The small intestine participates in lipid digestion, metabolism and transport. Cytosolic malic enzyme 1 (ME1) is an enzyme that generates NADPH used in fatty acid and cholesterol biosynthesis. Previous work has correlated liver and adipose ME1 expression with susceptibility to obesity and diabetes; however, the contributions of intestine-expressed ME1 to these conditions are unknown. We generated transgenic (Tg) mice expressing rat ME1 in the gastrointestinal epithelium under the control of the murine villin1 promoter/enhancer. Levels of intestinal ME1 protein (endogenous plus transgene) were greater in Tg than wildtype (WT) littermates. Effects of elevated intestinal ME1 on body weight, circulating insulin, select adipocytokines, blood glucose, and metabolism-related genes were examined. Male Tg mice fed a high-fat (HF) diet gained significantly more body weight than WT male littermates and had heavier livers. ME1-Tg mice had deeper intestinal and colon crypts, a greater intestinal 5-bromodeoxyuridine labeling index, and increased expression of intestinal lipogenic (Fasn, Srebf1) and cholesterol biosynthetic (Hmgcsr, Hmgcs1), genes. The livers from HF diet-fed Tg mice also exhibited an induction of cholesterol and lipogenic pathway genes and altered measures (Irs1, Irs2, Prkce) of insulin sensitivity. Results indicate that gastrointestinal ME1 via its influence on intestinal epithelial proliferation, and lipogenic and cholesterologenic genes may concomitantly impact signaling in liver to modify this tissue's metabolic state. Our work highlights a new mouse model to address the role of intestine-expressed ME1 in whole body metabolism, hepatomegaly, and crypt cell proliferation. Intestinal ME1 may thus constitute a therapeutic target to reduce obesity-associated pathologies.


During perceptual decision making, subjects often display a constant rate of errors independent of evidence strength, referred to as "lapses". Their proper treatment is crucial for accurate estimation of perceptual parameters, however they are often treated as a nuisance arising from motor errors or inattention. Here, we propose that lapses can instead reflect a dynamic form of exploration. We demonstrate that perceptual uncertainty modulates the probability of lapses both across and within modalities on a multisensory discrimination task in rats. These effects cannot be accounted for by inattention or motor error, however they are concisely explained by uncertainty-guided exploration. We confirm the predictions of the exploration model by showing that changing the magnitude or probability of reward associated with one of the decisions selectively affects the lapses associated with that decision in uncertain conditions, while leaving "sure-bet" decisions unchanged, as predicted by the model. Finally, we demonstrate that muscimol inactivations of secondary motor cortex and posterior striatum affect lapses asymmetrically across modalities. The inactivations can be captured by a devaluation of actions corresponding to the inactivated side, and do not affect "sure-bet" decisions. Together, our results suggest that far from being a nuisance, lapses are informative about subjects' action values and deficits thereof during perceptual decisions.


Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disease that affects millions of people worldwide, described by hyperglycemia due to impaired insulin secretion, insulin action or both. As a consequence of the persistent hyperglycemia, several microvascular and macrovascular complications arise. In herbal treatments, there are quite a variety of mechanisms and pathways that could be targeted while considering the treatment of type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM); ranging from acting on pancreatic insulin, decreasing carbohydrates digestion, to inhibiting enzymes responsible for this disease like glucosidases, maltase fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, G6Pase and PTP1B enzymes and increasing GLUT-2 and GLUT-4 translocation. There is a diverse amount of plants that have individual active constituents that are responsible for their anti-diabetic effect; such constituents belong to classes like flavonoids, phenolic compounds and alkaloids. In our review, we will report a large variety of plants and phytoconstituents that have anti-diabetic action and discuss their mechanism of action highlighting their uniqueness and thus, providing for novel targets for anti-diabetic molecules either solely or as adjunctive therapies. Ethnopharmacological studies could aid in the selection of medicinal plants to be employed in these preliminary studies. However, the exact bioactive metabolite, along with the definite mechanism of action, should be studied before experimental and clinical studies.


Low back pain is one of the four most common disorders in all regions, and the greatest contributor to disability worldwide, adding 10.7% of total years lost due to this health state. The etiology of chronic low back pain is, in most of the cases (up to 85%), unknown or nonspecific, while the specific causes (specific spinal pathology and neuropathic/radicular disorders) are uncommon. Central sensitization has been recently recognized as a potential pathophysiological mechanism underlying a group of chronic pain conditions, and may be a contributory factor for a sub-group of patients with chronic low back pain. The purposes of this narrative review are twofold. First, to describe central sensitization and its symptoms and signs in patients with chronic pain disorders in order to allow its recognition in patients with nonspecific low back pain. Second, to provide general treatment principles of chronic low back pain with particular emphasis on pharmacotherapy targeting central sensitization.


This paper addresses the problem of dynamic link adaptation under multiple quality-of-service (QoS) constraints in cellular wideband code-division multiple-access (WCDMA) systems. A novel dynamic joint rate and power adaptation framework is proposed for downlink data transmission in a multicell variable spreading factor (VSF) WCDMA system where the different classes of users have different signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) requirements. Based on a general downlink SIR model, the problem of optimal dynamic rate and power adaptation under multiple SIR constraints is also formulated, for which the rate and power allocation can be found by an exhaustive search. Two schemes, namely, near-optimal and suboptimal schemes, are proposed for implementation-friendly dynamic rate and power adaptation. Performance of dynamic joint rate and power adaptation under the proposed framework is evaluated under random micro-mobility model with uncorrelated long-term fading and a directional micro-mobility model with correlated long-term fading in a cellular WCDMA environment.


BACKGROUND
Blood transfusions are the most common type of tissue and organ transplantation. Perioperative and postoperative transfusions may cause morbidity and mortality and transfusion should based on only hematocrit values but also on hemodynamic and clinical parameters of the patient, which cannot be ignored.

METHODS
A prospective study was conducted between January 2015 and October 2016 with adult patients undergoing elective open heart surgery. In these patients, a protocol was established, and patients were divided into two groups as transfusion (-) and transfusion (+). In the first 24 hours in the intensive care unit, patients' drainage, 24-hours urine output, awakening and extubation times, and lactate and bilirubin levels in arterial blood gases were recorded. Thirty-day mortality and morbidity, and hemodynamic and clinical data were compared between these two groups.

RESULTS
We have performed a total of 138 cases; no blood and blood products were transfused in 71% (n = 98), and in 29.0% (n = 40) blood and blood products were transfused. Thirty-day mortality and morbidity (arrhythmia, infectious and pulmonary morbidity, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accident, renal dysfunction, sternal revision) were compared between these two groups and no statistically significant difference was observed. Patients' awakening, extubation time, cardiopulmonary bypass period, cross-clamp time, and days in intensive care unit and hospital were compared, and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. Conclusion: In this study, we conclude that open heart surgery without blood transfusion may be accomplished with decent peri/postoperative management. The patients who did not receive any blood or blood products were not compromised clinically or hemodynamically. No extra morbidity and mortality were seen in the non-transfusion group. Transfusion decision was based on clinical and hemodynamic parameters such as persistent hypotension or tachycardia, hyperlactatemia, low urine output, and anemic symptoms.


The novel COVID-19 has had an unprecedented and devastating spread internationally. COVID-19 infection can lead to a number of cardiovascular sequelae, including heart failure, which may portend worse clinical outcomes. Here, we report a rare case of a 57-year-old woman who developed acute left ventricular systolic dysfunction with apical ballooning consistent with takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM), and mixed cardiogenic and septic shock in the setting of COVID-19 disease. We briefly review the pathophysiology and diagnosis of TCM (also described as apical ballooning syndrome and stress-induced cardiomyopathy). Additionally, this case highlights the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to clinical decision-making and resource allocation in diagnosis and management of critical illness in the setting of the ongoing international COVID-19 pandemic.


This paper addresses the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP). For its solution, a hybrid methodology, which uses a Branch and Bound basic algorithm with dominance rules, is developed and implemented, and is combined with four deterministic heuristics whose objective is to prune the search tree branches, taking into account the iterations available and, at the same time, to minimize the probability of discarding branches that contain optimal solutions. Essentially, these strategies allow the allocation of most iterations to the most promissory regions in an organized manner using only subsets with similar or the same characteristics as those of the optimal solutions at each level of the tree, thus assuring a broad search within the feasible region and, simultaneously, a good exploitation by the selective use of the subsets by level. Finally, the developed algorithm performance is analyzed by solving some of the problems of the PSPLIB test library.


The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I has a role in the regulation of immune responses and has been implicated recently in neural plasticity and neurogenesis. We therefore sought to investigate in functional MHC class I knockout mice, transporter associated with antigen processing 1 (TAP1) KO, whether there are alterations in adult neurogenesis. We found no significant differences in cell proliferation or neurogenesis in either the dentate gyrus or subventricular zone, in TAP1 KO versus wild-type mice at several different time points. Our results do not support a role for MHC class I in adult neurogenesis, although it may still have a role in the maturation and integration of newborn neurons.


