For single-carrier systems with frequency domain equalization, decision feedback equalization (DFE) performs better than linear equalization, and has a lower complexity and computational costs than optimum equalizers. The main challenge in DFE is the feedback symbol selection rule. In this paper, we give a theoretical framework for a simple, sparsity based thresholding algorithm. We feedback multiple symbols in each iteration, so the algorithm converges fast and has a low computational cost. The algorithm is applicable in several existing wireless communication systems (SC-FDMA, MC-CDMA, MIMO-OFDM). Numerical results illustrate significant performance improvement in terms of bit error rate compared to the MMSE solution.


This feature is sponsored by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. Readers of the JAVMA are invited to submit reports, which should include a brief description of a behavioral problem, the evaluation and treatment, and succinct discussion of the case. Send contributions to Dr. Bonnie Beaver, Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4474.


This is a preliminarily study examining the relationship between quality of memory and refugee hearing decisions. It relies on self-reports from seven refugee claimants who were denied convention refugee status, from five convention refugees, and from reading seven negative panel decisions for refugee claimants exhibiting posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Out of seven participants, four reported that they had experienced torture; seven had witnessed the death of friends or family members; two declared that they had illegally travelled by sea under inhumane conditions; and two reported that they had been raped. Four participants said that they still experience nightmares related to past traumatic experiences. Five participants said they often experience recurring thoughts reminding them of what happened. Six reported having problems with sleeping, anxiety, and also forgetting a lot about their experiences. RESULTS echo previous studies on default memory in traumatized persons. However, further investigation is needed to understand better the impact of PTSD on refugee claimant credibility. FINDINGS also indicate that there is a need for refugee hearing judges to be trained to recognize the emotional suffering of refugee claimants. Language: en


The aim of this work is to design and devise an innovative combustion chamber with a thermal output of 500kW by means of experimental analysis accompanied by process simulation and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Various biomasses in form of compressed bales, such as straw, maize or similar energy crops are used for this combustor. As the combustion concept of the named oven is rather sophisticated and innovative, powerful simulation tools have to be applied in order to design the combustion chamber prior to the plant realization. It will be shown that the correct application of these tools, especially CFD, significantly supports basic and detailed engineering of novel combustion systems.


Peyronie's disease is a benign condition, affecting middle-aged men of between 40 and 60 years of age. The symptoms are penile pain in the early inflammatory phase, curvature during erection and erectile dysfunction. The origin of Peyronie's disease is not fully understood. A trauma of the penis with subsequent deposition of fibrin and formation of a fibrotic plaque in the tunica albuginea is the most likely pathophysiological mechanism. Empirical treatments have been attempted with inconclusive results since most of the studies were noncontrolled. In this review, the most important data on the epidemiology, etiology, diagnostic approaches and treatment modalities of Peyronie's disease are addressed. Low-dose (12–15 Gy) radiotherapy has been reported as a successful treatment modality to reduce penile pain and curvature in the early stages of the disease, in noncontrolled studies. Currently, no side effects have been reported. This review critically addresses Peyronie's disease, its treatments, corresponding outcomes and future treatment possibilities. The problems of obtaining good-quality outcomes data for radiotherapeutic approaches are highlighted.


This photo essay focuses on the hattisar , or elephant stable, a multispecies institution where humans and elephants live together in intimate and mutually entangled ways. The Nepali hattisar was historically staffed by the indigenous Tharu, who captured and tamed elephants for the rulers of Nepal for trade, for tribute, for use in agriculture, and for use in regal hunting expeditions ( rastriya shikar ). This essay illustrates the daily routines involved in feeding captive elephants in and around the Chitwan National Park, the sacrificial practices conducted by handlers, and the ways in which worshipful acts convert gifts into sacred food that bind handlers to both elephants and gods.


An experiment was set up in 1998 to study the effect of glyphosate on the weeds and pests in glyphosate-tolerant sugar beet, in comparison with a conventional herbicide regime. Glyphosate at 1.08 kg ha−1 was first applied at the two- to four-leaf, 8- to 10-leaf and 12- to 14-leaf stage of the crop, followed by a second application at the same rate two to four weeks later. Weed growth did not affect sugar beet emergence or establishment, but, in untreated controls and the two later glyphosate treatments, weeds almost completely covered the ground, leading to reduction of root weight, sugar concentration and yield at harvest. The number of aphids (mostly Myzus persicae Sulzer) in the beet in June was significantly higher on plots treated with glyphosate at the two- to four-leaf stage than on untreated plots or plots treated later with glyphosate. Large numbers of the leaf curling plum aphid (Brachycaudus helichrysi Kaltenbach) colonised the weeds within untreated or later-treated plots. These were accompanied by predators and parasites which eventually caused substantial mortality in the aphid populations. There was evidence that glyphosate-treated weeds, although not in competition with the crop, were still able to provide sustenance for aphids. Very low levels of virus yellows were observed in the trial, and there were no significant differences between treatments. The results suggest that the latest application of the first glyphosate spray in a two-spray programme should be before the eight-leaf stage of the sugar beet to prevent weed competition reducing yield. Further studies on late control of weeds and insect diversity are being carried out.

© 2000 Society of Chemical Industry


A new GaAs HBT process has been developed at GMMT for the implementation of high performance microwave and optical sub-systems. Two versions of the process exist: B20 for small signal and digital applications and B20P for microwave power applications. 1/2 static frequency dividers have been designed on the process which toggle at frequencies up to 17 GHz. X-band power MMICs operating over a bandwidth of 9 to 12 GHz deliver an output power of 2 W with a power added efficiency of 30% and associated gain of 14 dB. The unique characteristics of excellent power performance, low 1/f noise and wideband operation will ensure that GaAs HBTs act as a key enabling technology for meeting the ever increasing demands of wireless and optical systems.


John Sydendam Furnivall could be classified as a "critic of empire" who favoured reforming British colonial rule so that it would "be ruled with more concern for the welfare of its native inhabitants ... rather than ... those of [British] capitalists" (Porter 2006, p. xxiv). A "reluctant imperialist", he did not see colonialism as inherently bad, but rather that it "should be a passing phase governed in the meantime to improve the welfare of the natives until the time shall arrive when, part by part, it may be developed into a normal and national life of its own" (ibid., p. xxxi). By the time he wrote Colonial Policy and Practice then, Furnivall was already arguing for the colonial government to start preparing the conditions for eventual self-rule in Burma. Being a former Indian Civil Service (ICS) administrator in Burma of more than twenty years, a lifelong Fabian socialist and, after resigning from the ICS, a "pro-Burmese" activist engaged in promoting reforms in the interest of the Burmese all did have some


Telcos, in pursuit of the triple play (voice, video, and data), are investing heavily to compete with the cable companies in providing quality video content to the consumer. However, most telco infrastructures do not currently have the bandwidth to support high-quality video distribution. The telcos are updating their Internet protocol (IP) networks and using new encoding schemes such as MPEG4-Part 10 (also called H.264-AVC) to deliver video content to the consumer. This creates a huge opportunity for supplying telcos with updated equipment including the latest encoders and decoders. This paper will investigate the technology that is fueling this new Internet protocol television (IPTV) infrastructure. The first portion will be looking at the video encoding method and the second portion will focus on the video-over-IP network design that is being used for IPTV.


Transfer learning (TL) is a technique of reuse and modify a pre-trained network. It reuses feature extraction layer at a pre-trained network. A target domain in TL obtains the features knowledge from the source domain. TL modified classification layer at a pre-trained network. The target domain can do new tasks according to a purpose. In this article, the target domain is fundus image classification includes normal and neovascularization. Data consist of 100 patches. The comparison of training and validation data was 70:30. The selection of training and validation data is done randomly. Steps of TL i.e load pre-trained networks, replace final layers, train the network, and assess network accuracy. First, the pre-trained network is a layer configuration of the convolutional neural network architecture. Pre-trained network used are AlexNet, VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50, ResNet101, GoogLeNet, Inception-V3, InceptionResNetV2, and squeezenet. Second, replace the final layer is to replace the last three layers. They are fully connected layer, softmax, and output layer. The layer is replaced with a fully connected layer that classifies according to number of classes. Furthermore, it's followed by a softmax and output layer that matches with the target domain. Third, we trained the network. Networks were trained to produce optimal accuracy. In this section, we use gradient descent algorithm optimization. Fourth, assess network accuracy. The experiment results show a testing accuracy between 80% and 100%.


In this paper, an infrastructure that enables the association of a unique identification (ID) number to objects in the physical world is proposed. The system consists of a small tag that can be attached to any object. The tag is powered optically and establishes an optical communication link with a Reader. The Reader device can write a unique ID in the tag memory and can also readout the number. Each ID is also stored in a cloud database, which allows for associations of other attributes to the tag. By removing the need for a battery, using optical instead of RF communication, and minimizing the need for storing much information besides a single number, the size requirements on the tag are significantly reduced. A larger scale prototype is developed and end-to-end operation of the infrastructure is demonstrated. Prototyping is comprised the optical tag with active photovoltaic area of 1.44 mm2 and dimension of 9.7 mm × 6.9 mm, a Reader that optically interrogates with tag through 9600 baud UART protocol, a two-columned debatable for TagID and TagInfo data maintenance and a mobile application. In the end, basic packaging requirements of the tags are discussed and custom spherical packages with 1.8-mm diameter are developed. In the future, it is possible to mass produce the tags at a very low cost and attach them to many physical objects in the environment-creating a bridge between the physical and the cyber worlds.


