Mass mortality that is acompanied by reddish browning of the soft tissues has been occurring in cultured pearl oyster, Pinctada fucata martensii. The disease is called Akoya oyster disease (AOD). Although spreading pattern of the disease and transmission experiments suggest that the disease is infectious, the causative agent has not yet been identified. We used shotgun and 16S rRNA-based metagenomic analysis to identify genes that are present specifically in affected oysters. The genes found only in diseased oysters were mostly bacterial origin, suggesting that the causative agent was a bacterial pathogen. This hypothesis was supported by the inhibition of AOD development in naïve oysters injected with the hemolymph of diseased animals followed immediately with penicillin bath-administration. Further analyses of the hemolymph and mantle specifically and universally detected genes of bacteria that belong to phylum Spirochaetes in diseased pearl oysters but not in healthy oysters. By in situ hybridization or immunostaining, a Brachyspira-like bacterium was observed in the smears of hemolymph from affected oysters, but not from healthy oysters. Phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA sequences showed that the presumptive causative bacterium was outside of but most closely related to family Brachyspiraceae. We propose 'Candidatus Maribrachyspira akoyae' gen. nov, sp nov., for this bacterium.


The study is a cross-sectional developmental investigation of morphological and phonological awareness in word spelling and reading in Arabic in reading-accuracy disabled (RD) children and in age-matched typically developing (TR) controls in grades 1-4 (N = 160). Morphological awareness tasks targeted the root and word pattern derivational system of Arabic, in both the oral and the written modalities. Phonological awareness employed a variety of orally administered segmentation and deletion tasks. The results demonstrated early deficits in morphological awareness, besides deficits in phonological awareness, in RD children as compared with typically developing controls, as well as in word and pseudoword spelling and reading (voweled and unvoweled). While phonological awareness emerged as the strongest predictor of reading, morphological awareness was also found to predict unique variance in reading, and even more so in spelling, beyond phonological awareness and cognitive skills. The results demonstrate the early emergence of morphological awareness deficits, alongside phonological deficits in Arabic RD, as well as the role of morphological processing in early reading and spelling. These findings reflect the centrality of derivational morphology in the structure of the spoken and the written Arabic word. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Chronic hepatitis C is often associated with oxidative stress. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) utilizes an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) element for translation, in contrast to cap-dependent translation of the majority of cellular proteins. To understand how virus translation is modulated under oxidative stress, HCV IRES-mediated translation was compared with cap-dependent translation using a bicistronic reporter construct and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as a stress inducer. In H2O2-sensitive HeLa cells, H2O2 repressed translation in a time- and dose-dependent manner, concomitant with the kinetics of eIF2alpha phosphorylation. A phosphomimetic of eIF2alpha, which mimics the structure of the phosphorylated eIF2alpha, was sufficient to repress translation in the absence of H2O2. In H2O2-resistant HepG2 cells, H2O2 activated both HCV IRES-mediated and cap-dependent translation, associated with an increased level of phospho-eIF2alpha. It was postulated that H2O2 might stimulate translation in HepG2 cells via an eIF2alpha-independent mechanism, whereas the simultaneous phosphorylation of eIF2alpha repressed part of the translational activities. Indeed, the translational repression was released in the presence of a non-phosphorylatable mutant, eIF2alpha-SA, resulting in further enhancement of both translational activities after exposure to H2O2. In HuH7 cells, which exhibited an intermediate level of sensitivity towards H2O2, both HCV IRES-mediated and cap-dependent translational activities were upregulated after treatment with various doses of H2O2, but the highest level of induction was achieved with a low level of H2O2, which may represent the physiological level of H2O2. At this level, the HCV IRES-mediated translation was preferentially upregulated compared with cap-dependent translation.


Although para-teachers make up a substantial portion of the world's educational work force, little empirical research has been conducted on their professional development. During the iterative process of analysis, design, evaluation, and revision, design research was conducted to gain insight into desirable characteristics of a professional development program for Indian para-teachers in urban slums. The design study flanking evolution of the para-teacher professional development program helped (re)shape each cycle of implementation, and to track lasting effects on organizational climate, teacher agency and pupil learning. Because long-term, high-quality design studies in the field of education are rare, this paper focuses on the research approach and its affordances for contributing to theory-development while also capturing and speaking to the needs of practitioners.


By using the Michel's method specific cholinesterase was found in the leucocytes of man, dog and rabbit. The largest quantities were found in the leucocytes of rabbit, followed by that of man and lastly by that found in the dog. The pus cells do not contain cholinesterase.


The rubber side could be contaminated using the existing pulse echo method because the ultrasonic wave was incident on the rubber side from the interior of the steel motor case, which could lead to the critical disbond defect. To develop the test method which can be replaced the existing method, the ultrasonic wave was incident on steel face of the steel/rubber adhesive test block. Rubber resonance frequencies measured from the steel/rubber adhesive test block were in good agreement with theoretically predicted rubber resonance frequencies. This paper was described about the ultrasonic resonance method to convert the rubber resonance frequency into the rubber thickness.


Western influence on the Muslim world has been dominant since the beginning of the Nineteenth Century and it has colored human civilization and culture at the global level. In light of this phenomenon, it makes sense to ask the question; how did Muslims respond effectively, on an intellectual level, to the influence posed by the West. There have been various responses over the past century with different approaches. The two extremist groups could be characterized as those who advocated rejection of all the values of Western culture and civilization; and those who assimilated them blindly. Both are inadequate positions and are not able to present a real solution for the conflict between Islam and the West. Therefore, the response should be analyzed from the perspective of a third group which sought to bridge the gap between two civilizations, Islam and the West, and tried to develop a constructive relationship between the two. This paper tries to highlight the reconciliation approach of the third group to certain issues, namely, on the integration of religion and science and integration system of education.


The innovative management today is to promote and support organizational strategic goals through the rational use of material, labor and financial resources. The main goal of innovative management in libraries is to build the management system which enables focused search of options, development and implementation of novelties to increase the library's competitiveness and sustainability and, in its turn, the sustainability of the environment. The specific features of innovations in the library and information sphere are as follows: comparatively rare radical while frequent modernizing innovations; consistency and systemacity (change in any element inevitably changes the library system overall); irreversibility. To assess the value of library innovations, the author suggests to apply the following criteria (characteristics) correlated with the world experience: innovative relevance, financial effectiveness, cultural efficiency, social significance, global sustainability. Each criterion has its own weight while the expertise has to be accomplished within the suggested procedure. This methodology enables to assess the library knowledgeably. It was tested thrice by expert teams – participants in the All-Russia Contest of Library Innovations initiated by the Russian State Library in 2013, 2015, and 2019.


Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3) and cAMP are the two second messengers that play an important role in neuronal signaling. Here, we investigated the interactions of InsP3- and cAMP-mediated signaling pathways activated by dopamine in striatal medium spiny neurons (MSN). We found that in ∼40% of the MSN, application of dopamine elicited robust repetitive Ca2+ transients (oscillations). In pharmacological experiments with specific agonists and antagonists, we found that the observed Ca2+ oscillations were triggered by activation of D1 class dopamine receptors (DARs). We further demonstrated that activation of phospholipase C was required for induction of dopamine-induced Ca2+ oscillations and that maintenance of dopamine-evoked Ca2+ oscillations required both Ca2+ influx and Ca2+ mobilization from internal Ca2+ stores. In "priming" experiments with a type 2 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor agonist, we have shown a likely role for calcyon in coupling D1 class DARs with Ca2+ oscillations in MSN. In experiments with the DAR-specific agonist SKF83959, we discovered that phospholipase C activation alone could not account for dopamine-induced Ca2+ oscillations. We further demonstrated that direct activation of protein kinase A by 8-bromo-cAMP or inhibition of protein phosphatase-1 (PP1) or calcineurin (PP2B) resulted in elevation of basal Ca2+ levels in MSN, but not in Ca2+ oscillations. In experiments with competitive peptides, we have shown an importance of type 1 InsP3 receptor association with PP1α and with AKAP9·protein kinase A for dopamine-induced Ca2+ oscillations. In experiments with MSN from DARPP-32 knock-out mice, we demonstrated a regulatory role of DARPP-32 in dopamine-induced Ca2+ oscillations. Our results indicate that, following D1 class DAR activation, InsP3 and cAMP signaling pathways converge on the type 1 InsP3 receptor, resulting in Ca2+ oscillations in MSN.


Background Physicians and nurses are expected to support breastfeeding mothers. However, there is a lack of standardized lactation education throughout training programs and hospitals. As a result, providers lack the necessary confidence and skills to guide mothers throughout the breastfeeding experience. The hands-on nature of breastfeeding management demands the implementation of application-based learning tools to improve skills retention and patient breastfeeding outcomes. Research aim In this scoping review, we aimed to critically assess the types of application-based breastfeeding management learning tools reported within medical and nursing professions and the evaluation methods of learner and patient outcomes. Methods The authors searched the literature to identify peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2018 with medical or nursing students, residents, or professionals as the target learner group in an application-based educational intervention. Both authors independently assessed the content in the resulting articles, with specific focus on teaching methods, curricular development, and the learning outcomes reported within each study. Results Ten articles matched the inclusion criteria and were included in the final review, including five studies from the medical field and five from the field of nursing. Use of real patients was a common method for application-based skills training, followed by role playing and use of standardized patients. Teaching and evaluation methods varied widely across the studies. Conclusion The results align with existing literature in finding a dearth of high-quality studies assessing breastfeeding education among physicians and nurses. The variability in teaching and evaluation methods indicates a lack of standardization in breastfeeding education between institutions.


