test in
the field. The findings indicate that PDM facilitates the execution of Umrah and
successfully meet pilgrims' needs and expectations. Also, the pilgrims were satisfied
and felt that they need to have PDM. In fact, they would recommend PDM to their friends, which mean that use of PDM is safe and suitable while performing Umrah. As a conclusion, the theoretical contribution; the conceptual model of MMA-U; provides guidelines for developing multimodal content mobile applications during
Umrah.


Finding a remedy to the environmental waste water problem we studied elimination of monovalent cationic dye like Methylene blue from aqueous solutions by Carboxymethyl Cellulose /Acrylamide (CMC/AAm) hydrogel. CMC/AAm made hydrogels were prepared at 25 kGy gamma radiation dose from Co-60 source. Methylene blue dye removal was examined by this hydrogel for kinetics, isotherm and thermodynamic considerations. The concentration effect of MB dye on our prepared hydrogel was examined by fitting several isotherm model like Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin–Radushkevich (D-R) and Kiselev. It was established that Kiselev isotherm model was top fit, followed by Langmuir. The temperature effect on adsorption by the hydrogels was considered for thermodynamic parameters. -15.9305 kJ/mol and 61.39406 J/ molK, were obtained for, H°, and S°, in the adsorption processes respectively. The (-) ve values of ∆G° assured system's viability and the spontaneous nature, thus the system is required no energy input from outside


Interest in novel forms of marine propulsion and maneuvering has sparked a number of studies on unsteadily operating propulsors. We review recent experimental and theoretical work identifying the principal mechanism for producing propulsive and transient forces in oscillating flexible bodies and fins in water, the formation and control of large-scale vortices. Connection with studies on live fish is made, explaining the observed outstanding fish agility.


Automated planning has achieved significant breakthroughs in recent years. Nonetheless, attempts to improve search algorithm efficiency remain the primary focus of most research. However, it is also possible to build on previous searches and learn from previously found solutions. Our approach consists in learning macro-actions and adding them into the planner's domain. A macro-action is an action sequence selected for application at search time and applied as a single indivisible action. Carefully chosen macros can drastically improve the planning performances by reducing the search space depth. However, macros also increase the branching factor. Therefore, the use of macros entails a utility problem: a trade-off has to be addressed between the benefit of adding macros to speed up the goal search and the overhead caused by increasing the branching factor in the search space. In this paper, we propose an online domain and planner-independent approach to learn 'useful' macros, i.e. macros that address the utility problem. These useful macros are obtained by statistical and heuristic filtering of a domain specific macro library. The library is created from the most frequent action sequences derived from an n-gram analysis on successful plans previously computed by the planner. The relevance of this approach is proven by experiments on International Planning Competition domains.


Refugee health in the United States is an understudied subject, particularly on the West Coast. Little is known about the health needs of diverse refugee groups in the country outside of their initial health assessments upon entering the country for resettlement. This project explored perceived barriers to health care for refugees in three areas: Seattle/King County, Washington; Los Angeles, California; and Tucson, Arizona. Interviews and surveys were conducted with a range of key informants in each area to understand more about refugee health needs. The interviews revealed a wide range of perceived barriers, including: acculturation, language and communication, and unmet mental health needs. These barriers, both on the demand side and the supply side, are complex, inter-related, long-standing, and in many cases, not unique to resettled refugees. Some could be addressed with additional funding and the development of new programs, although most do not lend themselves to simple or short-term solutions, even with additional investments, but instead require sustained interventions across multiple sectors to address health system issues and social determinants of health. The paper discusses priority areas for policy consideration that could help reduce barriers, address gaps in care, and improve health for resettled refugees


Introduction Macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) is a rare life threatening complication seen with various infectious disorders, hematologic malignancies as well as in connective tissue diseases including adult Still's disease (ASD), juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Kawasaki's disease and dermatomyositis. We describe a case of Still's disease complicated by MAS. Case A 29 year old African American female was admitted with a one month history of daily fevers, pruritic rash, fatigue and arthralgia. Physical examination was notable for fever of 101.6°C, generalized lymphadenopathy, diffuse maculopapular rash, splenomegaly and synovitis of the right wrist, proximal interphalangeal and ankle joints. Pertinent laboratory evaluation on admission included: hemoglobin (Hb) 8.6 g/dL, white blood cells (WBC) 18.7 k/μL, platelet (PLT) 396 k/μL, ferritin 7500 ng/mL, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) 78 mm/hr, LDH 3136 U/L and AST 117 U/L. Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) were positive (1:320), however anti-Smith, anti-double stranded-DNA, and rheumatoid factor were absent. Nine months prior to this admission, she was admitted to another facility with similar symptoms. At that time, an extensive workup including lymph node, liver and bone marrow biopsies revealed no infectious disorder or malignancy. She was treated with NSAIDs and steroids with improvement in her symptoms. During the current admission, a diagnosis of Still's disease was made after excluding bacterial, mycobacterial, viral and fungal infections. She was started on intravenous (IV) Solu-Medrol one gram daily. Over the next four days, she developed confusion and her laboratory values dropped (Hb - 6.6 g/dL, WBC - 4 k/μL, PLT - 139 k/μL, ESR - 6 mm/hr). Ferritin increased to 13,100 ng/mL accompanied by an increase in liver enzymes, mild coagulopathy and normal fibrinogen. Bone marrow biopsy revealed features of hemophagocytic syndrome. In addition to IV Solu-Medrol, plasma exchange was initiated. Her confusion resolved, and all laboratory values improved after a few days. Discussion MAS can rarely be associated with ASD and has a high mortality rate. The presence of unremitting fever, mental status changes, rising liver enzymes, falling ESR, normal or low fibrinogen, and relative pancytopenia with prolongation of the PT/PTT should raise suspicion of MAS complicating Still's disease. Steroid refractory cases have been treated with plasmapheresis, cyclosporine, etoposide and IV immunoglobulin. Response to treatment is manifested by resolution of fever and hematological abnormalities in a few days.


I test the impact of governmental corruption on generalized social trust. Based on prior research in comparative politics and criminology, I hypothesize that increasing governmental corruption leads to decreasing beliefs that others are trustworthy. To test my hypothesis, I combine aggregate state-level data on convictions for governmental corruption with American National Election Studies panel survey data with waves in 2000, 2002, and 2004. My findings show a clear impact of greater corruption on levels of generalized trust. I find that living in states with increased corruption lowers generalized trust, while controlling for other known determinants. This research expands our knowledge of how institutional actions influence generalized trust.


BACKGROUND
Patient-to-patient transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) has been well described. We report the first documented outbreak of probable transmission of MRSA from a mother to 3 of her preterm quadruplet infants postnatally.

METHODS
Routine surveillance of clinical microbiologic laboratory reports revealed an increased incidence of MRSA infections in our NICU, including 3 of 4 preterm quadruplets. Surveillance cultures of the anterior nares of all patients and the quadruplets' parents were performed to detect MRSA carriage. The isolates were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis with the restriction endonuclease SmaI. Infection control strategies included mupirocin treatment and contact isolation precautions for infected/colonized infants.

