Background: A study was conducted prior to implementing a cluster randomised controlled trial (CRT) of a lethal house lure strategy in central Côte d'Ivoire and aimed to provide baseline information on malaria vectors in 40 village clusters. Methods: Human landing catches (HLC) was performed between November-December 2016, capturing mosquitoes indoor and outdoor between 18.00-08.00. Mosquitoes were processed for entomological indicators of malaria transmission (human biting rates, parity rates, sporozoite infection rates and the entomological inoculation rates (EIR)). Species composition and allelic frequencies of Kdr-w and Ace-1R mutations were also investigated within the Anopheles gambiae complex. Results: Overall, 15,632 mosquitoes were captured. Anopheles gambiae s.l. and Anopheles funestus were the two malaria vectors found during the survey period, with predominance for Anopheles gambiae s.l. (66.2%) compared to Anopheles funestus (10.3%). The mean biting rate for An. gambiae s.l. was almost 5 times higher than that for An. funestus s.l.(19.8 bites per person per night for An. gambiae s. l. vs 4.3 bites per person per night for An. funestus s. l.) and this was evident indoor and outdoor. An. funestus was more competent to transmit malaria parasites in the study area, despite relatively lower number tested for sporozoite index (1.6% (1,373) for An. gambiae vs 4.7 % (722) for An. funestus s.l.). There was no significant difference between the proportion infected outdoor and indoor for An. gambiae s.l. (1.6% vs 1.5%; OR=1.11[0.65-1.9]; P=0.676), but for An. funestus, more mosquitoes were infected outdoor (6.4%) than indoor (3.5%) (OR=1.86 [1.07-3.23]; P=0.0249). The majority of both infected vectors with malaria parasites harboured P. falciparum (90.6% for An. gambiae s. l. and 97, 8% for An. funestus s. l.). The EIR for both vectors (0.43 infected bites per night) were similar and there were no significant differences for transmission occurring outdoor and indoor for both species. Of the An. gambiae s.l. analysed, only An. gambiae (14.1%) and An. coluzzii (85.9%) were found. The allelic frequencies of Kdr and Ace-1R were higher in An. gambiae (0.97 for Kdr and 0.19 for Ace-1R) than in An. coluzzii (0.86 for Kdr and 0.10 for Ace-1R) (P<0.001).Conclusion: Despite universal coverage of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) in the area, there was an abundance of malaria vectors in the study in area in central Côte d'Ivoire, specifically highly resistant An. gambiae s.l. as well as An. funestus s.l.. The malaria sporozoite rate was higher in An. funestus s.l than An. gambiae s.l.. but EIR rates in these two species were similarly high, both indoor and outdoor. Novel tools or strategies are urgently needed to further reduce malaria transmission in this area.


A new method for extracting the post-edge background mu0 is proposed, the method of Bayesian smoothing. A further evolution of the smoothing spline method is considered as well. Both techniques are capable to take into account prior information about the peculiarities on the mu0. In addition, since the Bayesian approach works in terms of the posterior probability density functions, it contains a natural way to determine the errors of the mu0 construction, which has always been an unresolvable problem for any other method. Even with use of the prior information, which narrows the posterior probabilities, the errors of mu0 are shown to be larger than the experimental noise.


This technical report presents our 1st place solution for the Waymo Open Sim Agents Challenge (WOSAC) 2023. Our proposed MultiVerse Transformer for Agent simulation (MVTA) effectively leverages transformer-based motion prediction approaches, and is tailored for closed-loop simulation of agents. In order to produce simulations with a high degree of realism, we design novel training and sampling methods, and implement a receding horizon prediction mechanism. In addition, we introduce a variable-length history aggregation method to mitigate the compounding error that can arise during closed-loop autoregressive execution. On the WOSAC, our MVTA and its enhanced version MVTE reach a realism meta-metric of 0.5091 and 0.5168, respectively, outperforming all the other methods on the leaderboard.


The new physics sensitivity of a variety of low-energy parity-violating (PV) observables is analyzed. A comparison is made between atomic PV for a single isotope, atomic PV using isotope ratios, and PV electron-hadron and electron-electron scattering. The complementarity among these observables, as well as with high-energy processes, is emphasized. Theoretical uncertainties entering the interpretation of low-energy measurements are discussed.


Shadow puppet is the result of the manifestation of Javanese people's knowledge. Karawitan is the sound medium of puppet performance art. Karawitan functions as a shaper of the atmosphere of the shadow puppet show. Space is not only formed by physical factors, but can also be formed by non-physical factors. These non-physical factors usually form not only space, but the meaning and spirit of space are also created at the first time. It-is-important to capture the whole meaning of a space or architectural formations not only with the sense of sight, not just a matter of dimensions. This study aims to answer the question of the relationship formed between soundscape and karawitan pakeliran on the spatial concept. This research is a qualitative research with a meta-analysis strategy. Soundscape is an environmental sound in the form of scenery. Soundmark comes from the landmark, means a sound that is considered unique and is a marker for an area. The sound produced by karawitan can be said as a soundmark. If the karawitan pakeliran can be classified as soundmarks, then the atmosphere formed in the shadow puppet performance can be said to be a manifestation of soundscape.


While multiple studies have identified the general knowledge needed by protected area and conservation administrators, relatively little is known about specific knowledge needs in the area of finance, especially at the protected area and system levels. This deficiency motivated us to explore the knowledge needs of conservation professionals responsible for financing protected areas (PAs) and national protected area systems (NPASs) in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. A modified, Internet-based Delphi Study was conducted in 2007-08. A panel of experts with financial management experience at the national system and/or protected area level(s) from Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia was identified. Thirty-one protected area financial management experts agreed to participate in the Delphi process, which involved three rounds. In round one, panel members who held finance oriented positions in national, regional, or local government, in non-governmental conservation organizations, international organizations, or in private consulting enterprises and had experience in the countries studied were asked (1) to define financial funding mechanisms and (2) to identify the knowledge they perceived was needed to put such tools into practice. The panel, generated information was used to construct a composite definition of finance and financial funding. In round two, this definition was shared with the panel members and they were asked to critique it and to rank and rate 10 financial capacity building thematic areas that were also identified in round one. In the third and final round, experts were requested to identify barriers they believed would constrain protected area system administrators and unit managers from obtaining such capacities. Findings suggest differences in training needs between central office-based system level administrators and field-based protected area managers should be considered in the design of finance capacity building programs for conservation finance professionals. Barriers to implement capacity building programs not only included expected training-oriented barriers (e.g., staff lacking basic knowledge, lack of knowledgeable instructors, lack of time for professional training) but also institutional structural barriers (e.g., high rate of turnover of financial management staff, lack of commitment to increase staff competency) as well as process- and policy-oriented barriers (e.g., different methodologies to administer funds across units and lack of coordination among non-governmental and governmental institutions with respect to financial issues). Results suggest that both targeted capacity development programs and changes in institutional structures/processes are likely to be required to successfully improve financial operations and funding mechanisms for PAs and NPASs in the countries studied.


The problem of throughput maximisation in a wireless multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system using a quantised feedback, which is an appropriate model for practical systems with limited feedback capacity, is considered. Unlike the ergodic capacity that can be achieved through power control only, maximising the throughput in the block fading channels is based on appropriate rate control strategy. The optimal quantised rate control design for general MIMO systems is formulated and a gradient descent search algorithm to find the optimal solution is employed. It is seen that the proposed quantised rate control scheme with only a few bits of feedback considerably improves the throughput of a MIMO system. With the same amount of feedback overhead, the proposed quantised rate control with constant power is compared with the optimal quantised power control strategy with an optimised constant rate, and the result demonstrates the importance of rate control in throughput maximisation. The effect of quantised rate control in MIMO systems employing different automatic repeat request schemes is also investigated.


The article highlights the importance of strengthening of public systems and the need for rapid scaling up of access to testing and to appropriate therapeutics in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, to have in place robust public procurement systems for drugs and diagnostics. The paper draws lessons from the Tamil Nadu experience and validates the understanding that investing in public institutions is essential for rapid responsiveness to pandemics and other public health emergencies from both the ethical and health systems points of view.


Crowdworker online communities — operating in fora like mTurkForum and TurkerNation — are an important actor in microwork markets. Albeit central to market dynamics, how the behavior of crowdworker communities and the dynamics of online marketplaces influence each other is yet to be understood. To provide quantitative evidence of such influence, we performed an analysis on 6-years worth of mTurk market activities and community discussions in six fora. We investigated the nature of the relationships that exist between activities in fora, tasks published in mTurk, requesters for such tasks, and task completion speed. We validate -- and expand upon — results from previous work by showing that (i) there are differences between market demand and community activities that are specific to fora and task types; (ii) the temporal progression of HIT availability in the market is predictive of the upcoming amount of crowdworker discussions, with significant differences across fora and discussion categories; (iii) activities in fora can have a significant positive impact on the completion speed of tasks available in the market.


In this paper, methods of feature selection used in the spam filtering are studied, including CHI square (CHI), Expected Cross Entropy (ECE), the Weight of Evidence for Text (WET) and Information Gain (IG) and a novel modified CHI feature selection method is proposed in spam filtering. The spam filter combined Support Vector Machine (SVM) is selected to evaluate the CHI square, Expected Cross Entropy, the Weight of Evidence for Text, Information Gain and modified CHI. The experiment proved that the modified CHI could improve the precision, recall and F test measure of spam filter and the modified CHI feature selection method is effective.


The current study analysed trends in the time spent preparing and consuming food and the frequency of outsourcing (going out for dinner and take-out) in the Netherlands from 1975 to 2005. We investigated differences between trends on week and weekend days and for different socio-demographic groups. Analyses using pooled data from the Dutch Time Use Survey (N=13,421) revealed a downward trend in minutes preparing and consuming food and an increase in outsourcing. This overall downward trend could not be accounted for by controlling for structural changes (e.g. increased labour force participation). Moreover, we found that the decrease in time was stronger for days during the week than during the weekend. And we found that the trends differed by household type and sex: e.g. for food preparation there is an overall decrease, except for men with a partner; they showed an increase in time spent preparing food.