This paper presents a method to implement online laboratory sessions for education in Electrical Engineering on subjects related to electrical machines and drives. The assignments for the laboratory sessions consist of: the preparation homework, where students have to study relevant theories; the development of circuit simulations; and the participation on a practical session online. For the latter, the students have to implement remotely various models in a physical setup based on the results of their homework tasks. After taking the assignments, the students should be able to: set up circuit simulations of electrical machines and drives; to implement relevant control of motor drives in a physical setup; and finally, to interpret the differences between the simulation and experiment results. Detailed design of the physical setup, the assignments, the relevant Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities are presented and discussed in this paper. An example and the feedback of applying it in a master level course is presented. The experience gained so far shows that the proposed online laboratory sessions can be used as supplementary educational resource to existing online education platforms.


ABSTRACT Aim: While studies using global positioning systems (GPS) have the potential to refine measures of exposure to the neighbourhood environment in health research, one limitation is that they do not typically identify time spent undertaking journeys in motorised vehicles when contact with the environment is reduced. This paper presents and tests a novel methodology to explore the impact of this concern. Methods: Using a case study of exposure assessment to food environments, an unsupervised computational algorithm is employed in order to infer two travel modes: motorised and non-motorised, on the basis of which trips were extracted. Additional criteria are imposed in order to improve robustness of the algorithm. Results: After removing noise in the GPS data and motorised vehicle journeys, 82.43% of the initial GPS points remained. In addition, after comparing a sub-sample of trips classified visually of motorised, non-motorised and mixed mode trips with the algorithm classifications, it was found that there was an agreement of 88%. The measures of exposure to the food environment calculated before and after algorithm classification were strongly correlated. Conclusion: Identifying non-motorised exposures to the food environment makes little difference to exposure estimates in urban children but might be important for adults or rural populations who spend more time in motorised vehicles.


In this book Annette Pein serves the goals of Liber Verlag's new series on GermanoRussian literary relations with a precise focus. Basing her study on the aesthetic theories of Friedrich Schiller and Vasilii Zhukovskii, with an admixture of the prose theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, Pein compares Schiller's ballads Die Kraniche des Ibykus, Der Taucher, Der Handschuh, and Der Graf von Habsburg with Zhukovskii's translations, entitled in Russian Ivikovy Zhuravli, Kubok, Perchatka and Graf Gabsburgskii. She argues that Schiller, rather than reviving the German folk ballad, actually invents a new form of ballad which incorporates elements of lyrical poetry, drama and epic. He combines the element of performance inherent in dramatic and balladic genres with the portrayal of performance, thereby creating a testing ground for his own aesthetic theories. Schiller thus emerges as the practitioner of an embryonic and didactic form of Rezeptionskritik: he depicts the response of a fictional "audience" to a fictional "poet" within the ballads themselves in an attempt to mold the response of the real reader of the real ballad. Pein tests Schiller's model against Bakhtin's concept of the novelistic impulse by examining author-hero and author-reader relationships. She concludes that Schiller's ballads incorporate novelistic, lyrical and dramatic features in a "boundary hybrid" unrecognized by Bakhtin.


For years, U.S. marine scientists have fretted about the future of their field, watching as federal funding stagnated and the cost of seafloor observatories and other infrastructure steadily eroded the money available for research. But there9s been little agreement on how to respond. That changed last week, as an unprecedented, 2-year effort to set priorities for the beleaguered field unveiled some hard-edged recommendations. The National Science Foundation should immediately cut funding for several major hardware programs in order to divert some $40 million a year back to science, concluded a 20-member panel organized by the National Research Council. The cuts are "the only way to recover funding for core science," concluded the panel. If adopted, however, the reductions could cause painful restrictions in some programs.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

The development of breast cancer is a multistep process and the molecular mechanisms underlying this process are still elusive. Previously, we discovered that 14-3-3ζ overexpression not only contribute to breast cancer progression but also play an important role in breast cancer initiation, including an early stage of breast disease-atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH). However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Recently, 14-3-3ζ has been shown to bind to Histone H3, Methylation Binding Proteins (MBPs) and HDAC family members, suggesting 14-3-3ζ may play a role in epigenetic regulation. As an initial effort to investigate whether 14-3-3ζ has a role in epigenetic regulation and whether epigenetic regulation by 14-3-3ζ plays a role in breast cancer initiation, we established 14-3-3ζ stable overexpressing lines (10A.14-3-3ζ) in non-tumorigenic MCF10A human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) and analyzed molecular alterations by cDNA microarray in the 10A.14-3-3ζ cells versus the 10A.vec control cells in a 3D culture system. Interestingly, we found that c-myc, a well known oncogene which is overexpressed in many types of cancer, was upregulated at the mRNA level in the 10A.14-3-3ζ cells versus the 10A.vec cells. We further confirmed c-Myc upregulation at both mRNA level by RT-PCR and protein level by Western Blotting. Additionally, we performed Reverse Phase Protein Array (RPPA) analysis with a series of validated antibodies, and we found that Dnmt1, the key DNA methyltransferase in mammals, was downregulated in 10A.14-3-3ζ cells compared to 10A.vec cells. We have confirmed Dnmt1 downregulation by western blotting. Since c-myc oncogene are well known to be upregulated by hypomethylation as a consequence of Dnmt1 downregulation, these data suggest that 14-3-3ζ may contribute to breast cancer initiation and progression by upregulation of oncogene c-myc via promoter hypomethylation. We will continue this study to provide a better understanding on how 14-3-3ζ contributes to breast cancer initiation and progression via epigenetic deregulation (demethylation) of c-myc.

This study will bring insight into how 14-3-3ζ overexpression elicits the phenotypic changes during the development of breast carcinomas through global deregulation of transcriptome as well as specific gene expressions. Our studies could provide a better understanding of the role of 14-3-3ζ in breast cancer initiation and progression.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4928.


Understanding the impact of human capital on small business development is crucial to both entrepreneurs and the entities that serve them. The objective of this study, therefore, is to determine the impact of human capital on entrepreneurs who are approaching firm birth, in order to provide entrepreneurs, small business development centers, and universities with the best resources possible. One hundred twenty-eight entrepreneurs in the gestation period have been contacted through workshops held by Purdue University and the Indiana Small Business Development Center. Sixty-five of those entrepreneurs agreed to participate in a two year study with follow-up information gathered at two month intervals, giving a current response rate of approximately 51%. Data has been and continues to be collected through a survey distributed at various small business development workshops. The preliminary survey instrument used in the analysis requests data regarding: personal demographics, community demographics, human capital, financial capital, and social capital. A logistic regression model was formulated using the preliminary results to determine the relative impact of human capital on an entrepreneur's participation in a small business start-up. Results show that human capital factors, such as college education and having attempted a business plan, are statistically significant. This indicates that funds allocated by small business development entities to the development of human capital are important in determining participation in a small business start-up. In addition to the information provided by the logit model, probabilities have been calculated to simulate those characteristics that affect an entrepreneur in participating in business a start-up. With the results from the two month follow-ups, additional information will be gained regarding the effect of human capital on the actual success or failure of the small business. Through panel data gathered as this study progresses, both entrepreneurs and small business development entities should be able to better understand the impact of human capital on participation in a start-up and the outcome of that start-up.


In the first Climate Cheats report in April, the Morgan Foundation revealed the full extent of how New Zealand used fraudulent carbon credits to meet its international obligations to reduce carbon emissions. As a country we have done nothing to reduce our emissions thus far, and have instead relied heavily on cheap, fraudulent credits from Russia and the Ukraine. In total we handed over 97 million Emissions Reductions Units – the vast majority of which were likely fraudulent and did not result in any reduction in emissions. These made up some 25% of the units we handed over in the first Kyoto period. The results of engaging in this scam were that some $200m went into the pockets of foreign criminals, the price of carbon went to virtually zero, our emissions increased, and polluters profited. Finally, the use of these fraudulent units to meet past obligations has allowed the Government to build up a stockpile of units which it is using to meet our future emissions targets, potentially past 2020. The Government's response to our report was to say that it was not responsible for purchasing the credits, because these were bought by businesses in the course of the operation of the Emissions Trading Scheme. In this follow up report we identify those businesses that traded most heavily in the cheap, fraudulent foreign credits. If the Government continues to duck responsibility, the risk for these businesses is that the mud sticks to them instead. The data isn't perfect, but it gives some interesting results: NZ Steel made big profits from buying fraudulent foreign units and selling or banking the (more valuable) free units they got from Government; essentially profiting from polluting. The power and petrol companies, led by BP but including Z, Caltex and Genesis, were the biggest users of fraudulent units. They claim they did this to provide the best deal for their customers, but interestingly Mobil didn't purchase any of these units and somehow remained competitive. Some forestry companies also bought the units. Some of these may have been engaging in a rort similar to NZ Steel, but it is hard to tell which companies did this. We want these businesses to join our call for the Government to 'dump the junk'. At the very least Government should not carry forward any surplus units past 2020; the only reason we have these surplus units is because we traded in fraudulent foreign units in the past. Without the Government stepping in to right the wrong, any company wishing to clear themselves of being implicit in greenwashing faces a potentially large liability.


