The theorem X established by Miles in the preceding paper is here given a simpler and more general proof. Some further theoretical results concerning the stability of heterogeneous shear flows are also presented, in particular a demonstration that the complex wave velocity of any unstable mode must lie in a certain semicircle.


The US–Mexico War produced a wide range of literature in the United States that exposed the provisional and contingent qualities of US nationalism, even while it also asserted the anti-Mexican racism and xenophobia that continues to shape cultural and political discourse in the early 21st century. Much of the popular literature produced in mass-market novelette form, for example, deployed a range of Mexican enemies that ran through a sequence from noble, chivalrous opponents, to fiendish enemies and terrorist bandits. This instability in how writers saw Mexico and Mexicans suggests that the war could paradoxically generate critical self-reflections that countered essentialist notions of manifest destiny. The eventual projection of the bandit figure as the prototypical Mexican villain reinforced Anglo-American national self-definitions of moral, cultural, and racial superiority as a response to the destabilizing energies resulting from the invasion of a neighboring American republic. For Mexican American writers, the war, although a major feature of Mexican American literature, nonetheless became an environment in which to explore conditions of non-national, liminal border identities, which became strikingly relevant as the 20th century turned into the 21st. In Mexico, the agonized response to the nation's failure to stop the "Yankee" invader led instead to a confrontation with its own lack of a unifying national identity and forced writers and political intellectuals to ask hard questions about Mexico's destiny.


I argue that a Sellarsian approach to experience allows one to take seriously the thought that there is something given to us in perception without denying that we can only be conscious of conceptually structured content. I argue against the traditional empiricist reading of Sellars, according to which sensations are understood as epistemically graspable prior to concrete propositional representations, by showing that it is unclear on such a view why sensations are not just the given as Sellars so famously criticizes it. I suggest an alternative transcendental reading, according to which there are two sides to the subject matter of perceptual judgments: The matter given in perception (sensation), and its form (intuition). I present an account of sensations and intuitions on which it is unproblematic to see sensations as what is given in perception: They are not intelligible independently of their role as the matter of intuitions, the content of which is accessible to us only in the context of a judgment.


Synthesis of surfactant methyl ester sulfonate (MES) of methyl laurate has been done. This study aims to determine the best mole ratio between the methyl esters of lauric acid with sulfonated agent NaHSO3 in sulfonated methyl laurate. Mole variation used in this study are 1:1; 1:1,2; 1:1,4 and 1;1,6 (v/w). Best value MES emulsion stability, acid value and the surface tension is 94,5 minutes,1.3 ml KOH/ g sample, 39.3 dyne/cm in 1:4 ratio produces. MES synthesis produced by sulfonate group shown in the FTIR spectra in the wave number around 1366.52 to 1015.30 cm.


To determine if the release of IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta by cultured PBMC could be independently modulated by different exogenous stimuli, we examined the effect of LPS, IFN gamma, latex beads, and indomethacin on the release of IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta. PBMC culture supernatants were fractionated by Sephacryl-S-200 column chromatography or HPLC (TSK G3000SW), and each fraction was tested for thymocyte mitogenic activity in the presence or absence of preincubation with anti-IL-1 alpha or anti IL-1 beta monoclonal antibody (mAb) and for the presence of IL-1 alpha or IL-1 beta protein by ELISA. In all experiments, thymocyte mitogenic activity not neutralizable by anti-IL-1 alpha or anti-IL-1 beta mAb was detected in the 25K Mr range, which ranged from 12 to 50% of the total thymocyte mitogenic activity released, depending on the stimuli. Cultured PBMC from 95% of individuals release thymocyte mitogenic activity in the absence of exogenous stimuli, which was increased 1.3-to 7-fold by lopopolysaccharide (LPS) (25-50 micrograms/ml). All of this increased activity was due to increased release of IL-1 beta and non-IL-1 thymocyte mitogenic activity, with no change in the total amount of IL-1 alpha released. Indomethacin (0.1 microgram/ml) induced release of increased thymocyte mitogenic activity of 1.3- to 1.4-fold over unstimulated cultures. All of this increased activity was due to increased release of IL-1 alpha and non-IL-1 activity with a concomitant decrease in IL-1 beta release. Interferon gamma (40-100 U/ml) increased the amount of IL-1 alpha and decreased IL-1 beta and non-IL-1 activity released, resulting in no overall change in the total amount of thymocyte mitogenic activity. Molecular weight fractionation of the PBMC culture supernatants revealed that thymocyte mitogenic activity eluting in the 25K Mr range was not due to IL-1 alpha or IL-1 beta. With certain culture conditions, thymocyte mitogenic activity was detected in the 30-40K Mr range. PBMC cultured with LPS and latex beads in the absence of serum released 30-40K Mr IL-1 alpha, as well as 17K Mr IL-1 alpha and 17K Mr IL-1 beta. PBMC cultured in 2% fetal calf serum (FCS) alone from some donors released only 30-40K Mr thymocyte mitogenic activity. Both IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta protein was detected by ELISA in this Mr range but only the IL-1 alpha was bioactive.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Reconfigurable computing architectures combine the flexibility of software with the performance of custom hardware. Such architectures are of particular interest at the nanoscale as well. We argue that a bottom-up self-assembled fabric will be easier and cheaper to manufacture, however, one has to make compromises with regards to the device regularity, homogeneity, and reliability. In this paper we present a software and hardware framework to measure the performance of a self-configurable computing architecture for unstructured and unknown reconfigurable fabrics composed of simple nodes interconnected by nanowires. The framework allows to create an irregular network of compute nodes where each node can be configured as a simple 1-bit ALU. The compute nodes are organized hierarchically by means of anchor nodes that recruit compute nodes with a chemically-inspired algorithm. The nodes are then self-configured by means of a gate-level netlist describing any digital logic circuit. A topology-agnostic optimization algorithm inspired by simulated annealing is then initiated to self-optimize the circuit for latency. Latency comparisons between non-optimized, brute-force optimized and our optimization algorithm are made for 3 different circuits. The hardware overhead of implementing the optimization algorithm is also discussed. The proposed work presents a step toward building a new generation of compute architectures on irregular fabrics.


Increasing evidence indicates that early low-level lead (Pb) exposure produces enduring cognitive impairment in children, underscoring the need to develop improved therapeutic intervention. Although chelating agents have been shown to effectively reduce body Pb levels, it is not yet known whether this treatment ameliorates Pb-induced cognitive dysfunction. Clinical research in this area is hampered by the need to rely on reductions in blood Pb levels as the index of treatment efficacy, despite the fact that brain Pb level is the exposure parameter of greatest relevance to neurocognitive outcomes. The present studies were designed to provide information that will aid future research in this area in both human and animal models. The objectives of these studies were (1) to evaluate the efficacy of different doses and durations of succimer (meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid; DMSA) chelation for reducing brain and blood Pb levels and (2) to determine the extent to which blood Pb can serve as a surrogate of brain Pb following chelation. Long-Evans hooded rats were exposed to Pb from birth until day 31 (Study 1) or day 40 (Study 2) of life, followed by oral treatment with a vehicle or one of two succimer regimens for a duration of either 7 or 21 days. Results indicated that 7 days of succimer treatment produced a 1.5- to 2.5-fold greater reduction of Pb in blood than in brain, relative to time-matched vehicle groups. Prolonged treatment (21) days did not further reduce blood Pb levels (relative to 7-day succimer treatment), but did produce further reductions in brain Pb level compared to time-matched vehicle groups. Thus, chelation-mediated reductions in brain Pb did not parallel reductions in blood Pb over the course of treatment. While the relevance of these data to humans may be confounded by anatomical and physiological differences between rodents and primates, as well as differences in the metabolism of succimer (DMSA), they suggest that clinical studies should exercise caution when using blood Pb as an index of the efficacy of chelation treatment for reducing brain Pb levels.


Background Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is invariably associated with the reciprocal translocation of BCR and ABL to form the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph), t(9;22)(q34;q11). At diagnosis, a small proportion of patients display additional cytogenetic abnormalities and/or a variable proportion of cytogenetically normal metaphases that coexist with Ph-positive metaphases. The objective of the current study was to examine the prognostic relevance and therapy implications of this scenario. Methods The study population consisted of 65 (47.7% female) consecutive, newly diagnosed, untreated CML patients seen at the Mayo Clinic with a median age of 59 years; 44.5% were initially treated with interferon (IFN)-α, resulting in complete cytogenetic remission in 10.7%, for a median length of 5.83 years, whereas partial cytogenetic remission was achieved in 3.57%, for a median length of 2 years; 55.5% were treated with imatinib (Gleevec), resulting in complete cytogenetic remission in 54.1%, for a median length of 3.08 years, whereas partial cytogenetic remission was achieved in 13.5%, for a median length of 1.08 years. All statistical analysis was completed using SAS software (SAS Inc., Cary, NC), and statistical significance was set at the level of p ≤ .05. Results Survival at 5 years through Kaplan-Meier analysis was approximately 92% in patients demonstrating only the Ph chromosome (n = 53) versus 60% in patients with additional chromosomal abnormalities (n = 12; p < .0001 through log rank and Breslow-Gehan-Wilcox analysis). In addition, patients with additional chromosomal abnormalities demonstrated lower rates of either complete or partial cytogenetic remission with imatinib therapy. Similarly, the 5-year survival rate of patients with less than 90% Ph-positive metaphases at diagnosis (n = 4) was approximately 60% compared with 92% in patients with greater than 90% Ph-positive metaphases (n = 61; p = .01 by log rank and p = .001 by Breslow-Gehan-Wilcox analysis). Additionally, the former group of patients was significantly less responsive to imatinib. Finally, there was significant correlation between Ph-positive metaphase mosaicism and the presence of additional chromosomal abnormalities (p = .05). Conclusion Although it is tempting to speculate that Ph-chromosome mosaicism and/or additional cytogenetic abnormalities at presentation of CML is a surrogate for the presence of Ph-negative imatinib-resistant clones, the preliminary results from the current study require validation from a larger study, which is currently under way. It is possible that patients who present with less than 90% Ph-positive metaphase cells at diagnosis may harbor chromosomal abnormalities in other metaphase cells that are undetectable by conventional cytogenetics. Indeed, this clonal population might be resistant to imatinib therapy and negatively impact survival.