Cognitive Radio Networks are an emerging technologyin forwireless communication. With increasing number of wireless devices in wireless communication, there is a shortage of spectrum. Also, due to thestatic allocation of channels in wireless networks, there is a scarcity of spectrum underutilization. For efficient spectrum utilization, secondary users dynamically select the free channel of primary users for the transmission of packets. In this work, the performance of routing in a cognitive radio network is improved by the decision of optimal channel selection. The aim of this work is to maximize the throughput and reduce the end-to-end delay. Therefore, an Improved Q-Reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed for the optimal channel selection during the packet routing between source and destination. The performance of this work is compared with the existing routing protocols. It is simulated in network simulator-2 (NS2) with Cognitive Radio Cognitive Network (CRCN) simulation. After performance evaluation, it is observed thatthe proposed work performs better than existing work with respect to packet delivery ratio, throughput, delay, jitter, control overhead, call blocking probability, packet dropping ratio, goodput and normalized routing overhead.


Taking the previously discovered 1-methyl-1,4-dihydroindeno[1,2c]pyrazol derivative LL01 as a lead, systematic structural modifications were made at the phenolic 6- and 7-positions and the aniline at the 3-position of the indenopyrazole core to investigate the SARs and to improve water solubility. Among the designed indenopyrazoles ID01-ID33, a series of potent MTAs were identified. As the hydrochloride salt(s), ID09 and ID33 showed excellent aqueous solubility and favorable Log P value and displayed noteworthily low nanomolar potency against a variety of tumor cells, including those taxol-resistant ones. They inhibited tubulin polymerization, disrupted cellular microtubule networks by targeting the colchicine site, and promoted HepG2 cell cycle arrest and cell apoptosis. In the HepG2 xenograft mouse model, ID09 and ID33 effectively inhibited tumor growth at an oral dose of 25 mg/kg. At an intravenous (iv) injection dose of 10 mg/kg every other day, ID09 suppressed tumor growth by 68% without obvious toxicity.


The under-representation of women in computer and infor-mation science (CIS) has created a crisis in availability of qualified CIS professionals and diversity of perspectives. Many interventions are being explored but these are primarily institutional programs like curriculum enhancements and mentoring. We describe wConnect, a developmental learning community that leverages social relations and social networking software to support women in CIS. This is a practical issue of some urgency that presents an opportunity for community informatics to impact the CIS profession. We report our progress and lessons learned, so that other organizations can initiate similar outreach activities.


Abstract Objectives: Airway fires pose a risk during laser microlaryngoscopy, and neurosurgical cotton patties, used to prevent tissue injury from stray laser beams, are a potential ignition source. Using a configuration approximating clinical practice, we experimentally assessed the relative impact of changing different 'fire triad' components on the occurrence of airway fires, in order to better inform patient care. Methods: The relative effects of wet vs dry neurosurgical patties, oxygen concentration and laser power setting on the patty ignition time were studied in a cadaveric porcine model. Data were analysed using t-test and two-way analysis of variance. Results: Dry patties ignited after 2.3 ± 1.2 seconds (average ± standard deviation) of continuous 5 W laser fire at 50 per cent oxygen concentration, compared with 63.9 ± 27.8 seconds for wet patties under the same laser and oxygen settings (p < 0.0001). There was a statistically significant reduction in the time to patty ignition when laser power settings were increased from 5 to 7.5 W, but no further reductions occurred when the power was further increased to 10 W (p < 0.05; Tukey test for multiple comparisons; two-way analysis of variance). There was no significant reduction in the time to ignition between oxygen concentrations of 50 and 75 per cent, but the time to ignition fell significantly when the oxygen concentration was further increased to 100 per cent. Conclusion: We suggest that surgical patties should always be soaked and should be used for relatively short periods, in order to prevent drying. If at all possible clinically, prolonged laser use at high power settings and ventilation with 100 per cent oxygen should be avoided.


First real-space visualization of an orbital order in the atomic scale by orbital-sensitive scanning tunneling microscopy. Orbital-related physics attracts growing interest in condensed matter research, but direct real-space access of the orbital degree of freedom is challenging. We report a first, real-space, imaging of a surface-assisted orbital ordered structure on a cobalt-terminated surface of the well-studied heavy fermion compound CeCoIn5. Within small tip-sample distances, the cobalt atoms on a cleaved (001) surface take on dumbbell shapes alternatingly aligned in the [100] and [010] directions in scanning tunneling microscopy topographies. First-principles calculations reveal that this structure is a consequence of the staggered dxz-dyz orbital order triggered by enhanced on-site Coulomb interaction at the surface. This so far overlooked surface-assisted orbital ordering may prevail in transition metal oxides, heavy fermion superconductors, and other materials.


Knowledge graph embeddings (KGE) have been extensively studied to embed large-scale relational data for many real-world applications. Existing methods have long ignored the fact many KGs contain two fundamentally different views: high-level ontology-view concepts and fine-grained instance-view entities. They usually embed all nodes as vectors in one latent space. However, a single geometric representation fails to capture the structural differences between two views and lacks probabilistic semantics towards concepts' granularity. We propose Concept2Box, a novel approach that jointly embeds the two views of a KG using dual geometric representations. We model concepts with box embeddings, which learn the hierarchy structure and complex relations such as overlap and disjoint among them. Box volumes can be interpreted as concepts' granularity. Different from concepts, we model entities as vectors. To bridge the gap between concept box embeddings and entity vector embeddings, we propose a novel vector-to-box distance metric and learn both embeddings jointly. Experiments on both the public DBpedia KG and a newly-created industrial KG showed the effectiveness of Concept2Box.


Our experience with 133 consecutive pectoralis major island myocutaneous flaps in 126 patients is reviewed. The incidence of complications has been relatively low. Among the 133 flaps used in the head and neck area, 11 flaps (8 percent) failed to accomplish the intended purpose and required secondary repair. The pectoralis major myocutaneous flap with its abundant tissue and excellent blood supply and anatomic proximity provide a simple, reliable, and versatile method of primary reconstruction of various head and neck defects.


The present paper introduces an application of near infrared spectroscopy(NIRS) multi-component quantitative analysis by building partial least squares (PLS)-generalized regression neural networks (GRNN) model. The PLS-GRNN prediction model for chlorine, fibre and fat in 45 feedstuff samples was established with good veracity and recurrence. Eight peak values in principal components compressed from original data by PLS and four in original spectra were taken as inputs of GRNN while 4 predictive targets as outputs. 0.1 was chosen as smoothing factor for its good approximation and prediction with the lowest error compared with 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. Predictive correlation coefficient and Standard error of the estimate of three components by the model are 0.984 0, 0.987 0 and 0.983 0, and 0.015 89, 0.154 1 and 0.115 1, while the Standard deviations of an unknown sample scanned 8 times are 0.003 26, 0.065 5 and 0.031 4. The results show that PLS-GRNN used in NIRS is a rapid, effective means for measuring chlorine, fibre in the fat in feedstuff powder, and can also be used in quantitative analysis of other samples. A settlement in the high error of prediction of other samples with lower contents was also shown.


This document addresses the potential impacts of climatic change on the aquaculture sector and to a lesser extent the contribution of aquaculture to climate change. In order to achieve these objectives, the status of this subsector in relation to the total food fish supply, recent changes therein and other related aspects are analysed with a view to addressing potential adaptations and mitigation. Currently, the proportionate contribution of aquaculture to food fish consumption approximates 45 percent; this is also reflected in the increasing contribution of aquaculture to total fisheries figures recorded in the gross domestic product (GDP) of some of the main producing countries. Considering human population growth and stagnation in the growth of capture fisheries, it is expected that the supply of food fish from aquaculture will be required to increase even further to meet future demand for fish. Aquaculture is not practised evenly across the globe and to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change, the document analyses current aquaculture practices in relation to: three climatic regimes, vis-a-vis tropical, subtropical and temperate; in relation to environmental types vis-a-vis marine, fresh and brackish waters; and in relation to geographic divisions by continents. It is seen that aquaculture is predominant in tropical and subtropical climatic regions and geographically in the Asian region. Furthermore, the most cultured commodities are finfish, molluscs, crustaceans and sea weeds, but species that feed low down in the food chain predominate. The geographic and climatic concentration of aquaculture necessitates, for the time being, a focus on the development of adaptive strategies for addressing or mitigating climate change impacts in these regions, especially if the predicted gap between supply and demand for food fish Climate change implications for fisheries and aquaculture – Overview of current scientific knowledge 152 is to be realised through aquaculture. However, we cannot disregard the potential for aquaculture growth in other regions. The main elements of climate change that could potentially impact on aquaculture production – such as sea level and temperature rise, change in monsoonal rain patterns and extreme climatic events and water stress – are highlighted and the reasons for such impacts evaluated. By virtue of the fact that the different elements of climate change are likely to be manifested or experienced to varying degrees in different climatic zones, the direct impacts on aquaculture in the different zones are considered. For example, it is predicted that global warming and a consequent increase in water temperature could impact significantly and negatively on aquaculture in temperate zones because such increases could exceed the optimal temperature range of organisms currently cultured. Such impacts may be balanced with positive impacts that might occur as a result of climate change, such as enhanced growth and production in tropical and subtropical zones. However, positive impacts are unlikely to occur without some potential negative impacts arising from other climatic change elements (e.g. increased eutrophication in inland waters). In both instances possible adaptive measures for reducing or maximizing the impacts are considered. An attempt is also made to deal with the climatic change impacts on different culture systems, for example, inland and marine systems and different forms of culture practices such as cage culture. Furthermore, it is likely that diseases affecting aquaculture will increase both in incidence and impact. Nearly 65 percent of aquaculture production is inland and concentrated mostly in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia. Climate change impacts as a result of global warming are likely to be small on aquaculture practises taking place in such systems and if at all positive, brought about by enhanced growth rates of cultured stocks. On the other hand, climate change will impact on water availability, weather patterns such as extreme rain events, and exacerbate eutrophication and stratification in static (lentic) waters. The influence of the former on aquaculture is difficult to project. Some adaptive measures related to the location of farms are discussed here. However, based on current practices, particularly with regard to inland finfish aquaculture that is predominantly based on species feeding low in the food chain, the greater availability of phytoplankton and zooplankton through eutrophication could possibly enhance production. On the other hand, in marine cage culture, adaptive measures will revolve around the introduction of improved technologies to withstand extreme weather events. Sea level rise and consequent increased salt water intrusion in the deltaic areas of the tropics where there is considerable aquaculture production is likely to occur. Adaptations to related impacts will involve the movement inland of some operations that culture species with limited saline tolerance. Equally, aquaculture is seen as an adaptive measure to provide alternative livelihood means for terrestrial farming activities that may be no longer possible and or cost effective due to sea water intrusion and frequent coastal flooding. One of the most important, though indirect, impacts of climate change on aquaculture is considered to be brought about by limitations on fishmeal and fish oil availability (for fish feeds) as a result of a reduction in raw material supplies. Other types of raw materials might also be affected. The negative impacts are likely to be felt mostly in the temperate regions where the finfish aquaculture is based entirely on carnivorous species. Adaptive measures to counteract these impacts are suggested. The ecological cost of different aquaculture species and systems, as opposed to other sources of animal protein production, is presented and the indirect contribution to carbon emissions is considered. As a mitigation measure to curtail the contribution of aquaculture to carbon emissions, it is suggested that the consumer is made aware of the carbon emissions associated with various products, in the same way that traceability is indicated. In this context, it is demonstrated that on the whole aquaculture is less energy costly and could contribute to carbon sequestration more than other terrestrial farming