A chip-multiprocessor is one of the promising architectures that can overcome the ILP limitation, high power consumption and high heating that current processors face. On a shared memory multiprocessor, a performance improvement relies on an efficient communication and synchronization method via shared variables. The TSVM cache combines communication and synchronization with the coherence maintenance on a chip-multiprocessor. That is, the communication and synchronization via shared variables are realized by one coherence transaction through a high-speed on chip inter-connection. The TSVM cache provides several instructions that each instruction has the individual coherence maintenance scheme. The combinations of these instructions can realize the producer-consumers synchronization, mutual exclusion and barrier synchronization with communication easily and systematically. This paper describes how those instructions construct three primitives and shows effect of these primitives using a clock cycle-accurate simulator written in VHDL. The result shows that the TSVM cache can improve a performance of 9.8 times compared with a traditional cache memory, and improve a performance of 2 times compared with a conventional cache memory with synchronization mechanism.


The current research involves investigating past computer games that have been extremely popular and combine the elements of those games into a zombie killing game. This research is timely because many of these games lack a continuation or follow-ups, since often times when games are being developed with a deadline, the game developers do not have the opportunity to delve into the different aspects within the game. More than often games have missing pieces or some aspects that may shine but lack in other aspects. This research project will incorporate many user-friendly, popular features to a Pac-man style game to make it a more enjoyable game to play with several twists. The project will also incorporate a leveling feature and different upgrades for the player to use and as the level moves forward the difficulty will increase. The goal of this research is to create a game that utilizes all of these different aspects to appeal to the users. This project will also have options of a multi-platform game so that it is readily accessible on devices like the mac and mobile. The game will be developed using Python and Pygame programming language in a Windows environment. This research can give other programmers ideas to expand on in future games.


Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) has been approved for 20 years for patients with erythrodermic MF or Sezary syndrome (SS) with circulating atypical T-cells. The response rate of 54% was based on 25% improvement in erythema. ECP has not widely been used to treat patients with early stage MF. The objective of this multicenter single-arm open-label study was to determine the efficacy of UVAR ® XTSO Photopheresis System in early stage MF with measurable skin lesions. Patients were eligible at stage IA if there was with minor blood involvement (B1), or at IB- IIA MF with or without minor blood involvement (B1). Patients had to be refractory to at least one treatment for early MF such as PUVA, electron beam, oral or topical high potency steroids, topical mustragen, oral methotrexate, alpha interferon, or bexarotene. Two photopheresis treatments were given on successive days every 4 weeks for six months. There were 13 evaluable patients treated with ECP (4 males/9 females; 12 Caucasians, 1 African-American) whose median age was 61 yrs (range 46–85). Their stages were IA (n=3), IB (n=8) and IIA (n=2). Patients received a median of 12 ECP sessions (range 4–42+) over a median of 6 months (range 5–22). The overall response rate of 54% (7 of 13) required a ≥50% improvement in the baseline body surface area involved with patches or plaques. The median time to response was 6 months (range 3–8 months) and median duration of response was 6 mos (range 2–30 mos). The protocol allowed additional therapy if patients failed to improve by month 3. ECP alone was effective in four of ten patients (40%) and the other three patients had partial response with combined therapy: two with low dose bexarotene (150 mg) added at 4 or 6 mos and a third with bexarotene, interferon, and PUVA at 6 mos. Only 2 of 13 patients progressed and four had stable disease. There were no photopheresis related adverse events other than mild post-ECP erythema in one patient. One patient developed central right arterial occlusion with left eye visual defect unrelated to the ECP. In conclusion, photopheresis had a 54% response rate for all 13 patients and a 40% response rate to ECP alone in 10 early stage MF patients without adverse side effects suggesting it could be successfully used to treat early MF patients.


The purpose of this study was to know the effect of retirement planning, religiosity, positive affect and negative affect on retirement anxiety on employees of PT.Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) III Medan area. The sample size of this study was 100 people taken 20% of the total population. Data collection in this study using four scales namely retirement anxiety, retirement planning, religiosity, and  PANAS (positive negative afect Affect scale). The results of multiple regression analysis showed jointly retirement planning, religiosity, positive affect and negative affect may be a predictor to predict retirement anxiety by 31.3% to R = 0.559 (p = 0.001). Retirement planning can be a predictor retirement anxiety of 6.3% (p = 0.012), the religiosity of 6.3% (p = 0.013), positive affect by 7.2% (p = 0.007), and negative affect by 26.3% (p = 0.001)


Background: Niemann-Pick Disease (NPD) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder associated with intracellular deposition of sphingomyelin and cholesterol storage within the lysosome. There are mainly three types of NPD namely types A, B, and C. NPD type B is generally later in onset with a good prognosis for survival into adulthood and usually with no neurological abnormalities.Case Presentation: The patient, male, was born in 35 weeks of pregnancy. Failure to thrive started at around 4 months and the diagnosis of type B Niemann-Pick disease was made approximately at the age of 2 years. Currently, the patient is 10 years old and having undergone 3 years of Traditional Persian Diet, has had obvious improvement in growth and laboratory tests.Conclusion: The NPD is no specific treatment, especially in modern medicine. Considering the significant improvement in the patient's condition after an appropriate diet and traditional medicines, it seems that traditional medicinal therapies have great results in the treatment of NPD. In this study, we presented an innovation for NPD treatment by the use of a Traditional Persian diet.


The paper presents the evaluation criteria for comfort of living in small towns and their analysis at the example of the town Kotovo. It has been revealed that for development of single-industry town the effective operation of the city-forming enterprise is necessary. A comprehensive programme to improve the monotown livelihood by correct policy of the city-forming enterprise has been proposed.


BACKGROUND
Indiscriminate usage of injections and lack of safe practices during injection administration have been reported worldwide. Unnecessary and unsafe injection usage not only increases the financial burden but are also responsible for spreading blood borne diseases including HIV, HBV and HCV. To attain a better understanding of the situation of injection usage in Bangladesh, a study was conducted at six Upazilla Health Complexes (UHCs), which are primary healthcare units in Bangladesh.

METHOD
The study involved the retrospective collection of treatment sheets of 1048 in-patients at six UHCs from January 2009 to June 2009. The data was then analyzed using statistical tests.

RESULTS
Among the patients investigated, 60.11% of the patients received injections and among them the male population received more injection than the female population (males vs. females = 62.50% vs. 55.85%). Patients below 12 years of age received the highest proportion of injections and highest usage of injections was observed in the month of March. The average number of injection(s) prescribed to a patient was 2.44 incurring a prescription cost of 280.22 Taka (USD 3.92 approx.). Injections were mostly prescribed in patients who were diagnosed with physical assault and acute watery diarrhea where intravenous fluids and antibiotics were most widely prescribed. Non-compliance to recapping of used injections was very common which accounted for 22.22% needle stick injuries.

CONCLUSION
The data suggest that indiscriminate and unsafe injection practices were occurring in all UHCs. Such practices resulted in financial losses as well as compromising safety for healthcare providers and patients.


The reprogramming of somatic cells to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells is one of the major discoveries of recent years. The development and application of patient specific iPS lines could potentially revolutionize cell-based therapy, facilitating the treatment of a wide range of diseases. Despite the numerous technological advancements in the field, an in-depth mechanistical understanding of the pathways involved in reprogramming is still lacking. Several groups have recently provided a mechanistical insight into the role of the p53 tumor suppressor pathway in reprogramming. The repercussions of these findings are profound and reveal an unexpected role of p53 as a "guardian of reprogramming", ensuring genomic integrity during reprogramming at the cost of a reduced efficiency of the process. Here we analyze the latest findings in the field and discuss their relevance for future applications of iPS cell technology.


The Pfizer Healthcare Informatics team conducted a series of guided interviews with 35 Pfizer senior leaders to elicit their understanding, desires, and expectations of how Electronic Health Records (EHR) might be used in the pharmaceutical industry today and/or in the future. The interviews yielded fourteen use case categories comprising 42 specific use cases. The highest priority use cases were "Drug Safety & Surveillance," "Clinical Trial Recruitment," and "Support Regulatory Approval." Fifteen EHR companies were surveyed to assess their functionality against the specified use cases. Self-reported responses from the EHR companies were highest for "Virtual Phase IV Trials" and "Document Management for Clinical Trials." This research identifies preliminary opportunities for EHR products to provide aggregate, blinded data to address the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. However, further collaboration between the stakeholders will be necessary to ensure the full realization of the opportunities for data re-use.


A review of the evidence base of effective smoking cessation and treatment of tobacco dependence demonstrates that behavioural and pharmacological therapies for tobacco dependence can contribute substantially to greater health gains. A number of authoritative bodies have reviewed efficacious and highly cost-effective treatments. These reviews advocate that all health-care personnel and clinicians should consistently deliver smoking-cessation interventions to their patients. Evidence-based pharmacotherapy offers a variety of options for individuals. These include several forms of nicotine-replacement therapy (gum, lozenge, patch, nasal spray and oral inhaler) and bupropion. The general efficacy of the various evidence-based treatments is similar in providing an approximate doubling of the probability of long-term smoking cessation. Behavioural treatment can be effective in its own right and can also substantially increase the success of pharmacotherapy. A wide range of behavioural and pharmacological therapies has proved effective. However, no single approach should be emphasized to the exclusion of the others, because the therapies vary widely in their efficacy, acceptability, cost-effectiveness and their cost on an individual and population basis.


BACKGROUND
Cyclic neutropenia is characterized by regularly recurring episodes of neutropenia. It has been reported that pregnancy often has a mitigating effect on the symptoms. However, there have been no detailed studies on changes in the neutrophil count before, during and after pregnancy.