RESULTS
Clinical cultures from infants A, C, and D and surveillance cultures of the quadruplets' mother and 2 additional unrelated infants grew the same clone of MRSA. The mother's only identified risk factors for MRSA acquisition were 2 prepartum hospitalizations related to the multiple gestation and previous treatment with antibiotics. All anterior nares cultures were negative for MRSA after mupirocin treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Use of gowns and gloves by the family members of women with multiple gestations should be recommended to prevent transmission of potential pathogens in the NICU.


Compared with ordinary coatings, nano-composite coating usually has a higher hardness and better wear and corrosion resistance. As coating materials, the nano-CeO2/Zn composites were prepared by nano-CeO2 and Zn powder. The microstructure was investigated by XRD and FESEM. The corrosion resistance and hardness of nano-CeO2/Zn composites with different amount of nano-CeO2 were comparatively studied. The results show that the metal corrosion resistance, hardness and density of the composites may be improved significantly by addition of nano-CeO2, and the optimal amount of nano-CeO2 is 1%.


This article analyzed the immediate treatment results of 210 patients, underwent endovideosurgical operative treatment concerning colorectal cancer (106 laparoscopic and 104 robotic-assisted operations). According to the first results, there was no significant difference between two methods in such medical indices as the volume of intraoperative hemorrhage, terms of hospital stay and peristalsis recovery, the rate of conversion and complications in. early postoperative period, quantity of removed lymph nodes, quality of TME. The application of robotics allowed performance of precision work in conditions of limited space of the small pelvis.


Read November, 1907. Manuscript received, 13th December, 1907.

The writer believes there has been more than one deep boring put down in the neighbourhood of the old town of Selby, but in some instances no record has been published of the results obtained, either on account of carelessness or because the undertakers of the boring wished to keep the information obtained to themselves. Fortunately, in the present instance, the owner of the land on which the boring was situated, the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Londesborough, who bore the expense of the experiment, has made no such stipulation, and as a careful record of the strata passed through in the boring was kept, the information is open to those who may be interested in such an undertaking. The results from a practical point of view are not insignificant, and from a geological standpoint most interesting.

The position of the borehole can be seen by reference to the map accompanying these notes (Fig. 1). It is situated towards the south-east of the Great Plain of York on the right bank of the River Ouse, three miles east-south-east of Selby. As is well known the stratigraphy of the Plain of York is obscure, the surface being covered for the most part with alluvial drift which, although valuable and useful from a farmer's and landowner's standpoint, is often somewhat disconcerting to the geologist. In the immediate neighbourhood of Selby, however, two landmarks stand out, known as Brayton Barf and Hambleton Hough. These two ...


Coal was of great importance to the continuing dominance of Great Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. From 1815 to 1914, the Pax Britannica was built on a steady exploitation of Britain's coal resources. The factories that built the country's many manufactures ran on steam turbines powered by the 'black diamonds' dug up from across the nation, South Wales to Scotland. The nation's homes were heated and its electricity generated by burning great mountains of it. The ships that protected the shores and projected power across the waves ran, during this period, almost exclusively on coal, as did the ships bringing the raw materials of the planet to 'the workshop of the world'. Yet in this last regard, the crucial role played by coaling stations set about the planet's coastlines has never yet been truly appreciated. In order to do this, it is necessary to discuss coal more generally and its importance to the British transport economy. This must be done both domestically (in terms of London's dominant role in the British coal market, particularly for coal from the North East) and internationally (based around the South Wales coalfield and its use as a ballast to enable Britain's imports), not to mention the dominance of steamships in international trade before the First World War – the latter a topic riven by debate. Furthermore, given the absence of scholarly work on coaling stations themselves, once their importance is established it is vital to undertake a study of their structure and variety, the firms and alliances behind their creation and to see if these were in fact a great British success story in a period traditionally associated with British entrepreneurial failure.


Abstract This paper proposes partial neutron transport equations for stationary and transient calculations. The partial equations of neutron transport are based on separately following neutrons born from external source, prompt fission neutrons, and delayed neutrons. The delayed neutrons are described by a system of equations containing one equation for each group. The paper defines the parameters of these equations and presents the results of fast neutron reactor benchmark calculations. Determination of the field of the external source neutrons in the system of partial equations provides a natural transfer of the source power (in units of neutrons per second) to the core power of energy release from the interaction of the external source neutrons in the reactor core (in units of watt). Thus, an external source neutron is used for the initial normalization of the neutron field based on the required reactor power. Operating with the field of delayed neutrons, in contrast to the field of concentrations of delayed neutron precursors, provides a quantitative assessment of the interaction of these neutrons with the reactor environment, and thus, assesses their contribution to the reactivity effects in fast reactors. Partial neutron transport equations allow us to extract additional information about the time behavior of the fast neutron reactor.


Question: To determine the uptake of an app-based supplemental exercise programme in a rehabilitation setting and the effect of such a programme on length of stay and function compared to usual care physiotherapy. Design: Randomized controlled trial with random allocation and assessor blinding. Participants: A total of 144 individuals with mixed diagnoses (orthopaedic, neurological, reconditioning) admitted for inpatient sub-acute rehabilitation. Interventions: Participants were randomly allocated to usual care physiotherapy (control group) or usual care physiotherapy with the addition of an app-based supplemental exercise programme (intervention group). Outcome measures: The primary measure of interest was total supplementary exercise dosage completed by the intervention group. The primary between-group outcome measure was length of stay with secondary measures including walking endurance (Six-Minute Walk Test), walking speed (10-Metre Walk Test), functional mobility (Timed Up and Go Test) and level of disability (Functional Independence Measure). Results: Participants in the intervention group performed 7 minutes (SD: 9) or 49 repetitions (SD: 48) of supplementary exercise using the app each day. There were no differences between the groups for length of stay (mean difference (MD): −0.5 days, 95% confidence interval (CI): −3.2 to 2.2) or change in any secondary functional outcome measures, including walking speed (MD: −0.1 m/s, 95% CI: −0.2 to 0.0) and disability (MD: −0.9, 95% CI: −3.6 to 1.8). Conclusion: A small supplementary exercise dose was achieved by participants in the intervention group. However, such a programme did not affect length of stay or functional outcomes when compared to usual care.


The paper is concerned with developing a production theory for the case when some inputs have nonlinear prices because the price depends on endogenous quality. This involves extending the notion of a cost function to the case where nonlinear prices are parameters of costs. After developing the appropriate theory, we apply our results to the case of coal-fired electric power generation where fuel quality depends on sulfur and ash impurities. Environmental regulations induce a negative value on sulfur whereas ash impurities degrade performance and thus reduce production possibilities. A number of empirical results emerge, including significant rates of technological change that are sulfur and ash saving though capital using. This change may explain in part the recent drop in the price of sulfur allowances in the United States.