Background: We aimed to reveal if low dose X-rays would induce harmful or beneficial effect or dual response on biological cells and whether there are conditions the radiation can enhance gene transfer efficiency and promote cell growth but without damage to the cells. Method: A systematic study was performed on the effects of Kilo-V and Mega-V X-rays on the cell morphology, viability, membrane permeability, DNA damage, and gene transfection of 293 T and CHO cells. Results: The Kilo-V X-rays of very low doses from 0.01 to 0.04 Gray in principle didn't induce any significant change in cell morphology, growth, membrane permeability, and cause DNA damage. The Mega-V X-ray had a damage threshold between 1.0 and 1.5 Gray. The 0.25 Gray Mega-V-X-ray could promote cell growth and gene transfer, while the 1.5 Gray Mega-V X-ray damaged cells. Conclusion: The very low dose of KV X-rays is safe to cells, while the effects of Mega-V-X-rays are dose-dependent. Mega-V-X-rays with a dose higher than the damage threshold would be harmful, that between 1.0 -1.5 Gray can evoke dual effects, whereas 0.25 Gray MV X-ray is beneficial for both cell growth and gene transfer, thus would be suitable for radiation-enhanced gene transfection.


A triage system is used in most pediatric emergency departments to perform a rapid physiological assessment of each patient and to determine the order in which patients are seen. A variety of parameters may be assessed in the triage assessment. The purpose of this study was to examine current triage practices in pediatric emergency departments in the United States. Methods A mailed survey was sent in August 2005 to the medical director of the 99 pediatric emergency departments listed on the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI) Web site using addresses downloaded from the site. A second mailing was sent to nonresponders in October 2005. The cover letter assured the respondent that results would only be reported in aggregate fashion. The study protocol was reviewed and found exempt by the UAMS IRB. Results 35 surveys were returned to date. The mean annual emergency department (ED) patient volume was 46,700. There is significant variation in the assessment of various physiological measurements at triage. For example, 100% of medical directors reported that all patients have pulse rate and respiratory rate assessed at triage, but only 86% take temperature on all patients, 51% take blood pressure on all patients, 29% assess pulse oximetry on all patients, and 11% perform a Glasgow Coma Scale on all patients. The methods used to measure temperature are quite variable; 97% use rectal for 0-2 month olds, 65% use rectal for 12-14 month olds, and 34% use rectal for 2-3 year olds. The use of tympanic thermometry varies by age: none use for 0-2 month olds, 14% for 2-12 month olds, 26% for 12-14 month olds, and 29% for 2-3 year olds. Most (89%) use an electronic method of assessing blood pressure routinely. The method used to assess pain is variable: for 0-2 years about half use a Wong faces scale and half use a behavioral scale. At 2-4 years, most (77%) use the Wong faces scale, but in older 10- to 18-year-old patients, most (74%) use a numerical scale. ED medical directors reported having standing orders at triage for antipyretic for fever (94%), urinalysis for abdominal pain (54%), pregnancy test for adolescent female with abdominal pain (46%), and pain medication for extremity trauma (47%). Conclusions Despite the important decisions made based on triage assessment in a pediatric emergency department, there is wide variability in the parameters assessed and the methodology used. Additional research should focus on the validity and reliability of each assessment to determine the best practices.


The complex relations between Islam and modern science have so far mostly been examined by thinkers at the conceptual level. The wider interaction of religious scholars and preachers with the general public on science issues is an unexplored area that is worthy of examination, for it often is characterized by a literalistic approach. I first briefly review literalism in its various forms. The classical Islamic jurisprudential school of Zahirism, widely regarded as bearing the flag of juristic literalism, is also briefly presented. I then address specific science-related issues currently being discussed in literalistic ways by many religious scholars and preachers in their general-public discourse. I focus on the practical case of the determination of crescent-based Islamic months and holy occasions, the conceptual issue of evolution (biological and human), and the rule for the consumption of meat by slaughter of animals. In the last part of the essay I propose a constructive alternative to the literalistic mode: the Maqasidi (objectives-based) approach. This rather old method has seen some revival lately, mainly among Islamic jurists concerned with solving the new issues of modern times, especially for Muslims living in the West, but this approach has not yet been applied to science-related issues. I present the main ideas of this method and show their relevance and usefulness to science-related topics.


A non‐parametric extension of control variates is presented. These leverage gradient information on the sampling density to achieve substantial variance reduction. It is not required that the sampling density be normalized. The novel contribution of this work is based on two important insights: a trade‐off between random sampling and deterministic approximation and a new gradient‐based function space derived from Stein's identity. Unlike classical control variates, our estimators improve rates of convergence, often requiring orders of magnitude fewer simulations to achieve a fixed level of precision. Theoretical and empirical results are presented, the latter focusing on integration problems arising in hierarchical models and models based on non‐linear ordinary differential equations.


1. OBJECTIVE--To evaluate the status of clinical development of zidovudine and new drugs for the treatment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections. 2. METHOD--A critical review of the clinical trial reports and assessment of the design and methodology of the therapeutic trials. Evaluation of the drugs being tested and of the specific difficulties in testing drugs in AIDS. 3. CONCLUSIONS--Drugs are being tested in a unique climate of public opinion characterised by (1) fast track criteria for regulatory approval (2) parallel track (compassionate release) of new drugs before adequate determination of safety and efficacy (3) resistance to the use of placebos in controlled trials.


This contest aims to provide a metric giving indications on the influence of individual document analysis stages to overall end-to-end applications. Contestants are provided with a full, working pipeline which operates on a page image to extract useful information. The pipeline is built with clearly identified analysis stages (e.g. binarization, skew detection, layout analysis, OCR) that have a formalized input and output. Contestants are invited to contribute their own algorithms as an alternative to one or more of the initially provided stages. The evaluation measures the overall impact of the contributed algorithm on the final (end-of-pipeline) output.


This study examined the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) compared with physically healthy children and the impact of IBD and steroidal side-effects on children's HRQOL. The HRQOL of 49 children and adolescents (ages 10 to 18 years) with IBD and their parents who completed the Child Health Questionnaire was compared to that of a sample of physically healthy children (N=49). Caregivers of children with IBD reported that their children's physical and psychological health were more limited and that they experienced more emotional worry and greater impact on their personal time compared to caregivers reporting on healthy same-age children. Children and adolescents reported worse HRQOL than physically healthy children in only one domain: general health. Children and adolescents with more IBD-related and steroidal symptoms had less adequate HRQOL as reported by their parents. Limitations in HRQOL were most pronounced in children who experienced more frequent IBD-related symptoms together with symptoms of steroidal side effects.


Sir, We previously reported that laughter (1) reduced allergic responses in patients with atopic dermatitis [1] and (2) improved allergen-induced bronchial responsiveness in patients with bronchial asthma [2]. The healthy effects of laughter have been supported by a lot of anecdotal reports and several quantitative studies. But difficulty in accurately measuring laughter has previously hindered detailed investigations. It is a pressing issue to improve the method of assessing laughter. In previous studies, measuring laughter by pharyngeal or laryngeal electromyography (EMG) [3,4] was attempted, but it required many apparatuses and special techniques [5]. Although measuring laughter by abdominal muscle EMG was a relatively easy method, it was usually mixed with electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements [6], and moreover, they were not primarily involved in laughter. More suitable muscles should be specified to measure EMG. In this study, a new methodology with diaphragm lectromyogram (EMG) is advocated, and method and utility are discussed in detail. Six university students (three male and three female, age range 21–34 years) were recruited into the study after obtaining their informed consent. All of the subjects were healthy and they did not take any medication at the time of the study. Patterns of EMG wwere measured while they were sitting and viewing several Japanese comic videos. Disk electrodes were applied to just on and 3 cm below the xiphoid process of the subjects. We first identified ECG readings (Fig. 1a), and we observed that laughter elicited a peculiar bursting pattern of EMG (Fig. 1b). Hearty laughter elicited bigger waves. Bursting patterns of EMG split into several divisions, when laughter was associated with a special respiratory pattern designated as 'ha, ha, ha' (data not shown). Although the size and duration varied, the waving patterns of laughter-elicited EMG were clearly different from patterns of EMG elicited by coughing (data not shown) or sneezing (Fig. 1c). To our knowledge, measuring diaphragm EMG as described here is the first exact system for the measurement of laughter itself. Since this measuring system can specify the starting point and duration of laughter precisely of 1/3000, it will make detailed analysis of the healthy effects of laughter possible. Furthermore, this system must contribute to development in many fields including sociology, psychology and medical science because this method does not require any special medical or mechanical techniques. Collectively, the measuring system of laughter by diaphragm EMG is suitable as a precise way to assess laughter, and is recommended for its advantages of simplicity and convenience. Similar and more detailed studies in a wide age group will be needed.