CASE
A 24-year-old woman with cyclic neutropenia had a successful pregnancy, during which her symptoms improved spontaneously, with decreased severity. The disease recurred soon after pregnancy, and cyclic neutropenia was inherited by the child.

CONCLUSION
Cyclic neutropenia may follow a favorable course during pregnancy, with decreased severity, but postpartum maternal and neonatal complications can occur.


In the present study, we have aimed at clarifying the CD4-dependent molecular mechanisms that regulate human memory T cell susceptibility to both Fas (CD95)-dependent and Bcl-2-dependent apoptotic pathways following antigenic challenge. To address this issue, we used an experimental system of viral and alloantigen-specific T cell lines and clones and two ligands of CD4 molecules, Leu-3a mAb and HIV gp120. We demonstrate that CD4 engagement before TCR triggering suppresses the TCR-mediated neosynthesis of the Flice-like inhibitory protein and transforms memory T cells from a CD95-resistant to a CD95-susceptible phenotype. Moreover, evidence that the apoptotic programs were executed while Fas ligand mRNA expression was inhibited led us to analyze Bcl-2-dependent pathways. The data show that the engagement of CD4 separately from TCR influences the expression of the proapoptotic protein Bax independently of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2, whereas Ag activation coordinately modulates both Bax and Bcl-2. The increased expression of Bax and the consequent dissipation of the mitochondrial transmembrane potential (ΔΨm) suggest a novel immunoregulatory function of CD4 and demonstrate that both passive cell death and activation-induced cell death are operative in CD4+ memory T cells. Furthermore, analysis of the mechanisms by which IL-2 and IL-4 cytokines exert their protective function on CD4+ T cells in the presence of soluble CD4 ligands shows that they were able to revert susceptibility to Bax-mediated but not to CD95-dependent apoptotic pathways.


The high density of vehicles that run to and fro University campus to town has become of great concern for assessment of health status of the ambient air around the Universities motor parks. Moreover, some of the University's parks are unpaved while the paved ones are old and unmaintained. Dust fall samples in parks of Universities of Ilorin, Ibadan and Kwara State University were collected for five months spanning from 1st November 2014 to 31st March, 2015 using open bucket sampler based on ASTM D 1739 of 1998 (2010). A 0.1 g of dust sample was digested with 20 ml of HNO 3 , HClO 4 and HF in ratio of (3:2:1) respectively and heavy metals (Mn, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, and Ni) were analysed using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Buck Scientific model 210 VGP). Results of heavy metal concentrations showed decrease in the following order: 1479.75, 1255.68, 241.50, 128.00, 85.25, and 9.63 mg/kg for Mn, Zn, Pb, Ni, Cu and Cd respectively for University of Ibadan. The decreased in concentrations of heavy metals obtained for University of Ilorin motor park dust-fall were found to be 1145.75, 797.75, 219.63, 133.51, 58.25 and 23.13 mg/kg for Mn, Zn, Pb, Ni, Cu and Cd respectively. For Kwara State University, decrease in the following order: 778.5, 323.88, 259.38, 101.38, 34.38, and 4.63 mg/kg for Mn, Zn, Pb, Ni, Cu and Cd respectively were obtained. Generally for the three sites used, the heavy metal concentrations decreased in the following order: Mn>Zn>Pb>Ni>Cu>Cd. This implies that dust-fall in the parks are heavily loaded with some heavy metals that are of concentrations above Romania standard threshold limit for Cd and Pb while concentration values obtained for Ni are higher than US- EPA values (75 mg/kg). The regulatory agent or management should ensure that the roads are paved and there should be intermittent wetting of the roads with water. Keywords: Dust Fall; Heavy Metals; University Motor Parks


Context: The coverage of palliative care services is inadequate in India. Data on number of people needing palliative care and disease conditions needing palliative care needs to be estimated prior to planning of service in any area. Aims: To estimate the prevalence of need of palliative care in an urban area of Puducherry. Settings and Design: Exploratory cross-sectional study conducted in two areas, Senthamarainagar and Thiruvalluvarnagar having about 500 households each in Muthialpet area in urban Puducherry. Materials and Methods: All residents were interviewed using a structured questionnaire containing sociodemographic details, information regarding chronic illness and a screening tool to identify people in need of palliative care. Statistical Analysis: Variables such as sociodemographic characteristics were expressed in percentages. The main outcome variable, the number of people in need of palliative care was expressed in the prevalence percentages. Results: A total of 3554 individuals were surveyed in 1004 households. A period prevalence of need of palliative care in this community was 6.1/1000 population. The prevalence among those aged ≥15 years was 8/1000 population. The mean age of people requiring palliative care was 62 years. The most common disease condition in need of palliative care was old age-related weakness (41%). Most of them were women (17/22) and from lower socioeconomic class (6/22). Conclusions: Around 6/1000 population was identified to be in need of palliative care. The prevalence was highest among the elderly women, low socioeconomic class, widowed, those with less education, and those suffering from age-related weakness.


We review our recent experimental results on the non-destructive quantum-state detection and spectroscopy of single trapped molecules. At the heart of our scheme, a single atomic ion is used to probe the state of a single molecular ion without destroying the molecule or even perturbing its quantum state. This method opens up perspectives for new research directions in precision spectroscopy, for the development of new frequency standards, for tests of fundamental physical concepts and for the precise study of chemical reactions and molecular collisions with full control over the molecular quantum state.


Abstract Cognitive (dys)function after ECT is often considered as a homogeneous phenomenon across patients. However, there are important inter-individual differences, with some patients experiencing residual invalidating cognitive deficits. We present the results of a study combining both group-level and individual-level analyses of cognitive function using an extensive cognitive test battery that was assessed in 73 patients at 5 time points during their ECT care pathway. Furthermore, we explored the presence of distinct subgroups of patients with a similar cognitive trajectory over time after treatment with ECT using Latent Class Growth Analysis. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


As Indonesia is a country with a huge population, access to water has become a crucial issue for Indonesia that needs specific attention. According to the Ministry of Planning (Bappenas), in 2009 only about 49.8 per cent of households in urban areas and 45.7 per cent in rural areas had access to a piped water supply. However, access to water installation decreased further in 2011. Unfortunately, as in other developing countries, Indonesian public investment in this sector has failed to keep pace with demand. From 2011 – 2014, state budgets were able to cover around only 44 per cent of the investment needed to achieve target levels, while the sub-national level total funding for water infrastructure represented only 0.04 per cent of their total budget.
This situation led the government to seek an alternative solution through the implementation of a PPP scheme. Unfortunately, progress in this context has arguably been stagnant. From 2005, there have been only two PPP projects, from twenty-five offered, that can be considered to be successfully implemented. This situation might be caused by the complexities of the water governance arrangements, which involve multiple and multi-level actors. Most empirical studies of PPP arrangements concentrate, however, on the horizontal relationship between public and private sector actors. Despite many studies mentioning the involvement of actors from each governmental level, this area of PPP arrangements has generally been neglected. By contrast, this study uses a multi-level governance approach to address the vertical interaction between various governmental levels in the adoption and implementation of PPP projects.
To address this matter, this study employs a mixed-method approach through a sequential explanatory design in which surveys, documentary analysis, case studies and focus group discussions are used for quantitative and qualitative enquiry. The surveys were aimed to understand the current situation of the implementation of the Indonesian PPP program in the water sector, while the case studies were concerned to gain a deeper understanding of PPP development in a multi-level governance situation. An email survey, with responses from 28 actors from central and sub-national governments who have experience in managing a PPP program, was supported by an online survey with 100 respondents from subnational governments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 respondents who held key positions in relation to the Indonesian PPP program. In addition, two focus group discussions were employed to road test and finalise the policy recommendations developed at the end of the study.
Findings from the surveys revealed that for sub-national governments, the role of local leader is important in promoting PPP adoption in their respected regions. Those surveys also indicated the inadequacy of local human resource capacity, relating to both the PPP concept and the associated regulations, as issues that need to be solved urgently. They also suggested that acknowledgment of local objectives by the central government when endorsing PPP projects for sub-national level adoption is essential. This study also argues that in order to be able to work in a multi-level governance situation, firstly, the project must be legitimate and sustainable. In this regard, the research suggests the importance of local leader commitment and the need to identify and empower actors that can act as local institutional entrepreneurs to mobilise the resources needed for project implementation. Furthermore, the findings also showed that effective sharing of roles between governmental tiers contributes to the success of water supply PPP projects in terms of both bankability and marketability.
However, coordination problems between government tiers have been known to contribute to significant delays in PPP project adoption and implementation. Issues surrounding institutional arrangements, lack of local leadership, inadequacies in the regulatory framework, and political intervention are identified as the four main problems to be resolved in the Indonesian water supply sector PPP program. To deal with those matters, coordination mechanisms, such as a formal method of coordination based on a hierarchy approach as well as a market-based mechanism, can be proposed. In addition, the creation of type II multi-level governance institutions was seen to be useful.
This research has made significant contributions to the existing literature on public private partnerships by extending the multi-level governance perspective, not only to the study of PPP regulations but also to their PPP adoption and implementation. The study also contributes by offering a new framework to study the development and implementation of water PPP projects based on the pragmatism approach. In practical terms, this study also provides guidance to the Indonesian central government for further enhancement of the PPP policy and strategy development in the water sector. This guidance relates to re-designing the capacity building program, streamlining the process of PPP adoption, and rolling out an incentive-sanction mechanism to support the adoption of PPP at the sub-national level. Furthermore, this study is able to inform Indonesian sub-national governments in regard to the essential matters required to pay attention to when adopting PPPs especially in the water supply sector.


