Candida biofilms are organized microbial communities growing on the surfaces of host tissues or indwelling medical devices, and the biofilms show enhanced resistance against the conventional antifungal agents. The roots of Coptidis chinensis have been widely used for medicinal purposes in East Asia. The present study was aimed to assess the effect of C. chinensis aqueous extract upon preformed biofilms of 10 clinical Candida albicans isolates and the antifungal activities which contribute to inhibit the C. albicans biofilm formation. Its effect on preformed biofilms was judged using XTT [2,3-Bis-(2-Methoxy-4-Nitro-5-Sulfophenyl)-2H-Tetrazolium-5-Carboxanilide)] reduction assay, and metabolic activity of all tested strains was reduced significantly (57.3 ± 14.7%) at 98 μg/ml of the C. chinensis extract. The extract damaged the cell membrane of C. albicans which was analyzed by fluorescein diacetate and propidium iodide staining. The anticandidal activity was fungicidal, and the extract obstructed the adhesion of C. albicans biofilms to polystyrene surfaces, arrested C. albicans cells at Go/G1 as well, and reduced the growth of biofilms or budding yeasts finally. The data suggest that C. chinensis has multiple antifungal effects on target fungi resulting in preventing the formation of biofilms. Therefore, C. chinensis holds great promise for exploring antifungal agents from natural products in treating and eliminating biofilm-associated Candida infection.


To be one of the hottest topics recent years, a huge amount of diverse applications of the Dielectrophoresis (DEP) phenomenon have been discovered and published. The DEP force mainly comes from the difference in dielectric polarizability between the suspended particles and the suspending medium and it only occurs when the applied AC electric field is non-uniform in space. There are many important parameters that affect the magnitude, direction and the crossover frequency of the DEP force, such as the applied AC electric field frequency, electric field distribution, applied voltage, medium conductivity, particle permittivity, particle size, the electric double layer of particles and so on. Variation of each of the above mentioned parameters could cause great difference in the dielectrophoretic behavior of particles. People have made great efforts in quantifying the influence of them but there are still a lot of uncertain relations and mechanisms to be verified. Therefore, we present a comprehensive analysis of the crossover behavior of micro-particles due to DEP and several concurrent phenomena through both experiments and finite element simulations and provides an important foundation for further insight into electrical properties of micro-particles and for more advanced Lab-on-chip devices developments.


Developing smart software services requires both Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills. AI practitioners, such as data scientists often focus on the AI side, for example, creating and training Machine Learning (ML) models given a specific use case and data. They are typically not concerned with the entire software development life-cycle, architectural decisions for the system and performance issues beyond the predictive ML models (e.g., regarding the security, privacy, throughput, scalability, availability, as well as ethical, legal and regulatory compliance). In this manuscript, we propose a novel approach to enable Model-Driven Software Engineering and Model-Driven AI Engineering. In particular, we support Automated ML, thus assisting software engineers without deep AI knowledge in developing AI-intensive systems by choosing the most appropriate ML model, algorithm and techniques with suitable hyper-parameters for the task at hand. To validate our work, we carry out a case study in the smart energy domain.


Various current information easily found on the Internet, ranging from science, business, community information leading up to pornography. Internet is like a wilderness in which there are many problems and depending on the user whether to use the Internet as a positive side or use the internet from a negative side. Not all the information on the Internet has positive benefit, so that the efforts to make the prevention of harmful information must be done . Block processing of certain itus, is absolutely necessary to avoid accessing the site from users who are not eligible. Access restriction or certain considerations that a site is not allowed to access must be done carefully. In this research it will study how the process of blocking on certain sites and analysis of various applications or software that is often used to block. The research process will elaborate study of the site name blocks toth and blocks to the keyword search on search engines.


As a promising biodegradable metallic material, magnesium (Mg) and its alloys have attracted special attention in recent decade. However, challenges still remain due to its high corrosion rate and insufficient biocompatibility after implantation. In this work, we put forward a coating concept on AZ31 surface via mimicking a 'tea stain' formation process using a layer-by-layer approach. Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) incorporating Mg2+ ions is used to form a chemical conversion coating on AZ31 magnesium alloy with enhanced corrosion protection and favorable biocompatibility for cardiovascular implants. The SEM and AFM morphology results revealed that with the incorporation of Mg2+, the as-formed EGCG/Mg coating was more homogeneous and dense, with far more less cracks than the pure EGCG coating. The in vitro degradation rate and corrosion resistance were studied by electrochemical corrosion tests and monitoring of the changed pH value and hydrogen evolution, respectively, which revealed that the corrosion rate of EGCG/Mg riched coating was effectively decreased than that of pure EGCG coating and bare AZ31 substrate. Owing to the mild degradation rate, in combination of the biological function of EGCG, enhanced endothelial cells (ECs) adhesion and proliferation, suppressed smooth muscle cells (SMCs) adhesion/proliferation and inhibited cytokine release were observed on EGCG/Mg coated AZ31 alloy. Besides, the in vivo subcutaneous embedding experiment strongly indicated that the EGCG/Mg coating performed more mild tissue response due to the improved corrosion resistance to surrounding microenvironment. Ex-vivo thrombogenicity test demonstrated the EGCG/Mg coatings presented an impressive improvement in anti-thrombogenicity compared to bare AZ31. These results convincingly demonstrated the potential of using Mg-incorporated EGCG coating as a biocompatible barrier on the biodegradable magnesium alloy for vascular implants.


Cleft foot deformity may clinically be seen in a wide spectrum of presentations, ranging from skin cleft to several ray deficiencies of the central region of the forefoot. The typical cleft foot is characterized by the congenital absence of one or several median rays, with normal rays bordering the cleft. Unless treated surgically, two pincer-like deformities will appear at the distal end of the foot as the child grows. The primary objectives for reconstruction of cleft foot are closing the cleft to a certain level, maintaining a symmetrical foot, and preserving the position of the border rays to prevent collapse and valgus deformities of the toes. A simple surgical approach to reconstruct cleft foot using double opposing Z-plasty in a patient with bilateral cleft feet is reported here.


At low temperature, interaction of the thiolate-bridged dicobalt carbonyl complex [Cp*Co(i)(μ-SEt)2(CO)CoCp*][I] (Cp* = η5-C5Me5) (1) with NH3 resulted in the C-N coupling of the coordinated CO and amido group that originate from ammonia activation to afford a dicobalt formylamino complex [Cp*Co(μ-SEt)2(μ-η1:η1-O[double bond, length as m-dash]CNH2)CoCp*][I] (2). Interestingly, at relatively high temperatures, the labile CO ligand was replaced by NH3 to give a thiolate-bridged dicobalt ammonia complex [Cp*Co(i)(μ-SEt)2(NH3)CoCp*][I] (3). Subsequently, in the presence of the dehalogenation reagent AgPF6, the Co2S2 scaffold can simultaneously activate NH3 and MeCN to produce the complex [Cp*Co(MeCN)(μ-SEt)2(NH3)CoCp*][PF6]2 (4). Furthermore, in the presence of NaOEt, the facile occurrence of the intramolecular cyclization led to the formation of acetamidino-bridged dicobalt complex [Cp*Co(μ-SEt)2(μ-η1:η1-NH(CCH3)NH)CoCp*][PF6] (5), which may proceed through the nucleophilic attack of amido from NH3 to coordinated MeCN followed by the hydrogen atom transfer process. In the presence of MeCN, treatment of 5 with HBF4 released the corresponding [MeC(NH2)NH2]BF4; meanwhile, the [Co2S2] core structural scaffold remained. In this Co2S2 reaction system, the cooperative activation effect between the two cobalt centers plays an important role for NH3 activation and functionalization.


Representing time over the Semantic Web has always been a challenging issue that many scientific works were interested to address. To the best of our knowledge, the most important ones focused on models, whereas Semantic Web and especially OWL 2 offers semantics that can be efficiently used to describe qualitative diachronic information (i.e. information evolving in time and which start and/or end time is unknown). In this work, we show the relationship between the OWL 2 semantics and the representation of time intervals; then we introduce a qualitative representation of temporal information based on a set of SWRL rules, that allows a sound and complete reasoning mechanism.


Life expectancy plays a key role in determining households' optimal investment in children's human capital accumulation. This paper examines this relationship by looking at a unique case of Cambodia and the nation's prevalence of landmines. Extensive usage of landmines during its long civil conflict since the 1970s was followed by large international effort of landmine clearance operation. A two-fold increase in landmine clearance effort during the periods 2004-2005 in affected areas, has led to a subsequent sharp fall in landmine casualty rates. Together with the male-biased characteristic of landmine accidents, all three variations allow us to estimate the impact of working-age mortality risk on skill formation using a difference-in-difference-in-difference model. To deal with the unobservable, landmine casualty rates are also instrumented by the stock of dangerous land in neighbouring areas. We find a strong negative effect of landmine mortality on both schooling and health investment outcomes. When the mortality risk from such a fearful event as landmine accidents is replaced by a more common incident of traffic accidents, any mortality effect on schooling outcomes is no longer detected. This is evidence of a role played by subjective life expectation in optimal decision making on the households.


The concept of topological defects is universal. In condensed matter, it applies to disclinations, dislocations, or vortices that are fingerprints of symmetry breaking during phase transitions. Using as a generic example the tangles of dislocations, we introduce the concept of topological metadefects, i.e., defects made of defects. We show that in cholesterics, dextrogyre and levogyre primary tangles are generated through the D_{2}→C_{2} symmetry breaking from the coplanar dislocation pair called Lehmann cluster submitted to a high enough tensile strain. The primary tangles can be wound up individually into double helices. They can also annihilate in pairs or associate into tangles of higher orders following simple algebraic rules.


