Aging and age‐related diseases can be viewed as the result of the lifelong accumulation of stress insults. The identification of mutant strains and genes that are responsive to stress and can alter longevity profiles provides new therapeutic targets for age‐related diseases. Here we reported that a Drosophila strain with reduced expression of ribose‐5‐phosphate isomerase (rpi), EP2456, exhibits increased resistance to oxidative stress and enhanced lifespan. In addition, the strain also displays higher levels of NADPH. The knockdown of rpi in neurons by double‐stranded RNA interference recapitulated the lifespan extension and oxidative stress resistance in Drosophila. This manipulation was also found to ameliorate the effects of genetic manipulations aimed at creating a model for studying Huntington's disease by overexpression of polyglutamine in the eye, suggesting that modulating rpi levels could serve as a treatment for normal aging as well as for polyglutamine neurotoxicity.


A unit thread has been identified by electron microscopy as the common structural element in the condensed chromatin of a variety of cell nuclei. From the previous studies of thin sections normal to the nuclear envelope it was concluded that the unit thread, of diameter about 17 nm but varying somewhat depending on fixation, packed with spacings of about 28 nm on the surface of the nucleus to form one or more layers. Thin sections tangential to the nuclear envelope, described in this paper, reveal directly the degree of order within the surface layer; there are small areas or patches in which the units are regularly arranged. Units are also orderly arranged around the pores in the nuclear envelope. Unit threads are less easily visible in electron micrographs of mature erythrocytes than at earlier stages of development but the clarity with which they can be seen is increased by a brief treatment prior to fixation with sodium citrate.


Nutritional quality, organoleptic attributes and food safety are usually compromised by the presence of Microscopic fungi or fungal spores in food and feeds that humans and animals solely rely on. It is therefore intended in this study to re appraise the viability of fungal spores in sorghum from different ecosystems in Nigeria with a view to establish the level of infection/contamination and also to establish a basis for predicting the possible mycotoxins that may likely be present in sorghum obtained from the study areas. Sorghum sample was collected from six Agro ecological zones of Nigeria. Each zone was transversely delineated into districts and five villages (at least 20 Km from each other) called locations were selected in each district. In each district, Sorghum grains in stores, bunches in the field and sorghum grains in the market were sampled from five locations, each approximately 20 km from the previous sampling location. The mycological analytical procedures were performed under aseptic condition. One gram of milled sample was weighed into a test tube and diluted in 9 ml of sterile Ringer's solution, vortexed and serially diluted further to 10 -6. One ml from each test tube was cultured by pour plate technique on Ohio Agricultural Station agar (OAESA) and potato dextrose agar (PDA) and incubated for 4-7 days at 25°C. Plates were counted for fungal colonies using a colony counter and the number of fungal colonies per gram of sample was calculated and expressed in colony forming units per gram of sample. The fungi species were isolated and subsequently identified using MEA/CYA media for Aspergillus and Penicillium species and PDA for the fusarium species. It was observed that: the count range in all the samples from all the ecological zones is far above the standard Mycological poor quality standard of 7 x 10 4 . The highest value of 1.3x 10 8 and the lowest value of 6.7x 10 6 all which outrageously exceed the bad quality range were obtained. This is a clear indication that people subsisting on sorghum and sorghum based products are at a high risk of exposure to both Mycoses and Mycotoxicosis in all the Agro ecological zone of the country and the traditional storage system seems infective in curtailing fungal proliferation in the studied area.


Objective: This study aims to examine validity and sensitivity of two visual analogue scales (VASs), measuring thirst intensity and thirst distress, and compare them with a validated thirst discomfort scale (TDS). Methods: This is a non-interventional, prospective and cross-sectional study. Researchers recruited 161 patients from an acute surgical hospital, who were identified at time of interaction as fasting. Data was collected using a questionnaire, which included the TDS. Criterion validity and construct validity was tested for the two VASs. Sensitivity was assessed based on the amount of time fasting from solid foods or fluids. Results: Results showed the VAS for thirst intensity, the VAS for thirst distress and the average of the VAS scores correlated with the TDS (ρ=0.66, 0.81 and 0.72 respectively, all p<0.001). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the VAS is a valid and sensitive patient-reported outcome measure for thirst distress in fasting patients.


Ningbo city, China, is a rapidly growing residential and industrial centre, with a current population of 4 million. Its development has required a major water supply expansion programme providing 400,000 m3 of water per day from the upper reaches of the Zhangxi River by means of a cascade of reservoirs. Water resources management is achieved through operation of two major reservoirs, Jiaokou (75 million m3) and Zhougongzhai (93 million m3). Water is released from the reservoirs, via turbines (generating hydropower), for local industry, irrigated agriculture and public supply along the lower reaches of the River and to maintain the river ecosystem. Surveys of local residents along the Zhangxi River showed its important role in aspects of life, social activity, culture and leisure. Analysis of ecological monitoring data demonstrated the diverse nature of fish, plants and invertebrates within the river. Some elements of the ecosystem have a high local economic value to local people. This paper reports an assessment of the environmental flow needed to support key species in the river ecosystem. It employs hydraulic ratings to define sections of the river where flow velocity reaches 0.5 ms-1, required to stimulate spawning of the moonlight fish, an economically important and indicator species in the river. In two out of 6 cross-sections studied, flow releases from the reservoirs meet the needs of fish. The reservoirs reduce flood flows, which may lead to a loss of deep pools that are essential for the fish to survive during winter months


This book covers far more than the standard history of pediatrics. In fact, nothing comparable to it exists in all of pediatric literature. The story of pediatrics is discussed from many viewpoints. Dr. Peiper in the fourth edition of his book covers in a masterly fashion the temporal history of pediatrics but he extends his interests widely into the history of our concern for the social aspects of pediatrics and especially to our emerging awareness for the welfare of children. The book is an encyclopedia survey of such developments as the origin of children's hospitals, trends and attitudes about education of children, the care of defective children, child labor laws, history of the important diseases of children, history of children's clothes, baby carriages and furniture, to name but a few. In fact, this book will answer almost any question one might have concerning the historical, medical, cultural, educational, and social


The anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) and saturation magnetic field of the Permalloy thin films (Ni0.81Fe0.19) sputtered on a nonmagnetic (Ni0.81Fe0.19)(0.66)Cr-0.34 buffer layer were measured. The AMR variations of the films after annealing and the size effect of the AMR stripes after etching were emphatically studied, and a qualitative analysis was proposed through a statistic model. The simulation results agree with the experiments.


Planetary-scale network testbeds like PlanetLab and RON have become indispensable for evaluating prototypes of distributed systems under realistic Internet conditions. However, current testbeds lack the heterogeneity that characterizes the commercial Internet. For example, most testbed nodes are connected to well-provisioned research networks, whereas most Internet nodes are in edge networks.
 In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of SatelliteLab, a testbed that includes nodes from a diverse set of Internet edge networks. SatelliteLab has a two-tier architecture, in which well-provisioned nodes called planets form the core, and lightweight nodes called satellites connect to the planets from the periphery. The application code of an experiment runs on the planets, whereas the satellites only forward network traffic. Thus, the traffic is subjected to the network conditions of the satellites, which greatly improves the testbed's network heterogeneity. The separation of code execution and traffic forwarding enables satellites to remain lightweight, which lowers the barrier to entry for Internet edge nodes.
 Our prototype of SatelliteLab uses PlanetLab nodes as planets and a set of 32 volunteered satellites with diverse network characteristics. These satellites consist of desktops, laptops, and handhelds connected to the Internet via cable, DSL, ISDN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular links. We evaluate SatelliteLab's design, and we demonstrate the benefits of evaluating applications on SatelliteLab.


To the Editor.— The recent summary on the management of high-risk pregnancy by Pearson (229:1439, 1974) was clear, concise, and almost comprehensive. There is, however, one additional general consideration that practicing obstetricians should keep in mind. Pregnancy is a time of joy for most couples, but also a time of great stress and anxiety. There are reports suggesting that excessive amounts of emotional stress or anxiety may increase the probability of spontaneous abortion and prematurity. 1 In addition, there is a gradually increasing body of information suggesting that stress and anxiety during pregnancy can affect both the neonatal behavior of the infant and the attachment between the parents and the infant. 2,3 Since couples in high-risk pregnancies are likely to be especially anxious, it is important that obstetricians make special provisions to provide these parents with emotional support. Such support can be provided in a variety of ways, including the


The problems that occurred in the tourism area of small and medium industry community of Giri Gresik Regency based on survey results of businessmen still do not understand financial inclusion so they still do not have bank account. the purpose of this study is to test and analyze financial inclusion indicators. Research method using quantitative method with partial least square analysis technique. Based on the analysis of financial inclusion factors, attributes that significantly affect small and medium industries are credit management, knowledge of credit guidelines, consumer over in-debtedness, savings and deposit functions. The strategy that must be done in the short term based on attributes in this research is to provide financial inclusion education with attention to significant attributes. provide assistance from financial planning to the preparation of financial statements. provide the motivation to separate between family finance and business finance. While long-term strategy that together with tourism aspect is expected to become industrial tourism industry that require production of small and medium industries based on economic potential, especially in agriculture, processing industry, and tourism, and trade. In addition, it needs to be improved facilities and infrastructure that support tourism such as hotels and restaurants.


Optical constants of a [111] UO2 crystal, aged in air for 25.5 years, were measured in the range from .75 and 5 eV using ellipsometric spectroscopy. The ellipsometric data acquired at angles of incidence of 65, 70 and 75 were modelled by a Gauss-Lorentz and a Tauc Lorentz Oscillator, leading to dielectric constants that differ substantially from Schoenes' for vacuum-annealed [111] UO2. Raman spectra taken at 632.8 nm at normal ( = 0°) as well as off-normal (=75°) incidence show no indication of a hyper-stoichiometric surface layer, suggesting that at room temperature oxidation of UO2 to U3O7/U4O9 proceeds slower than extrapolation from higher temperature observations predict.


