Abstract Background Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy for patients with influenza A (H1N1)–related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has been described once all other therapeutic options have been exhausted. The current report reviews our institutional experience and lessons learned in 18 consecutive patients. Methods Between December 2009 and March 2011, 18 patients underwent ECMO therapy for severe H1N1-related ARDS. Mean age was 40 ± 18 years (range 4–67 years). Ten patients (56%) received venoarterial cannulation (v-a ECMO) while venovenous cannulation (v-v ECMO) was initiated in the remaining patients (n = 8, 44%). To identify risk factors of adverse outcome, univariate analysis was performed for clinical parameters. Results Successful ECMO weaning was possible in 44% (n = 8) of patients and overall mortality was 61% (n = 11). Seven of the eight patients who could be successfully weaned from ECMO support fully recovered. Survival within the v-a ECMO group (60%) was superior to the v-v ECMO group (13%; p = 0.06). Two patients (11%) required re-exploration of the axillary artery cannulation site. No further adverse events associated with ECMO implantation occurred. Outcome was better when the time of severe deoxygenation (Pao 2 < 70 mm Hg) despite maximally invasive respiratory support to ECMO implantation was less than 6 hours (odds ratio: 2.4; p = 0.05). Conclusions ARDS associated with H1N1 remains a devastating clinical picture. In our hands, ECMO support offered survival to 40% of patients with otherwise fatal prognosis. While v-v ECMO remains the method of choice for patients suffering an isolated ARDS in the setting of stable hemodynamic conditions, v-a ECMO may be considered if the clinical picture of ARDS is aggravated by systemic inflammatory response syndrome with the requirement of high dose vasopressor support.


With more than 10 million inhabitants (20% of the French population), Great Paris is the 3rd largest megacity in Europe. According to emission inventories, CO2 emissions of the Paris region represent about 15 % of the total French anthropogenic CO2 emissions whereas its surface extends over only 2% of the French territory. However, the assessment of such inventory is quite difficult and uncertainties are poorly constrained. During the incomplete combustion processes of fossil fuels, CO2 is co-emitted with other trace species in ratios that are characteristic of each emission sector and fuel type. Simultaneous measurements of CO2 and co-emitted species can thus allow the quantification of the relative contribution of each emission sector to the total amount of CO2 emitted. These ratios can be obtained from inventories. However, they are given for benchmark conditions that often may not represent well real world conditions. These ratios should thus also be assessed independently. Road traffic is one of the main sources of CO2 emitted by the Paris region : according to the regional French emission inventory (Airparif), 29% of CO2 emissions in the region of Paris are due to traffic which is also responsible for emissions of more than half of the CO (56%) and nearly 20% of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) . As part of the PRIMEQUAL 'PREQUALIF' project, CO2 to co-emitted species emission factors were determined for the traffic sector. A 12-day measurement campaign was performed in a highway tunnel located in a peri-urban area about 15 km south of the Paris center. Several atmospheric compounds were monitored simultaneously with CO2, including CO, black carbon, NO-NO2 and VOCs. We will present here preliminary results from this campaign, based on the study of correlations between the concentrations of CO2 and co-emitted species, but also using information such as velocity, traffic rate, vehicle type and day of the week. Depending on these parameters, a classification of the different CO2 to co-species concentration ratios will be proposed. A first comparison will be provided with available inventories.


A molecular exciton signature is established and investigated under different ambient conditions in rubrene single crystals. An oxygen-related band gap state is found to form in the ambient atmosphere. This state acts as an acceptor center and assists in the fast dissociation of excitons, resulting in a higher dark and photoconductivity of oxidized rubrene. The band gap state produces a well-defined photoluminescence band at an energy 0.25 eV below the energy of the 0-0 molecular exciton transition. Two-photon excitation spectroscopy shows that the states are concentrated near the surface of naturally oxidized rubrene.


The advent of genetically altered seed has had a revolutionary effect on the cotton, soybean, and corn seed industries. The basic premise for the use of these seed are to reduce costs through lower applications of chemicals and savings on trips through the field, thus, lowering production costs. Seed companies, however, charge a premium and a fee for use of the seed. This paper compares the costs associated with conventional and roundup ready soybeans. Data were collected from the ACost of Production@ survey of Mississippi producers that is administered by Mississippi State University through the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The survey is a random sample of producers fields that allows for a derivation of the cost of production for each field. The study suggests that while costs reductions can be achieved, the cost savings are offset by the technology fees. The study is based on limited data and points to the need for continued research on the long-run profitability of genetically altered seed to the soybean producers of Mississippi.


Introduction The LOREC perineal wound healing registry was developed to record data on abdomino-perineal excision (APE) for rectal cancer in colorectal units across the UK between 2012 and 2014 to understand current practice in operative techniques and patient outcomes. Initial interim results are reported. Method Surgeons wishing to participate received secure web-based access to the registry. Collected data included pre-operative staging, operative details, pathology, early outcome and follow-up at 12 months. Results Overall 43 units entered a total of 259 patients undergoing APE. These included 168 extralevator APE (ELAPE) procedures (65%) and 91 non-ELAPEs, comprising 73 'standard' APE, 9 intersphincteric, 2 ischio-anal and 7 unspecified procedures. The ELAPE and non-ELAPE groups are compared. In the ELAPE group there were 120 males (71%) with a median age of 66 years (range 38–93). In the non-ELAPE group there were 64 males (70%) with a median age of 68 years (range 32–97). The perineal component was performed prone in 151 (90%) of the ELAPE group versus 13 (14%) of the non-ELAPE group. The coccyx was removed in 123 (73%) of the ELAPEs and 7 (8%) of the non-ELAPEs. In the ELAPE group primary skin closure for the perineal component was performed in 119 (71%) while in 34 (20%) a flap was used (13 VRAM, 9 local myocutaneous and 12 fascio-cutaneous flaps). In 15 cases (9%) the surgeons reported no closure. In 111 (66%) a mesh, generally biological, was used in perineal closure. Mesh was most commonly used where the closure was primary but 9 flap closures also used mesh. In the non-ELAPE group primary closure was more common, being used in 76 (84%) while in 5 (5%) a flap was used. In 10 cases (11%) the surgeons reported no closure. Mesh was used less frequently in non-ELAPEs, with only 30 (33%) using a mesh; the majority (57%) of these were non-biological. Primary healing was achieved in 29% of ELAPE patients, the majority of whom were closed primarily, compared to 9% in the non-ELAPE group. There was no difference in wound healing by 4 weeks and both groups had a small number of patients who took more than 3 months to heal completely. There was no significant difference in length of hospital stay for the two groups. There was one post-operative death in each group; a peritonitis of unknown cause in the ELAPE group and a GI bleed in the non-ELAPE group. Conclusion The LOREC registry has been a success in providing a summary of current practice and will be valuable in informing the design of future trials assessing APE techniques and reconstruction. In this series, ELAPE is performed in the majority of patients and primary closure with mesh appears to offer effective skin closure compared to flap. Disclosure of interest None Declared.


This is a Review Article of The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration by Glyn Morgan. It considers the EU's constitutional reforms of recent years, arguing that part of the failure of the reform process was due to the absence of an adequate justification of the integration process by elites to the citizens of its member states. Such a justification, it argues, should have take the form of a 'constitutional narrative' to complement the process of the formal constitutionalization of the polity. It considers the proposals for such a constitutional narrative present in Morgan's book, arguing that while the focus on the question of the justification of European integration is to be welcomed, ultimately the proposals put forward are not suitable to the EU's current situation.


Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a liver disease with circulating autoantibodies predominantly directed against widely held cellular components. Because AIH is a liver-specific disease, autoantibodies against plasma membrane antigens may be involved in its pathogenesis and have been reported; however, no definite identification has been described. We thus investigated the fine specificity of anti-hepatocyte plasma membrane autoantibodies in type 1 AIH (AIH-1) using a proteomic tool. A plasma membrane–enriched fraction was validated using enzymatic activity and western blot analysis experiments. Sera from AIH-1 patients (n 65) and from 90 controls, that is, healthy blood donors (n 40) and patients with systemic diseases (n 20) or other liver diseases (n 30), were studied by immunoblot performed with plasma membrane proteins resolved by either sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) or 2-dimensional (2D) electrophoresis. Proteins contained in the immunoreactive spots were identified by sequences provided by ion-trap mass spectrometry. Hepatocytes probed with sera were also studied using confocal immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy. The more prominent bands stained by patient sera were located at 38 kDa, 48, 50, 52 kDa, 62 kDa, 70 kDa, and a 95-kDa double band. Six proteins with known potential plasma membrane expression were identified: liver arginase (38 kDa), cytokeratins (CK) 8 and 18 (48-52 kDa), heat shock proteins (HSP) of 60, 70, 90 kDa, and valosin-containing protein (VCP) of 92 kDa. The presence of anti-membrane antibodies was confirmed by immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy. Conclusion: Overall, our data demonstrate that liver arginase, CK 8/18, HSP 60, HSP 70, HSP 90, and VCP represent potential candidate targets on liver membrane for autoantibodies in AIH-1. (HEPATOLOGY 2008;47:937-948.)


To analyze if the spread of HIV is related to economic inequality we estimate multilevel models of the individual probability of HIV infection among young Malawian women. We find a positive association between HIV infection and inequality at both the neighbourhood and district levels, but no effect of individual poverty. We also find that the HIV-inequality relationship is related to risky sex, gender violence, and return migration, though no variable completely replaces economic inequality as a predictor of HIV infections. The HIV-inequality relationship does not seem to be related to bad health, gender gaps in education or women's market work.