As tabletop games are ported to digital versions to increase their accessibility, the expected User Experience (UX) might be degraded in the transition. This paper aims to understand how and why playing tabletop games differentiates depending on the platform. Seven tabletop games have been chosen from different genres with an official digital adaptation. Our approach has been to do a comparative analysis of both versions followed by a user study to analyze and measure the UX differences, measuring five key factors, Usability, Engagement, Social Connectivity, Aesthetics, and Enjoyment. Our results indicate that games that rely on imperfect information offer a much higher social connectivity and engagement when played around a table. Meanwhile, games relying on tile-placement offers higher usability and engagement when played digitally due to the assistance provided by the game. However, the physical versions got, in general, a higher rating than the digital versions in all key factors except slightly in the usability. Physical versions are the preferred options, but the digital versions' benefits, such as accessibility and in-game assistance, makes them relevant for further analysis.


Chapter 1: Introduction About This Book Chapter 2: Education Traditional Education Paths into Embedded Engineering Getting into the Field Without Traditional Education How Much Electronics Must I Learn? Educational Traps, Dead-Ends and Scams to Avoid Practical Skills You'll Want To Acquire Chapter 3: Teaching Yourself, Bottom-Up (Small Embedded Systems) Target Audience 8051 Atmel AVR Texas Instruments MSP430 C vs. Assembly Language in Small Embedded Systems Chapter 4: Teaching Yourself, Top-Down (Large Embedded Systems) Target Audience Embedded x86 Solutions ARM PowerPC Linux eCos Chapter 5: Working For Yourself Is Self-Employment for You? Risks and Benefits From Moonlighting to Fulltime Consultant Status Bookkeeping, Taxes and Workload Ways to Find Customers Iterative Projects: Never-Ending Horror? Pricing Your Services Appropriately Establishing Your Own Working Best Practices Business Has No Friends: The Importance of Contracts Chapter 6: Working in a Small Company Analyze your Goals: Benefits and Downsides of the Small Company How to Get the Job Responsibilities and Stresses in a Small Company Personal Dynamics in Small Companies Managing Tightly-Limited Resources Task Breakdown: A Typical Week Chapter 7: Working in a Larger Company Analyze your Goals: Benefits and Downsides of the Large Company How to Get the Job Globalization: Outsourcing and Temporary Worker Visas Procedures and You: Keeping Your Head Above Water Task Breakdown: A Typical Week


The task of the supervisory controller is to stabilize the systems states within a bounded region defined by designer. In this paper, a discrete approach to the solution of the stable fuzzy control system is presented. It is proved that the fuzzy control system equipped with the discrete supervisory controller is globally stable in the Lyapunov sense. Finally, a fuzzy controller with a discrete supervisory controller is applied to the balance control system, both in simulations and in the real-time implementation.


The long-distance migrations of commercial fish in the arctic seas may lead to the biological transfer of artificial radionuclides from highly contaminated local zones in the arctic seas to remote non-contaminated areas. Based on experimental data the dynamics of 137 Cs bioaccumulation in fish from the Barents Sea (arcto-norwegian cod) was analysed. It was demonstrated that the 137 Cs concentration factors for arctic fish were not constant, but gradually changed from 28 ± 5 in 1979 up to 182 ± 48 in 1992 with a slow decrease in subsequent years. The conclusion reached was that the radionuclide 'concentration factor' approach to the prediction of arctic fish contamination was not very applicable. An original calculation method is proposed for modelling the dynamics of radioactive contamination of fish, with consideration of fish feeding behaviour, growth and seasonal migrations. Results of the computer simulation of the fish contamination in the Barents Sea after a hypothetical accidental release of 1 TBq of 137 Cs from the radioactive waste dumping site are presented.


In this study, La0.4Sr0.6CoO3-delta (LSC) oxide was synthesized via an EDTA-citrate complexing process and its application as a mixed-conducting ceramic membrane for oxygen separation was systematically investigated. The phase structure of the powder and microstructure of the membrane were characterized by XRD and SEM, respectively. The optimum condition for membrane sintering was developed based on SEM and four-probe DC electrical conductivity characterizations. The oxygen permeation fluxes at various temperatures and oxygen partial pressure gradients were measured by gas chromatography method. Fundamental equations of oxygen permeation and transport resistance through mixed conducting membrane were developed. The oxygen bulk diffusion coefficient (D-v) and surface exchange coefficient (K-ex) for LSC membrane were derived by model regression. The importance of surface exchange kinetics at each side of the membrane on oxygen permeation flux under different oxygen partial pressure gradients and temperatures were quantitatively distinguished from the oxygen bulk diffusion. The maximum oxygen flux achieved based on 1.6-mm-thick La0.4Sr0.6CoO3-delta, membrane was similar to 4.0 x 10(-7) Mol cm(-2) s(-1) at 950 degrees C. However, calculation results show theoretical oxygen fluxes as high as 2.98 x 10(-5) Mol cm(-2) s(-1) through a 5-mu m-thick LSC membrane with ideal surface modification when, operating at 950 degrees C for air separation.


The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket covers every aspect of a sport in which Australians have long excelled and which at various times has inspired and united the nation. No other book on Australian cricket offers such a combination of historical and statistical information and analytical commentary. For the first time cricket followers around the world will be able to access facts, statistics, biography and commentary within a single book. The Companion examines the origins and development of cricket in this country, the great personalities who have dominated the sport in the eyes of the world, and its important role in shaping sporting tradition and culture in Australia. Produced in association with the Australian Society for Sports History, the Companion is edited by six specialists with long and varied connections with the sport. It includes contributions by numerous writers around Australia, including a dozen celebrity authors writing on aspects of the sport with which they are associated. There are entries on every cricketer who has represented Australia at Test level, male and female, as well as notable Shield players. These biographical entries also include full statistical data updated to 1995/96. Fifteen legendary cricketers - from Trumper and Bradman to Benaud and the Chappells - are considered in full-length essays of 1000 words or more. In addition, there are articles on great commentators (e.g. Alan McGilvray, Norman May), barrackers ('Yabba'), officials and entrepreneurs, coaches, politicians, umpires, scorers, writers and equipment makers. No-one who has made a significant contribution to Australian cricket is ignored. However, the Companion is not just a biographical work. Australia's seven Test grounds all rate individual entries, along with 30 other venues. Cricket being a highly institutionalised and traditional sport, space is devoted to the history and achievements of 50 major cricket clubs and institutions. Interspersed throughout the text are fifty entries covering bizarre, humorous and controversial events over the past 150 years. These include Dennis Lillee's aluminium bat affair, Terry Alderman's fateful encounter with an English fan in Perth, marathon innings and unforgettable hat-tricks, Aboriginal tours in the nineteenth century and Bradman's Invincibles almost a century later, tied Tests and stuffed swallow. Fondly recalled by cricket followers, these 'mood pieces' form one of the most entertaining features of an always accessible and readable Companion. The core of the Companion is its extended critical and analytical coverage of Australian cricket. Approximately one-third of the Companion is devoted to essay-length articles on major aspects of the sport and on our cricketing relations with every other cricket-playing country. Some of these thematic essays are listed below: The Ashes All-rounders Barrackers Bodyline Bradman Costume Country Week Crowds Ethnicity Film Gambling Humour Laws of Cricket Media Radio Rebel tours Sheffield Shield Sponsorship Television Umpires and umpiring Violence Women Readers of books on cricket insist on the most accurate and extensive statistical information. Considerable space is devoted in ours to individuals' statistics at the Test and state levels - matches played and captained, innings, not out, highest scores, total runs, centuries, batting averages, wickets, runs conceded, five wicket performances, bowling averages. Limited overs cricket is covered in full - both international and domestic. There is additional information about crowds, benefit matches, the World Cup, hat-tricks, length of overs, and throwing (33 recorded instances to date). For greater ease of access, most of this information accompanies individual entries on cricketers, but a statistical appendix will include all the facts about leading run scorers and wicket takers, leading wicket keepers and fielders, partnership records, highest and lowest innings totals, youngest and oldest players, highest individual innings, and tied matches. Finally, the Companion features 150 superb photographs of famous players, venues and events, plus an exhaustive bibliography.


Young intact (18 days old) and adult castrated males of CBA and C3H/Di mice were used for measuring the estrogenicity on the basis of growth response of mammary epithelial structures and the weight of seminal vesicles. It was demonstrated that heavier young males had disproportionally heavier seminal vesicles (sex steroid-responsive organs) than small animals at day 33 of age (that is on the day when experimental animals were killed and organs dissected). However, the weight of the spleen (sex steroid-nonresponsive organ) was proportionally related to body weight. To minimize variability in hormone responsiveness, all animals were weighed at the age of 18 days and only males weighing 8±1 g were used for hormone treatment. The percentage area of mammary fat pad occupied by mammary epithelial structures was progressively increased by 17β estradiol from dose 0.01 μg.d. The maximum effective dose of estradiol was 0.1 μg.d and dose 10 μg.d of estradiol decreased mammary size to control level (inverted-U-shaped dose-response curve). Progesterone alone stimulated mammary growth only in high doses (500 μg.d and higher) in young intact males, but had no effect on mammary growth in adult castrated animals. In young intact males, estradiol alone, or progesterone alone decreased the weight of seminal vesicles. No such inhibitory effect of these hormones was noted in adult castrated males. Progesterone acted synergistically with estradiol to produce higher mammary growth compared to that in males treated with estradiol alone. In the presence of progesterone seminal vesicles weight was decreased by estradiol given in such low doses as 0.001 μg.d of estradiol, which is 10 times lower than that effective in animals treated with estradiol alone. On the other hand, in the adult castrated males a combination of estradiol plus progesterone stimulated seminal vesicles weight. The effects of a combination of estradiol plus progesterone in the mammary gland were mimicked by norethindrone acetate (a synthetic steroid exhibiting progestantial and estrogenic activities) and inhibited by both testosterone and cortisol. Estradiol, progesterone, norethindrone acetate, or testosterone did not affect spleen weight and size of mammary lymph nodes. However, cortisol significantly decreased not only spleen weights but also size of mammary lymph nodes. These results show that simultaneous evaluation of mammary gland growth, seminal vesicles, and the spleen weight in the same animal is suitable for bioassay of estrogenicity as well as for detection of androgenic and antiandrogenic activities.