Background: Surgical stress and anesthesia affect the patient's immune system. Analysis of the lymphocyte response after breast-conserving surgery was conducted to investigate the differences between effects after general and local anesthesia. Materials and Methods: Fifty-six patients with breast cancer were enrolled for BCS through local or general anesthesia. Total leukocytes, total lymphocytes, lymphocyte-subsets including CD3+, CD19+, CD4+, CD8+, CD16+CD56+ and CD4+/CD8+ ratio was examined at baseline and on postoperative days 1, 2 and 3. Results: Baseline data showed no statistical difference between the two groups. Within-group ANOVA test showed significant differences for total leukocyte count (p<0.001), total lymphocyte count (p=0.009) and proportion of natural-killer cells (p=0.01) in the control group. Between-group analysis showed lower median values of total lymphocytes in the awake surgery group on postoperative days 1, 2 and 3 (p=0.001, p=0.02 and p=0.01, respectively) when compared to the control group. Patients who underwent surgery under general anesthesia had higher total lymphocyte counts on postoperative day 2 (p=0.04). Conclusion: In this randomized study, breast-conserving surgery plus local anesthesia had a lower impact on postoperative lymphocyte response when compared to the same procedure performed under general anesthesia.


This book is a comparative study of Hyderabadi emigrants settling in Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, Canada, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates at the end of the twentieth century. Based on ten years of fieldwork and extensive interviews, it traces Hyderabadi culture and institutions in these places of settlement, looking at the different versions of Hyderabadi history transmitted and the personal networks and collective bodies formed abroad. Hyderabad, Islamic, and Urdu associations, in addition to other groups are surveyed, as are the marriages of the migrants and the subsequent generations. The author shows how memories of old Hyderabad are retained, redefined, or discarded depending on generation, gender, class, and connections to the Nizam's former state of Hyderabad and the national narratives of the new sites of settlement. Throughout the book, she emphasizes the role of the state in identity formation, the importance of language and religion for retention and reformulation of identities, and the instability of diasporic communities both within and across national boundaries.


In this article, I analyze the position of food in constructing the transcultural identities of Finnish migrants in three collections of short stories, Heikki Heikkinen (1995), Misery Bay (2002), and Back to Misery Bay (2007), by the Finnish American writer Lauri Anderson. The American-born settlers look back at their Finnish heritage with nostalgia and use foodways to establish their versions of Finnishness. First, food serves to express the migrants' ethnic difference and sameness by separating them from Americans and uniting as Finns. Second, food is a part of the settlers' intergenerational relations when Anderson's younger-generation characters invent new culinary symbols of Finnishness and rebel against their Finnish heritage or return to it with the help of foodways. Third, the migrants express their Finnishness through their relation with nature in the form of living off the land. At the same time, the characters incorporate the traits of Finnish and American cultures within their identities, which can be addressed as transcultural.


Next-generation sequencing (NGS) of the whole genome, whole exome, and transcriptome has enabled characterization of genetic landscapes of multiple cancers. By analyzing over 2,000 pediatric cancer patients, we have developed a comprehensive database for recurrent somatic alterations and pathogenic germline mutations as part of the St. Jude/Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project. However, there is no systematic evaluation on whether NGS is able to identify germline and somatic lesions reported by existing molecular diagnostic assays and what combination of NGS platforms is best suited for clinical sequencing. Here we report the first comprehensive study that employs whole-genome sequencing at 30-45X coverage, whole-exome sequencing at 100X coverage and transcriptome sequencing using matched tumor/normal samples from cancer patients. A pilot study was carried out to perform NGS analysis on 78 children of leukemia, solid tumor or brain tumor with a total of 112 diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers previously characterized by multiple molecular diagnostic assays. We implemented an analysis pipeline that integrates the genetic lesions detected by all three NGS platforms to characterize somatic and germline single nucleotide variations (SNVs), short insertions and deletions (indels), structural variations including fusions, karyotypes, copy number alterations, loss of heterozygosity, tumor purity and tumor-in-normal contamination. The turn-around time for data analysis is 2 weeks with an overall sensitivity of 99% on detecting known biomarkers. Extensive validation of >3,000 somatic sequence mutations or structural variations from 38 cases shows that the specificity for somatic SNV, indel and structural variation is at 98%, 95% and 84% across the genome. We demonstrate that in addition to providing cross-validation, multi-platform NGS is required for detecting all genetic lesions of pathological significance including complex re-arrangements such as chromothripsis. In addition to known pathogenic or likely pathogenic mutations, our analysis has also unveiled novel pathogenic mutations (e.g. a germline deletion in TP53 in one patient with medulloblastoma) and identified multiple variants of unknown significance that may be worth further exploration (e.g. an in-frame deletion of exons 3-9 of DNMT3A in one neuroblastoma). Our study demonstrates that NGS is able to detect a wide range of genetic lesions currently characterized by multiple molecular diagnostic assays, providing critical insight into the design of clinical sequencing for ongoing studies. Citation Format: Jinghui Zhang, Michael Rusch, Joy Nakitandwe, Zhaojie Zhang, Michael N. Edmonson, Matthew Parker, Xiaotu Ma, Jared Becksfort, Andrew Thrasher, Jiali Gu, Yongjin Li, Erin Hedlund, Aman Patel, John Easton, Donald Yergeau, Bhavin Vadodaria, Xiang Chen, Tanja A. Gruber, Rose McGee, David Ellison, Sheila Shurtleff, James R. Downing. Molecular diagnosis for pediatric cancer through integrative analysis of whole-genome, whole-exome and transcriptome sequencing. [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 2628.


Sharia-based contract is an agreement that is derived from the nomenclature of Islamic law. It is definitely designed as the agreement that shall refer to norms based on legal sources of Islam, i.e. the Qur'an and the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. This paper discusses the main issue as follows: the dynamics of developments and characteristic principle of freedom of contract in Sharia-Based Agreement". The research refers to the legal writing i.e. normatively legal research which the issue is conceptually approached. Through this approach, the author wants to explore and formulate the concept of freedom of contract principle in Sharia-based agreements, both in terms of its growth and characteristics. The result of the research shows that characteristics of the principle of freedom of contract in Sharia-Based Agreement contain the basic paradigm based on a philosophical view of divinity and apocalyptic. The meaning is that the principle of sharia-based agreement is not established on absolute freedom of contract, but on the freedom that does not violate Islamic values. Therefore, the principle of freedom of contract in the Sharia-based agreement functionates to ensure the engagement of the parties in obeying the agreement, because in the Islamic perspective, the freedom of contract as a form of agreement among parties to enter into a contract fundamentally becomes the principle for the parties to obey or comply the contract.


Being inattentive to attractive relationship alternatives can enhance relationship well-being. The current investigation, however, demonstrates that implicitly preventing people from attending to desirable relationship alternatives may undermine, rather than bolster, the strength of that person's romantic relationship. Consistent with the notion of "forbidden fruit," we found that subtly limiting people's attention to attractive alternatives reduced relationship satisfaction and commitment and increased positive attitudes toward infidelity (Experiment 1), increased memory for attractive relationship alternatives (Experiment 2), and increased attention to attractive alternatives (Experiment 3). Findings suggest that although attention to attractive alternatives can harm one's relationship, situations that implicitly limit one's attention to alternatives can, rather ironically, increase the temptation of alternatives and undermine relationship well-being.


More and more often, procedures for profile/surface monitoring and inspection refer to geometric specifications. In fact, the number of form tolerance requirements (such as straightness, roundness, flatness, cylindricity, free-form profiles and surfaces) are increasingly appearing in technical drawings. Usually, Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs) are used to measure points on the specific feature under study in order to decide whether the machined item is conforming to requirements. In fact, measured points are used to compute the form error which has to be smaller than the tolerance value to avoid scrapping or reworking. The estimated form error is usually affected by uncertainty, which depends on both the sample size (number of points measured on the profile/surface) and the sampling strategy (location of the points on the profile/surface). The present research work focuses on the second issue and investigates the performance of several existing sampling strategies with the ones achieved by two newly presented approaches. These new approaches explore advantages arising by including a statistical analysis of a set of machined features in the sampling strategy design. Throughout the paper, a real case study concerning flatness tolerance is used as reference.