The arrival and spread of chestnut blight, caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica (Murrill) Barr, in Caucasian Azerbaijan has compromised the livelihoods of chestnut farmers and is causing rapid genetic erosion in the center of diversity for the European chestnut, Castanea sativa Mill. In Azerbaijan, blight was first reported in 2008 and is currently present in all chestnut-growing regions. Fortunately, there is a demonstrated biological control technique which may be applied in the context of Europe and Eurasia. This presents an opportunity to simultaneously achieve environmental and genetic resource conservation goals while reinforcing the livelihoods and maintenance of diversity of the nation's chestnut growers. However, national institutions primarily recognize the economic and genetic importance of certain elite crops, particularly those which were prominent production goods during the Soviet period. The present work was undertaken to characterize the socio-economic role of chestnut production and use in the communities where this crop is grown and sold. We investigate the monetary role of chestnut sales in the livelihoods of growers and collectors. It is hypothesized that while continuing to be a minor production good nationally, chestnut sales in a newly entrepreneurial agricultural sector have taken on tremendous livelihood importance to specific communities. The socioeconomic importance of chestnut-based income to Azerbaijan's chestnut-growing communities is illustrated by the results of in-depth household budget interviews from 22 chestnut-growing households in two villages.


In this issue of The Journal Mary-Ann Fitzcharles and colleagues present statistics describing the appeals process for patients with "fibromyalgia" (FM) whose indemnity claim for workers' compensation had been denied by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario, Canada1. No doubt these descriptive statistics will be of interest to and even have use for those involved in this process in Ontario. They may even be relevant to actuaries and policy-makers in other jurisdictions. But are they of interest to anyone else? In particular, are they of interest to rheumatologists who are not involved in the workers' compensation indemnity scheme of Ontario?

I will argue the affirmative; this process is a window on the social construction of illness and on the role of the physician in determination of disability. I have a personal bias in that this fascination has captured a great deal of my scholarly efforts for many decades. A recent monograph bears witness and hopefully can imbue the reader with a similar level of interest2.

Workers' compensation indemnity schemes made landfall in North America almost exactly a century ago. However, unlike the Prussian precedent that swept Europe country by country, this species of social legislation was met with a politic that resulted in distinctive programs in each Canadian province and American state. All these schemes were designed to serve a particular ethic: any worker who is injured in the course of working should not fear for loss of wages while recovering from the injury or after recovery.

The initial notion of "injury" was straightforward, the damage that resulted from a violent event. Injury of this nature still accounts for the vast majority of …

Address correspondence to Dr. N.M. Hadler, UNC 3330 Thurston Building, CB 7280, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7280, USA. E-mail: nmh{at}med.unc.edu


Central and peripheral nervous system involvement may occur during the course of Behçet's disease (BD). In vivo corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) can detect corneal small fiber damage and immune cell density. The aim of this study was to assess central corneal sensitivity, corneal subepithelial nerve plexus morphology and dendritic cell (DC) density in patients with BD. Forty-nine consecutive patients with BD and 30 healthy control subjects were included in this cross-sectional study conducted at a tertiary referral university hospital. Central corneal sensitivity was measured using the contact corneal esthesiometer (Cochet-Bonnet; Luneau, France). The laser scanning CCM (Heidelberg, Germany) was used to quantify corneal nerve fiber density (NFD), nerve branch density (NBD), nerve fiber length (NFL), and DC density. There was a significant reduction in NFD (P = 0.001) and NFL (P = 0.031) and an increase in DC density (P = 0.038) in patients with BD compared to healthy controls, whereas corneal sensitivity (P = 0.066) and NBD (P = 0.067) did not differ significantly. There was no difference in corneal sensitivity, corneal nerve parameters, or DC density between BD patients with [n = 18 (36.7%)] and without a previous history of uveitis (P > 0.05 for all). Disease duration [median (IQR), 6.5 (4.0–14.5) years] correlated with corneal sensitivity (ρ = −0.463; P = 0.001) and NFD (ρ = −0.304; P = 0.034) and corneal sensitivity correlated with NFD (ρ = 0.411; P = 0.003) and NFL (ρ = 0.295; P = 0.039) in patients with BD. CCM demonstrates corneal sub-basal nerve fiber loss and increased DC density, providing a non-invasive ophthalmic means to identify peripheral neuropathy and inflammation in patients with BD.


AbstractAim:To characterize the functional and pharmacological features of agonist-induced hump currents in human α4β2-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR).Methods:Whole-cell and outside-out patch recordings were performed using human α4β2-nAChR heterologously expressed in stably-transfected, native nAChR-null subclonal human epithelial 1 (SH-EP1) cells. RT-PCR was used to test the mRNA expression of transfected nAChR. Homology modeling and ace-tylcholine (ACh) docking were applied to show the possible ACh-binding site in the channel pore.Results:The rapid exposure of 10 mmol/L ACh induced an inward current with a decline from peak to steady-state. However, after the removal of ACh, an additional inward current, called "hump" current, reoccurred. The ability of agonists to produce these hump currents cannot be easily explained based on drug size, charge, acute potency, or actions as full or partial agonists. Hump currents were associated with a rebound increase in whole-cell conductance, and they had voltage dependence-like peak currents induced by agonist action. Hump currents blocked by the α4β2-nAChR antagonist dihydro-β-erythroidine were reduced when α4β2-nAChR were desensitized, and were more pronounced in the absence of external Ca2+. Outside-out single-channel recordings demonstrated that compared to 1 μmol/L nicotine, 100 μmol/L nicotine reduced channel current amplitude, shortened the channel mean open time, and prolonged the channel mean closed time, supporting an agonist-induced open-channel block before hump current production. A docking model also simulated the agonist-binding site in the channel pore.Conclusion:These results support the hypothesis that hump currents reflect a rapid release of agonists from the α4β2-nAChR channel pore and a rapid recovery from desensitized α4β2- nAChR.


The Wireless Sensor Networks(WSN) are defined as a set of nodes with limited constraints of processing, storage and transmission. Nowadays, most WSN proposals require using software agents to bring new capabilities to the network, such as autonomy, control and intelligence. However, a deployment of agents over a WSN imposes higher resources consumption and it is required to evaluate different kinds of strategies, trying that agents do not impact resources cost of a real WSN. On the other hand, current simulators for WSN try to represent behaviors of a WSN for a specific application, besides, most of these simulators try to emulate the entire hardware platform of nodes, which are going to be deployed over a real net, this involves higher processing requirements for being emulated all hardware and resources control. Hence, the goal of this paper is to propose a simulation model based on Multi-Agent paradigm, for deploying software agents over a WSN and evaluating the most suitable strategy, so agents could perform required tasks for the network without impact WSN resources. The proposed model provides required components for hardware management in a WSN, also it presents the components required to make an intelligent network.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effectiveness of a tuberculosis (TB) screening program for high-risk students in elementary and secondary schools.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional study of the 1992-93 school screening program conducted by the Department of Public Health of the City of Toronto. Program costs were calculated with the use of 1993 wages, and costs for medical care were based on the 1993 fee schedule of the Ontario Medical Association.

SETTING
Elementary and secondary schools in the City of Toronto.

PARTICIPANTS
Students enrolled for the first time in any grade who were born in a country where TB is endemic or who were aboriginal Canadians were eligible. Of 44,179 students in Toronto schools 1775 met the eligibility criteria.

INTERVENTION
Students were administered a Mantoux skin test, and those with a significant reaction (an induration of 10 mm or more in diameter) were advised to consult a physician for follow-up.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Participation rate, number of participants with a significant reaction, percentage of these who were prescribed isoniazid and who completed chemoprophylaxis, potential number of preventable cases and costs associated with preventing each case.

RESULTS
Of 1775 eligible students 42.9% (761) agreed to participate, and 40.6% (720) were screened. Significant skin-test reactions were detected in 22.5% (162/720) of the participants screened. Of these, 87.7% (142/162) saw a physician; subsequently, 2 cases of TB (1 active and 1 inactive) were detected. Of the remaining 140 students 44.3% (62) were prescribed isoniazid, of whom 9.7% (6/62) refused chemoprophylaxis. Of the remaining 56 students 82.1% (46) completed at least 6 months of chemoprophylaxis and 10.7% (6) were completing treatment at the end of the study. An estimated 3.2 cases were prevented, at a cost of $13,493.15 per case, whereas the undiscounted cost of treatment for an uncomplicated active case of TB in a patient under 19 years of age was $4503.82.

CONCLUSIONS
The effectiveness of this screening program was significantly reduced by poor participation and poor rates of prescription of isoniazid by physicians. Appropriate strategies are needed to reduce barriers to the implementation of these programs.


The cultural impact of the nuclear bomb still grips our attention. Tim O'Brien's 1985 novel The Atomic Age includes memories of a boyhood "fallout shelter": a card table covered with "lead" pencils. The bomb looms large in Don DeLillo's novel of Cold War America, Underworld (2007), beginning with the juxtaposition of a Soviet nuclear bomb test and Bobby Thompson's "shot heard round the world" in the 1951 Giants-Dodgers playoff game. The website Conelrad.com offers a potpourri of nuclear memorabilia, including a recent interview with the woman who in 1964 portrayed the girl plucking daisy petals in the Democrats' memorable campaign commercial attacking Barry Goldwater. Clearly many Americans remain fascinated by, and still struggle to understand, the culture of the nuclear age. The Dragon's Tail contributes helpfully to the scholarly literature on this topic. (The title echoes Richard Feynman's description of the wartime Los Alamos tests to determine the level of assionable material needed to trigger a nuclear explosion as "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon.") In this slim volume, Robert Jacobs, an associate professor at Hiroshima City University's Peace Institute, offers six chapters (several previously published) exploring nuclear themes in American public discourse and mass culture in the years 1945 to 1963—an era that encompassed the shock of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, early Cold War alarms, and atmospheric nuclear tests with their mushroom clouds and radioactive fallout. As Jacobs observers, popular nuclear awareness during this period had an immediacy that faded once the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty pushed the tests underground. Jacobs ranges across the political/cultural spectrum, from pronouncements by academics, social thinkers, government strategists, and propagandists to the vast trove of mass-culture material. His research is impressive, from obscure pop-culture sources to long-classiaed Pentagon documents. His interpretive framework, laid out in the introduction, is that Americans experienced the nuclear reality through a cacophony of competing narratives and visual imagery—mythic, propagandistic, actional, and chillingly realistic. Chapters 1 and 2, dealing with nuclear testing, address the cultural resonance of the mannequins deployed at the Nevada test site, and of animals, imagined and real: Bert the Turtle, star of Duck and Cover, the government's 1951 civil-defense alm; the phlegmatic horses in an Atomic Energy Commission booklet distributed to citizens