Edwards, Patrick Boddie. The Effect of Management Practices on Grade Distribution in Flue-Cured Tobacco. (Under the direction of W. David Smith.) Two studies were conducted in 2002, 2003, and 2004. The first study was conducted at eleven locations and evaluated the effect of certain management practices on tip grade production in flue-cured tobacco. Treatments included six varieties, a normal nitrogen rate or normal plus 22 kg/ha of nitrogen, a normal or high topping height, and four versus five harvests. Four harvests involved keeping the last ten to twelve leaves together while five harvests split the ten to twelve leaves into two groups. The nitrogen rate treatment was only used in 2002 and was replaced with the topping height variable in 2003 and 2004. The variety NC 606 was added only in 2004. The second study was conducted at one location in 2003 and one in 2004 and investigated the effect of lower-leaf removal on the yield, quality, and grade distribution of flue-cured tobacco. Six treatments were included in the test in which the two controls involved no lower-leaf removal but were harvested three or four times. The other four treatments included a combination of removing the bottom four or eight leaves and harvesting the remainder of the leaves either two or three times. In the tip grade production study, the most consistent factor affecting tip grades was cured-leaf color. Harvesting five times consistently produced more tip grades than harvesting four times in all three years of research. In 2002, a higher nitrogen rate reduced tip grades when it contributed to unripe tobacco. In 2003 and 2004, older varieties such as Speight G 28 and McNair 944 produced more tip-graded tobacco than the newer varieties K 326 and NC 71. High topping resulted in more tip grades in two of three locations in 2003 and one of four locations in 2004. In all three years of the study, an immature and/or unripe grade of tobacco was less likely to receive a tip grade regardless of treatment applied. Riper grades that were more likely to receive a tip grade included F, FR, K, and N1BO which are based on the USDA grading system. Cultivars K 326 and NC 71 produced higher yield and values per hectare than Speight G 28 and McNair 944 at nearly all test locations. Also, Speight G 28 and McNair 944 tended to receive lower average prices per kilogram than K 326 and NC 71. In general, varieties McNair 944 and Speight G 28 and the management practice of five harvests resulted in the highest proportion of tip graded tobacco because the treatment resulted in ripe grades that were dark in color such as FR and K. Although Speight G 28 and McNair 944 received a higher percentage of tip grades, these varieties are not a good varietal choice for production due to low yields and disease resistance. For the lower-leaf removal research conducted in 2003 and 2004, the most significant decreases in yield and value per hectare occurred when eight leaves were removed, regardless of the harvest method. Removing four leaves had a minimal impact on yield and value. No significant differences were observed in grade distribution in either year of lowerleaf removal research. THE EFFECT OF MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON GRADE DISTRIBUTION IN FLUE-CURED TOBACCO


The coating of natural fiber by graphene oxide (GO) has, over, this past decade, attracted increasing attention as an effective way to improve the adhesion to polymer matrices and enhance the composite properties. In particular, the GO-functionalized 30 vol% curaua fiber (Ananas Erectifolius) reinforcing epoxy composite was found to display superior tensile and thermogravimetric properties as well as higher fiber/matrix interfacial shear strength. In this brief report, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was conducted in up to 50 vol% GO-functionalized curaua fiber reinforced epoxy matrix (EM) composites. The objective was not only to extend the amount incorporated but also for the first time investigate the composite viscoelastic behavior. The GO functionalization of curaua fibers (GOCF) improved the DMA storage (E′) and loss (E″) modulus compared to the non-functionalized fiber composites. Values at 30 °C of both E′ (13.44 GPa) and E″ (0.67 GPa) for 50 vol% GO-functionalized curaua fiber reinforced epoxy matrix composites (50GOCF/EM) were substantially higher than those of 20 GOCF/EM with E′ (7.08 GPa) and E″ (0.22 GPa) as well as non-functionalized 50CF/EM with E′ (11.04 GPa) and E″ (0.45 GPa). All these results are above the neat epoxy previously reported values of E′ (3.86 GPa) and E″ (0.09 GPa). As for the tangent delta, the parameters associated with damping factor and glass transition temperature were not found to be significantly changed by GO functionalization, but decreased with respect to the neat epoxy due to chain mobility restriction.


Multi-depth capacitance sensors are popular to monitor soil water content for scheduling irrigation thanks to their ease of operation and maintenance. The PR2/6 Profile Probe (Delta-T Devices) measures soil moisture by using either the manufacturer's built-in equation or a user-calibrated equation if the soil is high in clay or organic matter. The objectives were to evaluate the performance of the PR2/6 Profile Probe in a perennial grassland and to develop a site-specific equation to correct probe measurements in Pullman (fine, mixed, superactive, thermic Torrertic Paleustolls) clay loam soils. Permittivity recorded by the profile probe was regressed on the gravimetrically measured soil volumetric water content (VWC). Parameters were optimized to obtain least RMSEs. The default equation provided by the manufacturer estimated VWC with average RMSE and r2 values of 0.053 m3 m–3 and 0.71, respectively. New calibration coefficients were effective in explaining 91% of the variability in soil VWC measurements and reducing RMSE to 0.017 m3 m–3. The results indicate that site-specific calibration of the capacitance probe is necessary to attain research-quality accuracy and precision when applied to grasslands in Pullman clay loam and associated clay loam soils.


The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) is a space-based long-baseline optical interferometer for precision astrometry. One of the primary objectives of the SIM instrument is to accurately determine the directions to a grid of stars, together with their proper motions and parallax, improving a priori knowledge by nearly three orders of magnitude. The basic astrometric observable of the instrument is the pathlength delay, a measurement made by a combination of internal metrology measurements that determine the distance the starlight travels through the two arms of the interferometer and a measurement of the white light stellar fringe to find the point of equal pathlength. Because this operation requires a non-negligible integration time to accurately measure the stellar fringe position, the interferometer baseline vector is not stationary over this time period, as its absolute length and orientation are time-varying. This conflicts with the consistency condition necessary for extracting the astrometric parameters which requires a stationary baseline vector. This paper addresses how the time-varying baseline is `regularized' so that it may act as a single baseline vector for multiple stars.


Background: The objective of this study is to assess the impact of maternal age on neonatal birth weight.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted to evaluate the neonatal birth weight of singleton term infants born to nulliparous, non-diabetic, urban women who delivered at Shahid Sadoughi hospital in Yazd, Iran, between 2020 and 2021. Maternal age groups were defined as adolescents (≤19 years old) and adults (20-40 years old) using data from archived files.
Results: A total of 963 cases were included in this study, with 217 adolescents and 746 adults. The incidence of low birth weight (LBW) (<2500 gr) was 10.6% (102 cases), and macrosomia (>4000 gr) was observed in 7.1% (68 cases) of the neonates. There was a significantly higher rate of neonatal LBW among adolescent mothers.
Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that maternal age has an impact on neonatal birth weight. The incidence of LBW is increased among adolescent mothers.


In this paper, a method for concurrency control in distributed DBMSs, called Permission Test Method is proposed. The PT method satisfies the basic requirements for concurrency control, that is, it executes the transactions in a serializable order, deadlocks do not appear and indefinite postponment is prevented by the method. In PT method, transactions, which are permitted to run, are not aborted unless a related site failure occurs. Furthermore, the complexity analysis indicates that the algorithm will work in a reasonable amount of time. The PT method provides more concurrency than the Basic Timestamp Ordering and Two-Phase Locking techniques.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine the tourism development in Abisko, Kiruna, highlighting the conflicting strategies and land-use conflicts. Abisko is used as an example of how tourism development is not only about attracting more visitors to the destination, it's also about developing the services that the visitors, local population and companies need and, in that way, create opportunities for growth. Tourism is a growing activity on already heavily contested land, and Kiruna municipality faces barriers in creating these opportunities due to the land use regulations and conflicting interests. An increase in visitors and tourist companies means that the municipality needs to establish more infrastructure, housing, schools and accessible health care and other social services whilst maintaining and increasing the destination's attractiveness and preserving the values that make the destination special. Through a critical geopolitical framework, the conflicting views on the development are analysed as parts of a larger discourse, reflecting the actor's identities and geopolitical imaginaries. Unresolved territorial claims and a struggle for power over the environment can be identified as underlaying themes affecting the development, making it hard for the municipality to develop Abisko as a destination sustainably.


A new family of single-stage super Class-AB operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) suitable for low-voltage operation and low power consumption is presented. Three novel topologies are proposed featuring simplicity and compactness. They are based on the combination of adaptive biasing techniques for the differential input stage and nonlinear current mirrors for the active load that provide additional dynamic current boosting. The OTAs have been fabricated in a standard 0.5-mum CMOS process. Experimental results show a greatly improved slew rate by factors 30-60 and gain-bandwidth product by factors 11.5-17 when compared to a classical Class-A OTA. The circuits are operated at plusmn1-V supply voltage with only 10 muA of bias current


Alzheimer's disease is no longer considered an inevitable consequence of the aging process. The etiology is complex, involving several genes and possible environmental factors. Nutrition support is important in the treatment of people with Alzheimer's disease.


