One of the key requirements for next generation wireless or cellular communication systems is to efficiently support a large number of connections for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and uplink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes can be used for this purpose. In uplink NOMA systems, pilot symbols, as well as data symbols can be superimposed onto shared resources. The error rate performance can be severely degraded due to channel estimation errors, especially when the number of superimposed packets is large. In this paper, we discuss uplink NOMA schemes with channel estimation errors, assuming that quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation is used. When pilot signals are superimposed onto the shared resources and a large number of devices perform random accesses concurrently to a single resource of the base station, the channels might not be accurately estimated even in high SNR environments. In this paper, we propose an uplink NOMA scheme, which can alleviate the performance degradation due to channel estimation errors.


Aims The primary aim of this study was to determine the ten-year outcome following surgical treatment for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). We assessed whether the evolution of practice from open to arthroscopic techniques influenced outcomes and tested whether any patient, radiological, or surgical factors were associated with outcome. Methods Prospectively collected data of a consecutive single-surgeon cohort, operated for FAI between January 2005 and January 2015, were retrospectively studied. The cohort comprised 393 hips (365 patients; 71% male (n = 278)), with a mean age of 34.5 years (SD 10.0). Over the study period, techniques evolved from open surgical dislocation (n = 94) to a combined arthroscopy-Hueter technique (HA + Hueter; n = 61) to a pure arthroscopic technique (HA; n = 238). Outcome measures of interest included modes of failures, complications, reoperation, and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). Demographic, radiological, and surgical factors were tested for possible association with outcome. Results At a mean follow-up of 7.5 years (SD 2.5), there were 43 failures in 38 hips (9.7%), with 35 hips (8.9%) having one failure mode, one hip (0.25%) having two failure modes, and two hips (0.5%) having three failure modes. The five- and ten-year hip joint preservation rates were 94.1% (SD 1.2%; 95% confidence interval (CI) 91.8 to 96.4) and 90.4% (SD 1.7%; 95% CI 87.1 to 93.7), respectively. Inferior survivorship was detected in the surgical dislocation group. Age at surgery, Tönnis grade, cartilage damage, and absence of rim-trimming were associated with improved preservation rates. Only Tönnis grade was an independent predictor of hip preservation. All PROMs improved postoperatively. Factors associated with improvement in PROMs included higher lateral centre-edge and α angles, and lower retroversion index and BMI. Conclusion FAI surgery provides lasting improvement in function and a joint preservation rate of 90.4% at ten years. The evolution of practice was not associated with inferior outcome. Since degree of arthritis is the primary predictor of outcome, improved awareness and screening may lead to prompt intervention and better outcomes. Cite this article: Bone Jt Open 2022;3(10):804–814.


Purpose Multi-level lumbar fusion to the sacrum (MLF) can lead to increased stress and angular motion across the sacroiliac joint (SIJ), with an incidence of post-operative SIJ pain estimated at 26–32%. SIJ fusion (SIJF) can help obviate the need for revisions by reducing range of motion and screw stresses. We aimed to evaluate the cost-utility of MLF + SIJF compared to MLF alone among high-risk patients from a payer perspective, where high risk is defined as high body mass index and high pelvic incidence. Methods A Markov process decision-analysis model was developed to evaluate cumulative 5-year costs, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of MLF + SIJF compared to MLF alone using published data; costs from Medicare claims data analyses and health state utility values (derived from EQ-5D) informed by three prospective, multicenter, clinical trials. The base case assumed a reduction in post-operative SIJ pain from 30% to 10% (relative risk reduction [RRR] of 67%). Costs and utilities were discounted 3% annually. The ICER is reported in 2020 US dollars. One-way, multi-way, and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed. Results With an assumed 30% incidence of SIJ pain after MLF alone, stabilizing with SIJF was associated with an additional 5-year cost of $2421 and a gain of 0.14 QALYs, resulting in an ICER of $17,293 per QALY gained (similar to total knee arthroplasty and more favorable than open discectomy). ICERs were most sensitive to the RRR of post-operative SIJ pain conferred by SIJF, time horizon, and probability of successful treatment with MLF alone. At a willingness-to-pay threshold of $50,000/QALY gained, MLF + SIJF has a 97.7% probability of being cost-effective in the target patient population. Conclusion Fusing the SIJ in high-risk patients undergoing MLF was cost-effective when the incidence of post-operative SIJ pain after MLF alone exceeds approximately 25%, providing value-based healthcare from a payer perspective.


Low temperature growth of a high quality strained film on graded is demonstrated using MBE. In situ monitoring of reflection high electron energy diffraction (RHEED) patterns and intensity oscillations during different stages of the growth has shown two-dimensional pseudomorphic growth. The layers have been further characterized by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), x-ray diffraction (XRD), secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The Schottky barrier height of platinum-silicide (PtSi) on p-type has been found to vary between 0.19-0.57 eV in the temperature range 100-300 K. At 300 K, the ideality factor has been found to be 2.0 and 1.32 for PtSi/ and PtSi/ diodes, respectively.


Nurses will be observing the skin on a daily basis while caring for their patients. Many may appear to have a dry skin or have a skin disease with dryness being the presenting feature in conditions such as atopic eczema, contact dermatitis (irritant and allergic) psoriasis and the ichthyoses. This article explores the barrier function of the skin, factors which influence skin barrier function and the use of emollients for dry skin and skin conditions.


The scale, complexity and worldwide geographical spread of the LHC computing and data analysis problems are unprecedented in scientific research. The complexity of processing and accessing this data is increased substantially by the size and global span of the major experiments, combined with the limited wide area network bandwidth available. We present the latest generation of the MONARC (Models of Networked Analysis at Regional Centers) simulation framework, as a design and modeling tool for large scale distributed systems applied to HEP experiments. We present simulation experiments designed to evaluate the capabilities of the current real-world distributed infrastructure to support existing physics analysis processes and the means by which the experiments bands together to meet the technical challenges posed by the storage, access and computing requirements of LHC data analysis within the CMS experiment.


It has long been recognized that T cells in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and other inflammatory compartments cannot be stimulated by mitogen and the reason for this has remained unknown. This question was investigated using mononuclear cells (MNC) isolated from the CSF of subjects with multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory brain diseases which predominantly express the CD4 and CDw29 but not CD45RA determinants. CSF and blood cells were stimulated by either the CD3/T cell receptor complex, the CD2 activation pathway, calcium ionophore, or an activator of protein kinase C, phorbol myristate acetate (PMA). CSF MNC proliferated less than blood MNC following stimulation by phytohemagglutinin in subjects with inflammation in the CSF, but not in subjects with non‐inflammatory CNS diseases. Moreover, CSF MNC were not induced to proliferate through stimulation of the CD2 pathway by anti‐T112 + anti‐T113 monoclonal antibodies (mAb). This was not due to defects in either interleukin 2 receptors, interleukin 2 secretion, or to T cell pre‐activation in vivo. Instead, the refractory activation state of inflammatory CSF T cells was corrected by PMA. That CSF contains predominantly CD4+CDw29+CD45RA‐ cells suggests that PMA may be co‐stimulatory with anti‐CD2 mAb to activate this population of T cells. This was confirmed in experiments with sorted T cells from normal subjects. These data suggest that the inability of mitogens or anti‐CD2 mAb to stimulate inflammatory CSF T cells, which can be corrected by an inducer of protein kinase C, is related to the relative absence of CD4+CD45RA+ cells in the CSF. Alterations of protein kinase C and protein phosphorylation may exist in inflammatory T cell populations that regulate the immune response.


Although removing victims from trafficking occurs worldwide, little is known about how it works, particularly in developing Asian countries such as Vietnam. Appropriating Western strategies of victim removal is made more difficult in Vietnam given the country's political ideology, top-down management, and centralised governance. To better understand and elucidate the process of TIP victim rescues, this paper used in-depth interviews with fifteen police officials, four officials of a non-governmental organization, and five victims of trafficking in persons (TIP) at a settlement in Vietnam. Findings demonstrated that state and non-state actors endeavoured to rescue victims. Depending on obligations, functions, and responsibilities, agencies were shown to implement separate campaigns, techniques, and operations to rescue trafficking victims. The study further explains the rationale for rescue and the difficulties faced by rescuers, particularly with respect to crossing the porous border between Vietnam and China. This research highlights practical insights for improving current policies, legal framework, programs, and strategies to effectively rescue TIP victims.


Human parvovirus B19 (B19) has been shown to be associated with erythema infectiosum. Recently, it was reported that when a pregnant woman is infected with B19, the fetus in her uterus sometimes becomes hydropic and results in a stillbirth. But no epidemiologic study of pregnant women in Japan has been performed yet. We have established an in vitro propagation system of B19 virions and an assay system for detecting anti-B19 antibody by indirect immunofluorescence (IF) staining. We examined the positive rate of anti-B19 antibody among 337 normal blood donors, 329 normal pregnant women, 23 early aborted women and 24 non-immune hydrops fetalis cases by IF staining. The positive rate for anti-B19 IgG among normal blood donors increased with age. It was 22% aged 21 to 30, 44% aged 31 to 40, 65% aged 41 to 50, and 76% aged 51 to 60, respectively. Anti-B19 IgG was detected in 33% of 329 of normal pregnant women. The anti-B19 IgG positive rate was 26% in pregnant women in their twenties and 44% in those in their thirties. There was a significant difference between the two generations. The results show that more than half the women in their twenties and thirties risk B19-infection during pregnancy. Nine of twenty-three early aborted women were positive for anti-B19 antibody. Among six pregnant women who were positive for anti-B19 IgM, four delivered normal babies and the others aborted artificially or spontaneously. Anti-B19 IgG and IgM of twenty four non-immune hydrops fetalis (NIHF) were examined and four cases were found to be anti-B19 IgG positive.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The spectrum of the Laplacian on hyperbolic space is a proper subset of the positive reals. We study eigenfunctions, defined on the complements of compact sets, whose eigenvalues lie below the bottom of the spectrum. Such eigenfunctions may arise by perturbing the metric on compact subsets of the space. One divides the eigenfunctions by normalizing factors, so that the quotients have analytic boundary values on the ideal boundary at infinity. The renormalized eigenfunctions are approximated by special polynomials, in nontangential approach regions to the ideal boundary.