Context and ideologue theory each imply different causal relations between political sophistication, self-confidence, and political deviance. This study used linear measurement and structural equation models to test the plausibility of various causal models dealing with the relations among indexes of political sophistication, self-confidence, print media usage, racism, and political deviance. The findings were consistent with the expectations of context theory and contradictory to the expectations of the various ideologue models. Since at least the time of Gustav Le Bon (1908, 1913), the dominant view in the Western world has been that political deviates and extremists (e.g., fascists and communists) tend to possess overly simplistic, rigid, and generally unsophisticated political schemas. Although this view was challenged by early members of the Frankfurt school (see Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948, 1949; Fromm, 1941), it still remains by far the dominant model for understanding the nature of the personality-ideology interface. This position has become known as


Experience in developing an automated electric drive on the basis of an asynchronous electric motor and a thyristor voltage converter in stator circuits intended for technological equipment in the oil and gas industry (rocker pumps, air-cooling units, etc.) is reported. The drive control system employs a specialized controller ensuring smooth startup, reversing, and dynamic braking of the motor, as well as regulation of the technological parameters and diagnostics of the equipment.


Global demand increase for rare metals deposits has re-enacted the search for economically viable deposits. Pre-cambrian pegmatites occurring as near dykes and massive types were studied for Emure-Ekiti and Ijero-Ekiti respectively, with the aim of characterizing them geochemically and determining their possible economics values. A total of twelve samples comprising seven from Emure-Ekiti, three whole rock muscovite extract for Ijero-Ekiti were analysed for major and trace elements using X-ray fluorescence method. Thin sections prepared for the Emure-Ekiti pegmatites show that quartz, microcline are major mineral constituents. The geochemical results reveals that the Emure-Ekiti and the whole rock samples of Ijero-Ekiti are considerably siliceous, with an average value of 68.72% and 68.6% respectively, while the muscovites extracts average 48.86%. Mean values of major oxides for the Emure, Ijero[whole rock, muscovite] are as follows; Al2O3 -20.42%,[13.74%, 35.15%]; Fe2O3 - 1.83%,[1.24%, 2.19%]; MgO- 0.013%,[0.029%, 1.04%]; CaO - 0.02%,[0.34%, 2.4%]; Na2O – 1.01%,[4.40%, 1.045%]; K2O – 3.17%,[2.77%, 11.07%]. Trace and rare-earth elements result shows that the Emure-Ekiti pegmatites is "barren" – depleted in rare metals Ta, Nb, Cs, Sn, Rb e.t.c and compare favourably with Apomu ,Ago-Iwoye and Ijebu-Ife barren pematites. On the other hand, two of the whole rock samples are mineralized- fairly enriched in rare metals Ta, Nb, Rb while the remaining sample and the muscovite extract are barren; as depicted by the Rb Vs Rb plot and when compared to the other rare metal pegmatites across the world.


The paper by Ramsden and Day confirms previous reports that child growth is often neglected in acute paediatric medicine. As an academic who has designed and used growth charts, I regret this failure; as a practising paediatrician, I understand the difficulties faced in acute medicine. When a sick child comes to a clinic, we first collect data for immediate diagnosis and management of the acute condition. Other data have a lower priority. The Ramsden paper asks whether time and effort spent collecting growth data are efficient uses of valuable staff and time. To justify growth measurements in a clinic for acutely ill children, we must ask and answer the following questions.


(57) Abstract: The present invention provides a useful HSV antigen for the prevention and treatment of HSV infection. In the present specification, discloses epitopes confirmed to be recognized by T cells derived from herpes lesions. T cells having specificity for antigens of the present invention is to provide virus loading peptide epitopes encoding cells, and often showed cytotoxic activity against cells infected with HSV. Identification of immunogenic antigens responsible for T cell specificity provides antiviral therapeutic and prophylactic strategies. Composition comprising a polynucleotide encoding an antigen of an antigen or the present invention provides an effective targeting vaccines for the prevention and treatment of HSV infection.


Previous research demonstrates the efficacy of behavioral skills training with a textual prompt to establish greetings and conversational skills. This study examined the efficacy of a brief intervention of textual prompts with performance feedback for increasing social niceties of adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder in a simulated workplace. Target social niceties included "Do you have a minute?" when a participant initiated an interaction and "Thank you for your time" when a participant ended the interaction. Results revealed this intervention was effective for 7 of 9 participants. This study expands upon previous studies by showing the efficacy of a resource-efficient training on acquisition and generalization of social niceties by people with autism spectrum disorder.


We read with interest the letter written by Lebray et al.,1 who reported that hepatic congestion can considerably increase hepatic elastometry, as measured by Fibroscan, to values that are unambiguously diagnostic for liver cirrhosis. We recently made the same observation,2 and we would like to present more information on this topic. We had the opportunity to study, before resection, liver stiffness in various subtypes of hepatocellular adenomas (HCAs).3 In HCAs, fibrosis is usually absent. Indeed, hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 –mutated HCAs (HNF1 HCAs) are often steatotic, whereas inflammatory hepatocellular adenomas (IHCAs) often present congestion, with sinusoidal dilatation as the initial step and passage of red blood cells in the space of Disse as the second step. Liver stiffness was measured by the acoustic radiation force impulse method (Siemens S2000).4 The standard ultrasonographic probe offered elastography with a flexible metering box (2 1 cm2) at various depths (up to 5.5 cm), allowing the examination of specific areas, such as those within and outside tumors. The speed of the shear wave (m/s) was expressed as a median of 10 measurements.5 Elasticity could also be expressed in kilopascals with the Young formula [elasticity 3 v2, where is the density and v is the speed of the shear wave (m/s)]. The interquartile range/median (IQR/M) ratio was then calculated. In the first case (HNF1 HCA), which was entirely and massively steatotic (Fig. 1A), the median speed was 1.05 m/s (3.34 kPa), and the IQR/M ratio was 0.18; in the second case (HNF1 HCA), which was mildly steatotic with sinusoidal dilatation (Fig. 1B), the median speed was 1.5 m/s (6.78 kPa), and the IQR/M ratio was 0.49; and in the third case (IHCA), which presented sinusoidal dilatation and major hepatic congestion (Fig. 1C), the speed was 3.17 (30.15 kPa), and the IQR/M ratio was 0.83. The median speed in the nontumoral liver [normal histology in cases 1 and 2 and mild steatosis ( 5%) in case 3] was 1.28 (4.95 kPa), 1.2 (4.32 kPa), and 0.86 m/s (2.21 kPa) with IQR/M ratios of 0.14, 0.08, and 0.33, respectively. These results indicate that (1) the speed measured in the nontumoral liver with the acoustic radiation force impulse method was in the range obtained with transient elastography, (2) massive steatosis does not increase stiffness, and (3) sinusoidal dilatation and hepatic congestion appear to play a major role in tissue elasticity. Hepatic congestion (case 3) in an IHCA is not homogeneously distributed, as reflected by the high IQR/M value. The rationale that the velocity of the elastic shear wave that propagates through the underlying liver tissue is directly related to tissue stiffness, which is considered an index of the amount of fibrotic tissue,6 is, however, too restrictive. The impact of confounding factors, particularly necro-inflammatory activity7,8 and intrahepatic cholestasis,9 that may occur during the hepatitic process have been recently emphasized. Congestive hepatopathy, a key factor in the pathobiology of cirrhosis, is now another factor to consider.10 Passive liver congestion1 should also be taken into account in the presence of overt or subclinical heart failure in elderly patients. More generally, these factors should also be considered in patients with features of metabolic syndrome, for whom cardiovascular disease and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease may be present together.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have recently received a significant amount of attention due to their remarkable influence on post‐transcriptional gene regulation. In this study, we aim to provide a catalogue of miRNAs present in spermatozoa, seminal plasma and testicular tissue. Expression profiles of miRNA in spermatozoa and seminal plasma of 16 proven fertile men and testicular tissue of eight men with morphologically and/or histologically confirmed obstructive azoospermia were determined by microarray and RT‐qPCR in combination with bioinformatics analyses. A total of 123, 156 and 133 miRNAs were consistently detected in spermatozoa, seminal plasma and testicular tissue respectively. Sixty‐four miRNAs were shared across all sample types. Based on miRNAs expression level present in each group, correlation analysis showed moderate‐to‐strong correlations within the spermatozoa and seminal plasma samples and a wider range of correlations within the testicular tissue samples. The target genes of known miRNAs appeared to be involved in a wide range of biological processes related to reproduction, development and differentiation of germ cells. Our results suggest that there is a certain similarity between spermatozoa and seminal plasma for the relative miRNA expression changes with respect to testicular tissue and provide an overview of the miRNAs present in each sample type.


Emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major contributor to global warming. Biofixation of CO2 by microalgae in photobioreactors seems to be a promising strategy for CO2 mitigation. The research to determine the overall mass transfer coefficient (kLa) has been done to find the way on biomitigation CO2 emission by using biologically Carbon Capture and Sequestration method. This research was conducted according to green microalgae Scenedesmus obliquus activity, which is cultivated in a bubble photobioreactor through the mass transfer process that assumed adequate mixing occurs. Flow rate of CO2 that supplied to the system were 2 L/min, 5 L/min and 8 L/min, when each rate flowed into the photobioreactor with high CO2 concentration (v/v) of 2%, 5% and 10%. The highest CO2 removal efficiency occurred at culture that supplied with an CO2-enriched air flow rate of 5 L/min. The kLa (CO2) value is the highest in 0.3582/day at 2% CO2 concentration and flow rate of 2 L/min, while the lowest is in 0.0503/day at 5% CO2 concentration and flow rate of 8 L/min. In terms of solubility is inversely proportional to the flow rate, the less carbon dioxide is dissolved at the rate of 8 L/min as well as the value of the kLa. The results showed that the variation of flow rate will affect the amount of mass transfer coefficient, growth rate and cell biomass. Higher flow rate decreases kLa value as well as CO2 removal efficiency.