Article History Received: February 2021 Revised: March 2021 Published: April 2021 This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of using Canva application media to enhance students' writing skills. This research was conducted in JulyAugust at Mts Al-Islamiyah, Ciledug. Researchers used a quantitative method which is pre-experimental research design by applying pre-test and post-test. Writing tests were employed in collecting students' achievement as instruments of this study. Researchers used one class in class IX-1 MTs Al-Islamiyah Ciledug as research samples. Determining samples of this study used the random sampling technique. To analyze the research data, researcher applied t-test. Based on the research analysis, the mean score of students' writing test on the post-test was 70.83, and the pre-test was 64.73. The results also showed that the T-cal value (9,585) was higher than the Ttable (2.021), at the 5% significance level. If the result t-test was higher than t-table. It indicated that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted, and (H0) was rejected. Based on the results of the t-test calculation, this current study can be concluded that the Canva Application is an effective media to facilitate students to improve their writing performance. For further studies, English teachers can imitate the basic theory of this study as consideration to teach writing skills. Keyword; Writing Skills; Teaching Writing; Canva Application;


The microenvironment within a solid tumor is usually heterogeneous with certain regions being acidic and hypoxic. These acidic and hypoxic regions arise from rapidly proliferating cells combined with poor tumor perfusion. Cancer cells cope with these hostile changes in their microenvironment by expressing genes that are essential for survival. One of the coping mechanisms is an upregulation of pH regulatory factors, including carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX). The action of CAIX helps to maintain physiological pH inside the cell (pHi) while regulating extracellular acidification (pHe). Extracellular acidification of the tumor microenvironment promotes local invasion, metastasis and decreases the effectiveness of adjuvant therapies, thus contributing to poor clinical outcome. Our goal was to compare the structure of a CAIX-mimic bound to ureidosulfonamide inhibitors with the biological activity of these inhibitors in a triple negative breast cancer cell line. CAIX is a reversible enzyme and at low pH (high proton concentration), the enzyme will consume protons, raising pH. Our hypothesis is that CAIX inhibition, in the context of an acidic microenvironment, will dysregulate its ability to maintain the acidic pH preferred by cancer cells which favors their growth and migration. In this study, we have shown the interaction of sulfonamide-based inhibitors using X-ray crystallography methods. These structures show the inhibitors make multiple contacts within the active site cavity. This is consistent with the inhibitor-induced decrease in CAIX activity measured as 18O exchange between H2O16 and H13C18O3 . We have also investigated the effect CAIX inhibition on cancer cell metabolism and extracellular acidification using Seahorse technology. This reveals that CAIX may contribute to the "non-glycolytic" acidification process. In total, these observations indicate that CAIX is a viable small molecular drug target and contribute to our understanding of the function of CAIX in modulating pH in cancer cells. Citation Format: Mam Y. Mboge, Zhijuan Chen, Brian P. Mahon, Nicole Lamas, Shingkuang Tu, Fabrizio Carta, Claudiu T. Superan, Robert McKenna, Susan C. Frost. Characterization, targeting, and modulation of carbonic anhydrase IX activity for the development of small-molecule inhibitors to treat triple-negative breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference: Function of Tumor Microenvironment in Cancer Progression; 2016 Jan 7–10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(15 Suppl):Abstract nr B25.


Developments in reproductive (e.g., assisted reproduction, surrogacy) and genetic technologies (commercial DNA ancestry testing) have opened new routes to mixedness that disrupt the relationship between multiracialism and family. Discussions of racial mixedness, both academic and lay, tend to refer to persons born to parents of different racialized ancestry. Multiracialism is also understood as an outcome of extended generational descent—a family lineage comprised of ancestors of varied "races". Both modes of mixed subjectivity rely on a notion of race as transmitted through sexual reproduction, and our study of them has often focused on the implications of this boundary crossing for families. These routes to mixedness imply a degree of intimacy and "knownness" between partners, with implications for the broader web of relationships into which one is born or marries. Assisted reproduction allows for the intentional creation of mixed-race babies outside of sexual reproduction and relationship. These technologies make possible mixed race by design, in which one can choose an egg or sperm donor on the basis of their racial difference, without knowing the donor beyond a set of descriptive characteristics. Commercial DNA testing produces another route to mixedness—mixed by revelation—in which previously unknown mixed ancestry is revealed through genetic testing. Ancestry tests, however, deal in estimations of biogenetic markers, rather than specific persons. To varying degrees, these newer routes to mixedness reconfigure the nexus of biogenetic substance and kinship long foregrounded in American notions of mixedness, expand the contours of mixed-race subjectivity, and reshape notions of interracial relatedness.


Philip de Laszlo (1869-1937) was born into a humble Hungarian family in Budapest and rose to become the preeminent portrait artist working in Britain between 1907 and 1937. He painted nearly 3,000 portraits, including those of numerous kings and queens, four American presidents, and countless members of the European nobility. "Has any one painter ever before painted so many interesting and historical personages?" asked his contemporaries. There has been no biography of him since 1939, and this new account of both his life and his work draws on previously untapped material from the family archive of over 15,000 documents, to which the author has had unrivaled access. It establishes the intrinsic importance of his art and re-positions him in his rightful place alongside his great contemporaries John Singer Sargent, Sir John Lavery, and Giovanni Boldini.


Under traditional contract, a contractor is responsible for the quality of material and workmanship either being expressed in the contract document or by implication. Contractors often believe that the latent defects is no longer their responsibility after the job is handed over to the employer or subsequent owner. On the part of employer or subsequent owner, the action taken against the contractor sometime was already too late since it may take year for them to discover the latent defects that occur. Much worse, an employer or subsequent owner does not realise the duration given to him under the statute to take an action. Once claimed barred by the statute, the contractor is no longer liable to the employer or subsequent owner. The objective of this study is to determine the recoverability of damages for latent defects caused by contractor under traditional contract. The research is done by analysing the law cases involved with limitation period and latent defects. Based on the research, it was found that if the aggrieved party wish to bring an action under the law, claim under contract and tort shall be brought six (6) years from the cause of action accrues. The cause of action for contract start from the date of breach, if it involved fraud, the right of action shall not start until the fraud is discovered. As for claim founded under tort, there are three (3) possible date of accruals which are, one, the installation date of the defective works; two, the date latent defect discovered or; three, the date of actual damage. As long as it is still within these duration, the employer or subsequent owner may pursue claims against the contractor for damages, provided the defects are as a result of the contractor's breach of contract.


The authors studied the response of the luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), proclatin (PRL) and testosterone (T) to the intravenous injection of 100 microgram of synthetic gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) in hirsute women in the follicular phase, prior to and after the administration of cyproterone acetate (CPA). The GnRH stimulation before and after the CPA therapy induced a significant increase in plasma LH and FSH levels (P less than 0.01) and a significant drop in the plasma PRL concentration (p less than 0.05). Unchanged plasma T levels were observed during the test, prior to the CPA administration. Following the CPA application there was a significant increment of basal plasma PRL levels (p less than 0.05) and a significant drop of plasma FSH levels (p less than 0.01). No significant changes were observed, however, in LH and T levels. During the GnRH stimulation, after the administration of CPA, a significant decrease in T levels was noted (p less than 0.01). Considering basal concentrations of the hormones studied and the response to the LHR stimulation test, CPA was found to have no beneficial effect on the hypothalamic-pituitary dysfunction typical of androgenization in females.


The dichotomous-choice contingent valuation method is applied to measure consumers' value of quality-certificated organic beef. First, a logit model is estimated like previous studies. Second is a distribution-free approach. The Turnbull empirical distribution model is employed to solve negative willingness to pay and truncation problems. The result is shown that consumers are willing to pay 7,019∼10,607 Won/per 600g more than the current price of regular beef for qualitycertificated organic beef.


A current challenge taxi-cab owner/operators face in Canada is the lack of financing for taxi-cabs. This article examines business opportunities and lending risk; it also provides risk management strategies for financial institutions to manage the risk of lending to the taxi-cab industry. Members of the boards of directors and shareholders from the Canadian taxi-cab industry, and lenders from financial institutions that do not provide financing to taxi-cab owner/operators, were interviewed. Board members and shareholders were asked about their perceptions regarding business opportunity, risk, and their willingness to provide collateral for taxi-cab loans. Lenders of financial institutions were asked about their reasons for not providing taxi-cab loans. The findings of this study show that there is a reasonably attractive opportunity for financial institutions to offer financing for taxi-cab owner/operators. However, the findings also show that there are both systematic and unsystematic risks in lending to the taxi-cab industry. This offers recommendations on risk management strategies for Canadian lenders to mitigate the risk in lending to the Canadian taxi-cab industry. Our findings may be useful for new and existing financial/lending institutions, lenders, investors, and taxi-cab owner/operators.


Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) has progressed over 15-20 years from being a technique with great potential to one that has become primary diagnostic investigation. 3D imaging has made complex root canal anatomies more accessible and helps in accurate treatment planning for many endodontic problems. A modification of original cone beam algorithm was developed by Feldkamp et al in 1984. Since then there were significant progress in imaging technique starting from linear to hypocycloidal tomographic movements wherein the centre of rotation remains the same and movement of the equipment becomes more complicated for better resolution. The goal of this article is to summarize theapplications and limitations of CBCT in various clinical scenarios in day to day endodontic practice.