Controlling the flow of spin and charge currents in topological insulators (TIs) is a crucial requirement for applications in quantum computation and spin electronics. We demonstrate that such control can be established in nanoscopic two-dimensional TIs by breaking their time-reversal symmetry via magnetic defects. This allows for the creation of nearly fully spin-polarized charge currents, and the design of highly tunable spin diodes. Similar effects can also be realized in mesoscale hybrid structures in which TIs interface with ferro- or antiferromagnets.


The aberration in the received acoustic field and the Doppler shift in the forward scattered field are simultaneously induced when a submerged target crosses the source–receiver line. Formulations for the two variations are developed upon an ideal forward scattering configuration. Both the field aberration and the Doppler shift are expressed as functions of the same argument — the target motion time. An experimental validation was carried out in a tank, in which the continuous wave was transmitted. The field aberration and the Doppler shift were extracted from the collected data by the simple Hilbert transform and a hybrid technique, respectively. The measured aberration and Doppler shift agree with the theoretical results. Simultaneous detection outputs are beneficial to enhance the reliability on target detection by providing both the aberrations in the received acoustic field and the Doppler shift in the forward scattered field.


We introduce a method to discover optimal local patterns, which concisely describe the main trends in a time series. Our approach examines the time series at multiple time scales (i.e., window sizes) and efficiently discovers the key patterns in each. We also introduce a criterion to select the best window sizes, which most concisely capture the key oscillatory as well as aperiodic trends. Our key insight lies in learning an optimal orthonormal transform from the data itself, as opposed to using a predetermined basis or approximating function (such as piecewise constant, short-window Fourier or wavelets), which essentially restricts us to a particular family of trends. We go one step further, lifting even that limitation. Furthermore, our method lends itself to fast, incremental estimation in a streaming setting. Experimental evaluation shows that our method can capture meaningful patterns in a variety of settings. Our streaming approach requires order of magnitude less time and space, while still producing concise and informative patterns.


Abstract The aetiology of spasmodic torticollis is unknown but the patients form a heterogeneous group among which are cases apparently precipitated by a viral illness and others associated with autoimmune disease. We therefore decided to investigate the immunoregulatory lymphocyte subsets in our 11 cases. A significant decrease of both helper and suppressor lymphocytes was identified in the group, together with in vitro evidence of depressed suppressor cell function. Disturbance of the immune response may play a role in this puzzling disorder.


The workshop has reviewed progress towards the future generation of neutrino oscillation experiments. These experiments will use very intense conventional neutrino beams and novel beams derived from muons or radioactive nuclei. These new facilities will provide a broad research front including muon physics and neutrino scattering experiments. The main technical challenges involve construction of very intense proton beams, targeting, effective capture of produced particles, cooling and ultra-fast acceleration of the resulting muons.


We present observations of cross coupled spheroidal modes in the Earth's free oscillation spectrum recorded by the vertical component G-ring laser (Geodetical Station Wettzell) of the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. In an attempt to determine which are the mechanisms responsible for spheroidal energy in a vertical axes rotational spectra, we first rule out instrumental effects as well as the effect of local heterogeneity. Secondly, we carry out simulations of an ideal rotational sensor taking into account the effects of the Earth's rotation, its hydrostatic ellipticity and structural heterogeneity, which results in a good fit to the data. Simulations considering each effect separately are performed in order to evaluate the sensitivity of rotational motions to various phenomena compared to traditional translation measurements.


This report describes the development of alveolar silico-lipoproteinosis complicated by Mycobacterium kansasii infection in a previously healthy man who worked as a sandblaster. Alveolar silico-lipoproteinosis is a rare disease that usually is fatal within 1 year of onset of symptoms. There is a high incidence of mycobacterial infection, half being caused by atypical organisms.


This article explores how local people in the Amazon negotiate different and conflicting rationalities, how they appropriate meanings and negotiate discourses on nature, gender and modernity. Ethnicity is used here to explore different temporalities and different forms of modernity at the "margins". This article contextualizes this process of negotiation within the historic process of subordination and commoditization of nature and the subordination and control of indigenous populations in the Amazonian región of Loreto, where cultural hybridization is part of hybrid livelihoods that reflect and challenge the structural limits defined by the political ecology of Loreto and the contradictory nature of modernity in the Third World. This article use ethnographic data to unveil the ambiguous ethnicity of ribereños and the unfinished and multidirectional process of assimilation of indigenous peoples in the Amazon.


In this paper is presented a case study realized on an enterprise which has debts to the state budget. The scope of this paper is to show how the State is able to collect its finances from the economic agents more efficient and the economic agents have the possibility to pay off their debts using an effective system, established according to everyone's needs based on a set of criteria's


PPh3-Catalyzed aza-MBH domino reaction of salicyl N-tosylimines with γ-CH3 substituted allenoates is reported. Readily available imines and allenoates are converted to benzoxazepine derivatives in one step. Wherein, functionalization of C-H bonds of γ-substituted allenoate has been developed in this domino process.


The popular isolation level Multiversion Read Committed (RC) trades some of the strong guarantees of serializability for increased transaction throughput. Sometimes, transaction workloads can be safely executed under RC obtaining serializability at the lower cost of RC. Such workloads are said to be robust against RC. Previous work has yielded a tractable procedure for deciding robustness against RC for workloads generated by transaction programs modeled as transaction templates. An important insight of that work is that, by more accurately modeling transaction programs, we are able to recognize larger sets of workloads as robust. In this work, we increase the modeling power of transaction templates by extending them with functional constraints, which are useful for capturing data dependencies like foreign keys. We show that the incorporation of functional constraints can identify more workloads as robust that otherwise would not be. Even though we establish that the robustness problem becomes undecidable in its most general form, we show that various restrictions on functional constraints lead to decidable and even tractable fragments that can be used to model and test for robustness against RC for realistic scenarios.


In this paper, oblique illumination is used to improve the lateral resolution and edge sharpness in microsphere (MS)-assisted Mirau digital holographic microscopy (Mirau-DHM). Abbe showed that tilting the illumination light allows entrance of higher spatial frequencies into the imaging system thus increasing the resolution power. We extended the idea to common-path DHM, based on Mirau objective, toward super-resolved 3D imaging. High magnification Mirau objectives are very expensive and low-magnification ones suffer from low resolution, therefore, any attempt to increase the effective resolution of the system may be of a great interest. We have already demonstrated the effective resolution increasing of a Mirau-DHM system by incorporating a transparent MS within the working distance of the objective. Here, we show that by integrating a MS-assisted Mirau-DHM with the oblique illumination even higher resolutions can be achieved. We have applied the technique for various samples and have shown the increase in the lateral resolution for the both cases of Mirau-DHM with and without the MS.


For a select number of drugs, proper management of patients includes monitoring serum or plasma concentrations of the drugs and adjusting the doses accordingly - this practice is referred to as therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). The need for TDM arises when pharmacokinetic variability of drugs is not easily accounted for by common clinical parameters. Many chemotherapeutic drugs have large interindividual variability, yet TDM is not commonplace in chemotherapy management. This review will discuss pharmacokinetics in the context of chemotherapeutic drugs, examine the few instances where TDM is currently used in the field of oncology and propose other drugs where TDM might be useful for dose adjustments in the management of chemotherapy.


In this work, we provide a new mathematical formulation for the inverse problem in electrocardiography imaging. The novelty of this approach is that we take into account the missing measurements on the body surface. The electrocardiography imaging is formulated as a data completion problem for the Laplace equation. The Neumann boundary condition is given at the whole body surface. The difficulty comes from the fact that the Dirichlet boundary condition is only given on a part of the body surface. In order to construct the electrical potential on the heart surface, we use an optimal control approach where the unknown potential at the external boundary is also part of the control variables. We use the method of factorization of elliptic boundary value problems combined with the finite difference method. We illustrate the theoretical results by some numerical simulations in a cylindrical domain. We numerically study the effect of the size of the missing data zone on the accuracy of the inverse solution.


type="main"> The paper studies duopolistic competition when firms face fixed quality-dependent costs of production and one of the two firms targets (at least in the long run) welfare maximization. We show that mixed oligopoly is in general socially desirable compared with a private duopoly regardless of the type of competition in the short run and the equilibrium quality ranking. In addition, the nationalization of one of the firms seems to be a more efficient regulatory instrument than the adoption of minimum quality standard or subsidization of the high-quality provider.


Direct measurements of permeability through core analysis and well test are expensive and may not be possible for all boreholes, whereas all wells are almost petrophysicaly logged which permeability from open-hole logs can be estimated. One of the major challenges in carbonate formations is to analyze and quantify non-effective pores like secondary porosity. If this can be achieved, permeability evaluation will be more accurate. For this purpose, three wells of the Iran offshore Balal oil field were chosen; the focus of interest was Surmeh (Arab) formation. The permeability estimation model was built in well BL-1P through core and well logs data using two methods fuzzy logic and back propagation neural network (BP-ANN). Moreover, secondary porosity index (SPI) was calculated and imported in the model. This model was applied to predict permeability in control wells 3I and 3W-2. The outputs were cross checked against core data. The results of this study showed that fuzzy logic prediction was a bit better than ANN and in accordance with elimination the effect of discontinuous porosity after adding SPI, the prediction became better.


The world's major patent offices have over the last few decades shown increasing levels of cooperation and trust. The increased level of cooperation can be explained in terms of common workload problems facing the offices and the demands of major users for greater efficiency. Increasing levels of trust amongst offices occur most strongly through examiner exchanges and eventually take the form of a technocratic trust in each others' systems. While some level of technocratic trust is desirable, it can carry risks. National offices and regional offices like the European Patent Office should not allow technocratic trust to lead them into a system in which they cede sovereignty over examination to a global system of administrative governance for patent offices. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.


