We have previously reported that stomatin-like protein 2 (SLP-2) regulates human T cell activation through the antigen receptor. In human lymphoid tissues, SLP-2 is widely expressed in the thymus, lymph nodes and tonsils, and its expression is further up-regulated in response to lymphocyte activation. In T cells, SLP-2 is found in two pools: the most abundant is associated with mitochondria while a smaller pool is associated with the plasma membrane. To further investigate the role of SLP-2, we generated T cell-specific SLP-2 deficient mice. These mice had normal numbers of thymocytes and mature T cells. However, SLP-2 deficient T cells showed significantly less T cell activation in response to T cell stimulation in vivo and in vitro. Although SLP-2 deficient T cells did not show significant alterations in mitochondrial biogenesis, they had decreased levels of the NDUSF3, NDUFB8 and NDUFA9 subunits of complex I of the respiratory chain, suggesting a possible role for SLP-2 in regulating the stability of proteins involved in mitochondrial electron transport. SLP-2 deficient T cells also had less cardiolipin within detergent-insoluble microdomains, which may be required for proper respiratory chain assembly and function. Based on these results, we conclude that SLP-2 contributes to T cell activation, in part by regulating stability of complex I of the respiratory chain and sustaining the metabolic requirements for T cell activation.


This paper examines the semantic consequences of the presence and absence of the verbal particle in Hungarian sentences containing a verb of creation. Since these verbs are Definiteness-Effect verbs, the aspectual interpretation does not depend merely on the verbal particle's position – or even presence – in the sentence, as in other cases, but rather on the specific/non-specific interpretation of the object. The main claim of the paper is that the verbal particle's role in such sentences can be defined in terms of collectivity and distributivity: the Definiteness-Effect constructions – the ones without verbal particle – can only refer to collective events, and the non-Definiteness-Effect-constructions – the ones containing a verbal particle – can refer to both collective and distributive events.


The behavior of blood pressure was investigated in 65 transplantation (Tx) patients in a nephrological outpatient service for an average of 18.6 months after Tx. Before Tx 2/3 of the patients exhibited hypertension, after Tx this was reduced to 1/2. No correlation was found between behaviour of blood pressure and such factors as renal function, incidence of rejection episodes, prednisolonee dose, diabetes mellitus and urinary function, incidence of rejection episodes, prednisolon dose, diabetes mellitus and urinary tract infection of the Tx. Only in patients with glomerulonephritis as original renal disease there was in increased incidence of hypertension before and after Tx. Causes of hypertension are discussed and demonstrated in the case of Tx arterial stenosis.


The increase in air traffic has contributed to increase in emission of a number of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) and particulate matter (soot). These emissions cause significant environmental damage and the inhalation of particulate matter is hazardous to human health. The key element to reducing emissions is in interpreting the combustion chemistry of aviation fuels. The coupling of detailed combustion chemical kinetics and computational fluid dynamics will provide insight into the effect of the fuel composition on pollutant formation.
Jet fuels consist of several hundreds of chemical components and building a detailed chemical kinetic model for wide spread predictive use with computational fluid mechanics is probably impossible. An alternative approach is to choose surrogate fuel components that replicate the parent fuel in both physical and chemical characteristics and consequently can provide a more general and thereby practical fuel model. In the present work, the combustion chemistry of the aromatic surrogate fuel components of jet fuels, n-propylbenzene, 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene and m-xylene was investigated. This project was executed in three correlated approaches
1) Development of an experimental database: Experiments were conducted in the High Pressure Single Pulse Shock Tube on m-xylene, 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene and n-propylbenzene for pressures of 20 – 60 atm, for temperatures ranging from 900 – 1800 K and for different equivalence ratios ɸ = 0.5, 1, 2 and ∞.
2) Quantification of VOC's and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): The products formed from the oxidation of these aromatic fuels were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively by using GC and GC/MS. Several volatile organic compounds (VOC's) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were also measured in the products. Measurement of PAHs is important because chemical growth of PAHs leads to the formation of soot.
3) Development of a chemical kinetic models: The chemical kinetic models for the oxidation of n-propylbenzene, 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene and m-xylene were developed based on the experimental results obtained in steps 1 and 2. These models will be used to develop comprehensive chemical kinetic model for combustion of jet fuels.


The remarks presented here enable us to more accurately classify a saucepan discovered in the 1988 excavated grave in Mannersdorf an der March. On comparison with the Pompeii specimen, the Mannersdorf saucepan has been assigned to the Tassinari G5300 type. Iconographic specification of the attachment from grave no. 146 from Dobřichov Pichora has also been changed in the light of our findings. The figure depicted on the E 24 type bucket attachment has due to the presence of wings and a male chest been identified as Eros. The deity has been portrayed on the attachment from the collective find from Vienna Schwechat as well as on several other types of vessels. Taking into account the similarities in both size and shape, it is not entirely impossible that the two attachments came from the same manufacturing centre. However, this hypothesis is yet to be verified by an analysis of the alloy which the attachments are made of. We believe that the two artefacts comprise a single bucket attachment variant of the E 24 type. It will now be known as the Schwechat/Dobřichov-Pichora variant.


Gold nanoparticles supported on TiO(2) (0.1-1% mol) catalyze at room temperature and at extremely mild conditions the unprecedented oxidative cycloaddition of 1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisiloxane to alkynes, forming substituted 2,5-dihydro-1,2,5-oxadisiloles, with concomitant evolution of hydrogen gas. For the majority of the substrates, the yields are exceptional (up to 99%). The reaction proceeds at room temperature, tolerates a variety of functional groups, and can be performed in several solvents.


Stress-induced premature senescence (SIPS) is characterized by cell cycle arrest and curtailed Hayflick limit. Studies support a central role for Rb protein in controlling this process via signaling from the p53 and p16 pathways. Cellular senescence is considered an essential contributor to the aging process and has been shown to be an important tumor suppression mechanism. In addition, emerging evidence suggests that SIPS may be involved in the pathogenesis of chronic human diseases. Here, focusing on endothelial cells, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of SIPS and the pathways that trigger it, evaluate their correlation with the apoptotic response and examine their links to the development of chronic diseases, with the emphasis on vasculopathy. Emerging novel therapeutic interventions based on recent experimental findings are also reviewed.


The use of Ka-band is currently the benchmark for High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems commercial application, while Q/V band is under scientific investigation through a European experimental campaign. The use of Extremely High Frequencies (EHF), in particular "beyond Ka-band" spectrum, is one of the main assets to increase the system throughput, exploiting the large bandwidth availability. The next generation of HTS will exploit these frequency bands (in particular Q/V-band in a shot-term scenario) in the feeder link, while Ka-band will be used in the user link to maintain user terminal backward compatibility. In a long-term scenario, beyond Ka-band frequencies could be used both in the user and feeder links. The impairments caused by propagation of EHF in the troposphere can be very high, hence, research activities on propagation impairments mitigation techniques (PIMT) are needed. The basic of PIMT is the dynamic adaptation of the system to the channel conditions and PIMT control loop is based on the use of channel status estimators. In this paper, different channel short-term prediction techniques will be presented and optimized using real Q/V band experimental data collected during the current Q/V-band satellite communication experimental campaign of Italian Space Agency (performed through the Aldo Paraboni P/L, embarked on Alphasat).


AbstractThe relationship between thyroid dysfunction and metabolic syndrome (MS) is complex. We aimed to explore the impact of gender and age on their association in a large Chinese cohort.This cross-sectional study enrolled 13,855 participants (8532 male, 5323 female), who self-reported as healthy without any known previous diseases. Clinical data including anthropometric measurements, thyroid function, and serum metabolic parameters were collected. The associations between thyroid function and MS of both genders were analyzed separately after dividing thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), free triiodothyronine (FT3), and age into subgroups. MS risks were calculated by binary logistic regression models.Young males had significantly higher MS prevalence than females, yet after menopause, females had higher prevalence than males. Females had higher incidence of thyroid dysfunction than males. By using TSH quartiles as the categorical variables and the lowest quartile as reference, significantly increased MS risk was demonstrated in quartile 4 for males, yet quartiles 3 and 4 for females. By using FT3 quartiles as the categorical variables, significantly increased MS risk was demonstrated in quartile 2 to 4 for females only. By using age subgroups as the categorical variables, significantly increased MS risk was shown in both genders, with females (4.408–58.455) higher than males (2.588–4.943).Gender and age had substantial influence on thyroid function and MS. Females with high TSH and high FT3 had higher MS risks than males. Aging was a risk for MS, especially for females. Urgent need is necessary to initiate interventional programs.


Aiming at the problem of electromagnetic interference exceeding in switching power supply compatibility experiment of electronic system, and combined with the design example of LLC half bridge resonance switch power supply, this paper put forward the optimum design method of PCB electromagnetic compatibility. By taking switching power supply as research object, it firstly analyzed the effect of electromagnetic interference on PCB electromagnetic compatibility. Based on method of field circuit combination, PCB simulation model was established so as to analyze the PCB electromagnetic compatibility of switching power supply. Next, according to the figure of PCB surface current and the near field distribution of electromagnetic field, and based on optimization design process of PCB electromagnetic compatibility, valid rectification measures was taken so as to improve PCB design and enhance PCB electromagnetic compatibility. At last, the simulation results showed that electromagnetic field intensity has widely reduced, which verified the reasonability of the improvement of PCB in design phase.