We present a high-resolution (R ≈ 50,000) atlas of a uranium–neon (U/Ne) hollow-cathode spectrum in the H band (1454–1638 nm) for the calibration of near-infrared spectrographs. We obtained this U/Ne spectrum simultaneously with a laser-frequency comb spectrum, which we used to provide a first-order calibration to the U/Ne spectrum. We then calibrated the U/Ne spectrum using the recently published uranium line list of Redman et al., which is derived from high-resolution Fourier transform spectrometer measurements. These two independent calibrations allowed us to easily identify emission lines in the hollow-cathode lamp that do not correspond to known (classified) lines of either uranium or neon, and to compare the achievable precision of each source. Our frequency comb precision was limited by modal noise and detector effects, while the U/Ne precision was limited primarily by the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the observed emission lines and our ability to model blended lines. The standard deviation in the dispersion solution residuals from the S/N-limited U/Ne hollow-cathode lamp was 50% larger than the standard deviation of the dispersion solution residuals from the modal-noise-limited laser-frequency comb. We advocate the use of U/Ne lamps for precision calibration of near-infrared spectrographs, and this H-band atlas makes these lamps significantly easier to use for wavelength calibration.


s a youngster, Fermi attended the public schools of Rome, learned Latin and Greek, and had no trouble in reciting poems [1]. Aer the baccalaureat he enrolled at the Scuola Normale Superiore, at Pisa, to study mathematics and the language of science, i.e. German. e charming lad soon taught his teachers: as a second year's student he lectured on the quantum theory and the Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. Fermi's first post-doc trip abroad was to Gottingen, the contemporary Mecca of theoretical physics. ere he worked with Max Born and the latter's students Werner Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan, and published on ergodicity and the adiabatic principle. ese papers got translated into German and were noticed by Paul Ehrenfest, the renowned specialist in the field. As a result of a first contact, through George Uhlenbeck, Fermi visited Leiden in September-December 1924 and made the acquaintance of Lorentz, Einstein, Kronig and Goudsmit. At the time the quantization of a 'gas' of equal particles had his particular attention. In 1926 this research gave way to his first major contribution to theoretical physics; it was on the 'Quantization of the ideal monoatomic gas'. e leading idea was to treat the translation of molecules between the parallel walls of a container as a periodic, and therefore quantizable, phenomenon. Instead of the container Fermi, next, posited a radial potential field around a central point – say, the origin of a Cartesian system of axes –, much like the Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. e monoatomic molecules were said to behave like harmonic oscillators of frequency siν and to be subject to quantum numbers similar to those of the electrons, here s1, s2 and s3, for the three axes, with si = s1 + s2 + s3. e total energy w of one such atom will thus be sihν. Apparently, an energy equal to 0 may only be realized in one way, an energy of 1hν in three ways, etc. So the A


We theoretically investigate surface plasmon resonance properties in Au and Ag cubic nanoparticles and find a novel plasmonic mode that exhibits simultaneous low extinction and high local field enhancement properties. We analyse this mode from different aspects by looking at the distribution patterns of local field intensity, energy flux, absorption and charge density. We find that in the mode the polarized charge is highly densified in a very limited volume around the corner of the nanocube and results in very strong local field enhancement. Perturbations of the incident energy flux and light absorption are also strongly localized in this small volume of the corner region, leading to both low absorption and low scattering cross section. As a result, the extinction is low for the mode. Metal nanoparticles involving such peculiar modes may be useful for constructing nonlinear compound materials with low linear absorption and high nonlinearity.


Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and co-morbid depressive and/or distress symptoms have poor glycemic control and worse health outcomes. This prospective randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a 16-session severity tailored cognitive behavioral intervention plus lifestyle change counseling (n = 67; IG=intervention group) delivered by trained staff compared to usual care (n = 72; CG=control group), in 139 rural adult patients (mean age = 52.6 ± 9.5 years.; 72% black; BMI = 37.0 ± 9.0) with uncontrolled (mean HbA1c = 9.6 ± 2.0) T2D (52% on insulin) and co-morbid depressive (PHQ-2) or distress (DDS-2) symptoms at screening in an academic primary care clinic. At baseline and at 12-month follow-up: height, weight, BP, A1c, diabetes distress (DDS-17), depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), self-care behaviors (SDSCA), empowerment (DES), and medication adherence (ModMAS) were measured using validated instruments. There were no differences between groups at baseline. Between group (IG vs. CG) differences at 12-months follow-up were significant for changes from baseline in diabetes-related distress (-0.83 ± 0.88 vs. -0.15 ± 0.92; p = 0.001), regimen-related distress (-1.12 ± 1.vs. -0.31 ± 1.22; p = 0.001), depressive symptoms (-3.39 ± 5.00 vs. -0.90 ± 6.17; p = 0.01), self-care behaviors (+1.10 ± 1.30 vs. +0.58 ± 1.45; p = 0.03), and medication adherence (+1.00 ± 2.0 vs. +0.17 ± 1.0; p = 0.02). Differences in change in A1c (-0.92 ± 1.81 vs. -0.31 ± 2.04; p = 0.06) were substantially greater in the intervention group and achieved borderline significance. There were no significant differences in glycemic response patterns by race or gender. A tailored cognitive behavioral intervention significantly improves behavioral outcomes and glycemic control in rural black and white patients with T2D and co-morbid depressive and/or distress symptoms. Disclosure D.M. Cummings: None. L. Lutes: None. S. Patil: None. B. Hambidge: None. M. Carraway: None. K. Littlewood: None. A. Adams: None. C. Solar: None. S. Edwards: None. P. Gatlin: None.


A mixed semi-analytical cum numerical approach is presented in this paper which accounts for the coupled mechanical and electrical response of piezoelectric, functionally graded (FG) and layered composite hollow circular cylinders of finite length. Under axisymmetric mechanical and electrical loadings, the three-dimensional problem (3D) gets reduced to a two-dimensional (2D) plane strain problem of elasticity. The 2D problem is further simplified and reduced to a onedimensional (1D) by assuming an analytical solution in longitudinal direction (z) in terms of Fourier series expansion which satisfies the simply (diaphragm) supported boundary conditions exactly at the two ends z = 0, l. Fundamental (basic) dependent variables are chosen in the radial direction (thickness coordinate) of the cylinder. The resulting mathematical model is cast in the form of first order simultaneous ordinary differential equations which are integrated through an effective numerical integration technique by first transforming the BVP into a set of initial value problems (IVPs). The cylinder is subjected to internal/external pressurized mechanical and an electrical loading. Finally, numerical results are obtained which govern the active and sensory response of piezoelectric and FG cylinders. Numerical results are compared for their accuracy with available results. New results of finite length cylinders are generated and presented for future reference.


In this paper, the degree of alignment of 2P3/2 vacancy state in Au induced by proton, lithium and boron ion impact was measured using a Si(Li) detector. Also the projectile-energy dependence of the degree of alignment was investigated over the projectile energy range from 0.2 MeV/amu to 2.0MeV/amu. The de-alignment phenomenon was observed for small relative impact velocities.


Food fraud has been an area of great concern due to its risk to public health, reduction of food quality or nutritional value and for its economic consequences. For this reason, it's been object of regulation in many countries (e.g. [1], [2]). One type of food that has been frequently object of fraud through the addition of water or an aqueous solution is bovine meat. The traditional methods used to detect this kind of fraud are expensive, time-consuming and depend on physicochemical analysis that require complex laboratory techniques, specific for each added substance. In this paper, based on digital images of histological cuts of adulterated and not-adulterated (normal) bovine meat, we evaluate the of digital image analysis methods to identify the aforementioned kind of fraud, with focus on the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) algorithm.


The subject of hybrids based on layered inorganic compounds such as clays has been studied for a considerable time, but the area is enjoying a resurgence of interest and activity as a result of the exceptional properties which can be realized from such nanocomposites. Materials variables which can be controlled and which can have a profound influence on the nature and properties of the final nanocomposite include the type of clay, the eventual choice of clay pre-treatment, the selection of polymer component and the way in which the polymer is incorporated into the nanocomposite. The synthetic route of choice for making a nanocomposite depends on whether the final material is required in the form of an intercalated or exfoliated hybrid. In the case of an intercalate, the organic component is inserted between the layers of the clay such that the inter-layer spacing is expanded, but the layers still bear a well-defined spatial relationship to each other. In an exfoliated structure, the layers of the clay have been completely separated and the individual layers are distributed throughout the organic matrix. A third alternative is dispersion of complete clay particles (tactoids) within the polymer matrix, but this simply represents use of the clay as conventional filler. In recent years, there has been extensive study of the factors which control whether a particular organo-clay hybrid can be synthesized as an intercalated or exfoliated structure. Since clay nanocomposites can produce dramatic improvements in a variety of properties, it is important to understand the factors that affect delamination of the clay. These factors include, besides the exchange capacity of the clay and the polarity of the reaction medium, the chemico-physical properties of interlayer cations. In this work we present the results of a jointed computational/experimental effort aimed at the study and comprehension of the interactions which occur, at a molecular level, in the formation of polymer-clay nanocomposites based on PEO-diacrylate macromolecules.


Paper is focused on development of new patented construction of screw briquetting machine for compacting biomass into the solid biofuel. Developed machine design is based on achieved results of comprehensive research of the complicated process of biomass densification. Patented construction provides two main goals: the elimination of axial forces, which causes increasing of bearings lifetime, and a new modular design of pressing chamber and tools with geometry based on application of the mathematical model. Research of the biomass densification pointed to the need for modular design of densification machine, where it is possible to control all significant parameters of the densification process. The goal of this paper is to present a new patented design of screw press, which satisfies all requirements for modularity and control of the parameters. It allows optimizing this process for different types of raw materials and achieving high quality production. Results of experimental research of densification process then allow the engineering design of the production machine tailor-made to the customer, while being able to minimize investment, energy and operating costs. The developed design of screw press is unique in its modularity and high reliability.