We have demonstrated a reproducible and accurate way of tuning the coupling wavelength of a mismatched twin-core filter. This method allows high quality all-fiber filters to be implemented with low loss at any desired wavelength over a range of few hundred nanometers from the same fiber. An ~500-nm tuning range is demonstrated, limited only by the measurement setup and not by the technique itself. Highly accurate control of the filtering wavelength in combination with control of filtering strength by adjustment of the length of the twin-core fibers allows complex filter profiles to be implemented by cascading of several different filters. These filters are also very stable to a change in temperature (~0.26 nm/100 degrees C at 1.55 microm) and strain (less than 0.3 nm/mstrain at 1.55 microm), permitting easy packaging.


MOTIVATION
Biological network alignment aims to identify similar regions between networks of different species. Existing methods compute node similarities to rapidly identify from possible alignments the high-scoring alignments with respect to the overall node similarity. But, the accuracy of the alignments is then evaluated with some other measure that is different than the node similarity used to construct the alignments. Typically, one measures the amount of conserved edges. Thus, the existing methods align similar nodes between networks hoping to conserve many edges (after the alignment is constructed!).

RESULTS
Instead, we introduce MAGNA to directly 'optimize' edge conservation while the alignment is constructed, without decreasing the quality of node mapping. MAGNA uses a genetic algorithm and our novel function for 'crossover' of two 'parent' alignments into a superior 'child' alignment to simulate a 'population' of alignments that 'evolves' over time; the 'fittest' alignments survive and proceed to the next 'generation', until the alignment accuracy cannot be optimized further. While we optimize our new and superior measure of the amount of conserved edges, MAGNA can optimize any alignment accuracy measure, including a combined measure of both node and edge conservation. In systematic evaluations against state-of-the-art methods (IsoRank, MI-GRAAL and GHOST), on both synthetic networks and real-world biological data, MAGNA outperforms all of the existing methods, in terms of both node and edge conservation as well as both topological and biological alignment accuracy.

AVAILABILITY
Software: http://nd.edu/∼cone/MAGNA CONTACT: : firstname.lastname@example.com

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


The role of the hematology laboratory in the analysis of body fluid has been to provide accurate enumeration of red blood cells (RBCs), total nucleated cells (TNCs), and differentials by manual analysis. Three hospitals (London Health Sciences Centre, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and University of Michigan Health System) participated in the assessment of the performance of automated analysis of body fluid by the Beckman Coulter LH 750, an impedance-based hematology analyzer. We evaluated the accuracy of analysis results for both the TNCs and RBCs of 372 samples (158 serous fluid, 148 cerebrospinal fluid [CSF], 66 synovial fluid) run on the LH 750 compared to results obtained from manual chamber counting. Of the 372 samples, 152 were suitable for evaluation of accuracy of the automated TNC. The remaining 220 samples were either flagged for interfering substances or the reference results were < 0.2 x 10(9)/L, below the background limit of the analyzer. Correlation coefficients for serous fluid were 0.895, P = .88; for CSF, 0.993, P = .84; and for synovial fluid, 0.836, P = .94. Of the 372 samples, 106 had RBC counts greater than 0.01 x 10(12)/L and were used for method comparison. Correlation coefficients for serous fluid were 0.957, P = .66; for CSF, 0.849, P = .55; and for synovial fluid, 0.667, P = .81. Linearity and precision studies showed excellent agreement for both TNC and RBC parameters. Low-level sensitivity excluded the majority of cerebrospinal (119) and a small number of peritoneal dialysate fluid samples (8), which require accurate enumeration at clinical decision points between 0 to 100 cells/microliter. In the case of synovial and serous fluids, however, most clinicians are interested in TNC counts above 0.2 x 10(9)/L, and RBC counts are relevant only if they are significantly increased (> or = 0.05 x 10(12)/L). Adopting the criteria of reporting TNC counts as < 0.2 x 10(9)/L or accurate enumeration on counts > or = 0.2 x 10(9)/L, clinically relevant results could be provided by automated analysis in 93.8% of serous fluids and 85.8% of synovial fluids.


Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) can show a variety of routes of differentiation, but myoepithelial differentiation has rarely been described. We describe a case of BCC showing histologic and immunohistochemical features of myoepithelial differentiation. Histologically, the lesion showed well-demarcated tumor nodules composed of two different components. One component was typical of BCC, and the other component was composed of tumor cells containing abundant cytoplasm, eccentric nuclei, and no peripheral palisading, with scattered signet ring–shaped cells. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells in the typical BCC component stained with CKAE1/AE3 and smooth muscle actin (SMA), but not with S-100 protein. They stained weakly with CAM5.2, epithelial membrane antigen, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). The tumor cells in the other component stained strongly with CKAE1/AE3 and SMA, moderately with epithelial membrane antigen and GFAP, and weakly with CAM5.2. In a small area, the tumor cells stained with S-100 protein.


In The Netherlands, until 2002 it was thought that next to Lepisma saccharina, Thermobia domestica was present in residences as well. It appeared T. domestica had been identified incorrectly and was Ctenolepisma longicaudatum. It is hypothesized that the latter species is better adapted to the indoor environment than the other two species. Thermobia domestica has not been found in the last years. Lepisma saccharina is present far less than C. longicaudatum, whereas the latter is spread throughout The Netherlands and found within modern residences. Significantly more individuals of C. longicaudatum than L. saccharina are sent in by the public as have been found visually during house searches.


ABSTRACT The Whitehall studies of British civil servants, running from 1968 until the present day, are some of the most influential in twentieth century public health. Believing that the stratification that they observed among civil servants was replicated in wider society through the class system, the Whitehall researchers argued that inequality was a powerful force in society, literally embodied by incidence of disease. But as politicians and sociologists questioned the continuing relevance of class, this article explores how these studies reflected and were in conversation with prevailing social attitudes about inequality in end-of-century Britain.


Prawn farming is gainirg importance in Southeast coast of India in recent years. Derelier area
along the edge of Kallar River at Veppalodai has been developed into productive culture ponds.
Potential grounds for the collection of euryhaline species of prawn have been identified in the tidal
inlets along Gulf of Mannar. Culture is done in 2 seasons in a year. Juvenile prawn Penaeus indicus
of model size 25-35 mm obtained from wild and stocked in August 1985 grew to marketable size of
138 mm in five months and those stocked in February 1986 are harvested from July onwards. A
difference in the growth rate has been noticed in two different sets of experiments and the causes attributed
mostly to the environmental features of the culture ground. Better survival and production
are obtained in the summer crop. Supplementary feed was given in the form of pelletized feed ai d
trash fishes. Production rate was 530-1200 kg/ha/crop although salinity ranged from 31-48 %o.
The present results indicate the scope for further development of unutilized areas for culture practices by
improving certain management practices.


Cardiovascular disease (CVD) affecting blood vessel function is a leading cause of death around the world. A common treatment option to replace the diseased blood vessels is vascular grafting using the patient's own blood vessels. However, patients with CVD are usually lacking vessels for grafting. Recent advances in tissue engineering are now providing alternatives to autologous vascular grafts in the form of tissue-engineered blood vessels (TEBVs). In this review, we will describe the use of different scaffolding systems, cell sources and conditioning approaches for creating fully functional blood vessels. Additionally, we will present the methods used for assessing TEBV functions and describe preclinical and clinical trials for TEBV. Although the early results were encouraging, current designs of TEBV still fall short as a viable clinical option. Implementing the current knowledge in vascular development can lead to improved fabrication and function of TEBV and hasten clinical translation.


An observational programme to monitor the optical variability of southern quasars has been established and operated at Mt. John University Observatory. This programme, which is the first in the southern hemisphere, involves systematic observations of a large sample (~130 sources) of both radioand optically-selected quasars. Because the observations are all obtained with a 61 cm telescope, broad-band photographic photometry is necessary to allow an adequate sample of sources to be studied. Because the observations are broad-band, standard methods of photographic data reduction are unsuitable. A generalised technique of data reduction has therefore been developed, tested and applied. This technique allows the detection of luminosity variations in a source with an accuracy limited only by the detective quantum efficiency of the photographic plate. As a part of the application of the results of this programme to test the available source models, a. generalised relation for the significance of inverse Compton scattering in an anisotropic source has been derived. The theory of incoherent synchrotrpn radiation in a source constrained by the inverse Compton scattering mechanism, has been applied to the source PKS 0537-441 to illustrate the application of this theory. The observational results obtained have been applied as a test of the available quasar models. The simplest forms of the multiple independent-event (supernovae) and the spinar~giant pulsar models have been shown to be inconsistent with observation. The most active sources observed are consistent with a model of a super massive black hole accreting mass at a rate determined by its Eddington luminosity. ii


Experiments on co-doped CsI:Tl,Sm suggest that samarium electron traps scavenge electrons from thallium traps and that electrons subsequently released by samarium recombine non-radiatively with trapped holes, thus suppressing afterglow. These experiments support the inference that electrons tunnel freely between samarium ions and are trapped preferentially as substitutional Sm+ near VKA(Tl+) centers where non-radiative recombination is the rate-limiting step. Combined radioluminescence, afterglow and thermoluminescence on single-crystal samples of CsI:Tl and CsI:Tl,Sm, recorded sequentially at adjusted gain settings following low-temperature irradiation, reveal reversible radiation damage as well.


Proposals for Eurozone reform aim to complete its institutional architecture by securing stability without creating moral hazard. Such policy arguments inevitably rely, however, on implicit assumptions about justice, or on what is owed to whom. A common assumption is that member states are solely responsible for what happens to them. This paper, written from the point of view of public law and legal theory, asks if this assumption is correct. The relevant idea is often considered to be that of solidarity. Yet, solidarity is a puzzling concept. Although it is mentioned in the EU treaties, it does not appear to create any clear duties of mutual assistance. Many prominent legal theorists argue that solidarity will only become relevant in the future, when new European institutions bring citizens together under a single Europe-wide political community. This paper argues, however, that these arguments are misleading. They are at least incomplete in that they miss the key role played by corrective justice. Unlike distributive justice, which applies within states but not among states, corrective justice applies to cooperative arrangements creating interdependence. Corrective justice creates a principle of redress, which requires that those who are unfairly burdened by an agreement should be compensated by those who caused the unfairness. Any state that was unfairly burdened by the Eurozone's flawed architecture, may thus have a claim of redress for the losses it incurred as a result of the unfairness. It follows that the programmes of financial assistance were not merely actions of self-preservation or prudence by the Eurozone. They were also manifestations of an existing European principle of solidarity based on corrective justice.