A failure of components or a disturbance of systems can cause a lot of nuisance alarms because of physical or logical connections between components or systems. And so many nuisance alarms can lead to a serious human burden for an operator like the TMI accident. After the TMI accident, many alarm reduction systems and diagnostic systems have been studied to reduce nuisance alarms and to detect the causes of an abnormal state. These systems provide an operator with information on significant alarms or causes of an abnormal state for an operator to identify that state. So, most of these studies have focused on high level information like physical or logical states of a failure rather than the state of process signals as detailed causes of an alarm. In this paper, an operator-aid system is proposed for tracking the logics of an alarm, finding the causes of an alarm, displaying the highlighted alarm procedure related to the causes, and suppressing and filtering nuisance alarms due to the physical or logical connections between components or systems in an abnormal state. The system can be used by an operator to identify the detailed causes of an alarm without checking all the causes of the candidates by alarms. The proposed system will be applied to a nuclear power plant of a CANDU type, Wolsong 3&4 Nuclear Power Plant.


Objective: To present the characteristic clinical, angiographic, electrophysiologic and optic coherence tomographic findings in eight patients with Bietti's crystalline dystrophy. Material and Methods: All patients had detailed ophthalmologic examination. Visual field examination, fluorescein angiography, electroretinography, electrooculography recordings, and optic coherence tomography were performed in all patients. Results: Best-corrected visual acuity ranged from 2/10 to 10/10. On fundoscopic examination, the reflective yellow deposits located especially in the posterior pole of the retina with the mottling of retina pigment epithelium were seen in all patients whereas in some of the cases pigment deposition, retina pigment epithelium and choriocapillaris atrophy were also noted. Corneal crystals were observed in the limbus in three cases . Central and paracentral scotomas were detected in perimetric examination. Arden ratios in electrooculography and the results of electroretinography recordings were different. Fluorescein angiography showed island like hypoflourescence corresponding to the geographic areas of retinal pigment epithelium and choriocapillary atrophy in the posterior pole. In addition to this fluorescein angiographic findings, in diffuse type cases, diffuse hypofluorescence that extended to the midperiphery was detected. Optic coherence tomographic examination disclosed multiple hyperreflective lesions in the retina and acoustic shadowing behind these hyperreflective lesions and a hyperreflective white band. Conclusion: Common characteristics of clinical, angiographic, electrophysiologic and optic coherence tomographic findings in patients with Bietti's crystalline dystrophy were described.


A dual formulation and finite element method is proposed and analyzed for simulating the Stefan problem with surface tension. The method uses a mixed form of the heat equation in the solid and liquid (bulk) domains, and imposes a weak formulation of the interface motion law (on the solid-liquid interface) as a constraint. The basic unknowns are the heat fluxes and temperatures in the bulk, and the velocity and temperature on the interface. The formulation, as well as its discretization, is viewed as a saddle point system. Well-posedness of the time semi-discrete and fully discrete formulations is proved in three dimensions, as well as an a priori bound and conservation law. In addition, error estimates are derived with reduced regularity assumptions on the solution. Simulations of interface growth (in two dimensions) are presented to illustrate the method.


Objective: To determine the economic burden of depression in the Asia Pacific region, review the negative economic consequences attributable to depression, and describe the reimbursement policies for health-care services throughout the Asia Pacific region. Methods: Both direct and indirect costs were obtained via a literature review of international mental health journals. Disability adjusted life year (DALYs) estimates were obtained from the World Health Organization. Reimbursement policy data were obtained from personal communication with the SEBoD International Advisory Board. Results: There are only two studies of the economic costs of depression in the Asia Pacific region. From these, the total cost of depression in Australia for 1997–98 was estimated as US$1.8 billion (22% direct costs), and in Taiwan for 1994 as US$1.4 billion (25% direct costs). In the year 2000, it was estimated that unipolar major depression accounted for 14.2 million DALYs in China and 22.7 million DALYs for all other Asia Pacific countries. The majority of Asia Pacific health-care systems have extensive insurance coverage, but not specific provisions for depression. However, relatively low overall fee schedules diminish financial barriers for outpatient treatment of depression. Conclusions: Untreated depression is a very costly disorder across the Asia Pacific region, with indirect costs constituting a substantial proportion. Consequently, treatment of depression should be the focus of policy makers to avoid major negative cost repercussions. It is encouraging that most Asia Pacific health service reimbursement policies enable the treatment of depression (especially outpatient treatment) to be relatively affordable. To advance this issue, the paucity of specific information on the epidemiology of depression, as well as service use and cost, needs to be addressed.


In France, medicalization of information systems program (PMSI) is an essential tool for the management planning and funding of health. The performance of encoding data inherent to hospital stays has become a major challenge for health institutions. Some studies have highlighted the impact of organizations set up on encoding quality and financial production. The aim of this study is to evaluate a computerized information system and new staff organization impact for treatment of the encoded information.


Basella rubra belongs to the family Basellaceae, and commonly known as malabar spinach, indian spinach, ceylon spinach and vine spinach. It was used to treat large number of human ailments as mentioned in Charaka Samhita, and Sushruta Samhita. It has been found to be a good source of calcium, iron, vitamin A and vitamin C. In Ayurveda, the plant has shown immense potential in androgenic, antiulcer, antioxidant, cytotoxic, antibacterial activity, antiinflammatory, central nervous system (CNS) depressant activity, nephroprotective and wound healing properties etc. This paper includes the evidence-based overview of pharmacological and phytochemical properties of the Basella rubra, which may be helpful to establish a standard natural drug for further research.


Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus (106) from bovine mastitis were tested for susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. beta-lactamase was produced by 69.8 per cent of isolates and 7.5 per cent were resistant to streptomycin (minimum inhibitory concentration more than 32 micrograms/ml). Resistance to other agents was rare. Intrinsic resistance or tolerance to beta-lactam antibiotics was not found.


ABSTRACT Aquatic invasive species (AIS) pose negative threats to ecosystems and society on a global scale. The unintentional transport of AIS by recreationists who move between waterbodies has prompted outreach campaigns that encourage changes in human behavior. These campaigns have been widely disseminated, however the risks of AIS transport remain high. Thus, evaluations of how these campaigns are being processed by stakeholders are urgently needed. In this study, we tested the persuasive capacity of values-framed messages among recreational water users throughout the U.S. state of Illinois. Results indicated that messages framed to reflect biospheric and altruistic values were most likely to resonate with recreationists. Specifically, participants with strong biospheric values tended to review the message closely when it was aligned with their values, resulting in stronger beliefs about their ability to take action. Implementing values-framing in AIS outreach may ultimately increase support for AIS prevention and lower the risk of spread.


unclear to what extent mechanical loading affects the collagen fibril morphology. To determine if local stresses affect the collagen fibril morphology (i.e. fibril diameter, its distribution, and fibril density), these parameters were investigated with transmission electron microscopy in adult human aortic valve leaflets. The mechanical behavior of human aortic valves was implemented in a computational model to predict the stress distribution in the valve leaflet during the diastolic phase of the cardiac cycle. The results showed that large tissue stress was associated with larger average fibril diameter, lower fibril density and wider fibril size distribution compared with low stress locations in the leaflets. These findings provide insight in the effect of mechanical loading on the collagen ultrastructure, and are valuable to optimize mechanical conditioning protocols for heart valve tissue engineering. The second objective of this thesis was to improve the mechanical properties of engineered tissues towards values of healthy native human aortic valves, which was considered an objective bench-mark for tissue engineering. Two strategies were adopted in the tissue engineering protocol to achieve this. The first approach involved modification of the scaffold design to provide sufficient mechanical support to engineered tissues. The currently used scaffold material is a mesh of rapid degrading polyglycolic acid coated with poly-4-hydroxybutyrate (PGA-P4HB). This material degrades within weeks, and does not provide mechanical integrity after implantation. As some tissue engineering applications do require a prolonged period of mechanical support by the scaffold, the feasibility of a slow degrading polymer scaffold of electrospun poly-"-caprolactone (PCL) was evaluated for cardiovascular tissue engineering, and compared with the PGA-P4HB scaffold. After optimization of the electrospun PCL scaffold, proper cell ingrowth and extracellular matrix biosynthesis were observed, while retaining elastic properties and mechanical integrity. PCL scaffolds appeared a promising alternative to PGA-P4HB scaffolds, specifically for tissue engineered blood vessels and the wall of an engineered heart valve, where prolonged mechanical support of the scaffold may be desired. As a second approach, the growing engineered tissues were biochemically stimulated to enhance tissue formation and strengthen the tissue. After an evaluation of biochemical factors known to promote protein synthesis, hypoxia and insulin were chosen for the experiments. A physiologically relevant oxygen tension, being lower than currently used in tissue engineering approaches, and insulin supplements were applied to the growing heart valve tissues to enhance their strength. Both insulin and hypoxia were associated with enhanced matrix production and improved mechanical properties, however, a synergistic effect was not observed. Although the amount of collagen and cross-links in the engineered tissues were still lower than native adult human aortic valves, tissues cultured under hypoxic conditions reached native human aortic valve values of tissue strength and stiffness after four weeks of culture, and were up to twice the values of the normoxic controls. These results strongly indicate that oxygen tension is a key parameter to achieve native-based bench-mark values of tissue strength in engineered heart valves. Engineered tissues, based on rapid degrading scaffolds, of such strength have not been achieved up to now. These findings bring the potential use for systemic applications a step closer, and can be considered an important improvement in heart valve tissue engineering. Heart valve replacement is a common treatment of end-stage valvular diseases to restore functionality of the valve. Although conventional valve replacements by mechanical or biological prosthesis offer prosperous function, they are associated with risks that limit their success. An important shortcoming of all prosthetic valves is their inability to grow, adapt and repair, which is particularly relevant for treatment of pediatric and adolescent patients. The lack of these features in current prosthesis drives the multidisciplinary approach of tissue engineering as a promising technique to create living heart valve substitutes. The concept of tissue engineering is based on seeding autologous cells onto a carrier of biodegradable material (the scaffold). This construct of cells and scaffold is stimulated to grow and develop in a mimicked physiological environment. Implantations of tissue engineered valves have been performed successfully at the pulmonary position in animal models. However, engineered valves did not possess sufficient mechanical integrity for implantation at the aortic position. Therefore, a major challenge in tissue engineering is to create tissue structures that resemble properties of native tissues to ensure durable functioning and in-vivo survival. For future human applications, one of the most important questions is: "How good is good enough for in vivo survival of tissue engineered heart valves?". The first objective of this work was to define qualitative and quantitative bench-marks for tissue engineered heart valves to determine when these valves qualify for implantation in patients. In this thesis these bench-marks were based on mechanical and structural characteristics of healthy human adult aortic valve leaflets. In native aortic valves, the collagen fiber architecture is the most prominent matrix component responsible for sustaining the load under high pressure conditions. Therefore, knowledge about the function of collagen in relation with the mechanical behavior of native heart valve tissue was an important research focus in the process to define bench-marks for tissue engineering. The relation between mechanical properties and collagen organization was investigated on a global and local scale in human adult aortic valve leaflets. Mechanical properties obtained by tensile tests of the leaflets were correlated to the amount of collagen and cross-links. Collagen cross-links, but not the collagen amount, appeared highly correlated to tissue stiffness in human heart valve leaflets. With these findings, the relevance of collagen cross-links for the mechanical integrity of engineered tissues should be given particular attention. Furthermore, in heart valve tissue, it remained