Abstract Juniperus chinensis cv. Kaizuca has extensive pharmacological activities. The cone oils exhibited protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B inhibitory activity in vitro. The IC50 value was 4.49 ± 0.04 μg/mL. A total of 17 compounds were characterised from the cone oils by GC-MS. In order to explain the activity against protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B, the identified compounds from cone oils were individually docked with the protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B protein by virtual molecular docking. As a result, thunbergene was completely wrapped by the active site of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B, and its binding energy was −6.41 kcal/mol. The result indicated that thunbergene possessed the potential protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B inhibitory activity, which may be responsible for the activity of cone oils.


A new switched capacitor circuit is presented, realizing a moderate to high Q frequency emphasizing network. The original feature of this circuit is that its resonant frequency is equal to one half of the sampling frequency, and independent of the accuracy of the capacitor ratio or of any imperfection, both affecting only the Q factor. The gain is nearly proportional to the Q factor. An experimental circuit has been implemented in CMOS Si-gate technology with a programmable gain of 20 dB and 40 dB, corresponding to a Q factor of 8.6 and 79, respectively. Experimental results are in good agreement with the theory. Modifications of the basic circuit are proposed to cancel the effects of parasitic capacitances and to reduce the chip area.


A low-power register file is designed by using a low-swing strategy and modified NAND address decoders. The proposed low-swing strategy is based on the feedback scheme and uses dynamic logic to reduce the active feedback power. This method contains two parts: WRITE and READ strategy. In the WRITE low-swing scheme, the modified memory cell is used to support low-swing WRITE. The modified NAND decoder not only dissipates less power, but also enables a great deal of area reduction. Compared with the conventional single-ended register file, the low-swing strategy saves 34.5% and 51.15% bit-line power in WRITE and READ separately. The post simulation results indicate a 39.4% power improvement when the twelve ports are all busy.


Diverse plant communities are predicted to have higher abundance of predators as compared to species-poor ones. In this study we explored whether this prediction holds true for the abundance of predatory arthropods in forest ecosystems, which have been poorly studied in this respect. We collected ground-dwelling arthropods using pitfall traps from six long-term forest diversity experiments in Finland, Sweden and UK. The effects of tree species diversity on abundance of five main groups of predatory arthropods (ants, spiders, carabids, staphylinids and opilionids) were examined by means of meta-analysis. Overall, the diversity of tree species did not affect abundances of predators with the exception of staphylinids, which were more abundant in mixed stands than in monocultures. However, the effects of stand diversity on predator abundance became apparent when analyses were conducted on tree species basis. Preference for stands containing particular tree species was clear in the case of opilionids, carabids and staphylinids, and these preferences overruled the effects of tree species diversity in comparisons between monocultures and mixed stands containing the same tree species. Tree species diversity effects on predator abundance were furthermore mediated by the tree age, plot size and planting density used in the experiment. Overall, our results show that predator abundance does not increase uniformly with increase in tree species diversity, but rather suggest that predators have distinct preferences for stands composed of particular tree species and that these species preferences may overrule the effects of diversity.


Carbon 1s energies are measured by ESCA for a series of aliphatic saturated compounds, carbonyl compounds, and some aromatic compounds. For convenient use in chemical structure analysis the binding energy shifts are correlated with a charge parameter obtained from electronegativity considerations. The shifts are also analyzed in terms of group shifts from which group electronegativities are derived. A comparison is made between the shifts in solid and gaseous samples and it is shown that solid state effects are small for non-ionic compounds. The observed shifts are then compared with results of semi-empirical and ab initio molecular orbital calculations on free molecules. The theoretical calculations are simplified by use of an electrostatic potential model.


The radiation from a two-element endfire dielectric resonator antenna array has been experimentally investigated and compared with theoretical formulations. The measured gain of the array is 4.6, which is 35% higher than the gain of a single element DRA. The measured impedance bandwidth is 11.4%, which is 0.7% lower than the bandwidth of the single element DRA. Good agreement has been observed between the predicted and measured results.


The human amylase gene family on chromosome 1p21.1 is highly copy number variable. The salivary (AMY1) and pancreatic (AMY2A and AMY2B) amylase genes encode the starch-digesting enzymes expressed in the salivary gland and pancreas, respectively. Different molecular approaches have been used to investigate copy number variation (CNV) in this region, more specifically the salivary AMY1 copy number (CN). High AMY1 CN has been shown to be correlated with adaptation to human dietary starch intake, and low AMY1 CN reported to be a predisposition factor to obesity. These findings have not been replicated independently, and reliable measurement methods and accurate structural characterisation of the region are important to address such findings. The large dynamic copy number range of AMY1 genes and the extent of sequence identity in this region demands accurate, reliable and high-throughput CNV measurement methods.
In this study, high-resolution paralogue ratio test (PRT) measurement methods have been developed to define the full scope of variations in human amylase genes. The data demonstrated independent allelic series of amylase CN variants (CNVs) in sub-Saharan Africans, in which the region has undergone homologous and non-homologous rearrangements to create new haplotypes, some of which contain five copies each of the AMY2A and AMY2B genes. These expansions have taken AMY2B/AMY2A /AMY1 repeat unit as a starting point to create new allelic series represented by triplication, quadruplication and quintuplication.
With a better understanding of amylase region variation and the high-resolution measurement methods developed in this study, the effect of amylase CNVs on diseases was assessed in eight common diseases. The results of case-control association studies showed no evidence of significant association between amylase CNVs and the eight diseases being tested. Furthermore, the significant association between amylase CN and body mass index (BMI) has been reassessed in three different cohorts (in a total of 4237 samples). The data demonstrated no evidence for an association between amylase CNVs and BMI. The lack of evidence of significant associations suggest that amylase CNVs does not influence BMI or obesity.


Erythropoietin (Epo) regulates the proliferation and differentiation of erythroid precursors. The phosphorylation of proteins at tyrosine residues is critical in the growth signaling induced by Epo. This mechanism is regulated by the activities of both protein-tyrosine kinases and protein tyrosine phosphatases. The discovery of phosphotyrosine phosphatases that contain SH2 domains suggests roles for these molecules in growth factor signaling pathways. We found that Syp, a phosphotyrosine phosphatase, widely expressed in all tissues in mammals became phosphorylated on tyrosine after stimulation with Epo in M07ER cells engineered to express high levels of human EpoR. Syp was complexed with Grb2 in Epo-stimulated M07ER cells. Direct binding between Syp and Grb2 was also observed in vitro. Furthermore, Syp appeared to bind directly to tyrosine-phosphorylated EpoR in M07ER cells. Both NH2-terminal and COOH-terminal SH2 domains of Syp, made as glutathione S-trnsferase fusion proteins, were able to bind to the tyrosine-phosphorylated EpoR in vitro. These results suggest that Syp may be an important signaling component downstream of the EpoR and may regulate the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic cells.


INTRODUCTION
Veteran patients have access to a broad range of health care services in the Veterans' Health Administration (VHA). There are concerns, however, that all Veteran patients may not have access to timely care. The Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act was passed in 2018 to ensure that eligible Veterans can receive timely, high-quality care. The Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act makes use of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-contracted care to achieve its goal. There are concerns, however, that these transitions of care may, in fact, place Veterans at a higher risk of poor health outcomes. This is a particular concern with regard to suicide prevention. No study has investigated suicide-related safety events in Veteran patients who receive care in VA-contracted community care settings.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A retrospective analysis of root-cause analysis (RCA) reports and patient safety reports of suicide-related safety events that involved VA-contracted community care was conducted. Events that were reported to the VHA National Center for Patient Safety between January 1, 2018, and June 30, 2022, were included. A coding book was developed to abstract relevant variables from each report, for example, report type and facility and patient characteristics. Root causes reported in RCAs were also coded, and the factors that contributed to the events were described in the patient safety reports. Two reviewers independently coded 10 cases, and we then calculated a kappa. Because the kappa was greater than 80% (i.e. 89.2%), one reviewer coded the remaining cases.

RESULTS
Among 139 potentially eligible reports, 88 reports were identified that met the study inclusion criteria. Of these 88 reports, 62.5% were patient safety reports and 37.5% were RCA reports. There were 129 root causes of suicide-related safety events involving VA-contracted community care. Most root causes were because of health care-related processes. Reports cited concerns around challenges with communication and deficiencies in mental health treatment. A few reports also described concerns that community care providers were not available to engage in patient safety activities. Patient safety reports voiced similar concerns but also pointed to specific issues with the safety of the environment, for example, access to methods of strangulation in community care treatment settings in an emergency room or a rehabilitation unit.

CONCLUSIONS
It is important to strengthen the systems of care across VHA- and VA-contracted community care settings to reduce the risk of suicide in Veteran patients. This includes developing standardized methods to improve the safety of the clinical environment as well as implementing robust methods to facilitate communication between VHA and community care providers. In addition, Veteran patients may benefit from quality and safety activities that capitalize on the collective knowledge of VHA- and VA-contracted community care organizations.