ABSTRACT The aims of this study were two-fold: to provide decision aid for a practical bioeconomy research, development and innovation (RDI) and education challenge, and to elaborate hybrid strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) methodologies for providing tangible suggestions as to strategic choices to alleviate the challenge. Scientifically, the new methodology developed is the main result of the study, as it can be used for other strategy processes as well, while the case-wise strategic choices may not be generalized. A hybrid method was developed based on the combined use of SWOT that was enlarged by goals and actions, social choice theory and robust portfolio modelling (RPM). The method was applied to deriving joint strategic choices for developing forest bioeconomy education and RDI together by three universities in eastern Finland. A joint brainstorming process was organized in order to choose together the means to develop the co-operation efficiently and in a manner acceptable for all the universities. Voting methods and the core value calculation of RPM were used for prioritizing elements in normal SWOT, goals and actions. The most prioritized elements formed the basis for the co-operation development portfolio. The method development suggestions include, for example, a recommendation to prefer approval voting over cumulative voting in the workshop setting.


Hypersensitivity reactions(HSRs)are adverse events that are potentially caused by all anticancer agents. HSRs are unpredictable and can occur at any time, and prompt intervention is needed when symptoms occur. The types of symptoms and their degrees vary with the anticancer agent used and the number of chemotherapy cycles. Here, we evaluated the degree of HSRs and their frequencies in the outpatient chemotherapy center of Gunma University Hospital. Among 55,046 patients, 141 (0.26%)cases of HSRs and 70(0.13%)cases of infusion reactions were identified. Oxaliplatin and docetaxel conferred higher incidences of HRSs, whereas infliximab and rituximab conferred higher incidences of infusion reactions. The most common symptoms were skin reactions. HSRs to oxaliplatin were observed after a median of 7 cycles of chemotherapy, and the number of the patients developing HSRs was the highest during the second cycle of chemotherapy. The incidences of HSRs and the profiles of the anticancer drugs exhibiting higher frequencies of HSRs were similar to those in previous reports. The present study provides valuable information about appropriate management for HSRs depending on the anticancer agents used.


Boldness and shyness were investigated as 'personality' traits in hatchery-reared rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss. Bold fish spent more time in an open area and were more active than shy fish and these behaviours could be used as indicators of boldness and shyness. These differences were related to learning ability in a simple conditioning task. Bold fish learned the task more quickly than shy fish.


We use a well-known model [T. Vicsek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 15, 1226 (1995)] for flocking, to test mutual information as a tool for detecting order-disorder transitions, in particular when observations of the system are limited. We show that mutual information is a sensitive indicator of the phase transition location in terms of the natural dimensionless parameters of the system which we have identified. When only a few particles are tracked and when only a subset of the positional and velocity components is available, mutual information provides a better measure of the phase transition location than the susceptibility of the data.


This report documents a continuing assessment of bus rapid transit opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this study we are focusing on bus transit routes that partially travel on California state routes, whether arterial roadways or freeways. A primary component of this project is to consider the inter-connectivity and regional aspects of bus rapid transit systems deployment in the San Francisco Bay Area region. Considering state routes will help identify more regional opportunities for innovative types of partnerships to help address unmet public transit service needs across jurisdictional boundary lines. We initially identified nearly 200 bus transit routes in the Bay Area that travel on state routes. Next we embarked on a multi-step process to reduce the field of bus routes to a select few with a high likelihood of being upgraded to bus rapid transit systems. We looked at the length of the bus transit routes that travel on state routes, service characteristics related to schedule and route structures based on passenger demand level, external factors, bus routes that function essentially as one service, and level of passenger demand. We selected the following five bus routes for further consideration, the first four of which are already under investigation to be upgraded to bus rapid transit. AC Transit Routes 72-72M-72R on SR 123 AC Transit Routes 82-82L along Telegraph Avenue/International Boulevard/14 th Street corridor SamTrans Routes 390/391 on SR 82 (El Camino Real) Santa Clara VTA Route 22 on SR 82 (El Camino Real) San Francisco Muni? route 9X in San Bruno


Fixed-charge (non-polarizable) forcefields are accurate and computationally efficient tools for modeling the molecular dynamics of nucleic acid polymers, particularly DNA, well into the µs timescale. The continued utility of these forcefields depends in part on expanding the residue set in step with advancing nucleic acid chemistry and biology. A key step in parameterizing new residues is charge derivation which is self-consistent with the existing residues. As atomic charges are derived by fitting against molecular electrostatic potentials, appropriate structural models are critical. Benchmarking against the existing charge set used in current AMBER nucleic acid forcefields, we report that quantum mechanical models of deoxynucleosides, even at a high level of theory, are not optimal structures for charge derivation. Instead, structures from molecular mechanics minimization yield charges with up to 6-fold lower RMS deviation from the published values, due to the choice of such an approach in the derivation of the original charge set. We present a contemporary protocol for rendering self-consistent charges as well as optimized charges for a panel of nine non-canonical residues that will permit comparison with literature as well as studying the dynamics of novel DNA polymers.


: At present, the surveillance of International border areas is a challenging task. The border guarding forces are patrolling the border seriously, but it is no longer viable to watch the border at each and every moment. A critical requirement of this state of affairs is a robot that robotically detects trespasser in the border and reports close by board security control unit. Many of the army departments now make use of robots to elevate out risky jobs that can't be executed by means of the soldiers. In this present work, a Raspbian working system-based undercover agent robot platform with far off monitoring and manage algorithm through the Internet of Things (IoT)has been developed which will save human lives, reduces manual error and protect us from enemies. The spy robotic device comprises the Raspberry Pi (small single-board computer), pi camera and sensors. The information regarding the detection of living objects with the aid of the PIR sensor is dispatched to the users thru the net server and pi digicam capture the moving object which is posted inner the webpage simultaneously. The consumer in the manipulate room in a position to access the robot with wheel drive control buttons on the webpage. The movement of a robotic is also controlled robotically via obstacle detecting sensors to avoiding collisions. This surveillance system using a spy robot can be custom-made for more than a few fields like industries, banks and shopping malls.


The question of what the closings mean to the future of existing academic programs is at least, and perhaps more, important than the question of what the closings mean for the education of the information professional of tomorrow. Although administrators and faculty need to learn a lesson from the closings, they may not be recognizing the right one. The challenge facing private institutions with library and information studies programs is different from that facing public institutions. In principle, those ought to be equivalent, but they are not. Public universities have a governmental mandate to serve the needs of the state, and thus library and information studies can appeal for support on that ground. While there is some legitimacy for such an argument, it is doubtful that it will suffice if other aspects of the LIS program are weak, and if the state university is experiencing financial burdens. Many states have no LIS programs in their public universities and survive quite nicely. At the highest levels, most universities employ a strategic assessment of academic divisions which encompasses three dimensions: quality, demand, and centrality. Clearly, academic programs of low quality ought to be upgraded or abandoned. In private institutions, the concern for demand is likely to be stronger than in public ones, but in all cases the university administrators need to be able to make an economic argument about income versus expenses. If library schools were closed for either of the first two of these reasons, while we ought to lament their passing, the reasons may be understood in the context of obvious realities. What troubles many in the LIS community is the closing of academic programs which were of high


The present study was undertaken to evaluate a new prototype mesh that consists of a knitted polyester structure treated with a fluoropolymer and impregnated with gelatin. The Fluoropassiv mesh, as well as two controls, the Surgipro polypropylene mesh and the Gore-Tex expanded polytetrafluoroethylene patch, were used for the repair of experimentally induced abdominal hernias in piglets and followed for scheduled implantation periods of 4, 15, and 60 days. At the sacrifice the mesh and surrounding tissue were excised for histological assessment of the healing sequence, for the identification of changes in hematologic and immunological characteristics, and for the measurement of the mechanical properties. After cleaning to remove the encroaching tissue, the explanted devices were monitored for biostability by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The present study has demonstrated that the Fluoropassiv mesh provides adequate mechanical strength and compares favorably with the two controls. No exacerbated systemic or in situ hematologic or immunological reactions were observed with either the meshes of the patch material. Histological studies revealed that thick collagenous and vascularized tissue were well anchored to the three biomaterials as early as 15 days after implantation. The degree of tissue penetration differed depending on the device. Chemically, they proved stable over time.


Abstract
 The subtribe Lychnophorinae (Asteraceae: Vernonieae) comprises approximately 100 species and 18 genera distributed mostly in the Cerrado Domain of the Brazilian Central Plateau. Phylogenetic analyses of Lychnophorinae based on four molecular regions (ETS, ITS, ndhF, rpl32-trnL) and a morphological dataset were performed, aiming to delimit monophyletic genera, to confirm or refute the generic assignment of several species, to achieve a better understanding of the relationships between the genera, and to identify morphological characters and synapomorphies for major clades within the subtribe. Our analyses recovered several clades that represent currently recognized genera or genera that have been recognized in the past. All clades recovered are characterized by a combination of morphological characters. However, Lychnophora (35 species), the richest genus of the subtribe, emerged as polyphyletic. Albertinia, Blanchetia and Gorceixia were the first lineages to diversify, whereas Eremanthus plus Lychnophora sensu stricto emerged as the most derived clade. Relationships among other clades remained partially unresolved. Some incongruence in the placement of species of Eremanthus, Paralychnophora, and Piptolepis in the nuclear and chloroplast phytogenies provided additional evidence for the occurrence of two putative intergeneric hybrids in the wild. Biogeographic reconstruction suggests that the diversification and expansion range of most Lychnophorinae clades in the campos rupestres, from an ancestor in tropical seasonl forests, occurred previously to the conquest of the cerrado s. s. areas performed by only a few clades.