Background: The situs inversus is a rare condition of unknown cause that occurs in less than 0.1% of the population. A standard operation procedure has not been established for liver transplantation when the graft comes from a donor with situs inversus. Counting with this, there are nine cases of transplant with liver graft from deceased donors with situs inversus totalis reported in literature.
Methods - Case Report: During organs harvesting of a young male, it was found that all organs of the abdominal and thoracic cavities were located in changed positions, as if it were a mirror image, diagnosing the donor with situs inversus totalis. The liver was flushed with standard preservation solution and procured using standard techniques.
The recipient was a female with cirrhosis caused by Wilson's disease. She was Child-Pugh C and MELD SCORE 32. Hepatectomy was performed using a piggyback technique with preservation of the vena cava after complete liver mobilization.
The liver graft was brought onto the field and rotated 180° in a ventral caudal fashion (backwards), maintaining the largest lobe in the right upper quadrant. Twenty-eight months after transplant, the graft liver function was still normal and there were no biliary complications or rejection reactions.
Conclusion: Liver transplantation using a graft from donor with a situs inversus totalis seems to be a safe surgical procedure.


Three Schiff bases of Mannich bases of resacetophenone have been synthesized by using three variable electronegative atoms (X=O/S/NH) of urea/thiourea/guanidine and tested for antimicrobial activity and antioxidant screening by DPPH. It has been found that Compound-3a (X=O) showed maximum zone of inhibition in E.coli & S.aureus and minimum zone of inhibition in B.subtilis, Compound-3b (X=S) showed maximum zone of inhibition in E.coli in comparison with standard drug streptomycin. There is no activity found in case of Compound-3c (X=NH). Antimicrobial activity profile of three compounds is as follows: Gm positive bacteria: Compound-3a (S.aureus > B.subtilis) Gm negative bacteria: Compound-3b (E.coli) > Compound-3a (E.coli) LogP values of three compounds were found to be X=O: 4.03, X=S: 4.63 and X=NH: 3.79. So, the partition coefficient is in this order: X=S: 4.63 > X=O: 4.03 > X=NH: 3.79. Partition coefficient of X=S is 4.63 which is greater than X=O (4.03) and X=NH (3.79) electronegativity of S is 2.58 which is in between O=3.44 and NH=3.04. Electronegative atoms O and S both have two lone pair of electrons but electronegativity for O: 3.44 > N: 3.04 > S: 2.58 and the % inhibition of oxidation by DPPH has been observed as NH (45.56) > O (37.76) > S > (36.5). The electronegativity of N is 3.04 so the NH compound (guanidine) showed maximum inhibition 45.46%, electronegativity of O is 3.44 so the O compound (urea) showed 37.76% inhibition and the electronegativity of S is 2.58 so the S compound (thiourea) showed 36.5% inhibition. The log P values of NH compound (guanidine) is 3.79 which is minimum but showed maximum inhibition 45.46%, log P value of O compound (urea) is 4.03 which showed in 37.76 % inhibition and log P value of S compound (thiourea) is 4.63 which showed 36.5% inhibition. Oxygen and Sulfur both have two lone pairs of electrons so the % inhibition values are under very narrow range O (37.76), S (36.5) but this slight variation is due to the difference in electronegativity: O: 3.44 and S: 2.58.


The behaviour under particle loss of entanglement and nonlocality is investigated in multipartite quantum systems. In particular, we define a notion of persistency of nonlocality, which leads to device-independent tests of persistent entanglement. We investigate the persistency of various classes of multipartite quantum states, exhibiting a variety of different behaviours. A particular attention is devoted to states featuring maximal persistency. Finally we discuss a link between the symmetry of a state and its persistency, illustrating the fact that too much symmetry reduces the strength of correlations among subsystems. These ideas also lead to a device-independent estimation of the asymmetry of a quantum state.


Pollination via sexual deception is hypothesised to be associated with more frequent outcrossing and greater pollen dispersal distances than strategies involving food-foraging behaviour. In this study, we investigated the behaviour and movement distances of Lissopimpla excelsa (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae), and their implications for the pollination of the sexually deceptive Cryptostylis ovata (Orchidaceae). Pollinator observations revealed that while L. excelsa will alight on multiple flowers within a single visit to a patch of orchids, the frequency of attempted copulation decreases with successive visits, suggesting that pollinator learning may inhibit withinpatch pollen transfer. Mark-recapture demonstrated that 25% of wasps revisited inflorescences within a day and
50% revisited within a week. Despite the apparent site fidelity of some individuals, L. excelsa often move over large distances (maximum = 625 m), and are capable of dispersing pollen between patches. To resolve the consequences of pollination by sexual deception of ichneumonids, we compared our results with those from studies of other sexually deceptive systems. While pollination rates were comparable with other sexually deceptive orchids, L. excelsa showed high rates of column contact and moved over large distances relative to other sexually deceived pollinators. Among sexually deceptive orchids in general, the frequency of column contact was not correlated either with the frequency of pseudocopulation or with pollination rate. These results suggest that the consequences of pollination by sexual deception may vary extensively between plant taxa due to variation in floral traits, and behavioural differences between pollinator groups.


Long-term goal of the research is to improve the productivity of paddy crop which is a modification of the SRI (the System of Rice Intensification) of environmentally sound, reducing water use effectively and efficiently (saving water). In that case, the cultivation of which will be applied in the future is that paddy cultivation requires no much water (less than SRI and PTT) and the land from the beginning until the harvest is not stagnant but still moist (because the aeration of soil is pretty good) and oxidation of the soil layer becomes thicker as needed for rice productivity. While the specific objectives of this research is to study the growth of Aerenchyma tissue as a pathway where the release of methane gas from the soil and the growth of rice in the rice fields. This study wanted to obtain an optimal soil conditions, using Complete Randomized Design through vary of water depth level treatment (levels of soil water in pot) in the pot varies. The obtained results of this research are the latest results as different from previous research results. Finally the research obtained some conclusions; 1.) The growth of Aerenchyma in roots of rice plant Batang Piaman was not affected by high of inundation and soil water content in the potting media, 2.) The best rate of assimilation is treatment D (inundation of 10cm from the ground); 3.) the highest total number of seedlings obtained in treatment D (high pool of 10cm from the ground) which is 64.26 rods, far more than the other treatments and descriptions of varieties of rice Batang Piaman itself ie from 14 to 19.4; 4.) Base on the number of seedling growth parameters, high-tech farming with an inundation of 10cm below the soil surface (treatment D) can produce 180% better than conventional cultivation techniques (treatment A) 5.) We applied the latest rice cultivation technology with a high inundation of ±10 cm below the ground surface will provide an optima l effect on the growth of rice plants in field.


Thermal management is one of the critical issues in 3D many-core processors design. 3D many-core floorplanning has so far focused on only the configuration of cores and memories across layers. However, 3D floorplanning should also take die stack ordering into account because the characteristics of dies may vary due to growing process variations. A new 3D floorplanning approach which covers die stack ordering is proposed. The evaluation shows that peak steady state temperature is reduced by about 2 K without any overhead in manufacturing process.


Today getting access to the monitoring systems with high accuracy in order to produce healthy agricultural products has been raised though the following effective factors are of high importance as well; prevent pest risk and reduce the coast raised from unmanned aerial systems according to low cost, low weight, possibility of taking images in cloudy weather under the cover of clouds, flexibility in time and high spatial resolution imaging which are usable in obtaining remote sensing data and considerable interest. In this regard, the use of these systems shows high potential in obtaining required data in monitoring products and provided control. In this paper, multi-spectral sensor mounted on an unmanned airborne platform in the health status of the regional citrus trees infected with the decline disease in the Fars province investigated. Using data by this system, classified images of studied area based on vegetation index and distinctions between healthy and infected trees, use of SVM are provided. Collected ground data shows the feasibility of these methods in tree's health status diagnosis. About 90 percent overall accuracy was achieved in the trees classification.


Abstract Using a 300 kV transmission electron microscope, we present experimental (100) lattice images of GaAs and ZnSe, which allow the resolution and identification of sublattices. A detailed comparison between the experimental and simulated images showed that the screening effect of valence charge electrons, due to crystallization, is not as essential for (100) lattice images of these compounds as for (110) images. The traditional simulation obtained by superposing free atoms can be accurately used to discuss the chemical information such as polarity and atomic structure.


Cisplatin-modified DNA forms specific complexes with proteins that contain the DNA binding motif known as the high-mobility group (HMG) domain. As a tool for investigating the role of these proteins in mediating the cytotoxic effects of cisplatin, a set of cisplatin analogs was prepared in which one of the ammine ligands was replaced with a photoreactive tethered aryl azide ligand. The ability of DNA modified by these platinum complexes to photo-cross-link to HMG1 was investigated. During this study, it was discovered that DNA modified with cisplatin itself can undergo photoinduced cross-linking to HMG1 when irradiated with 300 nm light. The covalent complexes resulting from this latter cross-linking reaction are completely reversed by the addition of sodium cyanide and can be degraded by proteinase K. These results confirm the presence of a protein-DNA cross-link and demonstrate that the platinum atom itself forms the point of attachment. By contrast, DNA modified with transdiamminedichloroplatinum(II), [Pt(dien)Cl]Cl, or [Pt(NH3)3Cl]Cl does not cross-link to HMG1 upon irradiation. The photochemistry was exploited to cross-link a 15-base pair oligonucleotide containing a single, site-specific cis-[Pt(NH3)2{d(GpG)-N7(1),-N7(2)}] intrastrand adduct to domain B of HMG1. Following proteolytic digestion of the resulting covalent complex, the site of attachment to the protein was determined by Edman degradation of the resulting peptide-DNA complex to be a single residue on HMG domain B, Lys-6. The data further suggest that this amino acid binds to platinum at a site made available by photolabilization of a purine ligand. These results afford the first structural information about the interaction of HMG domain proteins with cisplatin-modified DNA.