The benefits of free trade to developing as well as under developed countries as per Harberler are Firstly Developing countries through the medium of free trade are bale to procure capital goods, Technical Know-How, Specialized machinery raw and semi finished material which are prerequisites for their economic development. It also provides a platform whereby the technical know-how along with transmission of evolved and creative ideas and the with importation of managerial skills talents and entrepreneurship develop. Secondly it acts as a via medium for international movement of capital from developed to developing countries. Thirdly, free international trade is the catalyst which helps to maintain a healthy, sound and free competition and practically wipes out monopoly and evils associated with it. It further adds to division of labor on an global scale thereby ensuring greater specialization, efficiency and economy in production. Fourthly, as far as consumers are concerned, it is beneficial as it provides a large variety of goods at the cheapest prices


Discriminating between quantum computing architectures that can provide quantum advantage from those that cannot is of crucial importance. From the fundamental point of view, establishing such a boundary is akin to pinpointing the resources for quantum advantage; from the technological point of view, it is essential for the design of non-trivial quantum computing architectures. Wigner negativity is known to be a necessary resource for computational advantage in several quantum-computing architectures, including those based on continuous variables (CVs). However, it is not a sufficient resource, and it is an open question under which conditions CV circuits displaying Wigner negativity offer the potential for quantum advantage. In this work, we identify vast families of circuits that display large Wigner negativity, and yet are classically efficiently simulatable, although they are not recognized as such by previously available theorems. These families of circuits employ bosonic codes based on either translational or rotational symmetries (e.g., Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill or cat codes), and can include both Gaussian and non-Gaussian gates and measurements. Crucially, within these encodings, the computational basis states are described by intrinsically negative Wigner functions, even though they are stabilizer states if considered as codewords belonging to a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. We derive our results by establishing a link between the simulatability of high-dimensional discrete-variable quantum circuits and bosonic codes.


Marine clay is one of the problematic soils found in the development project due to the high compressibility and swelling, and low bearing capacity. A new liquid stabilizing agent, with a commercial brand name of "TX-85" had been introduced in the construction industry for improving the strength and reliability of soils for construction of building and road. Therefore, a laboratory study was led to assess the impacts of sodium silicate on the unconfined compression strength (UCS) and plasticity index of marine clay. The results show that the addition of the sodium silicate can reduce the plasticity and slightly increased the UCS of the soils, also the UCS increased with the duration of curing time. It can be concluded that, the stabilization using sodium silicate can be used as an alternative and economic method in the civil engineering projects.


Background: Respiratory diseases are frequent and economically significant problems in both humans and animals. The potential losses resulting
from decrease in average daily gain and feed efficiency, as well as the cost of preventing or treating these diseases are substantial. Although
synergistic relationships between bacteria and viruses have been documented to aggravate these diseases, the pathogenic mechanisms remain poorly
understood.
Materials and method: For this review, PubMed and Google search engines were used to select about 45 publications on bacterial-viral interactions
in respiratory conditions. Studies on animal models were also included in the review. The publications were compared and summarized using a
narrative review approach and findings were described qualitatively.
Results: Respiratory diseases are exacerbated by interactions between bacteria and viruses in both humans and animals. Possible mechanisms
underlying this synergism were found to include, among others, increased bacterial adherence due to viral infection, reduction of mucociliary
clearance, diminished chemotaxis, immature phagocytes and decreased surfactant levels.
Conclusion: Interactions between bacteria and viruses make management of respiratory diseases difficult. However, exploration of the highlighted
mechanisms responsible for this synergism in the development and production of novel antimicrobials and vaccines against these pathogens is crucial
to improving management, prevention and control of respiratory infections. This may be particularly beneficial in this era of increasing antibiotic
resistance.


Abstract. The growth rate of atmospheric new particles is a key parameter that determines their survival probability to become cloud condensation nuclei and hence their impact on the climate. There have been several methods to estimate the new particle growth rate. However, due to the impact of coagulation and measurement uncertainties, it is still challenging to estimate the initial growth rate of sub-3 nm particles, especially in polluted environments with high background aerosol concentrations. In this study, we explore the feasibility of the appearance time method to estimate the growth rate of sub-3 nm particles. The principle of the appearance time method and the impacts of coagulation on the retrieved growth rate are clarified. New formulae in both discrete and continuous spaces are proposed to correct the impacts of coagulation. Aerosol dynamic models are used to test the new formulae. New particle formation in urban Beijing is used to illustrate the importance to consider the impacts of coagulation on sub-3 nm particle growth rate and its calculation. We show that the conventional appearance time method needs to be corrected when the impacts of coagulation sink, coagulation source, and particle coagulation growth are non-negligible compared to the condensation growth. Under the simulation conditions with a constant vapor concentration, the corrected growth rate agrees with the theoretical growth rates. The variation of vapor concentration is found to impact growth rate obtained with the appearance time method. Under the simulation conditions with a varying vapor concentration, the average bias of the corrected 1.5–3 nm particle growth rate range from 6–44 %. During the test new particle formation event in urban Beijing, the corrected condensation growth rate of sub-3 nm particles was in accordance with the growth rate contributed by sulfuric acid condensation, whereas the conventional appearance time method overestimated the condensation growth rate of 1.5 nm particles by 80 %.


This work investigates the dynamic and thermal response of the winter stratosphere to the presence of a weak meridional surface temperature gradient. Previous work suggested that polar stratospheric clouds could have played a decisive role in maintaining high-latitude warmth, especially over continental interiors, during the polar nights of the late Paleocene and early Eocene epochs; both a chemical source of additional water vapor and a dynamical feedback between the surface climate and stratospheric temperatures have been proposed as mechanisms by which such clouds could form. A principal goal of this work is to investigate the latter problem using a general circulation model with stratospheric resolution that is forced with a very weak surface temperature gradient. It is found that temperatures in the lower stratosphere do not deviate significantly from the control run, which results from a robust flux of wave activity into the winter stratosphere. The strength of the stratosphere's residual circulation increases slightly in the presence of the weak gradient, as wavenumber 3 begins to propagate to stratospheric altitudes. Changes in the zonal wind field that allow for the altered propagation are in balance with a weakened temperature gradient through the full depth of the troposphere. These simulations also suggest that the tropospheric thermal stratification could be maintained by moist convection at all latitudes in warm climate states with a weak temperature gradient.


Environmental protection is an important issue in recent decades, and renewable energy is an ideal solution for eco-friendly power generation. Solar-power generation is a popular renewable energy with low cost and small environmental footprint, which leads to exponential growth and high industrial investment. A mature solar business model has been established, but some uncertainties hinder the development, especially when focusing on the lack of solar-radiation. To address these issues, in this article we propose a hedging system to hedge the low-radiation risk for solar-investors through the designed IoT-based data, edge-based models for predicting solar-radiation as well as hedging options. Our experimental results show that the edge-based predictive models can obtain an R-squared value of 0.841 and a correlation coefficient of 0.917. For binary options designed in the hedging system, the broker can obtain stable payoffs with the highest Sharpe ratio of 3.354, and the investors can obtain large payoffs during low-radiation. Our simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed hedging system for investors (buyer-side), simultaneously, present the motivation of the broker (seller-side) to join the designed hedging system utilized in solar-power generation.


CD4+ Regulatory T cells (Treg) play a critical role in maintaining immune homeostasis. Various Treg subsets have been identified, however the heterogeneity of Treg subpopulations during development remains uncharacterized. Using mass cytometry we obtained single cell data on expression of 35 functional markers to examine the heterogeneity of Treg cells at birth and in adults. Unsupervised clustering algorithms FlowSOM and ACCENSE were used to quantify Treg heterogeneity. As expected, Treg in umbilical cord blood were predominately naïve while Treg in adult blood were predominately central memory and effector memory cells. Although umbilical cord blood Treg are mostly naïve cells, we observed multiple phenotypic Treg subsets in cord blood. Nevertheless, peripheral blood in adults contained higher percentages of Treg and the heterogeneity of Treg was significantly increased in adults. We also studied Treg heterogeneity throughout a 2-year period after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHSCT) and in patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD). Treg heterogeneity recovered rapidly after alloHSCT and gradually increased in the first two years post-transplant. However, patients with cGVHD had significantly fewer distinct Treg subpopulations, proposing a correlation between a disrupted Treg heterogeneity and cGVHD. Our study is the first to compare human Treg heterogeneity at birth, in healthy adults and in patients after alloHSCT with and without cGVHD. This approach to characterize Treg heterogeneity based on expression of a large panel of functional markers may enable future studies to identify specific Treg defects that contribute to immune dysfunction.


A eugenic sterilization law was passed in Finland in 1935, and it was replaced by a harsher one, postwar, in 1950. Most sterilizations designated as eugenic were carried out after the war, when Finland was no longer allied with Germany. In contrast to most other countries, the events in Nazi Germany did not deter the passage of the 1950 law.


Li metal is an ideal anode for next‐generation batteries because of its high theoretical capacity and low potential. However, the unevenly distributed stress in Li metal anodes (LMAs) induced by volume fluctuation may cause the electrode to fracture easily, especially during high‐rate plating/stripping processes. Here fracture‐resistant LMAs using the concept of bulk nanostructured materials are designed via a metallurgical process. In bulk nanostructured Li (BNL), ionic conducting phases exist at grain boundaries, which promote Li+ transport. The refined Li grain size and precipitation hardening in BNL enhances the mechanical strength and fatigue endurance, alleviating the unevenly distributed stress and preventing electrode pulverization. Density functional theory is used to investigate the binding energy between Li and various kinds of oxides and SiO2 is found to be optimal additive among screened oxides. BNL has 91% of the theoretical capacity of Li metal. In full cells with BNL anode, LiFePO4 could deliver capacity of 90 mAh g−1 at 10C, an order of magnitude higher than that in full cells with Li foil anode. This strategy is expected to pave the way for fracture‐resistant LMAs in high‐rate cycling with maximum capacity.