Nowadays, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role in transforming and supporting the learning process. Thus, the need to understand how the investment in educational technology can impact teaching and learning practices becomes apparent. According to the studies, evidence shows that some school subjects benefit from ICT more than others. This study aimed to explore the impact of ICT use in mathematics and science classes by investigating the effect of such integration on grade-three students' attitudes towards ICT use, and their achievement in mathematics and science. The participants of this study comprised of 41 grade-three students from a private school in Dubai. Students were divided into two groups; an experimental group where an ICT tool was used for instruction, and a control group where the teacher was the source of instruction. A mixedmethod approach was used to collect data via students' attitudes questionnaire, preand postachievement tests, and classroom observations. Data analysis of attitudes questionnaire has revealed that students have positive attitudes towards the use of ICT in the computer lab in both mathematics and science. However, students were found to enjoy the science class more than mathematics when using ICT. The analysis of preand postachievement tests revealed that the use of ICT increased students' achievement scores in both subjects. But when compared to the traditional method of teaching, this impact was not considered statistically significant. When comparing students' progress in mathematics and science when using ICT, science was found to benefit from ICT more than mathematics. The findings of the observation reflected students' confusion at the beginning of the class and their need for clear instructions. Additionally, students needed the teacher's help in some parts of the lessons, especially in mathematics, indicating that the teacher should stay central of the education process. These findings imply that in order to best benefit from ICT in classroom, pedagogies as well as CAI design should be further investigated.


The bandwidth per unit power of an electro-optic material is inversely proportional to its dielectric constant. In order for a transition to occur, applications requirements for bandwidth will have to become more extreme than they are now, and organic electro-optic materials will have to meet some daunting thermal stability criteria. Here we describe the criteria that we have already met, and how we intend to meet the rest. An electro-optic polymer consists of a dye (chromophore) with a large value of the molecular hyperpolarizability P dispersed in a polymer host and aligned (poled) by an external electric field at a temperature above the host's glass transition temperature (Tp).


This paper studies the effect of natural disasters on international trade. The panel dataset of natural disaster number and international trade volume in 49 countries from 1990-2010 were used in this study. Four types of natural disasters of interest are Climatological disasters, Geophysical disasters, Meteorological disasters and Hydrological disasters. Only Hydrological disasters are found to be positively associated with the Export and Import volume over time. An important determinant of the impact of natural disasters on international trade is the level of income of the country. Natural disasters could encourage Human capital accumulation, although no association is found with physical capital counterpart.


Abstract
 The antelope jackrabbit, Lepus alleni occurs from south-central Arizona, southward to northern Nayarit, Mexico. In Arizona and the northern part of Sonora the species is sympatric with Lepus californicus. Lepus alleni belongs to the white-sided jackrabbit group of the genus, which separated from a common ancestor to Lepus californicus ∼1.2 MYBP. Genetic evidence indicates that this white-sided jackrabbit group separated into at least three species during the Pleistocene, while L. californicus expanded its range. We contend that L. alleni is a tropic-subtropic species restricted to remnant savannas and those more mesic portions of the Sonoran Desert where summer precipitation and humidity are adequate, and to areas of maritime dew lacking L. californicus. Not only is L. californicus better adapted to aridity, this species is also able to tolerate relatively cold temperatures. L. alleni is confined to habitats having mean annual temperatures between 20°C and 60°C, and goes into hypothermia when body temperatures drop to 28°C. The adaptive advantages of the antelope jackrabbit are its larger size (553–670 mm) allowing for greater heat retention, mobility, feeding on taller vegetation, and ability to peer over taller cover. These morphological and physiological adaptations of L. alleni to climatic conditions and environmental changes are closely related to its evolutionary history. This has restricted this species to habitats with moderate environmental characteristics.


Using online surveys for research purposes appears to have gained international recognition as a convenient and cost-effective data collection method. The problem is that the extant literature documenting the feasibility of this method in an education research context seems to be deficient. The question that emerges is: 'How feasible are Internet-based online surveys used as data collection instruments for educational research?' In the hope of expanding the scholarship, this article reflects critically on the successes and challenges encountered during the planning, design and activation phases of an online survey. The survey was used to collect data for a large-scale exploratory study with school governance and leadership as its overarching theme. Despite implementation of salient methodological considerations, the relatively low response rate alerts educational researchers to use online surveys as data collection instruments circumspectly.


The compartmental [1+1] macrocycle H3L, obtained by self-condensation of the formyl precursor 3,3′-(3,6-dioxaoctane-1,8-diyldioxy)bis(2-hydroxybenzaldehyde) with the amine precursor N,N-bis(2-aminoethyl)-2-hydroxybenzylamine, contains one inner ON3O2 Schiff base and one outer O2O4 crown-like chamber. According to the experimental conditions it forms, by a template process, the stable mononuclear complexes Ln(H3L)(Cl)2(CH3COO)·nS·mHCl or [Ln(L)]·nS (Ln = La, Lu, Y, Yb, Er, Dy, Tb, Gd, Eu, Ce) with the lanthanide(III) ion encapsulated in the crown-ether-like and in the Schiff base site. The mononuclear complexes Ln(H3L)(Cl)2(CH3COO)·nS·mHCl, by further complexation with a different lanthanide(III) ion, give rise to the related heterodinuclear complexes [LnLn′(L)(Cl)2(CH3COO)]·nS while the homodinuclear and the heterodinuclear complexes [Ln2(L)](Cl)3·nH2O and [LnLn′(L)](Cl)3·nS could be prepared by a template reaction using the appropriate molar ratio of reactants. Their properties have been studied by using SEM-EDS microscopy, IR and NMR spectroscopy and their compositions confirmed by thermal and ESI-Mass spectrometric analyses. In the heterodinuclear complexes, the site occupancy of the different lanthanide(III) ions was determined by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy in CD3OD or (CD3)2SO – it was found that heterodinuclear complexation occurs in methanol with the smaller lanthanide(III) ion mainly coordinating to the Schiff base site and the larger lanthanide(III) ion to the crown site whereas, in dimethyl sulfoxide, demetalation of the weaker coordinated lanthanide(III) ion into the crown ether chamber occurs with the subsequent formation of mononuclear species in solution. The thermal decomposition of the heterodinuclear complexes forms the related mixed oxides, the stoichiometries and properties of which were determined by SEM-EDS microscopy and X-ray powder diffraction studies (XRD). (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009)


This paper presents the PID controlling direct current (DC) to the direct current boost converter feds DC motor which has a 3.68 kW and 240 V of DC voltage input on its characteristics. What is first formed is the boost converter mathematical model at the design stage. Secondly, a mathematical model of the DC motor is created so that the boost converter with the machine can be established and modeled at the Matlab Simulink. The PID controller is considered for arranging a pulse width modulation for a boost converter switch because the needed voltage is provided for a DC motor. After that, the PID controlling direct current (DC) to a direct current boost converter running the DC motor is implemented at the Matlab Simulink. In addition to that, the only constant source running the DC motor is simulated at the Matlab Simulink. The DC motor operated by the PID controlling converter that has a low input voltage is compared to the DC motor operated by the high constant DC voltage. A low voltage input converter controlling the DC motor has a high performance according to the high constant DC source running the DC motor.


Introduction: In the absence of an HIV vaccine or cure, antiretroviral (ARV)-based prevention strategies are being investigated to reduce HIV incidence. These prevention strategies depend on achieving effective drug concentrations at the site of HIV exposure, which is most commonly the mucosal tissue of the lower gastrointestinal tract and the female genital tract. Areas covered: This article collates all known data regarding drug exposure in these vulnerable mucosal tissues and reviews important mechanisms of ARV drug distribution. Research papers and abstracts describing ARV pharmacokinetics (PK) in the female genital tract and lower gastrointestinal mucosal tissues available in MEDLINE® or presented at scientific conferences prior to December 2014 are reviewed in detail. Important influences on ARV mucosal tissue distribution, including protein binding, active drug transport and endogenous hormones are also reviewed. Expert opinion: ARVs exhibit highly variable PK in mucosal tissues. In general, ARV exposure is higher in the lower gastrointestinal tract compared with the female genital tract, but concentrations required for protective efficacy are largely unknown. The expected site of HIV exposure represents an important consideration when designing and optimizing ARV-based prevention strategies.


This paper concerns tourist narratives, a type of autobiographical narrative condensed by the temporal and spatial constraints of tourism experience, as a place-making tool. While much attention has been paid to the importance of metanarratives both in the construction of tourism sites and in the self-identity process, the role of personal narratives for bridging this divide has been underexplored. As episodes of personal narratives, tourist moments are both socially and semiotically constructed. These narratives are at the nexus of spatial and temporal experience as tourists use multisensory experience, material objects, and landscape cues to connect memories with contemporary events and metanarratives to personal history. Narratives, however, are a construction; as they are (re)interpreted and (re)told events change in terms of their significance. As tourism experiences are incorporated into one's autobiographical narrative, the tourism space takes on new meanings and through this incorporation it becomes place. This process is examined via tourist narratives of Spring Mill Pioneer Village. Collected during survey work at the site, these narratives illuminate the deeper significance of place more than survey data alone could have revealed. By teaming these two data sets, the importance of the social, semiotic, and sensory to the tourist experience, as well as their creation of place, is brought to the fore.


Although the Lewis acidic extra-framework aluminum (EFAL) species usually play decisive roles in improving the thermal stabilities, acidity and catalytic performances of industrialized zeolitic catalysts, the structure of these important EFAL clusters has long been a subject of intense debate, and their characterization remains a challenging task. Particularly, the more stable and even more catalytic active multinuclear EFAL clusters have never been experimentally observed owing to the nearly indistinguishable physicochemical properties of mononuclear and multinuclear EFAL species detected by conventional techniques. Herein, by invoking advanced two-dimensional (2D) solid-state 31P NMR spectroscopy in conjunction with a novel probe molecule, namely 1,2-bis(dimethylphosphine) ethane (DMPE), we demonstrated for the first time that the presence of multinuclear EFAL species in dealuminated zeolites. Furthermore, based on the comprehensive spatial interactions information from 2D 31P-31P homonuclear correlation NMR experiments, the evolution and transformation mechanisms of various acidic sites during the dealumination treatment of zeolites have also been clarified.