The spatiotemporal variability of vegetation fires is essential for understanding changes in the climate and ecosystem in mountainous regions. MODIS Collection 6 active fire products indicate that the area burned by vegetation fires declined globally from over 4.27 million km2 to less than 3.52 million km2 annually during 2001–2021. In contrast, global high mountains higher than 3000 m have experienced an overall increase in their burned area and suffered record‐breaking wildfires from August to December 2020. Although high mountains accounted for less than 0.03% of the global burned area during 2001–2021, this proportion had more than tripled by 2020. This unprecedented wildfire record in 2020 could be mainly caused by favorable fire weather conditions such as low relative humidity, low soil water and high temperature.


In system dynamics models, distributions for uncertain parameters are required for testing model sensitivity. As well in the same context, it could be used to test sensitivity and robustness for new policies. Moreover, these distributions could be used for confidence intervals estimation and hypothesis testing. Residual bootstrapping technique (RBT) is one of bootstrapping techniques that could be used for estimating parameters distributions for system dynamics models. RBT is a statistical technique based on resampling residuals for fabricating "new historical data". These new historical data is used to fit the model and get new estimates for the parameters. Repeating this many times will generate many estimates for the parameter(s). In this work a proposed method based on RBT is used to improve the bias that could be resulted from estimation. The commodity cycle model for hogs in USA is used as case study. Some table relationships in this model have been replaced by nonlinear functions. RBT is used for estimating parameters distributions for these nonlinear functions.


It has been noted that signal aperture radar (SAR) imagery of clutter exhibits Rayleigh multiplicative noise due to speckle. We use a database of MSTAR target chips to verify that the noise is multiplicative rather than additive for all regions in the chip. Then, by examining histograms corresponding to the noise residuals, we show that a Weibull distribution that is almost Rayleigh best fits the data. However, when we restrict the analysis over the target region, the log-normal and Rayleigh models fit the noise equally as well. This can be attributed to scattering mechanisms that are unstable over five degrees of aspect angle.


OBJECTIVE: To examine how the job satisfaction of a cohort Dutch physicians developed between 2000 and 2009. DESIGN: Longitudinal. METHOD: In 2000 and 2009 physicians who had begun studying medicine in 1982 and 1983 at the University of Groningen were interviewed over the telephone about different variables of job satisfaction. We analysed differences between each year and between male and female physicians. Additionally, clusters of job satisfaction variables were examined. RESULTS: We traced 292 of the 333 graduates. A total of 275 physicians (140 men, 135 women) agreed to an interview (response rate 92%). Between 2000 and 2009, average job satisfaction remained stable or even increased slightly. No differences in levels of job satisfaction were found between male and female physicians. Satisfaction on variables representing direct control such as relationships with patients and colleagues was high. It was lower on variables on which physicians have only minor influence such as organizational and administrative aspects. CONCLUSION: We could not confirm the fear that exists both inside and outside the Netherlands that job satisfaction among physicians is declining


The article looks at the contemporary conceptual approaches to foreign language teaching aimed at molding an individual capable of intercultural communication. Background knowledge, habits and skills that students get in the process of language learning become the essential prerequisites of students' successful acquisition of their intercultural competence. French songs as part of cultural heritage are an inexhaustible source of background knowledge. The use of authentic audio and video materials offered by internet resources gives teachers a good opportunity to intensify teaching in class as far as the formation of intercultural competence is concerned.


Schizophrenia genome-wide association studies highlight the substantial contribution of risk attributed to the non-coding genome where human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are encoded. These ancient viral elements have previously been overlooked in genetic and transcriptomic studies due to their poor annotation and repetitive nature. Using a new, comprehensive HERV annotation, we found that the fraction of the genome where HERVs are located (the 'retrogenome') is enriched for schizophrenia risk variants, and that there are 148 disparate HERVs involved in susceptibility. Analysis of RNA-sequencing data from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of 259 schizophrenia cases and 279 controls from the CommonMind Consortium showed that HERVs are actively expressed in the brain (n = 3,979), regulated in cis by common genetic variants (n = 1,759), and differentially expressed in patients (n = 81). Convergent analyses implicate LTR25_6q21 and ERVLE_8q24.3h as HERVs of etiological relevance to schizophrenia, which are co-regulated with genes involved in neuronal and mitochondrial function, respectively. Our findings provide a strong rationale for exploring the retrogenome and the expression of these locus-specific HERVs as novel risk factors for schizophrenia and potential diagnostic biomarkers and treatment targets.


Plasmodium vivax, one species parasite causing human malaria, forms a dormant liver stage, termed the hypnozoite, which activate weeks, months or years after the primary infection, causing relapse episodes. Relapses significantly contribute to the vivax malaria burden and are only killed with drugs of the 8-aminoquinolone class, which are contraindicated in many vulnerable populations. Development of new therapies targeting hypnozoites is hindered, in part, by the lack of robust methods to continuously culture and characterize this parasite. As a result, the determinants of relapse periodicity and the molecular processes that drive hypnozoite formation, persistence, and activation are largely unknown. While previous reports have described vastly different liver stage growth metrics attributable to which hepatocyte donor lot is used to initiate culture, a comprehensive assessment of how different P. vivax patient isolates behave in the same donors at the same time is logistically challenging. Using our primary human hepatocyte-based P. vivax liver stage culture platform, we aimed to simultaneously test the effects of how hepatocyte donor and P. vivax patient isolate influence the fate of sporozoites and growth of liver schizonts. We found that, while environmental factors such as hepatocyte donor can modulate hypnozoite formation rate, the P. vivax case is also an important determinant of the proportion of hypnozoites observed in culture. In addition, we found schizont growth to be mostly influenced by hepatocyte donor. These results suggest that, while host hepatocytes harbor characteristics making them more-or less-supportive of a quiescent versus growing intracellular parasite, sporozoite fating towards hypnozoites is isolate-specific. Future studies involving these host-parasite interactions, including characterization of individual P. vivax strains, should consider the impact of culture conditions on hypnozoite formation, in order to better understand this important part of the parasite's lifecycle. Author summary Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium. One species, Plasmodium vivax, is more difficult to control in comparison to other species because infection results in dormant forms in the liver, called hypnozoites. Hypnozoites are considered an invaluable therapeutic target to control malaria, but how hypnozoites form and reactive to cause malaria relapses is unknown. Herein we describe that both nature and nurture influence the fate of newly-established parasites in the liver, resulting in either a quiescent hypnozoite or growing schizont. Using parasites generated from patient isolates, we show the hypnozoite formation is likely inherited but also modulated by environmental factors, including which lot of human hepatocytes the parasites infect. Additionally, we show schizont growth is strongly influenced by the host hepatocyte lot. As liver stage experiments include several dependent variables which are difficult to control, herein we present an experimental approach designed to remove many of these variables and provide a clearer picture of what factors influence the formation and growth of liver stage parasites. Our findings serve as a foundation for future work to understand hypnozoite biology, with the ultimate goal of identifying new therapeutic targets.


Influence of the media on the market of biotechnological products has been studied. Awareness of citizens about food technologies and genetically modified foods has been analysed. Position of state institutions and the scientific community regarding genetic engineering, broadcast through the media, indirectly affects the attitude of young people to genetically modified foods. The results of a sociological survey of young people and an analysis of media materials have revealed the importance of media resources in shaping public opinion. The study has clarified that among young people the attitude to genetically modified foods is largely determined by expert assessments of public people and advertising that creates the image of the product. The relevance of the issue lies in understanding the importance of informing the population in matters of biotechnology in general and media education of the youth audience in particular. The conducted study on the attitude of young people to genetically modified products and food bioengineering has assisted in revealing the importance of the issue raised by the authors and allowed them to formulate recommendations on providing a comprehensive program to increase youth media literacy in food biotechnology. The proposals aimed at providing a comprehensive program for improving media literacy are related to the search for ways to increase the level of public confidence in genetically modified foods.


The self-awareness capacity has long been no stranger in the foreign education, but in Vietnam, self-awareness capacity has only been developed in education in recent years. The self-awareness capacity related problems among Vietnamese students have been exacerbated such as gender-based violence, gender bias, wrong career choices, disorientation and school counseling activities currently could not support this difficulty for students. Based on the theoretical framework of self-awareness capacity from previous studies in Vietnam and further developing the aspects of self-awareness by age, the questionnaire had been done to survey of 726 lower-secondary school students and 474 upper-secondary school students to find the situation of their self-awareness capacity problems, as well as the need for self-awareness capacity problems counseling. The results demonstrated a positive correlation between self-awareness capacity problems and students' need for self-awareness capacity problems counseling. In addition, identifying self-awareness capacity problems encountered by students helps us to develop a new school counseling model, as well as a process to counsel self-awareness capacity problems for students to enhance the self-awareness capacity and support school counseling activities effectively, also meeting the requirements of renewing the general curriculum in the students' capacity development orientation in Vietnam. Keywords: self-awareness, self-awareness capacity, school counseling model, school counseling activities, student capacity development orientation.


More than 90% of roads in India are constructed with bituminous mix as a wearing course. In majority of these roads, the granular layer is provided as a base layer. However due to low strength of granular layer, the higher thickness of the wearing course is required to avoid the failure of roads due to cracking and rutting. There is a significant difference in cost of construction of wearing course and other layers of flexible pavement. So selection of technology for construction of road which will reduce the thickness of different layers of road will be helpful in reducing the cost of construction of road. Cement treated base is better alternative to conventional granular base. Due to higher modulus of Cement Treated Base (CTB), the thickness of CTB is significantly less than Granular Base (GSB) layer for same traffic count. Therefore, in a present study an attempt has been made to investigate the cost of construction of flexible pavement designed with CTB and GSB as a base layer for 646 msa traffic estimated for Pune Ring road project. IRC:37 (2012) was followed to estimate the thickness of different layers of flexible pavement having CTB and GSB as base layer. The result of cost estimated for flexible pavement designed with CTB and GSB indicates that per kilometer construction cost of single lane road having a flexible pavement designed with CTB base layer was reduced by 52% as compared to road with GSB as base layer.