Levelsets are a flexible implicit surface representation that have many applications in production. A levelset represents a surface as a signed distance function (SDF) on a regularly sampled grid. For Spider-Man 3, we created a toolset called Sandstorm which included a rich set of levelset-based modeling and animation tools. This included methods for converting geometry into SDF fields and vice versa, methods for transferring surface attributes into these fields, tools for looking up values in an SDF, and many other flexible surface editing operators.


Abstract A sample of 290 individuals attending Evangelical Anglican churches and Anglo-Catholic churches in central England completed the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, a measure of psychological type preferences. Overall, there were clear preferences for sensing over intuition, for feeling over thinking, and for judging over perceiving, which is consistent with the findings of two earlier studies profiling the psychological type of Anglican churchgoers. However, there was also a significantly higher proportion of intuitives among Anglo-Catholics than among Evangelical Anglicans, which is consistent with the greater emphasis in Anglo-Catholic churches on mystery, awe, and the centrality of sacraments in worship which may resonate with the intuitive predisposition. The implications of these findings are discussed for the benefits of breadth and diversity within Anglicanism.


We demonstrate a physical mechanism of multicolor coherent terahertz (THz) Smith–Purcell radiation from surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). In Dirac semimetals gratings with very deep and narrow slits, two types of SPP modes, the cavity and ordinary SPP modes, can be excited by fast electrons under different excitation conditions and then diffracted into radiation in specific directions. The radiation intensity is remarkably enhanced when SPPs are excited, and frequencies can be widely tuned by adjusting the parameters of grating and electrons. Our findings could provide a promising way for developing room temperature, coherent, tunable, directional, and intense THz radiation sources.


A modified hemoglobin solution (- conjugate solution, PHP solution) has very interesting characteristics such as oxygen-carrying property without corpuscular components. Experimental use of the PHP solution has shown promising possibilities as a perfusate relevant to organ transplantations. 1) Elongation of warm ischemic time in canine kidneys: Dogs survived even with the unilateral kidneys which had been exposed up to 4.5 hour warm ischemia and, thereafter, perfused with the PHP solution. 2) Elongation of perfusion preservation period of canine livers: Dogs survived with the transplanted livers which had been perfused for 48 hours with the PHP solution. 3) Successful perfusion of rat small intestine: Lewis rat intestines perfused and preserved for 12 hours with the PHP solution showed a higher survival rate compared with those with Collins or UW solution. 4) Removal of antibodies: By exchange transfusion with a total of 30-60 ml of the PHP solution, a Lewis rat hematocrit lowered to 5% while IgG went down to nil from 8970 mg/dl, IgA to 28 mg/dl from 118 mg/dl and IgM to 190 mg/dl from 897 mg/dl. This technique is expected to be applicable for removal of the naturally existing antibodies in xenotransplantation.


The values-based leadership (VBL) themes lend the case to use in courses focussed on individual leadership approaches, personal-professional development, personal mastery, or individual agency in social change and social justice movements. The emerging market context adds a layer of complexity to the protagonist's journey, which may make the case especially relevant for use among students who work in this context or in courses that deal with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).

The primary target audience for this case is postgraduate students in a management or professional development program.

This case offers a leadership profile of lawyer Fadzayi Mahere as she pursues social change at the national level by running for political office in Zimbabwe in 2018. The case recounts Mahere's professional journey through human rights law and local activism, which eventually drives her to run as an independent for a position in the national election. She does this as a response to the dire state of the country: economic crisis, social instability, and political corruption that are making life increasingly untenable for most people. In spite of running a strong grassroots campaign, Mahere loses the election and is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to forego independence and join the dominant opposition party. The case therefore centres around the role of values in leadership, the role of narrative in shaping the decision to lead, and how these things impact a leader's strategy for affecting social change and achieving social justice.

Appreciate the systemic nature of social problems in an emerging market context and how this creates different opportunities for a leader to act on a problem
Understand how a leader's identity, in terms of values and experiences, shapes their motivations and informs their strategy for leading a change effort
Understand the dimensions of values-based leadership (VBL) – transformational, authentic, accountability, and ethical leadership – and how the actions of a values-driven leader reflect these
Identify the mechanisms that aspiring leaders practicing VBL can use to build an authentic narrative for key stakeholders to accept and embrace them
Recognise the different strategies a leader can adopt to achieve values-driven outcomes, while maintaining alignment with the different dimensions of VBL


Objective: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disease that influences many people worldwide. Management of insulin resistance in T2DM without side effects of chemical drugs, is the ultimate goal of the medical community. Artemisia annua L. is used for the treatment of diabetes in folkloric medicine. The present study investigated the effects of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of A. annua (AA) on insulin resistance in high-fat diet/STZ-induced diabetic mice. Material and Methods: Mice were divided into groups including control with a normal diet, un-treated high-fat diet/streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice, and diabetic mice treated by oral administration of 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg body weight of water (hot and cold) and alcoholic extracts of AA. After four weeks of treatment with AA, blood sampling was carried out to measure factors involved in insulin resistance such as low-density lipoprotein/ High-density lipoprotein (LDL/HDL) ratio, free fatty acids, Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) as an index of insulin resistance. Results: The results showed that all AA extracts (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg) and metformin (250 mg/kg) significantly reduced the serum levels of free fatty acids, TNF-alpha, IL-6, LDL/HDL ratio, and HOMA-IR in diabetic mice compared to untreated diabetic mice (p<0.0001). Notably, the 400 mg/kg dose of cold-water extract was more effective than metformin in reduction of TNF-alpha and IL-6 (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively). Conclusion: These data illustrated that AA extracts attenuated insulin resistance by reducing the lipid profile and adipocytokines.


Famatinorthis cf. F. turneri Levy and Nullo, 1973, is an abundant component of a poorly preserved brachiopod assemblage in volcaniclastic rocks at one locality in the Arenig-age Shin Brook Formation in northeastern Maine. The brachiopod assemblage of the Shin Brook Formation has been classed as a Celtic biogeographic assemblage that is interpreted to have lived in cool water at mid- to high peri-Gondwanan latitudes. Famatinorthis turneri sensu stricto is one of the six brachiopod species known from coeval volcanicsrich rocks of continental margin affinities in the Famatina Range of northwestern Argentina; the presence of its congener in Maine supports the Celtic affinities of the Famatina assemblage, but its Ordovician location remains cryptic.


Invasive gastrointestinal fungal infections are posing a serious threat to the ever-expanding population of immunocompromised children, as well as some healthy children at risk. In this narrative review, we collate and explore the etiologies and diagnostic modalities of these overlooked infections. Currently, the conventional diagnostic approaches of histopathologic examination and culture are still considered the gold standard for diagnosis. However, these approaches may be time-consuming and have low sensitivities, which emphasizes the need for new diagnostic modalities in such life-threatening infections . Meanwhile, biomarkers that detect fungal antigens e.g. galactomannan and beta-D-glucan have been established and implemented in various clinical settings. On the other hand, novel molecular techniques have been developed and are currently subjected to further evaluation and validation. Other promising approaches such as the matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) and surface-enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) have proved reliable in clinical trials but still require standardization before widespread clinical application. The incorporation of standardized novel diagnostic tools would provide the necessary guidance to therapeutic approaches. Prompt treatment of IFD necessitates surgical intervention together with systemic anti-fungal agents. The most widely used agents include amphotericin B, voriconazole, and caspofungin. A high index of suspicion coupled with prompt diagnosis and judicious management can tremendously improve the survival of the vulnerable pediatric population.


Cronobacter spp. is an opportunistic bacterium that is associated with infection outbreaks in neonates and infants due to the consumption of powdered infant formulas (PIF). In this context, the official regulator sector has created the specific standards for the industries to control these pathogens in the PIF. The present study aimed at evaluating the occurrence of Cronobacter spp. in 60 samples of PIF commercialized in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thirty samples of infant formulas (0-6 months) and 30 samples of follow-up infant formulas (> 6 months) were analyzed according to the conventional methodologies described in the Bacteriological Analytical Manual Online-FDA (2012). The identification of characteristic colonies was performed using kits ID32E, API20E andVitek 2.0 system and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the gluA gene. No sample showed contamination by Cronobacter spp. The occurrence of Cronobacter spp. in PIF seems to be low, indicating that the producers are complying with the provisions of the Brazilian standards in force to avoid the product contamination by this microorganism.


Background: Our objective was to develop a nutrient-based index for evaluating and improving menus in public catering. The nutriRECIPE-Index comprises 24 nutrients/nutrient groups, and in developing the index, the following steps were included: setting the goals of the index, nutrient selection, target metrics and scaling, weighing, proof of concept and the validation of the index. Furthermore, a unique database was created to integrate bioactive plant compounds in the assessment. An assessment of standard recipes and supposedly healthy recipes should show a significant difference in the results of the nutriRECIPE-Index. Finally, the nutriRECIPE-Index should prove to generate similar or more specific results than existing indices like the nutriScore and the Healthy Meal Index.Methods : A whole meal cycle (comprising 6 weeks, 106 recipes and including different menu lines, partially with different side dishes) at a university canteen was analysed with the Federal Food Code (BLS) and the nutriRECIPE-Index. The Healthy Meal Index (comprising 3 nutritionally relevant items) and the nutriScore-algorithm (comprising 7 items) were used to validate the nutrient composition and the results of the nutriRECIPE-Index.Results : The resulting scores of the recipes and menu lines show substantial differences, while the meals of a health-promoting menu line usually received higher scores than the standard recipes. A correlation between the scores of the nutriRECIPE-Index and the scores of the Healthy Meal Index (0.604) and the Nutri-Score (0.591) was observed. The nutriRECIPE-Index was better in identifying the worst menus, and in separating mediocre menus from the good ones.Conclusion : The nutriRECIPE index is a useful and comprehensive tool to evaluate the nutritional value of recipes and is the first to consider bioactive plant compounds. Further adjustments to different target populations, settings, and cultural backgrounds are possible.