Increased sensitivity and specificity of immunohistochemical (IHC) detection of HER2 expression is crucial as the role of Trastuzumab have expanded in the treatment of HER2 positive non-breast cancer patients such as gastric cancer patients. Non-specific nuclear and cytoplasmic staining of the HER2 antibody clone 4B5 has been reported by other labs. In this study, we evaluated the specificity of HER2 clone 4B5 and a new HER2 antibody clone UMAB36 using a suite of methods including protein lysate arrays, western blots, FISH and IHC correlation screens on 129 breast and 158 colon cancer cases for HER2 expression. The protein lysate array and western results revealed that clone 4B5 recognizes three proteins: HER2, HER4, and ZSCAN18, a nuclear transcription protein. In comparison, clone UMAB36 recognized only HER2 protein in the same protein lysate array and western screen as clone 4B5. False negative results, based on correlation of IHC with FISH HER2 positives, were generated using clone 4B5 in 1 breast and 5 gastric of the total 287 cancer cases screened. Comparatively, no false negative results were observed using clone UMAB36 in which there was a 100% correlation between IHC and FISH screen. In this study, areas of normal gastric tissue often stained positive by HER2 clone 4B5, so we performed further analysis of 470 normal gastric cases using Ventana9s BenchMark instrument. The results show that 278 normal gastric cases had positive stain with clone 4B5 compared to 3 cases with clone UMAB36. The high background by clone 4B5 may be due HER4 being upregulated in adjacent normal gastric tissue. Our results indicate clone UMAB36 has higher specificity and sensitivity than clone 4B5 in screening gastric tumors. Citation Format: Lixin Zhou, Kehu Yuan, Fangfang Ren, Lili Ki, Min Zhou, Wei Fu, Xiaozheng Huang, Rachel M. Gonzalez, Youmin Shu, Yi Shen, Guangli Wang, Donghui Ma, Wei-Wu He, Jian Chen. A screen of breast and colon cancers with HER2 antibody clone UMAB36 does not exhibit the cross-reactivity of clone 4B5 with HER4 protein. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3921.


418 We have shown that soy isoflavones act as potent radiosensitizers of prostate cancer (PCa). Pre-treatment with soy isoflavones enhanced cell killing of PC-3 human PCa cells by radiation in vitro and in vivo in an orthotopic PC-3/nude mouse model leading to more effective prostate tumor growth inhibition than each modality alone. We found that soy isoflavones inhibit the radiation-induced DNA binding activity of the transcription factor NF-κB and apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) endonuclease 1/redox factor-1 (APE1/Ref-1) expression, two major signaling molecules involved in cell survival signaling pathways. In addition to its role as a DNA repair enzyme, APE1/Ref-1 also functions as a redox activator of multiple cellular transcription factors, including NF-κB and HIF-1α. APE1/Ref-1, NF-κB and HIF-1α are upregulated by radiation and are all implicated in radioresistance of cancer cells. Initial studies in the orthotopic PC-3 tumor model showed that prostate tumors treated with radiation express HIF-1α but this expression is reduced following combined treatment with soy and radiation. Based on these findings, we explored the effect of soy isoflavones on HIF-1α and its upstream signaling molecules Src and Stat-3. We also tested whether alterations of the Src/Stat-3/HIF-1α signaling pathway by soy is involved in radiosensitization of PCa. PC-3 cells were pre-treated with soy isoflavones in vitro, then irradiated and processed for protein extraction to test for signaling molecule expression or NF-κB and HIF-1α DNA binding activity by western blot analysis and EMSA. We found that radiation induced phosphorylation of Src and Stat-3 leading to induction of HIF-1α whereas soy isoflavones did not activate this pathway. Furthermore, we demonstrated that activation of the Src/Stat-3/HIF-1α signaling pathway by radiation was inhibited by pre-treatment with soy isoflavones. These data correlated with decreased expression of APE1/Ref-1 and decreased DNA binding activity of NF-κB and HIF-1α resulting in increased cell killing by combined soy isoflavones and radiation treatment. Our studies suggest that soy isoflavones alter the Src signaling pathway and could enhance radiosensitivity of PCa cells by inhibiting radiation-induced HIF-1α expression and activity. Moreover soy isoflavones inhibition of expression of APE1/Ref-1 could lead to decreased redox activity of NF-κB and HIF-1α affecting their DNA binding activity, as demonstrated in our studies. Because both transcription factors are involved in transcription of genes essential for tumor growth, angiogenesis and invasion and are upregulated in response to radiation, soy isoflavones inhibition of these cell survival pathways could potentially radiosensitize cancer cells and increase cell killing. This novel approach using safe dietary agents to enhance the efficacy of radiotherapy is relevant for the design of new clinical strategies for prostate cancer.


Hyperprolactinemia, or elevated levels of prolactin in blood, is a normal physiologic post-partum response in lactating women. Non-lactating women with hyperprolactinemia often present during the reproductive years since they may have amenorrhea, galactorrhea, or both. Hypersecretion of prolactin is most commonly due to pituitary adenomas. Women with hyperprolactinemic amenorrhea are often quite anxious, depressed and hostile. It has been hypothesized that these psychological symptoms might antecede the onset of hyperprolactinemia and that hyperprolactinemia may be associated with early developmental problems and may be psychogenic in origin. Twenty patients with hyperprolactinemic amenorrhea and twenty-one normoprolactinemic patients with amenorrhea had an interview covering psychiatric history in order to establish whether they had ever met DSM-III criteria for functional nocturnal enuresis at one time during their childhood. While seven out of twenty (35%) patients with hyperprolactinemic amenorrhea were found to have had functional enuresis during their childhood, only two out of twenty-one (9.5%) normoprolactinemic amenorrheic women reported having had functional enuresis. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (chi-squared: 3.88; p < 0.05). We postulate that early stress and developmental problems may present in children as psychological distress and functional enuresis and in women as psychological symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression) and hyperprolactinemic amenorrhea.


Cell transfer is applicable to broken slides and the preparation of multiple slides from a single smear on limited cytological material. We clarified the effectiveness of cell transfer by different mounting media and used resulting preparations to conduct immunocytochemical staining. Our results indicate that temperature and time in softening were affected by the properties (viscosity and xylene components) of mounting media. Cellular preservation and reactivity of most antigens are maintained following transfer. Cytological materials prepared by cell transfer are therefore suitable for immunocytochemical study.


During execution, when two or more names exist for the same location at some program point, we call them aliases. In a language which allows arbitrary pointers, the problem of determining aliases at a program point is P-space-hard [Lan92]. We present an algorithm for the Conditional May Alias problem, which can be used to safely approximate Interprocedural May Alias in the presence of pointers. This algorithm is as precise as possible in the worst case and has been implemented in a prototype analysis tool for C programs. Preliminary speed and precision results are presented.


We elaborate the two-component Douglas-Kroll reduction of the Dirac-Kohn-Sham problem of relativistic density-functional theory as introduced by Matveev and Rosch [J. Chem. Phys. 118, 3997 (2003)]. That method retains corrections to the Coulomb self-interaction (or Hartree) term of the energy functional that are due to the picture change. Using analytic expressions for the matrix elements, one is able to abandon the resolution of the identity approach for a crucial step of the relativistic transformation. Thus, a major source of uncertainties of the method is eliminated because basis sets no longer have to be extended by functions of higher angular momentum, previously required to ensure kinetic balance. This approach also relies on the electron charge-density fitting scheme via an auxiliary basis set. An efficient approximate implementation results if one restricts the relativistic transformation to the spherically symmetric atom-centered auxiliary functions. It provides accurate results while simplifying greatly the expressions for the matrix elements of the relativistically transformed operators and significantly reducing the computational effort. We demonstrate the performance of the method for the fine structure of one-electron levels of the Hg atom, the g-tensor shifts of NO2, and the properties of the diatomic molecules Bi2, Pb2, PbO, and TlH.


In a single blind trial, 16 in‐patients with psoriasis were treated with short contact dithranol in stiff Lassar's paste and in a stiff emulsifying ointment base of equivalent stiffness. The preparations were equally effective in clearing psoriasis and well tolerated. Perilesional treatment burns, reported with soft ointments, were not seen with the stiff emulsifying ointment preparation. Furthermore, unlike the paste, excess stiff emulsifying ointment can be removed by simply wiping with a moistened cloth, thus greatly facilitating home management of psoriasis.


The spread of network viruses has posed a serious threat to the security of the network; therefore, it is necessary to detect and defend them effectively. This paper used debugging application programming interface (API) technology to obtain the features of API calls as viruses, filtered API calls according to information entropy, and finally used the support vector machine (SVM) model for virus detection. The experimental results showed that when the number of API was 1200, the algorithm had the best virus detection performance, with an average true positive rate (TPR) of 95.2%, a false positive rate (FPR) of 3.31%, and an overall accuracy of 95.42%; compared with the C4.5 algorithm, the K‐means algorithm, and the Naive Bayes algorithm, the SVM algorithm had the best performance. The results show that the proposed method is effective in virus detection and defense and can be further promoted and applied in practice.


This research uses annual time series data on CPI in Canada from 1960 to 2017, to model and forecast CPI using the Box – Jenkins ARIMA technique. Diagnostic tests indicate that the C series is I (1). The study presents the ARIMA (1, 1, 1) model for predicting CPI in Canada. The diagnostic tests further show that the presented parsimonious model is stable. The results of the study apparently show that CPI in Canada is likely to continue on a sharp upwards trajectory in the next decade. The study encourages policy makers to make use of tight monetary and fiscal policy measures in order to control inflation in Canada.