This article examines whether and how moral convictions predict collective action to achieve social change. Because moral convictions - defined as strong and absolute stances on moral issues - tolerate no exceptions, any violation motivates individuals to actively change that situation. We propose that moral convictions have a special relationship with politicized identities and collective action because of the potentially strong normative fit between moral convictions and the action-oriented content of politicized identities. This effectively integrates moral conviction with the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (Van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008), which predicts that, on the basis of a relevant social identity, group-based anger and efficacy predict collective action. Results from two studies indeed showed that moral convictions predicted collective action intentions (Study 1-2) and collective action (Study 2) through politicized identification, group-based anger, and group efficacy. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our integrative model.


Set in Makati, the central business district of the National Capital Region, Welcometo IntelStar is a monodrama satirizing the call center industry in the Philippines.The performance is an exemplar in positioning a diasporic consequence ofglobalization vis-a-vis nationalism because it calls on a national sentiment to theextent that the play illustrates resistance to globalization's economic and neoliberalattachments, often perceived as the destructive force of cultural diversity anduniqueness. In relation, the performance used a recurring trope in Philippineculture, which is called in the essay as the Americanization issue: the conception ofthe Filipino/a as a master mimic of other cultures, particularly the American one.Overall, Welcome to IntelStar falls short in its criticism of globalization becauseit isolated the phenomenon within the politics of the market. But nevertheless,the play allows the Filipino body, through its protagonist Chelsea, to be "visible."With her "expertise" at imitation, Chelsea's visibility destabilizes the global order.Chelsea's mimicry is not simply about wanting to be like those who are imitated,but a strategy to assert a sense of self. This imitative performance implies selfconsciousnessand intimacy to the one being imitated. In this way, mimicry as selfactualizationis a creative strategy and has the potential to overthrow hierarchies ofglobalization in neo-colonial and neo-imperial orders.


The release of Bacillus anthracis spores can cause significant morbidity and mortality and effective vaccination strategies and immunotherapeutics are needed. This study seeks to identify and characterize the major humoral targets that provide protection. To this end, we isolated antibody secreting cells from AVA vaccinated individuals and generated a panel of fully human monoclonal antibodies. Ten of these antibodies were highly specific for the protective antigen (PA), with affinities ranging from 3.7x10-7 to 1.4x10-10. Antibodies p6C01 and p6F01 were able to neutralize lethal toxin activity in vitro even at low concentrations (EC50 = 0.1µg/ml). Passive transfer of either human monoclonal antibody to A/J mice prior to lethal toxin challenge conferred 80-90% protection. Using a combination of western blotting and subunit ELISAs, we have shown that the p6C01 antibody binds to domain 3 of PA, which is critical for heptamer formation. Experiments are ongoing to further characterize the mechanism(s) of protection by these antibodies. These fully human antibodies can be used as a tool to identify protective humoral epitopes, as well as provide directed immunotherapeutics.


M. Cieśla, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, Katowice, Poland This paper presents a methodology for selection of the optimal sources of supply, which is also known as the problem of supplier selection. Theoretical considerations are expanded with research related to aluminium supplier selection for a hypothetical manufacturer of aluminium parts for transportation equipment located in Poland. Evaluation of five suppliers of aluminium from Poland, Germany and Slovenia has been conducted using a weighted scoring method, a strengths and weaknesses method and a graphical method. Choosing the best offer and prioritizing suppliers allows not only the most rational decision in the field of supply logistics to be taken but also the quality of service in the metallurgical industry to be improved.


Objectives
Several studies have investigated the role of hepcidin in hypoferremia of obesity, but findings are mixed. In this study we examined the interrelationships among inflammatory markers, hepcidin and circulating iron, and investigated the contribution of hepcidin to iron status among subjects with overweight or obesity compared to those with normal weight.

Methods
This study combined data from two different cross-sectional studies in which inflammatory and iron status markers and hepcidin concentrations were measured from fasting blood samples for a total of 98 subjects with either normal weight (n = 28), overweight (n = 39) or obesity (n = 31). Associations among variables were investigated using ANOVA, correlation and regression analyses. Statistical significance was set at P ≤ 0.05. Mean ± SEM were reported for continuous variables except for skewed variables in which case geometric means (geometric mean ± 1SEM interval) were reported.

Results
Subjects with obesity had lower serum iron concentration compared to those with normal weight [(72 ± 6 µg/dL vs. 103 ± 10 µg/dL; P = 0.01)]. C-reactive protein concentration was highest in subjects with obesity [3.63 (2.98, 4.43) mg/L], followed by those with overweight [0.80 (0.66, 0.98) mg/L] and lowest among those with normal weight [(0.40 (0.32, 0.48) mg/L) (P < 0.05 for all). Ferritin concentration did not differ among groups (P > 0.05). Hepcidin concentration was positively correlated with BMI, hemoglobin, serum iron and serum ferritin, and transferrin saturation. Regression analyses adjusting for confounding variables showed that the association between plasma hepcidin concentration and both serum iron and transferrin saturation depended on the BMI category (P-values for interactions <0.05) with an inverse relationship among subjects with obesity compared to a positive association among those with normal weight.

Conclusions
The results of our study contribute to evidence of the role of elevated hepcidin in hypoferremia among individuals with obesity compared to those with normal weight.

Funding Sources
none.


In our modern and extremely changing world firmness in market competition, maintaining market position and/or their realization according to strategic purposes are in the focus of corporate decisions.
At the same time, it is also salient for corporate executives that choosing the adequate strategy is not sufficient in itself. Carrying out the strategy successfully requires a new way of approach to corporate control of managers, which should be supported by the design of office working environment, and the arrangement of corporate units and employees. In all these ergonomics - which provide healthy, comfortable working environment ensuring well-being of employees and working conditions supporting efficient work - can give corporate executives a kind of guidance to plan adequate corporate environment. Besides planning ergonomic working environment, the conception of office planning influences intellectual work, life of the corporation, work efficiency, communication within the corporation, team work, and individual performance to a great extent.
Further on, I present an empirical research, by means of which I have developed an office conversion method in order to reveal cultural, communicational, work organizational factors of various organizations and which is by all means recommended to be taken into consideration in the course of designing an office environment supporting efficient work.


Seroma formation after laparoscopic or robotic inguinal hernia repair is a known complication, causing nuisance to the patient and embarrassment to the surgeon. A method of fixing the lax pseudosac of direct inguinal hernia to Cooper's ligament by suturing, to prevent post-operative seroma formation, is discussed in this study. Seventy-two pseudosac fixations were done in a 'figure of eight technique' using non-absorbable suture in 56 patients. These patients were followed up 2 weeks and 6 weeks post surgery. None developed a seroma. The primary obliteration of pseudosac by suturing with non-absorbable suture to Cooper's ligament is a cheap and reliable method for prevention of post-operative seroma. However, it is time-consuming and dependent on the suturing skill of the surgeon.


We present an instance-based nearest neighbor approach to entity linking. In contrast to most prior entity retrieval systems which represent each entity with a single vector, we build a contextualized mention-encoder that learns to place similar mentions of the same entity closer in vector space than mentions of different entities. This approach allows all mentions of an entity to serve as "class prototypes" as inference involves retrieving from the full set of labeled entity mentions in the training set and applying the nearest mention neighbor's entity label. Our model is trained on a large multilingual corpus of mention pairs derived from Wikipedia hyperlinks, and performs nearest neighbor inference on an index of 700 million mentions. It is simpler to train, gives more interpretable predictions, and outperforms all other systems on two multilingual entity linking benchmarks.


Most popular learning-based super-resolution (SR) approaches suffer from complicated learning structures and highly intensive computation, especially in resource-limited applications. We propose a novel frontal facial image SR approach by using multiple local linear transformations to approximate the nonlinear mapping between low-resolution (LR) and high-resolution (HR) images in the pixel domain. We adopt Procrustes analysis to obtain orthogonal matrices representing the learned linear transformations, which cannot only well capture appearance variations in facial patches but also greatly simplify the transformation computation to matrices manipulation. An HR image can be directly reconstructed from a single LR image without need of the large training data, thus avoiding the use of a large redundant LR and HR patch database. Experimental results show that our approach is computationally fast as well the SR quality compares favorably with the state-of-the-art approaches from both subjective and objective evaluations. Besides, our approach is insensitive to the size of training data and robust to a wide range of facial variations like occlusions. More importantly, the proposed method is also much more effective than other comparative methods to reconstruct real-world images captured from the Internet and webcams.


Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) data are available for the entire United States, so are incorporated in many regional and national models of hydrology and environmental management. However, SSURGO does not provide an understanding of spatial variability and only includes saturat- ed hydraulic conductivity (K sat ) values estimated from particle size analysis (PSA). This study showed model sensitivity to the substitution of SSURGO data with locally described soil properties or alternate methods of measur- ing K sat . Incorporation of these different soil data sets significantly changed the results of hydrologic modeling as a consequence of the amount of space available to store soil water and how this soil water is moved downslope. Locally described soil profiles indicated a difference in K sat when measured in the field vs. being estimated from PSA. This, in turn, caused a differ - ence in which soil layers were incorporated in the hydrologic simulations using TOPMODEL, ultimately affecting how soil water storage was simu- lated. Simulations of free-flowing soil water, the amount of water traveling through pores too large to retain water against gravity, were compared with field observations of water in wells at five slope positions along a cat- ena. Comparison of the simulated data with the observed data showed that the ability to model the range of conditions observed in the field varied as a function of three soil data sets (SSURGO and local field descriptions using PSA-derived K sat or field-measured K sat ) and that comparison of absolute values of soil water storage are not valid if different characterizations of soil properties are used. Abbreviations: AET, actual evapotranspiration; CCHP, compact constant-head permeameter; DEM, digital elevation model; FC, field capacity; PSA, particle size analysis; PSAf, particle size analysis derived from field data; SD, saturation deficit; SSURGO, Soil Survey Geographic Database; TWI, topographic wetness index.