We review two compressive spectroscopy techniques based on modulation in the spectral domain that we have recently proposed. Both techniques achieve a compression ratio of approximately 10:1, however each with a different sensing mechanism. The first technique uses a liquid crystal cell as a tunable filter to modulate the spectral signal, and the second technique uses a Fabry-Perot etalon as a resonator. We overview the specific properties of each of the techniques.


Purpose

– This paper aims to describe an online inclusiveness-training initiative launched at global financial-services company State Street Corporation, which helped the company to earn a place among The Times Top 50 Employers for Women.

Design/methodology/approach

– It explains the reasons for the program, the form it took and the results it achieved.

Findings

– It reveals that State Street decided to include employees from every level of the company in the design, development and implementation of the training. Details how an Intranet site provides employees with additional learning resources and opportunities for discussion. It illustrates how management-level accountability for the up-take of the program helped to identify areas where further promotion was needed and instilled a sense of competition among team-leaders.

Practical implications

– It highlights how female representation on the executive board of State Street, UK, has risen to 36 from 11 per cent and how, since the training began, 75 per cent of senior UK recruits have been women.

Social implications

– It outlines how the company has maintained its commitment to improving workplace gender equality and reducing the gender wage gap.

Originality/value

– It describes how managers from the company's various international offices were logged into a "virtual classroom" in groups of 50, where they watched the training modules delivered live and conferred online with their "classmates" around the world.


Seasonal farming has been an important part of the Norwegian farming system. It reached its greatest extent in the mid-19th century but has declined significantly since. Several research publications on seasonal farming from Norway and other countries, in dealing with its historical development, mention only certain types of change affecting seasonal farming. By examining changes in practices this article tries to elucidate ways in which seasonal farming can be seen as a flexible system. The starting point is the development of a terminology of change: transformation, alteration and fluctuation. Practices examined concern movement patterns, markers for movement, dates of movement, livestock type and number, and procurement of fuel. The results show different degrees of change in most practices, although some have remained unchanged. However, the latter can be seen as providing a framework for flexibility. Focus on flexibility and different types of change can increase awareness of the past as non-static. A more detailed understanding of change can be especially important for approaches to landscape protection as it can help to identify whether changes represent threats to protection values or not.


Many health care facilities are implementing work restructuring to achieve cost reductions while maintaining or enhancing quality. This article is a compilation of the knowledge gained during this process at one institution. Nurse executives who consider work restructuring may benefit from an understanding of the lessons learned that are presented here.


Background Neonatal HSV usually quoted as a rare disease. Most cases result from vertical transmission. Worldwide incidence is variable and seen as high as 30/100,000 live births in USA. UK incidence is commonly quoted as around 1–2/100,0001 but a recent report quoted a rate as high as 17.5/100,000.2 nHSV can have serious effects with significant mortality and morbidity in otherwise healthy babies. Aim To review incidence of diagnosed nHSV infection, age of presentations, outcomes, maternal perinatal illness and outcome, common presentations and follow up in a tertiary neonatal centre in UK. Methods Retrospective study of all diagnosed cases of nHSV in last 10 years in our centre. Maternal health and HSV status were studied. Survivors were followed for recurrence and development. Results Total 8 patients with nHSV identified during period of 2004 to 2015 with 67 500 live births. An incidence of 12/ 100,000 live births. There were 2 deaths, both due to HSV 2 with rapidly deteriorating course. Age of presentation varied from 3 to 20 days with non-specific symptoms. 3 patients had disseminated infection, of which two died. In both patients who succumbed Acyclovir was commenced after 22 hours of presentation. Five patients had Acyclovir commenced within 4 hours of presentation. 2 mothers had negative serology. One had genital Herpes. 5 patients were followed, had normal development at 1 year. Conclusion Neonatal HSV is not so uncommon. Initial symptoms are non-specific and clinicians should be aware as early acyclovir can be life saving. Symptom presentation 3–10 days – HSV should be in differential diagnosis. Survivors have normal 1 year development. A nationally reportable incidence and case definition of neonatal herpes simplex virus is desirable but not yet in effect. References Genital Herpes in Pregnancy, Management (Green-top Guideline No. 30). The incidence and presentation of neonatal herpes in a single UK tertiary centre, 2006–2013.Arch Dis Child. 2014 Oct; 99(10): 916–21


In 1870 Gustav Fritsch and Edvard Hitzig showed that electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex of a dog produced movements. This was a crucial event in the development of modern neuroscience because it was the first good experimental evidence for a) cerebral cortex involvement in motor function, b) the electrical excitability of the cortex, c) topographic representation in the brain, and d) localization of function in different regions of the cerebral cortex. This paper discusses their experiment and some developments in the previous two centuries that led to it including the ideas of Thomas Willis and Emanuel Swedenborg, the widespread interest in electricity and the localizations of function of Franz Joseph Gall, John Hughlings Jackson, and Paul Broca. We also consider the subsequent study of the motor cortex by David Ferrier and others.


The aim of this paper is to analyze the Romanian CIF imports during the period 01.01.-31.12.2015. My research goal is to identify the most important section of CIF imports during the analyzed period and the main structural modifications in evolution of the Romanian imports. The expected results are to know the most important import section of the Combined Nomenclature, the structural modification in evolution of these industries and the most important partner countries.


7509 Background: A bicistronic plasmid encoding HLA-B7 and β-2 microglobulin genes formulated in cationic lipids, Allovectin-7® (A-7), is an immunotherapeutic designed to induce a pro-inflammatory response and express MHC-class I after tumor injections. Expression of HLA-B7 in tumors may result in increased immunorecognition of tumors that in turn elicits an antitumor response.

METHODS
We are conducting a phase 2 trial to evaluate the activity of A-7 in patients (pts) with metastatic melanoma (MM). Eligible pts have stage III or IV MM recurrent or unresponsive to prior therapy; injectable (1 to 25 cm2 cutaneous, subcutaneous, or nodal) lesion(s); ECOG PS 0-1 and adequate organ function. Pts with brain or non-lung visceral metastases or any lesion ≥ 100 cm2 are excluded. Pts with 2 or more injectable lesions are randomized to receive injections into 1 or up to 5 lesions. Pts receive weekly intratumoral injections of a total of 2 mg for 6 wks followed by 3 wks of observation and evaluation. Response is assessed using RECIST guidelines two wks following the last injection of each cycle. Pts with stable or responding disease receive additional cycles.

RESULTS
Interim unaudited data will be presented for all 133 pts enrolled. All pts were evaluated for safety (6 pts in the dose escalation stage plus 127 pts in the high-dose stage), and 127 pts are evaluated for efficacy. In an interim data analysis 12 of 91 pts (13.2%) achieved an objective response lasting a median duration of 6.4 months. Median overall survival has not yet been reached and durability of response is still accruing. One Grade 3 and no Grade 4 adverse event associated with A-7 have been reported.

CONCLUSIONS
Interim results indicate that high-dose A-7 is an active, well-tolerated treatment for Stage III/IV MM pts with injectable cutaneous, subcutaneous, or nodal lesions. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


Long-range persistence in volatility is widely modelled and forecasted in terms of the so-called fractional integrated models. These models are mostly applied in the univariate framework, since the extension to the multivariate context of assets portfolios, while relevant, is not straightforward. We discuss and apply a procedure which is able to forecast the multivariate volatility of a portfolio including assets with long-memory. The main advantage of this model is that it is feasible enough to be applied on large-scale portfolios, solving the problem of dealing with extremely complex likelihood functions which typically arises in this context. An application of this procedure to a portfolio of five daily exchange rate series shows that the out-of-sample forecasts for the multivariate volatility are improved under several loss-functions when the long-range dependence property of the portfolio assets is explicitly accounted for.


Voice activity detection is very important process that voice activity separated form noisy speech signal for speech enhance. Over the past few years, many studies have been made on voice activity detection, but it has poor performance in low signal to noise ratio environment or fickle noise such as car noise. In this paper, it proposed new voice activity detection algorithm using ensemble variance based on wavelet band entropy and soft thresholding method. We conduct a survey in a lot of signal to noise ratio environment of car noise to evaluate performance of the proposed algorithm and confirmed performance of the proposed algorithm.


The effects of some metal ions on the activity and activation of Thiocapsa roseopersicina hydrogenase have been studied. Inhibitory effects of Ni2+ and Cd2+ on the catalytic activity of the enzyme were reversible and competitive with respect to methyl viologen (MV) in the reaction of hydrogen oxidation. The affinity of these metal ions to the enzyme increased significantly with increasing pH, suggesting that their interactions are determined by electrostatic forces. Cu2+ and Hg2+ irreversibly inhibited the hydrogenase activity. A decrease in absorption of hydrogenase at 400 nm in the presence of these metal ions is indicative of the destruction of the FeS cluster in the enzyme.