Background. Early childhood traumas leave serious consequences: during adolescence and adulthood people often experience internal conflicts, more often suffer from mental and somatic diseases, so it is important to look for therapies that can neutralize or reduce the effects of early traumas. One of the options is to apply a complex of bibliotherapy and equine assisted therapy. However, there is a lack of studies analysing how these two therapies affect the development.The aim was to explore the influence of bibliotherapy and equine-assisted therapy on the emotions and behaviour of children with early trauma.Methods. Qualitative research used interview, observation, and projection techniques.Results. Bibliotherapy created preconditions for the emergence of repressed feelings and for deeper, more sensitive dialogue with the psychologist. Riding helped to relax, captured the attention of the present, strengthened positive emotions.Conclusions. 1. Equine – assisted therapy affects the body and gives positive emotions, reduces child's inner anxiety, improves mood and consolidates bibliotherapy results. 2. The combination of bibliotherapy and equine – assisted therapy creates the conditions for stabilizing and even transforming the negative emotions of children with early trauma and restoring the fullness of childhood life.Keywords: psychological trauma, child development, emotions, horse assisted therapy, bibliotherapy.


The use of wind potential and the protection of biodiversity are two conflicting aspects that arise in the development of wind energy projects, generating conflicts between different stakeholders. The aim of this study is to develop a methodology for assessing the suitability of existing wind farms in mountainous areas with the combined use of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method and Stakeholders Analysis. The application is carried out in the Regional Unit of Ioannina. Twelve assessment criteria have been considered in the analysis and fourteen selected stakeholders have participated in their pairwise comparisons. Four different alternative scenarios are formulated based on the power/interest matrix of stakeholder mapping. The prioritization of the existing wind farms is finally carried out with the use of TOPSIS method for each alternative scenario. The results showed that, for two scenarios the ideal wind farm is located in Variko, while for the other two, the ideal wind farm is located in Katara. The proposed methodology is able to promote spatial energy planning, emphasize the key components of the decision problem, and award participating decisions through a multi-stakeholder traceable and transparent assessment procedure.


Coronary thrombolysis by intracoronary and intravenous streptokinase (SK) is reported in myocardial infarction patients. Forty-two patients were examined within the first 6 hours of infarction: they were subjected to coronary-angiography on admission and 24 hours later, and their plasma fibrinogen levels were measured repeatedly for 2 days. SK administration was intracoronary in 24 patients and intravenous in 18. Rapid intravenous SK injection was not inferior to intracoronary administration in terms of efficiency. Although coronary reperfusion takes a somewhat longer time in cases of intravenous SK treatment, its technical simplicity and relative safety, as well as the fact that it can be started early suggest that it is a promising method of treatment for myocardial infarction.


Background: Common peroneal neuropathy shares the same pathophysiology as carpal tunnel syndrome. However, management is often delayed because of the traditional misconception of recognizing foot drop as the defining symptom for diagnosis. The authors believe recognizing common peroneal neuropathy before foot drop can relieve pain and help improve quality of life. Methods: One hundred eighty-five patients who underwent surgical common peroneal neuropathy decompression between 2011 and 2017 were included. The mean follow-up time was 249 ± 28 days. Patients were classified into two stages of severity based on clinical presentation: pre–foot drop and overt foot drop. Demographics, presenting symptoms, clinical signs, electrodiagnostic studies and response to surgery were compared between these two groups. Multivariate regression analysis was used to identify variables that predicted outcome following surgery. Results: Overt foot drop patients presented with significantly lower preoperative motor function (percentage of patients with Medical Research Council grade ≤ 1: overt foot drop, 90 percent; pre–foot drop, 0 percent; p < 0.001). Pre–foot drop patients presented with a significantly higher preoperative pain visual analogue scale score (pre–foot drop, 6.2 ± 0.2; overt foot drop, 4.6 ± 0.3; p < 0.001) and normal electrodiagnostic studies (pre–foot drop, 31.4 percent; overt foot drop, 0.1 percent). Postoperatively, both groups of patients showed significant improvement in quality-of-life score (pre–foot drop, 2.6 ± 0.3; overt foot drop, 2.7 ± 0.3). Patients with obesity or a traumatic cause for common peroneal neuropathy were less likely to have improvements in quality of life after surgical decompression. Conclusion: Increased recognition of common peroneal neuropathy can aid early management, relieve pain, and improve quality of life. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Risk, II.


AIM
To analyse the prevalence of anatomical variations of mandibular premolars in Chennai population.

METHODOLOGY
It was observed, during the routine treatment of mandibular premolars that aberrations were becoming common. This necessitated an encompassing study on 500 patients, evaluating the occurrence of these aberrations. The parameters of this study included sex predilection, unilateral/ bilateral occurrences, and comparison of the incidence of anatomical variations in mandibular first and second premolar canal configuration. The study pattern was designed to observe these premolars using Radiovisiography (RVG) in different angulations to highlight the anatomical aberrations. The results were subjected to statistical analysis, which were performed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) statistical program version 10.0.5. Descriptive statistics were computed for all the variables.

RESULT
The present study revealed high incidence of anatomical aberrations in mandibular premolars among Chennai population. Out of the 500 patients studied, 123 patients [24.6%] showed anatomical variance in the canal configuration. There was high incidence of Vertucci's Type IV canal configuration as compared to Type V, Type II and Type VIII in the descending order of occurrence.

CONCLUSION
Within the limitations of this in-vivo study, it was inferred that the incidence of aberrations in the canal configuration of mandibular premolars is common and due considerations are to be given during endodontic intervention.


Distributed acoustic sensing uses an optical fibre together with an interrogator unit to perform strain measurements. The usage of distributed acoustic sensing in geophysics is attractive due to its dense spatial sampling and low operation cost if the optical fibre is freely accessible. In the borehole environment, optical fibres for distributed acoustic sensing are often readily available as a part of other sensing tools, such as for temperature and pressure. Although the distributed acoustic sensing system promises great potential for reservoir monitoring and surface seismic acquisition, the single axial strain measurement of distributed acoustic sensing along the fibre is inadequate to fully characterise the different wave modes, thus making reservoir characterisation challenging. We propose an acquisition system using five equally spaced helical optical fibres and a straight optical fibre to obtain six different strain projections. This system allows us to reconstruct all components of the 3D strain tensor at any location along the fibre. Analysing the condition number associated with the geometry of the optical fibre, we can systematically search for the optimum design parameters for our configuration. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method to successful reconstruction of the full strain tensor from elastic wavefields of arbitrary complexity.


Everyone knows of St Patrick, but what do we know about him? Simply that it was he who 'converted the Irish to Christianity'. The strange fact is that for two hundred years or so after his death, although his name was remembered with respect, everything else about him was forgotten. E.A. Thompson pieces together the story of his life, drawing his evidence from the only real clues that exist, Patrick's own writings, not from the later Lives. He reveals him as coming from a well-to-do nominally Christian family in Britain, being captured by Irish raiders and forced into slavery in Co Mayo, converting to a most earnest Christianity, and eventually escaping from Ireland to the fulfillment of his calling. As a bishop, he is shown to have been a man of profound originality, and his writings - his Confession and his Letter to Coroticus - further display his character. It is no surprise that a host of legends became attached to his name, and the biography is completed with a look at some of those early legends. Preface to paperback edition by COLMAN ETCHINGHAM, Maynooth. E.A. THOMPSON was Professor of Classics at Nottingham University.