In maize crop, ear rot caused by fungi is one of the main responsible for quality and production losses, mainly because of the development of the so called discolored grains. The purpose of this study was to identify the mycoflora present in grains and kernels produced in different regions and climatic zones of Brazil during summer and winter harvest and relate the occurrence of fungi with such parameters. The identification of the fungi was done by the filter paper with freezing method. Two hundred grains/kernels for sample totaling 44 samples of discolored grains and 12 of kernels were analyzed. The tests were performed under a stereomicroscope and an optical microscope. The main fungi found in this survey, both in kernel and discolored grains were Penicillium sp., Fusarium spp., Aspergillus spp., Cladosporium sp. Cephalosporium sp. and Stenocarpella spp. Among the major pathogens, Fusarium spp. and Penicillium spp. were found in higher incidence in grains and kernels in both seasons. There were no significant differences between regions and climates in the summer season for Fusarium spp. and Penicillium sp. incidence. However, during the winter season there has been observed a higher incidence of Fusarium spp. in the region CO. Cladosporium sp. stood out among fungi especially during the winter season.


Graded Index Photonic Crystals (GRIN PhCs) are artificial periodic materials that possess gradually varying effective refractive indices. GRIN profiles can be formed by adjusting the radii or the locations of PhC unit cells. GRIN PhCs exhibit several intriguing characteristics which can be listed as demultiplexing [1], mode-order conversion [2], asymmetric light propagation [3], compact lensing [4], and coupling between waveguides of different widths [5]. In addition to pure GRIN effects, the effects arising from the combinations of PhC properties (photonic bandgaps) can even enrich the possibilities of light manipulations. As a result, broad band transmission spectrum is combined with the directional band gaps [5]. Angular selectivity also can be utilized to separate different wavelengths [1]. Lastly, point and line defects can be introduced to have cavity and waveguides with GRIN PhC.


This paper examines the information sharing vision of the new National Security CIO in light of reforms made towards a more joined-up national security community. It argues that information sharing should be a high priority for improving decision making in Australia's national security community. The Policy Analysis recommends: Making information discoverable and accessible to authorised users by means of off-the-shelf technology; Mapping the information exchanges between agencies to reveal the extent of connectivity and capability gaps; The National Security CIO conduct a regular audit to determine the extent to which community members have reached key milestones in making information discoverable and retrievable; The new National Security College incorporate training modules on how to advance a responsibility to provide culture for senior national security officials; The National Security CIO work in consultation with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to develop a transparent national privacy framework of principles to guide information sharing in the national security community; Greater use of Web 2.0 in the national security space to facilitate information sharing; Establishing a centralised security vetting agency to issue clearances, rather than each agency 'doing its own thing'.


Tape-cast pseudo-cubic zirconia pellets were surface irradiated by two coherent interfering high-power short-pulse Nd:YAG laser beams. The interfering beams of the third harmonic with a wavelength of 355 nm of a 2.5-ns Q-switched laser produced a line-like intensity distribution with a periodic distance of 3.3 m due to the selected angle between the beams. The resulting nonuniform surface heating produced a microstructure consisting of ultrafine-grained zirconia with a grain size of about 10 nm within the top 100 200 nm depth of the treated surface region due to the high cooling rates during short-pulse laser processing (up to 10^10 K/s). The surface morphology closely followed the microperiodic heat treatment provided by the interfering laser beams. The pore size distribution within the periodic surface morphology ranged from a few nanometers to a maximum of half of the periodic line distances.


Transaction costs are thought to affect asset prices and market liquidity, but the direction and magnitude of these effects continue to be the subject of debate. In the single‐family residential market, discount brokers offer to list a house for a lower price and thus reduce the transaction costs associated with obtaining a match. In this article we obtain empirical estimates of the price and liquidity impact of a seller selecting a discount broker to market a single‐family residential property. The unique data set allows for the identification of residential properties that were listed by a discount brokerage firm. The empirical results confirm the predictions of our theoretical model. Using a sample of 318,221 listings and 243,625 sales, we find that houses listed by discount brokers sell at prices similar to non‐discount brokerage listings, but are less likely to sell, and when they do sell, take approximately three days longer to sell. The results indicate that lower transaction costs do not impact housing prices in this market, but that they are related to asset liquidity.


Ferrochelatase activity was determined in bone marrow mitochondria of dogs receiving 100 mg. of chloramphenicol per kilogram per day and of control animals. Those animals receiving chloramphenicol for 3 weeks exhibited a 65 to 90 per cent decrease in ferrochelatase activity as compared to the controls; this enzymic activity returned to normal levels 8 weeks after discontinuation of treatment. Accompanying the drop in ferrochelatase activity was a marked elevation of the level of free erythrocyte protoporphyrin and an increase in stainable bone marrow iron, findings consistent with a block in the final step of heme synthesis. Two of the 3 dogs receiving chloramphenicol showed a significant retiwlocytopenia; the reticulocyte count returned to normal 2 weeks after cessation of chloramphenicol therapy. No significant alteration in the white cell and platelet values were observed. Whatever the mechanism involved, it is hypothesized that the suppression of ferrochelatase activity by chloramphenicol accompanied by a block in the last step of heme synthesis offers a reasonable explanation for the apparent vulnerability of the erythroid cells to the drug.


We examined the relationship between seasonal livestock grazing (late summer and late winter) and the abundance of two ant species, Dorymyrmex insana and Forelius pruniosus, on three types of plants (mesquite shrubs, snakeweed sub-shrubs, and mixed grasses) dominated by black grama (Bouteloua eriopoda). Stocking rates were adjusted to remove 75% of the available forage. Since Chihuahuan Desert grasslands are not in transition to shrublands, the grasses and some herbaceous plants are the only available forage. We hypothesized that neither rainfall nor cattle grazing would affect the abundance of these ants on mesquite (Prosipis glandulosa) or snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae). Linear regressions of monsoon rainfall on mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) produced an r2 nearly equal to that with the annual precipitation. Monsoon rainfall on the evergreen sub-shrub, Gutierrezia sarothrae, resulted in June-July rainfall accounting for 47% - 83% of the variation in densities of D. insana on snakeweed. The number of D. insana was more than double the number of F. pruinosus on grasses, mesquite, and snakeweed. There were significant reductions in the abundance of F. pruinosus on the grass in the grazed plots; each year the plots were grazed. There were no significant effects of grazing on the abundance of either of the ant species sampled from G. sarothrae canopies. There were significantly fewer D. insana on mesquite in summer grazed plots than on P. glandulosa in winter grazed and ungrazed plots in the second and third years of grazing. Pre-grazing effects were compromised by the high annual (more than double) precipitation.


Abstract Successful lobbying against certain hunting practices by animal-welfare and animal-rights groups and a steady decline in hunter recruitment, retention, and numbers raise legitimate concerns regarding the future of hunting and its relationship to wildlife management. The nonhunting, non-animal-rights-advocate majority will determine the fate of hunting. Thus, a successful hunting ethic must be logically consistent and intuitively appealing to this moderate majority. This shared ethic could encourage cultural, political, and economic support for wildlife management from both hunters and nonhunters alike. In light of this goal, I argue that 3 dominant hunting ethics—the naturalness hypothesis, the land ethic, and the sporting ethic—fail to justify hunting or place it in a shared context with modern society, and I suggest an alternative ethic that combines Aldo Leopold's vision of an expanding community with traditional utilitarian and rights-based evaluations of ethical criteria within an n-dimensional moral framework. This conceptualization of an ethical system would allow the use of tools applicable to systems analysis in analyzing moral issues and would foster communicative practices capable of creating a more inclusive community. Further, it can both create and elucidate the ethical space shared by the moderate majority and hunters.


This paper tries to assess the impact of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures in the context of agricultural imports. The WTO induced Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) policy is restrictive and it is affecting severely the exports from developing nations. This paper tries to explore whether there can be conditions under which certain restrictions can be mutually beneficial both for the exporter and the importer. A game theoretic model has been proposed to determine whether the policy in its current form generates mutually beneficial payoffs.


Background

Copy number alteration (CNA) is a hallmark of cancer genomes and has been implicated in the development of human cancers, including myeloid neoplasms. We developed a novel, next-generation sequencing-based platform for highly sensitive detection of CNAs with a single exon resolution, which was applied to sequencing data from 1 , 185 patients to delineate a comprehensive landscape of CNAs in myeloid neoplasms.

Materials and Methods

We enrolled 1 , 185 patients with different myeloid neoplasms including myelodysplastic syndromes (n = 607), myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms (n = 80), de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (n = 136), secondary AML (sAML) (n = 226), and unknown myeloid malignancies (n = 136). Whole-exome sequencing (WES) was performed on samples from 260 patients, while samples from 925 patients including pre-transplantation peripheral blood samples provided by Japan Marrow Donor Program were subjected to targeted deep sequencing. Eight cases were serially evaluated before and after progression tosAML. RNA baits for targeted deep sequencing were designed to cover 69 driver genes in myeloid neoplasms and 1,158 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)for assessment of allelic imbalance. In WES, allelic imbalance was examined using allele frequencies of SNPs within coding regions. Focal CNAs were defined as CNAs whose lengths relative to the chromosomal arms were below 10%.

Results

To obtain a landscape of CNAs in coding regions, a comprehensive copy number analysis was performed on 260 patients including 136 with de novo AML and 124 with myeloid neoplasms with myelodysplasia, all of whom were studied by WES. A total of 755 CNAs (502 deletions and 253 amplifications) were identified, where 52% of the patients harbored at least one alteration. Using GISTIC 2.0 algorism, we identified 21 significantly altered regions involving known or putative driver genes (Figure 1): losses of 7q22.1 ( CUX1 ), 12p13.2 ( ETV6 ), 13q14 ( RB1 ),17p13.1( TP53 ), and 17q11.2 ( NF1 ), and gains of 3q26-27 ( EVI1 ), 8q24.21 ( MYC ), 11q13.5-14.1( PAK1 ), 11q23.3 ( MLL ),11q24-25 ( ETS1 ), 13q12.2 ( FLT3 ),21q22.2 ( ETS2 and ERG ). We next compared the frequencies of CNAs between de novo AML and myeloid neoplasms with myelodysplasia. While chromosomes 7, 12, and 17 were commonly affected, deletions of 13q14 were significantly enriched in myeloid neoplasms with myelodysplasia (Odds ratio [OR]: 5.07, P = 0.040), and amplifications of 11q24-25 (OR: 5.54, P = 0.028), and 21q22.2 (OR: 6.10, P = 0.020) in de novo AML, suggesting a specific role of these events in each disease entity. In addition, serial sampling revealed trisomy8, deletions of 7q and 12p were recurrently acquired during leukemic transformation in patients withmyelodysplasia. Taken together, many driver genes in myeloid neoplasms were frequently targeted by CNAs includingmicrodeletions.