Neural models enjoy widespread use across a variety of tasks and have grown to become crucial components of many industrial systems. Despite their effectiveness and extensive popularity, they are not without their exploitable flaws. Initially applied to computer vision systems, the generation of adversarial examples is a process in which seemingly imperceptible perturbations are made to an image, with the purpose of inducing a deep learning based classifier to misclassify the image. Due to recent trends in speech processing, this has become a noticeable issue in speech recognition models. In late 2017, an attack was shown to be quite effective against the Speech Commands classification model. Limited-vocabulary speech classifiers, such as the Speech Commands model, are used quite frequently in a variety of applications, particularly in managing automated attendants in telephony contexts. As such, adversarial examples produced by this attack could have real-world consequences. While previous work in defending against these adversarial examples has investigated using audio preprocessing to reduce or distort adversarial noise, this work explores the idea of flooding p articular frequency bands of an audio signal with random noise in order to detect adversarial examples. This technique of flooding, which does not require retraining or modifying the model, is inspired by work done in computer vision and builds on the idea that speech classifiers are relatively robust to natural noise. A combined defense incorporating 5 different frequency bands for flooding the signal with noise outperformed other existing defenses in the audio space, detecting adversarial examples with 91.8% precision and 93.5% recall.


This study evaluated the effect of extended-release eprinomectin on production parameters and reproductive success of yearling fall replacement heifers. Heifers were treated with an ivermectin (CONV) or an injectable extended-release eprinomectin (EPR). There were no differences between treatments at initial body weight (BW). However, subsequent body weights taken 7 months and 12-months post-treatment demonstrated heavier body weight, greater overall weight gain and a greater average daily gain for heifers treated with EPR. Heifers treated with EPR had greater pregnancy rates to AI and greater overall pregnancy rates than CONV. Also, a greater proportion of EPR heifers calved in the first 21 days of the subsequent calving season. Results from this study indicate improved performance and greater reproductive success for replacement heifers treated with extended-release eprinomectin.


The purpose of this study is to explore cultural factors that affect food consumption patterns by comparing them for college students in Korea and China. This study includes seeking pleasure, seeking satiety, and seeking well-being. Food consumption patterns, social responsibility, the value of life, faith in God, traditional moral fundamentalism and cultural taste are the cultural factors. To achieve the purpose, SPSS Win.(12.0) and LISREL(8.72) are applied. From the results of this study, first, among food consumption patterns, Koreans and Chinese both are found to put a higher value on seeking pleasure than other consumption patterns, and Chinese are found to put a higher value on seeking satiety. Second, for Koreans, the value of traditional moral fundamentalism and social responsibility are found to significantly influence seeking satiety and seeking well-being. If they had a higher degree of traditional moral fundamentalism, they would like to seek more satiety from food. And if they had a higher degree of social responsibility, they would like to seek more well-being from food. However, for Chinese, seeking pleasure is found to be significantly influenced by social responsibility and a faith in God, and seeking satiety is found to be significantly influenced by social responsibility and the value of a good life while seeking well-being is found to be significantly influenced by social responsibility and a faith in God. Compared with Koreans, cultural factors such as social responsibility, a faith in God, the value of a good life for the Chinese might influence significantly all three types of food consumption patterns. Thus, this study might provide more useful information about finding cultural differences of values and food consumption patterns between Koreans and Chinese.


Gandon was a pupil at William Shipley's drawing academy in St. Martin's Lane, London. Circa 1757 he joined William Chambers's office. He commenced business for himself ca. 1765. In 1769, Gandon was awarded the Royal Academy's first gold medal in architecture. Gandon went to Dublin, Ireland in April 1781 and retired ca. 1808.


Background and purpose– To evaluate the functional prognostic value of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy performed within the 5 days of an infarction of the middle cerebral artery territory, compared with previously demonstrated prognostic factors. Methods– Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy was performed on 77 consecutive non‐comatosed patients during the acute stage of middle cerebral artery infarction. The functional status was determined for each patient via the Orgogozo score. Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic data were acquired in the infarction and in contra‐lateral normal tissue and the results were expressed as metabolite ratios. Correlations were evaluated between the Orgogozo score at day 1 and day 30, the age, the sex, the volume of the infarction, and the metabolic ratios. Results– In a monovariate analysis, the decrease of the NAA/choline ratio was correlated with a low Orgogozo score at days 1 and 30 (P<0.05) and with a large infarction (P<0.05). A stepwise analysis showed a significant relationship between the Orgogozo score at day 30 and the Orgogozo score at day 1, the sex, the volume of infarction, and the NAA/Cho ratio within the infarction. Conclusions– Our work demonstrates that a good clinical outcome at day 30 depends on a good initial clinical score at day 1, a small volume of infarction, a small decrease of NAA/Cho, and being of the female gender.


Abstract The construction of shallow tunnels in urban areas requires a prior assessment of their effects on the existing structures. In the case of shield tunnel boring machines (TBM), the various construction stages carried out constitute a highly three-dimensional problem of soil/structure interaction and are not easy to represent in a complete numerical simulation. Consequently, the tunnelling- induced soil movements are quite difficult to evaluate. A 3D simulation procedure, using a finite differences code, namely FLAC3D, taking into account, in an explicit manner, the main sources of movements in the soil mass is proposed in this paper. It is illustrated by the particular case of Toulouse Subway Line B for which experimental data are available and where the soil is saturated and highly overconsolidated. A comparison made between the numerical simulation results and the insitu measurements shows that the 3D procedure of simulation proposed is relevant, in particular regarding the adopted representation of the different operations performed by the tunnel boring machine (excavation, confining pressure, shield advancement, installation of the tunnel lining, grouting of the annular void, etc). Furthermore, a parametric study enabled a better understanding of the singular behaviour origin observed on the ground surface and within the solid soil mass, till now not mentioned in the literature.


We have developed a direct optical method for aperture area measurement, based on constant, known irradiance over the aperture. The method is described and results of test measurements are given, including wavelength dependence of the effective aperture area. Systematic uncertainty components are studied experimentally to reach a relative uncertainty of 10-4 for aperture sizes down to 3 mm in diameter. The most important advantages of the direct optical method are that it does not require any reference aperture, it can be applied to apertures of any shape, and the calibration setup is similar to the actual use of the apertures in filter radiometers.


This paper describes the response to the request by the Naval Pavement Center of Expertise and supported by the Tri-Service Pavements Group, to investigate new technology of obtaining field data to increase safety and reduce labor requirements during the data collection for streets, roads, and parking lots. New technology developments have produced a methodology that can quickly inspect roads and streets by using automated inspection equipment such as, but not limited to, a set of video cameras, profiling devices, and laser sensors. This new technology was tried and tested with the Micro PAVER system and compared to the standard process of manual surveys. As part of this evaluation and validation project, evaluation of technology and contractor capabilities was completed. Presently there are three different technologies that are considered acceptable: 35mm analog continuous film, digital camera, and digital line scan imaging. Digital line scan imaging, the newest of the three technologies, was used for this project.


INTRODUCTION
Breast conserving surgery followed by radiotherapy is an established modality of treatment in early breast cancer patients since three decades, but yet it has not been adopted worldwide.

PURPOSE
The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting decision making regarding type of surgery and satisfaction with type of surgery in North Indian women with early breast cancer.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A questionnaire was prepared to assess the factors responsible for decision making regarding type of surgery (breast conserving surgery (BCS) versus modified radical mastectomy (MRM) and to evaluate involvement of patient in decision making regarding the type of surgery. 47 women with early breast cancer on radiotherapy or on follow-up were interviewed by the resident doctors.

RESULTS
Out of 47 patients, 28 underwent BCS and 19 MRM. Women undergoing BCS were younger, more literate than in those undergoing MRM. In the two arms (BCS versus MRM), decision for surgery was made by surgeon alone in 53% versus 73%, along with patient in 42% versus 6%, and only 10% women participated in decision making in each arm. Only 50% versus 30% patients had a clear understanding of the risks and benefits of both procedures in the two arms.

CONCLUSION
North Indian women do not independently take decision regarding any type of surgery. The reason for opting for either kind of surgery was based on surgeon's recommendation or concern about recurrence. Body image was not an issue amongst majority.


Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a tool in managing the business management function from operational, tactical and strategic management towards the emergence of Information System (IS). The awareness of ERP technology is slowly develops among industrial and non-industrial people. Needs of having the ERP software is not properly discussed within the organization. Some does not even know why they need ERP in their industry. Few in depths knowledge regarding ERP will bring to failure of ERP adoption. The paper was conducted by following systematic literature review methods. Literature search related to ERP methodology reveal 345 papers. After further reading done, 133 papers were identified as a key paper for the topics chosen. Obtaining details understanding of ERP lifecycle, we identified 19 ERP lifecycle papers from the literature from 2009 to 2015. We do a tabulated table to check on ERP needs, objectives and factors affecting the success of ERP adoption in order to get the expectations usage of ERP. A conceptual model of ERP lifecycle will be developed to understand the stages on how to choose a quality ERP software based on the organization objectives. The paper includes the details stages in ERP adoption lifecycle so that user will know specifically what they need to do before or during implementing ERP software. This paper expected to bring awareness about the ERP model itself and to acknowledge people that ERP model will lead to the successful of ERP adoption in developing their business.


When stones are incorporated into buildings their mineralogical composition and texture alters to adapt to the new environmental conditions. One of the most common building stones in Scotland is sandstone. Due to its high porosity and mineralogical composition sandstones can be prone to weathering. Scotland's diverse stone built heritage is endangered by frequent changes in environmental conditions such as cyclic wetting and drying and temperature changes caused by insolation. Buildings also face increased pressure through climate change. In Scotland, the decay of sandstone is a serious problem that urgently requires new approaches to preserve built heritage and to reduce maintenance costs. It is therefore important to understand the extent and timescales of weathering processes.