Kissing aneurysms are the rare type of multiple aneurysms. They are adjacent aneurysms of different origin arteries in the same region, which require great care in diagnosis and treatment. We report a case of kissing aneurysms at the anterior communicating artery (AcomA) which were treated by endovascular coil embolization.


Index numbers are descriptive statistical measures useful in economic settings for comparing simple and complex magnitudes registered, usually in two time periods. Although this theory has a large history, it still plays an important role in modern today's societies where big amounts of economic data are available and need to be analyzed. After a detailed revision on classical index numbers in literature, this paper is focused on the description of the R package IndexNumber with strong capabilities for calculating them. Two of the four real data sets contained in this library are used for illustrating the determination of the index numbers in this work. Graphical tools are also implemented in order to show the time evolution of considered magnitudes simplifying the interpretation of the results.


Background: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of HCV and occult HBV among newly diagnosed pre-treatment Egyptian lymphoma patients and evaluate patients' outcomes based on the presence of the viral infections. Methods: The study included 80 therapy-naïve lymphoma patients including 71 non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and 9 Hodgkin lymphoma disease (HD) in addition to 100 healthy volunteers. HBV screening using HBsAg and anti-HBc IgM and HCV using AB/Ag ELISA and real-time RT-PCR were screened in tested and control groups. The diagnosis was confirmed by histopathology. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were conducted to diseased patients. Results: Healthy patients showed 4/100, (4%) active HCV infection and 1/100, (1%) active HBV infection and no occult HBV infection. Among NHL patients, 28 were positive for HBV (6 active and 22 occult HBV infection). Occult HBV was also detected in 5/9 HD patients. HCV was detected in (30/71, 42.3%) of NHL patients and in a single HD patient. Ten occult HBV NHL patients showed a mixed infection with HCV. The incidence of both HCV and HBV are higher in NHL than HL patients. After antitumor treatment, complete remission for lymphoma was achieved in 45% of patients. Both overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were correlated and significantly associated with patients' LDH levels. Conclusions: Our findings claim the suggestive role of HCV and occult HBV infections in NHL but not HL patients in comparison to healthy control, suggesting pre-screening of related factors including occult HBV in for potential better therapy response.


A theory of quantum electron wavepacket dynamics that nonadiabatically couples with classical nuclear motions in intense optical fields is studied. The formalism is intended to track the laser-driven electron wavepackets in terms of the linear combination of configuration-state functions generated with ab initio molecular orbitals. Beginning with the total quantum Hamiltonian for electrons and nuclei in the vector potential of classical electromagnetic field, we reduce the Hamiltonian into a mixed quantum-classical representation by replacing the quantum nuclear momentum operators with the classical counterparts. This framework gives equations of motion for electron wavepackets in an intense laser field through the time dependent variational principle. On the other hand, a generalization of the Newtonian equations provides a matrix form of forces acting on the nuclei for nonadiabatic dynamics. A mean-field approximation to the force matrix reduces this higher order formalism to the semiclassical Ehrenfest theory in intense optical fields. To bring these theories into a practical quantum chemical package for general molecules, we have implemented the relevant ab initio algorithms in it. Some numerical results in the level of the semiclassical Ehrenfest-type theory with explicit use of the nuclear kinematic (derivative) coupling and the velocity form for the optical interaction are presented.


We propose a Bayesian network (BN) model to integrate multiple contextual information and the image measurements for image segmentation. The BN model systematically encodes the contextual relationships between regions, edges and vertices, as well as their image measurements with uncertainties. It allows a principled probabilistic inference to be performed so that image segmentation can be achieved through a most probable explanation (MPE) inference in the BN model. We have achieved encouraging results on the horse images from the Weizmann dataset. We have also demonstrated the possible ways to extend the BN model so as to incorporate other contextual information such as the global object shape and human intervention for improving image segmentation. Human intervention is encoded as new evidence in the BN model. Its impact is propagated through belief propagation to update the states of the whole model. From the updated BN model, new image segmentation is produced.


In Network-on-Chip (NoC), The packet arbitration policy in most switch designs is based either on the packet priority or on a round-robin scheme. Since the two arbitration policies cannot guarantee the quality of service (QoS) and the fairness simultaneously, this work proposes a novel round-based priority arbitration scheme, which not only allows the high-priority packets to be served first within a specific context called round, but also allows fairness for low-priority packets. The experiments show that this proposed arbitration scheme outperforms the packet priority scheme by as much as 15.3% in terms of fairness and is superior to the round-robin scheme by as much as 13.4% in terms of quality of service. Further, an estimation model for communication latency is also proposed for this arbitration scheme and the prediction accuracy is around 80%.


Herein, we describe the catalytic enantioselective cross-coupling of 1,2-bisboronic esters. Prior work on group specific cross coupling is limited to the use of geminal bis-boronates. This desymmetrization provides a novel approach to prepare enantioenriched cyclopropyl boronates with three contiguous stereocenters, that could be further derivatized through selective functionalization of the carbon–boron bond. Our results suggest that transmetallation, which is the enantiodetermining step, takes place with retention of stereochemistry at carbon.


In this age of soaring vehicle thefts, vehicle safety has become a matter of prime importance. Investigators owe this increase in thefts to the lack of proper parking spaces in residential areas and lack of availability of sophisticated security devices. As a solution to the aforementioned problem, we have developed a prototype model of fingerprint based security system for vehicles by interfacing Fingerprint sensor module R307 along with Arduino Uno. A person can start the vehicle, but only upon fingerprint authentication can the person put the vehicle into motion. On recognition of the fingerprint, the valve fixed in the outlet of fuel tank opens, thereby allowing the flow of fuel to the engine.


OBJECTIVE: To report a case of linear immunoglobulin (Ig) A bullous dermatosis (LABD) induced by gemcitabine. CASE SUMMARY: A 59-year-old man was diagnosed with squamous-cell carcinoma of the lung in T4N2M0 stage and treated with cisplatin, vinorelbine, and gemcitabine. Twenty-four hours after the administration of gemcitabine, a symmetric, bullous, herpetiform eruption appeared on his trunk and upper limbs. Histopathologic examination and direct immunofluorescence test were consistent with IgA bullous dermatosis. Cutaneous lesions resolved two weeks after the drug was withdrawn and topical steroid treatment was instituted. DISCUSSION: Drug-induced LABD is a variant of classic or idiopathic LABD. Vancomycin is the most frequently implicated drug, but other agents have been reported to cause LABD. According to the Naranjo probability scale, the relationship of gemcitabine treatment with cutaneous eruption in our patient is possible. CONCLUSIONS: We report the first case of gemcitabine-induced LABD. Clinicians should monitor patients receiving this drug for signs of LABD.