Based on these finding, we sought to obtain a more detailed landscape of CNAs in a larger cohort. We combined copy number profiles of patients studied by targeted deep sequencing and those by WES. Of total, 1,691 CNAs (1,096 deletions and 595 amplifications) were detected, where 39% of the cases harbored at least one alteration. Microdeletionsor focal amplifications were frequently found in the significantly altered regions revealed by WES: microdeletionsof ETV6 (n = 10), NF1 (n = 8), CUX1 (n = 5), TP53 (n = 5), and amplifications of FLT3 (n = 7), ETS1 (n = 3), ETS2 (n = 3), and ERG (n = 3), validating the result obtained from a cohort studied by WES. We also identified known driver genes in myeloid neoplasms were recurrently affected with focal CNAs: microdeletions of RUNX1 , BCOR , ASXL2 , DNMT3A , and ZRSR2 , and amplifications of GNAS , RIT1 , CSF3R , and BCL11A . Among them, DNMT3A and ASXL2 , located within 500 kb in chromosome 2, tended to be co-deleted (3 out of 4 cases). Focal deletions of TP53 were often affected with homozygous deletions or were accompanied by gene mutations, implying bi-allelic inactivation. High amplifications were also observed in regions including ETS1 , MLL , FLT3 , MYC , and PAK1 , which suggest a critical role in the pathogenesis of myeloid malignancy.

Conclusion

We obtained the landscape of CNAs in myeloid neoplasms based on the sequencing data of 1,185 patients. Collectively, our results indicated that CNAs targeted a specific set genes including well-known drivers of myeloid malignancies, indicating a critical role inleukemogenesis.

![Figure][1]

Disclosures Kanda: Otsuka Pharmaceutical: Honoraria, Research Funding. Sekeres: Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Millenium/Takeda: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Makishima: The Yasuda Medical Foundation: Research Funding. Maciejewski: Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Ogawa: Takeda Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy, Research Funding; Kan research institute: Consultancy, Research Funding; Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma: Research Funding.

 [1]: pending:yes


Fabrication spaces (fab-spaces), such as TechShops or FabLabs, provide access to sophisticated digital manufacturing technologies to individuals. They could be a new institutional context which influences entrepreneurial behaviour. To understand how this might happen, we used a grounded approach to examine the experience of 8 individuals who have benefitted from fab-spaces to push forward their entrepreneurial ventures. This examination led to the development of new hypotheses regarding the potential role of fabspaces in the entrepreneurial journey. In particular, it has emerged that fab-spaces might affect the entry phase of a new venture by lowering the "perception of performance" threshold. Fab-spaces also affect post-entry barriers, as they provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs for fast learning, and consequently, to establish effective routines. However, this paper also shows how these positive effects might be moderated by fab-spaces' institutional setup, chiefly their location and cultural characteristics.


Unit test cases are focused and efficient. System tests are effective at exercising complex usage patterns. Differential unit tests (DUT) are a hybrid of unit and system tests that exploits their strengths. They are generated by carving the system components, while executing a system test case, that influence the behavior of the target unit, and then re-assembling those components so that the unit can be exercised as it was by the system test. In this paper we show that DUTs retain some of the advantages of unit tests, can be automatically generated, and have the potential for revealing faults related to intricate system executions. We present a framework for carving and replaying DUTs that accounts for a wide variety of strategies and tradeoffs, we implement an automated instance of the framework with several techniques to mitigate test cost and enhance flexibility and robustness, and we empirically assess the efficacy of carving and replaying DUTs on three software artifacts.


The treatment of nephrosis, the chronic renal disorder so peculiarly prevalent in childhood and adolescence and of which the exact etiology it still quite obscure, offers many perplexing problems to the practitioner. Aside from its chronicity, one of the most disconcerting characteristics is its tendency to alternate remission and severe exacerbation and its reappearance after long periods of apparent cure. Although considerable progress has been made in the treatment of the condition, no form of therapy is really consistently successful or gives assured relief for the more troublesome symptoms. Outstanding among these and most alarming are the excessive, sometimes huge, losses of protein in the urine and the development of anasarca and ascites to a degree hardly equaled by any other condition affecting the child. The albuminuria cannot be treated but can be overtreated, much to the harm of the patient when it is made the excuse for excessive limitation


This is the first paper documenting research on a selection of marine caves located along the coast of Capo Milazzo in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Three submarine and one semi-submerged caves were surveyed and sampled using underwater photo sampling. Surveys have only taken into account the sessile species belonging to the main taxa: Porifera, Anthozoa, Bryozoa and Polychaeta. Diversity indices and abundances were calculated for three sections within each explored cave: the Entrance Zone, Intermediate Zone and Bottom Zone. The richest group was Porifera with 21 taxa, followed by cnidarians, (Anthozoa), with 8 taxa, Polychaeta (5 taxa), and Bryozoa (5 taxa). Among Porifera, the presence of Petrobiona massiliana, a protected species according to SPA/BIO Protocol and the Bern Convention, must be highlighted. The encrusting forms were dominant in the Bottom Zone, the massive forms in the Intermediate Zone and the arborescent forms in the Entrance Zone. Generally, the percentage coverage of each morphological group showed a decline in the Intermediate Zone and a general increase in the Dark Zone within each cave. The S, H' and J values showed different trends in the five caves. These differences, also evidenced by Permanova analysis, depend on the topographic specificity of each cave which, in turn, affects the gradients of the biotic and abiotic parameters. Finally, no horizontal gradient of rarefaction of the benthic sessile fauna has been detected. This study represents an important step for the management and conservation practices of these fragile ecosystems, especially in view of the forthcoming establishment of the Marine Protected Area.


Taiwan's new mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system should promote far lower levels of personal voting than its old single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system. Since personal voles are conventionally contrasted with party votes, this should lead to more partisan politics. However; I argue that personal voles must be disaggregated into two distinct types. Intra-party personal voters favor a particular party and simply pick one candidate over other party nominees. Extra-party personal voters do not like the party, and pick the candidate despite his or her party affiliation. In this paper; I argue that Taiwan's electoral reform has reduced overall personal voting by eliminating intra-party personal votes. However; there are clear continuities in extra-party personal votes. One implication of this is that Taiwan should expect less, not more, partisan politics in its future.


Note: The IASTED International Conference on CIRCUITS, SIGNALS, AND SYSTEMS (CSS 2004) November 28  December 1, 2004 Clearwater Beach, Florida, USA Reference LSM-CONF-2004-004 Record created on 2005-08-30, modified on 2017-05-10


Introduction: With the introduction of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (2013), the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) has given new direction to K-12 social studies education in the United States. Among the notable changes is the expectation that primary and secondary teachers will use a deliberative pedagogy (Longo, 2013; Carcasson, 2013; Manosevitch, 2013; Molnar-Main & Kingseed, 2013) to teach elementary and high school social studies. While this is excellent news for advocates of democratic education (Dewey 1916; Freire 1970; Apple & Beane, 1995; Gutman 1987; Vinson 2006; Parker, 2010; The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, 2011; Hess & McAvoy, 2015) it presents new challenges to colleges of education, which will take on much of the responsibility for introducing deliberative pedagogy to pre-service teacher candidates who did not have the opportunity to experience a deliberative pedagogy as part of their own K-12 schooling.


The effects of sodium iodate (SI), iodoacetic acid (IAA) and ethambutol (EB) on the electroretinogram (ERG) and the visual evoked potential (VEP) were examined in unrestrained rats. A single intravenous dose of SI at 25 mg/kg caused depression of amplitudes of the ERG a-wave and oscillatory potentials 24 hrs after dosing. Following these changes, the amplitude of the ERG b-wave decreased. The depression of the VEP was observed in parallel with the depression in amplitude of the ERG. A single intravenous dose of IAA, even at a dose of 60 mg/kg which induced death of the rats, did not cause any significant abnormality in the ERG and VEP. Repeated subcutaneous dose of EB at 500 mg/kg/day depressed the amplitude of the P1-N1 wave and prolonged the peak latency of the P1 and N1 waves of the VEP without affecting the ERG after administration for 5 to 6 weeks. These abnormalities of the VEP appeared almost in parallel with ataxic gait. Neither gross behavioral changes suggesting visual disturbances nor abnormal ocular fundus was revealed in any rat receiving SI or EB even when marked depression of the ERG and/or VEP was observed. These results indicate that SI damages retinal function and EB does the conduction pathways from the retina to the visual cortex. In addition, the simultaneous recordings of both the ERG and VEP in unrestrained rats were found to be useful for evaluating the visual toxicity, and to furnish useful information on the site of toxic action of drugs.


Aerodynamic is a branch of science which study the effect of wind to an object. Transport vehicle (truck) is one of the object in this field. A deflector is use to direct the wind for aerodynamics aspect. The research is conduct in a small scale wind tunnel with 40 cm x 40 cm cross section and 300 cm length. A truck model is varied without deflector, flat deflector, convex deflector and concave delector. The wind speed is varied at 1,9; 2,31 and 3,23 m/s by a fan. U type manometers with 30 o inclination are used to measure height difference (h) of the water column at 3 pointsabove the deflector. The data are used to count the wind pressure and the wind speed.Aerodynamic performance is described as a capability to maintain the wind speed at measurement points.The research result shows that the deflector has effect due to aerodynamics characteristic of truck model. Convex deflector has the best performance. Flat and concave deflectors are next.