New approaches to assess stone decay are required for deciding on the best conservation strategy for historic buildings. These approaches or tools need to be minimally or non-invasive, portable and provide a consistent method to gain empirical data for evaluation of the progress of weathering. This project aims to develop two new in-situ techniques that can assess the state of decay of building stones beneath their outer surface. The developed techniques use a laser interferometer to measure dilation over time and an ultrasonic drilling tool to estimate the structural properties of the stones. These measurements are joint with micro-climate monitoring of sandstones to enable a combined assessment of stone decay.
The laser interferometer can measure decay induced contraction or expansion of stones on the nanometre scale. Salt crystallisation in porous systems can be examined with very high precision under any temperature and humidity condition that enable salt growth. Characterising dilation events through precise measurement of displacement and its frequency can provide insight on the intensity of decay of the building material. The drying behaviour of different samples (unweathered, weathered and artificially weathered) was monitored to enable the differentiation of rock type and state of decay. The ultrasonic drilling tool allows identification of changes in the structure of a sample while drilling a hole up to 4 cm depth. By continuously measuring the power required to drill, porosity changes and/or the presence of salt at depth can be mapped. The use of ultrasonic tools enables penetration of the rock with less average force on the stone and a faster progress rate into hard materials without a significant wear effect on the drill bits. Operational settings can be kept constant for different physical properties of the rocks such as compressive strength. Monitoring of the power consumption enables to determine different stone types and the location of salt accumulation/damage in artificially weathered sandstones.

Micro-climate monitoring includes the measurement of temperature and humidity changes at the surface of building stones. The analysis enables an identification of areas that suffer from increased stress caused by frequent and high rates of changes in temperature and humidity. A study at four historic buildings was conducted for nearly two years. The sites include the University of Glasgow, Dunkeld Cathedral, Jedburgh Abbey and Fort Charlotte (Shetland Islands). Seasonal changes, stone type and north-south elongation were evaluated for determining rocks with increased weathering risks.

The developed techniques provide a more precise identification of stone weathering and allow for better prediction of the decay processes. The techniques allow up-scaling from the lab to the field, and can potentially be used in-situ on historical buildings under site conditions.


There is a continuous pressure for improvement in e-business. Increasing technical possibilities, new forms of outsourcing, the ongoing integration of business processes, the expansion of value chains, the emergence of new markets and new players; they affect the infrastructure and underlying ICT standards. Contrary to the inherent stability one might expect from standards, maintenance of and change in standards are rule rather than exception. The benefit of standards change is sometimes obvious. However, it can also pose severe problems (e.g. heavy switching costs and reduced market transparency). This chapter synthesizes research findings on standards change. A conceptual framework is developed to determine under which circumstances standards change is avoidable; if so, in what manner; and if not, which means exist to reduce the negative impact of change. While some change drivers are innovation-related, others stem from the standardization activity itself. They require distinct coping strategies: change control and quality control, respectively. Along these two lines, the chapter discusses strategies to cope with the impact of standards change.


Synopsis Mr. Chairman, officers o f ISIJ, ladies and gentlemen. Let me open this lecture by expressing my sincere gratitude for the honorable Asada Prize you have awarded to me today. I am particularly pleased to consider it as a recognition on the part of the iron and steel industry of what little contribution I, a man of foundry, have been fortunate enough to make towards progress of the steel industry in their attainment of world's leading position.


Right heart thrombus in transit clot (RHTT) associated with a pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) is a rare but potentially fatal diagnosis. Early diagnosis and immediate intervention are crucial. This report describes the case of a healthy, physically active 32-year-old female who presented 19 days postoperatively, following an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction and partial lateral meniscectomy with a saddle PE, RHTT, and right ventricular (RV) strain. The patient received half of the standard dose of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) in combination with anticoagulation and survived. Case reports of RHTT will inform future studies designed to evaluate whether and when thrombolysis should be administered.


The interdisciplinary EURECA project follows the trends towards location-based services and personalized/contextualized content, and investigates them in the context of cultural heritage collections of European city archives. EURECA focuses on finding traces of European regions that have shaped the cities in which we live today and develops tools to easily explore them when visiting a city. The spatio-temporal metadata that is automatically generated by our tools can be used as input to perform new fundamental research and applied studies, but also to facilitate the exploitation of the collections to a broader public and attract new groups of cultural heritage consumers. LBS that run on top of our enrichments, for example, will allow tourists to explore the traces of a specific European region (e.g. Austria) in the city (e.g. Ghent) and show them the collection items at their corresponding point of interest (POI) using their mobile device. These connections that link Austria to Ghent (for example) can be rather diverse, such as architectural traces, art, place and street names, and memories of foreign academics. Different media-types, such as handwritten student/foreigner registers, pictures, newspapers, and wiki pages, are investigated. Natural language processing (NLP), computer vision and semantic intelligence techniques are the computational tools that are combined to automatically enrich the media items and link them to a particular Region of Origin (RoO). Furthermore, to get an idea about what cultural heritage items are popular by visitors from a particular region of origin, we also query social media platforms and generate RoO heatmaps of the cultural heritage points of interest (POIs) of today. These heatmaps can be compared across different regions or over different periods in time using standard and advanced GIS-techniques.


The IPEM Code of Practice (IPEM 2003) for electron dosimetry for radiotherapy beams recommends design requirements for parallel-plate ionisation chambers used to determine the absorbed dose to water in an electron beam. The Classic Markus design has been found not to meet these requirements. The Advanced Markus and the Exradin A10 ionisation chambers have been designed to rectify the problems associated with the Classic Markus ionisation chamber.
The response of one Exradin A10 and three Advanced Markus ionisation chambers was investigated. Absorbed dose to water calibration factors were derived at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) for each ionisation chamber at seven electron energies in the range 4 to 19 MeV. Investigations were carried out into chamber settling, polarity effects, ion recombination and the chamber perturbation. The response of the ionisation chambers in a clinical beam was also investigated.
In general all three Advanced Markus ionisation chambers showed the same energy response. For the three Advanced Markus and one Exradin A10 ionisation chamber investigated the magnitude of the polarity effect was typically 5% at an energy of 4 MeV. There was discrepancy between the polarity measurements made at the NPL and in the clinic. Until further measurements are made the recommendation of this study is that these chambers are not suitable for use for reference dosimetry in electron beams.


Abstract The Late Cretaceous-Tertiary structural evolution of the northeastern part of the Vøring Basin, mid-Norway, is highly complicated. Although tectonic activity occurred throughout Cretaceous time in much of the Vøring Basin, including the Gjallar Ridge and along the Fles Fault Zone, in the Vema Dome-Nyk High area evidence of such activity is not observed until the latest Maastrichtian time. In the Vema Dome-Nyk High area, several faults with both a NW-SE orientation and a NE-SW orientation have experienced lateral movements. The NE-SW orientation is the old Caledonian trend. The complex structural evolution of the Vema Dome-Nyk High area is probably related to the existence of continental weakness zones, which are the onshore extension of known oceanic fracture zones. The two lineaments that delineate these weakness zones, and that delineate the Vema Dome-Nyk High area, namely the Bivrost and Surt Lineaments, diverge slightly from one another toward the SE. This complex structural framework of NW-SE oriented lineaments and NE-SW oriented deep-seated basement structures of Caledonian compressional and/or Mesozoic rift origin, facilitated minor clockwise rotation of the area between the two lineaments during the extensional regime before the break-up of the North Atlantic, as well as during the compressional regime that has been proposed after the break-up.


Links between health institutions in countries with high incomes and those with incomes in the low-middle range are becoming more common, and benefits from these links are increasingly recognized. One such link is between Kings College Hospital and THET (Tropical Health and Education Trust) and their partners in Somaliland. The mental health part of the link consists of public service providers, educational institutions, and local nongovernmental organizations in Somaliland with mental health volunteers from the United Kingdom, led by the Institute of Psychiatry. The authors describe how careful planning has permitted the collaboration to evolve to allow mental health services to become embedded into activities that strengthen the Somaliland health sector.


Sm2Fe15Ga2C3 and Sm2Fe15Ga2M0.2C3 (M = Nb, Cu, Zr) ribbons with Th2Zn17-type structure have been synthesized by melt-spinning and subsequent annealing at temperatures above 1023 K. A nanoscale 2:17 phase with grain sizes of 50-200 nm is developed. The anisotropy constants K1 and K2 are determined in the temperature range of 150-600 K by fitting the demagnetization curve of the isotropic samples. Furthermore, the intrinsic material parameters, like the Curie temperature, exchange constant, anisotropy field and critical diameter of single domain particles are given. In order to understand the magnetic hardening mechanism, the temperature dependence of the coercivity is analysed within the framework of the micromagnetic models. It is concluded that the magnetic hardening mechanism at low temperatures up to 350 K is dominated by nucleation processes in a magnetically inhomogeneous region. The average widths of the inhomogeneities of 2 nm and 3 nm for Sm2Fe15Ga2C3 and Sm2Fe15Ga2M0.2C3 (M = Nb, Cu, Zr) are determined, respectively. At high temperature the pinning of the domain walls by grain boundaries controls the coercivity mechanism.