In order to overcome the drawbacks of the regular petroleum fuel, it is the need of time to completely or partially replace the petroleum fuel. But alternative options to petroleum fuel are having disadvantages. An electric or compressed air driven cars cannot be used where high torque is required or using hydrogen as fuel requires very costly storage equipments. In this research work an attempt has been made to reduce the drawbacks of petroleum fuels. Electrolysis of water can give us hydrogen in form of oxy-hydrogen gas which can be used as an alternative fuel for any internal combustion engine. This research paper discusses various methods designed for the production of oxy-hydrogen gas. Later blend of 'oxy-hydrogen gas' and petrol or diesel is used instead of only petrol/diesel to study the influence of the 'oxy-hydrogen gas' on the performance of the internal combustion engine. Oxy-hydrogen gas is an enriched mixture of 'hydrogen' and 'oxygen' bonded together molecularly and magnetically. Oxy-hydrogen gas is produced by electrolysis of water using caustic soda or KOH as the catalyst. Presence of 'oxy-hydrogen gas' during combustion process decreases the 'brake specific fuel consumption' and also increases the 'brake thermal efficiency'. Water is one of the by-products of the combustion process which also decreases the temperature of the combustion process. It is safe to use 'oxy-hydrogen gas' as it is not stored but is produced and used as and when required. Together with 'brake thermal efficiency' engine shows improvement in the 'brake thermal efficiency' with the blend of fuel. All together it has been observed that the blend of 'oxy-hydrogen gas' and petrol instead of only conventional fuel improves the performance of the engine.

 Key words: Oxy-hydrogen gas, alternative fuels.


The ability to estimate human intentions and interact with human drivers intelligently is crucial for autonomous vehicles to successfully achieve their objectives. In this paper, we propose a game theoretic planning algorithm that models human opponents with an iterative reasoning framework and estimates human latent cognitive states through probabilistic inference and active learning. By modeling the interaction as a partially observable Markov decision process with adaptive state and action spaces, our algorithm is able to accomplish real-time lane changing tasks in a realistic driving simulator. We compare our algorithm's lane changing performance in dense traffic with a state-of-the-art autonomous lane changing algorithm to show the advantage of iterative reasoning and active learning in terms of avoiding overly conservative behaviors and achieving the driving objective successfully.


In this note it is demonstrated that optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is an easy-to-implement and valuable tool to study, optimize, and monitor thin film growth by plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition (ALD). The species in the plasma can be identified through the analysis of the light emitted by the plasma. OES provides therefore information on the reactant species delivered to the surface by the plasma but it also yields unique insight into the surface reaction products and, as a consequence, on the reaction mechanisms of the deposition process. Time-resolved measurements reveal information about the amount of precursor dosing and length of plasma exposure needed to saturate the self-limiting half reactions, which is useful for the optimization of the ALD process. Furthermore, time-resolved OES can also be used as an easy-to-implement process monitoring tool for plasma-assisted ALD processes on production equipment; for example, to monitor reactor wall conditions or to detect process faults in real time.


Large parts of the floodplains in the Dutch Rhine basin can be considered wetlands of international importance. Few data are available concerning the threats to these wetlands. Legal protection and the principle of ' wise use' of the wetlands, as stipulated in the Ramsar Convention, are hardly being implementated in national and local policies. Until 1993 none of the floodplains in the river basin has actually been designated as wetland of international importance. In zoning plans the ' wetland function' is hardly ever recognized as the main function. A relatively small part of the river floodplains is designated as nature reserves or protected areas. More research should be carried out concerning the environmental quality of and ecological standards for wetlands. The physical threats of deterioration, disturbance and fragmentation of habitats deserve special attention. Legal protection and 'wise use' of wetlands in the Rhine basin should be further implemented.


Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a rare malignancy with generally dismal prognosis. Immunotherapy has revolutionized the management of cancer patients during the last decade, offering durable responses with an acceptable safety profile, but there are still no significant advances regarding CCA. Novel immunotherapeutic methods, such as cancer vaccines, oncolytic viruses, adoptive cell therapy and combinations of immune checkpoint inhibitors with other agents are currently under investigation and may improve prognosis. Efforts to find robust biomarkers for response are also ongoing. In this review, we discuss the rationale for the use of immunotherapy in CCA and available clinical data. Ongoing trials will also be presented, as well as key findings from each study.


This paper presents a reconceptualisation of the PC by incorporating the marketing concepts of 'value' and 'cost' into its tenets. We illustrate the manner in which marketing language may be incorporated into our understanding of the PC by drawing a parallel between consumer-market transactions for products and labour-market transaction for employment. This paper suggests that to effectively manage PCs in a competitive labour-market must have a detailed understanding of the costs it's willing to bear, as well as the benefits it receives in the employment relationship. Similarly, it must consider what PC features are most likely to be perceived by employees as representing the most attractive value proposition on offer in a competitive labour market.


Abstract Skidding of large-sized logs requires special machinery such as skidders, clambunks, forwarders or farm tractors with a winch or hydraulic tongs. The precise choice of which skidding machine to use depends largely on the desired efficiency and economic factors. The aim of this research was to evaluate the suitability of three different machines (LKT 81 skidder, John Deere 1110D forwarder and Pronar 1221A agricultural tractor with hydraulic tongs) for wood skidding based on technical and economic indicators. The practical work for this research was carried out in the Mirosławiec Forest Division in areas with fresh mixed coniferous forest habitats where the dominant species in the stands was pine and strip-like clear cutting was the preferred management practice. The best machinery performance values were obtained for skidding using the John Deere forwarder.


Fat embolism syndrome (FES) is a common complication of fractures, usually of the long bones and pelvis. Common computed tomography findings of pulmonary FES include areas of consolidation, ground-glass opacities, and small nodules of various sizes, whereas filling defects in pulmonary arteries are rarely described in nonfulminant syndromes. We present an unusual case of nonfulminant pulmonary FES in which computed tomography disclosed multiple macroscopic pulmonary fat emboli associated to diffuse ground-glass attenuation in both lungs.


We study the topological entropy of hom tree-shifts and show that, although the topological entropy is not a conjugacy invariant for tree-shifts in general, it remains invariant for hom tree higher block shifts. In doi:10.1016/j.tcs.2018.05.034 and doi:10.3934/dcds.2020186, Petersen and Salama demonstrated the existence of topological entropy for tree-shifts and $h(\mathcal{T}_X) \geq h(X)$, where $\mathcal{T}_X$ is the hom tree-shift derived from $X$. We characterize a necessary and sufficient condition when the equality holds for the case where $X$ is a shift of finite type. In addition, two novel phenomena have been revealed for tree-shifts. There is a gap in the set of topological entropy of hom tree-shifts of finite type, which makes such a set not dense. Last but not least, the topological entropy of a reducible hom tree-shift of finite type is equal to or larger than that of its maximal irreducible component.


What makes people healthy, wealthy and wise? The turn of the millennium has been distinguished as much by pessimistic recognition of the limitations of material abundance and technological prowess as by celebration of their undoubted benefits. In large part this pessimism has concerned medicine and health—and in particular the widespread sense that while modern medicine is, in a scientific and technological sense, able to do more for us than ever before, yet we are more than ever anxious about our health, the threats to it and doctors's ability to uphold it.1 2 There is an uneasy gap between the biomedical understanding of human nature, health and well-being and, on the other hand, a non-scientific, personal, understanding of these matters that is grounded in personal experience. When we go to the doctor we seek help for experiential problems—that is, problems concerning how we feel or what we are able to do. Medical solutions are formally grounded in the scientific and technical, but we judge their success in experiential terms, because it is experiential problems that these solutions have ultimately to address.3

Even so, medicine's solutions are often remarkably successful on their own terms: they often resolve the biological manifestations of our complaints. If our disappointment as patients seems churlish, this seems only to confirm the disparity between the scientific and the experiential stories about human nature, health and well-being. This disparity is of practical interest for the (perceived) success of modern medicine, but it is also of theoretical interest for an understanding of human nature and human flourishing—deep and enduring questions that are part of the "examined life" that, as Socrates reminds us, is the only form of life worthy of a human being.4

The examination of these questions had already begun in earnest in the burgeoning attention …


Deep learning-based methods mymargin have achieved remarkable performance in 3-D sensing since they perceive environments in a biologically inspired manner. Nevertheless, the existing approaches trained by monocular sequences are still prone to fail in dynamic environments. In this work, we mitigate the negative influence of dynamic environments on the joint estimation of depth and visual odometry (VO) through hybrid masks. Since both the VO estimation and view reconstruction process in the joint estimation framework is vulnerable to dynamic environments, we propose the cover mask and the filter mask to alleviate the adverse effects, respectively. As the depth and VO estimation are tightly coupled during training, the improved VO estimation promotes depth estimation as well. Besides, a depth-pose consistency loss is proposed to overcome the scale inconsistency between different training samples of monocular sequences. Experimental results show that both our depth prediction and globally consistent VO estimation are state of the art when evaluated on the KITTI benchmark. We evaluate our depth prediction model on the Make3D dataset to prove the transferability of our method as well.