Autonomous study emphasizes the learner s initiative, enthusiasm and creativity. In all fields of education, there is growing emphasis on "learner一centered" teaching methods and the ability of learner autonomy .Many experts and scholars have found that learning strategies plays an important role in English language learning, but the importance of affective strategy use in English learning is often ignored by people. Therefore, this paper focuses on the frequencies of affective strategies use in English learning and their relationships so as to enable college students to use positive affective strategies effectively to improve their autonomous learning ability. The article also focuses on the relationship between motivation and English learning, the influence of motivation on English learning(That is, English learning motive may be simply viewed as the reason of learning English; different motives will lead to different learning methods ; generally speaking, surface motive does not endure longer than deep motive.;strong motivation can lead to final success) and six strategies of improving English learning(That is, developing proper attitudes towards English learning and letting students know the pressure of it; goal and feedback; praise and criticism ;contest and cooperation; expectation and appraisement; achievement motive).


177Lu-labeled ethylenediaminetetramethylene phosphonic acid (177Lu-EDTMP) is an agent that concentrates in areas of enhanced osteoblastic activity. The potential of 177Lu-EDTMP for palliation of metastatic bone pain has been documented in the recent literature. The objective of the present work was to study the efficacy and safety of the agent after administration to a limited number of patients. Methods: Ten patients (median age, 68.5 y) with disseminated skeletal metastases received a single bolus infusion of 177Lu-EDTMP (3.7 GBq). All patients had painful bone metastases in more than one anatomic region that were not relieved by narcotic analgesics. The efficacy of the agent was studied by following pain scores assessed at baseline and at 4, 8, and 12 wk after therapy, by using Karnofsky indices and mobility scores, and by determining the requirement for analgesics at baseline and 4 wk after therapy. The toxicity of the agent was assessed by analyzing complete blood counts. Results: A significant reduction in the mean pain score was noted in all patients. The initial mean pain score of 8.44 dropped to 5.73 within 1 mo of treatment. Six patients who required analgesics for pain management had either reduced or completely withdrawn from their use by 4 wk. Compared with initial scans, scans obtained 1 mo after therapy also showed a decreased uptake of the radiotracer. The mobility scores of all patients were higher at 4 wk. The mean Karnofsky performance score of all patients was initially 45 and increased markedly to 69 at 4 wk. None of the patients experienced blood-related toxicity. Conclusion: 177Lu-EDTMP, with only low bone marrow toxicity, provided significant pain relief to patients and considerably increased their mobility, resulting in an overall improvement in the quality of life. The results of the preliminary clinical studies indicate that 177Lu-EDTMP can be considered an effective and safe therapeutic radiopharmaceutical for pain palliation of patients with disseminated skeletal disease.


We combine results from several different experiments to investigate the photophysics of acridine (Ac) and its hydrated clusters in the gas phase. Our findings are also compared with results from condensed phase studies. Similar to measurements of Ac dissolved in hydrocarbons, the lifetime of the first electronically excited state of isolated Ac in vacuum is too short for typical resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) and laser induced fluorescence (LIF) experiments, hence no signal from REMPI and LIF can be attributed to monomeric Ac. Instead, sensitized phosphorescence emission spectroscopy is more successful in revealing the electronic states of Ac. Upon clustering with water, on the other hand, the lifetimes of the excited states are substantially increased to the nanosecond scale, and with two water molecules attached to Ac, the lifetime of the hydrated cluster is essentially the same as that of Ac in aqueous solutions. Detailed REMPI and ultraviolet-ultraviolet hole-burning experiments are then performed to reveal the structural information of the hydrated clusters. Although the formation of hydrogen bonds results in energy level reversal and energy separation between the first two excited states of Ac, its effect on the internal geometry of Ac is minimal, and all clusters with 1-3 water molecules demonstrate consistent intramolecular vibrational modes. Theoretical calculations reveal just one stable structure for each cluster under supersonic molecular beam conditions. Furthermore, different from mono- and di-water clusters, tri-water clusters consist of a linear chain of three water molecules attached to Ac. Consequently, the fragmentation pattern in the REMPI spectrum of tri-water clusters seems to be dominated by water trimer elimination, since the REMPI spectrum of Ac+·W3 is largely reproduced in the Ac+ mass channel, but not in the Ac+·W1 or Ac+·W2 channel.


SETTING
Thirty townships of Myanmar.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the proportions of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in new and previously treated pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) cases in Myanmar.

DESIGN
A cross-sectional study. Drug susceptibility was tested by the proportion method at the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, Yangon.

RESULTS
Of 874 TB patients included from 30 sites, 849 isolates obtained from individual patients (733 from new cases and 116 from previously treated cases) were tested for susceptibility to four primary anti-tuberculosis drugs. Of 733 isolates tested from new TB patients, 10% were resistant to any one of the anti-tuberculosis drugs, 6.5% to isoniazid (INH), 4.6% to rifampicin (RMP) and 4.0% were multidrug-resistant (MDR). Of the 116 previously treated patients, 30.2% were resistant to any one of the drugs, 26.7% to INH, 15.5% to RMP and 15.5% were MDR. Previous anti-tuberculosis treatment of more than 1 month was strongly associated with the development of MDR-TB (adjusted OR 4.8, 95% CI 2.5-9.1).

CONCLUSION
The first national drug resistance survey in Myanmar revealed 4% and 15.5% MDR-TB among new and retreatment cases, respectively. Previous antituberculosis treatment was an important risk factor for MDR-TB. Continuous monitoring of drug resistance trends is needed


OBJECTIVE
This study evaluated the housing preferences of a representative sample of consumers with serious mental illness living in seven types of housing in Montreal, Quebec, and compared these with their case managers' housing preferences for them.

METHODS
An inventory of all housing for this population was developed in consultation with administrators of three psychiatric hospitals and the regional health board. The inventory included seven categories: housing in a hospital setting, hostels, group homes, foster homes, supervised apartments, social housing (low-income housing or cooperative), and private rooming homes. A stratified random sample of 48 consumers was selected in each category. In all, 315 consumers and their case managers completed the Consumer Housing Preference Survey.

RESULTS
Most consumers preferred living in housing that offered them more autonomy than the housing in which they were currently living. Case managers preferred housing that offered some structure, such as supervised apartments. Forty-four percent of consumers preferred to live in their own apartment. More than a third of consumers preferred to live in their current housing.

CONCLUSIONS
When evaluating housing preferences, it is important to elicit the viewpoints of mental health consumers as well as their case managers. Special attention should be given to the type of housing where consumers currently live. A variety of housing, not just autonomous housing, is needed to meet the specific housing preferences of individuals with serious mental illness.