Up to now, insufficient drug accumulation in tumor remains a major challenge for nanochemotherapy. However, the spherical nanocarriers with large diameter, which are beneficial for blood circulation and tumor extravasation, cannot travel deep in a tumor. Additionally, high tumor interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) in the tumor microenvironment may promote the efflux of the penetrable nanodrugs. Therefore, the size and shape of nanocarriers as well as the tumoral IFP can be regulated synchronously for improved tumor penetration and combined chemotherapy. Herein, a novel dual-functional polymer-polypeptide (Biotin-PEG2000-GKGPRQITITK) for both verified tumor targeting and responsiveness was synthesized to construct the "peel" of nanopomegranate-like nanovectors (DI-MPL), in which docetaxel-loaded micelles was encapsulated as "seeds". Interestingly, DI-MPL was endowed multi-abilities of tunable size/shape switch and controlled release of IFP alleviator imatinib (IM), which were developed with one and the same strategy-alteration of membrane fluidity under the cleavage of polymer-polypeptide and PEGylation. As a result, the peel of DI-MPL could turn into small pieces with the seed scattered out in response to matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), making nanopomegranate (180 nm) switch into spheres/disks (40 nm), during which IM is released to reduce IFP synchronously. With prominent tumor penetration ability in both multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTS) and tumor tissue, DI-MPL exhibited optimal inhibition of MCTS growth and the enhanced chemotherapy in comparison to other preparations. Meanwhile, the improved penetrability of DI-MPL in tumor tissue was found to be related to the reduced IFP, which is achieved via inhibiting expression of phosphorylated platelet-derived growth factor receptor-β (p-PDGFR-β) by IM. Altogether, the bilateral adjusting strategies from nanocarrier size/shape and tumoral IFP with a single enzyme-responsive material could provide a potential combined chemotherapy to improve tumor penetration.


The article attempts to highlight the traces of memory in the theory, history and practice of architecture. The subject of research is the existing forms of memory in architecture. It is traditionally accepted that the "history of architecture" as a science is the main repository of knowledge about the evolution of architecture. Facts and artifacts, descriptions of monuments and cities are retained in it. The article emphasizes that the traditional "history of architectural objects" is not the only form of memory. Another equally important and complicated aspect of the architectural memory is detected during the decoding of the evolution of project activity and its language. Analysis of the evolution of architecture allowed us to differentiate the epochs in which historical thinking prevails: the Renaissance, Romanticism, Eclecticism, Art Deco, Postmodernism. They are characterized by such ways of thinking as dialogical, historical and typological, historical and associative. They are opposed to design approaches in which abstract thinking dominates (Art Nouveau and Modernism). The article shows that the concept of architectural memory has many shades and manifests itself in a variety of different forms of professional consciousness. As historical knowledge, memory exists in such forms as: a chronological description, science of history, evolutionary studies, catalog of styles, museum, archive. In designing and its language, memory is represented in such forms as canon, dialogue with bygone era, norm, architectural fantasy, remembrance, historical association, reconstruction, restoration and others. It is shown that the most important way of storing and transferring information is the architectural language and compositional logic. Postmodern consciousness raised the problem of loss of memory and the development of architectural language and communication of culture.


Administration of laferon to patients stimulates the blood serum interferon formation, with its peak being reached by 24 h. The evaluation done confirmed the therapeutic efficacy of laferon in meningoencephalites. This was manifested by reduction in duration of certain clinical symptoms, timeterms of spinal fluid sanitation, improvement in immunity parameters and increase in the patients' blood serum level of interferon.


Summary The aim of the present study was to examine if soluble thrombomodulin (sTM) and von Willebrand factor (VWF) could predict a first-ever ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. This study was an incident case-referent study from within a population-based cohort in northern Sweden. Up to 1996 about 44,000 subjects had been screened and stroke cases were classified according to the WHO MONICA criteria. A first-ever stroke occurred in 108 cases. A total of 216 controls were selected from the same cohort. This prospective study found no association with sTM or VWF and the development of a first-ever ischemic stroke (n = 87) in the logistic regression model. For the hemorrhagic stroke cases (n = 18), the multivariate logistic regression model revealed a significant negative association with sTM. When dichotomized, the upper level (>17.3 µg/L) of sTM, as compared with the lower level (<17.3 µg/L), showed one fifth of the risk for hemorrhagic stroke (OR, 0.18; CI, 0.05 to 0.69). No significant association was found for VWF. We suggest that the novel finding of an inverse relation between sTM and hemorrhagic stroke should be investigated in a larger study.


In the field of image watermarking, research has been mainly focused on gray image watermarking, whereas the extension to the color case is usually accomplished by marking the image luminance, or by processing color channels separately. In this paper we propose a new digital watermarking method of three bands RGB color images based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This research, which is an extension of our earlier work, consists of embedding the same digital watermark into three RGB channels of the color image based on PCA eigenimages. We evaluated the effectiveness of the method against some watermark attacks. Experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method against most prominent attacks is good.


We show how the DOP model can be used for fast and robust processing of spoken input in a practical spoken dialogue system called OVIS. OVIS, Openbaar Vervoer Informatie Systeem ("Public Transport Information System"), is a Dutch spoken language information system which operates over ordinary telephone lines. The prototype system is the immediate goal of the NWO1 Priority Programme "Language and Speech Technology". In this paper, we extend the original DOP model to context-sensitive interpretation of spoken input. The system we describe uses the OVIS corpus (10,000 trees enriched with compositional semantics) to compute from an input word-graph the best utterance together with its meaning. Dialogue context is taken into account by dividing up the OVIS corpus into context-dependent subcorpora. Each system question triggers a subcorpus by which the user answer is analyzed and interpreted. Our experiments indicate that the context-sensitive DOP model obtains better accuracy than the original model, allowing for fast and robust processing of spoken input.


Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has become a recognizable disor-der among medical specialists but remains a relatively unexplored topic for sur- geons, anesthesiologists, and their patients in the perioperative period. Recent studies have begun to describe the negative impact of untreated OSA in the perioperative patient population, specifi cally in orthopedics. Guidelines from the American Society of Anesthesiologists in 2006 address the screening and care of patients with OSA, although they admit that supportive studies do not exist for many of their recommendations. Methods: In this study, 80 consecutive total joint replacement patients pre-senting to the preoperative clinic at our institution were screened using the Berlin Questionnaire, a validated tool used to screen medical outpatients for OSA. Patients who tested as high risk using the scoring system were offered a sleep study to be completed preoperatively. Results: Of the 80 questionnaires performed, 21 (26%) were screened as high risk. Of these 21 positive patients, 12 agreed to a sleep study. All 12 sleep studies showed OSA, and of these, 7 (58%) were found to be severe. The average body mass index (BMI) for all patients was 30.9 kg/m 2 . As the BMI increased from > 30 to > 35 to > 40, the percentage of positive Berlins increased from 42% to 59% to 75%, with only 1 person requiring the BMI to qualify as a positive Berlin. Only 5 of 42 patients (12%) with a BMI below 30 had a positive Berlin and none of these patients agreed to a sleep study. The Berlin Questionnaire has been found to have a positive predic- tive value of 89% in prior studies. With a positive Berlin Questionnaire incidence of 26% in our study, it could be estimated that the incidence of sleep apnea in this population of orthopedic patients undergoing a total joint replacement is 23%, which is consistent with estimates for the gen- eral population. Conclusion: This study demonstrates a relatively simple and effective tool for screening patients for sleep apnea in the preoperative setting and high- lights the extent of undiagnosed OSA. Clinicians can use the questionnaire results to prompt precautionary measures in the care of these patients or to prompt the expedition of a sleep study. Future studies could investigate the safety of a focused screening effort on those patients with a BMI over 30, as the incidence of clinically important OSA is likely much higher in this population.


Three extremely bulky 1,3,5-triazapentadienes, ArNNNH (ArNNN = N{C(But)=N(Ar)}2; Ar = Mes (mesityl), Dep (2,6-diethylphenyl), or Dip (2,6-diisopropylphenyl)) have been prepared and structurally characterized. These are readily deprotonated, yielding a series of lithium and potassium triazapentadienyl complexes, one of which, (DipNNN)Li, has been structurally characterized. Similarly, three monomeric triazapentadienyl magnesium iodide complexes, (ArNNN)MgI(OEt2), and a dimeric calcium counterpart, {(MesNNN)Ca(THF)(μ-I)}2, have been prepared. Attempts to reduce the former gave homoleptic bis(triazapentadienyl) magnesium complexes, (ArNNN)2Mg (Ar = Mes or Dep) as the main products. One reaction also gave a very low yield of the magnesium(I) dimer, {(DepNNN)Mg–}2, which was structurally characterized. In related chemistry, two triazapentadienyl boron difluoride compounds, (ArNNN)BF2 (Ar = Mes or Dep), have been synthesized, and unsuccessful attempts have been made to reduce these to boron(I) heterocycles. For sake of comparison, attempts have been made to prepare a series of related amino-substituted β-diketiminato group 13 element(I) heterocycles. Although these were also not successful, several group 13 element(III) halide complexes incorporating this ligand class have been characterized.


Summary The purpose of this investigation was to study the cellular localization of fluorescent materials in the skin of mice painted with cigarette "tars" (smoke condensates), using the method of fluorescence microscopy to examine frozen sections of skin. Cigarette tars of the following categories were tested in this manner: whole tar (nicotine-free); neutral fraction; carbon tetrachloride fraction; acidic fraction; and water-soluble fraction. The cigarette tars in the first four categories, known to be active in epidermal oncogenesis in the mouse (5), displayed an affinity for lipides and keratin in the skin and, as shown by their blue-white fluorescence, apparently were passively transported down the hair follicles and promptly localized in the sebaceous glands. The inactive tar, belonging to the water- (and methanol-) soluble fraction, failed to reach and to enter the sebaceous glands to any extent comparable to that shown by the active tars.