Whether it is fair to characterize natural resource wealth as a curse is still debated. Most of the evidence derives from cross-country analyses, providing cases both for and against a potential resource curse. Scholars are increasingly turning to within-country evidence to deepen our understanding of the potential drivers, and outcomes, of resource wealth effects. Moving away from cross-country studies offers new perspectives on the resource curse debate and can help overcome concerns regarding endogeneity. Therefore, scholars are leveraging datasets that provide greater disaggregation of economic responses and exogenous identification of impacts. This article surveys the literature on these studies of local and regional effects of natural resource extraction. We discuss data availability and quality, recent advances in methodological tools, and the main findings of several research areas. These areas include the direct impact of natural resource production on local labor markets and welfare, the effects of government spending channels resulting from mining revenue, and regional spillovers. Finally, we take stock of the state of the literature and provide suggestions for future research.


Several studies have established the crucial role of the extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK)/mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway in hematopoietic cell proliferation and differentiation. MEK1 and MEK2 phosphorylate and activate ERK1 and ERK2. However, whether MEK1 and MEK2 differentially regulate these processes is unknown. To define the function of Mek genes in the activation of the ERK pathway during hematopoiesis, we generated a mutant mouse line carrying a hematopoietic-specific deletion of the Mek1 gene function in a Mek2 null background. Inactivation of both Mek1 and Mek2 genes resulted in death shortly after birth with a severe anemia revealing the essential role of the ERK pathway in erythropoiesis. Mek1 and Mek2 functional ablation also affected lymphopoiesis and myelopoiesis. In contrast, mice that retained one functional Mek1 (1Mek1) or Mek2 (1Mek2) allele in hematopoietic cells were viable and fertile. 1Mek1 and 1Mek2 mutants showed mild signs of anemia and splenomegaly, but the half-life of their red blood cells and the response to erythropoietic stress were not altered, suggesting a certain level of Mek redundancy for sustaining functional erythropoiesis. However, subtle differences in multipotent progenitor distribution in the bone marrow were observed in 1Mek1 mice, suggesting that the two Mek genes might differentially regulate early hematopoiesis.


Cancer cells thrive embedded in a fine-tuned cellular and extracellular environment or tumour microenvironment (TME). There is a general understanding of a co-evolution between cancer cells and their surrounding TME, pointing at a functional connection between cancer cells characteristics and the perturbations induced in their surrounding tissue. However, whether this functional connection needs to be set from the start or if aggressive cancer cells can always be dominating their microenvironment has never been formally proven with a dedicated experimental setting where malignant cells can be challenged to grow in a different TME from the one they would naturally create. Here we generated an experimental setting where we transiently perturb the secretory profile of aggressive breast cancer cells without affecting their intrinsic growth ability. This led to the initial establishment of an atypical TME. Interestingly, even if initially tumours are formed, this atypical TME evolves to impair long term in vivo cancer growth. Using a combination of in vivo transcriptomics, protein arrays and in vitro co-cultures, we found that the atypical TME culminates in the infiltration of macrophages with STAT1high activity. These macrophages show strong anti-tumoural functions which reduce long-term tumour growth, despite lacking canonical M1 markers. Importantly, gene signatures of the mesenchymal compartment of the TME, as well as the anti-tumoural macrophages show striking prognostic power-correlating with less aggressive human breast cancers.


According to the latest update from KRYSTAL-1, adagrasib shows durable efficacy in patients with advanced, previously treated KRASG12C non-small cell lung cancer. At 2 years, approximately one in three patients were still alive, and no new toxicities emerged, indicating that the KRASG12C inhibitor's long-term safety is manageable.


Deployed software, now-a-days, are continuously under attack. Attackers have been exploiting vulnerabilities for decades and seem to be on rise everyday. Firewalls, intrusion detection and antivirus systems cannot simply solve this problem to the desirable extent. The major reason may be the in-built vulnerabilities, which are not curable at these stages. Only a concerted effort, by the software development community for building more secure software can foil attacks and allow users to feel protected from the exploitation. It is observed that each phase of the SDLC should include the appropriate security assurance mechanisms and countermeasures. From requirements through design and implementation, to testing and deployment, security measures must be embedded throughout the SDLC phases. "Access Control and Rights" is one of the measure protective mechanisms, which is broadly accepted. Appropriate level of access control may well enforce security features and hence assure security. In this paper, various attributes of "Access Control and Rights" are identified and then a rank/weight is assigned to each one, followed by the risk assessment to integrate steps for security assurance from the early in the development lifecycle.


Recently, non-thermal food processing utilizing an underwater shockwave has been receiving much attention to provide nutritious and fresh foods at low cost. To generate the underwater shockwave, we propose a series-connected high voltage multiplier with bipolar structure. Unlike conventional Cockcroft-Walton voltage multipliers (CWVMs), the proposed multiplier amplifies the input voltage twice by connecting positive/negative multiplier blocks in series. Furthermore, these multiplier blocks are driven by high speed rectangular pulses. Owing to the series-connected bipolar topology, the proposed multiplier can achieve not only high conversion ratio but also high response speed. The operation principle and characteristic evaluation are described concerning the proposed multiplier. Simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis (SPICE) simulations demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed multiplier. Keywords— bipolar topology, Cockcroft-Walton multipliers, high speed multipliers, non-thermal food processing, seriesconnected multipliers.


Ensuring generalization to unseen environments remains a challenge. Domain shift can lead to substantially degraded performance unless shifts are well-exercised within the available training environments. We introduce a simple robust estimation criterion -- transfer risk -- that is specifically geared towards optimizing transfer to new environments. Effectively, the criterion amounts to finding a representation that minimizes the risk of applying any optimal predictor trained on one environment to another. The transfer risk essentially decomposes into two terms, a direct transfer term and a weighted gradient-matching term arising from the optimality of per-environment predictors. Although inspired by IRM, we show that transfer risk serves as a better out-of-distribution generalization criterion, both theoretically and empirically. We further demonstrate the impact of optimizing such transfer risk on two controlled settings, each representing a different pattern of environment shift, as well as on two real-world datasets. Experimentally, the approach outperforms baselines across various out-of-distribution generalization tasks. Code is available at \url{https://github.com/Newbeeer/TRM}.


This work examines the perceptual properties of the transfer chain of a recording room and a playback room. Recordings in a room have acoustical properties that can be measured with a room impulse response (RIR). Assuming the user reproduces these recordings over loudspeakers in another playback room, the acoustical properties of that playback room will also influence the sound field. Mathematically this playback chain can be expressed as a convolution of two RIRs. In an analytic comparison, the double convolution of these two RIRs is analysed and compared to the single RIR. The double convolution leads to an extended reverberant tail and to fundamental changes in the shape of both the reverberant tail and onset of the RIR. These changes can further be analysed in the frequency domain. A statistical property of a single room above the Schroeder Frequency is a fixed standard deviation (STD) of the logarithmic magnitude spectrum of 5.57 dB. The convolution of two RIRs in the time domain leads to a multiplication in the spectral domain, while the logarithmic presentation leads to an addition of the logarithmic magnitude spectrum. Thus the resulting STD is a combination of the single STDs. As a result the playback chain involving two rooms leads to an increase in spectral fluctuation strength, measured by the STD of the logarithmic magnitude which increases by a factor of square-root of two. A listening test confirmed that this increase in STD leads to a perceptible change in coloration.


The net ground plane inductance of printed circuit boards is the source of common-mode radiated emissions. Correct determination of the net ground plane inductance provides a quick estimation of the radiated emissions from printed circuit boards. Employing conformal mapping technique, this paper gives a closed-form expression for the per unit length net ground plane inductance of coplanar stripline printed circuit boards with finite ground plane width. Current density distribution on the ground plane is also obtained.


Molecular targeted therapy, especially VEGFR tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (TKIs) including sunitinib, pazopanib and sorafenib has been the most efficacious therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). However, approximately 35% of mRCC patients do not get the benefit from TKIs treatment, due to resistance and/or drug induced toxicities. Pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family member (BIM) is a particularly critical mediator of targeted therapy-induced apoptosis in solid tumors. In previous, it had known that TKIs induced to BIM upregulation and then accelerated to apoptosis of tumor. However, according to recent several studies, BIM germline deletion polymorphism was identified as one of the primary resistant mechanisms of various TKIs in EGFR mutated NSCLC or CML. In addition, the alteration of phosphoinositide 3 kinase(PIK3)/protein kinase B(AKT) pathway has also been found as important mechanism in various cancer cell growth, proliferation and survival. PI3KR1 encodes the p85α subunit, regulatory subunits of Class IA PIK3s. Germline PIK3R1 variant M326I(c.978G>A) might affect the sensitivity of receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitors and its downstream pathway inhibitors. We evaluated the possibility of BIM, PIK3R1 as a potential biomarker for VEGFR TKIs in mRCC. BIM deletion polymorphism status of gDNA from formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tumor tissues and peripheral blood mononucleated cells (PBMC) of mRCC patients was determined by separated PCR. And we evaluated BIM protein expression by immunohistochemistry. We also evaluated PIK3R1 germline mutation by pyrosequencing in PBMC of mRCC patients.Germline BIM deletion accounted for 17.8% of total 124 mRCC patients. Unlike with previous other studies, our data suggested that BIM wild type showed tendency to poor prognosis with sunitinib or sorafenib treatments for clear cell type RCC (median OS of BIM wild and deleted type: 44.9 vs 67.3 months, p = 0.279), and high expression of BIM (median OS of BIM low( 50%) respectively: 76.5 vs 60.0 vs 21.3 months, p = 0.005). In addition, we found 26% (19/71) of the germline PIK3R1 variant in mRCC. Patients with PIK3R1 germline variant showed a tendency of poor prognosis to 1st line VEGFR TKI treatment than wild type (median PFS: 7.78 vs 15.87months, p = 0.342). Especially PFS of 1st line sunitinib treatment was significantly shorter in PIK3R1 variant compared to wild type (median PFS 7.78 vs 16.33 months, p = 0.004). But, there is no difference in mTOR inhibitor sensitivity both with PIK3R1 or BIM polymorphism.In conclusion, BIM expression and germline variants of BIM and PIK3R1 might be candidate biomarkers for VEGFR TKIs in mRCC. Citation Format: Jee Hung Kim, Woo Sun Kwon, Won Suk Lee, Tae Soo Kim, Kyu Hyun Park, Jae Kyung Roh, Joong Bae Ahn, Hyun Cheol Chung, Sun Young Rha. Novel biomarkers for VEGFR inhibitors in metastatic renal cell carcinoma: BIM expression, and germline polymorphisms of BIM and PIK3R1. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 430.


Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a prototype autoimmune disease with complex etiology. Loss of immune tolerance and synthesis of autoantibodies against nuclear antigens contributes to the disease. Genetic aberrations disrupting the functions of immune regulatory receptors may facilitate the development of autoimmune diseases. Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA4) is an inhibitory receptor for T cells and this study was carried out to analyze the influence of CTLA4 +49A/G (rs231775) polymorphism on susceptibility to SLE in ethnic Tamils. Three hundred SLE patients and 460 age and sex similar, ethnicity-matched controls were screened for the +49 A/G polymorphism by real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The wild allele (A) frequency in controls and cases was 63% and 47%, respectively. The presence of heterozygous (AG) and homozygous mutant (GG) genotype was associated with a significant risk to develop SLE (P = 0.0001, OR-2.29, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.6-3.3) and (P = 0.0001, OR-4.3, 95% CI, 2.8-6.99). The frequency of mutant allele (G) in patients was also significantly associated with SLE (P = 0.0001, OR-1.9, 95% CI, 1.5-2.4). However, this polymorphism did not influence the clinical or serological phenotypes in our study. Therefore the CTLA4 +49 A/G polymorphism is a potential genetic risk factor for lupus susceptibility in South Indian Tamils, but does not appear to influence either the clinical or serological phenotype.


Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the current status of Korean medicine health technology assessment and explore realistic plans to activate it. Methods: We investigated all the applications for new health technology assessment related to Korean medicine from 2007 to 2016. The several expert meetings were held to draw out the barriers and improvement strategies of the new health technology assessment of Korean medicine field. Results: There were 31 cases in total except for duplications or reapplies falling into 3 main types. First, 19 of them were to try to enter a medical market and be covered by National Health Insurance. Eight cases were to apply western medicine technology as new health technology in Korean medicine area. The rest was 4 cases, which were totally not appropriate for the purpose of new health technology assessment system. According to the expert opinion, the obstacles of activation in new health technology assessment of Korean medicine were application of unstandardized technology, lack of understanding and experience, lack of clinical trial supporting system for Korean medicine, lack of committee members within the nHTA(new Health Technology Assessment) review board, ambiguous definition of medical practice and sharp conflict between western medicine and Korean medicine. Conclusions: Several suggestions were derived. First of all, to activate Korean medicine in the nHTA system, the existing system should be used sufficiently, and multifaceted efforts are needed to upgrade the system, if necessary. Also, self-help efforts, Korean medicine clinical trial supporting system and increasing R&D investment, establishing extra-committee for Korean medicine in nHTA could be needed. Finally, long-term strategy for improving collaboration between Korean medicine and western medicine should be considered.


The reduction of energy consumption in buildings is one of the goals to improve energy efficiency. One way to achieve energy savings in buildings is to develop intelligent control strategies for heating systems that are able to reduce power consumption without affecting the thermal comfort. An intelligent control system must be able to predict the temperature of the building in order to manage the heating system. In this paper, we present a rule-based model that is able to predict the indoor temperature for different values of k (hours ahead in time). The model has been learned with FRULER, a genetic fuzzy system that generates accurate and simple knowledge bases. Our approach has been validated with real data from a residential college.


Purpose Calcification is an important prognostic factor in aortic valve stenosis. However, there is no ultrasound (US) method available to accurately quantify calcification in this setting to date. We aimed to validate a new US method for measuring the amount of calcium in an in vitro model, and compare it to computed tomography (CT), the current imaging gold standard. Materials and Methods An agar phantom (2% agar) was made, containing 9 different amounts of calcium-hydroxyapatite Ca5(PO4)3OH (2 to 50mg). The phantoms were imaged with micro-CT and US (10 MHz probe). The calcium area (areacalcium) and its maximum pixel value (PVmax) were obtained. These values were summed to calculate CT and US calcium scores (∑(areacalcium × PVmax)) and volumes (∑areacalcium). Both US- and CT-calcium scores were compared with the calcium amounts, and with each other. Results Both calcium scores correlated significantly with the calcium amount (R2 = 0.9788, p<0.0001 and R2 = 0.8154, p<0.0001 for CT and US respectively). Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between US and CT for calcium volumes (R2 = 0.7392, p<0.0001) and scores (R2 = 0.7391, p<0.0001). Conclusion We developed a new US method that accurately quantifies the amount of calcium in an in vitro model. Moreover it is strongly correlated with CT.


The effects of climate change on agriculture may have strong impacts on the world's food economy and are likely to threaten both the welfare of the world's population and the economic development of the global society. Hence, the impacts of changes in important climate variables like temperature, rainfall and relative humidity on the production of a major food commodity called banana is investigated using the data obtained within 1998-2012 from Ondo State, Nigeria. The results suggest that excessive rainfall and extremely high temperature can reduce banana productivity while the production is also small when both rainfall and temperature are very low with poor humidity. On the average, the findings show that a mean temperature of about 26 °C and average rainfall of around 1891mm with relative humidity of approximately 77% will lead to good annual banana production above 61,000 tons in Ondo State. Since these climate variables will fluctuate under a future climate change condition, the coping strategies recommended for farmers in the area and in similar places might include planting of droughtand disease resistant banana types, monitoring of weather World Scientific News 44 (2016) 143-154 -144conditions, use of irrigation and chemicals. Improved storage facilities are also important while transportation of banana should be done under controlled conditions to avoid spoiling the quality.


Context. Observations of cold condensed clouds in the interstellar medium show an enhancement in the dust emissivity at long wavelengths. Model calculations with the discrete-dipole approximation (DDA) can explain this enhancement with the coagulation of dust particles into aggregates. Aims. We study the nature of grain-grain contacts and their effects on the aggregate optical properties. Methods. We use DDA and the T-matrix method (TMM) to calculate the absorption properties of aggregate dust grains and analyse where and why the enhancement in the emissivity occurs. Results. We find that the absorption coefficient changes with material composition and with the contact area between monomers. A larger contact area, with DDA, compared to a zero-point contact with TMM, results in an enhancement of the absorption coefficient for wavelengths where the considered material has a large value n (the real part of the refractive index). Conclusions. DDA seems to be the most realistic way of taking into account "real" inter-particle contact effects in aggregate particles.


Staphylococcus epidermidis is frequently implicated in human infections associated with indwelling medical devices due to its ubiquity in the skin flora and formation of robust biofilms. The accessory gene regulator (agr) quorum sensing (QS) system plays a prominent role in the establishment of biofilms and infection by this bacterium. Agr activation is mediated by the binding of a peptide signal (or autoinducing peptide, AIP) to its cognate AgrC receptor. Many questions remain about the role of QS in S. epidermidis infections, as well as in mixed-microbial populations on a host, and chemical modulators of its agr system could provide novel insights into this signaling network. The AIP ligand provides an initial scaffold for the development of such probes; however, the structure-activity relationships (SARs) for activation of S. epidermidis AgrC receptors by AIPs are largely unknown. Herein, we report the first SAR analyses of an S. epidermidis AIP by performing systematic alanine and d-amino acid scans of the S. epidermidis AIP-I. On the basis of these results, we designed and identified potent, pan-group inhibitors of the AgrC receptors in the three S. epidermidis agr groups, as well as a set of AIP-I analogs capable of selective AgrC inhibition in either specific S. epidermidis agr groups or in another common staphylococcal species, S. aureus. In addition, we uncovered a non-native peptide agonist of AgrC-I that can strongly inhibit S. epidermidis biofilm growth. Together, these synthetic analogs represent new and readily accessible probes for investigating the roles of QS in S. epidermidis colonization and infections.


High-grade glioma (HGG) is a primary brain tumour which is associated with a high mortality rate. An HGG diagnosis is an overwhelming experience for patients and their families, with patients suffering from a range of symptoms associated with disease progression and treatment resulting in poor outcomes and quality of life. For the neuro-oncology nurse, it is difficult to deliver comprehensive health care to this patient group. A search of the literature was conducted for the years 2004 through September 2015. Based on predefined criteria, 16 records were retrieved for review with a major focus on symptoms and treatment of cerebral oedema. The findings were grouped based on emerging categories relating to treatment and management of cerebral oedema, quality of life, functionality and psychological health and nursing assessment and interventions. This article aims to provide health care professionals with a better understanding of the symptom management and effects of cerebral oedema in HGG patients.