Abstract : The primary goal of the United States Military is to train and equip troops to maintain military readiness. Training range areas represent a major element in keeping the Army ready to accomplish this mission. Training ranges represent considerable investments in time, money, and other resources. Small arms training ranges (SARs) represent a large portion of this investment Projectiles utilized as part of small arms training range activities have accumulated at many SARs for a number of years. These projectiles are composed of toxic metals such as lead, copper, and antimony. Such metals may pose a threat to the environment through contaminant migration. Environmental personnel at Camp Edwards, an Army National Guard training area located at the Massachusetts Military Reservation (CEMR), recognized the potential for small arms activities to adversely affect the environment To better understand the migration of the metals and the potential threat of the metals to groundwater, CEMR initiated investigations to study such metal migration. This report presents the results of this investigation. This report presents the results of the following: (1) an overview of factors which affect metal migration from small arms training areas, (2) soil sampling conducted at the CEMR small arms ranges, and (3) modeling efforts to predict the time of impact of the metal migration on groundwater. As part of this study, soil borings were collected to a depth of 27.4 m (90 ft), and borings were analyzed for five metals in 15.2 cm (6 in.) sections. In addition, limited soil properties were also analyzed in the laboratory. These results indicate that the metal contaminants are migrating vertically but have not been transported to a depth greater than 1.8 m (6 ft) at any of the ranges. Modeling efforts predict that measurable concentrations of lead are not expected until after 350 years.


Research paper portrays premise of the analysis of the nourishment business market and light industry showcase over the span of modernization the progressions that happen in their structure, rivalry and serious condition are distinguished and advocated. The analysis of the components, permitting territorial makers to make upper hand on the business sectors of the modernized ventures is satisfied. The chance of some better utilization of assets, especially work and immaterial resources associated with human capital and made by imaginative work, improving aptitudes, growing ability is


BACKGROUND
Equine sarcoids are the most prevalent skin neoplasm in horses worldwide. Although several treatments are available, none are consistently effective and recurrence is common.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the efficacy and safety of topical imiquimod 5% cream and Sanguinaria canadensis + zinc chloride for treatment of equine sarcoids and investigate possible systemic effects on distant untreated sarcoids.

ANIMALS/TUMOURS
Twenty-five client-owned horses with a total of 164 tumours were included in the study. Fifty-seven tumours were treated and 107 tumours were left untreated.

METHODS AND MATERIALS
Biopsies were taken from a minimum of one tumour per horse and the rest were diagnosed based on clinical appearance as likely sarcoids. Imiquimod 5% (A) was applied three times weekly, while Sanguinaria canadensis + zinc chloride (X) was applied every fourth day after a six day daily initiation phase. Treatment continued until clinical remission or for a maximum of 45 weeks, with a long follow-up period (mean 34 months). Biopsies of sarcoids were re-taken before treatment termination and at follow-up if the owner gave consent.

RESULTS
Complete remission was recorded in 84.4% (A) and 75.0% (X) of the tumours. Relapse was recorded in 7.3% (A) and 21.4% (X). Spontaneous remission was observed in 1.9% of untreated tumours. No systemic effect on untreated tumours was detected. During treatment varying degrees of local inflammatory reaction were common.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Both treatments were considered effective and safe. Smaller tumours responded more favourably to treatment. Relapse rate was low and not observed in sarcoids with repeat biopsies before treatment termination.


Isolated perforation of the gall bladder as a consequence of blunt abdominal injury is rare. A single case is described which illustrates several features which may characterize this lesion.


Here we present applications of the periodic Anderson model (PAM) to consideration of wave vector (k)- and spin-dependent hybridization effects in Ce metal. It was shown that k-dependent splitting of the 4f ionization peak of Ce/W(1 10) are correctly described in the framework of the PAM (Coulomb repulsion between two f electrons localized on the same lattice site Uff??). Our results show that the wave vector is conserved upon hybridization. In case of the magnetically ordered Ce monolayer, spin- and angle-resolved resonant photoemission spectra reveal spin-dependent changes of the Fermi-level peak intensities (which reflect the hybridization strength). That indicate a spin-dependence of 4f hybridization and, thus, of 4f occupancy and local moment. The phenomenon was also described in the framework of PAM by 4f electron hopping into the exchange split Fe 3d derived bands that form a spin-gap at the Fermi energy around the T point of the surface Brillouin zone.


Bats are found all over the world, and they are the most diverse group of mammals in the tropics. They are a key component in all ecosystems as predators, pollinators, or seed dispersers. As a conservation tool, dietary studies show what different bat species need to survive. Through metabarcoding, the diet can be accurately assessed. This method involves the DNA extraction of material from the feces of the individual being studied. PCR is used to amplify the DNA and next generation sequencing is used to identify, separate, and align the DNA that was extracted. By comparing the results from different seasons, we are able to track changes in diet based on seasonal variance and eventually anthropogenic sources. Due to unforeseen problems with sampling technique, the results of this study were not significant. A larger data set and improved sterilization is needed to confirm any changes within species and between seasons.


Background: Microlectures comprise short audio or video presentations designed to provide a concise explanation of key concepts or topics. Purpose: The study aimed to develop a microlecture module for a nursing course in medication administration and test whether it could improve learning. Methods: The study had a quasi-experimental design. Four classes of sophomore nursing students were divided into the treatment (n = 109) and control groups (n = 84). Pretests, posttests, integrated examinations, and simulated experiences were employed. Analysis of covariance were used to analyze the students' pretest, posttest, and integrated examination performances. Results: The treatment group performed better than the control group. Conclusions: This study provides nursing educators with a different approach to traditional teaching and sheds light on how to design a microlecture.


Benthic, water and sediment samples were collected at Okobaba, a sawmill site, and Iddo, a sewage dumpage site, in an open estuarine lagoon, in southwestern Nigeria during two periods (December 1999-May 2000 and April 2002-September 2002). Air, surface and bottom water temperatures were high (23.9-32.0 degrees C). Dissolved oxygen (DO) was between 3.4-5.3 mg/l, while biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) varied between 18.0 and 30.0 mg/l at Iddo and, 7.5 and 8.6 mg/l at Okobaba. The pH was alkaline throughout the sampling period at the two sites (7.3-8.6) while, rainfall was between 0.00 and 372.1 mm. Sediment ranged from mud, sandy mud, muddy sand to sandy type. Density and diversity of macrobenthic fauna were low and representative of Polychaeta, Mollusca and Arthropoda. Factors affecting the dynamics and reduction of species in the two communities were discussed.


This study argues, against scholarly consensus, that the mention of "Seleucus Nicanor" in 4 Macc 3:20–21 is not a historical error but a reasonably carefully constructed and accurate reference to Seleucus I Nicator. Nicanor was a commonly occurring variant of the official epithet Nicator, and comparison with the passage in 2 Maccabees, on which the author of 4 Maccabees drew, indicates that the author edited the passage to bring it into conformity with the conditions during Seleucus I Nicator's reign. Since this passage is cited as evidence for the alleged historical unreliability of 4 Maccabees, that assessment requires adjustment.


Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (MCA) is a rare tumor that is considered to be a cystic variant of mucin-producing lung adenocarcinoma. MCA expands grossly by storing mucus and contains few neoplastic cells. We present the CT images of three patients with MCA and correlate them with pathologic specimens. The CT findings of MCA include a uniform low-attenuation, focal thickening of the cystic wall and enhancing septa.


Growth-chamber studies were conducted to determine some effects of MSMA (monosodium methanearsonate) and DCPA (dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate) treatments on 'Pennstar' and common Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.), grown at three different temperatures. Herbicide was applied at recommended rates at the beginning of regrowth following mowing. At sampling time, height and weight were recorded and some fresh tissue was frozen for chlorophyll analysis and the rest was oven-dried for amino acid analysis. Chlorophyll content of 'Pennstar' was significantly increased by MSMA. Common bluegrass grown at 18 C had significantly higher levels of free amino acids than did 'Pennstar' grown at the same temperature. At 27 C, asparagine and alanine were significantly higher in common bluegrass than in 'Pennstar.' MSMA had a more significant effect on all detected free amino acid concentrations except cysteine in 'Pennstar' than in common bluegrass. DCPA was more active than MSMA on common bluegrass; all amino acids were increased significantly by treatment.


Background. Poor sleep and excessive fatigue among workers can reduce well-being and physical fitness. However, not many studies have mentioned how sleeping deprivation among night-shift healthcare workers impacted their work performance in multiple aspects.
Method. We conducted an evidence-based case report (EBCR) of a night shift nurse who was worried about the impact of her sleep deprivation on her work performance in the future due to prior history of needle-stick injuries. We aimed to determine whether sleeping deprivation caused by regular night shifts leads to decreased work performance among night-shift healthcare workers by formulating a clinical question. Evidence was searched systematically using five major journal databases (Proquest, EBSCO-Host, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane) and was assessed thoroughly using inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Results. Eleven eligible studies were obtained with a medium level of evidence (III-IV), three systematic reviews with meta-analyses (SR-MA), three SR without MA, and five observational studies. All of them were analyzed and critically appraised using Oxford Evidence-Based Medicine and Joanna Briggs Institute tools. We found that reduced quantity and quality of sleep impacted all dimensions of work performance among healthcare professionals, be it in task performance (e.g., skill proficiency), contextual performance (e.g., communication skill and mental health issues), and patient and health worker safety (accident and medication error). It could also encourage counterproductive work behavior, such as absenteeism. Furthermore, sleep deprivation changes circadian rhythms, causing decreased information processing and affective recognition functions in some vital brain areas, ultimately affecting several work dimensions.
Conclusion. In conclusion, stakeholders need to adjust proper shift scheduling for health care workers, practice sleep hygiene, maintain physical fitness, and consume nutritional food, positively correlated to health and productivity.


To determine the publication rate of registered clinical trials evaluating therapeutic approaches for diabetic macular edema (DME).