Television is an audiovisual media most favored by society in general. Thus television becomes a reflection of life in social reality to the point that people feel that what television is presented is a reflection of their lives. So powerful was the influence of television on the minds of the people making the big companies such as cigarette company PT. Gudang Garam tbk. take advantage of this phenomenon become an opportunity to market their products through television advertising.
In an era of television advertising over this comunicate must be presenting a concept or creative ideas in their product image. Creative ideas or concepts in imaging products can be referred to as branding.
As one tool in conveying the message in the form of branding product, television advertising is very effective because it contains audio and visual elements in conveying its message. One is the advertising of cigarettes Gudang Garam International of "survivor" version who has the slogan "Men Have Appetite". The formulation of the problem in this research is how branding ads Gudang Garam International version of "Survivor" disguise the dangers of cigarettes on television. The purpose of this study to find out how advertising branding Gudang Garam International of "Survivor" version disguise the dangers of cigarettes on television.
Advertising is simply defined as a message that offers a product aimed at the public via a media (Kasali, 1995:9). Today, advertising activities is recognize by many, especially industry, as something important. In the science of marketing communications, advertising is an investment
to maintain a sustainable relationship between the company and its customers (Widyatama, 2007.25). In the delivery of those ads contained messages that aim to introduce the brand or product branding by the company. Basically, the brand is a trade name given to a product or service (Klimchuk, 2007.28). Branding is also responsible for creating memories to the community for these products into the minds of potential consumers. After the brand into the
consumer's mind will arise awareness of the existence of a product. At the end of the branding was established patterns of thought on the potential consumers that the products are in accordance with the needs of consumers.
In this study, researchers used qualitative research methods to generate descriptive data in the form of words written or oral observations of the researchers of audiovisual works in the form of an ad to be understood throughly. While analysis of this research uses semiotic analysis which refers to the theories of Charles Sanders Peirce on the understanding of the elements of meaning
that is Icon, Index and Symbol. The data collection techniques used in this study is the documentation on the video ads Gudang Garam International of "survivor" version.
The results of this study indicate that the branding on this ads intended to disguise the dangers of tobacco products through the jungle as a depiction of an icon, a man's activity as an index that is characterized as an adventurous young professionals, and a powerful symbol of the tiger and aneagle fly . Result of the above, can be recommended to further researchers in conducting studies
relating to television advertising branding.


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing health concern associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Thyroid hormones are important regulators of lipid homeostasis. Indeed, people with hypothyroidism are at greater risk for NAFLD and it has been suggested that humans with T2D are more likely to develop hypothyroidism. However, little is known about the relationship of thyroid function with NAFLD in type 1 diabetes (T1D) and T2D.
 We hypothesized that (i) low free thyroxin (fT4) and high thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels are associated with increased hepatocellular lipid content (HCL) and (ii) that fT4 and TSH can identify persons at high-risk for hepatic steatosis in people with recent-onset diabetes. We examined people with T1D (n=358) or T2D (n=596) and 175 healthy participants of the German Diabetes Study (GDS). First, validation of the fatty liver index (FLI) against quantification of HCL by 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed a close correlation (ß=0.715, p<0.001; n=446). Second, FLI negatively correlated with fT4 in males (ß=−0.139, p<0.01), but not in females with T2D (ß=−0.086, p=0.26). Likewise, TSH associated positively with FLI in males (ß=0.116, p<0.05), but not in females with T2D (ß=−0.057, p=0.45). TSH and FLI were differently associated between males and females before (p<0.05), but not after (p=0.82) adjustment for BMI. Finally, fT4 had a low diagnostic precision for steatosis (by FLI) as derived from the respective area under the receiver operating curve (0.57, 95% CI [0.53;0.62]; p<0.001) in T2D and was not significant in other groups. TSH had no diagnostic precision for steatosis in any groups.
 In conclusion, FLI can be used as a surrogate measure of HCL in recent-onset diabetes. The correlation of FLI with lower thyroid function in male T2D suggests a sex-specific interaction between thyroid and liver lipid metabolism, which is mainly driven by body mass. Both, fT4 and TSH offer no relevant efficacy to detect steatosis at least in recent-onset diabetes.

 N. Saatmann: None. M. Schön: None. O.P. Zaharia: None. M. Huttasch: None. K. Strassburger: None. S. Trenkamp: None. Y. Kupriyanova: None. V. Schrauwen-Hinderling: None. S. Kahl: None. V. Burkart: None. R. Wagner: Speaker's Bureau; Novo Nordisk, Sanofi. Advisory Panel; Daiichi Sankyo. M. Roden: Advisory Panel; Eli Lilly and Company. Research Support; Boehringer-Ingelheim, Novo Nordisk, Novartis. Consultant; TARGET PharmaSolutions, Inc. Research Support; Sanofi.


Seasonal variation in the capacity of bank voles, Clethrionomys glareolus (Schreber), to infect larval Ixodes ricinus (L.) ticks with Borrelia burgdorferi Johnson, Schmid, Hyde, Steigerwalt & Brenner was examined from May through October 1991 at Bogesund, near Stockholm in south-central Sweden. Although larval infestations of bank voles were greatest in June and July, nearly 70% of all larval ticks infected with spirochetes by bank voles at this site became infected during August and September. Seasonality of infectivity was related to the degree of earlier nymphal infestation on voles as well as to the age composition of the vole population. These factors may influence the infectivity of other rodent reservoirs of B. burgdorferi, both in Europe and North America. Moreover, in determining the reservoir potential of tick hosts, a host population's spirochetal infectivity should be determined for the entire period of larval infestation rather than just during the period of peak larval infestation.


Solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries (SSLSBs) have attracted tremendous research interest due to their large theoretical energy density and high safety, which are highly important indicators for the development of next-generation energy storage devices. Particularly, safety and "shuttle effect" issues originating from volatile and flammable liquid organic electrolytes can be fully mitigated by switching to a solid-state configuration. However, their road to thecommercial application is still plagued with numerous challenges, most notably the intrinsic electrochemical instability of solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) materials and their interfacial compatibility with electrodes and electrolytes. In this review, a critical discussion on the key issues and problems of different types of SSEs as well as the corresponding optimization strategies are first highlighted. Then, the state-of-the-art preparation methods and properties of different kinds of SSE materials, and their manufacture, characterization and performance in SSLSBs are summarized in detail. Finally, a scientific outlook for the future development of SSEs and the avenue to commercial application of SSLSBs is also proposed.


AIMS
Different echocardiographic techniques are available for assessing right ventricular (RV) volumes but their clinical validity has not been well established. We compared the feasibility, reproducibility and accuracy of three different echocardiographic techniques for measuring RV volumes and ejection fraction (EF) in children after tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) repair.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Seventy patients (age 14.2 ± 7.3 years) were studied using three-dimensional (3D) volume acquisition analysis (Tomtec, Germany), 2D echo with knowledge-based 3D reconstruction (3DR) (Ventripoint, USA) and the four-chamber area (4C area) methods. Parameters analysed were RV end-diastolic volume (EDV), end-systolic volume and EF. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were available in 41 patients. Intra- and inter-observer as well as inter-technique variability was assessed using Pearson's correlation analysis (R), coefficient of variance, and Bland-Altman analysis. Feasibility was good for all echo techniques (91% for the 3D, 98% for the 3DR, and 100% for the 4C area method). Intra- and inter-observer variability was low for both 3DR and the 3D echo, while more variability was observed for the 4C method. Compared with MRI volumes, 3DR and 3D underestimated EDV by 6.6 ± 10 and 18.2 ± 17.8 mL, respectively, (P < 0.001), while the 4C area method overestimated the EDV by 9.6 ± 33 mL, not significant due to a wide range.

CONCLUSION
Current echocardiographic techniques to assess RV volumes are highly feasible and reproducible in paediatric post-operative TOF patients. When compared with MRI measurements, 3DR was the most accurate technique but requires extra equipment that is not readily available.


Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were industrialized, initially to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes and electrical power. These facilities entrained a new breed of engineering specialist adept at designing, operating and maintaining them. From the beginning, large companies supplied the engineering labor for this new technology, and played an important role in defining the nature of their nuclear expertise. In the USA, the most influential company of the period was DuPont, which assumed responsibility for the first plutonium production reactors at Oak Ridge TN and Hanford WA between 1942-6, and of the postwar production facilities at Savannah River SC 1950-87. This paper explores the transition of authority from so-called "atomic scientists" to nuclear engineers at these sites, and the role played by DuPont in consolidating this new technical profession.


Abstract
Because higher education serves both public and private interests, the way it is conceived and financed is contested politically, appearing in different forms in different societies. What is public and private in education is a political–social construct, subject to various political forces, primarily interpreted through the prism of the state. Mediated through the state, this construct can change over time as the economic and social context of higher education changes. In this paper, we analyze through the state's financing of higher education how it changes as a public/private good and the forces that impinge on states to influence such changes. To illustrate our arguments, we discuss trends in higher education financing in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China. We show that in addition to increased privatization of higher education financing, BRIC states are increasingly differentiating the financing of elite and non-elite institutions.


Numerical simulation of the steady state photoconductivity in hydrogenated amorphous silicon over a wide temperature range (25–500 K) is extended, to include previously neglected carrier transitions between localized states. In addition to free carrier capture (emission) transitions into (from) localized states, we include the process of electron hopping in conduction band tail states. Exponential distributions are assumed for both conduction and valence band tail states, while the dangling bond defect distribution is calculated in accordance with the defect pool model. Localized to extended state transitions follow the Simmons and Taylor statistics, and localized to localized state transitions involve electron hopping between nearest neighbour sites. Comparison with simulations in the absence of electron hopping reveals a smooth transition around 110 K, between regions of (high temperature) extended state conduction and (low temperature) hopping conduction. A hopping transport energy level is identified as the peak of the energy distribution of the hopping photocarriers, and shows a temperature dependence in agreement with existing theoretical work.