Ten patients with urogenital tumors were treated with Etoposide. The dose schedule was 100 mg i.v. daily for 5 days and was repeated after 4-5 weeks. One patient with ureteral tumor experienced partial remission for 60 days and minor regression was achieved in 3 patients. The major side effects were leukopenia (60%) and thrombocytopenia (40%). Mean WBC nadir of 1050/mm3 occurred at 13.5 days and recovered quickly after a further 7.5 days.


. The paper investigated the suspension of Independent Non-Executive Directors(INEDs) stock options on corporate capital choices: Equity, retained earnings, long term borrowing and short term borrowing. The paper used a sample of 1250 non-financial Firm years from 2010 to 2019. The Ordinary Least Squares and the difference in difference method discovered that the firms' Leverage increased positively after the reform. In particular, the suspension of stock options impacts the high levels of long term borrowing in the "Apply and Explain" periods. The study submits that the suspension of stock options maximizes the independence of the INED on the executive Board and Subcommittees (Audit and Remuneration) to reduce the use of retained earnings and promotes the use of Long term debts in financing projects.


The Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program targets reading comprehension skills in high-ability learners by moving students through an inquiry process from basic understanding to critical analyses of texts, using a field-tested method developed by the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary. Students in grades 1-2 will learn to comprehend and analyze any reading passage after completing the activities in Jacob's Ladder, Grades 1-2 (2nd ed.).Geared for students in grades 1-2, this book, a revision of the Primary Level 2 book, includes stories and ladder tasks carefully selected for young children to develop oral communication and listening skills in addition to the other ladder goals. This book provides stories focused on picture analysis, read alouds, classics, and original works.Optional Student Workbook PacksIn addition to this teacher's guide, companion student workbooks are available for Poetry and Picture Books and Short Stories (Parts 1 and 2). The student workbooks feature ample room for student responses and notes, make reviewing and providing feedback on student work easier than ever, provide students with an easy-to-use reference to use during discussions, and save time, as there is no need to reproduce student handouts.Grades 1-2


Abstract Objectives Intra-amniotic inflammation is a subclinical condition frequently caused by either microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity or sterile inflammatory stimuli, e.g., alarmins. An accumulating body of evidence supports a role for maternal immune activation in the genesis of fetal neuroinflammation and the occurrence of neurodevelopmental disorders such as cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, and autism. The objective of this study was to determine whether fetal exposure to mid-trimester intra-amniotic inflammation is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders in children eight to 12 years of age. Methods This is a retrospective case-control study comprising 20 children with evidence of prenatal exposure to intra-amniotic inflammation in the mid-trimester and 20 controls matched for gestational age at amniocentesis and at delivery. Amniotic fluid samples were tested for concentrations of interleukin-6 and C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10, for bacteria by culture and molecular microbiologic methods as well as by polymerase chain reaction for eight viruses. Neuropsychological testing of children, performed by two experienced psychologists, assessed cognitive and behavioral domains. Neuropsychological dysfunction was defined as the presence of an abnormal score (<2 standard deviations) on at least two cognitive tasks. Results Neuropsychological dysfunction was present in 45% (9/20) of children exposed to intra-amniotic inflammation but in only 10% (2/20) of those in the control group (p=0.03). The relative risk (RR) of neuropsychological dysfunction conferred by amniotic fluid inflammation remained significant after adjusting for gestational age at delivery [aRR=4.5 (1.07–16.7)]. Of the 11 children diagnosed with neuropsychological dysfunction, nine were delivered at term and eight of them had mothers with intra-amniotic inflammation. Children exposed to intra-amniotic inflammation were found to have abnormalities in neuropsychological tasks evaluating complex skills, e.g., auditory attention, executive functions, and social skills, whereas the domains of reasoning, language, and memory were not affected in the cases and controls. Conclusions Asymptomatic sterile intra-amniotic inflammation in the mid-trimester of pregnancy, followed by a term birth, can still confer to the offspring a substantial risk for neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood. Early recognition and treatment of maternal immune activation in pregnancy may be a strategy for the prevention of subsequent neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring.


Aims: Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) has been increasingly recognized as an independent risk factor for aortic dissection (AD) and it is strongly associated with the extent of intermittent hypoxia and re-oxygenation (IH). This study aimed to clarify role of ROS- HIF-1α-MMPs pathway in the pathogenesis of AD and whether the HIF-1α inhibitor attenuates AD formation. Methods and results: 8-week-old male ApoE-/- mice were given β-aminopropionitrile at a concentration of 0.1 % for 3 weeks and infused via osmotic mini pumps with either saline or 2,500 ng/min/kg angiotensin II (Ang II) for 2 weeks. To mimic the OSAS, one group was exposed to IH, which consisted of alternating cycles of 20.9% O2/8% O2 FiO2 (30 episodes per hour) with 20 s at the nadir FiO2 during the 12-h light phase, 2 weeks before Ang II infusion. After Ang II infusion, we assessed remodeling in the aorta by echocardiography, histological and immunohistochemical analysis. IH treatment resulted in significant enlargement of the luminal area, destruction of the media, marked thickening of the adventitia, higher incidence of AD formation and lower survival rate in compared with the Ang II only group. Moreover, IH exposure markedly increased the aortic ROS production and subsequent HIF-1α expression, which in turn promoted the expressions of VEGF, MMP2 and MMP9 and finally leading to the progression of AD. Besides, in vitro study confirmed that IH induced HIF-1α expression plays an important role in the induction of MMPs and that is regulated by the PI3K/AKT/FRAP pathway. Intriguingly, a selective HIF-1α inhibitor KC7F2 could significantly ameliorate IH exposure induced aforementioned deleterious effects in vitro and in vivo. Conclusion: OSAS induced IH can promote the occurrence and progression of AD via a ROS- HIF-1α-MMPs associated pathway. The selective HIF-1α inhibitor KC7F2 could be a novel therapeutic agent for AD patient with OSAS.


In this paper, a novel, simple and reliable digital firing scheme has been implemented for speed control of three-phase induction motor using ac voltage controller. The system consists of three-phase supply connected to the three-phase induction motor via three triacs and its control circuit. The ac voltage controller has three modes of operation depending on the shape of supply current. The performance of the induction motor differs in each mode where the speed is directly proportional with firing angle in two modes and inversely in the third one. So, the control system has to detect the current mode of operation to choose the correct order for the firing angle of triacs. Three sensors are used to feed the line currents to control system to detect the mode of operation. The control strategy is implemented using a low cost Xilinx Spartan-3E field programmable gate array (FPGA) device. Three PI controllers are designed on the FPGA to control the system for the three modes. Simulation of the system is carried out using PSIM computer programme. The simulation results show stable operation for different loading conditions especially in mode 2/3. The simulation results have been compared with the experimental results from laboratory prototype.


An efficient and effective management should not be satisfied with a particular year of performance, but should try to discover the possible profit earning capacity of the business. In order to achieve the objective, the management should compare its current performance with the performance of the previous year and identify the positive and negatives of the business. The weakness and any short-comings should be identified and removed and plus points should strengthen further. The research entitled Profitability Analysis which is conducted in Whirlpool of India Ltd and Compared with Selected Competitor. Secondary data were adopted in this research. This research is of analytical methods used to analyze the profitability at Whirlpool of India Ltd and compare it with selected competitors.


Background: Recent studies have identified important social inequalities in SARS-CoV-2 infection and related COVID-19 outcomes in the Belgian population. The aim of our study was to investigate the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics associated with the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine in Belgium. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the uptake of a first COVID-19 vaccine dose among 5,342,110 adults ([≥]18 years) in Belgium from December 28th 2020 (official starting date of the vaccination campaign) until August 31st 2021. We integrated data from four national data sources: the Belgian vaccine register (vaccination status), COVID-19 Healthdata (laboratory test results), DEMOBEL (sociodemographic/socioeconomic data), and the Common Base Registry for HealthCare Actors (individuals licensed to practice a healthcare profession in Belgium). We used multivariable logistic regression analysis for identifying characteristics associated with not having obtained a first COVID-19 vaccine dose in Belgium and for each of its three regions (Flanders, Brussels, and Wallonia). Results: During the study period, 10% (536,716/5,342,110) of the Belgian adult population included in our study sample was not vaccinated with a first COVID-19 vaccine dose. A lower COVID-19 vaccine uptake was found among young individuals, men, migrants, single parents, one-person households, and disadvantaged socioeconomic groups (with lower levels of income and education, unemployed). Overall, the sociodemographic and socioeconomic disparities were comparable for all regions. Conclusions: The identification of sociodemographic and socioeconomic disparities in COVID-19 vaccination uptake is critical to develop strategies guaranteeing a more equitable vaccination coverage of the Belgian adult population.


With the ever increasing demand for high quality 3D image processing on markets such as cinema and gaming, graphics processing units (GPUs) capabilities have shown tremendous advances. Although GPU-based cluster computing, which uses GPUs as the processing units, is one of the most promising high performance parallel computing platforms, currently there is no programming environment, interface or library designed to use these multiple computing resources to compute tasks in parallel. This paper proposes the CaravelaMPI, a new message passing interface targeted for GPU cluster computing, providing a unified and transparent interface to manage both communication and GPU execution. Experimental results show that the transparent interface of CaravelaMPI allows to efficiently program GPU-based clusters, not only decreasing the required programming effort but also increasing the performance of GPU-based cluster computing platforms.


Edge inference is becoming ever prevalent through its applications from retail to wearable technology. Clusters of networked resource-constrained edge devices are becoming common, yet there is no production-ready orchestration system for deploying deep learning models over such edge networks which adopts the ro-bustness and scalability of the cloud. We present SEIFER, a framework utilizing a standalone Kubernetes cluster to partition a given DNN and place these partitions in a distributed manner across an edge network, with the goal of maximizing inference throughput. The system is node fault-tolerant and automatically updates deployments based on updates to the model's version. We provide a preliminary evaluation of a partitioning and placement algorithm that works within this framework, and show that we can improve the inference pipeline throughput by 200% by utilizing sufficient numbers of resource-constrained nodes. We have imple-mented SEIFER in open-source software that is publicly available to the research community.