 Using the search terms "Diabetic Macular Edema," the National Institute of Health's ClinicalTrials.gov online registry was searched to identify all clinical trials concerning DME. Non-interventional trials, terminated trials, trials not concerning DME, and those not completed between 2005 and 2015 were excluded. Publication status of each trial was determined using searches of the study title, keywords, author(s), and NCT number on PubMed.gov and Google Scholar.

 A total of two hundred and forty-seven studies were identified in the primary analysis. Of the 97 trials meeting inclusion criteria, 60 (61.9%) were published. Late-phase trials were published at higher rate (74.5% [35/47]) than early phase trials (50% [25/50]) (p = 0.01). Trial location, date of completion, and industry involvement did not significantly affect the publication rate.

 Of the registered trials listed in the ClinicalTrials.gov registry investigating DME, 61.9% were published.


A brighter prospect of the development of cultivation and production of herbs
becomes known since the emergence of "back to nature" campaign, both in our country and
in foreign countries. This phenomenon provides a good chance to develop herbs into a
competitive commodity. Alfalfa belongs to a kind of cattle fodder that is now commonly
used as human's supplement because of its high chlorophyll content. Chlorophyll contains
around 60 compounds classified into vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes. The
production of chlorophyll as the main content of Alfalfa plant will increase along with the
increase of light intensity, which reaches the plant's canopy. Besides light, nitrogen
becomes the substance which contributes in the formation of chlorophyll. The addition of
chicken manure fertilizer which contains high nitrogen content (1,7 %) is hoped to be able
to stimulate plants' chlorophyll formation.
This aims of this research were to find out the population and optimum dose of
chicken manure, and also to find out the best treatment combination to produce the optimum
growth and yields of Alfalfa. Research had done on April 2008 until July 2008 in Kalisoro
Village, Tawangmangu District, Karanganyar Regency (1.200 m above the sea surface
level). Completely Random Design (CRD) with a three-repetition factorial was applied.
Tested factors were population (16, 20 and 25 plants/m2
) and the dose of chicken manure
(7,14 and 21 ton/hectare). The result shows that population arrangement and dose of chicken manure non
significant to the chlorophyll level. Interaction between the two treatments occured only at
chlorophyll level b at the age of 13 weeks after planting. Plant on population of 25 plants/m2

gave the highest total chlorophyll were 43081,2 µg/m2
and plant on population of 20
plants/m2
 gave the lowest total chlorophyll were 32895,0 µg/m2
. Plant on the dose of
chicken manure 21 ton/hectare gave the highest total chlorophyll were 38291,8 µg/m2
and
plant on the dose of chicken manure 7 ton/hectare gave the lowest total chlorophyll were
34747.3 µg/m2
.


Abstract Extracellular vesicles, comprising exosomes, microvesicles, and apoptotic bodies, represent an emerging field in disease diagnostics and prognosis. They can be isolated from peripheral blood of patients as well as from other body fluids and can therefore be considered a minimally invasive liquid biopsy screening tool. Especially their surface antigen composition can reveal information about disease backgrounds. For several liver diseases, including fatal hepatocellular and cholangiocellular carcinoma as well as other nonmalignant liver disorders such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis, or acute liver failure, it has been shown that extracellular vesicle (EV) surface profiling can be useful for disease diagnosis and prognosis. This review focuses on latest advances in these areas to improve liver disorder detection and management. Additionally, the authors will discuss possible therapeutic applications of EVs in liver diseases, which might be a potent treatment option in the future.


This investigation was undertaken with the object of determining the times of certain reflexes in a species of frog which has not, so far as I know, already been used for the purpose, viz., the South African clawed frog or toad ( Xenopus laevis , or an allied species), and by analysing these times to obtain a measure of the delay in transmission of the reflex impulses in the spinal cord, or "synapse time." Spinal and decerebrate animals have been used as well as the intact frog. Einthoven's string galvanometer was employed to indicate the beginning of activity in the limb muscles. It seemed desirable to eliminate, as far as possible, everything that would tend to introduce doubt into the interpretation of the records, even at the cost of making the experiments more troublesome to carry out. For this reason no strychnine or other drug was used. The spinal and decerebrate preparations were kept alive before experiment until the wounds were entirely healed and the frogs appeared to be in thoroughly good condition. Records were then taken from day to day, and the influence of temperature and of the period of survival after operation was studied. Any operative procedure at the time of experiment was rendered unnecessary by employing the mechanical stimulus of a tap by a slight hammer to the toes, or a squeeze of the toes, and the electrical changes in the limb muscles were recorded by means of the wicks of non-polarisable electrodes, moistened with salt solution and impregnated with kaolin, bound round the limb over the unbroken skin. The wicks were applied at knee and ankle, or thigh and ankle, the skin area covered by each wick being about 1·5 cm. broad. The advantage of this method of leading off is that there is no injury done to the preparation, which can be experimented with for months. A disadvantage is that one cannot record in this way the pure response of a single muscle nor control exactly the points led off from, and the form of the electrical response is found accordingly to be rather variable. The application of a mechanical stimulus to the toes instead of electrical stimulation of a nerve, besides being more "natural," is advantageous from its avoiding injury to the preparation, and also by avoiding the difficulties which arise in recording and interpreting the electrical response when the stimulus is also electrical. Precautions will prevent an induction shock given to a dissected-out nerve from affecting the galvanometer, but it is often difficult to get rid of some slight action upon the string, and the absence of this complication makes me more confident in interpreting the curves. There is also no danger of the stimulus spreading further than is desired. The disadvantage of the use of a tap or squeeze is that a direct stimulation of muscle or nerve might perhaps be caused, whose electrical expression would be visible on the record and be mistaken for a reflex effect. This is a real difficulty in the case of homonymous stimulation, and the attempt has been made to avoid it by stimulating the toes alone and not the rest of the foot. The difficulty does not arise in the case of the heteronymous reflex where the electrodes are applied to the limb opposite to the one stimulated. Here there is no appearance on the records of anything which could be the expression of a direct excitation of the foot.


We conducted two telephone surveys of all United Kingdom adult intensive care units in 2007/8 and 2010 to assess practice with regard to intensive insulin therapy for glycaemic control in critically ill patients, and to assess the change in practice following publications in 2008 and 2009 that challenged the evidence for this therapy. Of 243 units that had a written policy for intensive insulin therapy in 2007/8, 232 (96%) still had a policy in 2010. One hundred and six (46%) units had updated their policy in response to new evidence, whereas 126 (54%) stated that it had remained the same. Where intensive care units had changed their policy, we found a significant increase in target limits and a wider target range. Regional variations in practice were also seen. Across seven regions, the percentage of units where the glycaemic control policy had been updated since 2007/8 varied from nil to 78.9%.


Effects of radiation on unsteady free convection flow of a viscousincompressible fluid past a moving vertical plate embedded in aporous medium on taking  viscous dissipation into account havebeen studied. The governing partial differential equations havebeen solved numerically by applying a Crank - Nicolson's type ofimplicit finite difference method with a tri-diagonal matrixmanipulation and an iterative procedure. The variations of thefluid velocity and temperature are presented graphically. It isfound that the radiation decelerates the fluid velocity. The fluidvelocity increases with an increase in Darcy number. An increasein Eckert number leads to rise in fluid velocity and temperature.Further, it is found that the magnitude of the shear stress at theplate increases with an increase in either radiation parameter orPrandtl number. The rate of heat transfer at the plate increaseswith an increase in radiation parameter. This model findsapplications in geophysics, astrophysics and also in the design ofhigh temperature industrial processing systems.


For many applications in wireless sensor networks, accurate data collection is a crucial problem. Users may want to continuously extract data from the networks for analysis after. Clustering and prediction techniques, which exploit spatial and temporal correlation among sensor data, provide opportunities for reducing the energy consumption of sensor data collection. We propose the LEAP (localized energy-aware prediction) approach. LEAP is clustering based. A cluster head represents all sensor nodes in the cluster, and collects data values from them. LEAP implements local prediction algorithms, and only data values not within a specified error bound are collected by a cluster head. By doing so, the cluster head maintains an accurate view of the sensor data, while the communication cost is reduced. In this paper, we present energy-aware prediction models used in LEAP, analyze the performance tradeoff between reducing communication cost and limiting prediction cost, and design algorithms to exploit the benefit of energy-aware prediction. We believe LEAP has broad applications. Our proposed models, analysis, and algorithms are validated via simulation.


Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Namseoul University, Cheonan 330-717, KoreaIn the past, Manufacturers used to determine the quality of products, but the trend of today's market becomes more into customer-driven. As a result, demands from customers are becoming more diverse and complicated, and most companies are obligated to meet their needs. As one of the effort to achieve their satisfaction, companies are now emphasizing activities to find out what customers specifically want and extract voice of customer(VOC). This study attempts to develop an ergonomic product development process as a method to maximally reflect the VOC. In order to meet this goal, ergonomic design guidelines, which are possible to be classified according that user's human characteristics, will be recommended. Even now, there are numerous design guidelines already existing in the ergonomics literature. However, it is not realistically feasible to review all of those guidelines, and some of them are even conflicting with each other. Therefore, in this paper, the product development process, which prioritizes the human characteristics that reflect customer needs and applies the design guidelines that meet the most important ones, will be suggested. Finally, the research was described to show the validity of the product development process through an example of a mobile phone development case.Keywords: Voice of Customer, Product Development Process, Human Characteristics


Neuroimaging meta-analysis is an area of growing interest in statistics. The special characteristics of neuroimaging data render classical meta-analysis methods inapplicable and therefore new methods have been developed. We review existing methodologies, explaining the benefits and drawbacks of each. A demonstration on a real dataset of emotion studies is included. We discuss some still-open problems in the field to highlight the need for future research.