The awareness about UAM is amplified by steadily growing numbers of air taxi concepts being announced. In general environmentally friendly by electric propulsion, community noise and en-route noise are still prominent open questions. Several studies for larger UAM aircraft, describing
 the acoustic characteristics of a variety of potential air taxi concepts, have been performed by the author. Due to the abovementioned multitude of different vehicle concepts and their multiple operational conditions, each of them shows individual sound characteristics. Therefore, further
 investigations of noise created by air taxi fleets appear to be crucial. Understanding of community noise around vertiports and along air taxi routes will strongly depend on those fleets. In this paper, acoustically different air taxi systems are composing different sets of air taxi fleets,
 used for air traffic noise simulations. The simulations start with baseline scenarios of equally represented taxi systems on fixed flight paths with several flight levels in a certain air lane. The final fleets are consisting of random air taxi composition with randomly populated flight paths.
 The results, based on common noise metrics and changes in the number of affected residents, could provide a first indication how to reduce community noise by future UAM traffic management.


Using the U.S. National Trails System (NTS), we examined the adoption and implementation of geospatial technologies for natural resource management (NRM). Technology adoption is the decision to use geographic information systems (GIS), whereby implementation represents the delivery of that technical system. We used soft technology, or the human characteristics of user skill and experience, to understand the capacity for delivery of the technical system across the network. The inter-organizational structure of geographically dispersed network members, characteristic of the NTS, provided opportunity to evaluate and compare GIS use and users for NRM. We inventoried GIS adoption and implementation for 23 trail network groups to produce a geospatial technology profile (GTP) of the NTS. Based on the GTP, we developed a framework to calculate an implementation capacity index (ICI) for each network, and then compared network capacity to the level of user engagement (application intricacy) deployed. Results show that higher implementation capacity is not indicative of higher levels of user engagement. Outcomes demonstrate the value of geocollaborative tool evaluations, highlighting the benefits of an assessment framework based on type and use of GIS platform. As an advantage in the process of evaluation, our proposed framework assists networks with implementation strategies, balancing user abilities and mapping capabilities. Additionally, the proposed framework provides a foundation to refine GIS implementation assessment for NRM networks. Understanding the range of GIS technologies and applications used by multiple, geographically dispersed networks can further inform development and deployment strategies that mitigate barriers to successful GIS implementation in inter-organizational scenarios.


Recent studies have demonstrated that the activation of protein kinase Akt attenuates myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. However, it remains unknown whether adrenomedullin (AM), which is also a potent Akt activator, has cardioprotective effects after ischemia/reperfusion. In the present study, Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to a 30-min period of ischemia induced by ligation of the left coronary artery followed by 24-h reperfusion. They were randomized to receive intravenous administration of AM (0.05 microg/kg/min) or saline for 60 min after coronary ligation. We examined the hemodynamics and myocardial apoptosis 24 h after ischemia/reperfusion. Echocardiographic measurements were performed 4 weeks after ischemia/reperfusion. Myocardial infarct size was also measured histologically. AM significantly reduced left ventricular (LV) end-diastolic pressure (17 +/- 2 to 8 +/- 2 mmHg, p < 0.05) and the number of apoptotic nuclei in myocytes (387 +/- 39 to 147 +/- 72 per field, p < 0.05). AM significantly increased LV dP/dt(max) (4,803 +/- 228 to 5,672 +/- 199 mmHg/s, p < 0.05). AM significantly increased LV fractional shortening (23 +/- 2 vs. 28 +/- 2%, p < 0.05), and significantly reduced LV diastolic dimension (7.4 +/- 0.1 to 6.9 +/- 0.1 mm, p < 0.05) and myocardial infarct size (33 +/- 2 to 20 +/- 2%, p < 0.01) 4 weeks after ischemia/reperfusion. In conclusion, AM infusion during ischemia/reperfusion attenuated the development of LV remodeling and myocardial fibrosis in rats. Based on these results, the cardioprotective effects of AM may be attributed at least partly to its anti-apoptotic effect.


BACKGROUND
It is hypothesized that peri-implant soft tissue inflammation and crestal bone loss (CBL) are higher around adjacent implants placed in cigarette smokers compared with never smokers. The aim of the present 5-years follow-up retrospective clinical study was to compare the peri-implant soft tissue status and CBL around adjacent implants placed in cigarette smokers and never smokers.

METHODS
Cigarette smokers (group 1) and never smokers (group 2) with adjacent dental implants were included. Demographic information regarding age, sex, duration of smoking (pack-years), daily frequency of toothbrushing and most recent visit to a dentist or dental hygienist were recorded using a questionnaire. Information regarding implant dimensions (length × diameter), duration of implants in function, loading protocol (and type of restoration was recorded. Peri-implant plaque index (PI), bleeding on probing (BOP), probing depth (PD), and mesial and distal CBL were measured. P <0.05 were considered statistically significant.

RESULTS
Seventy-two male participants (37 in group 1 and 35 in group 2) were included. The mean age of individuals in groups 1 and 2 were 50.3 ± 5.4 and 48.5 ± 3.8 years, respectively. In group 1, the mean duration of cigarette smoking was 22.3 ± 1.6 pack years. A family history of smoking was more often reported by individuals in group 1 compared with group 2. In groups 1 and 2, 54 and 70 adjacent implants, respectively were placed in the regions of missing premolars and molars. All implants were delayed loaded and were fixed with non-splinted screw-retained restorations. In groups 1 and 2, toothbrushing twice daily was reported by 78.3% and 74.2% individuals, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in peri-implant PI, BOP, PD, and mesial and distal CBL among individuals in groups 1 and 2.

CONCLUSION
Peri-implant soft tissue status and crestal bone levels were comparable around adjacent dental implants placed in cigarette smokers and never smokers.


Artemether, a methyl ether derivative of dihydroartemisinin, not only exhibits antimalarial properties, but also possesses strong activity against schistosomula, the immature stages of a parasitic worm that can cause schistosomiasis. To test if the effect would be similar to that of irradiation with respect to the induction of immunologic protective responses, groups of mice were infected with Schistosoma mansoni cercariae and treated with artemether at 1-3 weeks post-infection. Control mice were either infected with normal cercariae or with cercariae exposed to radiation that permitted early development but not maturation of the parasites. The mice were challenged six weeks after the initial infection, and the mean numbers of schistosomes recovered in the various groups were calculated upon dissection eight weeks post-challenge. The administration of artemether two weeks after the initial infection resulted in 58% protection, while giving the drug three weeks post-infection increased the level of protection to 81%. This level of protection is as high as that normally obtained by immunization with irradiated cercariae (84% in the present study) and is superior to the level of resistance obtained with any individual schistosome vaccine candidate antigen thus far reported.


This study investigated the effects of graphene loading and polymer processing technique (Non-foam injection molding, microcellular injection, injection-compression molding, and foam injection molding) on the properties of ABS/graphene nanocomposites. Graphene has attracted many attentions due to its remarkable electronic, thermal and mechanical properties. These unique properties make it promising for preparing multifunctional nanocomposites. The graphene was compounded with ABS by twin-screw extruder into the master batch of 7 wt.%. Then it was diluted into 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 wt.%. The results showed that if the graphene loading was 2 wt.%, it has better mechanical properties than other loadings. Microcellular injection molding had better strength than that of non-foam molding. Degradation temperature increased with the increasing graphene loading and glass transition temperature increased with the addition of graphene on thermal properties. LOI increased if graphene loading increased. The viscosity decreased with the addition of graphene on low shear rate. They have almost the same viscosities on the high shear rate. Conductivity by non-foam injection molding has better value than that of injection-compression molding and foam injection-compression molding has the best EMI SE value on electrical properties.