In May 1969 the Holy Congregation for Divine Cult proclaimed a new liturgical book – Ordo baptismi parvulorum with the "Rites for Children's Baptism" prepared according to the recommendations from Vatican Council II. We can understand how significant this book is only against the background of the whole history of Christian initiation, which from the beginning of the Church concerned also children. New rites were not some kind of adjustment of the post-Tridentine rite, but an event in the collections of the liturgical books that called for a thorough analysis. This was a rite adjusted to the actual situation of children. The introduction of the post-councillor liturgical books in Poland was preceded by respective instructions from the Episcopate for the clergy and the faithful. Having introduced those books, some bishops issued additional and explanatory instructions for their local churches. The Catholic Church in Poland attaches a lot of weight to children's upbringing and baptism. It stresses that natural parents are obliged to take care about their children's baptism and prepare themselves for the rite of baptism. Therefore there is an abundance of legal norms and pastoral-liturgical recommendations in this regard. Parents are responsible for their children's valid and decent baptism. They should be aware that baptism is necessary and should know all requirements with regard to the baptism of their child. They are obliged to ask for baptism of their children themselves, or at least consent to it. They should also see to it that their children are baptised within the first weeks after birth, or – in case it is necessary – baptise them immediately. The most important duties that parents have with respect to baptism are the following: early register of baptism, submission of a request of baptism to the appropriate dispenser, ensuring Catholic upbringing for their children, choice of name according to the Christian spirit, choice of appropriate godparents, setting the date and place of baptism with the pastor, and personal religious preparation for baptism. It is worth noting that besides the above duties connected with the preparation for baptism, natural parents have other obligations. They all deal with the sacrament itself and the fulfilment of obligations assumed at baptism. These problems deserve to be treated in a detailed study.


In this chapter the theoretical reasons were outlined and clinical data summarized as to why spatial contrast measurements can reveal visual losses that are not uncovered by testing visual acuity, no matter which optotype one uses or how carefully the measurement is made. Spatial contrast sensitivity measurements may disclose different types of contrast losses in patients with different lesions but with identical visual acuity. The relationship of different types of spatial contrast sensitivity losses (plotted as visuograms) to specific location or cause of lesions is not yet clear. Patients with glaucoma show losses that occur infrequently in other types of eye or visual pathway diseases, but the specificity of the typical contrast loss needs confirmation. The definite clinical value of contrast sensitivity measurements is that they can identify incipient abnormalities in the visual pathways that subserve foveal vision. In addition to this definite diagnostic application, using sinusoidal gratings as stimuli for both contrast sensitivity and for VEP measurements is useful in a research-oriented clinical testing facility.


Ethical behaviour and professionalism are cherished values in public service. Public officials, including politicians, are expected to demonstrate them in discharging their official duties. However, in many developing countries these values are honoured more in their breach than observance. Public sector corruption occurs when politicians and / or public servants improperly and unlawfully enrich themselves or those close to them by misusing the public power entrusted to them. Corruption has economic, political, and social costs. It is not an issue that is exclusively, or even primarily, a problem of developing countries. In fact, ethics and corruption are challenges not only for many emerging economies, but also for many countries in the rich world. However, nowhere are the effects of corruption more devastating than in developing countries. It is devastating for the public sectors of many African countries, robbing them of their integrity and undermining effective delivery of essential public services to citizens. Recent news reports indicate that the incidence of corruption in the South African Public Service is at an all-time high, with about 5200 cases pending. The abuse of parliamentary travel vouchers, popularly dubbed 'Travelgate' and the Shabir Shaik trial in the ubiquitous Arms Deal scandal that continues to haunt the government, threaten institutions of national integrity and the very foundations of the new democracy are but two worrying examples. Against this background, the paper examines the causes of public sector corruption, pointing to its drivers that are of a country-specific, rather than generic, nature. It also outlines the costs or effects of corruption. The implications of this analysis for combating public sector corruption in South Africa are clear : the public service might need to be reformed; a dire need exists to radically curb corruption by carefully examining local circumstances that give rise it in order to devise measures including, but not limited to, a new moral crusade to effectively contain it.


Conventionally, crime is regarded principally as harm or wrong and the dominant ordering practices arise post hoc. In the emerging pre-crime society, crime is conceived essentially as risk or potential loss, ordering practices are pre-emptive and security is a commodity sold for profit. Though this dichotomy oversimplifies a more complex set of changes, it captures an important temporal shift. As the intellectual offspring of the post-crime society, criminology must adapt to meet the challenges of pre-crime and security. This article examines the key features a theory of security needs to encompass. It explores the immanent capacities of criminology for change and suggests exterior intellectual resources upon which it might draw. It concludes that the pre-crime society need not be a post-criminological one.


Acquisition of electroencephalogram (EEG) during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) provides, non-invasively, the simultaneous capture of cerebral hemodynamic response as well as the registered electric cerebral activity on the scalp. This new multimodal technique provides an ideal combination of the excellent spatial resolution of fMRI with the millisecond temporal resolution of EEG. However, there are four major challenges related to this multimodal technique, which must be addressed to improve the simultaneous combination of these two neuroimaging techniques: o EEG instrumentation and patient safety o EEG signal quality preservation because the simultaneous acquisition inside the MR scanner introduces several different and specific types of EEG artifacts, among them, the gradient artifact and the cardiac pulse-related artifact. o MR images SNR and CNR that will be dependent on the used fMRI pulse sequence o Interrelation of both signals is challenging because the electrical signals measured by the EEG system and hemodynamic signals measured by the MR scanner come from different physiological events whose coupling is still not fully understood. From the point of view of the clinical applications of this multimodal technique, one of the most interesting ones is the study of the abnormal electrical activity in patients with epilepsy. This work differs from most applications of fMRI because the stimulus is internally generated, in a random and infrequent way in most of the cases. In this thesis project, it is aimed to develop an improved experimental setup for simultaneous EEG-fMRI and test the influence of different key acquisition strategies: the influence of using different k-space trajectories fMRI pulse sequences and the impact of synchronization. The first necessary step for these aims consisted of the development of a modified spiral EPI pulse sequence from its basic form in order to improve the quality of both signals: EEG and fMRI. On the other hand, and in a more practical part of this PhD thesis, the use of an improved simultaneous EEG-fMRI experimental setup and a proper preprocessing and analysis of both kinds of data was applied in a clinical study. A rare epileptic syndrome known as Fixation-off Sensitivity (FoS) Cryptogenic Generalized Epilepsy (CGE) was examined. This syndrome has not been intensively studied due to scarce number of cases and limitations of other techniques; in fact, there are only three previous works in the literature where FoS discharges were examined with simultaneous EEG-fMRI. This thesis project aims to obtain novel results in the study of Fixation-Off CGE patients using simultaneous EEG-fMRI.


The sweet potato weevil (Cyclas formicarius Fabr.) remains a serious threat to sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas Poir.) production and is considered the most destructive pest of sweet potatoes in the field and storagein the Philippines. Chemical control of the weevil is seldom practiced by farmers because they find it too costly, it may increase the chance for pesticide resistance, and because of public concern of its effectson non-target organisms. The use of biological controls such as entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) could offer an effective, economical, and environmentally-friendly alternative management of the weevil. This study determined the occurrence and distribution of entomopathogenic nematodes in selected sweet potato growing areas in the Philippines. Using soil from 13 sweet potato growing areas, EPNs were recovered using the insect baiting method. Morbid insect larvae were suspended in sterile water for 48 h, and the suspension was examined under a stereomicroscope for the presence of EPN. Out of 47 samples collected from the 13 sweet potato production areas, 39 (82%) were positive for the presence of EPNs. Preliminary identification of the EPNs through morphological characters showed that they belonged to Rhaditida: Heterorhabditidae and Steinernematidae. This is the first report on the occurrence of EPNs in sweet potato fields in the Philippines, and their distribution strongly supports the possibility of utilizing them in an IPM management approach as biological agents against the sweet potato weevil. Morphometric and molecular-based identification and pathogenicity studies are underway.


Gram-positive bacteria are protected by a thick mesh of peptidoglycan (PG) completely engulfing their cells. This PG network is the main component of the bacterial cell wall, it provides rigidity and acts as foundation for the attachment of other surface molecules. Biosynthesis of PG consumes a high amount of cellular resources and therefore requires careful adjustments to environmental conditions. An important switch in the control of PG biosynthesis of Listeria monocytogenes, a Gram-positive pathogen with a high infection fatality rate, is the serine/threonine protein kinase PrkA. A key substrate of this kinase is the small cytosolic protein ReoM. We have shown previously that ReoM phosphorylation regulates PG formation through control of MurA stability. MurA catalyzes the first step in PG biosynthesis and the current model suggests that phosphorylated ReoM prevents MurA degradation by the ClpCP protease. In contrast, conditions leading to ReoM dephosphorylation stimulate MurA degradation. How ReoM controls degradation of MurA and potential other substrates is not understood. Also, the individual contribution of the ~20 other known PrkA targets to PG biosynthesis regulation is unknown. We here present murA mutants which escape proteolytic degradation. The release of MurA from ClpCP-dependent proteolysis was able to activate PG biosynthesis and further enhanced the intrinsic cephalosporin resistance of L. monocytogenes. This latter effect required the RodA3/PBP B3 transglycosylase/transpeptidase pair. One murA escape mutation not only fully rescued an otherwise non-viable prkA mutant during growth in batch culture and inside macrophages but also overcompensated cephalosporin hypersensitivity. Our data collectively indicate that the main purpose of PrkA-mediated signaling in L. monocytogenes is control of MurA stability during standard laboratory growth conditions and intracellular growth in macrophages. These findings have important implications for the understanding of PG biosynthesis regulation and β-lactam resistance of L. monocytogenes and related Gram-positive bacteria.