In the present work we develop a unified way of looking at normed spaces of analytic functions (NSAF's) and their embedding into the Frechet space of analytic functions on a general domain, by requiring only that the embedding map is bounded. This is a succinct definition of NSAF and derive from it a list of interesting properties. For example Proposition 4.4 describes the behavior of point evaluations and Proposition 4.6 part (i) gives a general sufficient condition for a NSAF to be a Banach space, which as far as we know, are new results. Also, Proposition 4.5, parts (ii) and (iii) of Proposition 4.6 and Proposition 4.7 are results, which are slight generalizations of fairly standard results, which show up elsewhere in a more specific setting. Some of the facts about NSAF's are stated and proven in a more general context. In particular, a significant part of the material is dedicated to the normed space of continuous functions on a metric space. On the other hand, we provide the necessary background on differential geometry and complex analysis, which further determine the peculiarities in the context of spaces of analytic functions. At the end we illustrate our results on two specific examples of NSAF's, namely the Bergman and the Bloch Spaces over a general domain in C. We give a new proof of the reflexivity of the Bergman Space A (G, μ) for the case p > 1 and of the Schur property of A (G, μ). We also give new proofs for the equivalences of some of the definitions of the Bloch functions.


In this paper, noise of diamond circular saw blades has been measured, five different types of saw blades are used to measure their noise under different working condition. By analyzing of the experimental results, the effect of different factors on the saw blade noise is studied. The result shows that the increasing the speed of cutting machine or the diameter of blade, noise will become larger. The noise of saw blade with a hole or water slot would be greater than others without any hole or water slot.


Modelling of bungarotoxin in atomic details is presented in this article. The model-building procedure utilizes the low-resolution crystal coordinates of the c-alpha atoms of bungarotoxin, sequence homology within the neurotoxin family, as well as high-resolution x-ray diffraction data of cobratoxin and erabutoxin. Our model-building procedure involves: (a) principles of comparative modelling, (b) embedding procedures of distance geometry, and (c) use of molecular mechanics for optimizing packing. The model is not only consistent with the c-alpha coordinates of crystal structure, but also agrees with solution conformational features of the triple-stranded beta sheet as observed by NOE measurements.


Cognition refers to knowledge and associated inferential processes, ranging from elementary forms of perception to advanced forms of reasoning. Metacognition, a term used since the late 1970s, includes both knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. Knowledge of cognition includes both general knowledge of cognition and knowledge about one's own cognition. Regulation of cognition includes planning, monitoring, and evaluation of one's cognitive processes and products. Metacognition is crucial to and intertwined with many aspects of cognition even in the preschool years, when children are already developing theories of mind. Much of cognitive development is the development of metacognitive knowledge and self-regulation. Educational efforts abound to teach metacognitive skills, promote metacognitive development, and/or take student metacognition into account in designing instruction.

 Epistemic cognition is knowledge about the fundamental nature of knowledge, especially the justification and truth of beliefs. Research on epistemic development beyond childhood shows progress from objectivist to subjectivist to rationalist conceptions of knowledge. Objectivists appeal to foundational truths that can be observed, proved, or learned from the authorities. In cases of disagreement, someone must be wrong. Subjectivists recognize that knowledge is constructed, and conclude from this that truth is entirely relative to the constructor's subjective point of view. "Truth" in any stronger sense is deemed a myth, because we all have our own equally valid perspectives. Rationalists acknowledge the subjective construction of knowledge and the perplexities of truth but maintain that some beliefs are better justified than others and that we can make progress in understanding. Research in child development shows that children proceed through a similar sequence in constructing intuitive theories of mind, suggesting that epistemic development may be a recursive process in which people reconstruct subjectivist and rationalist insights at multiple levels. Epistemic development is generally seen as the result of self-regulated processes of reflection and coordination. Research in educational psychology has highlighted individual differences in epistemic beliefs and has shown the value of active inquiry and peer argumentation in promoting epistemic progress within and across diverse fields of study.


Security situation in the world and in each territory continuously changes with time, and therefore, it is necessary to form new safety culture for ensuring the human security and sustainable development in the EU. After experiencing many crises in the last few years, it is clear that the security and sustainable development concept of the EU should be changed. It should not cover only the inner market but also other areas supporting the real economy and mainly, it has to contain the systematic support of the European inhabitants. One of the targets is to build a safe community with a sufficient sustainability. The paper gives six scenarios of the human system sustainable development. Because the qualified research is very important for strategic management ensuring the conditions for security and sustainable development the six possible scenarios of disaster research and their management in the EU is created and tested.


A cell's mechanical properties have been linked to cancer development, motility and metastasis and are therefore an attractive target as a universal, reliable cancer marker. For example, it has been widely published that cancer cells show a lower Young's modulus than their non-cancerous counterparts. Furthermore, the effect of anti-cancer drugs on cellular mechanics may offer a new insight into secondary mechanisms of action and drug efficiency. Scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) offers a nanoscale resolution, non-contact method of nanomechanical data acquisition. In this study, we used SICM to measure the nanomechanical properties of melanoma cell lines from different stages with increasing metastatic ability. Young's modulus changes following treatment with the anti-cancer drugs paclitaxel, cisplatin and dacarbazine were also measured, offering a novel perspective through the use of continuous scan mode SICM. We found that Young's modulus was inversely correlated to metastatic ability in melanoma cell lines from radial growth, vertical growth and metastatic phases. However, Young's modulus was found to be highly variable between cells and cell lines. For example, the highly metastatic cell line A375M was found to have a significantly higher Young's modulus, and this was attributed to a higher level of F-actin. Furthermore, our data following nanomechanical changes after 24 hour anti-cancer drug treatment showed that paclitaxel and cisplatin treatment significantly increased Young's modulus, attributed to an increase in microtubules. Treatment with dacarbazine saw a decrease in Young's modulus with a significantly lower F-actin corrected total cell fluorescence. Our data offer a new perspective on nanomechanical changes following drug treatment, which may be an overlooked effect. This work also highlights variations in cell nanomechanical properties between previous studies, cancer cell lines and cancer types and questions the usefulness of using nanomechanics as a diagnostic or prognostic tool.


While mental health stigma is a burgeoning field of research, little work has been done on whether mental health stigma in different subcultures is the same or different as the general population. There is qualitative evidence that beliefs about the etiology and effective treatments for mental illness differ in religious communities as compared to the general population, but efforts to quantify this difference have been sparse and reflect poor methodology. The purpose of the present study is to create and validate a measure of mental health stigma in religious communities. Items will be generated using extant literature and revised after expert review and piloting. In Study 1, the items were tested with 703 undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university. Exploratory Factor Analysis was then used to determine a factor structure with good fitting items. In Study 2, items were retested with a second sample of undergraduate students at the same university, to conduct a Confirmatory Factor Analysis, to cross-validate the scale, and to measure convergent and discriminate validity using several scales measuring related constructs. The outcome is a psychometrically strong, valid self-report instrument to measure mental health stigma in religious communities.


EMERGING DISEASESCAMBRIDGE, U.K.-- The head of a former bioweapons lab in the heart of Siberia will unveil a multimillion-dollar proposal next week to transform the lab into an international center for emerging diseases. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is helping develop the proposal, which could become one of the most expensive projects ever to beat Russian scientific swords into plowshares. Many experts are supporting it, but some argue that a reincarnated VECTOR would not be able to sustain itself without a Western lifeline of noncompetitive grants.