During hippocampal-dependent memory formation, sensory signals from the neocortex converge in the dentate gyrus. It is generally believed that the dentate gyrus decorrelates inputs in order to minimize interference between codes for similar experiences, often referred to as pattern separation. The proportion of dentate neurons that are activated by experience is therefore likely to impact how memories are stored and separated. Emerging evidence from mouse models suggests that adult-born neurons can both increase and decrease activity levels in the dentate gyrus. However, the precise conditions that determine the direction of this modulation, and whether it occurs in other species, remains unclear. Furthermore, since the dentate gyrus is composed of a heterogeneous population of cells that are born throughout life, it is unclear if newborn neurons modulate all cells equally. We therefore investigated whether adult neurogenesis in rats modulates activity in dentate gyrus neurons that are born at the peak of early postnatal development. Adult neurogenesis was increased by subjecting rats to an alternating running and memantine treatment schedule, and it was decreased with a transgenic GFAP-TK rat model. Activity was measured by Fos expression in BrdU+ cells after rats explored a novel environment. Consistent with an inhibitory role, running+memantine treatment prevented experience-dependent Fos expression in developmentally-born neurons and also in the broader granule cell population. In contrast, blocking neurogenesis did not alter activity patterns. These results suggest that the developmentally-born population of neurons may be a major target of neurogenesis-mediated inhibition. Treatments that promote neurogenesis may therefore benefit disorders where there is elevated activity in the dentate gyrus, such as anxiety and age-related memory impairments.


A case of cranial fasciitis in the skull of a male child is described. At the age of a few weeks was noted a "lump" beneath the scalp of the right parietal region. Physical examination was otherwise normal. Radiographs showed erosion of the skull deep to the palpable mass. At operation, a firm, 2,5 X 2 X 2 cm nodule was found, which had destroyed the underlying bone and invaded the dura matter. This nodule both extra and intracranial was excised en bloc with the surrounding bone. Histological features were those of a fibroblastic proliferation closely resembling nodular fasciitis. The child is well and symptom-free a year after treatment. The authors also include diagnostic, prognostic and histogenetic comments about cranial fasciitis of childhood, new entity described by Lauer and Enzinger in 1980.


Efficient operation of diode-pumped single-frequency fiber lasers at wavelengths from 1740 to 2017 nm has been demonstrated by using a very short piece of newly developed single-mode active fiber, i.e., heavily thulium-doped germanate glass fiber. At 1893 nm, the single-frequency fiber laser has a pump threshold of 30 mW, a slope efficiency of 35%, and maximum output power of 50 mW with respect to the launched power of single-mode pump diodes at 805 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest lasing efficiency achieved in single-frequency fiber lasers operating near 2 micro m. Frequency noise of the single-frequency fiber laser at 1893 nm has been characterized and compared with that of single-frequency fiber lasers at 1 and 1.55 micro m.


Abstract : The 1994 Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Contamination Survivability (NBCCS) Symposium was held on 15 June 1994 at the Edgewood Area Conference Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Sponsored by the Chemical division of the American Defense Preparedness Association, it was cohosted by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the U.S. Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command (CBDCOM). The objective of the symposium was to provide exchange of information on how to successfully execute an NBCCS program within the context of the item/system development and fielding program. Key to this exchange was the participation of both U.S. Government and industry members of the research, development, and acquisition community. Also key was the participation of the Joint Department of Defense (DOD) services. Selection of presentations was designed to help others avoid 'reinventing the wheel' and to demonstrate that NBCCS can be achieved without 'killing' a program. The symposium demonstrated that significant progress has been made in the area of design and test for NBCCS of military systems. This process can be attributed to a strong government industry team effort that must continue if this aspect of survivability is to be achieved on the battlefield. Symposia, NBC contamination survivability, Nuclear warfare, Biological warfare, Chemical warfare


Android applications are frequently plagiarized or repackaged, and software obfuscation is a recommended protection against these practices. However, there is very little data on the overall rates of app obfuscation, the techniques used, or factors that lead to developers to choose to obfuscate their apps. In this paper, we present the first comprehensive analysis of the use of and challenges to software obfuscation in Android applications. We analyzed 1.7 million free Android apps from Google Play to detect various obfuscation techniques, finding that only 24.92% of apps are obfuscated by the developer. To better understand this rate of obfuscation, we surveyed 308 Google Play developers about their experiences and attitudes about obfuscation. We found that while developers feel that apps in general are at risk of plagiarism, they do not fear theft of their own apps. Developers also report difficulties obfuscating their own apps. To better understand, we conducted a follow-up study where the vast majority of 70 participants failed to obfuscate a realistic sample app even while many mistakenly believed they had been successful. These findings have broad implications both for improving the security of Android apps and for all tools that aim to help developers write more secure software.


A platform is introduced for bilayered coacervation of oppositely charged nanoplatelets (NPLs) at the oil-water interface. To this end, we synthesized two types of zirconium hydrogen phosphate (ZrHP) NPLs, cationically charged NPLs (CNPLs), and anionically charged NPLs (ANPLs) by conducting surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization. Taking advantage of the platelet geometry and controlled wettability, we demonstrated that ANPLs and CNPLs coacervate themselves to form a bilayered NPL membrane at the interface, which was directly confirmed by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Via theoretical consideration using the hit-and-miss Monte Carlo method, we determined that electrostatic attraction-driven coacervation of ANPLs and CNPLs at the interface shows a minimum attachment energy of ∼ -106 kBT, which is comparable to the cases where NPLs charged with the same type of ions are attached. Finally, this unique and novel interfacial coacervation behavior allowed us to develop a pH-responsive smart Pickering emulsion system.


Random hexanucleotide labeling is a commonly used and powerful technique for preparing radiolabeled nucleic acid probes. Because of the dependence of DNA polymerase upon single-stranded DNA as a template, the technique should theoretically also be useful for detecting small amounts of single-stranded DNA in the presence of a larger amount of double-stranded DNA. In the course of such an experiment, we identified an unexpected reaction that could contribute to background problems often encountered during Southern and Northern blotting. In the complete absence of template, random hexanucleotides appear capable of functioning both as template as well as primer, giving rise to labeled oligonucleotides as large as 20-mers. Some of these bind very tightly to GC-rich regions in target DNA immobilized on membranes, resisting high-stringency washing conditions. By choosing shorter incubation times and including sufficient single-stranded template, the problem may be minimized.


world, a sort of wistful humor, and a very conservative style are qualities which marked their work. Yedokko was popular with readers and well regarded by pre-Meiji critics, but the general transformation of ideas brought into Japan after 1868 caused it to fall into disfavor. The style was generally considered decadent by the new writers, but before them it was one of the few recognized schools of literature.


This paper critically addresses the issue of gender discrimination in gender-disparaging humour. The aim of the paper is to review the research conducted within the studies of humour, gender, and language, on the issue of whether and how gender-disparaging humour influences the creation and perpetuation of gender-discriminatory stereotypes and, if it does, whether such humour warrants censorship and whether it is discriminatory inherently or depending on other factors. The paper comprises influential theories of humour and relevant theories from gender studies, used in conjunction to frame the critical analysis of gender disparagement in jokes. The analysis is based on gender-related cultural patterns in Serbia and Anglo-American countries, compared through short canned jokes in English and their translatability into Serbian.


Abstract. Frozen hydrometeors are found in a huge range of shapes and sizes, with variability on much smaller scales than those of typical model grid boxes or satellite fields of view. Neither models nor in situ measurements can fully describe this variability, so assumptions have to be made in applications including atmospheric modelling and radiative transfer. In this work, parameter estimation has been used to optimise six different assumptions relevant to frozen hydrometeors in passive microwave radiative transfer. This covers cloud overlap, convective water content and particle size distribution (PSD), the shapes of large-scale snow and convective snow, and an initial exploration of the ice cloud representation (particle shape and PSD combined). These parameters were simultaneously adjusted to find the best fit between simulations from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) assimilation system and near-global microwave observations covering the frequency range 19 to 190 GHz. The choices for the cloud overlap and the convective particle shape were particularly well constrained (or identifiable), and there was even constraint on the cloud ice PSD. The practical output is a set of improved assumptions to be used in version 13.0 of the Radiative Transfer for TOVS microwave scattering package (RTTOV-SCATT), taking into account newly available particle shapes such as aggregates and hail, as well as additional PSD options. The parameter estimation explored the full parameter space using an efficient assumption of linearly additive perturbations. This helped illustrate issues such as multiple minima in the cost function, and non-Gaussian errors, that would make it hard to implement the same approach in a standard data assimilation system for weather forecasting. Nevertheless, as modelling systems grow more complex, parameter estimation is likely to be a necessary part of the development process.


Advances in medical technology are changing the lives of older adults in both positive and negative ways. Health care professionals are now able to sustain life through aggressive measures, sometimes resulting in poorer quality of life. Advance directives allow individuals to maintain control of their own health care should a time come when they are critically ill and unable to communicate their health care wishes. The use of technology can be appreciated by older adults and their families for its role in preserving life. However, by completing an advance directive, an individual can eliminate the fear of prolonging the dying process. To receive the full benefit of advance directives and understand their purpose and use, older adults need to be educated about advanced medical technology and its use. This article discusses the necessity and importance of educating seniors about advance directives.


Organizational diagnosis
is the process of diagnosing an organizational health, finding pathogens if any
and finally removing
those pathogens through some corrective actions. In order to perform an
effective diagnosis, the first step is to identify the organization's health types. In this paper we
propose three basic states of an organization with respect to the health of the
organization. These three states in which an organization can be at any point
of time are performing, stable and disarranged. Every state has its own
characteristics, which can be measured through the extended diagnostic model.
Based on those measurements diagnostician can classify an organization to be in
one of the states. Finally the diagnostician suggests corrective actions for the stable or disarranged states
to move the organization to the performing state.