Background: Sorafenib is the first oral therapeutic agent to show the activity against human hepatocellular carcinoma. Sorafenib leads to severe toxicity due to the multiple-dose regimen. Reducing the overall dose of sorafenib through injectable dosage form to release sustainably is of therapeutically more important to combat drug-induced toxicity. Objective: The purpose of this study was to formulate and evaluate the physical parameters of sorafenib-loaded Sodium Selenite Nanoparticles (SSSNP). Methods: Two different methods: chemical crosslinking and solvent evaporation were applied for the formulation of nanoparticles using various crosslinkers such as formaldehyde, magnesium sulfate, tripolyphosphate, dextran sulfate, and aluminum hydroxide. Physical characterization was performed with zeta potential analysis, polydispersity index, particle size and scanning electron microscopic studies for morphological analysis for all the formulated nanoparticles developed using the chemical crosslinking technique based ionic interaction. Results: Tripolyphosphate was selected as an ideal crosslinker and used for nanoparticle formulation with the solvent evaporation technique. Based on the physical characterization, SSSNP was formulated successfully with the solvent evaporation technique using tripolyphosphate as a cross-linker. The zeta potential of SSSNP was -37.5 mV, PDI was approximately 0.3 to 0.4, and the observed size (diameter) was in the range of 208 nm to 0.2 µm. Furthermore, the particles were smooth in morphology and appeared as crystals. Conclusion: The novel injectable sorafenib loaded sodium selenite nanoparticle dosage form will serve better than conventional oral dosage form to elicit a safe therapeutic effect.


The assumed evolutionary advantage of dominance is increased reproductive success. However, the efficacy of dominance as a mating strategy may be interrupted by any number of variables including female choice, estrous synchrony, and mating by non‐troop males. In Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), there is evidence both for and against dominance as conferring reproductive success for adult males, with many discussions pointing to the importance of female choice in governing reproductive success in certain populations. In this study, we aimed to evaluate dominance‐based versus female choice‐based male behavioral strategies and their impact on reproductive success. This study was conducted on a group of Japanese macaques at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. We collected a total of 512 h of behavioral data across two summer study periods in 2018 and 2019. We conducted 15‐min focal follows with 1‐min instantaneous scans on 17 adult males. Reproductive data were available from genetic records. Using principal components analysis (PCA), we identified males that cluster according to similar behavioral strategies. We then used analysis of variance (ANOVA) and non‐parametric ANOVA on ranks to ascertain significant variation in rank and reproductive success between clusters. We found that males that clustered based on high directed aggression held higher rank than less‐aggressive male clusters (F = 27.21, df = 4, p < .0001). However, less aggressive male clusters had higher reproductive success (F = 3.50, df = 4, p = .04). There was no variation between affiliative clusters in reproductive success (F = 1.77, df = 3, p = .15). The highly aggressive strategy is effective for attaining high rank, but only resulted in high reproductive success for a single male which likely necessitates alternative strategies. We suggest the operation of female choice within this population, with females preferentially mating with males who are not only affiliative but also less aggressive.


Ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) region have a great potential in the applications of advanced vibrational spectroscopy and strong field phenomena. Traditionally, mid-IR ultrashort pulses are generated by frequency conversion of near-infrared pulses from Ti:S or Yb-based lasers. Laser oscillators which directly emit mid-IR femtosecond pulses are advantageous from the perspectives of simplicity and energy extraction efficiency. Cr:ZnS is an attractive gain medium for mid-IR ultrafast lasers because it has a broad fluorescence spectrum, large stimulated-emission cross-section and high thermal conductivity [1]. So far, passive mode-locking has been realized for Cr:ZnS laser, by employing Kerr-lensing, or by using saturable absorbers based on semiconductors or graphenes [2]. A single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film is also known as a good candidate for saturable absorbers, possessing tunable resonance and large modulation depth. However, SWCNTs have rarely been applied to this laser [3]. Here, we demonstrate self-starting mode-locked oscillation of Cr:ZnS laser by using a SWCNT film which has resonant absorption at the laser emission wavelength of 2.4 μm.


Background: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a debilitating disorder in which the immune system mainly targets the synovial tissue. Janus kinase family including tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) is one of the crucial mediators of the downstream signaling pathway of inflammatory cytokines that further contributes to RA pathogenesis. In this study, the association of TYK2 gene rs34536443 polymorphism, which may affect the function of TYK protein and, hence, the inflammatory settings, with RA susceptibility was investigated. Moreover, its correlation with demographic and serological features of the patients was assessed. Methods: In the present study, 700 RA patients and 700 sex, age and ethnicity-matched healthy individuals as the control group were included. MGB TaqMan real-time allelic discrimination method was used to determine the rs34536443 polymorphism. Rheumatoid factor, anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein were also measured. Results: The frequency of rs34536443 minor allele (C allele) was not different between patients and control group [1.7 vs. 2.61 percent, OR (95% CI)=1.35 (0.78–2.33);p=0.27]. There was not a statistically significant association between rs34536443 genotypes and RA susceptibility. Genotypes of rs34536443 polymorphism were associated nor with demographic neither with serological features of RA patients. Conclusion: In the present study, there was not any association between TYK2 gene rs34536443 polymorphism with either disease susceptibility, demographic and serological features of Iranian RA patients. These findings are not compatible with previous works from other ethnicities, further supporting the role of genetics in disease susceptibility.


The blessed migration of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is a great historical event. The year AH has also been started on the occasion of this event. This incident changed the history of Muslims. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and the believers faced extraordinary difficulties during the migration. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) overcame all these difficulties and continued his struggle for the domination of religion, and eventually, the Arab world was subjugated. Migration is a glorious chapter in Islamic history without which Islamic history remains incomplete. Rather, the breadth of Islamic history and its evolution is related to the event of migration. Only after migration did Islam emerge from the barren land of Mecca and its limited walls. Migration is a revolutionary message of the movement, awakening, rejoicing, and immense devotion to all humanity. Migration has given rise to a new dawn in the world for all humanity. Migration is not the name of a static and limited process, but it is the name of a positive and solid philosophy. Migration is a constant test, and it tests one's morale step by step.


The central topics of the thesis are autobiographical memory and metaphors. Three hypotheses are presented: (1) Autobiographical memory is better understood without dichotomizing the declarative (explicit) long-term memory system into semantic and episodic. An alternative model is proposed in which semantic and autobiographical memory are overlapping and the recollective memory is regarded as a mental "natural kind" of memory. The Self-Memory-System of Conway (2005) is for that reason to be considered in more detail. (2) The narrative capacity is intrinsically connected with the self-consciousness. Driven by intentionality, both are creating meaning and are characterized by a "double chronology." (3) Some metaphorical image schemas, in particular FORCE and BALANCE, are central in the autobiographical memory and the self-consciousness.
The methods used to investigate the third hypothesis are, firstly, interviews generating life stories and, secondly, psychological experiments. The linguistic analysis of the life stories reveals that certain metaphorical image schemas are central: PATH, UP/DOWN, LIGHT/DARK, CONTAINER, PROCESS, FORCE and BALANCE. The image schema of BALANCE is considered as an attractor in the self-organizing system of the self and therefore BALANCE and FORCE are of special significance for the person. Another reason for FORCE to be special is that emotions are important to people and the "master metaphor" of emotions is FORCE. To test the hypothesis that force dynamic words are special, experiments with lexical decision tasks were conducted. Furthermore, in an archival experiment using The English Lexicon Project, force metaphorical words were shown to have significantly shorter reaction times compared with other words with the same prediction variables.


A novel bandpass filter with a wide stopband is presented. The proposed filter is based on a dual-plane structure consisting of a microstrip and a defected ground structure (DGS) slot with an interdigital shape. Using this structure, the filter not only creates two transmission zeros near the passband, but also exhibits a wide upper stopband. The equivalent-circuit model is derived for the filter. A filter centred at 2.5 GHz with 14.8 fractional bandwidth is designed and implemented, which shows a minimum passband insertion loss of 1.78 dB and a wide stopband with rejection better than 22 dB up to 12f 0 , where f 0 stands for the passband centre frequency.


The topic of Climate Change (CC) has received limited attention in NLP despite its urgency. Activists and policymakers need NLP tools to effectively process the vast and rapidly growing unstructured textual climate reports into structured form. To tackle this challenge we introduce two new large-scale climate questionnaire datasets and use their existing structure to train self-supervised models. We conduct experiments to show that these models can learn to generalize to climate disclosures of different organizations types than seen during training. We then use these models to help align texts from unstructured climate documents to the semi-structured questionnaires in a human pilot study. Finally, to support further NLP research in the climate domain we introduce a benchmark of existing climate text classification datasets to better evaluate and compare existing models.


: Examination of 72 individuals (including 62 workers of asbestos production and 10 silicosis patients) revealed that asbestos dust primarily causes hypoxemia followed by pulmonary ventilation disorders and characteristic X-ray signs of asbestosis. Hypoxemia is associated by reliable changes in functioning of left ventricle and central hemodynamics. Degree of hypoxemia appeared to correlate with echocardiographic signs of malfunction of left ventricle and chronic heart failure.


In this paper, we propose a stochastic model to describe over time the evolution of stress in a bolted mechanical structure depending on different thicknesses of a joint elastic piece. First, the studied structure and the experiment numerical simulation are presented. Next, we validate statistically our proposed stochastic model, and we use the maximum likelihood estimation method based on Euler–Maruyama scheme to estimate the parameters of this model. )ereafter, we use the estimated model to compare the stresses, the peak times, and extinction times for different thicknesses of the elastic piece. Some numerical simulations are carried out to illustrate different results.


Simulated data plays a central role in Educational Data Mining and in particular in Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) research. The initial motivation for this paper was to try to answer the question: given two datasets could you tell which of them is real and which of them is simulated? The ability to answer this question may provide an additional indication of the goodness of the model, thus, if it is easy to discern simulated data from real data that could be an indication that the model does not provide an authentic representation of reality, whereas if it is hard to set the real and simulated data apart that might be an indication that the model is indeed authentic. In this paper we will describe analyses of 42 GLOP datasets that were performed in an attempt to address this question. Possible simulated data based metrics as well as additional findings that emerged during this exploration will be discussed.