This article is devoted to the research of the use in the English-language press of means for the realization of the category of expressiveness and the problems of their translation into the Ukrainian language. The article defines the means of expressiveness and explores the types of their presentation in journalistic texts. The variety of lexical, stylistic, syntactical and morphological means of expressiveness gives wide opportunities for their research in the context of this topic. Especially widely means of expressiveness and emotionality are presented in publicistic texts on the basis of political speeches or public appearances. The article deals with practical examples of the use of lexical means of expressiveness and their role as a stylistic instrument. Also, the peculiarities of the translation of texts with means of expressiveness from English into Ukrainian with the use of certain translational transformations are examined here. Proposals are made to improve the quality of the translation of means of expressiveness, taking into account their specific features. The use of means of expressiveness and emotionality is characteristic of public speeches and media texts to attract readers' attention to certain problems, events, election promises, etc. A lot of expressiveness is found in the public speeches of political leaders, famous people and other popular media persons, as can be seen in the speeches of Donald Trump and Edward Snowden;


Social networking platforms have become an important tool for initiating and maintaining romantic relationships amongst the younger generation (Hand, Thomas, Buboltz, Deemer & Buyanjargal, 2013). This study examines and explores the attitudes towards the role of social media in romantic relationship and also investigates the term "Facebook Official" using a mixed methods design. A total of 137 participants completed a questionnaire, which was divided into five categories: relationship status importance, public displays of affection, jealousy, surveillance and initiation, and were analysed by a MANOVA test. Furthermore, nine participants aged 21-40 were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews, which were analysed by thematic analysis. Results suggested that age, surveillance and initiation were significant factors in determining the attitude towards social media in relationships. From the interviews the themes that were uncovered were communication, surveillance, jealousy and interference of social media/others. Overall it was found from the study that there was a negative view towards social media in the older group compared to that of the younger generation.


Owing to its narrow indirect bandgap, bulk bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) exhibits exceptionally low room‐temperature photoluminescence (PL). Consequently, it remains challenging to achieve promising optical and optoelectronic performance from Bi2Te3. Moreover, due to the lack of plasmonic materials and available modulation methods, it is challenging to effectively control the surface plasmon resonance intensities in the visible region. Herein, thickness‐dependent photoluminescence studies unveil ultrahigh (282‐fold) room‐temperature photoluminescence (visible) from 20 quintuple layer Bi2Te3 nanosheets (NSs) compared to 200 quintuple layer NSs, attributable to a significant bandgap opening. Intriguingly, considerable photoluminescence quenching is observed beyond the thickness of 20 quintuple layer Bi2Te3. The PL emission is further optimized with reference to the number of quintuple layers, and the mechanism possibly responsible for such PL behavior is elucidated. Moreover, the thickness modulation is put forward as an effective strategy to control visible surface plasmon resonance energy modes and their intensities. Bi2Te3 nanosheets with large area and high crystallinity are fabricated on various silicon substrates by a facile hot‐pressing strategy, which facilitates investigation of intrinsic properties of 2D Bi2Te3. It is believed that these findings hold paramount importance in understanding the optical response of Bi2Te3 toward nanoscale variations and help build next‐generation transparent and flexible optoelectronic/plasmonic devices.


In this study, a protocol for in vitro propagation of Rosa hybrida L. cv. Al-Taif Rose was established using nodal segments harboring axillary buds as explants. In vitro stages of shoot initiation, multiplication and elongation were performed. Explants were cultured on solid Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) supplemented with different concentrations of benzyl aminopurine (BAP, 1, 2 and 3 mg/l) in combination with 1 mg/l kinetin (Kn). Effect of different concentrations and combinations of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) on root formation of shoots were studied. The highest percentage of shoot initiation (85%) was observed on MS medium containing 2 mg/l BAP + 1 mg/l Kn, whereas maximum average number of multiplied shoots (2.7) was produced on MS medium with 3 mg/l BAP + 1 mg/l Kn. Highest average number of elongated shoots (26.7) was noticed on MS medium containing 1 mg/l BAP and 1 mg/l Kn. For rooting, highest percentage (66.7%) of rooted shoots was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 2 mg/l IBA. Plantlets with 4 to 5 roots of 3 to 5 cm length were successfully transferred to pots containing sterile peat moss for acclimatization. Keywords: Rosa hybrid L. cv. Al-Taif Rose, axillary bud explants, in vitro propagation, multiplication, acclimatization


A frequency tunable CPW-fed slot dipole using a piezoelectric transducer (PET) is presented. A dielectric perturber attached on a PET is used to change the effective dielectric constant of the slot line at the slot dipole. The electrical length of the slot dipole is changed due to the variation of the air gap between the slot dipole and the perturber by an external voltage. The resonant frequency of the slot dipole is tuned over 300 MHz from 4.65 to 4.35 GHz using an external voltage of 60 V.


SUMMARY This study explores how deforestation relates to biophysical and socio-economic variables in a quantitative, spatially explicit analysis. Both patterns of historical (approximately 4000 B.C. — 2000 A.D.) and recent (1990–2005) deforestation were explored and compared. The study uses location analysis, combining spatially explicit global databases of deforestation with variables hypothesized to relate to deforestation (e.g. rural livestock density, cost-distance). The results show that historical and recent deforestation show similar patterns when plotted against the selected variables suggesting the relations to be empirical. The strongest relations were between deforestation and rural population density, cost-distance and crop suitability respectively. These findings support the hypothesis that agricultural expansion was the largest direct cause of deforestation historically and it continues to be the largest direct cause today. While crop suitability showed a strong correlation with deforestation, pasture suitability showed no correlation. The study accordingly compares contemporary deforestation in the tropical domain against economic development (approximated by a combination of GDP value and growth rate) which resulted in a reproduction of the deforestation pattern predicted by the forest transition curve. In view of the apparent empirical relation, the variables which relate to deforestation in this study are expected to have predictive power to identify locations of likely future deforestation. To illustrate the application value of this analysis, the deforestation risk in African protected forest was assessed. This assessment revealed that protected areas are found on locations with below average pressure and the pressures vary greatly in the different regions. The findings underline the importance of considering national circumstances to understand the government's efforts to manage its forests sustainably and contribute to international mitigation by reducing forest-related emissions.


The research performed in this paper refers to the model that would be used to analyze the effects of the implementation of Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Process (PPBE) on the budget of the Republic of Serbia defence system. The aim of this model is to overcome certain shortcomings of budgeting of the Ministry of Defence by using multicriteria optimization methods during allocation of financial resourcestoprogrammes, projects and activities. The purpose of the model is to facilitate the decision- making process, solving a certain problem – in this case the problem of optimal allocation of financial resources approved by the budget of the Ministry of Defence, with the best possible effects. It enablesstudy, analysis and evaluation of certain situations which would otherwise be difficult or impossible to investigate. In a specifically defined environment, while recognizing international experiences in implementation of PPBE, the model is actually a methodology for solving the abovementioned problem. It may be defined as a process for creating a model of an actual system and conducting experiments, which enables understanding of the system behavior and/or evaluation of different strategies for system functioning.


The link between anger, social skills, and psychological symptoms was investigated in a college population. Seven hundred and nine individuals were administered the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory, the Anger Inventory, the Social Problem Solving Inventory, the Social Skills Inventory, and a series of questions about the degree to which anger affected their lives. Symptomatology was measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory and served as the criterion measure for a series of multiple regression analyses. Results indicated that both anger and social factors related to measures of psychological distress. Implications of the relationship between anger, social skills, and psychological symptoms are discussed in terms of research and assessment of individuals who may suffer from anger problems.


The power spectrum has served as a quick and fairly robust method to obtain access to the underlying dynamics of measured weakly stationary signals. As periodograms are noisy estimates of the underlying power spectrum, periodogram smoothing is performed in the frequency domain to obtain a more accurate description of the power spectrum. Frequency smoothing operates under the assumption that the power spectrum is continuously differentiable. Fractional order signals are becoming more important as they serve to describe important diffusion and dispersion effects encountered in mechanical, electrochemical and biomedical applications. Fractional time series of the Riemann-Liouville type have the property that the underlying power spectrum exists but it is not continuously differentiable. In this paper, we mathematically study these signals and propose a new frequency smoother to overcome the problem such that these signals can still be studied in a non-parametric way.


It has been suggested that bilingualism is beneficial for executive control and could have positive long-term effects by
 delaying the onset of symptoms of degenerative diseases. This research investigates, for the first time, the impact of bilingualism on
 executive control (monitoring and inhibitory control) in individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a neurodegenerative disease which
 commonly causes deficiencies in the cognitive system. Bilingual and monolingual adults, with and without an MS diagnosis, performed a
 flanker task with two degrees of monitoring demands (high monitoring vs. low monitoring). Results showed that bilingual MS patients had
 inhibitory control and monitoring abilities that were similar to healthy bilingual controls. In contrast, monolingual MS patients showed
 similar inhibitory control but significantly worse monitoring abilities compared to monolingual healthy controls. We propose that the
 similar behaviour between bilingual groups suggests that bilingualism might counteract cognitive deficits related to MS, especially with
 respect to monitoring. The high monitoring cost observed in monolingual patients seems related to underlying deficits in monitoring and
 possibly switching, executive control abilities commonly impaired in MS patients from early stages. Our findings provide some preliminary
 evidence for the cognitive reserve hypothesis in bilingual MS patients.


OBJECTIVE
This study presents a system developed for the 2009 i2b2 Challenge in Natural Language Processing for Clinical Data, whose aim was to automatically extract certain information about medications used by a patient from his/her medical report. The aim was to extract the following information for each medication: name, dosage, mode/route, frequency, duration and reason.

DESIGN
The system implements a rule-based methodology, which exploits typical morphological, lexical, syntactic and semantic features of the targeted information. These features were acquired from the training dataset and public resources such as the UMLS and relevant web pages. Information extracted by pattern matching was combined together using context-sensitive heuristic rules.