This book is an attempt to capture the principles of human or animal cell culture and issues from Islamic perspective. there are many achievements which were made possible through the development and advancement of science and technology in the area of cell and tissue culture. Nowadays, the technologies available to mankind are far more sophisticated and advanced. Most assuredly, these technologies have, and will make, a great impact on the life of mankind and their wellbeing. Consequently, for Muslims, the concern lies not on the advancement, but on whether the laws and regulations of Islam are wisely and properly inculcated into these progressions of science and technology so that they are parallel to the will and wishes of Allah swt. Considering the breadth of topics covered, the book will be essential reading for the novice and expert alike in various fields and will serve as a valuable reference resource for students and researchers. It provides, from experts in the field, the basis and application of animal cell culture technology, including the use of the cells in recent research as well as Islamic perspective. In essence, this book discusses various dimensions of cell culture in relation to research. This is perhaps the first book of its kind which links one of the purposes of Islamic perspective to research and technology of cell culture.


To explore the consequences of mantle heterogeneity for primary melt production, we develop a mathematical model of energy conservation for an upwelling, melting body of recycled oceanic crust embedded in the depleted upper mantle. We consider the end‐member geometric cases of spherical blobs and tabular veins. The model predicts that thermal diffusion into the heterogeneity can cause a factor‐of‐two increase in the degree of melting for bodies with minimum dimension smaller than ∼1 km, yielding melt fractions between 50 and 80%. The role of diffusion is quantified by an appropriately defined Peclet number, which represents the balance of diffusion‐driven and adiabatic melting. At intermediate Peclet number, we show that melting a heterogeneity can cool the ambient mantle by up to ∼20 K (spherical) or ∼60 K (tabular) within a distance of two times the characteristic size of the body. At small Peclet number, where heterogeneities are expected to be in thermal equilibrium with the ambient mantle, we calculate the energetic effect of pyroxenite melting on the surrounding peridotite; we find that each 5% of recycled oceanic crust diminishes the peridotite degree of melting by 1–2%. Injection of the magma from highly molten bodies of recycled oceanic crust into a melting region of depleted upper mantle may nucleate reactive‐dissolution channels that remain chemically isolated from the surrounding peridotite.


The Lagrangian frame-like formulation of free higher spin symmetric bosonic AdSd fields is given within a manifestly sp(2) invariant framework. It is designed to deal with infinite multiplets of fields appearing as gauge connections of the higher spin algebras.


The parent‒child relationship is a crucial factor in promoting adolescent mental health. However, the current evidence on the relationship between parent‒child relationships and adolescent conscientiousness and neuroticism, as well as the directionality of these relationships, remains limited. In particular, there is a lack of analysis focusing on Chinese middle school students. Based on a sample of 8437 students from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) database, this study empirically examined the bidirectional relationships between parent‒child relationships, conscientiousness and neuroticism among Chinese middle school students, with specific emphasis on the significant role of parent‒child relationships in the development of conscientiousness and neuroticism. Descriptive statistical results indicated that during the seventh and eighth grades of Chinese middle school students, the closeness of their parent‒child relationships with both parents decreased, while the level of conscientiousness showed a slight decrease, and neuroticism showed an increasing trend. Correlational results demonstrated a significant positive correlation between parent‒child relationships and conscientiousness and a significant negative correlation between parent‒child relationships and neuroticism. Further analysis using cross-lagged models revealed that parent‒child relationships significantly positively predicted subsequent conscientiousness development, and conscientiousness significantly positively predicted subsequent parent‒child relationships. Parent‒child relationships significantly negatively predicted subsequent neuroticism development, and neuroticism levels also significantly negatively predicted subsequent parent‒child relationships. Based on these findings, we believe that there is a need to strengthen parent‒child relationships and to recognize the important role that both mothers and fathers play in the healthy development of their children. Both parents should actively contribute to their children's upbringing and take responsibility for their family education.


We present a family of neural-network--inspired models for computing continuous word representations, specifically designed to exploit both monolingual and multilingual text. This framework allows us to perform unsupervised training of embeddings that exhibit higher accuracy on syntactic and semantic compositionality, as well as multilingual semantic similarity, compared to previous models trained in an unsupervised fashion. We also show that such multilingual embeddings, optimized for semantic similarity, can improve the performance of statistical machine translation with respect to how it handles words not present in the parallel data.


Estrogen receptors (ER) are thought to play a crucial role in development, reproduction, carcinogenesis and normal physiology. Using gene targeting techniques, we have produced lines of transgenic mice homozygous for the disrupted ERα gene (αERKO) and ERβ genes (βERKO). Comparable levels of ER‐β mRNA were found in tissues of αERKO mice suggesting that ER‐β expression is not dependent on ERα. αERKO mice were totally unresponsive to uterotropic assays with estradiol, Genistein, hydroxy TAM, DES or EGF treatment. Progesterone receptor (PR) mRNA was detected in αERKO mice, but not stimulated by estrogen in the uterus, mammary gland and ovary. Pituitary hormones are elevated in αERKO females but same as WT in βERKO mice indicating that ERα plays a major role in peptide hormone regulation. Genistien was equally effective in αERKO as WT mice in suppressing serum LH levels suggesting its action in this estrogen target response involved a non‐ER mediated mechanism compared to the uterine genistein activity. Analysis of the mammary glands of adult αERKO mice, showed a primitive ductal rudiment while the βERKO had the fully developed ductal tree seen in WT siblings. The influence of ERα activity on mammary tumorgenicity was evaluated by crossing αERKO with an oncogenic WNT‐1 transgenic mouse line having an increased incidence of mammary tumors. Mice with WT ER levels and WNT‐1 transgene show 98% tumor incidence at 27 weeks of age. αERKO/WNT‐1 mice showed a delayed onset (54 weeks). These results indicate that mammary tumors can develop from ER negative tissues, but with a delayed onset. A second cross with erB2 (Neu) transgenics shows that WT and hetero Neu mice have a tumor incidence at 54 wks of age. αERKO/Neu have an extremely low incidence past 90 wks. Compared to the WNT/ERKO the ERKO/Neu have a poorer tumor rate suggesting that ERα plays a more prominent role in this oncogenic tumor induction. Since the initial description of DES carcinogenesis in both humans and mice, a major question was what aspect of the DES action was ER mediated or non‐receptor mediated. Perinatal DES treatment to WT mice showed numerous phenotypic toxicological and carcinogenic effects including, persistent vaginal cornification, uterine hyperplasia, oviductal hypertrophy in females. In similarly treated males, DES induced seminal vesicle atrophy and prostatic hyperplasia. αERKO treated males and females showed none of the observed toxic effects indicating that ERα was involved in mediating these DES effects and not ERβ. Further characterization of the mice and comparison of the DES effects in βERKO mice and double ER gene KO mice will be needed to more fully the specific roles of the two different forms of ER in estrogen hormone toxicology and hormonal carcinogenesis.