This thesis focuses on the experimental creation and detection of a variety of quantum correlations using nuclear magnetic resonance hardware. Quantum entanglement, being most common and counter-intuitive, is one of the main type considered in this thesis. Quantum correlations play a major role in achieving, the much talked, computational speedup. Creation and detection of such correlations experimentally is a major thrust area in experimental quantum information processing field. Main goals of the studies undertaken in this thesis were to come up with strategies to detect the entanglement in a 'state-independent' way and with low experimental resources. The core of all the detection protocols is based on our own developed method which enables us to measure any observable with high accuracy. The experimental protocol has been successfully implemented to detect the entanglement of random two-qubit pure states. Further, the schemes for the experimental detection as well as classification of generic and general three-qubit pure states have also been devised and implemented successfully. Quantum correlation possessed by mixed and$/$or separable states e.g. non-classical, bound-entanglement and of non-local nature were also investigated. In all the investigations, the results were verified by one or more alternative ways e.g. full quantum state tomography.


A patient complained of progressive visual acuity decline in the left eye for 3 years was admitted. The appearance of the patient was bilateral microcornea. After ocular ultrasonography, ultrasound biomicroscopy, etc, the patient was diagnosed as sclerocornea of the left eye with open-angle glaucoma. Trabeculectomy of the left eye was performed after drug treatment failed, and there were no surgical complications. The intraocular pressure of the left eye was normal and the anterior chamber was well formed 6 months after surgery.


A historical practical obstacle to the institution of derivative proceedings has been the burden of costs. The burden of costs was identified as problematic as long ago as 1970 in the Van Wyk De Vries Commission of Inquiry into Companies and has the potential to continue to disincentivise derivative proceedings in light of the provisions of section 165 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008. Comparable provisions in the United Kingdom Companies Act 2006 are discussed to identify whether any improvements can be made with respect to the issue of costs in instituting derivative proceedings under section 165.


Background/Aim: As approximately 10% of individuals developing chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) are females aged 20-44 years, a considerable number will consider a planned pregnancy if disease is well controlled by pharmacological treatment. The management of these young patients during pregnancy represents a therapeutic dilemma due to the potential teratogen effects of several tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and is a matter of continuous debate. Indeed, despite the existence of several studies, there is currently no consensus on how to manage different pregnancy situations in subjects with CML. Patients and Methods: We describe a female patient diagnosed with Ph-positive CML one month after her first delivery who achieved excellent hematological, cytogenetic and molecular responses while on imatinib mesylate (IM) treatment. Results: The excellent responses allowed the patient to suspend TKI treatment in order to plan a second pregnancy. Despite IM discontinuation, stringent molecular monitoring of her BCR-ABL1/ABL1 levels allowed the safe delivery of the child and, while the patient eventually developed a molecular relapse after four years of treatment discontinuation, upon restarting IM she quickly regained a deep molecular response that is still ongoing. Conclusion: Our case report demonstrates that, if the pregnancy is properly planned in CML patients, it can result in excellent management of the clinical therapeutic option for the benefit of both mother and child.


The variation in the composition of fresh tea leaves with season and shoot maturity, and to the applicability of cold storage (4C and 90% relative humidity [RH]) for the purpose of withering of tea leaves were studied. The results showed that the levels of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity and the polyphenolic content changed significantly with plucking season and shoot maturity. No significant difference was observed between the total polyphenolic content of the cold storage-withered and traditionally withered samples, whereas the loss of PPO activity was less in the cold-stored leaves. No significant difference was observed between the cold storage-withered and traditionally withered samples in terms of the end product quality. Results showed that cold storage at 4C and at 90% RH was suitable for storing fresh leaves after plucking until the time of processing and it is possible to achieve withering during the cold storage of tea leaves.


With the increasing interest in complex and dynamic processes in the field of IB, the call for systematic analyses of rich datasets is often heard. In this paper I use an an Optimal Matching (OM) procedure (cf. Abbott, 1990; Abbott and Tsay, 2000; Sabherwal and Robey, 1993) to analyze the foreign expansion processes of firms. I argue that OM offers a fruitful approach for the analysis of qualitative and longitudinal data on internationalization processes. It is used to identify typical 'sequences of events', in the current paper: sequences of expansion steps by internationalizing companies. I collected data on the expansion processes of thirteen firms entering the emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe through field interviews and analysis of archival sources. Analyzing the resulting thirteen expansion processes with OM results in three distinct 'typical expansion processes', which can be meaningfully interpreted in correspondence with existing literature on growth strategies. With these findings, this paper goes beyond testing existing models on the internationalization of the firm, such as the Uppsala model (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977), and answers to the call for investigations on the differentiated expansion strategies of modern MNCs (Johanson and Vahlne, 1990; Autio, Sapienza and Almeida, 2000; Buckley and Ghauri, 2004).


Cochliopodium megatetrastylus n. sp. is described based on light microscopy, fine structure and molecular genetic evidence. Amoebae are broadly oval to somewhat triangular during locomotion with average length of 37 μm and breadth of 50 μm, and surrounded by a hyaloplasm margin, somewhat narrow when at rest but more expanded during locomotion (~ 5–10 μm at the anterior). Sparsely occurring subpseudopodia, barely emergent from the hyaloplasm, are blunt and finger-like, occasionally becoming adhesive laterally or at the posterior. Cysts develop after 2–3 weeks in culture and are round with a distinct margin, decreasing in size from 20 to 5 μm during maturation. The granuloplasm contains refractile crystals. A vesicular nucleus (~ 6 μm), containing a nucleolus (2–3 μm), is variable in shape from somewhat lenticular in section to irregularly rounded with undulating or lobed margins. Surface scales (~ 0.3 μm in height) have an apical deeply concave funnel-like collar (~ 0.15 μm deep), without a spine, composed of radial fine rays and concentric filaments forming a finemesh, supported on four non-cross-linked styles (~ 0.2 μm apart) attached to a round to broadly angular base plate (0.6–1 μm) with a fine gridtexture. Cysts are rounded and enclosed by an organic wall bearing remnants of the scales on its outer surface. Both concatenated analysis of SSU-rDNA and COI genes and comparative morphologies support the designation of Cochliopodium megatetrastylus n. sp. as a new species.


Stereo imaging systems offer unique solutions to certain applications in the defense/aerospace community. Stereo imaging in the reconnaissance mission of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) offer tele-operation, tele-presence, and object positioning. With this use of a passive imaging sensor system comes a high data collection rate. For real-time operation, the data collected must be transmitted to a remote location. Image compression techniques can be utilized to reduce the transmission bandwidth and/or storage space requirements of the stereo pair. This paper develops image compression techniques specific to stereo imaging and compares performance with non-stereo methods. Disparity compensated residual image coding exploits the redundancy between the two images in a stereo pair. Stereo residuals possess special features that can be exploited within a DCT image coding framework. Use of these features results in several dB of performance enhancement across a range of scene types. This approach provides its best performance below 0.75 bits/pixel bit rate for 8-bit gray scale imagery and below 2 bits/pixel for 24-bit color imagery.


The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality is one of the prominent models in contemporary psychology and defines personality in terms of five broad factors, namely, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Recent research, however, questions the comprehensiveness of the FFM with evidence indicating the presence of other factors not addressed in the FFM most notably Individualism/Collectivism. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship of the FFM of personality to Individualism/Collectivism in a sample of 176 students from the University of the Witwatersrand using the Basic Traits Inventory and the Individualism/Collectivism scale. Results indicate that there were no significant relationships between the five factors and Individualism/Collectivism. In addition no significant difference was found between race and the five factors and Individualism/Collectivism. There were also no significant differences between home language and the five factors and Individualism/Collectivism.


A comparative study of investigations from 1970 (before the prohibition against therapeutically used antibiotics as food additives for growth promotion) and from 1978 respectively proves that the prevalence of young pigs and calves with resistant E. coli has increased significantly from 61% to 92% and from 69% to 86% (tables I and II). Figures 1 and 2 show the prevalence of young pigs and calves with antibiotic resistant E. coli with resistance determinants towards sulfonamides, tetracycline, streptomycin, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, neomycin and furazolidone. This shows that the prevalence of young pigs with resistance determinants towards sulfonamides, tetracycline, streptomycin, ampicillin, and chloramphenicol has increased significantly from 1970 to 1978. The same facts apply to the calves. However, the increase in tetracycline resistance is not significant. Neomycin resistant E. coli for both young pigs and calves were only found in 1978. Figure 3 shows the distribution of the number of resistance determinants per young pig and calf with resistant E. coli. The figure shows the significant tendency that the pigs and calves investigated contain resistant E. coli with more resistance determinants in 1978 than in 1970. The distribution of R-factors among resistant E. coli seems to be reduced at first sight but a closer examination establishes that this only goes for R-factor mediated sulfonamide resistance (the experimental conditions may account for this). R-factor mediated streptomycin resistance has increased while R-factor mediated tetracycline resistance was at the same level. On the basis of literature the causes and risks of an increased distribution of antibiotic resistant E. coli are discussed.