Background Proadrenomedullin (proADM) has been shown to be a good predictor for mortality in stable state. This study aims to provide an external validation of earlier observed cutoff values used by Zuur-Telgen et al. and Stolz.et al. in stable state and at hospitalization for an AECOPD. Methods From the COMIC study we included respectively 490 and 101 COPD patients with a blood sample obtained in stable state and at hospitalization for an AECOPD. Time to death was compared between patients with proADM above or below the median of 0.71 and 0.75 nmol/L for stable state or 0.79 and 0.84 nmol/l for AECOPD. The predictive value of proADM for survival was determined by calculating the C statistic. Risk ratios were corrected for gender, age, BMI, heart failure and GOLD stage. Results Patients above the cut-off of 0.75 nmol/l had a 2 fold higher risk of dying than patient below this cut-off (95% CI: 1.20 – 3.41). The cut-off of 0.71 nmol/l showed only a borderline significant higher risk of 1.67 (95% CI: 0.98 – 2.85). The Odds Ratio corrected for one year mortality was 3.15 (95% CI 1.15 – 8.64) and 3.70 (95% CI 1.18 – 11.6) in patients with proADM levels above the cut-off of 0.75 and 0.71 nmol/l measured in stable state respectively, compared to patients with low levels (table 2). ProADM levels in samples at hospitalization for an AECOPD were not predictive for mortality in this validation cohort. Conclusions ProADM shows to be a powerful predictor for mortality in stable state. The following step will be the comparison with other multi-component indices such as the BODE and ADO. Furthermore, proADM could be used for risk stratification in controlled trials to optimize therapy for survival prolonging.


Prevention and management of childhood overweight and obesity is a health priority for governments and communities throughout the developed world. A conceptual model, Research around Practice in Childhood Obesity (RAPICO), has been developed to guide capacity building in a coordinated 'bench to fieldwork' initiative to address this public health problem. Translation of research findings into sustainable responses with optimal fit requires consideration of context-specific relevance, cost-effectiveness, feasibility and levels of available support. The RAPICO model uses program theory to describe a framework for progressing practitioner–community–research partnerships to address low, medium and high levels of risk for childhood overweight and obesity within community settings. A case study describing the development of a logic model to inform risk-linked responses to childhood overweight and obesity is presented for the Ipswich community in south-east Queensland.


Most cyanobacteria produce extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) that fulfill different biological roles depending on the strain/environmental conditions. The interest in the cyanobacterial EPS synthesis/export pathways has been increasing, not only to optimize EPS production but also to efficiently redirect carbon flux toward the production of other compounds, allowing the implementation of industrial systems based on cyanobacterial cell factories. ABSTRACT Many cyanobacteria produce extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), composed mainly of heteropolysaccharides, that play a variety of physiological roles, being crucial for cell protection, motility, and biofilm formation. However, due to their complexity, the EPS biosynthetic pathways as well as their assembly and export mechanisms are still far from being fully understood. Here, we show that the absence of a putative EPS-related protein, KpsM (Slr0977), has a pleiotropic effect on Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 physiology, with a strong impact on the export of EPS and carbon fluxes. The kpsM mutant exhibits a significant reduction of released polysaccharides and a smaller decrease of capsular polysaccharides, but it accumulates more polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) than the wild type. In addition, this strain shows a light/cell density-dependent clumping phenotype and exhibits an altered protein secretion capacity. Furthermore, the most important structural component of pili, the protein PilA, was found to have a modified glycosylation pattern in the mutant compared to the wild type. Proteomic and transcriptomic analyses revealed significant changes in the mechanisms of energy production and conversion, namely, photosynthesis, oxidative phosphorylation, and carbon metabolism, in response to the inactivation of slr0977. Overall, this work shows for the first time that cells with impaired EPS secretion undergo transcriptomic and proteomic adjustments, highlighting the importance of EPS as a major carbon sink in cyanobacteria. The accumulation of PHB in cells of the mutant, without affecting significantly its fitness/growth rate, points to its possible use as a chassis for the production of compounds of interest. IMPORTANCE Most cyanobacteria produce extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) that fulfill different biological roles depending on the strain/environmental conditions. The interest in the cyanobacterial EPS synthesis/export pathways has been increasing, not only to optimize EPS production but also to efficiently redirect carbon flux toward the production of other compounds, allowing the implementation of industrial systems based on cyanobacterial cell factories. Here, we show that a Synechocystis kpsM (slr0977) mutant secretes less EPS than the wild type, accumulating more carbon intracellularly, as polyhydroxybutyrate. Further characterization showed a light/cell density-dependent clumping phenotype, altered protein secretion, and modified glycosylation of PilA. The proteome and transcriptome of the mutant revealed significant changes, namely, in photosynthesis and carbon metabolism. Altogether, this work provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of kpsM disruption on Synechocystis physiology, highlighting the importance of EPS as a carbon sink and showing how cells adapt when their secretion is impaired, and the redirection of the carbon fluxes.


The Scottish Chartered Teacher initiative to develop and recognize accomplished teaching is unique among such schemes, and offers exciting possibilities with its emphases on professional enquiry, collaboration, social justice, and especially teacher leadership. However, it is argued here that some troubling issues need attention if the CT movement is to achieve the impact of its promise. Problematic silences in its discourse may lead to more parochial rather than more expansive teaching; structural gaps in its implementation threaten its sustainability; and a certain timidity in the Standard steers away from the most compelling issues for public education and teaching. This discussion suggests that we consider ways of encouraging teaching to be more bold, rude and risky. The intent here is to provoke useful questions about how we all might better support educational professionalism for global complexity.


Little is known about why people with disability choose to take part in disability research and what their experience is like. Knowledge of this may help researchers and research ethics committees improve the empowered and ethical participation of people with disability in disability, healthcare, and human service focussed research. This cross-sectional mixed-methods study explored the perspectives and experiences of a group of Australian adults with disability regarding their involvement in research. Online surveys (N = 29) and follow-up interviews (N = 15) were conducted. The study found the decision to participate was a complex appraisal of benefit to self and others, research relevance, value, comfort, convenience, safety and risk. The attitudes and behaviours of researchers in cultivating trust by adopting an empathic approach to the conduct of disability research appear to be an important aspect of participant experience. Research ethics committees may benefit from knowledge of the 'microethical' moments that occur in such research.


The objective of this paper is to investigate the viscous shear heating effect on the formation of minimum film thickness in inlet zone of the hydrostatic extrusion process as function of various operating parameters. Minimum film thicknesses in the inlet zone has been evaluated at various extrusion speeds, material parameters, extrusion pressures, and die semi-angle for extrusion of low strength material. A strong numerical technique is used in the investigation of inlet zone of a hydrostatic extrusion process considering viscous shear heat generation and convection & conduction modes of heat removals for the study of the minimum film thickness.


The inner winding of a power transformer is subjected to radial electromagnetic forces under short circuit conditions. When these forces exceed a certain limit, transformer windings buckle. This paper deals with the buckling strength analysis of transformer windings, including the evaluation of the bending stiffness of a winding disk (coil) of multiple turn laminated construction, the effect of supporting spacers on the deformation of a winding and the plastic deformation of a winding caused by circumferential stress.


Background Decreased peripheral blood perfusion is a typical clinical aspect of systemic sclerosis (SSc) (1,2). Laser speckle contrast analysis (LASCA) is a new technique to assess and quantify blood perfusion (BP) in different skin areas of the body (3). Objectives The aim of the study was to assess by LASCA the BP in different areas of the hand and face, in SSc patients and healthy subjects. Methods Twenty-one SSc patients (mean disease duration 7±6 years) and twenty-five healthy subjects (matched for sex and age with SSc patients) were enrolled, after informed consent. BP was analysed by LASCA technique at level of face and dorsal and palmar regions of the hands in both SSc patients and healthy subjects. Different regions of interest (ROIs) were created at fingertips, periungual areas, palm and dorsum of both hands, as well as at the level of the face (forehead, tip of nose, zygomas and perioral region). The average BP was scored as perfusion units (PU). Concerning LASCA technique, when an object is illuminated by laser light, the backscattered light will form a random interference pattern consisting of dark and bright areas (speckle pattern). If the illuminated object is static, the speckle pattern is stationary; when there is movement in the object, such as red blood cells in a tissue, the speckle pattern will change over time. The machine records these changes in the speckle pattern. Non-parametric tests were used to carry out the statistical analysis. Results SSc patients showed a statistically significant lower median BP than healthy subjects at the level of fingertips (112 and 164 PU, respectively, p=0.02) and periungual areas (93 and 147 PU, respectively, p=0.003). A statistically significant positive correlation was observed between BP of the fingertips and BP of the periungual areas in both SSc patients (r=0.94, p<0.0001) and healthy subjects (r=0.87, p<0.0001). Furthermore, in both SSc patients and healthy subjects, a statistically significant correlation was observed between palm of hand and fingertip areas (r=0.76 p<0.0001, and r=0.70 p<0.0001, respectively), dorsum of hand and periungual areas (r=0.69 p=0.0005, and r=0.36 p=0.05, respectively), dorsum and palm of hand (r=0.67 p=0.001, and r=0.39 p=0.05, respectively). The median gradient of BP between palm of hand and fingertips was found lower in SSc patients than in healthy subjects (3 and 46 PU, respectively, p=0.0002), as well as the gradient between dorsum of hand and periungual areas (25 and 69 PU, respectively, p=0.0009). No statistically significant difference in BP values was observed at the level of dorsum and palm of hands, as well as of different ROIs of the face or whole face, between SSc and healthy subjects. Conclusions This study shows that LASCA technique detect significant differences of BP at the level of fingertips and periungual areas in SSc patients versus healthy subjects. However, at the level of palm/dorsum of hands and face, no significant BP difference have been detected between SSc patients and healthy subjects. References Cutolo M, et al. J Rheumatol 2010; 37:1174-80. Rosato E, et al. Rheumatology 2011;50:1654-8. Draijer M et al. Laser Med Sci 2009; Disclosure of Interest: None Declared