In this paper, particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost) algorithm are combined to form a hybrid learning algorithm PSO-AB to boost the classification ability of support vector machine (SVM). This hybrid adopts SVM to classify the experimental data, uses AdaBoost algorithm to boost the classification results, and then uses PSO to optimize the boosted results. Experimental results of two clinical data show that AdaBoost algorithm could improve the accuracy of training set extremely, but for the testing set the result is not satisfactory. PSO-AB makes it possible to maximize the testing accuracy of AdaBoost algorithm on the premise of that the accuracy of training set is still exact, and will be a more effective method to classification problems compared to AdaBoost algorithm.


The heterotrimeric G proteins, G12and G13, are closely related in their sequences, signaling partners, and cellular effects such as oncogenic transformation and cytoskeletal reorganization. Yet G12 and G13can act through different pathways, bind different proteins, and show opposing actions on some effectors. We investigated the compartmentalization of G12 and G13 at the membrane because other G proteins reside in lipid rafts, membrane microdomains enriched in cholesterol and sphingolipids. Lipid rafts were isolated after cold, nonionic detergent extraction of cells and gradient centrifugation. Gα12 was in the lipid raft fractions, whereas Gα13 was not associated with lipid rafts. Mutation of Cys-11 on Gα12, which prevents its palmitoylation, partially shifted Gα12 from the lipid rafts. Geldanamycin treatment, which specifically inhibits Hsp90, caused a partial loss of wild-type Gα12 and a complete loss of the Cys-11 mutant from the lipid rafts and the appearance of a higher molecular weight form of Gα12 in the soluble fractions. These results indicate that acylation and Hsp90 interactions localized Gα12 to lipid rafts. Hsp90 may act as both a scaffold and chaperone to maintain a functional Gα12 only in discrete membrane domains and thereby explain some of the nonoverlapping functions of G12 and G13 and control of these potent cell regulators.


Several aspects of the multichip module technology, including its functions, leverages, applications, and markets, are reviewed. All the packaging technologies used in multichip, such as sealing and encapsulation, heat removal, chip level connections, thin film, ceramic, and printed wiring, are discussed. The module corrections and electrical testing used in forming a high-performance or portable system are also discussed. >


To reduce human error and prejudice, many high-stakes decisions have been turned over to machine algorithms. However, recent research suggests that this does not remove discrimination, and can perpetuate harmful stereotypes. While algorithms have been developed to improve fairness, they typically face at least one of three shortcomings: they are not interpretable, their prediction quality deteriorates quickly compared to unbiased equivalents, and %the methodology cannot easily extend other algorithms they are not easily transferable across models% (e.g., methods to reduce bias in random forests cannot be extended to neural networks) . To address these shortcomings, we propose a geometric method that removes correlations between data and any number of protected variables. Further, we can control the strength of debiasing through an adjustable parameter to address the trade-off between prediction quality and fairness. The resulting features are interpretable and can be used with many popular models, such as linear regression, random forest, and multilayer perceptrons. The resulting predictions are found to be more accurate and fair compared to several state-of-the-art fair AI algorithms across a variety of benchmark datasets. Our work shows that debiasing data is a simple and effective solution toward improving fairness.


OBJECTIVE: To translate and establish the cross-cultural validation of the "Nursing Work Index - Revised" into Brazilian Portuguese. METHODS: Internationally recommended methodological procedures were followed strictly: Translation, back-translation, cross-cultural validation by an expert panel, and pre-test of the instrument. RESULTS: The translation and back-translation steps were satisfactory. The cross-cultural validation of the instrument by the expert panel resulted in changes in most of the items of Portuguese version of the instrument. These changes were necessary to establish the cross-cultural equivalency between the English and the Portuguese versions of the instrument. Pre-test of the Portuguese version of the instrument also suggested the need to revise some items to make them clearer. CONCLUSION: Despite the complexity of the process of the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of an instrument, the Brazilian Portuguese version of the "Nursing Work Index - Revised" was found to have cross-cultural equivalency with the original English version of the instrument.


A multiple reference frame based model of a generically configured permanent split capacitor (PSC) induction machine is set forth. The model provides for the possibilities of asymmetrical winding arbitrary tapping of the main winding, and shifting of the auxiliary winding from the quadrature position. The model is valid for both steady-state and transient analysis, and features state variables which are constant in the steady-state. This feature makes the model readily linearizable for derivation of transfer functions. In addition, a procedure for estimation of the machine parameters based on standstill measurements is set forth. Finally, both the model and the parameter measurement scheme are verified experimentally.


Summary When heterosexuals fall in love, get married and have children, the last thing on their mind is taking legal steps to protect their family. In seeing their lesbian and gay clients, therapists will often notice the same thing. However, at the moment when one's mind is least focused on legal matters, lesbian and gay couples must focus on protecting their relationships through wills, health care proxies, and advanced directives and must focus on protecting their children through second parent adoptions, known donor agreements or other kinds of agreements. This article will outline the kinds of legal issues you must isolate for your clients so that they can legalize their relationships and families.


This paper deals with the parameter estimation and hypothesis testing on equality of two Rayleigh distribution populations with missing data.The consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimations are proved.Moreover,statistic on testing equality of two Rayleigh distributions and its limit distribution are given.


An Energy Management System (EMS) to balance the production of renewable sources with the consumption by a set of electrolization units is proposed here based on Model Predictive Control ideas (MPC). This EMS regulates the operating point of each electrolyzer and its connections or disconnections using a Mixed-Integer-Quadratic-programming algorithm. A case study is given for an installation composed of wave and wind energy sources and a set of 3 alkaline electrolyzers. Validation using meausured data at the target loction of the installation shows the adequate performance of the proposed EMS.


The current study aimed to map the potential grazing areas available in the Thondamuthur block of Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu, India. Factors like distance from cattle location, distance from water sources (natural and manmade), slope, enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and land surface water index (LSWI) were considered. Various suitability classes (very high, high, moderate, low and very low) were derived for each factor and the final suitability map was prepared by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and weighted overlay techniques using Sentinel-2A data. The results revealed that the high suitability category occupied the largest area (14.81%) followed by the very high suitability category (3.57%). The moderate, low and very low suitability categories occupied a small per cent of the total area viz., 1.66%, 0.20% and 0.03%, respectively. The identified areas could be brought under scientific management for pasture development.


Two different slug test methods including: i) slug test using the standard slug rod and ii) pneumatic slug test are conducted in different well/depth in Danphuong field site for a comparative analysis. These methods are examined at least 3 times for each well to estimate hydraulic conductivities by using Hvorslev. The results show correlation between two slug test methods is very hight with R2 = 0,93. Slug tests methods have several advantages and also disadvantage compare to each other. Practical considerations of performing the tests in real life settings are also considered in the method comparison. The slug-rod method meets 7/10 criterions while pneumatic slug test satisfy 8/10 criterions.


As people who are benefiting materially from 'modernity' and also as people who have in no small measure participated in the processes that have degraded the planet, Muslims have an important contribution to make to the growing debate on the environment. Islamic environmentalism has its own unique expression but it is not in evidence today. It is argued in this paper that the driving force of modernity stems from the push for economic development which is now taxing the earth's resources as never before in human history and that the global village is now a homogenised consumer culture which impacts negatively on the biosphere. This has been achieved by the progressive dilution and destruction of old traditional values and the marginalisation of religion, and Islam has not been immune to this process. This essay is an attempt to explain how Islam defines human connections with the earth and how we may be kinder to it as the source of the generous gifts that sustain all our lives.


Although the method based on the Mueller matrix for the experimental determination of optical-device polarization behaviour is a powerful tool, it has rarely been applied to optical fibre. This paper introduces an experimental methodology for measuring the Mueller matrices of monomode fibre under uniform strains. Using a theoretical model derived from coupled-mode equations, we were able to first estimate the physical parameters of the fibre, then to use them to both test the model validity and assess their influence on the polarimetric behaviour of the fibre.


In the forest sector, non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners commonly interact with numerous stakeholders (e.g. forest managers, timber buyers, harvesting contractors and advisors) for counseling, planning, selling and hiring. Forest management is therefore built and influenced by the
relationships between NIPF owners and other stakeholders. In the local context of a Southern Sweden, the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA) and the Southern Forest Owners Association (SODRA) are very influential stakeholders in small-scale forest management. Based on qualitative interviews and by means of grounded theory, an analysis of the relationships between NIPF owners and the mentioned organizations was carried out in order to understand the social context at the genesis of forest management decisions. The most significant features found in the field were: i) strong and trustful relationship between NIPF owners and SFA; ii) trustworthy behavior of SODRA during hard times; iii) SODRA is driven by industrial and not NIPF owners' best interests; iv) entrepreneurs can be trustworthy actors; and v) centralization of institutions, lack of time of officers and communications barriers influence negatively the relationships NIPF owners-other stakeholders. The results show how public and private customer-related working practices affect NIPF owners' relation to e.g. advisors, buyers and contractors; and trigger specific perceptions of institutions. Although, deterioration of relationships in a local context might not seem influential to the larger forest industry as SODRA, the
sum of such small pressures weakens the social domain of the forest sector, thus setting hurdles to participative forestry governance.


Cultural process impacted on the change building's aspects such as physical and social. Physical aspects refer to the building while social aspects refer to human or building's user. The transformation of both aspect can be massive or small. Nevertheless those two aspects are interrelated. This study aims to address this phenomenon by observing physical aspects and social aspect in Warung Lela. Warung Lela is a building that change its function from private into commercial. House and restaurant coexist in a building which is originally functioned for housing only. Warung Lela manage to maximize its physical capability to accommodate commercial function by maintaining the original theme and utilize site's potency. Transformation cause private zone become smaller. Building's expansion to accommodate restaurant preserve the most private space for the inhabitant so inhabitant and restaurant's visitor can do their own activity without disturbing each other.