Abstract This paper's goal is to briefly explain the basic theory behind programming languages and their history while taking a close look at different programming paradigms that are used today as well as describing their differences, benefits, and drawbacks


Twenty-four cases of vertebral column injuries associated with tobogganing accidents are presented. The position assumed by the participants increased flexion of the vertebral column, therefore enhancing the possibility of injury to the spine, especially at the mobile thoracolumbar junction. The importance of a thorough examination in evaluating these patients is emphasized as not all injuries are benign. We urge safer and better organization of tobogganing facilities. Two case reports, one a burst fracture of L1 with neurologic involvement and the second, a traumatic spondylolisthesis of L1, are presented in detail.


The defense glands in the dorsal prothorax are an important autapomorphic trait of stick insects (Phasmatodea). Here, we study the functional anatomy and neuronal innervation of the defense glands in Anisomorpha paromalus (Westwood, 1859) (Pseudophasmatinae), a species which sprays its defense secretions when disturbed or attacked. We use a neuroanatomical approach to identify the nerves innervating the gland muscles and the motoneurons with axons in the different nerves. The defense gland is innervated by nerves originating from two segments, the suboesophageal ganglion and the prothoracic ganglion. Axonal tracing confirms the gland innervation via the anterior suboesophageal nerve, and two intersegmental nerves, the posterior suboesophageal nerve and the anterior prothoracic nerve. Axonal tracing of individual nerves reveals eight identified neuron types in the suboesophageal or prothoracic ganglion. The strongest innervating nerve of the gland is the anterior suboesophageal nerve, which also supplies dorsal longitudinal thorax muscles (neck muscles) by separate nerve branches. Tracing of individual nerve branches reveals different sets of motoneurons innervating the defense gland (one ipsilateral and one contralateral suboesophageal neuron) or the neck muscle (ventral median neurons). The ipsilateral and contralateral suboesophageal neurons have no homologs in related taxa like locusts and crickets, and thus evolved within stick insects with the differentiation of the defense glands. The overall innervation pattern suggests that the longitudinal gland muscles derived from dorsal longitudinal neck muscles. In sum, the innervating nerves for dorsal longitudinal muscles are conserved in stick insects, while the neuronal control system was specialized with conserved motoneurons for the persisting neck muscles, and evolutionarily novel suboesophageal and prothoracic motoneurons innervating the defense gland.


To investigate the cellular response to designed topography in vitro, we studied the adhesion, proliferation, osteogenic differentiation, and calcification of mouse preosteoblasts (MC3T3-E1) cultured on titanium (Ti) surfaces with periodic micrometer scale grooves containing nanometer scale ripples in the vertical direction fabricated by single-shot, femtosecond laser irradiation (fsTi). The surface composition and chemical state of fsTi were almost the same as those of mirror-polished Ti without femtosecond laser irradiation (mTi). Cells cultured on fsTi were highly aligned, whereas the cell proliferation rate on fsTi was less than that on mTi. Higher gene expressions of Spp1 and Bglap1 were detected in cells cultured on fsTi than those on mTi, indicating that the periodic micro/nanometer scale grooves topography promoted osteogenic differentiation and calcification. This initial activation of osteoinduction on fsTi generated calcified deposits that were thicker and larger than those on mTi and hence, osteoconductivity was promoted on fsTi. Our findings indicate that femtosecond laser irradiation is a technique with potential for controlling biomaterial-cell interfaces and, in particular, the promotion of osseointegration of Ti. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 105A: 3456-3464, 2017.


Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of vision reduction in diabetic patients. Hyperglycemia is a known instigator for the development of DR, even though the role of oxidative stress pathways in the pathogenesis of DR is established. The studies indicate that microRNAs (miRNAs) are significant to the etiology of DR; changes in miRNAs expression levels may be associated with onset and progression of DR. In addition, miRNAs have emerged as a useful disease marker due to their availability and stability in detecting the severity of DR. The relationship between miRNAs expression levels and oxidative stress pathways has been investigated in several studies. The aim of this study is the examination of function and expression levels of target miRNAs in oxidative stress pathway and pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy.


This paper presents a robust method for the conjugation of viologens to peptides using an amide coupling strategy that is compatible with standard Fmoc solid-phase peptide synthesis. Methodology is presented for monitoring the milligram scale process quantitatively by UV spectroscopy. This chemistry enables the synthesis of a broad range of asymmetric viologens in high yield at room temperature and is compatible with a wide range of functional groups, including amine, guanidinyl, thiol, carboxylic acid, phenol, and indole.


A boron carbide capsule has been designed and used for spectral-tailoring experiments at the TRIGA reactor at Washington State University. Irradiations were conducted in pulsed mode and in continuous operation for up to 4 h. A cadmium cover was used to reduce thermal heating. The neutron spectrum calculated with the Monte Carlo N-particle transport code was found to be in good agreement with reactor dosimetry measurements using the STAY'SL computer code. The neutron spectrum resembles that of a fast reactor. The design of a capsule using boron carbide fully enriched in 10B shows that it is possible to produce a neutron spectrum similar to that of 235U fission.


Disc degeneration occurs commonly in dogs. A variety of factors is thought to contribute an inappropriate disc matrix that isolate cells in the disc and lead to apoptosis. Disc herniation with radiculopathy and discogenic pain are the results of the degenerative process. The objective of this prospective study was to determine the extent of apoptosis in intact and herniated intervertebral discs of chondrodystrophic dogs and non-chondrodystrophic dogs. In addition, the nucleus pulposus (NP) was histologically compared between non-chondrodystrophic and chondrodystrophic dogs. Thoracolumbar intervertebral discs and parts of the extruded nucleus pulposus were harvested from 45 dogs. Samples were subsequently stained with haematoxylin-eosin and processed to detect cleaved caspase-3 and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. A significant greater degree of apoptosis was observed in herniated NPs of chondrodystrophic dogs compared to non- chondrodystrophic dogs with poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase and cleaved caspase- 3 detection. Within the group of chondrodystrophic dogs, dogs with an intact disc and younger than 6 years showed a significant lower incidence of apoptosis in the NP compared to the herniated NP of chondrodystrophic dogs. The extent of apoptosis in the annulus fibrosus was not different between the intact disc from chondrodystrophic and non- chondrodystrophic dogs. An age-related increase of apoptotic cells in NP and annulus fibrosus was found in the intact non-herniated intervertebral discs. Histologically, absence of notochordal cells and occurrence of chondroid metaplasia were observed in the nucleus pulposus of chondrodystrophic dogs. As a result, we found that apoptosis plays a role in disc degeneration in chondrodystrophic dogs.


By using X-ray diffraction and laboratory simulation, this paper studied the effects of long-term potassium (K) fertilization on K fixation in black soil, loess soil, and grey desert soil under different ecological conditions and cropping systems. The results showed that long-term K fertilization had greater effects on the K fixation capacity of soils with lower hydromica content. When the K application rate was 400 to 4 000 mg x kg(-1), the K fixation capacity of black soil and loess soil, whose hydromica contents were low or relatively low, decreased by 75-747 mg x kg(-1) and 16-238 mg x kg(-1), respectively, compared with no K application, while no change was observed in grey desert soil whose hydromica content was high. Long-term K application could affect the changes of soil K-bearing minerals, i.e., slowing down or holding back the transformation of hydromica into mixed-layered mica-smectite, and consequently, decreased the K fixation capacity of soil. The increase of soil slow-available K content and K+ saturation owing to the long-term K application also induced the decrease of the K fixation capacity.


Ion exchange based processes that use zeolites to remove ammonium from wastewater are relatively resilient to sharp increases in volume or concentration of ammonium beyond usual range or low temperature and could thus nicely complement biological processes. Previous batch-type experiments analysed a range of popular zeolite types to see which would show highest capacity and selectivity toward ammonium and may thus be best suited for removing ammonium from wastewater. Here, as a next step, toward determining real-world applicability, the top three zeolites from these previous batch-type experiments, namely Clinoptilolite, Mordenite and Mesolite, were compared in a column-type experiment, where synthetic ammonium solution was flowing continuously through the zeolite media. This experiment showed substantially longer cycle times with MesoLite relative to the other two zeolites. Cycle time with MesoLite ranged between 3 and 40 days at empty bed contact times (EBCT) of 1.2 minutes and 15 minutes respectively. The resultant capacities to breakthrough of 1 mg/L were 22, 25 and 47 mg/g for Clinoptilolite, Mordenite and MesoLite. Operating the MesoLite column at higher initial ammonium concentration decreased the cycle time at an EBCT of 1.2 minutes from 3672 BV when treating 5 mg/L to 255 BV when treating 30 mg/L. Based on a Thomas reaction model of second order, the maximum capacity for an EBCT of 1.2 minutes was predicted to be 56.8 mg/g. Taken together, these findings show that ammonium removal through zeolite media is feasible in a continuous flow setup at lab-scale with synthetic ammonium solution and that MesoLite compares favourably to two other options for zeolite media. This work can form the foundation for future research into improving process parameters or into applying this setup to conditions that more closely resemble those seen with real wastewater.


We present our latest research in learning deep sensorimotor policies for agile, vision-based quadrotor flight. We show methodologies for the successful transfer of such policies from simulation to the real world. In addition, we discuss the open research questions that still need to be answered to improve the agility and robustness of autonomous drones toward human-pilot performance.