Women trafficking and HIV/AIDS have affected the country adversely and has posed a threat to the development of the nation. Although studies have documented the contribution of commercial sex workers of long truck drivers towards HIV/AIDS, there is dearth of knowledge about the phenomena of women trafficking and HIV/AIDS. This study therefore focused on the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS amongst trafficked girls in the two rehabilitation centres in Edo State. Qualitative techniques, which through, a case study, in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussion were used in eliciting data. Content analysis was used in the presentation of findings. The study revealed that most trafficked victims have very little or no knowledge about HIV/AIDS and its prevention before they are trafficked. Data showed improved knowledge of HIV/AIDS during the process of rehabilitation after they had been trafficked. The study observed that most of the trafficked girls refused to test for their HIV-status because they were involved in high-risk sexual behaviour (unprotected sex) before rehabilitation to avoid stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, if they tested positive. The most known and preferred means of preventing HIV/AIDS amongst trafficked victim is condom use. However data showed that, in actual practice, the use of condom is low especially with regular and close partners. It was also revealed that only one object is shared amongst subjects in the collection of blood, pubic and nails during the oath taking process and this is done to ensure that the girls are bound to their sponsor's instructions in the course of being trafficked in order to avoid repercussions. Following these findings, the study recommends that the effort to combat women trafficking and HIV/AIDS be intensified through poverty alleviation, sensitization against women trafficking and HIV/AIDS, reduction of stigmatization towards HIV/AIDS and empowerment of trafficked girls who have been rehabilitated to reduce recidivism.


The mantle underneath the Hawaiian Islands is one of the test beds for geologists' theories of mantle dynamics. One of the key questions that its study may answer is whether or not the mantle has been layered in the past, and whether it remains layered today. Blichert-Toft et al . (page [879][1]) have studied the hafnium-neodymium isotope distribution of Hawaiian lavas which suggest that these lavas represent recycled deep-sea sediment materials which may have been subducted all the way to the lower mantle. Further evidence from seismology and geochemistry will be required to resolve the question at which depth the Hawaiian plume originates, and therefore whether mantle convection is layered.

 [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/285/5429/879


The New Madrid North and Reelfoot Faults are believed to have ruptured during large-magnitude earthquakes on 23 January and 7 February 1812, respectively, based on the regional distribution of liquefaction, contemporary New Madrid seismic zone microseismicity, and historical accounts of earthquake-related damage. Although the location of the Reelfoot Fault generally is well constrained between the Kentucky Bend of the Mississippi River in Kentucky and the southeastern margin of the Mississippi Valley in Tennessee, the northern extent of the fault remains enigmatic in southeastern Missouri. This is equally true of the New Madrid North Fault, which has a postulated location based primarily on contemporary microseismicity and rupture scenario models of the 1811-1812 earthquake sequence. In this paper, we synthesize existing unpublished and published data with recently acquired subsurface and geomorphic information to clarify the locations of the Reelfoot and New Madrid North Faults in southeastern Missouri.

On the basis of this data synthesis, we interpret that the Reelfoot Fault trends northwest across the Kentucky Bend of the Mississippi River as a northwest-facing scarp coincident with Des Cyprie Slough near New Madrid, Missouri, and anomalous elevated topography on southern Sikeston Ridge northwest of New Madrid. Furthermore, Quaternary faulting and folding imaged from seismic-reflection profiles across Des Cyprie Slough coincide with bedrock structural lineaments, a northeast-trending band of contemporary microseismicity, and a distinct northwest-trending post-Tertiary change in alluvial thickness. We trace the Reelfoot Fault as much as several kilometers northwest of the Mississippi River, where it either dies out or steps north-northeast to merge with the New Madrid North Fault. The New Madrid North Fault appears to be expressed geomorphically as left-stepping, en echelon northeast-trending fractures preserved in Pleistocene glacial outwash material comprising Sikeston Ridge. The fractures coincide with Quaternary faults and folds, as well as deeper Cretaceous and Paleozoic faults and flexures, imaged in geophysical profiles. In summary, the surface locations of the Reelfoot and New Madrid North Faults directly west-northwest of New Madrid, Missouri are constrained by geomorphic, geologic, geophysical, and historical seismological data sets and reflect transfer of strain from the northeast-verging Reelfoot reverse fault to the northeast-striking, dextral New Madrid North Fault.


P53 immunohistochemistry in astrocytic tumors has usually been evaluated by the percentage of positive cells. However, in this study we analyzed the P53 immunopositive cells by their patterns of distribution. Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded sections from 38 patients with astrocytic tumors were examined. The distribution pattern of P53 immunostaining cells was divided into 3 types: negative, locally scattered, and diffuse clustering. There were 2 positive stains in 5 astrocytomas (40%), 12 positive in 24 anaplastic astrocytomas (50%), and 7 positive in 9 glioblastoma multiformes (78%). In astrocytomas, the positive cells were locally scattered. In anaplastic astrocytoma and GBM, the positive cells appeared locally scattered or as diffuse clustering. For the variant immunoreactive expression, the mean ages for patients with negative, locally scattered and diffusely clustered P53 immunostaining were as follows: 51.4, 52.6, and 28.4 years (P < 0.01), respectively. In anaplastic astrocytoma and GBM, the diffusely clustered pattern was more common in younger patients, whereas elderly patients in same groups tended to have few or no P53 immunopositive cells. Thus, our results implicate that clonal expansion of P53 immunopositive cells is associated with brain tumor progression.


Abstract 491 Megakaryocytes and platelets have been shown to produce ADAMTS13 and its only known substrate, von Willebrand factor (VWF). However, the role of platelet expression of ADMTS13 in modulation of thrombus formation is not known. Previous studies have shown that platelet-targeted delivery of clotting factor VIII corrects bleeding phenotype in hemophilia A mice despite of inhibitors. These results suggest that platelet-delivery of ADAMTS13 may also be efficacious for anti-arterial thrombosis and perhaps for treatment of acquired idiopathic thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) with inhibitors. In the present study, transgenic mice (JAX B6SJL/F1 hybrid) carrying a human full-length ADAMTS13 gene under a platelet glycoprotein 1b alpha promoter were generated. The mice were crossed with Adamts13 −/− and TTP-sensitive mice (CAST/Ei) for 4 generations. Plasma and platelet ADAMTS13 protein and proteolytic activity were determined. By Western blotting and the cleavage of a fluorescein-labeled VWF73 substrate, we were able to show that human ADAMTS13 protein (∼195 kDa) and activity were present in the platelet lysate of transgenic (A13-Plt TG ) mice, but not in adamts13 −/− mice or wild-type mice. No proteolytic activity was detected in plasma of the transgenic mice. The platelet ADAMTS13 protein was releasable upon stimulation with various concentrations of thrombin (0.1–0.5 U/ml) and collagen (2.5–10 μg/ml). The released ADAMTS13 and VWF (as a positive control) were primarily associated with platelet membrane, demonstrated by surface biotinylation. However, a small fraction of the released ADAMTS13 and VWF proteins were detected in the releasate after stimulation. Moreover, the A13-Plt TG mice exhibited systemic anti-thrombotic activity, which attenuated the rate of thrombus formation in the mesenteric arterioles induced by a topical application of 10% ferric chloride. The rate of arterial thrombus formation in the transgenic mice was significantly lower than that in Adamts13 −/− mice and wild-type mice in the same genetic background. We conclude that we have generated transgenic mice overexpressing human ADAMTS13 metalloprotease in platelets. The platelet expressed ADAMTS13 is releasable upon stimulation by agonists. The platelet derived ADAMTS13 is biologically functional in cleaving VWF in vitro and in vivo , which attenuate systemic arterial thrombosis after oxidative injury. Our ongoing effort is to determine the efficacy of platelet delivered ADAMTS13 as a potential novel therapeutic for acquired TTP patients with inhibitors. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Iii communications systems, the message signal is sometimes spread over a large bandwidth in order to realize performance gains in the presence of narrowband interference, niultipath propagation, and multiuser interference. The extent to which performance is improved is highly dependent upon the spreading code implemented. Traditionally, the spreading codes have consisted of pseudo-noise (PN) sequences whose chip values are limited to bipolar values. Recently, however, alternatives to the PN sequences have been studied including wavelet based and PR-QMF based spreading codes. The spreading codes implemented are the basis functions of a particular wavelet transform or PR-QMF bank. Since the choice of available basis functions is much larger than that of PN sequences, it is hoped that better performance can be achieved by choosing a basis tailored to the system requirements mentioned above. In this paper, a design method is presented to construct a PR-QMF bank which will generate spreading codes optimized for operating in a multiuser interference environment. Objective functions are developed for the design criteria and a multivariable constrained optimization problem is employed to generate the coefficients used in the filter bank. Once the filter bank is complete, the spreading codes are extracted and implemented in the spread spectrum system. System Bit Error Rate (BER) curves are generated from computer simulation for analysis. Curves are generated for both the single user and the CDMA environment and performance is compared to that attained using Gold Codes.