MEASUREMENTS
The system was applied to a set of 547 previously unseen discharge summaries, and the extracted information was evaluated against a manually prepared gold standard consisting of 251 documents. The overall ranking of the participating teams was obtained using the micro-averaged F-measure as the primary evaluation metric.

RESULTS
The implemented method achieved the micro-averaged F-measure of 81% (with 86% precision and 77% recall), which ranked this system third in the challenge. The significance tests revealed the system's performance to be not significantly different from that of the second ranked system. Relative to other systems, this system achieved the best F-measure for the extraction of duration (53%) and reason (46%).

CONCLUSION
Based on the F-measure, the performance achieved (81%) was in line with the initial agreement between human annotators (82%), indicating that such a system may greatly facilitate the process of extracting relevant information from medical records by providing a solid basis for a manual review process.


Electrostatic fields at the interface of the GTPase H-Ras (Ras) docked with the Ras binding domain of the protein Ral guanine nucleoside dissociation stimulator (Ral) were measured with vibrational Stark effect (VSE) spectroscopy. Nine residues on the surface of Ras that participate in the protein-protein interface were systematically mutated to cysteine and subsequently converted to cyanocysteine in order to introduce a nitrile VSE probe into the protein-protein interface. The absorption energy of the nitrile was measured both on the surface of Ras in its monomeric state, then after incubation with the Ras binding domain of Ral to form the docked complex. Boltzmann-weighted structural snapshots of the nitrile-labeled Ras protein were generated both in monomeric and docked configurations from molecular dynamics simulations using enhanced sampling of the cyanocysteine side chain's χ2 dihedral angle. These snapshots were used to determine that on average, most of the nitrile probes were aligned along the Ras surface, parallel to the Ras-Ral interface. The average solvent-accessible surface areas (SASA) of the cyanocysteine side chain were found to be <60 Å(2) for all measured residues, and was not significantly different whether the nitrile was on the surface of the Ras monomer or immersed in the docked complex. Changes in the absorption energy of the nitrile probe at nine positions along the Ras-Ral interface were compared to results of a previous study examining this interface with Ral-based probes, and found a pattern of low electrostatic field in the core of the interface surrounded by a ring of high electrostatic field around the perimeter of the interface. These data are used to rationalize several puzzling features of the Ras-Ral interface.


Cones, cylinders, and insulators have been tested with a 3 nanosecond full width halfmax pulse. These insulators were made of epoxy, acrylic, lexan, and nylon. The tests were conducted with cone insulators at +45 degrees, -45 degrees, and 0 degree. Additionally, tests were conducted with a plug in the anode that reduces the anode stress, and anodized cathodes. Best results were obtained with both an anodized cathode and an anode plug where failure was through the solid dielectric at 600 kV/cm. Results of this testing will be presented. Explosive emission was also evaluated with the same apparatus. All tests were conducted without conditioning. Currents could be detected down to 10 milliamps. Data for brass, copper, stainless, aluminum will be presented. The onset of explosive emission could be detected. The lowest onset was for brass at less than 200 kV/cm. The best was a carbon loaded epoxy emission. Currents have been detected that follow a Fowler-Nordheim like function of voltage.


The present thesis explores the implications of neighborhood effects, parent-child relationship, and school attachment upon young adulthood attainment among Hispanic adolescents. By 2060, the U.S. population will consist of nearly 12.8 million Hispanic persons and will constitute nearly a third of the U.S population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Examining the social contexts in which Hispanic adolescents develop, such as neighborhoods and schools, allows researchers a greater depth of understanding the processes and potential risks that influence young adulthood attainment, such as education and career attainment (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002). Utilizing The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the current thesis examined neighborhood effects, such as neighborhood disorganization, violence exposure, and school attachment in relation to specific outcomes in young-adulthood, such as education, career attainment and intimate partner violence (IPV). Results of the current thesis illuminate the mechanisms of neighborhood quality and academic belonging as influencing young adulthood attainment among a representative sample of Hispanic adolescents. These findings inform current research and future policy to more effectively support development of Hispanic adolescents.


The article deals with the topic that is especially relevant for the system of education of Lithuania that is undergoing the transformation of educational paradigms – assessment of students' progress and achievements, which causes an especially great number of discussions in modern artistic/music education because of its specificity. The article focuses on the attitude of future music teachers towards the functions of the assessment of students' progress and achievements, its impact on the microclimate of the educational process and having identified the relations of the assessment of students' progress and achievements to the creation of pedagogical self-image it helped to understand what the tendencies of music education in Lithuania are and how they should be improved.


SHR-1222 is a humanized monoclonal antibody targeting sclerostin and has the potential to promote bone formation and reduce bone resorption. This study was aimed to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and immunogenicity of SHR-1222 in healthy men and postmenopausal women with low bone mass (BMD). It was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-escalation, phase I study. Subjects received SHR-1222 at 50, 100, 200, 300, and 400 mg sequentially or matching placebo subcutaneously. Totally, 50 subjects with low BMD were enrolled and randomly assigned; 10 received placebo and 40 received SHR-1222 (50 mg, n = 4; 100, 200, 300, or 400 mg, n = 9). The most common adverse events that occurred at least 10% higher in subjects with SHR-1222 treatment than those with placebo were decreased blood calcium, blood urine present, increased blood cholesterol, electrocardiogram T wave abnormal, urinary tract infection, increased blood pressure diastolic, and positive bacterial test. All the above adverse events were mild in severity and well resolved except one of increased blood cholesterol in a subject lost to follow-up. The serum SHR-1222 concentration increased in a dose-dependent manner. Administration of SHR-1222 upregulated the bone-formation markers N-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen, osteocalcin, and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase, while downregulated the bone-resorption marker β-C-telopeptide. The BMD at the lumbar spine notably rose after a single dose of SHR-1222. The largest increase occurred in the 400 mg cohort (3.8, 6.7, and 6.1% on day 29, 57, and 85, respectively; compared with 1.4, 0.8, and 1.0% in the placebo group). Although 10.0% of subjects receiving SHR-1222 tested positive for anti–SHR-1222 antibodies, no obvious effects of antibody formation were found on pharmacokinetics. Overall, SHR-1222 was well tolerated at doses from 50 to 400 mg and is a promising new remedy for osteoporosis. Clinical Trial Registration: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT03870100.


This paper presents a new approach in simulation-based hardware verification, which uses application programs as the test inputs. The approach perturbs the program-control-flow during the simulation to exhaust all branching possibilities in a verification program. It keeps the structure of the verification program at code-segment level and takes significantly less time than the straightforward simulation approach does. This approach can be further classified into two categories: the black-box approach and the white-box approach. The black-box approach can be applied to a wide range of programs. It is a cost-efficient method for verifying the integrated model of the hardware/software systems. On the other hand, the white-box approach can be used to retain the correct software state (the hardware state seen by the software) during a simulation.


In this paper we introduce the iWatch web crawler, a tool designed to catalogue and analyze online data practices and the use of privacy related indicators and technologies. Our goal in developing iWatch was to make possible a new type of analysis of trends, the impact of legislation on practices, and geographic and social differences online. In this paper we present preliminary findings from two sets of data collected 15 months apart and analyzed with this tool. Our combined samples included more than 240,000 pages from over 24,000 domains and 47 different countries. In addition to providing useful and needed data on the state of online data practices, we show that iWatch is a promising approach to the study of the web ecosystem.


Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and malignant brain tumor in adults. Aggressive multimodal treatment using surgery followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy extends the median survival of GBM patients to approximately one year after diagnosis. Treatment is not curative because of the intrinsic and acquired radiation resistance of a subpopulation of tumor cells. Notch inhibition has been shown to impair the tumorigenic capacity of these cells as well as enhance their sensitivity towards radiation. Therefore, we investigated if a highly potent and clinically approved Notch pathway inhibitor (g-secretase inhibitor) improves tumor control when combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy in an orthotopic GBM mouse model. To investigate the treatment efficacy of combinations treatments between standard of care treatment (radiotherapy and temozolomide) and Notch inhibitors, we used a three dimensional spheroid growth assay using both established and primary human glioma cell lines in which spheroid volume growth delay was quantitatively monitored. In addition, we assessed the expression of the putative glioma stem cell marker CD133 using flow cytometry. Furthermore, therapeutic efficacy of these combination treatments was als assessed in vivo in an orthotopic glioma tumor model (U87-luc) wherein tumor progression was evaluated using bioluminescence (BLI) and contrast-enhanced micro-computed tomography (CT) imaging. A small animal precision irradiation platform (PXI, XRAD 225Cx, CT, USA) was used for micro-CT imaging and irradiation delivery of conformal doses between 2- 10 Gy to intracranial tumors in mice receiving single or combination treatments with Notch inhibitors and chemotherapy. Results: Notch blockade alone did not affect the sphere volume compared to control, whereas combination treatment with radiation and / or temozolomide resulted in a substantial spheroid growth delay (p = 0.004). Irradiation enhanced the expression of the stem cell marker CD133, while Notch blockade reduced CD133 expression. In intracranial tumours we found a strong correlation between CT and BLI imaging of tumor growth (Pearson coefficient (r) = 0.85, p = 0.001). The potential of Notch inhibition combined with precision radiotherapy and chemotherapy in our orthotopic GBM model is currently being determined and the outcome of this study will be presented. Citation Format: Sanaz Yahyanejad, Patrick Granton, Stefan van Hoof, Lydie Barbeau, Jan Theys, Frank Verhaegen, Marc Vooijs. Notch inhibitors and chemoradiation in an orthotopic glioblastoma model. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3243. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3243


The Partizanskaya River valley is located in the southernmost area of the Russian Far East (figure 1). It is a unique ecosystem as it was not affected by glaciations in the Quaternary Period and preserved the southern and northern flora species. The uniqueness of the geographical location predetermined favorable natural conditions in that valley, causing active settlement from the middle of 19th century and development of a few sectors of agriculture, coal industry, fuel, and energy. In the second half of 20th century, the area suffered a decline of economic development, resulting in a number of ecological problems that could lead to environmental catastrophe in the region. One of the industrial structures in the area is the Partizansk Coal-Burning Power Plant (CBPP), operating since 1954 (figure 2). Due to the increase of power consumption in the southeast region of Primorskiy Krai by 4.7% to 6% each year, the plant was renovated in 2008 to 2009. Partizansk CBPP has continued negative impacts on the environment. Ash is the main contaminant. Partizansk CBPP annually produces up to 100,000 t (220,462,233 lb) of ash. The problem is the overfilled old ash dump. It was thoroughly exhausted in 2002. The search for a new…


Several fluorinated 1,3-diaminocyclopentanes, previously reported to be useful RNA structural probes, can be prepared in a diastereoselective manner from a single bicyclic hydrazine precursor, in 3 to 9 steps.