This paper chronicles the process of football's commodification in Israel. The contours of the football story in Israel were sketched by the dominant society. In 1948, the year the State of Israel was established, football was a political–community project. The local club was controlled by the club's members and by the specific sports federation (there were three state-wide political federations), which was affiliated with a particular political party in Israel. Many of the fans, who were also members of the club, were involved in electing the club's management. This correlation between politics and football was natural at that time because during the first decades of the State, politics was the dominant force in Israeli society. In the late 1980s, when Israel became a capitalist society and the dominant force in society shifted from politics to the economy, football's status changed; clubs of the first and the second leagues were privatized, players were purchased and sold by their exchange value, and many fans turned into customers. Israeli football eventually became commodified.


Depth map estimation and 3-D reconstruction from a single or a few face images is an important research field in computer vision. Many approaches have been proposed and developed over the last decade. However, issues like robustness are still to be resolved through additional research. With the advent of the GPU computational methods, convolutional neural networks are being applied to many computer vision problems. Later, conditional generative adversarial networks (CGAN) have attracted attention for its easy adaptation for many picture-to-picture problems. CGANs have been applied for a wide variety of tasks, such as background masking, segmentation, medical image processing, and superresolution. In this work, we developed a GAN-based method for depth map estimation from any given single face image. Many variants of GANs have been tested for the depth estimation task for this work. We conclude that conditional Wasserstein GAN structure offers the most robust approach. We have also compared the method with other two state-of-the-art methods based on deep learning and traditional approaches and experimentally shown that the proposed method offers great opportunities for estimation of face depth maps from face images.


The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the current state of Industry 4.0 (IR 4.0) with regard to construction in Australia and to identify the key factors that are driving and hindering its adoption. A literature review and desktop review were conducted to extract mainstream topics, followed by a two-folded workshop designed with a multidisciplinary team of academics, as well as representatives of mainstream firms and peak bodies from the construction value chain. Our study has highlighted the importance of considering both technological and human-related factors in the adoption of IR 4.0 to address barriers that have been traditionally overlooked, and work towards a more successful and holistic implementation of this transformative paradigm. By considering the social aspects of construction, prioritizing data-driven approaches with a focus on privacy and ethics, and emphasizing integration, these facilitators contribute to the effective implementation and success of IR 4.0 in the construction industry. The findings of this study have significant implications for the construction industry in Australia. Addressing the barriers to digital construction adoption and embracing IR 4.0 technologies can help the industry to improve productivity, reduce costs, and enhance sustainability. Additionally, investing in education and training can help to build the necessary skills and capabilities needed to drive the industry forward in the digital age.


The chapter brings out a brief note on the tourist attractions, hotels and lodges, NGOs/travel agencies operating in that region, railway/bus stations, land use profile, etc. in the Sundarban area of West Bengal in conjunction with exploring the potential of ecotourism using GIS and some secondary source data. Moving onto the analysis part, by making use of geo-spatial data, the attributes of ecotourism potential in the Sundarbans has been explored. The author makes use of the Euclidean distance mechanism and principal component analysis to rank the ecotourism sites in Sunderbans (i.e., based on the construction of ecotourism potential index [EPI]). The novelty of the chapter lies in comparing the ranks obtained by constructing the EPI following the principal component analysis and the Euclidean distance function. It needs to be mentioned here that these tourist spots have been selected based on the information collected on the inflow of both domestic and foreign tourists to these spots. The chapter concludes by discussing the future scope of research in this regard.


Probiotics are live micro-organisms that when given in adequate amounts can cause health benefits. The safety and efficacy of probiotics in the prevention and treatment of various clinical conditions have been evaluated in randomised controlled clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Generally, their safety has been documented. As a supplement to standard rehydration therapy, probiotics have been demonstrated to shorten the duration of diarrhoea resulting from acute viral gastroenteritis and in preventing antibiotic-associated diarrhoea in healthy children. Preliminary evidence suggests that probiotics might prevent necrotising enterocolitis in very-low-birth-weight infants, but further studies are needed before definite conclusions can be drawn. Probiotics have also been assessed in the treatment and prevention of allergic disease but the results, although promising, need further confirmation. Targeting a paediatric population, probiotics have been evaluated in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Helicobacter pylori gastritis and infantile colic, but at this stage, there is no evidence to support their routine use for these indications. There is a great need for studies aiming at disentangling the mechanisms by which probiotics mediate their clinical effects and for comparative studies between various probiotic bacteria. We still need to know which probiotic(s) to use and for which indications. A clearer message on dosages, optimal timing and duration of administration is needed. For this purpose, more carefully designed and sufficiently powered, randomised controlled trials with predefined outcomes are needed.


BACKGROUNDS AND OBJECTIVES
alport syndrome (AS) is a progressive hereditary condition that is characterized by haematuria, proteinuria, progressive renal impairment, and end stage kidney disease (ESRD). Approximately 85% of AS patients have X-linked mutations in the COL4A5 gene that encodes type IV collagen. The aim of our study was to identify the gene responsible for glomerulopathy in a 3-generation Chinese pedigree with familial haematuria.

METHODS
We examined five members of a Chinese family clinically suspected of X-linked AS caused by COL4A5 gene mutations. All 51 exons of the COL4A5 gene were screened by direct DNA sequencing.

RESULTS
We identified the novel deletion mutation c. 3990_4016delCCC…TCC in COL4A5 in three affected individuals with haematuria, but the mutation was absent in the other 2 healthy family members and 100 unrelated healthy controls.

CONCLUSIONS
Our result demonstrates that the mutation is pathogenic and novel and has meaningful implications for the diagnosis and genetic counselling of cases with AS. The results in the study broaden the genotypic spectrum of known mutations for AS.


The aim of this study was to produce hMG from the urine of post-menopausal women on the onset of in vitro bovine embryonic cleavage. The study identified hMG from the urine of post-menopaus al women by confirmation of the glycoprotein characteristic. Urine samples were collected from 30 post-menopausal women. The results of SDS-PAGE demonstrated that the protein bands ranged between 19.4 and 107 kDa. The protein filtrated by sephadex G- 50 and continued Western blot revealed immune-reactivity of the 30 kDa band. 25 fresian holstain with ovary hypofunction cows after 30 days feeding treatment devided become P0 (control groups) and treatment groups (P1, P2, P3) The time of oestrous after a treatment combinated hMG (200, 300, and 500 IU.im) and PGF2α (25 mg.im) on day 9 with PGF2α twice interval 11 days is 72,10 + 1,71 hours not deferences between control (PMSG 500 IU.im) and treatment groups (p > 0,05). Total dominant folicles control and treatment (p > 0,05) are 1,00 + 0,00 right ovary and 0,45 + 0,51 on left ovary used ultrasonography (USG).