In recent years, ąuantitative multicriteria methods have been widely used for comparative evaluation of complicated technological and social-economic processes, as well as for determining the best alternative among the available options and ranking the alternatives based on their significance for a particular purpose. Professor of Vilnius Gediminas Tecnnical University E.K. Zavadskas was the first to use these methods in Lithuania in the mid-eignties of the last century for evaluation, substantiation and choosing of optimal technological solutions at various stages of construction (3aeadcxac 1987). In this period, new multicriteria evaluation methods were being developed and widely used in the world in various scientific and practical areas. Later, numerous disciples and colleagues of prof. Zavadskas as well representatives of various scientific schools extensively used the considered methods in Lithuania.The main concept behind the ąuantitative evaluation methods is integration of the values of the criteria describing a particular process and their weights (significances) into a single magnitude, i.e. the criterion of the method. For some particular (maximizing) criteria the largest value is the best, while for others (minimizing criteria) the smallest value is the best. The units of criteria measurement are also different. The alternatives compared are ranked according to the calculated values of the criterion of the method. Great numbers of multicriteria evaluation methods, based on different logical principles and having different complexity levels and the inherent features, have been created in the world. There is hardly any 'best' multicriteria evaluation method. Therefore, a parallel use of several multicriteria evaluation methods as well as the analysis of the spread of estimates and averaging of the values obtained may be recommended for evaluating complicated multifaceted objects and processes.The method SAW (Simple Additive JVeigMing) is one of the simplest, natural and most widely used multicriteria evaluation methods. It clearly demonstrates the idea of integrating the values and weights of criteria into a single estimating value - the criterion of the method. However, SAW uses only maximizing evaluation criteria, while minimizing evaluation criteria should be converted into the maximizing ones by the respective formulas prior to their application. This limitation is eliminated in the method COPRAS (Complex Proportional Assessment). The authors of the method, E. K. Zavadskas and his disciple A.Kaklauskas suggested that the influence of maximizing and minimizing evaluation criteria should be assessed separately. In this case, the component, taking into account the effect of maximizing criteria, matches the estimate yielded by the method SAW.Despite the fact that the method COPRAS is most commonly used in Lithuania, its main characteristics and properties have not been clearly defined and demonstrated. However, the awareness of these properties allows us to show the benefits of the method's application, to predict the influence of minimizing criteria values on the final result (estimate), to check the calculations and to take into account possible instability of estimates yielded by the method due to the specific character of the actual data.The paper describes the main features of multicriteria evaluation methods SAW and COPRAS and their common and diverse characteristics, as well as defining and demonstrating the properties of the method COPRAS, wMch are of great theoretical and practical value.All theoretical statements are illustrated by numerous examples and calculations. http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.22.2.310


Introduction: In recent decades, a considerable number of tumor antigens have been characterized, including the leukemia-associated antigen, Wilm's tumor 1 (WT1). WT1 is found to be expressed at low levels in various normal tissues such as gonads, kidney and the hematopoietic system. However, it is highly overexpressed in various hematological malignancies and solid tumors, including in the majority of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cases. OCV-501 is a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II-restricted helper peptide derived from the WT1 protein. This Phase II trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of OCV-501 in elderly patients with AML (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01961882).
 Methods: This multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan between October, 2013 to November, 2017. The key eligibility criteria for this trial were patients with AML, aged 60 years or older, who achieved first complete remission within one or two courses of standard induction therapy, completed more than one course of standard consolidation therapy, and not scheduled for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Patients were assigned to receive either OCV-501 monotherapy or placebo. Subcutaneous administration of OCV-501 3mg or placebo was given once weekly up to the eighth administration, and once biweekly from the ninth administration onwards up to a duration of 2 years, followed by post-treatment observation period. The primary endpoint was disease-free survival (DFS) that was defined as the time from randomization to AML relapse or death from any cause, whichever came first, within the observation period. Secondary endpoints were overall survival (OS), quality of life (QOL; The European Organization for Research and Treatment of cancer [EORTC] QLQ-C30), and performance status (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status [ECOG PS]). Safety, including any occurrence of adverse events (AEs) was evaluated.
 Results: A total of 133 patients who had achieved first remission after prior induction and consolidation therapies were randomized to receive either OCV-501 (OCV-501 arm, N=68) or placebo (placebo arm, N=65). The median age of the patients was 67 years (range, 60 - 85) and most of them had good performance status (ECOG PS score 0 - 1). The WT1 mRNA level at Day 1 was <50 copies/μg RNA in 37 patients in the OCV-501 arm and 28 patients in the placebo arm. In the evaluation of efficacy, there was no significant difference in DFS between both arms, and the median DFS was 12.1 months and 8.4 months in the OCV-501 arm and placebo arm, respectively. The median OS was 38.5 months and 31 months in the OCV-501 arm and placebo arm, respectively. The results of patient QOL and PS were similar between both arms. Overall, there were no significant safety findings throughout the trial. A majority of the patients in both arms had at least 1 treatment-emergent AE (TEAE); however, most of the TEAEs were mild in severity (Grade 1 or 2). The most frequently reported TEAE was site injection induration.
 Conclusion: There was no significant difference in DFS between OCV-501- and placebo-treated patients. OCV-501 was found to be generally safe and well-tolerated in elderly AML patients.

 Yamaguchi: Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Honoraria; Janssen Pharmaceutical KK: Honoraria; Celgene KK: Honoraria; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Honoraria. Kiguchi:Teijin Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant; Sanofi K.K., Ltd.: Other: Grant; Celltrion, Inc.: Other: Grant; Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant; SymBio Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.: Other: Grant; Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Personal fees; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Personal fees; Astellas Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant; Celgene Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Janssen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Sumitomo Dainippon Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Novartis Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Nippon Shinyaku Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Personal fees; Eisai Co., Ltd.: Other: Personal fees; MSD Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Daiichi Sankyo Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant; Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd: Other: Grant; Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees; Pfizer Co., Ltd.: Other: Personal fees; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: grant and personal fees; Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd.: Other: Grant and personal fees. Miyawaki:Novartis Pharma KK: Consultancy; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Consultancy; Astellas Pharma Inc.: Consultancy. Heike:Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.: Other: Advisor; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Other: Advisor. Mitsuki:Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Employment. Yoshida:Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Employment. Liew:Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Employment. Naoe:Astellas Pharma Inc.: Research Funding; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: Research Funding; Pfizer Japan Inc.: Research Funding; Nippon Shinyaku Co., Ltd.: Research Funding; Fujifilm Corporation: Patents & Royalties, Research Funding; Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd.: Research Funding.


In mid-2005 Victoria University (VU), Australia committed itself to convert all of its
undergraduate engineering programs to Problem Based Learning (PBL). The Vice Chancellor
then mandated that PBL would be used to deliver the first year of these programs
commencing in
2006, with an annual phased roll out of PBL into the later years of each program.
This conversion to PBL was part of a strategy by the University to address
declining enrolment
numbers in engineering programs, and to meet requests from industry that universities should
improve the personal and professional skills of their graduates.
The changeover to PBL had been preceded in 2004 by a major revision to the programs to make
them compliant with the Australian Federal Government's Higher Education Information
Management System (HEIMS). As a consequence the engineering programs
have undergone
their most significant revision in over 25 years. This revision has enabled the programs to
simultaneously address the demands of external stakeholders and to compensate for the problems
encountered by the traditional programs ensuing from the standards of prior education of
students entering these programs.
This paper looks at some of the background to the introduction of PBL, the models of PBL
adopted and their justification, and the process of achieving such a radical overhaul of
programs
in the compressed time available.


Frustrated quantum magnets are a real challenge to theorists because standard analytical and numerical methods fail in most cases. Significant progress has been recently achieved however on the basis of what one may call minimal models, i.e. models which keep at least one important aspect of frustration, but which are otherwise simple enough to be understood. In this paper, I will concentrate on two types of minimal models, Quantum Dimer Models and hard‐core boson models. In the case of Quantum Dimer Models, I will review the evidence in favour of a Resonating Valence Bond (RVB) spin‐liquid phase, and I will discuss under which circumstances such models might be good effective models. For hard‐core boson models, which have been successfully used for quite some time for ladders and other non‐frustrated models of coupled dimers, I will describe the specificities introduced by frustration (reduced kinetic energy, correlated hopping,…) and the unexpected properties they induce.


Bacillus subtilis BS1 was used in the present study for the production of protease. For protease production optimum pH and temperature were found to be 11 and 50 ̊C, respectively. Soybean (197 PU/mg) and casein (168 PU/mg) proved as the best substrates for the production of enzyme. Maximum production of protease (126 and 121 PU/mg) was shown in 1.5 and 4.5% of Sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration, respectively. Maximum activity was observed at pH 9 at 90oC, in crude extract, after 20 minutes of incubation. EDTA slightly enhanced proteolytic activity, whereas, Na, K, Ca, Li, Mg, Cu and Fe inhibited the activity of protease. Due to maximum production of protease in the presence of cheaper, low concentrations of substrate and stability at alkaline pH, high temperature and salt-tolerance, these characteristics makes the strain and its enzymes usefull in different industries.


ABSTRACT
Hidayat, Achmad Fauzi Nur, 2018. "Amanat Film Crows Zero Karya Takashi Miike Dari Sudut Pandang Penonton (Kajian Resepsi Sastra)", Thesis, Departement of Japanese Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University. The First Advisor Drs. Moh. Muzakka, M.Hum. Second Advisor Noviana, S.S, M. Hum.
The material object of this research is a movie Crows Zero production Takashi Miike's. As for the formal object of this research is message. The writer did this research to know the message of Crows Zero movie from the audience's perspective. Therefore thw writer used literary reception and structural.
The method for obtaining data is by distributing questionnaires to 30 respondets. The questionnaires contains open questions to get objective answer from audience and for the method of administering is used face to face administered. Questionnaire started from 21 March 2017 until 24 March 2017.
Through this thesis research we can know that audience got message by watching Crows Zero movie. The message thet we can earned from Crows Zero is a social creature, we can't live alone. No need to be arrogant and always down to earth, respect the others and always tolerance. And help anyone who needed without thingking for seeking any profit.