With the explosive growth in data traffic, operators are faced with the challenges of transforming their existing networks through careful investment in the right technology to lower the cost per bit. In this paper, we explored the economic impact of NG-OTN technologies on future converged IP Optical transport network through a comprehensive case study of a typical service provider in Asia Pacific. The key learning from the case study could help service providers to develop cost-effective evolution strategies while fulfilling the scalability, availability and flexibility requirements.


In some applications, both data compression and encryption are required. If the cryptanalyst knows the code construction rule and the probability mass function (PMF) of the source, then Huffman code provides no ambiguity, but Shannon-Fano-Elias coding is a good candidate since the order of symbols can be arbitrary in the encoding process, which produces exponential complexity for deciphering. However, the conventional Shannon-Fano-Elias code has relatively large expected length which makes it inefficient. In this paper, we propose two simple algorithms to reduce the expected length of Shannon-Fano-Elias code so that its efficiency is improved. This is achieved by first utilizing some proper PMF instead of the actual PMF in encoding, and then performing a codeword truncation. By applying the same strategy we can also reduce the length of Shannon-Fano codes


The processes of transformation taking place in the modern world, the need to form a study the problems of the activity of economic agents (their interests, and interactions) in the plane of analysis of the transformation of material and spiritual activities reflecting its society, to identify key trends and contradictions in their development and changes in the historical socio-cultural, socio-economic dynamics.


When saturated granular materials which are dilative in nature are subjected to the undrained deformation, their strength increases due to the generation of negative excess pore pressure. This phenomenon is known as dilative hardening and can be witnessed in saturated dense sand or rocks during very fast loading. However, experimental evidence of undrained biaxial compression tests of dense sand shows a limit to this dilative hardening due to the formation of shear bands. There is no consensus in the literature about the mechanism which triggers these shear bands in the dense dilative sand under isochoric constraint. The possible theoretical reasoning is the local drainage inside the specimen under the globally undrained condition, which is challenging to be monitored experimentally. Hence, both incept of localisation and post-bifurcation of the saturated undrained dense sand demand further numerical investigation. Pathological mesh dependency hinders the ability of the finite element method to represent the localisation without advanced regularisation methods. This paper attempt to provide a macroscopic constitutive behaviour of the undrained deformation of the saturated dense sand in the presence of a locally drained shear band. Discontinuation of dilatant hardening due to partial drainage between the shear band and the adjacent material is integrated into the constitutive model without changing governing equilibrium equations. Initially, a classical bifurcation analysis is conducted to detect the inception and inclination of the shear band based on the underlying drained deformation. Then a post-bifurcation analysis is carried out assuming an embedded drained or partially drained shear band at gauss points which satisfy bifurcation criterion. The smeared shear band approach is utilised to homogenise the constitutive relationship. It is observed that the dilatant hardening in the saturated undrained dense sand is reduced considerably due to the formation of shear bands.


Approximately 50% of oncology patients receive radiotherapy, with the dose of radiation often being limited to mitigate normal tissue damage of proximal critical/sensitive structures. Currently, no preclinical models exist to study a putative drug's efficacy in terms of functional recovery of tissues adversely effected by radiation exposure. Such limitations inhibit the development of targeted therapeutics. To this end, we developed a model of radiation-induced soft-tissue damage with quantitative outcomes of tissue function. Mice received a single administration of radiation focused on the posterior limb while under anesthesia. A blinded observer weighed each mouse and performed motors skills assessments weekly for the duration of the study. At the end of the study, mice were euthanized, assessed for hindlimb range of motion and histological analysis was performed, evaluating tissue morphology and fibrotic scarring. Mice presented numerous significant ambulatory deficits that positively correlated with the dose of radiation administered. Irradiated mice presented with reduced range of motion and increased fibrotic scarring upon histological assessment across all dose groups as compared to controls. The current study is the first to describe a preclinical model of functional skeletal muscle deficits following focal radiation injury of a posterior limb, which will be useful for the assessment of novel drug candidates to treat radiotherapy-induced soft-tissue damage.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs), small molecules that inhibit prenylation of multiple proteins such as Ras and Rho, have clinical promise for cancer. FTIs block malignant growth and promote cell death in a wide variety of tumor types in vitro and in vivo, but the mechanisms underlying the antitumor activity of FTIs are not completely understood. We have observed that osteosarcoma cell lines respond to the FTI tipifarnib with growth arrest, cellular enlargement, and flattened morphology, all changes consistent with the senescent phenotype (Hall et al., 2010). These observations led us to evaluate the ability of FTIs to induce senescence in osteosarcoma. Further, it was clear that cells retaining intact p53 responded at much lower concentrations of FTIs than did cells with absent/inactive p53, suggesting a possible role for p53 in this response. We measured endogenous β-galactosidase activity by in situ chromatography and quantified expression levels of common senescence markers including p53, p21Cip1, p16INK4a and DEC1 by densitometry analysis of western blot and qPCR in two human osteosarcoma cell lines, OS187 and Saos2. Cell growth was measured by direct counting of nuclei, and cell cycle was analyzed by PI staining and flow cytometry. Apoptosis was assessed by PARP cleavage, annexin V staining and flow cytometry. Variable responses to tipifarnib correlated with p53 status. In p53 proficient OS187 cells, 24h exposure to very low concentration of tipifarnib (10−9 M) induced upregulation of DEC1 and a 45-fold increase in p21Cip1 protein, accompanied by increased expression and phosphorylation of p53. This event also correlated with transient reduction of cyclin A, B1, and E proteins in a time-dependent manner, leading to cell cycle arrest which is comparable to tipifarnib-treated 293T cells. OS187 cells also exhibited elevated senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity in response to low-dose tipifarnib treatment after 24h. Meanwhile, Saos2 cells (p53-null) gave no response at 10−9 M tipifarnib. At higher concentrations (10−7 M), modest induction of p21Cip1 (10-fold increase) and p16INK4a (2-fold increase) proteins and mild inhibition of cell cycle progression were observed. Augmented senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity became detectable after Saos2 cells were exposed to high concentration of tipifarnib (10−6 M) for at least 48h. In addition to senescence, tipifarnib increased PARP cleavage and annexin V staining in OS187 cells, indicating that apoptotic cell death may also play a role in the anti-tumor activity of FTIs. These findings suggest that tipifarnib could efficiently promote senescence through a p53-dependent pathway at low concentrations, and via p53 independent pathways at higher concentrations. Induction of both cellular senescence and apoptosis may contribute to the growth inhibition induced by FTIs in osteosarcoma.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2640. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-2640


The seed oils of domesticated oilseed crops are major agricultural commodities that are used primarily for nutritional applications, but in recent years there has been increasing use of these oils for production of biofuels and chemical feedstocks. This is being driven in part by the rapidly rising costs of petroleum, increased concern about the environmental impact of using fossil oil, and the need to develop renewable domestic sources of fuel and industrial raw materials. There is also a need to develop sustainable sources of nutritionally important fatty acids such as those that are typically derived from fish oil. Plant oils can provide renewable sources of high-value fatty acids for both the chemical and health-related industries. The value and application of an oil are determined largely by its fatty acid composition, and while most vegetable oils contain just five basic fatty acid structures, there is a rich diversity of fatty acids present in nature, many of which have potential usage in industry. In this review, we describe several areas where plant oils can have a significant impact on the emerging bioeconomy and the types of fatty acids that are required in these various applications. We also outline the current understanding of the underlying biochemical and molecular mechanisms of seed oil production, and the challenges and potential in translating this knowledge into the rational design and engineering of crop plants to produce high-value oils in plant seeds.


Abstract Hours prior to the Homestead Valley sequence of earthquakes in the south central Mojave Desert (4.7 ≦ M L ≦ 5.2) on 15 March 1979, evidence of ground displacement was recorded at three widely separated points on the periphery of the Mojave block. The displacements were sensed as anomalous water levels on the two major aqueducts in southern California and as a creep step on a United States Geological Survey creepmeter. As well as being on the periphery of the Mojave block, the water level sensors are immediately adjacent to small Neogene faults, while the creepmeter spans the 1857 break of the San Andreas fault near Palmdale. Recalling the well-established geodetic anomaly on the San Andreas fault near Palmdale in early 1979 and the recently documented enhancement of the strike-slip component of microseismic activity on this section of the fault during the same period, we suggest that these events, the ground deformation events discussed herein and the Homestead Valley earthquakes are all aspects of a blockwide strain episode.