Scientific findings on the association between carbohydrate intake (both quantity and quality) and prostate cancer (CaP) risk are conflicting. We examined this association in the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer, a consortium of 15 cohorts with validated measures of dietary intake. During follow-up of 842,149 men, 52,683 were diagnosed with CaP. We examined associations between carbohydrate and fiber intake and 3 different definitions of advanced CaP: 1) Advanced cases were defined as men with tumors that were advanced at diagnosis (T4, N1, and/or M1) or men who died of CaP during follow-up regardless of diagnosed stage (n = 4,934); 2) Advanced (restricted) cases were defined as above, but excluded men diagnosed with localized CaP who later died of Cap (n = 3,091); and 3) Fatal CaP was defined as men who died of CaP (n = 3,097). We performed Cox proportional hazards models to calculate study-specific multivariable relative risks (RR) and pooled these results using random effects models. Models were adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, education, marital status, body mass index, height, smoking status, family history of CaP, physical activity, history of diabetes, multivitamin use, and energy and alcohol intake. Median total carbohydrate intake across studies ranged from 41% - 64% of total energy intake. Preliminary analyses were suggestive of a modest inverse association between carbohydrate intake and risk of advanced and fatal CaP. The pooled multivariable adjusted RR (MVRR) comparing the highest versus lowest study-specific quintile of carbohydrate intake (percent of energy) was 0.90 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.81-1.01; trend test p-value 0.06) for advanced CaP and 0.91 (0.97-1.04; trend test p-value 0.16) for advanced (restricted) Cap. For fatal CaP, the pooled MVRR for the same comparison was 0.88 (95% CI 0.77-1.00), trend test p-value 0.05. Findings were similar for energy-adjusted total carbohydrates (g/day) or available carbohydrates (total carbohydrates - dietary fiber). When total carbohydrate intake was categorized using common absolute cutpoints across studies, no significant change in risk was observed for men consuming ≥ 60% vs 45%- Citation Format: Elkhansa Sidahmed, Stephen J. Freedland, Kana Wu, Jeanine M. Genkinger, Stephanie A. Smith-Warner. A pooled analysis of carbohydrate and dietary fiber intake and prostate cancer risk. [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 1738.


Harnessing the power of the immune system to identify and eliminate cancer is a promising area of development in cancer therapy. Increasing T-cell activation, in particular, is now a clinically validated approach to the treatment of cancer. Cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4, CD152) and PD-L1 (B7-H1, CD274) are part of a complex system of receptors and ligands that are involved in limiting T-cell activation through the delivery of inhibitory signals. MedImmune is currently developing tremelimumab (anti-CTLA4) and MEDI4736 (anti-PD-L1), for the treatment of advanced or metastatic solid tumours. Both of these antibodies antagonise T-cell inhibition signals with the aim of enhancing anti-tumor T cell activity. We have established and characterised a panel of syngeneic mouse tumor models and employed these to explore the activity of anti-mouse CTLA-4 and PD-L1 antibodies using pharmacodynamic (PD) and tumor growth inhibition (TGI) endpoints. Published studies characterising the immunogenic nature of some existing cancer therapeutics provide reason to believe that a combination strategy, utilising checkpoint blockade together with current standard of care, or novel therapeutics, could result in increased activity. We have gone on to explore the value of such combinations in preclinical mouse models.


Kruppel-like factor 4 (Klf4) is a zinc finger transcription factor and plays crucial roles in Xenopus embryogenesis. However, its regulation during embryogenesis is still unclear. Here, we report that Tcf7l1, a key downstream transducer of the Wnt signaling pathway, could promote Klf4 transcription and stimulate Klf4 promoter activity in early Xenopus embryos. Furthermore, cycloheximide treatment showed a direct effect on Klf4 transcription facilitated by Tcf7l1. Moreover, the dominant negative form of Tcf7l1 (dnTcf7l1), which lacks N-terminus of the β-catenin binding motif, could still activate Klf4 transcription, suggesting that this regulation is Wnt/β-catenin independent. Taken together, our results demonstrate that Tcf7l1 lies upstream of Klf4 to maintain its expression level during Xenopus embryogenesis.


A 12-year child had complete heart block, an abdominal situs inversus with laevocardia. Further investigation demonstrated in addition an inferior vena cava ending into an azygos vein, a shunt at the atrial level and a pulmonary valve stenosis. At operation there was a lone atrium in normal position, a ventricular inversion without transposition of the great vessels. In spite of a corrective operation of the Mustard type, the child died the following day through haemorrhage and low output.


Title of Dissertation: MAKING GOD: INCARNATION AND SOMATIC PIETY IN THE ART OF KIKI SMITH Margaret Randolph Wilkerson, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006 Dissertation directed by: Professor Emerita, Josephine Withers Department of Art History and Archaeology This dissertation examines the ways in which the art of Kiki Smith (b. 1954) implements traditional Catholic material culture and ritual through its propensity, in both subject and materiality, to incarnate spiritual ideas and encourage somatic responses to it. It also considers the ways in which Smith's ambivalent attitudes towards Catholicism inform her work. Born and raised a Catholic, but no longer practicing, Smith values the material imaging of spiritual conditions, and her myriad assessments of the human form affirm her commitment to expressing sacred experience through physical means. However, while embracing Catholicism's incarnational imagination, as particularly manifest in medieval art, Smith also disputes the present-day Church's marked opposition to art that mingles the sacred and profane. The majority of scholarship has positioned Smith's body-based art within the context of the heightening politicization of the American art scene during the late twentieth-century, when arguments over the body and its ideological boundaries dominated political, social, and cultural discourses. While critical to understanding Smith's work and its influences, viewing it from a vantage of body politics and/or feminism alone drastically limits the scope of her work, obscuring the nuanced findings that can be realized when viewing such issues and their dynamic intersections within a framework of spiritual inquiry. Furthermore, this examination of the spiritual significance of Smith's art addresses a significant lacuna in American art scholarship, as scholars recognize the need for further study in the field of the visual culture of American religions. While Smith's work has caught the attention of a wide and far-reaching audience of art critics and scholars, few have thoroughly examined its spiritual dimensions, nor does the literature seriously consider how Smith's work constitutes American religious practice and experience. In articulating the interrelations between a selection of works from Smith's oeuvre and a series of historical and ideological frames, all of which negotiate the recent burgeoning of interest in contemporary art and religion in America and the ensuing debate over art's ownership and public funding, this study develops a fuller, more critical, and more theoretically-driven account of Smith's art production than has previously been assessed. MAKING GOD: INCARNATION AND SOMATIC PIETY IN THE ART OF KIKI SMITH by Margaret Randolph Wilkerson Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006


We analyze the effect of a few fiber delay loops on the number of deflections in an all optical packet switch. The switch is based on the ROMEO architecture developed by Alcatel. We use deflection routing because of the lack of optical memory. Some fiber delay loops allow the packets to be locally deflected instead of being sent on the network for much longer delays. As the model is numerically difficult, we apply stochastic bounds. First, we consider a partial ordering on the state space and we prove that the problem is monotone. Then we present a new method which strongly relies on this property. Note that this method is quite general as partial order monotone multicomponent systems are quite frequent in performance evaluation. The upper bounds are computed using robust numerical algorithms on a smaller state space. We also show how we can compute lower bounds to check the accuracy of the method


Isolated tail arteries from stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP), but not from normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY), exhibit oscillatory contractions in response to norepinephrine. Previous studies indicate that the mechanism for these oscillations involves altered membrane calcium and/or potassium handling, and that this vascular change is a genetic defect associated with hypertension in SHRSP. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether treatment of SHRSP with the calcium entry blocker felodipine would alter oscillatory activity. Adult SHRSP and WKY rats were treated orally with felodipine for 8 weeks. Felodipine treatment produced a significant decrease in blood pressure in SHRSP (control SHRSP: 240 +/- 7 mmHg, n = 6; felodipine-treated SHRSP: 164 +/- 8 mmHg, n = 5, P less than 0.05; tail-cuff method). Helically-cut tail artery strips from all rats were mounted in tissue baths for isometric force recording and exposed to norepinephrine (6 x 10(-9) to 6 x 10(-6) mol/l) for 20 min at each concentration. Oscillatory activity was defined as the sum of the magnitudes of all phasic contractions occurring during the final 10 min of norepinephrine incubation. Oscillatory activity was markedly reduced in tail arteries from felodipine-treated SHRSP when compared with control SHRSP. Felodipine also inhibited oscillatory activity when added directly to the tissue bath. It seems, therefore, that felodipine may lower blood pressure in SHRSP, at least in part, by correcting the genetic defect responsible for oscillatory activity.


Introduction: The north and south polar caps of Mars are tremendous reservoirs of ices and dust of unknown composition [1]. Both polar caps are geologically young (< 10 Ma [2]) and their stratigraphically layered deposits are a witness to the planet's recent climate evolution. They act as large scale loads that can bend the basement. Analysis of the associated lithospheric flexure is one of the few methods that give access to the composition of the polar caps and to the present-day strength of the lithosphere, which is related to the thermal state of the planet [3]. In this study, we use a novel technique that combines radar and elevation data with a flexure model to probe the basement of the Martian south and north polar caps and jointly invert for their composition and the strength of the underlying lithosphere.


CONTEXT
Cdc6 has been extensively studied as a marker for cellular proliferation that is expressed during the normal cell cycle. Recent studies indicate that Cdc6 may be a marker for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and carcinoma; however, the histologic distribution of Cdc6 has not been explicitly defined. Expression of Cdc6 in the endocervical mucosa also remains unexplored.

OBJECTIVE
The goal of the current study was to evaluate the distribution of Cdc6 protein, MIB-1 protein, and human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in a broad range of cervical tissues, including normal, potentially premalignant, and malignant lesions of the ectocervical and endocervical mucosa.

METHODS
We used an indirect immunoperoxidase method to stain formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues and frozen tissues, including biopsy and hysterectomy specimens, for Cdc6 and MIB-1 proteins, and we used in situ hybridization to detect HPV DNA in a subset of cases.