Keywords : movie, message, literary reception.


As a key component of terrestrial water cycle, evapotranspiration (ET), specifically over the Amazon River basin, is of high scientific significance. However, due to the sparse observation network and relatively short observational period of eddy covariance data, large uncertainties remain in the spatial-temporal characteristics of ET over the Amazon. Recently, a great number of long-term global remotely sensed ET products have been developed to fill the observation gap. However, the reliabilities of these global ET products over the Amazon are unknown. In this study, we assessed the consistency of the magnitude, trend and spatial pattern of Amazon ET among five global remotely sensed ET reconstructions. The magnitudes of these products are similar but the long-term trends from 1982 to 2011 are completely divergent. Validation from the eddy covariance data and water balance method proves a better performance of a product grounded on local measurements, highlighting the importance of local measurements in the ET reconstruction. We also examined four hypotheses dealing with the response of ET to brightening, warming, greening and deforestation, which shows that in general, these ET products respond better to warming and greening than to brightening and deforestation. This large uncertainty highlights the need for future studies focusing on ET issues over the Amazon.


Pricing of services, especially in a SOA and Grid environment with contractual relationships gain importance in recent years. For the resource planning, i.e. the allocation and orchestration of existing services, service pricing has a major influence. An orchestrator of services may face various pricing models from different service providers with e.g. long-term or short-term contracts, fixed or variable expenses for service invocation. Price as an important non-functional property of services lacks of a systematic investigation in this context, although it directly affects a service orchestrator's business targets. An appropriate categorization of pricing models is essential for this purpose. This paper proposes a classification of pricing models for services in a SOA environment from a resource planning perspective, i.e. for service selection. Moreover, the impact of different pricing models on service allocation, respectively selection, and further implications for an intermediary, acting as a service orchestrator, are presented.


Six patients with early systolic closure of the aortic valve are described with mitral regurgitation, double outlet right ventricle, left ventricular diverticulum, congestive cardiomyopathy, Eisenmenger ventricular septal defect, and aortic regurgitation with an aneurysmal ascending aorta, respectively. None had evidence of subaortic stenosis. Early sytolic closure of the aortic valve is thus not diagnostic of subvalvular aortic stenosis but is a non-specific finding.


We study the extension of a Lie algebroid by a representation up to homotopy, including semidirect products of a Lie algebroid with such representations. The extension results in a higher Lie algebroid. We give exact Courant algebroids and string Lie 2-algebras as examples of such extensions. We then apply this to obtain a Lie 2-groupoid integrating an exact Courant algebroid.


Science is a dynamic discipline, representative of the nature of science. Yet, young science students continue to think everything is already discovered. In this study, we examine why students are not actively doing science. From professional development to student engagement, how are classrooms and students changing as we increase teachers' content knowledge? Teaching practices modeled in professional development can change what occurs in the classroom. Our study was designed to probe differences in two different types of professional development programs both focused on content knowledge. We found that what is modeled by the professional developers has a profound effect on the direction of the classroom. This matched controlled study found that teachers reflect the teaching practice modeled by professional developers through their individual classroom teaching practices. A significant difference was found in cognitive activities and questioning skills between teachers in a professional development program modeling authentic inquiry versus the teachers in a professional development modeling simulated inquiry. While both groups increased the amount of overall inquiry used in the classroom, students whose teachers were in authentic inquiry professional development were engaged in higher cognitive activities and questioning skills. If students are engaged in dynamic classrooms, searching for answers to students' questions, perhaps they will understand that science is a dynamic discipline.


ABSTRACT Cultural understandings of sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assault have shifted considerably since the 1960s in the United Kingdom and more widely. This article investigates how changing discourses around sexual abuse, harassment and assault are navigated by British women in later life when they narrate experiences that occurred in their youth in the 1960s and early 1970s. It identifies six sites of youth that are relevant to understanding how women narrate experiences of sexual violence: home; school; local outdoor places; workplaces; heterosexual intimacies; independent travel. These sites are associated with different points on a 'girl to woman' register, tracing a pathway from the immaturity of girlhood, through the liminal state of young womanhood, into maturity. How interviewees positioned themselves on this register reflects how they understood their youthful selves in different sites, and their past experiences of unwanted sexual attentions. While gender inequality is understood to have limited women's education and employment opportunities in youth, it is surprisingly absent from narratives of sexual violence. In attending to this absence, we argue that what is at stake for the women in how they navigate shifting cultural discourses is narrating a version of themselves that is agentic and morally responsible.


A mathematical model of the melt spinning process that includes crystallization has been used to compute the velocity, diameter, temperature, and birefringence as a function of distance from the spinneret. An improved inversion procedure is described and is shown to give better results for the computed apparent elongational viscosity and heat-transfer coefficient data. The computed profiles have been compared directly to the experimental profiles determined earlier and reported in Part I of this paper. The results show that the model describes the major features of the melt spinning process. The reasons for the observed differences between experimental profiles and those computed from the model are discussed.


This study was designed to assess "tracking" of plasma cholesterol, triglyceride, and high and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (C-HDL, C-LDL), in 108 children followed over a four-year period in the Cincinnati Lipid Research Clinic's Princeton School study. The correlations between initial and subsequent measurements of plasma cholesterol were respectively 0.65, 0.66, and 0.68 for observations one, two, and three years apart, P < .001; for plasma triglyceride they were 0.47, 0.37, and 0.39, P < .001. Initial and subsequent C-HDL and C-LDL levels were also highly correlated, r = .60, .53 (for C-HDL), r = .67 and .61 (for C-LDL), for observations two and three years apart, P < .001. Six of 13 children initially in the top decile for plasma cholesterol remained there over the four-year period. Only three of 11 children initially in the top decile for plasma triglyceride remained there over the four-year period. Plasma C-HDL levels initially in the top decile generally remained there, with 82% and 64% of children initially in the top decile remaining in the top two deciles on follow-up. Plasma C-LDL levels were more dispersed than C-HDL, with three of 11 children initially in the top decile remaining there after four years. A considerable proportion of the decrement in group mean levels of lipids and lipoproteins for children initially in the top deciles could be accounted for by regression toward the mean. Although initial and subsequent measures of lipids and lipoproteins in school children are closely correlated, and there is a moderate degree of tracking for children initially in the top deciles, only small numbers of children after four years of follow-up will retain persistent elevations of cholesterol, triglyceride, and C-LDL. Longitudinal assessment of children with elevated lipid and lipoprotein levels may permit early identification of risk factors which both increase risk to coronary heart disease in adulthood (cholesterol, triglyceride, C-LDL), or decrease it (C-HDL).


P revious kinematic studies on the effects of knee braces have concentrated primarily on the anterior cruciate ligament and the effects of bracing to stabilize the knee that has a deficiency of this ligament1-23. The majority of those studies have concentrated on the analysis of functional knee braces with use of arthrometers2,3,5-8,10-15. Other studies have concentrated on the analysis of femorotibial translation through the use of roentgen stereophotogrammetric analysis techniques4,9,16,17, subjective evaluation of bracing by categorizing pain and functional ability18-22, and the determination of the effectiveness of different types of knee braces, such as cast bracing23-26. Although minimal research evaluating the efficiency of off-loading braces for the treatment of unicompartmental arthritic degeneration has been performed, a previous study with an initial fluoroscopic analysis determined that bracing is an effective treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee in nonobese patients under weight-bearing conditions27. In that investigation of a single type of brace, the results were not assessed for three-dimensional motion and the study did not determine whether different types of osteoarthritic knee braces would perform well under similar conditions.

The objective of the present study was to analyze subjects with symptomatic unicompartmental osteoarthritis under in vivo, dynamic weight-bearing conditions with use of video fluoroscopy28,29 to determine whether five different off-loading knee braces provide separation of the medial femoral condyle from the tibial plateau, thus avoiding excessive loads on the degenerated compartment.

Fig. 1
Subject performing normal gait on a treadmill without a brace ( a ) and with a brace ( b ).

W ith institutional review board approval, five subjects with substantial medial compartment osteoarthritis of the knee who …


We consider a possibility of the existence of intersection homology morphism, which would be associated to a map of analytic varieties. We assume that the map is an inclusion of codimension one. Then the existence of a morphism follows from Saito's decomposition theorem. For varieties with conical singularities we show, that the existence of intersection homology morphism is exactly equivalent to the validity of Hard Lefschetz Theorem for links. For varieties with arbitrary analytic singularities we extract a remarkable property, which we call Local Hard Lefschetz.