Calcium chloride (CaCl2) is an inorganic chemical from the chloride group, and it is widely used as one of snow removal agents on the road in winter. Laboratory experiments were conducted to examine the effects of the road salt (NaCl) on soil organisms (a soil animal, microorganisms, and plankton). The soil dwelling Armadillidium vulgare died from high concentration of calcium chloride treatment. The longer the processing time of A. vulgare at the high concentration of calcium chloride, the lower the survival rate. A. vulgare died 16% at a calcium chloride concentration of 1 mM. In the disc diffusion test, the diameter of the inhibition zone proportionally increased with the concentration of calcium chloride. Micrococcus sp. was slightly higher in calcium chloride inhibitory activity than those of three soil microorganisms (Bacillus subtillus, Pseudomonas flurescens, and Xanthomonas maltophilia). About 90% of microorganisms (phytoplanktons) died when the 15.0 mM calcium chloride solution was used. In this study, high concentrations of calcium chloride affected the survival of soil animals, soil microorganisms, and water microorganisms. If chloride dissolves in water and flows into rivers or lakes, it can cause destruction of soil or aquatic ecosystems and threat to the survival of small organisms.


When the Swedish society becomes more multicultural and we have a more multicultural school, it is important that educators have an understanding and awareness of the cultural differences that may occur in teaching situations. We have chosen to focus our study on girls with a Muslim background and how they experience physical education in school. The subject physical education contains many different elements that can be seen as new and foreign to these students. We have also interviewed educators to see how they work with integration and how they handle any absence from PE classes. Our study contains both a qualitative and a quantitative part. The study is based on the socio-cultural theory, as it is about interaction between people with regard to one's background and language. The result from our study shows differences of the experiences that students and teachers have about PE. The study also shows that the schools have a development of work with integration, but are still lacking resources to integrate today's students with a foreign background. The discussion in the study shows conclusions from the questionnaire and the interview survey which shows that there are difficulties for girls with Muslim background to participate in all different element that PE have. The educators, however, can not see such difficulties and they may let the student complete the course even though they have not completed the standards for it. Keyword: multicultural, integration, physical education


Abstract Typhoon Saomai (2006) was one of the most severe typhoon landfalls in China from 1956 to 2010. The rapid intensification process of Typhoon Saomai is simulated with the advanced research version of the Weather Re-search and Forecasting (ARW) modeling system using different cloud microphysical parameterization schemes. The horizontal spacing of the finest nested mesh is 1.5 km. The intensity, precipitation, and inner-core structures of the simulated typhoons are verified against the observations. The performances of various cloud microphysical parameterization schemes are compared. It is found that varying the microphysics scheme generates little sensi-tivity in track, but results in pronounced deviations in intensity and inner-core structures. The results indicate the condensation and depositional growth of graupel or snow of the suitable cloud microphysical parameterization scheme enhances the diabatic heat releasing in the inner core region. The released diabatic heating determines the intensity and inner-core structures of typhoon. Furthermore, a positive feedback associated with the diabatic heating plays an important role in the intensification of the simulated storm with a suitable cloud microphysical parameterization scheme.


The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the suitability of local anesthesia in the pediatric age group for oculoplastic procedures. The authors present a case of frontalis sling surgery performed under local anesthesia in a 15-year-old boy with bilateral congenital ptosis. No significant technical difficulties were encountered during the procedure. Optimal intraoperative eyelid placement was facilitated by the patient's comfort and cooperation. For some selected children, local anesthesia is a good alternative to general anesthesia to obtain the best outcome.


OBJECTIVE
Young adults experiencing a first episode of psychosis (FEP) have high rates of cannabis use and cannabis use disorder (CUD). No evidence-based practice effectively treats CUD for people with FEP, and little is known about factors that influence intentions to reduce or stop using. A critical inquiry was conducted to identify salient factors contributing to intentions of young adults with FEP to reduce or discontinue cannabis use, guided by theory of planned behavior (TPB).

METHOD
Online focus groups (n = 3) and individual interviews (n = 3) were conducted with 16 young adults with FEP (mean age of 23.7) and historical cannabis use (averaging 11.8 days of use in the previous 30). A content analysis was conducted to sort data into TPB constructs, and a thematic analysis was subsequently performed to identify the breadth of themes.

RESULTS
Participants identified benefits of cannabis reduction and cessation for pursuing life goals, but most maintained regular use. Participants perceived cannabis as a facilitator of social interactions, enjoyable activities, and improved mental health (and reduced dysthymia). Many were concerned about reducing or discontinuing cannabis without replacement strategies to compensate for its benefits.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
In spite of life goals incompatible with cannabis use, cessation was not favored given the perceived benefits of cannabis and participants' lack of replacement strategies to facilitate social interactions, enjoyable activities, and euthymia. Interventions may be improved by addressing motivations for use and by teaching skills to build positive social support, schedule enjoyable activities, and ameliorate dysthymia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).


The minimum torque norm control scheme for redundant manipulators has long been known to exhibit instabilities. In this paper, an analysis is made of a class of acceleration-level redundancy resolution schemes that includes the minimum torque, minimum acceleration, and other well known schemes. It is proved that divergence of joint velocity norm to infinity in finite time is possible, and in fact does occur for self motions of mechanisms with one degree of redundancy under almost all such schemes in the class. The schemes that do not diverge in finite time are associated with conserved quantities and include minimum acceleration norm and dynamically consistent redundancy resolution schemes. Besides the divergence, all these schemes can exhibit local instabilities in the form of abrupt increases in joint velocities and torques. Simulations are presented that illustrate the types of divergence and instability. The details of the analysis should be useful to designers seeking to modify these resolution schemes. For example, it is proved that linear dissipation or nullspace velocity cannot stabilize the algorithms.


The performance of an agricultural robot has been evaluated through simulation to determine design parameters for a robotic melon harvester. Animated, visual simulation provided a powerful tool to initiate the evaluation of alternative designs. To quantify the many, closely-related design parameters, numerical simulation tools were developed and applied. Simulations using measured cantaloupe locations revealed the effect of design parameters (configuration, number of arms, and actuator speeds) on the average cycle time. Simulation results predicted that a Cartesian robot would perform faster than a cylindrical robot for the melon harvesting task. Activating two arms in tandem was the fastest configuration evaluated. Additional sets of melon locations were stochastically generated from distributions of the field data to determine performance for planting distances between 25 and 125 cm. The fastest cycle time was achieved for an experimental cultural practice that consisted of one plant on each half row in an alternating sequence with 125 cm planting distance. The performance of the robotic melon harvester was found to be highly dependent on the picking time, actuator speeds and planting distance.


We investigate the origin of the broad luminescence observed around 2.7-2.9 eV in heavily Mg-doped GaN through first-principles pseudopotential calculations. We find that a defect complex composed of an Mg interstitial and an N vacancy gives rise to optical transition levels around 2.8 eV above the valence band maximum, suggesting that the blue luminescences are caused by deep-donor-to-valence-band transitions. The formation of the - complex is enhanced by hydrogenation and is more preferable in p-type samples grown under Ga-rich conditions.


The central premise is that conventional expert systems which encode experimental knowledge in production rules are not a suitable vehicle for the creation of practical operator support systems. The principal difficulty is the need for real-time operation. Intelligent support systems will have to be heavily instrumented and the associated knowledge bases will require a hierarchical organization to emulate human approaches to analysis. Arguments to support the findings are made by first examining the needs of licensed reactor operators and then reviewing the capabilities of conventional expert systems. Differences between existing expert systems and proposed intelligent support tools are identified by comparing certain design features including the source and content of the knowledge base, the mode of interaction with the user, knowledge organization, the inference engine, and the man-machine interface. Issues related to operator acceptance of intelligent support tools are reviewed. Possible applications are described and the relative merits of the machine- and human-centered approaches to the implementation of intelligent support systems are enumerated. >


With the advance of hardware and communication technologies, stream time series is gaining ever-increasing attention due to its importance in many applications such as financial data processing, network monitoring, Web click-stream analysis, sensor data mining, and anomaly detection. For all of these applications, an efficient and effective similarity search over stream data is essential. Because of the unique characteristics of the stream, for example, data are frequently updated and real-time response is required, the previous approaches proposed for searching through archived data may not work in the stream scenarios. Especially, in the cases where data often arrive periodically for various reasons (for example, the communication congestion or batch processing), queries on such incomplete time series or even future time series may result in inaccuracy using traditional approaches. Therefore, in this paper, we propose three approaches, polynomial, Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), and probabilistic, to predict the unknown values that have not arrived at the system and answer similarity queries based on the predicted data. We also apply efficient indexes, that is, a multidimensional hash index and a B+-tree, to facilitate the prediction and similarity search on future time series, respectively. Extensive experiments demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our methods for prediction and answering queries.


In recent years, a burgeoning literature has focused on the history of human rights in general and the history of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in particular. In order to understand how the ECHR gradually managed to gain authority in diverse national settings, it is necessary to complement transnational historical perspectives with studies of national reception histories. The present article approaches the history of the ECHR in Belgium by focusing on the history of the Belgian cases in Strasbourg, which have played an important role in contributing to the 'discovery' of the ECHR in the Belgian legal system. On the basis of interviews with actors involved in the early cases against Belgium, it was possible to determine their position in the Belgian legal landscape as well as their motivations and aspirations in going to Strasbourg. Moreover, these interviews allowed gaining insight into the circumstances out of which litigation against Belgium arose.