Cold shock proteins (Csp) are known to be expressed in response to sudden decrease in temperature. They are thought to be involved in a number of cellular processes viz., RNA chaperone activity, translation, transcription, nucleoid condensation. During our studies on ribosomal protein S1 in moderate halophile Halomonas eurihalina, we observed the presence of two strong poly (U) binding proteins in abundance in cell extracts from cells grown under normal growth conditions. The proteins can be isolated in a single step using Poly (U) cellulose chromatography. The proteins were identified as major cold shock proteins belonging to Csp A family by MALDI-TOF and bioinformatic analysis. Csp 12 kDa was found in both exponential and stationary phases whereas Csp 8 kDa is found only in exponential phase.


Highly unsaturated mono(N-heterocyclic carbene) Ir(iii) systems have been targeted via ligand abstraction protocols. Hydrogenation of Ir(IPr)(cod)Cl (1a) leads to the formation of the highly reactive (fluxional) trimer [Ir(IPr)(H)(2)Cl](3), while the related IMes system undergoes further C-H bond activation. Chloride abstraction from 1a prior to hydrogenation allows access to sources of the 12-electron [Ir(IPr)(H)(2)](+) fragment, which, in the absence of a suitable donor, dimerizes to give [{Ir(IPr)(H)(μ-H)}(2)](2+).


The present study was initiated to understand the effect of PLGA concentration, PVA concentration, internal-external phase ratio, homogenization speed, and homogenization time on mean particle size, zeta potential, and percentage drug encapsulation using fractional factorial design. Using PLGA (50-50) as the carrier, hyaluronidase loaded PLGA nanoparticles were prepared using double emulsion solvent evaporation technique. The particle size was analyzed by dynamic light scattering technique and protein content by Lowry method. The study showed that homogenization speed as an independent variable had maximum effect on particle size and zeta potential. Internal-external phase volume ratio had maximum effect on drug encapsulation. Mean particle size also had high dependency on the combined effect of PVA concentration and phase volume ratio. Using fractional factorial design particle size of <400 nm, zeta potential of <−30 mV, and percentage encapsulation of 15–18% were achieved.


The statistical properties of the certainty equivalence control rule and of the least squares estimates generated by this rule are examined experimentally in a linear model with two unknown parameters. It is found that the least squares certainty equivalence rule converges to its true value with probability one and is asymptotically efficient, having an asymptotic distribution with a variance as small as any other strongly consistent rule. However, while a linear combination of the parameter estimates is consistent, the evidence does not confirm that the individual estimates themselves are consistent. If these converge to their true values at all, they do so very slowly (on the order of (log t)').


This paper presents a photonics-based instantaneous microwave frequency measurement system. The system operates based on the frequency-to-power mapping technique. The trade-off between frequency measurement range and resolution, which is present in the reported frequency-to-power-mapping based frequency measurement systems, is addressed by designing the system to produce two amplitude comparison functions (ACFs). Using two ACFs enables an RF signal frequency in a specified range to be determined while having an improved resolution and smaller errors compared to using only one ACF for frequency measurement. The proposed frequency measurement system is designed to have a simple structure and robust performance suitable for use in real world applications. The effect of the higher order sidebands and harmonics on the system performance are investigated. Proof-of-concept experiments are carried out with results showing frequency measurement errors can be reduced by using the proposed system that generates two ACFs for frequency measurement.


The paper is a comparative analysis of the "schulzoid" and "contrapuntal" novels by Piotr Paziński (The Boarding House) and Erwin Mortier (Marcel). A comparison of the novels is, however, a pretext to approach a much more complex topic which is the representation of trauma by the third post-Holocaust generation, both from the point of view of the victims (Paziński), and that of the oppressors (Mortier). The author has identified characteristic Schulzian motifs which in The Boarding House and Marcel have different functions: the autobiographical setting, the child-narrator, the tension between harmony and discord of remembrance, fascination with trash, and interest in the myths of genesis. Schulz – both the style of his fiction and he himself as a Holocaust victim – has turned into a significant figure for a generation, connecting two seemingly diverse discourses of Paziński and Mortier.


Bone tissue regeneration involves different healing stages and the resulting final hard tissue is formed from natural templates such as fibrous collagen, soft and hard callus and capillary bed. This work aims to evaluate the efficiency of different scaffold geometries with a novel approach: exploring the relationships among scaffold morphologies, cell activity and collagen 3D organization, which serves as a natural template for subsequent mineralization. Among the possible systems to fabricate scaffolds, solvent casting with particulate leaching and microfabrication were used to produce random versus ordered structures from poly-d,l-lactic acid. In vitro biological testing was carried out by culturing a human osteosarcoma derived osteoblast cell line (MG63) and measuring material cytotoxicity, cell proliferation and migration. Assemblage of collagen fibers was evaluated. A preliminary study of collagen distribution over the two different matrices was performed by confocal laser microscopy after Direct Red 80 staining. Both of the scaffolds were seen to be a good substrate for cell attachment, growth and proliferation. However, it seems that


The goal of this study is to provide a detailed example of ARIMA modeling in the form of a case study that could be used for teaching and learning purposes. We present three ARIMA models using macroeconomic indicators to model the USD/EUR exchange rate. We find that over the period from January 1994 to October 2007, the monthly USD/EUR exchange rate is best modeled by a linear relationship between its past three values and the current and past three values of the difference between the log-levels of the share prices indices in the European Monetary Union and the USA.


The recently proposed entity of cutaneous follicular helper T (TFH) cell lymphoma (CTFHCL) harbors distinct clinical and histopathologic features. Here, diagnostic pitfalls are exemplified in a case report and by review of the literature. A 45‐year‐old patient developed rapidly growing nodules and plaques on upper arms and buttocks, which were initially misdiagnosed as primary cutaneous follicle center B‐cell lymphoma (CFCL). Consequently, systemic therapy with rituximab failed and consecutive skin biopsies revealed CTFHCL (CD3+CD4+CD10+PD‐1+bcl6+ICOS+CXCL13+). Interestingly, the prima vista PD‐1‐positive and CD10‐positive tumor cells lost PD‐1 expression in follow‐up biopsies while retaining CD10, ICOS and CXCL13 expression. All biopsy specimens displayed an identical clonal T‐cell population. Initially, nodules were controlled by local radiotherapy and oral psoralen combined with ultraviolet A (PUVA) therapy. However, disease recurred and progressed rapidly with disseminated nodules. Treatment with bexarotene, methotrexate and polychemotherapy failed to stop disease progression. Finally, modified total skin electron beam radiation resulted in complete remission. Disease stabilized on maintenance therapy with bexarotene in combination with ultraviolet A (UVA) therapy. The case highlights that because of concomitant B‐cell stimulation, CTFHCL clinicopathologically is prone to be mistaken for CFCL. Importantly, CTFHCL might lose PD‐1 while retaining CD10 expression in later stages, which may lead to confusion in distinguishing CTFHCL from CFCL.


Each language has its own complex systems of word, phrase, and sentence construction, the guiding principles of which are often summarized in grammar descriptions for the consumption of linguists or language learners. However, manual creation of such descriptions is a fraught process, as creating descriptions which describe the language in"its own terms"without bias or error requires both a deep understanding of the language at hand and linguistics as a whole. We propose an automatic framework AutoLEX that aims to ease linguists' discovery and extraction of concise descriptions of linguistic phenomena. Specifically, we apply this framework to extract descriptions for three phenomena: morphological agreement, case marking, and word order, across several languages. We evaluate the descriptions with the help of language experts and propose a method for automated evaluation when human evaluation is infeasible.


Nebulisers are commonly used in the management of chronic obstructive airways disease. A survey was therefore conducted to ascertain what nurses knew about this form of therapy. Several areas of deficient knowledge were revealed, including how to clean the equipment properly, what the flow rate of gas should be and what type of gas to use. A standardised protocol for nebuliser therapy is included.


Because of the great morbidity and mortality associated with bipolar disorder, long-term treatment is necessary to prevent recurrence and reduce the loss of productivity and increased medical costs associated with this illness. The agent with the most evidence of efficacy and the only U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medication for maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder is lithium. Lithium may cause a prophylactic response in more than two thirds of patients with bipolar disorder and reduce suicide risk by more than 8-fold. However, lithium may be more effective for patients with classical features such as fully remitting courses and typical manic symptoms than for patients with nonclassical bipolar features such as mixed states and rapid cycling. Because lithium may be toxic at only twice the therapeutic dose, physicians should consider patients' ages and medical history when prescribing this drug. Monitoring requirements; possible side effects; changes in the illness including more treatment-resistant forms; and the introduction of newer agents, which are supported by more marketing and continuing medical education programs than the essentially generic drug lithium, have contributed to the decline in lithium prescription rates in the last 15 years in the United States. However, long-term treatment with lithium continues to be effective in many patients, especially if the dose is periodically evaluated as patients experience changes in their physical health and lithium tolerance. Until newer agents have comparable evidence of efficacy, lithium will be considered a first-line long-term treatment for bipolar disorder, either as monotherapy or in combination therapy.


Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) seems to result from the inflammatory response of an immature intestine. Human milk is protective against NEC via an unknown mechanism. We hypothesized that specific factors found in human milk would decrease stimulated IL-8 secretion in intestinal epithelial cells. HT29-cl19A and Caco2 cells were compared with the fetal human primary intestinal epithelial cell line H4 and temperature-sensitive conditionally immortalized fetal human intestinal (tsFHI) cells. Cells were pretreated with transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), erythropoietin (Epo), IL-10, or epidermal growth factor (EGF) at physiologic concentrations before stimulation with tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) or IL-1β, and then IL-8 was measured by ELISA. The fetal cells produced significantly more IL-8 when stimulated by TNF-α or IL-1β. There were also differences in the pattern of alteration of IL-8 secretion by human milk factors. In HT29-cl19A cells, IL-10 inhibited TNF-α-stimulated IL-8 secretion by 52%, and EGF increased secretion by 144%. In H4 cells, TGF-β1 and Epo inhibited TNF-α-stimulated IL-8 secretion to control levels, and EGF increased secretion by 29%. IL-1β-stimulated IL-8 secretion was inhibited 25% by TGF-β1 in Caco2 cells and in H4 cells was inhibited by TGF-β1, Epo, and TGF-β2. TsFHI cells confirmed H4 cell results. Fetal human enterocytes have an exaggerated IL-8 secretion in response to TNF-α and IL-1β. TGF-β and Epo decrease this stimulated IL-8 secretion, which may partially explain the protective effect of human milk in NEC.