Simpson–Golabi–Behmel syndrome is a rare overgrowth syndrome caused by the GPC3 mutation at Xq26 and is clinically characterized by multiple congenital abnormalities, intellectual disability, pre/postnatal overgrowth, distinctive craniofacial features, macrocephaly, and organomegaly. Although this syndrome is known to be associated with a risk for embryonal tumors, similar to other overgrowth syndromes, the pathogenetic basis of this mode of tumorigenesis remains largely unknown. Here, we report a boy with Simpson‐Golabi–Behmel syndrome who had a germline loss‐of function mutation in GPC3. At 9 months of age, he developed hepatoblastoma. A comparison of exome analysis results for the germline genome and for the tumor genome revealed a somatic mutation, p.Ile35Ser, within the degradation targeting box of β‐catenin. The same somatic mutation in CTNNB1 has been repeatedly reported in hepatoblastoma and other cancers. This finding suggested that the CTNNB1 mutation in the tumor tissue represents a driver mutation and that both the GPC3 and the CTNNB1 mutations contributed to tumorigenesis in a clearly defined sequential manner in the propositus. The current observation of a somatic CTNNB1 mutation in a hepatoblastoma from a patient with a germline GPC3 mutation supports the notion that the mutation in GPC3 may influence one of the initial steps in tumorigenesis and the progression to hepatoblastoma. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


BACKGROUND
 Challenging behaviors are prevalent among individuals with autism spectrum disorder; however, research exploring the impact of challenging behaviors on treatment response is lacking.

 OBJECTIVE
 The purpose of this study was to identify types of autism spectrum disorder based on engagement in different challenging behaviors and evaluate differences in treatment response between groups.

 METHODS
 Retrospective data on challenging behaviors and treatment progress for 854 children with autism spectrum disorder were analyzed. Participants were clustered based on 8 observed challenging behaviors using k means, and multiple linear regression was performed to test interactions between skill mastery and treatment hours, cluster assignment, and gender.

 RESULTS
 Seven clusters were identified, which demonstrated a single dominant challenging behavior. For some clusters, significant differences in treatment response were found. Specifically, a cluster characterized by low levels of stereotypy was found to have significantly higher levels of skill mastery than clusters characterized by self-injurious behavior and aggression (P<.003).

 CONCLUSIONS
 These findings have implications on the treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Self-injurious behavior and aggression were prevalent among participants with the worst treatment response, thus interventions targeting these challenging behaviors may be worth prioritizing. Furthermore, the use of unsupervised machine learning models to identify types of autism spectrum disorder shows promise.


The purpose of the present study was to elucidate whether the sympathetic response to perturbation in stance represents multiple mental responses, whether perturbation-induced fear of fall is one of the mental responses, and whether the sympathetic response is task specific. While healthy humans maintained stance, the support surface of the feet translated in the forward or backward direction. The phasic electrodermal response (EDR), representing the sympathetic response, appeared 1–1.5 s after the support surface translation. Mostly, perturbation-induced EDRs comprised one peak, but some EDRs were comprised of two peaks. The onset latency of the two-peak EDR was much shorter than that of the one-peak EDR. The second peak latency of the two-peak EDR was similar to the peak latency of the one-peak EDR, indicating that the first peak of the two-peak EDR was an additional component preceding the one-peak EDR. This finding supports a view that perturbation-induced EDR in stance sometimes represents multiple mental responses. The amplitude of the EDR had a positive and significant correlation with fear, indicating that perturbation-induced EDR in stance partially represents perturbation-induced fear of fall. The EDR amplitude was dependent on the translation amplitude and direction, indicating that perturbation-induced EDR in stance is a task specific response. The EDR appeared earlier when the participants prepared to answer a question or when the perturbation was self-triggered, indicating that adding cognitive load induces earlier perturbation-induced mental responses.


Synopsis Families with more than one member affected by schizophrenia were identified and their members were interviewed. Four standardized diagnostic definitions (PSE, DSM-III, ICD-9, Feighner) were applied to all subjects who were classified as schizophrenic or not schizophrenic according to each definition. Non-schizophrenic psychiatric disorders which have been shown to be familially associated with schizophrenia were also identified. Twenty blood markers were ascertained for all subjects and evidence of co-segregation with schizophrenia was sought. No selective segregation was found and therefore there was no evidence suggesting linkage or supporting a monogenic theory of transmission of susceptibility to schizophrenia.


This article examines interaction specifics of the Belarusian and Polish languages in scientific texts at the beginning of the 20th century. On the basis of scientific and educational, popular science texts and lexicographic materials, the characteristics of polonisms, their subject and thematic affiliation, as well as the peculiarities of their formal adaptation on the Belarusian linguistic basis are carried out. The work uses descriptive, contrastive and comparative historical methods, which were useful during the examination of polonisms in Belarusian language. The author establishes the dependence of the interacting nature of contacting languages on various intralingual and external factors, which predetermined the nature of the interlanguage relations of the Belarusian and Polish languages at the beginning of the 20th century. For all the lexical inequality of scientific texts, their linguistic unity was formed due to a common goal – the transmission of scientific information. In general, the analysis showed that when borrowings from the Polish language are used in the texts of Belarusian science, there is no consistency. Accordingly, it can be stated that the influence of the Polish language on the Belarusian scientific language is not characterized by depth, and the language of Belarusian science at the beginning of the 20th century was not oversaturated with polonisms. This was probably facilitated by the tendencies of the Belarusian linguistic and cultural revival, the dominant of which was primarily the orientation towards national identity and, accordingly, the limitation of foreign linguistic influences.


Peatland restoration seeks to re-establish a number of ecosystem services, with carbon (C) sequestration key following the inclusion of emissions from rewetted peatlands in national GHG reporting. Few studies address the effects of restoration on GHG fluxes or quantify annual emissions from peatlands undergoing restoration. This research focuses on the response of CO2 and CH4 fluxes from degraded lowland peatlands in Wales to restoration measures; vegetation removal, topsoil removal and rewetting. Fluxes were quantified from three locations using closed-chamber measurements, with annual fluxes estimated using empirical models. The effect of vegetation removal on CO2 and CH4 fluxes was closely coupled to water table depth, with the method of vegetation removal determining plant community composition. The removal of nutrient-enriched topsoil resulted in a net C emission, but this was assumed to be temporary as a small net C sink was observed where vegetation recolonisation occurred. The effect of rewetting was studied at a cutover raised bog and a grassland on peat. CO2 and CH4 fluxes from microforms created during historical hand-cutting were analogous to natural hummock-hollow complexes; CO2 fluxes were greater from higher drier areas, whereas lower wetter conditions favoured higher CH4 emissions. Rewetting at the cutover bog increased CH4 fluxes where the water table was close to the surface and aerenchymatous vegetation was present, however under inundated conditions where vegetation was absent, CH4 fluxes were relatively low. The rewetted grassland on peat was a significantly stronger CO2 sink compared to a shallow-drained grassland, attributed to high nocturnal CO2 emissions from the latter. CH4 emissions were greater from the rewetted grassland, though the high CO2 uptake resulted in a net GHG balance. Annual emissions derived from this research are comparable to UK lowland peatlands, but lower than IPCC emission factors, highlighting the importance of deriving UK-specific emission factors for future reporting.


While recent studies on Spanish have shown that some causal connectives specialize in expressing certain types of causal relations, others have revealed that causal relations may be signaled by a variety of linguistic devices. Given that we were interested not only in specificity and variety, but also in the functionality of causal connective expressions, our objective in the present study was threefold. First, to identify the variety of connective expressions (connectives and cue phrases) used to signal causal relations in Spanish. Second, to determine whether a relationship of specificity exists between connective expressions and particular types of causal relations. Third, to describe the functionality of those connective expressions. We analyzed a corpus of 2,514 causal coherence relations previously annotated and identified in a corpus of academic texts. 41 different linguistic devices used to signal causal relations were identified. These devices were grouped into two main functional classes: connectives and cue phrases. Regarding the functionality of the signals, we found that 8 of the most frequent connective expressions were used to signal different relations. As for specificity, in terms of syntactic categories, it was observed that various conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs specialize in signaling specific relations.


PROVIDING INFORMATION TO FAMILIES about quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is important for supporting informed choices. The Australian Government has attempted to build parents' capacity to make informed choices through the National Quality Framework and the National Quality Standard (NQS) rating system. Many families, however, have limited or no knowledge or understanding of the NQS. This study investigated the potential of playgroups as a site for raising awareness about quality ECEC and the NQS ratings among families. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six supported playgroup coordinators, and focus groups were held with families from seven playgroups. Findings suggest that playgroups could be an effective avenue for disseminating information about quality ECEC. For supported playgroups, the informal and trusted approach of the playgroup coordinator may play an important role in raising awareness about quality ECEC, and they could be better supported in this role through accurate, up-to-date information and resources that are respectful of families' diverse backgrounds and needs.


Summary form only given. As is known, in collisionless case for the electrode boundary sheath formation it is necessary that positive ions at the sheath edge have a velocity V/sub 1//spl ges/V/sub s/=/spl radic/kT/sub e//M where V/sub s/ is the ion sound speed, T/sub e/ is the electron temperature, M is the ion mass. Godyak (1982) has modified the Bohm's criterion for a collisional case neglecting the friction force acting on electrons and estimated the electric field at the sheath edge as E/sub 1/=kT/sub k///spl lambda//sub D/ where /spl lambda//sub 1/ is the electron Debye radius at the sheath edge. Riemann (1991) has shown this value to be too high and suggested to use in a collisional case the following expression E/sub 1/=kT/sub e//(e/spl lambda//sub D//sup 2/5//spl lambda//sub 1//sup 3/5/) where /spl lambda//sub 1/ is the ion mean-free path. Valenti has determined the Bohm criterion for a collision plasma. However, Riemann et al. have derived from Valentini's results the nonmonotonous behaviour of plasma parameters in the presheath. In this paper the equation for the ion velocity V/sub 1/ at the plasma-sheath interface is obtained.