A CMOS mixer topology for use in highly integrated downconversion receivers is presented. The mixing is based on the modulation of nMOS transistors in the triode region which renders an excellent linearity independent of mismatch. With two extra capacitors added to the classical cross-coupled MOSFET-C lowpass filter structure, GHz signals can be processed while only a low-frequency opamp is required as output amplifier. The downconversion mixer has an input bandwidth of 1.5 GHz. The measured third-order intercept point (IP3) of 45.2 dBm demonstrates the high linearity. The mixer has been implemented in a 1.2 /spl mu/m CMOS process. It takes up 1 mm/sup 2/ of total chip area and its power consumption is 1.3 mW from a single 5 V power supply. >


Lysozyme is one of the best characterized antimicrobial proteins in egg white. Three phenotypes of egg white lysozyme in Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica, (namely fast; slow; and the combination, FS) were observed by acid polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The fast phenotype showed faster mobility on Acid-PAGE than the slow phenotype. Comparison of the coding sequences for lysozyme derived from the slow and fast phenotypes revealed a nonsynonymous SNP at nucleotide position 115 from the translation initiation site, which alters AA sequence of lysozyme. This nonsynonymous SNP converted glutamine (Q) in the slow phenotype to lysine (K) in the fast phenotype at AA residue 21 of mature lysozyme (Q21K). Here, we investigated the effect of these phenotypes on muramidase activity, antibacterial activity, and hatchability. Muramidase activity toward isolated cell walls of Micrococcus lysodeikticus was in the order: fast allozyme > slow allozyme > chicken (Gallus gallus), but no significant difference was found among the 3 (P > 0.05). Antibacterial activity against live Staphylococcus aureus cells was significantly greater for the fast allozyme than the slow allozyme from 20 h after incubation (P < 0.05). For the antibacterial effects against live Escherichia coli cells, the activity of fast was significantly higher than that of slow at 16 h after incubation (P < 0.05). Hatchability was estimated for reciprocal crosses of Japanese quail with the FF (fast) and SS (slow) genotypes. Hatchability was 92.5% in FF male × SS female crosses and 87.2% in SS male × FF female crosses. A Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test revealed a significant difference between the crosses (P < 0.05) and indicated that the female-derived slow phenotype led to improved rates of hatching. Our results suggest that the nonsynonymous SNP in Japanese quail lysozyme influences the electrophoretic migration, muramidase activity, and antibacterial activity of the protein, in addition to the hatchability of the eggs. These results demonstrate, for the first time, a significant difference in antibacterial activity and hatchability between 2 lysozyme phenotypes in Japanese quail.


Introduction: Wearable I robots such as exoskeletons combine the strength and precision of intelligent machines with the adaptability and creativity of human beings. Exoskeletons are unique in that humans interact with the technologies on both a physical and cognitive level, and as such, involve a complex, interdependent relationship between humans and robots. The aim of this paper was to explore the concepts of agency and adaptation as they relate to human-machine synchrony, as human users learned to operate a complex whole-body powered exoskeleton. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with participants over multiple sessions in which they performed a range of basic functional tasks and simulated industrial tasks using a powered exoskeleton prototype, to understand their expectations of the human-technology partnership, any challenges that arose in their interaction with the device, and what strategies they used to resolve such challenges. Results: Analysis of the data revealed two overarching themes: 1) Participants faced physical, cognitive, and affective challenges to synchronizing with the exoskeleton; and 2) they engaged in sensemaking strategies such as drawing analogies with known prior experiences and anthropomorphized the exoskeleton as a partner entity in order to adapt and address challenges. Discussion: This research is an important first step to understanding how humans make sense of and adapt to a powerful and complex wearable robot with which they must synchronize in order to perform tasks. Implications for our understanding of human and machine agency as well as bidirectional coadaptation principles are discussed.


Deep learning shows high potential for many medical image analysis tasks. Neural networks work with full-size data without extensive preprocessing and feature generation and, thus, information loss. Recent work has shown that morphological difference between specific brain regions can be found on MRI with deep learning techniques. We consider the pattern recognition task based on a large open-access dataset of healthy subjects - an exploration of brain differences between men and women. However, interpretation of the lately proposed models is based on a region of interest and can not be extended to pixel or voxel-wise image interpretation, which is considered to be more informative. In this paper, we confirm the previous findings in sex differences from diffusion-tensor imaging on T1 weighted brain MRI scans. We compare the results of three voxel-based 3D CNN interpretation methods: Meaningful Perturbations, GradCam and Guided Backpropagation and provide the open-source code.


The study of the genetic determination of longevity in Drosophila melanogaster has made use of the technique of late-age reproduction. At low larval density, that indirect selection showed no effect. At high larval density, however, increased mean life-span in lines reproduced at late age was observed. When these last data are examined as a function of the number of days after the beginning of the experiment, instead of as a function of generations, the difference in life-span between early and late lines at high larval density disappears. The erratic evolutions of mean longevities in all the experiments here described may be attributed to unexplained variations in life-span previously observed in a 4-year experiment. Considering the time lag between the measurement of a given generation in early and late lines, the experiments of reproduction at late age cannot demonstrate the genetic determinism of longevity.


This paper discusses the actual possibility of altering artificially certain optoelectronic properties of LiNbO3 crystals by means of change in lattice site of a few Me3+ ions in the crystals. A new lattice site Cr3+ defect in Cr-doped LiNbO3 vapour transport equilibration has been displayed as a practical example.


Background: Blood stream infections are an important cause of mortality & morbidity in all age group worldwide.
Aim & Objective: The aim of this study was to perform bacteriological analysis and assess antibiotic sensitivity patterns of isolates from bloodstream infections in a tertiary care hospital in Dhaka city.
Material & methods: The study is a retrospective observational analysis of blood culture isolates received in the Department of Microbiology, Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College & Hospital from January to December, 2021. A total sample size was 2371, out of them positive aerobic bacterial growth was observed in 85 (3.58%) isolates.  Sampling technique was used to collect data from the laboratory records and written consent was taken from concerned authority collected data were compiled and analyzed with the help of SPSS version 20. All samples were collected in BacT/ ALERT 3D 60 aerobic bottles irrespective to antibiotics administration. One to five (1-5) ml blood for children and 5-10 ml blood for adult were collected respectively. Samples were incubated in the automated BacT/ ALERT 3D. Subculture was done on blood agar, chocolate agar media & MacConkey's agar media. Identification of organisms by Gram stain & biochemical tests were done as per the standard methods. Negative signal blood culture bottles were kept in machine for up to 5 days. No mixed cultures (the association of two microorganisms) were identified. All the isolates were tested for their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern by Kirby-Bauer's disk diffusion technique according to the Clinical and Laboratory standards institute guideline.
Results: Overall, 45/874 (5.14%) positive blood cultures were isolated from adult followed by neonate 31/709(4.37%), children 6/390(1.54%) & infant 3/398(0.75%). Bacteremia was more or less equal in both sexes, female 44 (51.77%) & male 41(48.23%). Trend of pathogens recover in highest in November 13(15.29%). The most common organism isolated was Staph. aureus 26(30.58%) followed by Klebsiella species 15(17.64%), Acinetobacter species 13(15.29%), Pseudomonas species 11(12.94%), Salmonella Typhi 10(11.76%) and E. coli 10(11.76%). In Staph. aureus, linezolid and vancomycin were 100% sensitive. In Klebsiella spp. meropenem was 87% & in E. coli 80% sensitive. In Acinetobacter spp. amoxicillin/ clavanic acid 85% & colistin 70% sensitive. In Pseudomonas spp., meropenem and piperacillin tazobactum 100% sensitive followed by ciprofloxacin 82%, ceftazidime 82% & amikacin 81.8% sensitive. In Salmonella Typhi, ceftriaxone was 100% sensitive.
Conclusion: Drug resistant bacteria are increasing over the years, so, antibiotic policy which formulates according to local sensitivity pattern will be implemented effectively.
Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.14(2) July 2023: 84-91


During the past several years this talk has been an occasion for historical, philosophical, or pedagogic presentations. I want to return to the earlier tradition and address my remarks to a scientific subject that is currently of great interest to me, namely, the similarities between humoral and cellular immunity.
 For a century, immunology has been divided into two worlds, one humoral, the other cellular. I believe there are clear indications that this era is now drawing to a close as a consequence of studies of the various mediators that are operative in the trans-antibody domain of humoral and cellular immunity. It is my impression that we are witnessing one of those exciting developments in scientific research in which a series of diverse facts gives rise to hypothetical concepts that are eventually developed into the satisfying pattern of a theory.


This book explores how women are represented in novels written by women which have conflict as their central thematic concern. The Revolution was the zero hour of twentieth century Mexican national discourse. Even while the war was being fought, writers felt the need to engage with the mythologies of that discourse and write their own versions of events. From these early witness accounts there developed a genre which would evolve to challenge the all-pervasive imagining of the nation on an institutional level. As a result, the Revolution was a pivotal event for writers. Heretofore, in the main, critical studies have only examined writing by men, while women's contribution to this genre has been marginalized and ignored. This book provides a unique insight into the many roles which women had in the Revolution and assesses the complex and varied styles employed by three significant, and in many ways controversial, Mexican authors: Elena Garro, Elena Poniatowska, and Angeles Mastretta. This is an important book which makes a significant contribution to the international debates which examine women's many roles in wartime.