Career development is viewed as long term training and is broader than just job skill training. It is argued that attention on employee career development is not need to be holistic, because it will not useful for both individuals and the organization. Strategy which can be implemented is dual career path in life time employment framework. Based on such a strategy, in his/her career cycle, individual in organization will go through two career paths i.e., non ?structural or functional (expertise seniority) and structural (function in organization structure) paths. Dual career path is needed as a way out of channel narrowness to the upper management level, whereas life time employment framework is needed to guarantee employee?s future career in organization


Sea sickness in alert rabbits induced an increase in the local blood flow in frontal, occipital and temporal cortex as well as an increase of the total blood flow in the brain. The blood flow increases first in the temporal cortex. The changes occur at an unaltered pO2 level in the brain cortex and hypotensive response. The blood flow increase seems to be due to reflex dilatory effects of the vestibular apparatus on the brain vessels and to intensification of metabolism in result of general activation of cortical structures.


The study of mineralized tissues has witnessed unprecedented advances as a result of recent technical breakthroughs in protein chemistry, and cell and molecular biology. Procedures for the nondegradative extraction of proteins present in mineralized matrices, along with improved chromatographic techniques, have resulted in the identification and purification of most, if not all, of the major structural proteins as well as less abundant (growth factors) proteins in these tissues. Many antibodies have become available against the intact proteins, as well as against synthetic peptides of the amino acid sequence from different parts of molecules. Along with mRNA determinations by in situ hybridization, these have been instrumental in determining when and where a matrix constituent is present in bone. Development of cell culture methods that maintain phenotypic expression has provided experimental systems to study the synthesis, secretion, and deposition of matrix, and the regulation of these processes. These model systems also have served as a source of genetic material for the making of cDNA libraries, which have been used for isolation of cDNA probes and ultimately for the isolation and characterization of the genes. By using these techniques, it is now feasible to develop procedures for the assessment of the role of matrix proteins in mineralized tissue, which will most certainly provide information that is critical to our understanding of bone metabolism in health and disease.


The rate of technique failure is still high in Japan for peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. Of the dropouts who have been treated with PD for more than 6 years, about half suffer from ultrafiltration failure. That condition is supposedly related to the bioincompatible aspects of conventional acidic PD solutions. In 2001, a neutral-pH, lactate-buffered PD solution with low glucose degradation products (GDPs), Midpeliq (Terumo Corporation, Tokyo, Japan), was developed and began to be used in Japan. After switching 3 patients from conventional acidic PD solution to Midpeliq, we observed that 2 patients could then use lower-glucose PD solutions. Case 1 was a 42-year-old woman with a 10-year history of PD. In February 2001, she was switched from Peritoliq (Terumo) to Midpeliq. One month later, she complained of dizziness, and her blood pressure was found to be down to 96/60 mmHg. Post-change fluid removal increased to 1,481 mL from 1,238 mL (p < 0.02). Before the solution switch, this patient exchanged 4 times daily, using 2 L of 2.5% Peritoliq each time. From 3 months after the solution switch, she exchanged 3 times daily using 2 L of 2.5% Midpeliq and 1 time daily using 2 L of 1.35% Midpeliq. Fluid volume removal stayed almost the same. Case 2 was a 52-year-old man with a 9-year history of PD. In June 2002, he was switched from Dianeal 4 (Baxter Healthcare, Tokyo, Japan) to Midpeliq. After the change, his daily drainage volume increased from approximately 1,500 mL to 2,000 mL. He began to use 2 L of 1.35% Midpeliq 4 times daily instead of 2 L of 1.5% Dianeal 3 times daily and 2 L of 2.5% Dianeal 1 time daily. At 1 month after the solution switch, his drainage volume was still approximately 1,500 mL daily. Our observations suggest that new, neutral-pH PD solutions such as Midpeliq might reduce the glucose load in addition to having low GDPs and fewer toxic effects on the peritoneum.


Abstract A novel test methodology was developed for quantitative evaluation of critical radiant power characteristics as a function of time for diode pumped solid state (DPSS) laser pointers. It is based on a simultaneous measurement of time-dependent radiant power characteristics of multi-wavelength spectral components emitted by DPSS laser pointers. The authors tested green DPSS laser pointers, which emit three spectral components at the fundamental near-infrared (1064‐nm), pumping near-infrared (808‐nm), and second-harmonic green (532‐nm) wavelengths. The obtained experimental results are employed for performing eye hazard evaluation according to U.S. and International laser safety standards. All tested green laser pointers demonstrated significant variability of radiant power as a function of time and wavelength. Thus, the severity of the potential eye hazard from DPSS laser pointers for a given exposure time depends on when a person was exposed after the pointer was turned on. Most laser pointers emitted radiation in excess of their classification limits, including unwanted infrared radiation that is not necessary for their intended use as laser pointers.


This paper describes the development of a system for the rapid prototyping of high level control algorithms using an Arduino based commercial off the shelf autopilot called ArduPilot. It is capable of controlling multiple vehicle types, including fixed, and rotary wing aircraft as well as ground vehicles. The inner loop control is performed by ArduPilot, so the high level control can be rapidly prototyped and tested in Simulink, or an embedded system. The ability to conduct tests in software and hardware in the loop has also be developed, to enable safe testing of algorithms, which will speed up the development process. To show its functionality and ability to assist with the development process of algorithms, ArduPilot is used with a remote controlled aircraft in simulation and in real world testing to verify newly developed high level algorithms for UAVs.


In a recent invited paper in the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, some of the challenging problems in computational electromagnetics were presented. One of the objectives of this note is to simply point out that challenging to one may be simple to another. This is demonstrated through an example cited in that article. The example chosen is a Vivaldi antenna array. What we discuss here also applies to the other examples presented in that article, but we have chosen the Vivaldi antenna array to help us make our point. It is shown in this short article that a higher-order basis using a surface integral equation a la a PMCHWT (Poggio-Miller-Chu-Harrington-Wu-Tsai) method-of-moments formulation may still be the best weapon that one have in today's arsenal to deal with challenging complex electromagnetic analysis problems. Here, we have used the commercially available code WIPL-D to carry out all the computations using laptop/desktop systems. The second objective of this paper is to present an out-of-core solver. The goal is to demonstrate that an out-of-core 32-bit-system-based solver can be as efficient as a 64-bit in-core solver. This is quite contrary to the popular belief that an out-of-core solver is generally much slower than an in-core solver. This can be significant, as the difference in the cost of a 32-bit system can be 1/30 of a 64-bit system of similar capabilities using current computer architectures. For the 32-bit system, we consider a Pentium 4 system, whereas for the 64-bit system, we consider an Itanium 2 system for comparison. The out-of-core solver can go beyond the 2 GB limitation for a 32-bit system and can be run on ordinary laptop/desktop; hence, we can simultaneously have a much lower hardware investment while better performance for a sophisticated and powerful electromagnetic solver. The system resources and the CPU times are also outlined.


St. Louis Fed President James Bullard discussed recent neo-Fisherian ideas and what they might mean for the G-7 countries during a presentation to the International Research Forum on Monetary Policy in Frankfurt, Germany. He explored a scenario in which zero or near-zero policy rates remain over the medium term and also discussed implications of such a scenario for future monetary policy.


Abstract An overview is presented of scale problems in groundwater flow, with emphasis on upscaling of hydraulic conductivity, being a brief summary of the conventional upscaling approach with some attention paid to recently emerged approaches. The focus is on essential aspects which may be an advantage in comparison to the occasionally extremely extensive summaries presented in the literature. In the present paper the concept of scale is introduced as an indispensable part of system analysis applied to hydrogeology. The concept is illustrated with a simple hydrogeological system for which definitions of four major ingredients of scale are presented: (i) spatial extent and geometry of hydrogeological system, (ii) spatial continuity and granularity of both natural and man-made objects within the system, (iii) duration of the system and (iv) continuity/granularity of natural and man-related variables of groundwater flow system. Scales used in hydrogeology are categorised into five classes: micro-scale – scale of pores, meso-scale – scale of laboratory sample, macro-scale – scale of typical blocks in numerical models of groundwater flow, local-scale – scale of an aquifer/aquitard and regional-scale – scale of series of aquifers and aquitards. Variables, parameters and groundwater flow equations for the three lowest scales, i.e., pore-scale, sample-scale and (numerical) block-scale, are discussed in detail, with the aim to justify physically deterministic procedures of upscaling from finer to coarser scales (stochastic issues of upscaling are not discussed here). Since the procedure of transition from sample-scale to block-scale is physically well based, it is a good candidate for upscaling block-scale models to local-scale models and likewise for upscaling local-scale models to regional-scale models. Also the latest results in downscaling from block-scale to sample scale are briefly referred to.