Children all over the world experience exposure to trauma. Why do only some young people have significant traumatic stress symptoms in the days and weeks immediately post-trauma while others do not, and why do some youth then recover without treatment while others go on to suffer from persistent PTSD? This important question is examined in a comprehensive study by Meiser-Stedman et al., (2019). In a sample of single-event trauma exposed youth, they investigate the role cognitive processes may have in shaping early reactions and in maintaining post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) over time. For the onset of PTSS, perceived threat and feeling overwhelmed and confused during the traumatic event was associated with significant PTSS. For the maintenance of PTSS, poorly elaborated, sensory-based memories, dissociation, rumination, and negative appraisals were associated with higher PTSS. The newly revised International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies' guidelines for the prevention and treatment of PTSS found no strong evidence to recommend any of the evaluated preventive or early intervention programs. This commentary highlights how understanding different trajectories for the onset and maintenance of post-traumatic stress may inform our development of prevention and early intervention strategies. Cognitive processes seem to play an important role in the development of PTSS but these may play out differently in youth exposed to single events and youth with interpersonal trauma experiences. Knowledge on memory processing, meaning making, the role of social support and maladaptive cognitions need to be implemented in systems of trauma-informed care.


Road management systems rely on the availability of quality information to make good decisions. A lack of information on the condition of the Canadian forest industry's unpaved road network led to inappropriate management decisions. To fill this information gap the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada (FERIC) developed the Opti-Grade road management system. Opti-Grade is a low-cost tool that provides information about the road roughness and travel speed as the equipped road user's vehicle travels on the road network. This information can then be used to focus grading activities where they will have the greatest impact on the road condition for the money invested. Further, over time, a history of the behavior of the roads can be built. With this history, degradation models can quickly and easily be produced to see which segments of the road network degrade the quickest and the most frequently. Problem segments can be identified. Valuable road evaluation budgets can then be focused on those sections to determine the cause of the problem. That will allow precious rehabilitation budgets to be focused where they can have the greatest impact. Opti-Grade is currently used by a large sector of FERIC member forest companies with payback periods shorter than 4 months. FERIC continues to improve the software to manage the data from the Opti-Grade system and increase the abilities of the decision support tools in the software.


BACKGROUND
Previous studies have revealed the relationship between asthma and obesity, but the relationship with other markers of overweight and obesity has not yet been investigated.

OBJECTIVE
To establish the relationship between asthma symptoms and simple anthropometric indexes (BMI, waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)) as markers of overweight in an adult Hispanic population.

METHODS
The data were obtained from the PRIT (Prevalence of Cardiovascular Risks in General Hospital Workers) 2001 survey. The participants were workers at the Hospital General de México in Mexico City and included 135 men and 398 women aged 43.8 +/- 11.9 and 43.0 +/- 10.5, respectively. Odds ratios for asthma symptoms at different BMI, WC, and WHR cutoff points associated with excessive weight were calculated. The likelihood ratios for having asthma symptoms in participants with various cutoff values of BMI, WC, and WHR also were calculated.

RESULTS
Asthma symptoms were not related to anthropometric markers of overweight or obesity in men, while they were associated in women with WC cutoff levels of 80 and 85 cm, and BMI of 25 and 27 kg/m2. No level of WHR was related to asthma symptoms in women. In women, the likelihood ratio for asthma symptoms increased proportionally from WC levels of 73.5 cm up to 86 cm, while this risk increased significantly from BMI levels of 22 up to 29 kg/m2.

CONCLUSION
Overweight as assessed by BMI and WC (but not WHR) was related to asthma symptoms in women in the studied population.


Compared to natural images, understanding scientific figures is particularly hard for machines. However, there is a valuable source of information in scientific literature that until now has remained untapped: the correspondence between a figure and its caption. In this paper we investigate what can be learnt by looking at a large number of figures and reading their captions, and introduce a figure-caption correspondence learning task that makes use of our observations. Training visual and language networks without supervision other than pairs of unconstrained figures and captions is shown to successfully solve this task. We also show that transferring lexical and semantic knowledge from a knowledge graph significantly enriches the resulting features. Finally, we demonstrate the positive impact of such features in other tasks involving scientific text and figures, like multi-modal classification and machine comprehension for question answering, outperforming supervised baselines and ad-hoc approaches.


Hedonic models are used almost universally for modeling house prices. Recognizing the importance of location, the past decade has seen increasing effort to introduce spatial considerations into such modeling. When spatial process models are used to capture association between locations, isotropic specifications have been used almost exclusively despite the fact that they seem unlikely to be appropriate in practice. The contribution of this article is to offer a novel, flexible, and computationally tractable class of non-stationary models. We accomplish this using suitably normalized distance-weighted sums of stationary processes. The number of component processes used reflects the flexibility required to adequately explain the spatial residuals in the model. A flexible nugget (or pure error) process is also introduced and is needed to capture the nonspatial idiosyncrasies of house sale transactions. The models are fitted within a Bayesian framework requiring demanding computation but yielding full and exact inference through the posterior distributions of the model unknowns. A dataset of 656 single-family home sales in Stockton, California, provide an illustration.


The proportion of activated persulfate (PS) oxidation technology in the remediation of domestic organic contaminated sites has increased every year, and the potential corrosion risk of site reuse caused by residual oxidants and by-products has also attracted the attention of researchers. In this work, the potential corrosion degree such as the mass reduction rate and surface crack width of standard iron flakes under different conditions, including with different PS dosages and release times, was monitored quantitatively over a long period, and the corresponding corrosion risk was quantitatively assessed. The results showed that when n (Na2S2O8):n (PAHs) increased from 5:1 to 100:1, the higher the oxidizer dosage, the more severe the corrosion weight loss and surface crack width, indicating that the oxidizer dosage was positively correlated with the potential corrosion risk. In addition, the corrosion crack width of the standard iron flake had a significant positive correlation with the reaction time and a significant negative correlation with the mass change. According to the changes in the standard iron flake, the corrosion process could be divided into three stages, in which the corrosion risk from high to low followed the order of oxidant corrosion stage > oxidant and salt corrosion stage > salt and microbial corrosion stage. Therefore, the dosage of chemicals should be controlled, the molar ratio of oxidizer to contaminant should not exceed 25:1, and a natural recovery period of at least one year should be left post remediation. During the reuse of the remediation sites in the future, the potential corrosion risks should also be calculated based on the dosage and time, to avoid redevelopment and use of the restoration site in the high corrosion risk stage.


Introduction: Controlled hypotension is one of the techniques applied to several microscopic ear, nose, and throat (ENT) surgeries. However, this technique has risks and complications, which result in impaired perfusion and oxygenation of organs including the brain that could trigger the postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). Damage that occurs in brain cells can trigger the secretion of biomarker proteins in the blood, one of which is S100B which can indicate nerve damage in the intra and postoperative period. This study aimed to analyze the correlation between S100B protein level and the incidence of POCD in patients who received ENT surgeries with controlled hypotension.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among patients that underwent elective ENT surgeries at Dr. Soetomo General Academic Hospital, Surabaya, from July to August 2022. Cognitive function was assessed using Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) at 12 hours before and 2 and 24 hours after surgery. The level of S100B was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) 12 hours prior surgery and 30 minutes post-surgery.
Results: A total of 31 patients were recruited in the study, including a mean age of 31.7 years. The mean S100B levels in POCD patients pre- and postoperative were 311.97 ng/L, and 415.34 ng/L, respectively. In non-POCD patients, the mean levels of S100B pre and postoperative were 436.90 ng/L, and 444.29 ng/L, respectively. There were 3 (9.7%) patients experienced POCD. Our data suggested there was a significant difference between preoperative and postoperative S100B levels in the groups of patients with POCD (103.37ng/L) and non-POCD (7.38 ng/L) (p<0.001). Patients that experienced POCD had significantly increased S100B compared to those who did not.
Conclusion: There is a correlation between changes of S100B levels and the incidence of POCD in patients undergoing ENT surgeries with controlled hypotension.


BACKGROUND
Resistance exercise is effective in improving muscle strength and preventing muscle weakness in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Control of resistance training intensity based on perceived muscular effort is applicable to healthy individuals, yet there is no evidence of its utility for MS patients.

OBJECTIVE
To compare perception of muscular effort in MS patients to healthy controls.

METHODS
Based on their perception of muscular effort, twenty-five MS patients and twenty-eight controls adjusted static elbow extension tasks according to five levels on the OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale. Elbow extension strength and muscle activity were measured via load cell dynamometer and surface electromyography (EMG) and related to each participant's maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) strength and muscle activity. Two-way analysis of variance was used to evaluate statistical significance.

RESULTS
There were no statistically significant differences between MS patients and healthy controls, they produced similar relative torque values (F1 = 0.196; p > 0.05) and extensor muscle activities (F(2,617) = 1.556; p > 0.05) across all effort levels.

CONCLUSION
No differences were found in the perception of muscular effort in MS patients and the age-matched control group. Future studies should explore, whether rating of perceived exertion is an effective instrument to control resistance training intensity in MS patients.


The millennium bug has been a cause of concern in most sectors of the community, which has incurred considerable expenditure in an effort to avert serious consequences. It may well not be the last potentially all-pervading global threat if we do not take heed of some of the lessons it has taught us. The paper discusses the year 2000 problem from the viewpoint of business continuity. The core processing problems, hardware and software problems and how to deal with the problems, are outlined.


Deep neural network as a part of deep learning algorithm is a state-of-the-art approach to find higher level representations of input data which has been introduced to many practical and challenging learning problems successfully. The primary goal of deep learning is to use large data to help solving a given task on machine learning. We propose an methodology for image de-noising project defined by this model and conduct training a large image database to get the experimental output. The result shows the robustness and efficient our our algorithm.


Today radical nephrectomy (RN) is a gold standart of treatment localized kindney cancer (stage T1–2). The partial nephrectomy (PN) shows the same oncological outcomes as RN on this stage. However there are few artikles of efficiasy PN in kidney cancer more than 7 cm. The case report and review of literature is presented.