Ethenzamide (ETZ), an antipyretic analgesic categorized as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), is widely used as an over-the-counter (OTC) drug in combination with other NSAIDs. However, its site of action and mechanism underlying its analgesic action have not yet been fully elucidated. In this study, we performed in vitro pharmacological assays to identify the mechanism underlying the analgesic action of ETZ, and also conducted the rat formalin test to investigate its analgesic effect and site of action. Of the 85 receptors, ion channels, transporters and enzymes tested, we found that ETZ binds to the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT) 2B receptor in concentration-dependent manner with modest inhibitory effects on monoamine oxidase-A and transient potential vanilloid 1 channel. The 5HT2B receptor antagonist activity of ETZ was also confirmed in a cellular functional assay. Furthermore, the drug exerted no inhibitory effects on cycrooxygenase-1 and -2. In the rat formalin test, oral administration of ETZ significantly reduced the nociceptive responses of the second phase and also the number of c-Fos-expressing cells in the spinal dorsal horn, in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, intrathecal administration of ETZ significantly reduced the nociceptive responses. These results suggest that the analgesic effect of ETZ is exerted at least in the spinal cord, and the effect would be attributed to multiple mechanisms of action including 5HT2B receptor blockade.


This article involves architecting prototype-fuzzy expert system for designing the nominal cover thickness by means of fuzzy inference for quantitatively representing the environment affecting factor to reinforced concrete in chloride-induced corrosion environment. In this work, nominal cover thickness to reinforcement in concrete was determined by the sum of minimum cover thickness and tolerance to that defined from skill level, constructability and the significance of member. Several variables defining the quality of concrete and environment affecting factor (EAF) including relative humidity, temperature, cyclic wet and dry, and the distance from coast were treated as fuzzy variables. To qualify EAF the environment conditions of cycle degree of wet-dry, relative humidity, distance from coast and temperature were used as input variables. To determine the nominal cover thickness a qualified EAF, concrete grade, and watercement ratio were used. The membership functions of each fuzzy variable were generated from the engineering knowledge and intuition based on some references as well as some international codes of practice.


Nowadays, the telemetry mediated systems tend to be an alternative to the standard measurement systems. With the decreasing cost of electronic devices, the use telemetry systems is becoming more and more common, as it allows to test remotely and to send the results to the specialised centres with experienced staff. Healthcare personnel involved with hearing services in less modern locations need consistent training, oversight and feedback by audiologists in order to provide quality services. The aim of the study is to present usage of telemedical tools for diagnosis between Poland and Kyrgyzstan. A hybrid synchronous and asynchronous model of testing is used in Kyrgyzstan. Before starting the remote Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) testing Kyrgyz technicians completed comprehensive training courses. They were instructed on the correct patient preparation for testing, abrasions of the skin, electrode sticking, clip attaching, and launching of the appropriate software. Support documentation was prepared; instructional materials including  a brochure and instructional video. The equipment was sent to the centre in Kyrgyzstan. At the beginning of the project we made numerous mock examinations, after that we started the remote Kyrgyz-Polish testing. The whole process was performed with the use of the Team Viewer application (a proprietary computer software package for remote control, desktop sharing, online meetings, web conferencing and file transfer between computers). During the process, the testing room can be seen on the video and we can speak with the technician depending on our Russian speaking personnel. After the test, the  results are collected and sent to a specialist in Poland to determine the result. The documents are then translated and sent to Kyrgyzstan. Up to 20 remote examinations can be performed weekly. This technology assists clinicians by making it easier for them to consult with other more experienced audiologists.


The purpose of the literature study was to describe older people´s difficulties and attitudes to take several drugs. Literature has been sought in two large databases and included literature is selected, quality assessed and analyzed, based on the study purpose and questions. The authors conducted a descriptive literature review of qualitative and quantitative articles. Difficulties to access different types of pharmaceutical packaging, or to remember when to take their medicines are difficulties the elderly encounter. Cultural and socioeconomic differences become apparent. Lack of communication between doctors and the elderly person resulting in incomplete prescriptions, lack of monitoring, information and education, and that several doctors are involved in an older person`s drug list. Difficulties color the older persons´ attitudes to take several medications. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the importance of prevention and health care should be emphasized. Older people adherence may increase the resources devoted to prevention efforts, and thus can care injuries related to improper use of drugs prevented.


AIM
To quantify the change in the cross-sectional area of the cervical spinal cord and subarachnoid space (SAS) in the supine neutral vs prone extension positions in patients with myelopathy undergoing cervical CT myelography.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Axial CT myelgrams of 21 myelopathic patients were performed in both the supine neutral and prone extension positions. The SAS and cord cross-sectional areas were then measured at the disk spaces and mid-pedicle levels from C2 to T1 in both the supine and prone positions using a public domain NIH Image program, version 156b18. Mean area measurements in both positions were then compared for each level examined.

RESULTS
Mean SAS cross-sectional area in the prone position was notably reduced compared with the supine position at C4-C5 [128.8 mm2 vs 168.1 mm2 (P<.05)], and C5-C6 [98.8 mm2 vs 143.2 mm2 (P<.05)] disk levels. The mean cord cross-sectional area failed to change significantly with positioning.

CONCLUSIONS
Prone myelography may demonstrate a greater degree of cervical spine stenosis compared with CT myelography performed in the supine position in myelopathic patients. Imaging with the patient prone with neck extended in both myelography and CTM may improve precision in the results of measurements of the stenotic spinal canal when comparing these two methods. Blease Graham III, C. (2001). Clinical Radiology56, 35-39.


A formal total synthesis of l-ossamine was achieved. The key feature of the synthesis was the decarboxylative functionalization of a threonine derivative using visible-light-mediated photoredox catalysis. This reaction was implemented in a flow reactor, allowing for the efficient conversion to the desired product.


The 'Collaborative Tuberculosis Strategy for England 2015–2020'1 was recently published on the 19 January 2015 and represents a joint approach by Public Health England (PHE) and the National Health Service of England (NHSE) to tackle the ongoing issue of tuberculosis (TB) in the UK.

Although we saw an encouraging small decrease in the numbers of TB cases in 2013,2 this is in the setting of this disease continuing to be a problem in the UK where we still have one of the highest rates of TB in Western Europe3 and where rates of TB in some high-burden boroughs are comparable to some areas of the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. Our rates of disease are still almost double that of the preceding two decades. Despite the epidemiological data indicating that the majority of TB cases are in foreign-born individuals, the UK has not yet implemented a systematic programme of latent TB infection (LTBI) detection and prophylactic treatment.4 In addition, there is evidence that ongoing transmission rates are also extremely high in vulnerable groups such as the homeless, those with substance abuse problems and those with a past history of imprisonment.5 The Find & Treat service based in London has been able to provide a targeted approach in this setting, but similar projects are lacking in other high-incidence UK cities.

While the majority of cases and highest rates of disease are centred around the well-recognised 'hot-spots' of TB (in conurbations like London, Leicester, Birmingham, Luton, Manchester and Coventry), there is an emerging issue of complex and multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) in areas of low incidence where the local clinical infrastructure may be less well resourced and coordinated. …


This working paper provides civil society groups with tools to discuss the role that can be played by NGO's in policy making, and to make proposals to ensure that ordinary people in India have the right to participate in decision-making processes that affect their lives. These include informed policy processes that are responsive to communities' needs and which would in turn lead to better policies in Government.
The paper uses three case studies to explore the successes and flaws of civil society engagement in seeking and securing policy change: the 'Right to Information' Movement; the 'Anti-Corruption Movement'; and the 12th five year plan of the Civil Society Planning Commission. It considers how they represent different kinds of interventions by civil society to influence policymaking. In conclusion, it looks at emerging themes in India – how civil society actors feel that policy determination needs to be opened up for both greater access and clearer scrutiny.


The quintessential presence of television in modern American life has led to decades of research on the unhealthy effects of television. However, recent years have witnessed a surge in scholarship seeking to interrogate the positive health effects of television, particularly in the realm of incorporating health content into entertainment-based television programs. One of the important critical questions in the realm of the positive health effects of television focuses on the amount of health information learning contributed by health information content on television. This article takes a motivation-based approach to health information learning from television, arguing that health orientation influences the amount of health information learned by individuals from television. On the basis of 2 separate studies, the article demonstrates that individuals who learn health information from a variety of television programs are more health oriented than individuals who do not learn health information from these television programs.


In this paper, we prove that a postcritically finite rational map with non-empty Fatou set is Thurston equivalent to an expanding Thurston map if and only if its Julia set is homeomorphic to the standard Sierpiński carpet.


In present report a stochastic fiber break cIusters accumulation model for polymer matrix UD composites, subjected to tension-tension fatigue, is under consideration. A stochastic kinetic equation, leads to the development of cIosed-form analytical solutions for probabiIities to obtain adjacent fiber breaks of a particular configuration in a composite material. The chain-of-bundles material model is described. WeibuIl type function is used to characterize a fatigue lifetime of fiber element. Single fiber fatigue fracture tests were performed with a goal to obtain fiber element lifetime probability function parameters. The continuum damage mechanics with intemal state variables was used to describe the constitutive behavior of the composite with damage. The intemal state variable that accounts for considered damage is formulated. FEM analysis and fiber breaks accumulation model was incorporated into the formulated constitutive law with damage in order to predict the stiffness loss due to the damage. Theoretical predictions for stiffness degradation due to damage accumulation in fatigue were compared with experimental data for glass fiber and carbon fiber composites.


The first known catalogue of the MSS. from the library of the Norbertine Abbey of Parc, founded in 1129 and situated near Louvain, is the one that was edited in 1635, under the direction of the abbot Johannes Masius, at the request of Antonius Sanderus who published it in the second part of his Bibliotheca Belgica manuscripta (1643 or 1644). As a catalogue it is mediocre and only useful for a reconstruction of the collection. Moreover, at the beginning of the 18th century nearly all the MSS. were bound, and consequently the contents of some volumes may have changed.