ABSTRACT Accumulating data support the bimodal action of several key cellular factors in cancer. The dogma of p21WAF1/Cip1 as a tumor suppressor has been recently challenged since new data support its tumor promoting features depending on the tumor environment. Here we discuss the Janus face of p21WAF1/Cip1.


Code-reuse attacks are software exploits in which an attacker directs control flow through existing code with a malicious result. One such technique, return-oriented programming, is based on "gadgets" (short pre-existing sequences of code ending in a ret instruction) being executed in arbitrary order as a result of a stack corruption exploit. Many existing codereuse defenses have relied upon a particular attribute of the attack in question (e.g., the frequency of ret instructions in a return-oriented attack), which leads to an incomplete protection, while a smaller number of efforts in protecting all exploitable control flow transfers suffer from limited deploy-ability due to high performance overhead. In this paper, we present a novel cost-effective defense technique called control flow locking, which allows for effective enforcement of control flow integrity with a small performance overhead. Specifically, instead of immediately determining whether a control flow violation happens before the control flow transfer takes place, control flow locking lazily detects the violation after the transfer. To still restrict attackers' capability, our scheme guarantees that the deviation of the normal control flow graph will only occur at most once. Further, our scheme ensures that this deviation cannot be used to craft a malicious system call, which denies any potential gains an attacker might obtain from what is permitted in the threat model. We have developed a proof-of-concept prototype in Linux and our evaluation demonstrates desirable effectiveness and competitive performance overhead with existing techniques. In several benchmarks, our scheme is able to achieve significant gains.


Eight children at the age of one to eleven years, their mother and uncle were victims of fire that had broken out in their flat. They all died of combined carbon monoxide cyanide poisoning. The rectal temperature of the bodies taken nearly eight hours later ranged from 16 degrees C to 29 degrees C. Using the rectal temperature time of death nomogram (Henssge 1982) with reference to corrective factors of the body weight (Henssge and Madea 1988) to find out when they died, the results corresponded with the enquiries made by the police except for three cases. The rectal temperature of the apparently intact bodies of the three youngest children whose weight ranged from 9 to 14 kilograms was comparatively high. The reason for this may be that reduction in diameter and in weight of the body causes a heating up in a smaller amount of time. This is why one has to be careful to use the nomogram with fire victims especially with those of low weight.


The evidences of three-body and four-body bound states have been reported in a series of very recent experiments with ultracold atoms. Here we study coherent creation of polyatomic molecules via a generalized atom-molecule dark-state technique. By keeping the intermediate trimer or tetramer state essentially unpopulated, the constructive quantum two-channel interference is shown to play an important role in, e.g. coherent atom-pentamer conversion at ultracold temperature.


The discrete Fourier transform(DFT) is used for fractional Brownian motion(FBM) surface synthesis in tribology(i.e., contact, sliding, and sealing, etc). However, the relationship between fractal parameters(fractal dimension and scale factor) and traditional parameters, the influence of fractal parameters on surface appearance, have not been deeply discussed yet. These lead to some kind of difficulty to ensure the synthesized surfaces with ideal fractal characteristic, required traditional parameters and geometric appearance. A quantitative relationship between fractal parameters and the root mean square deviation of surface (Sq) is derived based on the energy conservation property between the space and frequency domain of DFT. Under the stability assumption, the power spectrum of a FBM surface is composed of concentric circles strictly, a series of FBM surfaces with prescribed Sq could be synthesized with given fractal dimension, scale factor, and sampling numbers, but the ten-point height(Sz), the skewness(Ssk) and the kurtosis(Sku) are still in random, where the probability distributions of Sz and Ssk are approximately normal distribution. Furthermore, by iterative searching, a surface with desired Abbott-Firestone curve could be obtained among those surfaces. An intuitive explanation for the influence of fractal dimension and scale factor on surface appearance is obtained by discussing the effects on the ratio of energy between high and low frequency components. Based on the relationship between Sq and surface energy, a filtering method of surface with controllable Sq is proposed. The proposed research ensures the synthesized surfaces possess ideal FBM properties with prescribed Sq, offers a method for selecting desired Abbott-Firestone curve of synthesized fractal surfaces, and makes it possible to control the Sq of surfaces after filtering.


Background The capillaroscopic examination gives a possibility to find a correlation between the groups of ilnesses and the change of microcirculation based on a non-invasive method. In the publications are mentioned very seldom that decrease of the capillary loops' length and diameter, the twisting of venous side and the decrease of capillaries' density are the fundamental variables in the case of capillaroscopic examination of Arthritis Psoriatica's (AP) patients. Objectives The study was made on 34 verified AP's patients (20 male, 14 female) selected by the basis of the ARA's criterias in the authors Department of AP Outpatient. Dysqualifying criteria were the metabolic diseases, the cardiovascular diseases and smoking. Methods The period of psoriasis and arthritis was studied, and the capillary was classified on the basis of morphological criterias (hairpin-shaped, spiral, and bushy appearance) their lengthened and extended forms (arterial and venous side, the length of apical region), the density of capillaries, tearness and continousness of flow. Leitz's microscope was used for examination (35x magnification, max. 100x). The nailfold was lightened with cold light, further the paraffin oil was used to the surface. Results It was found that the period of dermatological symptoms are proportional to the number of spiral form of capillaries (r = 0.371, p < 0.05). The length and width of capillaries were independent from the dermatological and arthritic symptoms (NS = p 0.05). In the case of lengthened frame, the number of bushy forms were less than the others. Then the number of the capillaries loops were decreased (p < 0.05). Conclusion It is accepted in general, that the decrease of the capillaries's numbers as well as the morphological changes -as a typical form of the AP's patients -are in correlation significantly with the period of psoriasis. Disagrees with others previous publications, the authors did not find significant difference in the size of capillary loops comparing to the normal control.


We isolated RNA polymerase (RNAP) from Rhizobium leguminosarum, the nitrogen-fixing symbiont of peas and VICIA: Its 91 kDa subunit, which is homologous to sigma(70) of Escherichia coli RNAP, is necessary for transcription of the regulatory nodD gene, which in the presence of certain flavonoids induces transcription of other nod genes that are needed for the early steps of infection. We also show that negative autoregulation of nodD was achieved through competition between RNAP and NodD for their respective binding sites, which largely overlap. Combined with the result that high concentrations of the flavonoid inducer naringenin relieved the binding affinity of NodD for its target DNA, the way in which the nod genes are activated is discussed.


Mankind consume more and more information. These are different information for different decisions.There are different users, information consumers, but all of them have a common purpose, that of wellbeing and good. People want, wanted and shall want to live better, to do things better, to communicate better, even if they live in a network of information manipulation vectors. When the information manipulation is to the benefit of a minority, it harms the others. The 3R principle is no longer respected.


The concentrations of ozone, nitrogen oxides, and nonmethane hydrocarbons measured near the surface in a variety of urban, suburban, rural, and remote locations are analyzed and compared in order to elucidate the relationships between ozone, its photochemical precursors, and the sources of these precursors. While a large gradient is found among remote, rural, and urban/suburban nitrogen oxide concentrations, the total hydrocarbon reactivity in all continental locations is found to be comparable. Apportionment of the observed hydrocarbon species to mobile and stationary anthropogenic sources and biogenic sources suggests that present-day emission inventories for the United States underestimate the size of mobile emissions. The analysis also suggests a significant role for biogenic hydrocarbon emissions in many urban/suburban locations and a dominant role for these sources in rural areas of the eastern United States. As one moves from remote locations to rural locations and then from rural to urban/suburban locations, ozone and nitrogen oxide concentrations tend to increase in a consistent manner while total hydrocarbon reactivity does not.


Why do Europeans turn out to cast a vote or fail to do so on Election Day? In this paper a critical review of the 2004 European Parliament (EP) elections under the lens of the democratic deficit debate is attempted, with the use of three distinct models of democracy proposed by the RECON project: a delegated, a federal and a cosmopolitan one. The findings put forward a flexible understanding of electoral participation where delegated/statist indicators boost voting intentions along with a set of proxies of a nascent EU civil society, that allude to a cosmopolitan model of democracy. Respondents' EU knowledge, active information seeking on EP elections, as well as participation in the euroelectoral campaign play a central role in triggering turnout, along with the usual suspects of the national electoral context (i.e. compulsory voting, strict party lists etc.). Europe matters not only as a functional regime set up to address output problems but as a novel political entity to be discovered by a nascent public sphere. Surprisingly enough, the central element in a federal understanding of EP elections – an exclusive EU identity – weakens voting intentions in the euroelectorate of 2004. The interaction terms included in the analysis, finally, substantiate some inhibitions over the prevalence of delegated indicators in the face of weak socialization mechanisms at the EU level. Put simply, among the 'old' fifteen member states and in particular those with an exclusive EU identity, satisfaction with national democratic institutions lowers intended participation in the European electoral arena. The three models of European electoral participation are tested with the use of a pre-election Eurobarometer survey and official electoral statistics.


Chronic inflammatory diseases are common and still remain a therapeutic challenge for both efficacy and safety reasons. Hence, novel therapeutics addressing these issues would for example improve treatment of severe diseases such as psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. Inappropriate leukocyte homing to the affected compartments is a common feature of these diseases. Heparin and related polysaccharides have been shown to interfere with leukocyte homing through a variety of effects distinct from their anticoagulant properties. In this review, data on heparin as an anti-inflammatory agent are presented. In addition, structure-activity requirements for the anti-inflammatory properties of heparin are discussed, which should aid the drug development based on structurally modified heparin or other sulfated carbohydrates for treatment of inflammatory diseases.