I show how to implement in a simple manner the comparison of alternative monetary policy rules in a two-country model of the new generation. These rules are: Full Price Stability, Taylor, Fixed and Managed Exchange Rates. I find, first, that the exchange rate dynamic is non-stationary unless some form of management is undertaken by the respective monetary authorities of the two countries. However, eliminating the excess volatility of the exchange rate does not significantly alter the overall macroeconomic volatility. Second, a floating exchange rate regime based on a Taylor-type rule seems to better approximate the full price stability benchmark, but at the cost of boosting interest rate volatility. In this respect limiting exchange rate flexibility is desirable. Finally, in all cases the model delivers positive cross-country correlation of interest rates but negative cross-country correlation of output.


Climate change, caused by the release of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere, has been recognized as one of the greatest threats of the 21st century. Share of energy consumption in India and China has also been on the raise due to sharp urbanization, population explosion, and intensive growth of IT and related business. Buildings are the dominant energy consumers in modern cities account upto 40% energy consumption. Their consumption can be largely cut back through improving efficiency, which is an effective means to lessen greenhouse gas emissions and slow down depletion of nonrenewable energy resources. There is over 50% saving potential in the building sector and thus it is considered as a potential sector to meet the challenges of global energy and climate change. Along with introduction of energy efficiency measures, more effective means are needed to induce or compel greater efforts, especially to the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. This technical paper discusses the role of energy efficiency in green buildings in Indian scenario to reduce the energy consumption and environmental degradation through Green House Gas emission (GHG). The possibility and benefits of harmonizing governmental and private-sector schemes are also discussed.


The advances in computing and information storage have provided vast amounts of data. The challenge has been to extract knowledge from this raw data that has lead to new methods and techniques such as data mining that can bridge the knowledge gap. This research aimed to assess these new data mining techniques and apply them to a soil science database to establish if meaningful relationships can be found. A large data set of Soil database is extracted from the Department of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Chemistry, S V Agricultural College, Tirupati, The database contains measurements of soil profile data from various locations of Chandragiri Mandal, Chittoor District. The research establishes whether Soils are Classified Using various data mining techniques. In addition, comparison was made between Naive bayes classification and analyse the most effective technique. The outcome of the research may have many benefits, t o agriculture, soil management and environmental.


BACKGROUND
Chronic subdural hematoma (cSDH) is a common neurosurgical condition, with symptoms ranging from headaches to coma. Operative evacuation is the treatment of choice. Subdural reaccumulation leading to reoperation is a vexing postoperative complication.

OBJECTIVE
To present a novel technique for intraoperative aspiration of pneumocephalus via a subdural drain following SDH evacuation as a method of reducing potential subdural space and promoting cerebral expansion, thereby decreasing SDH recurrence.

METHODS
In this retrospective study, 15 patients who underwent operative evacuation of cSDH between 2008 and 2015 were assessed. Six patients underwent a small craniotomy with intraoperative pneumocephalus aspiration. These patients were matched by age, gender, and anticoagulation status to 9 patients who underwent evacuation of SDH without pneumocephalus aspiration. Quantitative volumetric analysis was performed on the preoperative, postoperative, and 1-mo follow-up computed tomography scan to assess the subdural volume.

RESULTS
In the immediate postoperative period, there was no difference in the percentage of residual subdural fluid between the aspiration and control groups (0.291 vs 0.251; P = 1.00). There was a decrease in amount of pneumocephalus present when the aspiration technique was applied (0.182 vs 0.386; P = .041). At 1-mo follow-up, there was a decrease in the residual cSDH volume between the aspiration and the control groups (28.7 mL vs 60.8 mL; P = .011). The long-term evacuation rate was greater in the aspiration group (75.4% vs 51.6%; P = .015).

CONCLUSION
Intraoperative aspiration of cSDH cavity is a safe technique that may enhance cerebral expansion and reduce likelihood of cSDH recurrence.


Background: Velopharyngeal insufficiency and chronic otitis media with effusion following primary cleft palate repair can be attributed to persistent abnormalities in the levator and tensor veli palatini muscles, respectively. The purpose of this case-control study was to examine the association between otitis media with effusion requiring myringotomy tubes and the need for secondary speech surgery. Methods: Records of patients who underwent primary palatoplasty at the authors' institution from 1990 to 2006 were reviewed. Data included age at primary palatoplasty, sex, Veau classification, surgeon, number of postpalatoplasty myringotomy tube procedures, hearing loss, 22q deletion syndrome diagnosis, and fistula. The primary outcome was need for secondary speech surgery. Results: Of 249 patients meeting inclusion criteria, forty-four patients (17.7 percent) had secondary speech surgery recommended or performed. Univariate analysis revealed a significant association between Veau classification, 22q deletion syndrome diagnosis, and two or more myringotomy tube procedures with secondary speech surgery. Adjusting for multiple covariates, children requiring two or more myringotomy tubes were 2.55 times more likely to require secondary speech surgery than patients who required one or fewer myringotomy tubes procedures (95 percent CI, 1.24 to 5.21; p = 0.009). Conclusions: The authors demonstrate that chronic otitis media with effusion requiring two or more myringotomy tube procedures is associated with a significantly increased likelihood of requiring secondary speech surgery. Using otitis media with effusion as a clinical predictor for secondary velopharyngeal insufficiency could lead to early identification of at-risk patients in need of intensive speech therapy and timely secondary speech surgery. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Risk, III.


Abstract : A 1:20-scale experimental model investigation was conducted to investigate the wave transmission response of a breakwater proposed for Olcott Harbor, New York. A check of the structure's stability showed the proposed section to be conservatively stable. Therefore, an alternate plan also was investigated in an attempt to reduce construction costs for the breakwater. Based on model tests results, it was concluded that: (a) Both plans tested are stable designs for the maximum wave heights that can be expected to occur (6- to 10-sec waves at still-water levels of +4.3 and +5.1 ft low-water datum). (b) Maximum transmitted wave heights were 0.9 and 1.5 ft for Plans 1 and 1A, respectively.


Sidney's Defence of Poesy--the foundational text of English poetics--is generally taken to present a model of poetry as ideal: the poet depicts ideals of human conduct and readers are inspired to imitate them. Catherine Bates sets out to challenge this received view. Attending very closely to Sidney's text, she identifies within it a model of poetry that is markedly at variance from the one presumed, and shows Sidney's text to be feeling its way toward a quite different--indeed, a de-idealist--poetics. Following key theorists of the new economic criticism, On Not Defending Poetry shows how idealist poetics, like the idealist philosophy on which it draws, is complicit with the money form and with the specific ills that attend upon it: among them, commodification, fetishism, and the abuse of power. Against culturally approved models of poetry as profitable--as benefiting the individual and the state, as providing (in the form of intellectual, moral, and social capital) a quantifiable yield--the Defence reveals an unexpected counter-argument: one in which poetry is modelled, rather, as pure expenditure, a free gift, a net loss. Where a supposedly idealist Defence sits oddly with Sidney's literary writings--which depict human behaviour that is very far from ideal--a de-idealist Defence does not. In its radical reading of the Defence, this book thus makes a decisive intervention in the field of early modern studies, while raising larger questions about a culture determined to quantify the 'value' of the humanities and to defend the arts on those grounds alone.


From the era during which Byzantium lost its last cities in Dalmatia (after  1180), the religious position of the greek communities of those cities became  very difficult.  But the settlement of Greeks and Serbs in Dalmatia, after the conquest  of the Balkans by the Turks, contributed to the revival of the ecclesiastical life  of the orthodox population of that area. Megnificent churches are then built  which were used in common by both Greeks and Serbs. Among those churches  one can easily distinguish the following:  The church of Zadar, founded in 1548; the one on the island Hvar, erected in 1561; and the church of Sibenik, built in 1569.  Until the beginning of the 18th century the greek population of the dalmatian cities was the outnumbering one. But after the treaties of Karlovich and  Pozarevich (1699) it was the Serbian population which outnumbered the greek.  Greeks and Serbs participated together in the ecclesiastical government  of the orthodox communities in Dalmatia. The two nationalities used to present their cases to the local authorities also in unison. The Greeks regarded  the Serbs as allies in the fights against the Huns, while the Serbs thought of the  Greeks as the best supporters of their efforts to improve more and more their  ecclesiastical life.  This admirable symbiosis of Greeks and Serbs resulted in a cultural benefit for both peoples. The existing Greek books speak clearly about this fact,  as do also the numerous Ikons of the Italo-Grecian school which are found in  the orthodox churches of Dalmatia. These Ikons were painted by known Greek  painters who lived in Venice. Some of these renowned painters are: Theodoros Poulakis, Ioannis Apakas, Emmanuel and Constantine Trane and Spyridoh Rapsomanikis.  The Greek-Serbian symbiosis in Dalmatia has put its stamp on the Serbian culture of that area, a fact noticeable up to our days.


To determine the efficacy of re-irradiation of patients with head and neck carcinoma we reviewed the pertinent literature. Depending on the location and extent of the tumor, re-irradiation may be accomplished with external beam radiotherapy (RT), brachytherapy, intraoperative RT, and/or radiosurgery. The likelihood of cure is impacted by the interval between the initial course of RT and re-irradiation, whether the carcinoma is a recurrence or a second primary tumor, initial T-stage, and recurrent T-stage (rT-stage), whether the gross disease is isolated or local-regional, and histology. Patients with T1–T2 N0 second primary tumors have a relatively high likelihood of cure, whereas those with recurrent T3–T4 cancers, a short disease-free interval, and/or associated with a regional recurrence have a very low probability of cure. The likelihood of severe late complications is relatively high and is related to prior RT dose, primary site, retreatment RT dose, treatment volume, and technique. Previously irradiated patients with T1–T2 N0 carcinomas who are not surgical candidates may benefit from re-irradiation, albeit with an elevated risk of late complications. Those with advanced recurrences are unlikely to benefit from re-irradiation and should be considered for either a prospective clinical trial or for palliative chemotherapy or supportive care.