RESULTS
Cdc6 staining was exclusively nuclear and was present in both squamous and glandular epithelial cells of histologic sections. Cdc6 staining was rarely present in specimens of normal cervical squamous mucosa (2/84, 2.4%) or in specimens with squamous metaplasia (3/59, 5.1%) and was not detected in normal endocervical glands (0/84). Staining was present in most cases of CIN I (31/48, 65%). Staining was present in the majority of cases of CIN II (25/28, 89%) and in all cases of CIN III (36/36) and squamous cell carcinomas (34/34). The proportion of cells staining for Cdc6 increased with the grade of dysplasia, and the proportion of stained cells in squamous cell carcinomas was similar to that in lesions of high-grade dysplasia. Cdc6 staining was present in the majority of cases in glandular lesions including adenocarcinoma in situ (11/14, 79%) and adenocarcinoma (8/10, 80%). The histologic distribution of Cdc6-immunoreactive cells was similar to that of cells with a strong signal for HPV DNA, but Cdc6 protein and HPV DNA did not colocalize at the level of individual cells.

CONCLUSION
Cdc6 expression is a marker for high-grade cervical squamous and glandular dysplasia and carcinoma and is associated with HPV infection. The mechanistic basis of the association between HPV infection and Cdc6 immunopositivity remains to be determined but may represent either up-regulation of Cdc6 expression or stabilization of the Cdc6 protein.


Monitoring and interpreting of the Driver behaviour is a challenging area of research as the driver behaves unpredictably under the influence of factors such as fatigue, drowsiness, inattention, weather, traffic, and roads variations. In the studies reported in the literature, the activities of the driver are monitored through longitudinal and lateral behaviours using physiological characteristics and computer vision. However, an effective method to understand and monitor the sudden changes in the postural behaviour of the driver leading to catastrophic conditions is still outstanding. Towards developing such method, the driver head posture under different driving states is monitored in this study using inertial sensors. The data produced by the sensors is modelled using Gaussian Mixture unsupervised clustering approach. The experiments were conducted on a total of 10 young healthy subjects on MATHWORKS driver-in-loop simulator, interfaced with a virtual environment designed in Unreal Engine studio. A criteria of minimum abundance range between 0.5-1% is deployed to identify the most optimum clusters. The information contained in the clusters are analyzed to find the maximum magnitude and standard deviation of each cluster and then organized in descending order for assignment the symbols. Finally, the patterns of each driver state are validated. The results indicate that the proposed approach is effective in identifying the driver state in an unsupervised manner. Moreover, the patterns identified can be deployed in a smart early intervention system to correct the mistakes made during driving. The limitations of the current work and directions for future work are discussed.


Everyone has heard the slogan "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"—but does observing this hierarchy really minimize negative impacts? With respect to reduction, it seems clear that using less of something decreases the impact. Similarly, reuse of a material or product should decrease the impact of each use, as long as the resources needed to restore the item to usable condition each time are not too large. For recycling, the picture varies by material and often involves tradeoffs among impacts. Life-cycle analysis aims to comprehensively compare all of the impacts of various disposition options. This article summarizes the pros and cons of recycling materials used in paper, drink containers, and the complex batteries for electric vehicles from the perspective of life-cycle analysis.


Communities can be observed in many real-world graphs. In general, a community can be thought of as a portion of a graph in which intra-community links are dense while inter-community links are sparse. Automatic community structure detection has been well studied in static graphs. However, many practical applications of community structure involve networks in which communities change dynamically over time. Several methods of detecting the community structure of dynamic graphs have been proposed, however most treat the dynamic graph as a series of static snapshots, which creates unrealistic assumptions. Others require large amounts of computational resources or require knowledge of the dynamic graph from start to finish, relegating them to post-processing. For those who desire real-time community structure detection distributed over the observing network, these solutions are insufficient. This paper proposes a new method of community structure detection which allows for real time distributed detection of community structure.


Juxtapleural nodules were excluded from the segmented lung region in the Hounsfield unit threshold-based segmentation method. To re-include those regions in the lung region, a new approach was presented using scale-invariant feature transform and gradient vector flow models in this study. First, the scale-invariant feature transform method was utilized to detect all scale-invariant points in the binary lung region. The boundary points in the neighborhood of a scale-invariant point were collected to form the supportive boundary lines. Then, we utilized a Fourier descriptor to obtain a character representation of each supportive boundary line. Spectrum energy recognizes supportive boundaries that must be corrected. Third, the gradient vector flow-snake method was presented to correct the recognized supportive borders with a smooth profile curve, giving an ideal correction edge in those regions. Finally, the performance of the proposed method was evaluated through experiments on multiple authentic computed tomography images. The perfect results and robustness proved that the proposed method could correct the juxtapleural region precisely.


A Bayesian hierarchical approach is presented for the estimation of length-weight relationships (LWR) in fishes. In particular, estimates are provided for the LWR parameters
a and b in general as well as by body shape. These priors and existing LWR studies were used to derive species-specific LWR parameters. In the cases of data-poor species, the analysis includes LWR studies of closely related species
with the same body shape. This approach yielded LWR parameter estimates with measures of uncertainty for practically all known 32 000 species of fishes. Provided is a 3 large LWR data set extracted from www.fishbase.org, the
source code of the respective analyses, and ready-to-use tools for practitioners. This is presented as an example of a self-learning online database where the addition of new
studies improves the species-specific parameter estimates, and where these parameter estimates inform the analysis of new data.


To the Editor: I appreciated the editorial on the decriminalisation of drugs, which argued that psychoactive drugs are part of human antiquity, that world-wide attempts to 'clean up' the drug scene have been counterproductive, that the 'war' on drugs has failed, and that attempts to root out drug barons and supply routes has hiked prices and destabilised political systems rather than achieving the noble aim of drug eradication. With subtle reference to human hypocrisy, Professor Van Niekerk points out that official acknowledgement of the futility of drug wars is political suicide. He makes the sobering observation that tobacco and alcohol are in the top half of the ranking scale of human harm and yet these drugs are legal. He implies that decriminalising the others will go a long way toward relinquishing the lucrative control of drug dealing from the barons to the State, which could put the money to better use.


Under the conditions of contemporary competition the organizations rival not only on the level of organizational knowledge. the competitive advantage more often is acquired by the organizations that are able to employ the whole organization's knowing, including both collective knowledge and individual knowledge that may be explicit, tacit and implicit which earlier were not known or perceived as important. We may claim that the turbulent environment makes an organization difficult to exactly foresee and appreciate everything. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) analysed the formation of explicit (articulated) and tacit, individual and collective knowledge/knowing in organization and proposed the model of organizational knowing. This model describes the knowledge creation in organization as a permanent, never-ending process. Nonaka (2001) argues that the essential activity in organizational knowledge creation is the constant exchange of explicit and tacit knowledge among the different organizational levels. The majority of researchers (Hellund, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Tsoukas, 1996; Spender, 1996a, 1996b, 1998, 2000; Gamble & Blackwell, 2001 ir kt.) analyse the organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Stankeviciūtė (2002) was the first to discuss the concept of organization's knowing as a dynamic, holistic. Jucevicienė (2007) even more expanded the meaning of organizational knowing. Organizational knowing reflects the functional approach to knowledge by emphasizing knowledge importance for an organization to achieve the goals set or to perform a certain activity. This functional approach to knowledge that recognizes the existence of explicit, tacit and implicit knowledge in organization especially emphases the first type of knowledge, i.e. explicit knowledge that is embedded in the forms of different regulations, technologies, etc. Meanwhile, the organization's knowing is a broader concept that represents the holistic approach to knowledge in its entirety prevailing in organization. If organizational knowing is limited by the knowing that is perceived by organization as important, so, the organization's knowing embraces the whole knowing of all individuals, who make an organization, all groups in organization and all knowing of organizational level (which is implied but not articulated), - explicit, implicit and tacit (Jucevicienė, 2007). Organization's knowing reflects the organization's cognitive potential, i.e. all the organization as "alive" organism knows in explicit, tacit and implicit way. All these concepts, however, are rather fresh. The researchers search for their deeper understanding and aim to clarify the peculiarities and the potential of the conceptual differences in organizational knowing and organization's knowing. What are the differences between organization's knowledge and organization's knowing? Is it possible to formalize organization's knowing? These questions, however, still lack the attention of the researchers. The aim of our article is to reveal the relationship between organization's knowing and organization's knowledge as well as to define the boundaries of their recognition and formalization. The methods applied are the analysis of scientific literature. The main conceptual position is that the formation of organization's knowledge is most successful in the organization that is able to act as the community of practice (Wenger, 2001); knowledge in organization is created and applied during the interaction between the explicit and tacit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). The article consists of two parts. The first part deals with the analysis of organization's knowing and organization's knowledge concepts and the question of what is the relationship between these two concepts. The boundaries of possible formalization and recognition of organization's knowing are theoretically substantiated in the second part of the paper.


Abstract Protein translocases have been characterised in several membrane systems and the translocation mechanisms have been shown to differ in critical respects. Nevertheless, the majority were believed to transport proteins only in a largely unfolded state, and this widespread characteristic was viewed as a likely evolutionary effort to minimise the diameter of translocation pore required. Within the last few years, however, studies on the chloroplast thylakoid membrane have revealed a novel class of protein translocase which possesses the apparently unique ability to transport fullyfolded proteins across a tightly sealed energytransducing membrane. A related system, (the twinarginine translocation, or Tat system) has now been characterised in the Escherichia coli plasma membrane and considerations of its substrate specificity again point to its involvement in the transport of folded proteins. The emerging data suggest a critical involvement in many membranes for the biogenesis of two types of globular protein: those that are obliged to fold prior to translocation, and those that fold too tightly or rapidly for other types of protein translocase to handle.