Richly illustrated throughout with actual tissue images, this innovative book shows that the soft-hard tissue junction is best understood in a biomechanical context. The authors describe their pioneering experimental methods, providing an essential structure-function framework for computational modelling, and thereby encouraging the development of more realistic, predictive models of this important tissue junction. Covering the three main musculoskeletal junctions of cartilage-bone, disc-vertebra, and ligament/tendon-bone, the relevant soft tissues are examined with respect to both their own inherent structure and their mode of integration with the hard tissue. The soft-hard tissue interface is explored with a focus on structural damage resulting from overloading, and its associated pathologies. Adopting a multiscale approach, ranging in structural resolution from the macro to fibril levels, this is a must-have guide to the field and an ideal resource for researchers seeking new and creative approaches for studying the joint and spine tissues.


Using data from MDA-wide survey administered on the public sector organizations in the North-eastern part of Nigeria, the study examine some antecedents of the performance management practice and how these antecedents influenced public sector organizational performance. The hypotheses of the study were tested using the survey data from 63 public sector organizations notably ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). Pearson zero-order correlation was used to analyze the hypothesized relationship. The study found that, certain antecedents such as performance measurement and institutional culture have significant positive association with public sector organizational performance. Thus, the study provides an avenue for MDAs in Nigeria and elsewhere to redesign, redefine and formulate policies for improving their hitherto unencouraging performance. The study also recommended that, more performance management mechanisms are needed to complement and improve the public sector efficiency.


Quantum processes cannot be reduced, in a nontrivial way, to classical processes without specifying the context in the description of a measurement procedure. This requirement is implied by the Kochen-Specker theorem in the outcome-deterministic case and, more generally, by the Gleason theorem. The latter establishes that there is only one non-contextual classical model compatible with quantum theory, the one that trivially identifies the quantum state with the classical state. However, this model requires a breaking of the unitary evolution to account for macroscopic realism. Thus, a causal classical model compatible with the unitary evolution of the quantum state is necessarily contextual at some extent. Inspired by well-known results in quantum communication complexity, we consider a particular class of hidden variable theories by assuming that the amount of information about the measurement context is finite. Aiming at establishing some general features of these theories, we first present a generalized version of the Gleason theorem and provide a simple proof of it. Assuming that Gleason's hypotheses hold only locally for `small' changes of the measurement procedure, we obtain almost the same conclusion of the original theorem about the functional form of the probability measure. An additional constant and a relaxed property of the `density operator' are the only two differences from the original result. By this generalization of the Gleason theorem and the assumption of finite information for the context, we prove that the probabilities over three or more outcomes of a projective measurement must be linear functions of the projectors associated with the outcomes, given the information on the context.


The formalism of causal dynamical triangulations (CDT) provides us with a non-perturbatively defined model of quantum gravity, where the sum over histories includes only causal space-time histories. Path integrals of CDT and their continuum limits have been studied in two, three and four dimensions. Here we investigate a generalization of the two-dimensional CDT model, where the causality constraint is partially lifted by introducing weighted branching points, and demonstrate that the system can be solved analytically in the genus-zero sector.


Plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL) is listed in the World Health Organization (WHO) classification as a subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Some morphologic features of PBL are similar to DLBCL; however, PBL has minimal or no expression of CD20 and leukocyte common antigen. Instead, PBL has been characterized by the plasmablastic morphology of the cancer cells, with high mitotic figures. It is believed to be an aggressive lymphoma. We describe a case of a patient who seemed to pose a diagnostic dilemma, and who was later found to have PBL.


For establishing more efficient blue /pink heterozygous Tradescantia testers of mutagenicity, the young inflorescence-bearing nodal and/or axillary cuttings of clones BNL 02, KU 27, KU 7 and KU 20 were cultivated with nutrient solutions, and the flower production, stamen-hair growth, and spontaneous and induced somatic pink mutation frequencies in the stamen hairs observed in the cuttings of each clone were compared with those in the potted plants of the same clone. The cuttings tended to show poorer flower productions, smaller flower sizes and decreases in the number of hairs, as compared with potted plants, but the spontaneous and X-ray-induced somatic mutation frequencies were comparable to those in potted plants. Using the BNL 02 cuttings, however, the mutagenic effect of nitrofurazone was detected for the first time in higher plants. On the other hand, the shoots with roots of clone BNL 4430 divided from the potted plants and cultivated with a nutrient solution exhibited excellent results in all aspects; i.e., the flower production, flower size, stamen-hair growth, and X-ray-and MMS-induced mutation frequencies being almost identical with those in the potted plants, and the spontaneous (background) mutation frequency being lower than that in the potted plants. The shoots with roots of clone BNL 4430 were thus judged to be the best Tradescantia tester of mutagenicity, requiring much smaller space than using the potted plants and supplying much larger samples much more constantly than the cuttings of other clones.


In previous studies among 1,144 cases and 1,256 controls recruited in the Stage I Shanghai Breast Cancer Study (SBCS-I), 18 known or potentially functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 16 genes were found to be associated with breast cancer risk. The authors evaluated these associations among 1,918 cases and 1,819 controls recruited in the Stage II SBCS (SBCS-II) using genetic effect models and subgroup analyses pre-determined from SBCS-I results. Five SNPs showed generally consistent results in SBCS-I and SBCS-II and statistically significant associations with breast cancer risk in combined analyses (AHR rs2066853, ATM rs1003623, ESR1 rs2234693, GSTP1 rs1695, and SHBG rs6259), mostly in subgroups defined by age or menopausal status. Further, the relation between breast cancer risk and SHBG rs6259 was found to vary by body mass index (BMI) (P-value for interaction = 0.003). The strongest reduction in risk associated with SHBG rs6259 was found for postmenopausal lean (BMI −4 ). This biologically plausible and highly significant finding provides strong evidence for a true association among Asian women. This study also highlights the value of gene-environment interaction analyses in evaluating genetic factors for complex diseases. Abbreviations: BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio; SBCS, Shanghai Breast Cancer Study; SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism. 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 5597. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-5597


BACKGROUND: Based on epidemiological research, there is a close relationship between cardiovascular problems and hypertension. Thus, the present study aimed to determine the rate of adherence to therapeutic regimens and its related factors in hypertensive outpatients admitted to teaching hospitals affiliated to Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Iran. METHODS: In this descriptive study, 120 hypertensive outpatients who were admitted to four outpatient clinics in Urmia were selected during 2010. Demographic and disease-related data was collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. Patients' level of adherence was determined by the Hill-Bone Compliance to High Blood Pressure Therapy Scale. After assessing the validity and reliability of the questionnaires, they were filled out through interviews. RESULTS: The participants' mean scores of adherence to medication, diet, and appointment keeping were 94.77 ± 6.65 percent (range: 72-100%), 91.53 ± 9.60 percent (range: 50-100%), and 86.56 ± 17.76 percent (range: 12-100%), respectively. There were significant relationships between patients' drug adherence and different levels of income, number of pills taken each day, and the frequency of blood pressure control. CONCLUSION: As adherence to therapeutic regimens is an important factor in blood pressure control among hypertensive patients, adherence rates in different age groups and different locations should be evaluated. Furthermore, investigations on inpatients can reveal other factors affecting rates of adherence to treatment. Keywords: Adherence, Hypertension, Therapeutic Regimens


Objectives To study the Electrophysiologic characteristics and method of radiofrequency ablation in patients with slow conduction in left free wall. Methods When 5 cases induced tachycardia, using VS2 program stimulation terminated the tachycardia to establish that ventricle is the part of reentry circle. Results No retrograde A waves in 4 cases but only 1 case present A wave in terminating tachycardia. The accessory pathways have decreasing conduction in One case. Successful ablation were located in ventricle sides. Conclusions Ventricular sense and S2 program stimulation to terminate tachycardia is a reliable method to different atrial tachycardia . A wave of successful targets ahead of A wave of any coronary sinus leads is 8 -22 ms.


There is a high incidence of gastro-intestinal and viral diseases after natural disasters, particularly in rural areas in third world countries. Oral rehydration salts (ORS) are used, but there is need for a better tasting substitute which has improved quality, accessibility and storage. Fresh coconut is the preferred choice, but is limited by availability, and rapid nutritional deterioration. Reconstituted powdered products have not retained the natural flavor. The production of a freeze dried ORS was developed using fresh coconut water at different maturity stages. The assessment was done in its pure form and enhanced with natural fruit flavors (mango and passion fruit). Coconut water were frozen (-30°C/ 48 h) and vacuum freeze dried (VFD) to produce rehydrated crystals. This was analyzed for its analyte contents, glucose and Brix. The atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used for the mineral analysis. The results indicated that the analytes balance increased with maturity of the coconut fruits, with no differences between the fruit juices. In some mixtures, the electrolyte content was higher in the fruit juices than the coconut water. The study showed improved quality and acceptability through its taste enhancement and extended shelf-life compared to similar ORS.

 Key words: Analyte electrolyte, freeze-dry, oral re-hydration, flavored coconut water.