Analytical Toxicology Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy | 1 Since its first observation in bulk phases in 1945, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, has become one of the foremost methods for molecular identification, for evaluating detailed molecular structures, for understanding conformations and for probing molecular dynamics. If the measurements are carried out under appropriate conditions, NMR spectroscopy can also be used for quantitative analysis. The technique is so powerful because it combines the provision of detailed information at the atomic level with the possibility of understanding whole molecule properties, such as diffusion in solution, and the ability to carry out quantitation. Although powerful in its own right, NMR spectroscopy can be regarded as complementary to other analytical chemical techniques. For example, it can provide information on substances with no ultraviolet (UV) chromophores, such as carbohydrates. It is a universal detector in that if the molecule under study contains NMRactive nuclei, these should be detectable. However, it is only possible to infer details of parts of the molecule that do not contain NMR-active nuclei, such as the presence of a sulfate conjugate of a drug metabolite, in which case the definitive loss of mass 80 seen in mass spectrometry (MS) is complementary.


Based on the study of two hundred and four post-graduate students of Gulbarga University, the relative importance of information sources among the post-graduate students in a university environment is emphasised. The study reveals that books, newspapers, popular magazines, class notes, notes of seniors, are the most useful sources of information. General dictionaries, subject dictionaries, subject encyclopedia and scientific periodicals are also useful sources for the post-graduate students. Memoranda, diaries and letters, CD databases, trade catalogs, theses/dissertations, microforms, laboratory notes, handbooks, human sources, course materials of Open Universities, guide to subject literature, directories, statistical sources, biographical sources, library catalog, almanacs, manuals, geographical sources, research reports, are never used by a majority of post-graduate students. Based on statistical tests, the study concludes that the personal attributes viz., gender, year of study, medium of instruction at under-graduate and post graduate level, area of habitation, stay at hostels, marital status, and frequency of visits to University library have no bearing on the use of specific sources of information.


Diffusive transport of mass occurs at small scales in turbulent premixed flames. As a result, multicomponent mass diffusion, which is often neglected in direct numerical simulations (DNS) of premixed combustion, has the potential to impact both turbulence and flame characteristics at small scales. In this study, we evaluate these impacts by examining enstrophy dynamics and the internal structure of the flame for lean premixed hydrogen-air combustion, neglecting secondary Soret and Dufour effects. We performed three-dimensional DNS of these flames by implementing the Stefan–Maxwell equations in the code NGA to represent multicomponent mass transport, and we simulated statistically planar lean premixed hydrogen-air flames using both mixture-averaged and multicomponent models. The mixture-averaged model underpredicts the peak enstrophy in the multicomponent simulation by up to 13% in the flame front. Comparing the enstrophy budgets of these flames, the multicomponent simulation yields larger peak magnitudes compared to the mixture-averaged simulation in the reaction zone, showing differences of 17% and 14% in the normalised vortex stretching and viscous effects terms. In the super-adiabatic regions of the flame, the mixture-averaged model overpredicts the viscous effects by up to 13%. To assess the effect of these differences on flame structure, we reconstructed the average local internal structure of the turbulent flame through statistical analysis of the scalar gradient field. Based on this analysis, we show that large differences in viscous effects contribute to significant differences in the average local flame structure between the two models.


To the Editor. —Your news item "Easing the Pain" in the February issue ( Arch Intern Med 127 :200, 1971) is inaccurate in two important details. Neither open surgical cordotomy nor percutaneous cordotomy deprives a patient of his sense of touch. What is lost is the perception of pain, heat, and cold. Further, I doubt that injecting any amount of "normal saline" in the patient's lumbar subarachnoid space will relieve pain. The original work that was done on this procedure involved injecting the supernatant of iced saline. In actual fact of the matter, the supernatant ends up being hypertonic saline because of the crystallization out of water and the concentration of the hypertonic saline is somewhere between 3% and 5%. The problem of midline, lower back, and bilateral lower extremity pain in patients who have had extensive cobalt therapy and surgery for malignancies in the pelvis is a most difficult one.


The increase of nonlinear loads connected to the power systems has created the need for a generalized revision of power concepts and quantities applicable under nonsinusoidal conditions. Parallel to this, changes in the existent standards and the new ones have shown the need for new measurement procedures. In this paper a simple algorithm for the IEEE 1459 single and three-phase quantities calculation is proposed. Simulations and real measurement results using the algorithm are shown and discussed. It is shown that, under certain limitations, similar procedures can be applied to digital meters used for statistical surveys, trouble shooting applications and others where low uncertainty is not required.


Animal Models Pain and Genetics Neuropathic Pain Pain associated with disease from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is common and multifactorial, with different causes possible at different stages of the disease. A frequent cause of pain at all stages of the disease is neuropathic pain associated with a symmetrical sensory polyneuropathy. These HIV-associated sensory neuropathies (HIVSNs) are attributable to HIV itself and to some HIV treatments.


An investigation is made on the optical nonlinear characteristics of
 MgF2 films containing Cu nanoparticles. When the Cu volume fraction
 is 0.1, at approximately \varem+ 2ed= 0, the
 film exhibits a strong third-order optical nonlinear refractive coefficient of
 1.010-9 cm2/W, a nonlinear refractive index of about
 -4.0×10-7 esu, a third-order optical nonlinear response of about
 6.810-8 esu, and a figure of merit of about 1.010-11. The
 result shows that the film may have potential applications in optoelectronic
 technology.


Introduction Lenalidomide is an effective therapy of POEMS syndrome. However, there is concern that exposure to lenalidomide may reduce the efficiency of blood cell collection in persons who may eventually receive an autotransplant. We studied the impact of lenalidomide therapy on subsequent blood cell mobilization and collection including frequency of blood CD34+ cells and CXCR4 expression before and after mobilization with cyclophosphamide and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF). Material and methods Forty-three subjects with POEMS were assigned to receive lenalidomide and dexamethasone for 2–4 28 d cycles (n = 19) or no therapy (n = 24). All subjects then received cyclophosphamide and G-CSF. Neither cohort had substantial numbers of blood CD34+ cells before mobilization. Results Mobilization increased blood CD34+ frequency in lenalidomide-treated subjects and controls similarly (0.25% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.03–1.39% vs. 0.32%, 0.04–1.47%), p = 0.472). Increases in blood CD34+ numbers were also similar (10 × 106/l) (5–77 × 106/l) vs. 14 × 106/l (6–101 × 106/l), p = 0.312). Mean CXCR4 fluorescence intensity on bone marrow cells from controls decreased from 58 ±34 (mean ± SD) to 31 ±16 after mobilization (p = NS). In contrast, mean CXCR4 intensity on bone marrow cells in lenalidomide-treated subjects increased from 55 ±43 to 89 ±40 (p = 0.017, comparing the deviation between two groups). Median numbers of CD34+ cells collected in lenalidomide-treated subjects and controls were 2.3 × 106/kg (0.6–6.8 × 106/kg) and 2.8106/kg (1.0–8.9 × 106/kg; p = 0.521). Conclusions Brief lenalidomide treatment for POEMS did not reduce numbers of CD34+ blood cells collected but increased CXCR4 expression on bone marrow CD34+ cells.


Newsome (( 2003 ). The debate between current versions of covariation and mechanism approaches to causal inference. Philosophical Psychology, 16, 87–107.) recently published a critical review of psychological theories of human causal inference. In that review, he characterized covariation and mechanism theories, the two dominant theory types, as competing, and offered possible ways to integrate them. I argue that Newsome has misunderstood the theoretical landscape, and that covariation and mechanism theories do not directly conflict. Rather, they rely on distinct sets of reliable indicators of causation, and focus on different types of causation (type vs. token). There are certainly debates in the research field, but the theoretical landscape is not as fractured as Newsome suggests, and a potential unifying framework has already emerged using causal Bayes nets. Philosophical work on causal epistemology matters for psychologists, but not in the way Newsome suggests.


Metadata management is an important component in the object-based storage network. Traditional methods can not support the memberships query with multiple attributes and dynamic update function due to complex operations. A Bloom filter is a kind of succinct way to represent a set of objects because it is a simple space-efficient randomized data structure. In this paper, we propose a new architecture to support the representation of objects with multiple attributes based on Bloom filters. The architecture, called two-level Bloom filters (TBF), is composed of attribute and object Bloom filters to support the efficient representation and query of objects. The attribute Bloom filter is a series of counter-based arrays. Each array can store one attribute of an object. The object Bloom filter captures a verification value of an object, which can reflect the inherent dependency of all attributes for the object. Furthermore, we present the aggregate-based update approach to support the dynamic update operations on the proposed data architecture. Simulation results demonstrate that the new Bloom filter architecture and proposed update schemes are efficient and accurate to realize the operations of objects with multiple attributes in the object-based storage network


The cilium is a tiny organelle, with a length of 1-10 μm and a diameter of ~200 nm, that projects from the surface of many cells and functions to generate fluid flow and/or sense extracellular signals from the environment. Abnormalities in cilia may cause a broad spectrum of disease, i.e. the so-called ciliopathies. Multiple imaging approaches have been implemented to understand the structure, motion and function of the tiny cilium. In this review, we focus on the microscopic observations and analyses of the dynamic behaviors of both motile cilia and primary cilium. Motile cilia repeat reciprocal motions at 15-25 Hz with a clear asymmetry of effective and recovery strokes. Observing the fast movement of motile cilia requires a high-speed camera with a frame rate of more than 100 fps. The labeling of cilia tips enables the detailed analysis of the asymmetric beating motion of motile cilia. The primary cilium, which is imagined to be 'static,' is also dynamic, i.e. it elongates, shrinks and disassembles, although this behavior is quite slower than that of motile cilia. The specific fluorescent labeling of primary cilium and time-lapse imaging are required to observe and analyze the slow behaviors of the primary cilium. We present some approaches, including some tips for successful procedures, in the successful imaging of the dynamic behaviors of motile cilia and primary cilium.