In this work we propose a 3D monolithically stacked, multi-layer detectors based on CMOS Active Pixel Sensors (APS) layers which allows at the same time accurate estimation of the impact point and of the incidence angle an ionizing particle. The whole system features two fully-functional CMOS APS matrix detectors, including both sensing area and control/signal elaboration circuitry, stacked in a monolithic device by means of Through Silicon Via (TSV) connections thanks to the capabilities of the CMOS vertical scale integration (3D-IC) 130 nm Chartered/Tezzaron technology. In order to evaluate the suitability of the two layer monolithic active pixel sensor system to reconstruct particle tracks, tests with proton beams have been carried out at the INFN LABEC laboratories in Florence (Italy) with 3 MeV proton beam.


Little is known about the regulation of integrin expression. Using flow cytometry, we have characterized the expression of integrin subunits and other adhesion molecules in bladder and colonic cell lines and studied their modulation by the cytokines tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma). We show that although TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma may modulate integrin expression, these effects are, in the case of some integrin subunits, secondary to cytokine-induced changes in cell density. Cell density-dependent changes in the expression of alpha 2-, alpha 3-, alpha 6-, beta 1-, and beta 4-integrin subunits were seen. IFN-gamma produced density-independent decreases in expression of alpha 2- and beta 1-integrins and increases in expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), alpha 3-, alpha 6-, and beta 4-integrins. TNF-alpha produced increases in beta 1-integrin and ICAM-1 expression which were also density-independent. The expression of some integrin subunits is clearly density-dependent and the alterations seen are dependent on the cell line studied. This study illustrates the importance of including appropriate density-related controls in all investigations examining adhesion molecule expression.


Phosphatidylinositol 3,5-bisphosphate (PI(3,5)P2) is the most recently identified phosphoinositide, and its functions have yet to be fully elucidated. Recently, members of our muscle group have shown that PI(3,5)P2 plays an important role in skeletal muscle function by altering Ca2+ homeostasis. Therefore, we hypothesized that PI(3,5)P2 may also modulate cardiac muscle contractility by altering intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) in cardiac myocytes. We first confirmed that PI(3,5)P2 was present and increased by insulin treatment of cardiomyocytes via immunohistochemistry. To examine the acute effects of PI(3,5)P2 treatment, electrically paced left ventricular muscle strips were incubated with PI(3,5)P2. Treatment with PI(3,5)P2 increased the magnitude of isometric force, the rate of force development, and the area associated with the contractile waveforms. These enhanced contractile responses were also observed in MIP/Mtmr14−/− mouse hearts, which we found to have elevated levels of PI(3,5)P2. In cardiac myocytes loaded with fura-2, PI(3,5)P2 produced a robust elevation in [Ca2+]i. The PI(3,5)P2-induced elevation of [Ca2+]i was not present in conditions free of extracellular Ca2+ and was completely blocked by ryanodine. We investigated whether the phosphoinositide acted directly with the Ca2+ release channels of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (ryanodine receptors; RyR2). PI(3,5)P2 increased [3H]ryanodine binding and increased the open probability (Po) of single RyR2 channels reconstituted in lipid bilayers. This strongly suggests that the phosphoinositide binds directly to the RyR2 channel. Thus, we provide inaugural evidence that PI(3,5)P2 is a powerful activator of sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ release and thereby modulates cardiac contractility.


The purpose of this case study was to describe the development of a channel strategy for an apparel brand, BoKids, designed to distribute its brand, Oliver, efficiently to customers. Bokids launched its childrens apparel brand, Oliver, in Korea by signing a brand license contract with Oliver of USA. When the brand was launched in 2005, Oliver was positioned as a brand with a reasonable price and a high quality product, which was sold primarily through department stores. In 2007, Oliver was suffering from sluggish sales volumes, and switched its main distribution channel from department stores to discount stores, which are the number 1 retail format in Korea. Oliver was compelled to adjust the price range of its main products to $20 30 in order to satisfy the needs of discount store customers. However, Oliver has considered Internet shopping as another channel for the Oliver brand, as Internet shopping is rapidly gaining popularity in Korea. This case can be used in conjunction with discussions on marketing topics, such as the design of marketing channels (Chapter 6, Designing the Marketing Channel, Marketing Channels: A Management View, 7 th  Edition by Bert Rosenbloom, South-Western College Pub, 2007) for senior level marketing seminars.


This paper develops a conceptual agenda and a critical cartographic methodology using aerial photographs to monitor the shaping of waterfront as a geography in Istanbul by humans. Starting from the first aerial photographs of Istanbul until present, the gaze of the vertical dimension in geographical space holds divergent evidences of spatial transformation captured in aerial views. From construction sites to building of coastal roads, demolishing of port scapes and technological rifts of logistic flows, to large infills in longshore space; events and moments of spatial deformation of coastal space become visible and evident through aerial photography. Aerial gaze, when considered within an archeology of a developing military reconnaissance technology, is presented as an ironic tool to shed light to evidences and historical record of spatial transformation within an act of witnessing. Viewing coastal unfixity through aerial photographs are argued here to provide two different temporalities: longue and court dureé which operate in the eventual and geological time. As these photographs unveil, the material geological body of the waterfront itself becomes the bearer of historical records of human and nonhuman relations that shape the coastal geography. The ground beneath is unfixed as it is pulled into a cartographic questioning tool of "critical delineation" of Istanbul's waterfront. In the end, the waterfront is re-conceptualized and monitored as a dynamic geography. With this gaze, this paper suggests a debunking of oppositions of land and sea space to reframe the waterfront as an urban edge in the process of urbanization.


We are using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) to probe the dynamics of thylakoid membranes in vivo in cells of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC7942. We have shown previously that the light-harvesting phycobilisomes diffuse quite rapidly on the thylakoid membrane surface. However, the photosystem II core complexes appear completely immobile. This raises the possibility that all of the membrane integral protein complexes in the thylakoid membrane are locked into a rather rigid array. Alternatively, it is possible that photosystem II is specifically anchored in the membrane, with other membrane proteins able to diffuse around it. We have now resolved this question by studying the diffusion of a second integral membrane protein, the IsiA chlorophyll-binding protein. IsiA is induced under iron starvation and some other stress conditions. In iron-stressed cyanobacterial cells, a high proportion of chlorophyll fluorescence comes from IsiA. This makes it straightforward to examine the diffusion of IsiA by FRAP. We find that the complex is mobile with a mean diffusion coefficient of ∼3 × 10–11 cm2 s–1. Thus it is clear that some thylakoid membrane proteins are mobile and that there must be a specific anchor that prevents photosystem II diffusion. We discuss the implications for the structure and function of the cyanobacterial thylakoid membrane.


In spite of successful proofs of stability and even successful demonstrations of performance, the eventual use of model reference adaptive control methodologies in practical real‐world systems has met a rather strong resistance from practitioners and has remained very limited. Apparently, the practitioners have a hard time understanding the conditions that can guarantee stable operations of adaptive control systems under realistic operational environments. Besides, it is difficult to measure the robustness of adaptive control system stability and allow it to be compared with the common and widely used measure of phase margin and gain margin that is utilized by present, mainly LTI, controllers. Furthermore, recent counterexamples seem to show that adaptive systems may diverge even when all required conditions are fulfilled. This paper attempts to revisit the fundamental qualities of the common direct model reference adaptive control methodology based on gradient and to show that some of its basic drawbacks have been addressed and eliminated within the so‐called simple adaptive control methodology. The sufficient conditions that guarantee stability are clearly stated and lead to similarly clear proofs of stability. The main claim of the paper is that if sufficient information exists for a robust classical design control, same information can be used to implement robust simple adaptive controllers. As many real world applications show, the added value of using add‐on adaptive control techniques, the use is pushing the desired performance beyond any previous limits. The paper also shows that the previous counterexamples to model reference adaptive control become just simple, successful, and stable applications of simple adaptive control. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A chemical analysis was performed on the heartwood of Andira inermis to identify its main chemical components. The results found were: pH 5.9, 0.71% inorganic substances, 19.1 % extractives, 34.2 % lignin and 65.78 % polysaccharides. In ash, the following components were detected: calcium, magnesium, sulfur and silicon. To obtain the extractives content, the heartwood meal was subjected to sequential extraction with cyclohexane, chloroform, acetone and methanol in Soxhlet equipment and later in hot water under reflux. Heartwood solubility was higher in acetone (8.6 %) and methanol (5.3 %), and the total content of extractives was 19.1 %. PALABRAS CLAVE: maderas tropicales, pH, cenizas, extraibles, lignina, polisacaridos.


Small and medium enterprises in developing economies do not usually utilize the right mix of the various sources of long term funds to finance its capital assets due to ignorance and thus deprived of the benefits accompanied with optimal level of debt and equity mix. This paper examined the determinants for the level of equity and debt in the firm's capital structure and assessed the extent to which financial leverage affects firm's financial performance. This study relied on secondary source of information and thus focused on conceptual exploration, review of theories and critical analyses of empirical previous studies. The study presented some practical illustrations and  solutions which were derived from the theory provided for the study Table (1) revealed that the more a firm is levered, the higher the rate of return to the equity holders. Levered firms in addition, have the advantage of tax shelter.  Table (2) revealed that (when the net operating income is week) unlevered  firms will be in a better condition than the levered firms. Table 3 revealed that so long as the net operating income of a firm is strong, the more a firm is levered, the higher the rate of return.  The study concluded that the level of debt and equity in a company's capital structure has risk and return implications. A firm should keep its optimal capital structure in mind when making financing decisions to assure that any increase in debt and preferred equity increase the value of the firm. So long as the net operating income of a firm is strong, the more a firm is levered, the higher the rate of return because interest paid on debt is tax deductible.