The synergistic conversion of Miscanthus xGiganteous with sulphated zirconia and dilute hydrochloric acid was investigated. The sulphated zirconia was prepared using H2SO4 impregnation and characterised using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX), Scanning Electron Miscroscope (SEM) spectroscopy and nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurements. The microwave-assisted reaction was evaluated at various temperatures, reaction times and catalyst-to-biomass ratios, with and without the presence of trace HCl in the solution medium for the conversion of Miscanthus xGiganteous to levulinic acid. The highest levulinic acid yield of 63.8% was achieved at 160 °C, 80 min and a 2:1 catalyst-to-biomass ratio, with 10 mM HCl. The catalyst recyclability was investigated with and without calcination, finding that significant humin deposition on the catalyst surface likely caused catalyst deactivation. The post-reaction solid residue was also characterised using SEM, EDX, XRD, elemental composition and nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurements. Findings indicate that this residue could potentially be used as a soil amendment or as a fuel source. The synergistic conversion of real lignocellulosic biomass with sulphated zirconia and trace hydrochloric acid showed remarkable promise and should be investigated further.


SUMMARY 1. Waterbirds are considered to import large quantities of nutrients to freshwater bodies but quantification of these loadings remains problematic. We developed two general models to calculate such allochthonous nutrient inputs considering food intake, foraging behaviour and digestive performance of waterbirds feeding in terrestrial habitats: an intake model (IM), mainly based on an allometric relationship for energy requirements and a dropping model (DM), based on allometric relationships for defaecation. 2. Reviewed data of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content of herbivorous food varied according to diet type (foliage, seeds and roots), season and fertilization. For model parameterization average foliage diet contained 38.20 mg N g )1 and 3.21 mg P g )1 (dry weight), whereas mean faeces composition was 45.02 mg N g )1 and 6.18 mg P g )1 . 3. Daily allochthonous nutrient input increased with body mass ranging from 0.29 g N and 0.03 g P in teals Anas crecca to 5.69 g N and 0.57 g P in mute swans Cygnus olor. Results from IM differed from those of DM from ducks to swans by 63–108% for N and by ) 4t o 23% for P. Model uncertainty was lowest for the IM and mainly caused by variation in estimates of food retention time (RT). In DM food RT and dropping mass determined model uncertainty in similar extent. 4. Exemplarily applying the models to Dutch wetlands resulted in mean annual contribution of herbivorous waterbirds to allochthonous nutrient loading of 382.8 ± 167.1 tonnes N a )1 and 34.7 ± 2.3 tonnes P a )1 , respectively, which corresponds to annual surface-water loadings of 1.07 kg N ha )1 and 0.10 kg P ha )1 . 5. There was a distinct seasonal pattern with peak loadings in January, when bird abundances were highest. Lowest inputs were in August, when bird abundance and nutrient content in food was low and birds foraged less in terrestrial habitats. Three-quarters of all nutrient input was contributed by greater white-fronted goose Anser albifrons, greylag goose Anser anser, wigeon Anas penelope and barnacle goose Branta leucopsis alone. 6. We provide general, easy to use calculation methods for the estimation of allochthonous nutrient inputs by waterbirds, which are applicable to a range of waterbird species, a variety of potential diets and feeding behaviours, and across spatial scales. Such tools may greatly assist in the planning and execution of management actions for wetland nutrient budgets.


Objective: Qingzaojiufei decoction (QD) is an empirical herbal formula from traditional Chinese medicine that is used for the treatment of lung-related diseases. However, the effect of QD on the growth of lung tumor cells has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the antitumor activity of QD in Lewis lung carcinomas (LLC) in vivo and in vitro, and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. Methods: The LLC cells were used to assess the antitumor activity of QD by Cell Counting Kit-8 assay in vitro. In vivo, mice were randomly assigned to 5 groups (n = 10/group): the model control (MC) group was intragastrically administered physiological saline (0.9% NaCl) twice daily from day 2 after tumor implantation for 2 weeks. The QD groups were intragastrically administered QD twice daily from 2 weeks before to 2 weeks after tumor implantation for 4 weeks. The mRNA levels were detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, the proteins expression was determined by immunohistochemistry or western blotting. Results: Compared with the model group, QD showed inhibition of proliferation of LLC cells and reductions in tumor weight and proliferating cell nuclear antigen protein expression. Furthermore, QD up-regulated p53 mRNA expression, and downregulated c-myc and Bcl-2 mRNA expression, while MMP-9, VEGF, and VEGFR protein expression was suppressed. Phosphorylated ERK1/2 levels were also reduced by QD in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that QD inhibited lung tumor growth and proliferation, by activation of tumor suppressor genes, inactivation of oncogenes, suppressing the potential for invasion and metastasis, and attenuating angiogenesis. The ERK/VEGF/MMPs signaling pathways may play an important role in QD-induced inhibition of malignant tumor cell proliferation.


In the present work, experiments have been carried out to assess the suitability of rubber seed oil and its blends with diesel in a diesel engine. Tests were conducted with different blends of R80-D20 (80% of rubber seed oil and 20% of diesel by volume) and R70-D30 (70% of rubber seed oil and 30% of diesel by volume). Experimental results indicate that the brake thermal efficiency increases from 26.5% to 27.7% with the optimum blend of R70-D30. There is a reduction in emissions is also observed except NOx level at all loads. Smoke emission reduces drastically from 6.1 to 4.7 BSU. Combustion parameters indicated a decrease in ignition delay and combustion duration compared with neat RSO. This will also contribute to higher heat release rate in the premixed combustion phase. Current investigations reveal that the performance of R70-D30 blend is closer to diesel.


INTRUDUCTION: The attitude of different groups in the society towards public libraries is important, as it affects decision to use or not to use public libraries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between demographic characteristics and attitudes of the people of Ahvaz (Iran) towards public libraries.

METHODOLOGY: This survey is of a descriptive-analytical type. Using a researcher-made questionnaire, 410 people of Ahvaz were randomly selected through quota sampling method. The questionnaires were distributed in person among the settlers of the areas randomly selected. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics as well as one-sample t-test, two-independent samples t-test, ANOVA, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test were applied.

FINDINGS: Findings showed that total attitude of the respondents was positive and at "fairly desirable" level. Socio-cultural value of public libraries obtained the highest score, and facilities and equipment got the lowest score. People in different age groups and different economic-social groups were significantly different in their attitudes towards public libraries' social status. However, there was no significant difference in respondents' attitudes considering their educational level. Of the five variables studied, the variable "Library as a place of socio-cultural values" obtained the highest average (3.70).

CONCLUSIONS: More use of information and communication technologies will enable public libraries to use technical innovations to compete other media and keep their social status, while observing traditional values at the same time. In-person or virtual presence of users from various social and economic groups will lead to more interaction and trust among people and thus help to increase their social capital. One important limitation of the study is the lack of generalization to other types of libraries and other societies.


The book has been divided into five parts. Part one focuses on clarifying the basic concepts (that is, what are the appropriate goals of economic policy?), the challenges of low- and middle-income developing countries, and suggested frameworks for analysis. Part two moves from the macroeconomic to the microeconomic; it focuses on the private sector as the engine for growth and is balanced with 'softer' issues of the need for trust, accountability, and corporate social responsibility. Part three examines the growing consensus on the need to balance the public and private sectors' roles in the structural transformation of an economy. The discussion centers on newer thinking on industrial policy and public private partnerships in infrastructure. Part four focuses on human development policies in emerging topics, such as investment in early childhood development, health and nutrition, and quality of education. The discussion recognizes the roles of the state and the private sector. Finally, part five is dedicated to issues of global shocks and risks (including climate change and financial crisis), as well as systems and institutions that need to be in place to manage such risks, and the new thinking on social protection and insurance to mitigate adverse shocks.


This case presents facts and opinions gathered from personal interviews and public documents that describe how one individual discovered and reported what he perceived as accounting fraud at a large U.S. public company. George (a pseudonym), the Director of Technical Accounting Research and Training, concluded that his employer was improperly recording revenue using a flawed bill-and-hold policy. George reported his concerns internally to company management and externally, to the auditors. He then reported his concerns to the SEC, the PCAOB, and finally to the audit committee of the company's Board of Directors. However, his e-mail was provided directly to the individuals implicated by his complaint who divulged his identity within the company as a whistleblower. Using the remedies available under the Sarbanes Oxley Act, George sued his employers, charging them with retaliation. This study describes the situation George faced from both his and the company's perspective, details his decision process, and reveals the consequences of his actions. This case increases awareness among accounting and business professionals, and students about the protections and possible outcomes of decisions they make regarding reporting of questionable accounting practices. After completing this case, individuals should have a greater understanding of the benefits and limitations of the current U.S. regulatory system in regard to whistle-blowing.


Myofibroblast-type stromal cells are aggregated in fibroblast foci in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Myofibroblasts produce most of the excess extracellular matrix protein (ECM) and also interact with epithelium in IPF having an essential role in the pathogenesis of the disease. We have previously characterized myofibroblasts from the patients with several types of interstitial lung diseases (Karvonen, H.M. et al. Lab Invest 2012;92:1270-1284). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of pirfenidone and BIBF1120 (nintedanib), a triple kinase inhibitor, to the structural and functional properties of myofibroblasts of the patients with IPF. Primary cells were collected from lung tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage samples from the patients with IPF. Cell lines containing of fibroblasts and myofibroblasts were exposed to pirfenidone and BIBF1120 with and without transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) induction, and characterized by gel contraction assay, Western blotting, electron (TEM) and immunoelectron microscopy (IEM). Pirfenidone and BIBF1120 inhibited contraction of cells in collagen gel and decreased the amount of alpha smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA), a marker of myofibroblasts, by Western blotting, which effects were more pronounced with TGF-beta induction. Amount of actin and alpha-SMA was decreased by pirfenidone and BIBF1120 exposition with TGF-beta induction in IEM and TEM. We conclude that both pirfenidone and BIBF1120 affected to the amount of alpha-SMA in myofibroblasts, and moreover, to the collagen gel contraction capacity of the cells regulating both functional and structural phenotype of myofibroblasts.