The paper briefly introduces multiple classifier systems and describes a new algorithm, which improves classification accuracy by means of recommendation of a proper algorithm to an object classification. This recommendation is done assuming that a classifier is likely to predict the label of the object correctly if it has correctly classified its neighbors. The process of assigning a classifier to each object is based on Formal Concept Analysis. We explain the idea of the algorithm with a toy example and describe our first experiments with real-world datasets.


The ontogeny of antibody responses to trinitrophenylated (TNP) thymus-independent (TI) antigens was compared in two partially inbred strains of chicken: the SC strain (B2/B2 genotype) and the FP strain (B15/B22 genotype). In the SC chicken, maturation of both the splenic anti-TNP plaque-forming cell (PFC) response and the 19S hemagglutinating antibody response to TI type 2 (TI-2) antigens, TNP-Ficoll and TNP-dextran, were delayed to a significantly later time in ontogeny (20 wk of age) than in the FP chickens (9 wk of age). Four- to 6-wk-old SC chickens were virtually immunologically unresponsive to stimulation with TI-2 antigens. The TI-1 antigen TNP-Brucella abortus was equally immunogenic in both FP and SC chickens of different age groups tested. Kinetic studies of the primary PFC response to TNP-Ficoll in immunologically mature chickens of the SC and FP strains demonstrated a peak PFC response 4 days after antigen injection, followed by a rapid decline in numbers of splenic PFC/spleen on day 6. The results of these studies are discussed in relation to earlier observations that suggested there may be a delay or a defect in the ontogeny of the thymus in the SC chicken.


The microtubule cytoskeleton serves as a dynamic structural framework for mitosis in eukaryotic cells. TANGLED1 (TAN1) is a microtubule-binding protein that localizes to the division site and mitotic microtubules and plays a critical role in division plane orientation in plants. Here, in vitro experiments demonstrate that TAN1 directly binds microtubules, mediating microtubule zippering or end-on microtubule interactions, depending on their contact angle. Maize tan1 mutant cells improperly position the preprophase band (PPB), which predicts the future division site. However, cell-shape-based modeling indicates that PPB positioning defects are likely a consequence of abnormal cell shapes and not due to TAN1 absence. Spindle defects in the tan1 mutant suggest that TAN1-mediated microtubule zippering may contribute to metaphase spindle organization. In telophase, co-localization of growing microtubules ends from the phragmoplast with TAN1 at the division site suggests that TAN1 interacts with microtubule tips end-on. Together, our results suggest that TAN1 contributes to spindle and phragmoplast microtubule organization to ensure proper division plane orientation.


Intensified efforts to decipher the origin of disease at the molecular level stimulate the emergence of more efficient proteomic technologies. To complement this, attempts are being made to identify new predictive biomarkers for building more reliable biomarker patterns. As biomarker research gathers pace an immediate interest becomes focused on platforms, which although based on mainstream approaches, are more amenable to specialist tasks. Particularly relevant this is for disease-specific biomarkers, which are present at very low concentrations in multicomponent biological fluids and require depletion protocols enabling their separation from high-abundance components. In this report, we describe a new strategy allowing the rapid detection of target protein biomarkers by MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry. The approach relies on selective sequestering of target proteins from complex media by engineered microgels, which select proteins by their size (<30 kDa) and isoelectric points (protein pI <6.5). Subsequently, biomarker-loaded microgels are subjected to direct mass-spectrometric analysis without the need for preceding protein extraction. Exemplified by a natural protein-folding motif, coiled-coil, the monitoring of hierarchical folding-dependent macromolecular systems by the approach is also shown. The described strategy offers a general rationale for versatile platforms for high throughput proteomics and holds promise for proteome fingerprinting of biomolecular interactions.


One of the most important current problems in natural language processing is word sense disambiguation (WSD). WSD consists of identifying the correct sense of the words in a given text. In this work, we present a novel method for automatic WSD based on the simplified-Lesk algorithm. The proposed method employs Alpha-Beta associative memories for the relatedness computation between the senses of the ambiguous words and its context. The performance of this method was evaluated in terms of precision, recall, and F-score, using the semantically annotated corpora Senseval-2, Semcor, and Semeval-2007. The results show the advantages of the proposed method compared with other Lesk-based state-of-the-art methods.


Quantifying the oxidation state of multivalent elements in silicate melts (e.g., Fe2+ versus Fe3+ or S2versus S6+) is fundamental for constraining oxygen fugacity. Oxygen fugacity is a key thermodynamic parameter in understanding melt chemical history from the Earth's mantle through the crust to the surface. To make these measurements, analyses are typically performed on small (<100 μm diameter) regions of quenched volcanic melt (now silicate glass) forming the matrix between crystals or as trapped inclusions. Such small volumes require microanalysis, with multiple techniques often applied to the same area of glass to extract the full range of information that will shed light on volcanic and magmatic processes. This can be problematic as silicate glasses are often unstable under the electron and photon beams used for this range of analyses. It is therefore important to understand any compositional and structural changes induced within the silicate glass during analysis, not only to ensure accurate measurements (and interpretations), but also that subsequent analyses are not compromised. Here, we review techniques commonly used for measuring the Fe and S oxidation state in silicate glass and explain how silicate glass of different compositions responds to electron and photon beam irradiation.


The data communication is becoming more and more rapidly and conveniently due to the information technology and Internet expeditious development. Therefore, the protections of information security and integrity are becoming very important in the network transmission. And the data hiding schemes are raised in the image research. The image data hiding technique is to embed secret message into a cover image and produce a stego-image, which can be securely sent to the receiver without revealing the secret message in the image. In this paper, we will propose an image high capacity and reversible data hiding scheme based on the frequency of block pixels. This method explores the frequency of pixels in each block and uses them as the predictive values. Because the neighboring pixels of blocks have the similar characteristics and the differences of prediction pixels are approximately. Thus, the peak values of prediction difference histogram are increased greatly, and the embedding capacity can be effectively enlarged on the cover image. From the experimental results, the stego-image not only has good PSNR values of image quality, but also has reversible characteristics for data hiding.


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

EGFR is a validated therapeutic target; but unfortunately, only a small percentage of patients with EGFR-overexpressing tumors respond to therapy, and resistance develops even in responsive patients. Gefitinib (Iressa) is a small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that suppresses the activation of EGFR. Understanding the molecular mechanisms and protein targets involved in the effects of Iressa requires the simultaneous identification of specific molecular markers in the complex network of signaling pathways that are secondarily modulated by Iressa in mammary cancer. In this study, female Sprague-Dawley rats (50 days old) were given methylnitrosourea (MNU) by IV injection through the jugular vein (75 mg/kg BW). The rats were palpated for mammary cancers 2 times per week. When a palpable mammary cancer of approximately 200-250 mm2 was present, the rat was administered Iressa (6 mg/kg BW/day) by gavage for 2 days. The tumor was then biopsied. The rats were treated with Iressa at the same dose for an additional 40 days and tumors were harvested. At sacrifice, the mammary cancer was rapidly removed and frozen for protein array analysis. The tumors were sorted into two groups based on sensitivity to treatment with Iressa and analyzed by a phospho-protein Proteome Profiler™ Array (R&D, Minneapolis, MN). Three tumors that regressed 27, 39, and 59% were compared to 4 tumors that continued to grow, increasing in size by 56, 106, 210, and 236%. Most notably, tumors that continued to grow in spite of Iressa treatment consistently showed a marked increased phosphorylation of CREB (Ser133) and Src (Tyr419) compared to tumors that regressed. CREB phosphorylation at Ser133 enhances its transactivation and transcriptional activities, resulting in increased expression of many downstream target genes involved in cell proliferation and cancer development. In addition, tumors that continued to grow also showed increased phosphorylation of p27 (Thr157) compared to regressed tumors. Phosphorylation of p27 at Thr157 is known to impair its nuclear localization, suggesting an acceleration of the G1/S cell cycle transition, resulting in enhanced cell proliferation. In contrast, tumors that regressed showed marked increased phosphorylation of Hck (Tyr411) compared to tumors that continued to grow. The hck gene is located at 20q11-q12, which is a region affect by interstitial deletions in some acute myeloid leukemias and myeloproliferative disorders and damage to hck might contribute to the pathogenesis of these conditions, suggesting that autophosphorylation of Hck (Tyr411) might be involved in tumor suppression. These results indicated that Iressa resistance in mammary cancer induced by MNU is closely related with activation of the signaling axis of the cytosolic tyrosine kinase, CREB, which could contribute to continuous proliferation. Supported by NCI # HHSN-261200433009C – NO1-CN-55006-72.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1039. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1039


More than a year after the US invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, both the New York Times and the Washington Post published self-critical articles regarding their coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War. However, an analysis of this coverage in the five days following the UN speech by then-secretary of state Colin Powell shows both papers' bias to be more profound than these pieces acknowledge. This article quantitatively analyzes each newspaper's coverage concerning how much of a platform each paper gives to pro- and antiwar voices, thereby revealing both papers' reporting to be subject to significant prowar bias. A qualitative analysis of the same coverage exposes the various ways in which this bias comes to the fore. Comparing these analyses to the self-critical pieces reveals a lack of acknowledgment of both the severity and the nature of this bias. These findings, which show that the New York Times and the Washington Post downplayed their bias, call into question the ability of these papers to provide balanced news reporting on future proposed military ventures.