In this paper, a novel multi-sensor wearable device, called MuSA, is introduced. MuSA aims at integrating in the CARDEA ambient-assisted-living framework: on the one hand, MuSA provides CARDEA with useful ambient-intelligence features, such as localization and identification; on the other hand, it may borrow from the environmental control system many infrastructural and communication components, resulting in a less expensive implementation. MuSA exploits onboard sensors and signal processing units for fall detection, heartbeat and breathing rates detection. At this level too, sharing of part of the circuitry enables power and cost savings. Ubiquitous computing paradigm is followed, carrying out all of the signal processing and decision processes at the wearable node: this makes communication toward supervision levels much less demanding and independent on the actual physical features of the sensors themselves. Test have been carried out, confirming that the low-cost approach which has been followed still allows for adequate quality of responses. Field test is starting, to evaluate psychological and ergonomic aspect as well.


Recent time series soil CO2 concentration data from monitoring stations in the vicinity of Mammoth Mountain, California, reveal strong evidence for a magmatic degassing event during the fall of 1997 lasting more than 2 months. Two sensors at Horseshoe Lake first recorded the episode on September 23, 1997, followed 10 days later by a sensor on the north flank of Mammoth Mountain. Direct degassing from shallow intruding magma seems an implausible cause of the degassing event, since the gas released at Horseshoe Lake continued to be cold and barren of other magmatic gases, except for He. We suggest that an increase in compressional strain on the area south of Mammoth Mountain driven by movement of major fault blocks in Long Valley caldera may have triggered an episode of increased degassing by squeezing additional accumulated CO2 from a shallow gas reservoir to the surface along faults and other structures where it could be detected by the CO2 monitoring network. Recharge of the gas reservoir by CO2 emanating from the deep intrusions that probably triggered deep long-period earthquakes may also have contributed to the degassing event. The nature of CO2 discharge at the soil-air interface is influenced by the porous character of High Sierra soils and by meteorological processes. Solar insolation is the primary source of energy for the Earth atmosphere and plays a significant role in most diurnal processes at the Earth surface. Data from this study suggest that external forcing due largely to local orographic winds influences the fine structure of the recorded CO2 signals.


This work describes newly synthesized composite polymeric membranes and their utilization in propane/propylene separation in a gas mixture. The nonporous composite polymers were successfully synthesized by using thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and several silver salts/silver salts with ionic liquids (ILs). Our studies showed that silver bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (Ag[Tf 2 N]) containing membranes outperformed other silver salt containing membranes in terms of selectivity. In addition, to this finding, ILs, as additives for the membranes, enhanced the selectivity by facilitating improved coordination of the olefin with the silver ions in the dense composite polymers.


A procedure for the simultaneous determination of K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn, Br, Rb, Sr, and Pb in milk by x-ray fluorescence spectrometry is described. Comparison of molybdenum-tube excitation and cadmium-109 isotopic excitation is discussed, and results of over 500 milk samples are summarized.


The EU has most frequently resorted to harmonisation as a model to achieve its in-ternal market. This contribution examines the dynamics of legal differentiation in EU's internal market law laid down in Article 114 TFEU and secondary laws. It con-cludes that there has been a modest number of invocations of the derogation possibili-ties under Article 114 (4) and (5) TFEU and the safeguard clauses. The low number may be due to the fact that may both the Commission and the Courts have a very rig-id reading of the procedure whilst the grounds for invocation are very limited. This low number nevertheless does not automatically imply that Member States agree with the level of protection laid down in the EU's harmonisation measures or that the opt out mechanisms are not relevant. Derogation mechanisms may play an important role in the negotiations of the level of protection in the draft legislative acts. This study moreover reveals that the derogation mechanisms may be important devices of regulatory adjustment and learning in the fields of public health and environmental protection in the EU. They ultimately may rather strengthen the uniformity of regula-tory requirements in the EU internal market instead of leading to regulatory diversity.


Recursive discrete binary particle swarm optimization (RDBPSO) with Euclidean distance as a fitness function was recently proposed for the electronic nose system (ENS). It demonstrated a significant reduction in the memory requirement and the response time of the system using optimum subset of features. To further enhance the memory requirement and response time of the ENS, this paper proposes some new fitness functions for RDBPSO with following merits: 1) a novel approach based on different similarity measures is proposed with improved memory efficiency and response time of the ENS; 2) feature augmentation strategy that combines the original sensors response and some extracted features is incorporated, which enhances the learning process; 3) the proposed algorithm utilizes only the median values of the training data, which makes the system memory efficient and feasible for portable use; and 4) optimization of features vector using RDBPSO maintains the classification accuracy high, even with a reduced number of features. The proposed algorithm is validated against four different data sets of gases and mixtures of gases. Two of these data sets are experimentally acquired from a laboratory setup, while other two are publically available on the University of California, Irvine machine learning online repository. Validation results reveal an average of 96.77% decrease in the memory requirement, while an average classification accuracy of 98.73% is achieved for all the four data sets.


Na/Ca exchanger (NCX1) is essential Ca regulator of myocyte Ca homeostasis and specially localized at transverse tubules (T-tubules) membrane. T-tubules are invaginations of the sarcolemma and critical for myocyte contraction, especially as the main site of excitation-contraction coupling. Therefore, T-tubule disorganization is linked to decreased contractility in heart failure, but the molecular mechanism is not clear. We analyzed the alteration of T-tubule structure and Ca handling during the progression of heart failure after transverse aortic constriction (TAC)-surgery, using cardiac-specific and inducible NCX1 transgenic mice. In progression of cardiac dysfunction, sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca ATPase and NCX1 activity were down-regulated before T-tubule disorganization. The inducing NCX1 overexpression after TAC-surgery prevented T-tubule disorganization and contractile dysfunction under prolonged pressure-overload, with improvement of myocyte Ca handling. These results suggest that local Ca control beneath the T-tubule membrane is crucial for the maintenance of myocyte structure and function, in which NCX1 has a pivotal role.


There are a total of 1451 gamma-ray emitting objects in the Fermi Large Area Telescope First Source Catalogue. The point source location accuracy of typically a few arcmin has allowed the counterparts for many of these sources to be found at other wavelengths, but even so there are 630 which are described as having no plausible counterpart at 80 per cent confidence. In order to help identify the unknown objects, we have cross-correlated the positions of these sources with the ROSAT All Sky Survey Bright Source Catalogue. In this way, for Fermi sources which have a possible counterpart in soft X-rays, we can use the much smaller ROSAT error box to search for identifications. We find a strong correlation between the two samples and calculate that there are about 60 sources with a ROSAT counterpart. Using the ROSAT error boxes we provide tentative associations for half of them, demonstrate that the majority of these are either blazars or blazar candidates, and give evidence that most belong to the BL Lac class. Given that they are X-ray selected and most are high synchrotron peaked objects, which indicates the presence of high-energy electrons, these sources are also good candidates for TeV emission, and therefore good probes of the extragalactic background light.


Patch tests with a standard series were performed in 274 non-dermatologic patients undergoing orthopedic surgery. Allergic reactions were observed in 22%, particularly to nickel (7%) and balsam of Peru (5%). Contact allergy in patients without previous or present skin disease was observed in 9%. A certain frequency of contact allergy in the general population should be held in mind when considering the incidence in patients with skin disease.


Mobility tracking operations in a personal communication service (PCS) system are signaling consuming. Several strategies have been proposed in the literature to reduce both the location update (LU) and the paging (PG) costs. In this paper, we propose a location-tracking algorithm called three-location area (TrLA), combined with selective paging. In TrLA, the mobile terminal (MT) allocates the identification of three neighboring location areas (LAs) in its local memory. We call this set of three LAs, a big-location area (BLA). Each time the MT exits the BLA, it triggers an LU message to the system databases via a base station, in order to maintain the databases up to date. The MT also updates its cache memory. A two-step selective PG is also considered and compared with the single-step (or nonselective PG). An analytical model based on a semi-Markov process has been used to evaluate our proposal. This scheme is compared with the classical Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard and the two-location algorithm proposal. As a result, this new scheme outperforms the cited strategies, and in our opinion, it can easily be implemented in existing standard cellular and personal communication systems.


Pathogenic bacteria deliver effector proteins into host cells through the type III secretion apparatus to modulate the host function. We identify a family of proteins, homologous to the type III effector Cif from enteropathogenic Escherichia coli, in pathogens including Yersinia, Photorhabdus, and Burkholderia that contain functional type III secretion systems. Like Cif, this family of proteins is capable of arresting the host cell cycle at G2/M. Structure of one of the family members, Cif homolog in Burkholderia pseudomallei (CHBP), reveals a papain-like fold and a conserved Cys-His-Gln catalytic triad despite the lack of primary sequence identity. For CHBP and Cif, only the putative catalytic Cys is susceptible to covalent modification by E-64, a specific inhibitor of papain-like cysteine proteases. Unlike papain-like enzymes where the S2 site is the major determinant of cleavage-site specificity, CHBP has a characteristic negatively charged pocket occupying surface areas corresponding to the S1/S1′ site in papain-like proteases. The negative charge is provided by a conserved aspartate, and the pocket best fits an arginine, as revealed by molecular docking analysis. Mutation analysis establishes the essential role of the catalytic triad and the negatively charged pocket in inducing cell cycle arrest in host cells. Our results demonstrate that bacterial pathogens have evolved a unique papain-like hydrolytic activity to block the normal host cell cycle progression.