Clergy training in theology and philosophy may not always prepare priests or ministers for their role as pastoral counselors. A common misconception conceives of the priest as the problem solver for those approaching with concerns. It will be helpful to change that perception as the priest is not a solver of issues but is rather an individual who accompanies the client on their journey to problem resolution. A changed perception can alleviate much of the stress and fear that emerges in the role of counselor. After a brief focus on the need for training and the concepts inherent in the process of pastoral counseling, this book provides simple strategies for losing the fear and gaining the skills that will encourage priests and other clergy in this essential role. This guide for skills' integration will explain a more cohesive, easy-to-understand process that encourages client empowerment and discourages reliance on the clergy member.


Background Atopic dermatitis (AD) primarily affects the pediatric population, which is highly colonized by S. aureus. However, little is known about the genetic features of this microorganism and other staphylococcal species that colonize AD patients. Objective This study aimed to characterize Staphylococcus spp. isolated from the nares and skin (with and without lesion) of 30 AD and 12 non-AD Brazilian children. Methods Skin and nasal swabs were cultured onto mannitol salt agar, and bacterial colonies were counted and identified by matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Antimicrobial susceptibility was evaluated by phenotypic and genotypic tests. In S. aureus isolates, Panton-Valentine leukocidin genes were detected by PCR, and their clonality was assessed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing. Results S. aureus was more prevalent in the nares (P = 0.005) and lesional skin (P = 0.0002) of children with AD, while S. hominis was more frequent in the skin of non-AD children (P < 0.0001). All children in the study, except one from each group, were colonized by methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus and 24% by methicillin-resistant S. aureus. Despite the great clonal diversity of S. aureus (18 sequence types identified), most AD children (74.1%) were colonized by the same genotype in both niches. Conclusion High colonization by polyclonal S. aureus isolates was found among children with AD, while S. hominis was more frequent among non-AD children. The high prevalence of methicillin-resistant staphylococcal isolates highlights the importance of continued surveillance, especially when considering empiric antibiotic therapy for the treatment of skin infections in these patients.


A fibroblast line was successfully established from ear marginal tissues of Piedmontese cattle by direct culturing of explants. Biological analysis showed that the population doubling time (PDT) for reviving cells was approximately 24 h. The average viability of the cells was 96.6% before freezing and 92.7% after thawing. Isoenzyme polymorphorism of lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) and malic dehydrogenase (MDH) ruled out cross-contamination among cell lines. Karyotyping showed that the proportion of cells with chromosome number 2n = 60 was above 92%. Tests for bacteria, fungi, viruses and mycoplasmas were negative. The transfection efficiencies of pEGFP-N3, pEYFP-N1 and pDsRed1-N1 were between 7.1 and 30.8%; fluorescences were homogenously distributed throughout cytoplasm and nucleus except in some cryptomeric vesicles. Every index of the Piedmontese cattle cell line met the quality control standards of the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). Key words : Piedmontese cattle, fibroblast line, biological characterization.


The present investigation examined marijuana use, abuse, and dependence in relation to self-reported marijuana use behaviors and motives, as well as concurrent cigarette and problematic alcohol use among a sample of young adult current marijuana users (n = 200; 44.5% women; M(age) = 21.48, SD = 6.54). Preliminary results broadly indicated that more severe forms of marijuana use (eg, dependence) were associated with a more problematic pattern of marijuana use behavior, polysubstance use, and greater motivation to use marijuana for multiple reasons. Results are discussed in relation to better understanding the underlying nature of marijuana use and its disorders among young adults.


There is an increasing interest toward disclosing and explaining confinement effects on liquids, such as water or aqueous solutions, in slit pore setups. Particularly puzzling are the changes of physical and chemical properties in the nanoconfinement regime where no bulk-like water phase exists between the two interfacial water layers such that the density profile across the slit pore becomes highly stratified, ultimately leading to bilayer and monolayer water. These changes must be quantified with respect to some meaningful reference state of water, the most natural one being bulk water at the same pressure and temperature conditions. However, bulk water is a homogeneous liquid with isotropic properties, whereas water confined in slit pores is inhomogeneous, implying anisotropic properties as described by the perpendicular and parallel components of the respective tensors. In the case of pressure, the inhomogeneous nature of the setup results in a well-defined difference between the perpendicular and parallel pressure tensor components that is uniquely determined by the interfacial tension being a thermodynamic property. For bilayer water constrained in graphene slit pores that are only about 1 nm wide, we demonstrate that there exists a thermodynamic point where the pressure tensor of the inhomogeneous fluid, nanoconfined water, is effectively isotopic and the pressure is thus scalar as in the homogeneous fluid, bulk water. This specific point of vanishing effective interfacial tension is proposed to serve as a well-defined reference state to compare the properties of nanoconfined liquids to those of the corresponding bulk liquid at the same (isotropic) pressure and temperature conditions. In future work, this idea could be applied to assess confinement effects on chemical reactivity in aqueous solutions as well as to other nanoconfined liquids in other pores such as layered minerals.


Contaminants in the snow can be used to reflect regional and global environmental pollution caused by human activities. However, so far, the research on space-time monitoring of snow contamination concentration for a wide range or areas difficult for human to reach is very scarce. In the present paper, based on the simulated atmospheric deposition experiments, the spectroscopy technique method was applied to analyze the effect of different contamination concentration on the snow reflectance spectra. Then an evaluation of snow contamination concentration (SCC) retrieval methods was conducted using characteristic index method (SDI), principal component analysis (PCA), BP neural network and RBF neural network method, and the estimate effects of four methods were compared. The results showed that the neural network model combined with hyperspectral remote sensing data could estimate the SCC well.


Background Mesenchymal stem cell derived from bone marrow have already been used for bone regeneration. A number of studies have confirmed that MSCs cultured in scaffolds can induce osteogenesis in vivo and improve healing of critical-size defects. Objectives In the present study, we generated mesodermal cell lineages from hiPSCs following treatment of embryoid bodies (EBs) with retinoic acid. Subsequently, we induced osteogenic differentiation from EBs using osteogenic medium and also test the in vivo repair of osseous defect using these osteo-induced cells. To avoid the potential safety issues associated with using viruses, we used the hiPSC line by direct delivery of four proteins fused to a cell penetrating peptide in present study. Methods Cell culture and differentiation of EB – We used the hiPSC line (SBI, cat# SC802A-1) generated by direct delivery of four proteins fused to a cell penetrating peptide. Osteogenic differentiation was induced by trypsinizing EB to a single cell suspension, diluting cells to a final concentration of 5x105 cells/ml and being cultured on gelatin-coated plates for 7 and 14 days. Analysis for osteogenic differentiation – After 7 and 14 days of in vitro culture, osteogenic differentiation was demonstated by Alizarin red S staining, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) staining, and the expression of osteogenic markers. Transplantation – The fibrin-hiPSCs and HA+β-TCP-hiPSCs constructs were implanted in the calvarial defect (f 4mm) in immunosuppressed rat. Also, these hiPSCs in fibrin were implanted in the segmental long bone defects created in the ulna of immunosuppressed of rat. Results After 7 and 14 days of osteogenic culture, alizarin red S staining and ALP staining identified calcium in these cells and osteogenic differentiation. The osteogenic marker gene and protein expression including COL1A1, Runx2, and bone sialoprotein (BSP) increased after 7 days and expression level of gene and protein after 14 days was higher than 7 days. When hiPS cells in fibrin and HA+β-TCP were implanted in calvarial defects created in the parietal bone of immunosuppressed rats, the defects implanted with osteo-induced hiPS cells showed a significantly better quality of bone repair than the control defects. Goldner's trichrome staining confirmed that bone regeneration in those treated with hiPSCs-fibrin and HA+β-TCP. Immunofluorescent imaging showed that human nucleus antigens were observed in the cytoplasm of implanted hiPSC-Osteoblasts. In addition, hiPSC-Osteoblasts or hBMMSC-Osteoblasts in fibrin were implanted in the 4mm segmental defects created in the ulna of immunosuppressed rats. The defects with osteo-induced hiPS cell implantation achieved rapid bone healing compared with the control defects. Conclusions The cell culture protocol presented herein affords high yield of pure populations of hiPSC-EBs with high osteogenic capability. The osteoblasts derived from these hiPSC-EBs were able to form new mineralized and vascularized bone matrix in vivo. Once the functionality of these derived cells will be thoroughly examined in a bone repair model, the potential of the described method as a source of osteoblasts for bone tissue regenerating can be established. References Kawaguchi J, Mee PJ, Smith AG. Osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation of embryonic stem cells in response to specific growth factors. Bone. 2005 May;36(5):758-69. Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Korean government (MEST) (2012M3A9B4028566 & 2013R1A1A2062961). Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.3442


Growth of 3T3-L2 fibroblasts in medium containing 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine prevents the spontaneous cytodifferentiation of these cells into adipose cells. Treatment of bromodeoxyuridine-suppressed cultures at confluence with 1-methyl-3-isobutylxanthine, a promoter of the adipose conversion, results in differentiation of the fibroblasts into adipose cells but the extent of the conversion is less than that seen in cultures not treated with bromodeoxyuridine. 1-Methyl-3-isobutylxanthine appears to function without altering the amount of bromodeoxyuridine present in DNA.


The assumption that students of the Faculty of Sports Studies
are mainly devoted to sport, which is incompatible with
excessive alcohol consumption, was not confirmed. It was found
that students of this faculty drink alcohol a lot. Studies
declared drink beer 3 – 5 times a week. Majority of men consume
beer 3 – 5 times a week, the majority of women consume beer
sometimes. The majority of students claimed, that they consume
wine and spirits sometimes. Students - men of the Faculty of
Sport Studies drink alcoholic beverages since the age of 14,
students - women of Faculty of Sport Studies drink alcohol
since the age of 16. There was no abstainer in our respondents,
just a man wrote, he does not drink wine.