Four new Y-shaped D–π–A compounds 3a–3d with an aryl acetylene moiety bearing two benzothiazole branches were concisely synthesized in two steps. Their photophysical properties in solution and powder states have been investigated and further confirmed via theoretical calculations. All compounds 3a–3d show strong solid-state fluorescence, aggregation induced emission and near-infrared fluorescence. And, as anticipated, the modulation of the substituent on the aryl acetylene unit can largely affect the charge density of molecules as well as their fluorescence properties. Noteworthily, compound 3b with methoxy as an electron-donating group presents significant solvatochromism because of its obvious intramolecular charge transfer effect. In addition, compounds 3a–3d in the aggregated state (H2O/THF, v/v, 9/1) can be developed as a near-infrared fluorescent probe for picric acid (PA). Their limits of detection have been found to be 3.1 × 10−7, 6.1 × 10−8, 3.3 × 10−7 and 4.6 × 10−7 M, respectively. Among them, 3b is the best design. Based on the results of 1H NMR, SEM, DLS, lifetime and DFT calculations, aggregation caused quenching and photoinduced electron transfer have been revealed to be responsible for the quenching mechanism of detecting PA. Importantly, probe 3b has also been successfully used to detect PA not only in real water samples with interferences, but also on 3b-coated Whatman filter paper strips.


The paper presents the dynamic characterization in tension of three rocks under medium
and high strain-rates. The tests have been carried out by means of the JRC-Split Hopkinson
Tension Bar and an Hydro-Pneumatic Machine, installed in the DynaMat Laboratory of the
University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. The dynamic direct tension tests have
been performed at 3 different strain rates (0.1, 10, 100 strain/second) on an orthogneiss, for
loading directions 0◦, 45◦ and 90◦ respect to the schistosity, and two different types of marble.
Results of the tests show a significantly strain-rate sensitive behaviour, exhibiting dynamic
tensile strength increasing with strain-rate. In order to describe the strain rate behaviour of
these rocks, the dynamic increase factors in function of the strain rates for tensile strength
have been used.


This department provides an overview the progress the authors have made to the emerging area of embedded and mobile forms of on-device deep learning. Their work addresses two core technical questions. First, how should deep learning principles and algorithms be applied to sensor inference problems that are central to this class of computing? Second, what is required for current and future deep learning innovations to be efficiently integrated into a variety of mobile resource-constrained systems? Toward answering such questions, the authors describe phone, watch, and embedded prototypes that can locally run large-scale deep networks processing audio, images, and inertial sensor data. These prototypes are enabled with a variety of algorithmic and system-level innovations that vastly reduce conventional inference-time overhead of deep models.


The effect of salinity (0, lO and 20%o, water temperature 28 ± l oC) on food consumption and growth of juvenile Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus L. (9.94 ± 0.15 g) were investigated by feeding group of 20 fish at 2% body weight day·• Individual food consumption was measured using X-radiography. There were no significant differences in growth or white muscle protein concenrrarions among groups. During feed deprivation, weight loss was similar for fish held at O%o and 10 %o salinity, but after 7 days over 50% of the fish maintained at 20%o salinity developed lesions covering 5-25% of the body. No significant relationships were observed between individual specific growth rates and food consumption rates within the groups. The fish in aU salinity groups showed a negative correlation between specific growth rate and food conversion ratio. The coefficient of variation for wet weight specific food consumption and the mean share of meal for each fish were used as a measure of social hierarchy strength. A negative correlation was observed between coefficient of variation in food consumption and mean share of meal. The social hierarchy structure was similar in aU salinities; 25% of the fish were dominant (18.29% above an equal share of meal) and 30% were subordinate (16.19% below an equal share of meal) and the remainder 45% fish fed theoretical share of meal (MSM, 5.26%).


Silver and gold films with thicknesses in the range of 120-450 nm were evaporated onto glass substrates. A sequence of slits with widths varying between 70 and 270 nm was milled in the films using a focused gallium ion beam. We have undertaken high-resolution measurements of the optical transmission through the single slits with 488.0 nm (for Ag) and 632.8 nm (for Au) laser sources aligned to the optical axis of a microscope. Based on the present experimental results, it was possible to observe that (1) the slit transmission is notably affected by the film thickness, which presents a damped oscillatory behavior as the thickness is augmented, and (2) the transmission increases linearly with increasing slit width for a fixed film thickness.


As we have been doing since 2010, in this issue we publish the best papers of SVR (Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality), that took place at Curitiba, in November 2017. The guest editors, Jauvane Oliveira from The National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC) and Fátima Nunes from University of São Paulo (USP) invited the best papers of the symposium to submit extended versions to this special issue. Seven of the selected best papers are presented in this issue. We would like to thank Jauvane and Fátima to their valuable contribution to JIS, and invite you to read the Guest Editors' Note in the following.This issue also has a regular paper by Rúbia Ascari, Roberto Pereira, and Luciano Silva, from the Federal University of Paraná. In this paper, the authors present a systematic literature review on the use of mobile devices for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, aiming to compensate difficulties of verbal expression for people with speech disorders.Enjoy the issue!


The hole process of producing continuous layer with silver nanoparticles is presented in this paper. First the ink preparation and then the spray process is shown and discussed. The silver layers were obtained on sodium glass substrate. Three different ink carriers were considered and the best one has been chosen. Spray coating process was carried out using special spray can. After obtaining sprayed layers the samples were sintered in several temperatures to investigate the lowest suitable sintering temperature. After that layers resistivity were measured. Then the silver layers were cracked to produce breakthrough fracture that was investigated by a scanning electron microscope. In this paper, the authors investigated the spray coating technique as an alternative to electroplating and other techniques, considering layer resistivity, thickness and production process.


Relaxation of the strict consistency requirements usually found in distributed server architectures is advocated, with emphasis placed instead on the inherent ability of the applications implemented by clients and servers to tolerate inconsistency in the state or deal with the inconsistency in an application dependent manner. For example, inconsistency in name binding information may be detected by a client on attempting to access the named object and corrected by a customized protocol. With such a relaxed consistency, operations on the server state often do not require strict coordination among the group members, and may be realized with weak ordering constraints on group messages. Thus a high degree of concurrency and efficiency is possible without compromising correctness. Sample applications are described to illustrate the use of relaxed consistency in designing distributed servers.<<ETX>>


A model experimental system based on SV40‐transformed Chinese hamster embryo cells and a highly sensitive in situ hybridization procedure was designed. Exposure of the cells to different categories of chemical and physical carcinogens resulted in the induction of SV40 DNA synthesis in the treated cells. Although the carcinogen‐mediated amplification of SV40 DNA sequences is regulated by the viral "A" gene, neither infectious virus nor complete viral DNA molecules were rescued from the treated cells. A heterogenous collection of DNA molecules containing SV40 sequences was generated following treatment with DMBA. Restriction enzyme analysis of the amplified DNA molecules in the Hirt supernatant revealed that not all sequences in the integrated SV40 inserts are present. The possibility that the amplification of SV40 sequences is a reflection of a general gene amplification phenomenon mediated by carcinogens is discussed.


A case of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) complicated by multiple myeloma is presented. The lupus diagnosis was established together with the diagnosis of myeloma but the symptoms had commenced a few years before. The putative mechanisms underlying this unusual combination are discussed.


We report a case of 44-year-old female patient with congenital heart disease, ostium secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) with moderate mitral regurgitation for minimally invasive ASD repair along with mitral valve repair. Venous cannulations were performed through right internal jugular vein and right femoral vein (RFV) and arterial cannulation was accomplished through right femoral artery. Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) could not visualize venous cannula through RFV. However, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) was initiated and surgery was proceeded. During surgery, patients abdomen became tense and distened, ontable ultrasound examination of abdomen was done after completion of the surgery to rule out hemoperitoneum but was inconclusive, patient was evaluated further under fluoroscopy in cathlab and found to have interrupted inferior vena cava. Postoperative course of the patient was uneventful. We discuss the importance of preoperative evaluation and the role of TEE in placement of cannulas during minimally invasive cardiac surgery.


Three upper rim site lipophilic calix[4]arenes 1–3 featuring different para-alkanoyl substituents at the phenolic moieties, i.e.n-hexanoyl, n-octanoyl and 3-cyclohexylpropanoyl groups, are reported to complex, aside from the common solvent molecule n-butanol, different keto and hydroxylic terpene guest molecules such as (−)-menthone, (−)-menthol or (+)-carvone in the solid state. Although for all six inclusion compounds described here, a strict 1 : 1 host : guest stoichiometry is observed, complementary size and polarity relationships between the cone shaped calixarene cavity and the guest molecule emerge from single crystal X-ray structural study. Dependent on the structure of the guest molecule, the calixarenes are arranged in a head-to-head or head-to-tail orientation in the crystalline packing, giving rise to capsular or otherwise deeply enclosed inclusion mode of the guest molecules, respectively. Furthermore, the O-acyl atoms of the calixarenes were found to be directly involved in host–guest interaction. In order to estimate the degree of isostructurality of the host frameworks and to examine the influence of the guest molecules on the solid-state conformation of these calixarene molecules, isostructurality comparison, cell similarity and molecular isometricity calculations were carried out revealing a rare case of supramolecular morphotropism for the pair of (−)-menthone and (−)-menthol inclusions of the n-hexanoyl substituted calixarene. Structure–inclusion property relationship was examined by QMB measurements of thin layers of the calixarenes. Vapor studies with different terpenes and common organic solvents show an increased affinity towards guest molecules with polar functionalities, whereas small solvent molecules like acetone are bound considerably better than the more bulky terpene molecules.