Prevalent approaches to software reliability modeling are black-box based, i.e., the the software system is treated as a monolithic entity and only its interactions with the outside world are modeled. However with the advancement and widespread use of object oriented systems design and web-based development, the use of component-based software development is on the rise. Software systems are being developed in a heterogeneous fashion using components developed in-house, contractually, or picked off-the-shelf and hence it may be inappropriate to model the overall failure process of such systems using the existing software reliability growth models. Predicting the reliability of a heterogeneous software system based on its architecture, and the failure behavior of its components is thus absolutely essential. In this paper we present an analytical approach to architecture-based software reliability prediction. The novelty of this approach lies in the idea of parameterizing the analytic model of the software using measurements obtained from testing. To facilitate this we use a coverage analysis tool called ATAC (Automatic Test Analyzer in C), which is a part of a Software Understanding and Diagnosis System (/spl chi/Suds) developed at Bellcore. We demonstrate the methodology by predicting the reliability of an application called as SHARPE (Symbolic Hierarchical Automated Reliability Predictor), which has been used to solve stochastic models of reliability, performance and performability.


At the EXTRAP-T2 reversed field pinch a non-intrusive approach has been undertaken to monitor transport driven by magnetic fluctuations. Correlations are presented between fluctuations observed in the core and at the edge of the plasma. The fluctuations are characterized and their effect on the confinement of core electron energy is estimated.


Integrin alpha4beta1 is a major leukocyte adhesion receptor that is a key target for the development of anti-inflammatory therapeutics. With the dual long-term goals of developing a reagent for use in high-throughput inhibitor screening assays and for crystallisation trials and subsequent structure determination, we have generated a recombinant soluble alpha4beta1 receptor. Both subunits were truncated prior to the transmembrane domains by site-directed mutagenesis and expressed using baculovirus infection of insect cells. The molecular weights of the recombinant subunits were as expected for post-translationally unmodified protein. In addition, as observed for the native subunit, a proportion of the alpha4 subunit was proteolytically processed into two fragments. ELISA and solid phase ligand-binding assays were performed to investigate the folding and functionality of the soluble integrin. The data suggest that the receptor was correctly folded and that it bound recombinant ligands with similar kinetics to the native molecule.


Minimum cost spanning extension problems are generalizations of minimum cost spanning tree problems (see Bird 1976) where an existing network has to be extended to connect users to a source. In this paper, we present two cost allocation rules for these problems, viz. the proportional rule and the decentralized rule. We introduce algorithms that generate these rules and prove that both rules are re nements of the irreducible core, as de ned in Feltkamp, Tijs and Muto (1994b). We then proceed to axiomatically characterize the proportional rule.


Abstract: Pharmacological blockade of the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) ameliorates end-organ damage in chronic heart failure. However, the clinical use of available steroidal MR antagonists is restricted because of concomitant hyperkalemia especially in patients with diminished kidney function. We have recently identified a novel nonsteroidal MR antagonist, finerenone, which uniquely combines potency and selectivity toward MR. Here, we investigated the tissue distribution and chronic cardiorenal end-organ protection of finerenone in comparison to the steroidal MR antagonist, eplerenone, in 2 different preclinical rat disease models. Quantitative whole-body autoradiography revealed that [14C]-labeled finerenone equally distributes into rat cardiac and renal tissues. Finerenone treatment prevented deoxycorticosterone acetate-/salt-challenged rats from functional as well as structural heart and kidney damage at dosages not reducing systemic blood pressure. Finerenone reduced cardiac hypertrophy, plasma prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide, and proteinuria more efficiently than eplerenone when comparing equinatriuretic doses. In rats that developed chronic heart failure after coronary artery ligation, finerenone (1 mg·kg−1·d−1), but not eplerenone (100 mg·kg−1·d−1) improved systolic and diastolic left ventricular function and reduced plasma prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide levels. We conclude that finerenone may offer end-organ protection with a reduced risk of electrolyte disturbances.


Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines (IPMSMs) with rare earth magnet are widely used in electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. IPMSMs having high efficiency, high torque, and a wide speed range are employed in propulsion system. And the rotor in an IPMSM is generally made of a rare earth magnet to achieve a large energy product and high torque. This paper discusses issues regarding design and performance of IPMSMs using different factors of BH magnetic characteristic. It is necessary to choose factors of magnetic material according to permanent magnet shape in rotor for high performance. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is selected to obtain factors of magnetic material according to variety of rotor shapes. The RSM is a collection of mathematical and statistical techniques useful for the analysis of problems in which a response of interest in influenced by several variables and the objective is to optimize response. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the torque characteristics of an IPMSM having magnet BH hysteresis curve with different rotor shape. Factors of residual flux density (Br) factor and intrinsic coercive force (Hc) are important parameters in RSM for rotor shape. The rotor shapes for IPMSMs having magnet BH characteristic were investigated using the RSM, and three shapes were analyzed in detail using FEA. The results lead to design consequence of IPMSMs in the various rare earth magnet materials.


Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive tumor, with a poor prognosis and an increasing incidence as a result of widespread exposure to asbestos. Approximately 80% of MPM can be attributed to asbestos fiber exposure. Surgery and radiotherapy have a limited role in highly selected patients and systemic therapy is the only potential treatment option for the majority of patients. Unfortunately, despite some definite activity of the novel antifolates such as pemetrexed and raltitrexed, the results even in combination with platinating agents are still modest. The median survival of these patients remains of approximately 1 year. Improvements in surgical and radiotherapy techniques, in tumor assessment and staging and in the knowledge of the major molecular pathways involved in MPM are needed to increase the survival of these patients.


This study aimed to describe the writing activities that test takers engage in when responding to the writing tasks in the TOEFL iBT® test and to examine the effects of task type and test-taker English language proficiency (ELP) and keyboarding skills on the frequency and distribution of these activities. Each of 22 test takers with different levels of ELP (low vs. high) and keyboarding skills (low vs. high) responded to 2 TOEFL iBT writing tasks (independent and integrated) on the computer. Each participant then provided stimulated recalls about the writing activities they used when performing each writing task. Stimulated recalls were coded and the results were compared across tasks and test-taker groups. The findings indicated that the participants engaged in various construct-relevant activities, such as interacting with the writing task and resources, planning, generating, evaluating, and revising. Additionally, test takers' writing activities varied significantly across tasks and to a lesser extent across test-taker groups. Participants' writing activities varied most across writing tasks and, to a lesser extent, across English proficiency groups. Low keyboarding skills seem to have affected mainly activities on the independent writing task. To better understand the role of keyboarding skills in performance on the TOEFL iBT writing tasks and to address the test's extrapolation inference, future studies need to compare the writing performance of test takers with different levels of second language (L2) proficiency and keyboarding skills in test and nontest settings.


An analysis of data collected from 212 residential landscapes in suburban Maryland, U.S., revealed significant positive relationships between the number of insect and mite pests in the landscape and the total number of plants and plant species at the site. The number of pests in a landscape increased very little in relation to the number of plants found in the landscape. However, the number of arthropod pests increased at a much greater rate as more species of plants were added. Two explanations for these results are likely. Relatively few plants harbored arthropod pests throughout the course of the season. Adding more plants of the same species had little effect on altering the number of pest species in a landscape. Arthropod pests tend to be relatively specialized in their host range. When different species of plants are added to a landscape, more opportunities are created for specialized insects and mites to colonize the site and increase the richness of the arthropod fauna. When used in conjunction with previous investigations involving monitoring approaches, these results help IPM and PHC monitors plan and conduct site inspections more efficiently and effectively.


Abstract Adelges tsugae (Hemlock Woolly Adelgid [HWA]), an introduced pest, is impacting Tsuga canadensis (Eastern Hemlock), and T. caroliniana (Carolina Hemlock) stands throughout the eastern United States. Currently, hemlock stands in the southeast US are on the leading edge of the infestation. This study investigated HWA distributions in the Chattooga River watershed, and examined relationships between site and stand variables and hemlock susceptibility to HWA attack. The following variables were examined: latitude, longitude, elevation, slope, aspect, terrain shape index (TSI), landform index (LFI), percent infestation, quadratic mean diameter, total basal area (BA), hemlock BA, non-hemlock BA, hemlock BA(%), non-hemlock BA(%), and tree height. Multiple regression with backward selection showed statistically significant relationships of HWA infestation to latitude (P = 0.0006), longitude (P < 0.0001), and TSI (P = 0.0316). The proximity of a hemlock stand to existing HWA infestations appears to be the primary factor influencing its susceptibility to attack.


Numerical computations were performed to investigate the effects of pintle stroke, altitude, and bore on the performance of an external pintle thruster. Results show that under-expansion flow occurs always, independent of pintle stroke. An external pintle thruster shows good performance in that it is capable of good amount of thrust control, while aerodynamic loads are increased due to shock waves on the pintle support. When altitude is increased to 20 km, the nozzle exit velocity, Mach number, thrust as well as aerodynamic loads are increased. Bore increases aerodynamic load 5.9%, and therefore pintle shape without bore is preferred for lower aerodynamic load of a pintle in order to actuate the pintle.


In 2004, the European Environmental Agency's (EEA) Spatial Analysis Group published findings from an analysis of CORINE data suggesting that 84% of the area afforested between 1990 and 2000 was on peat soils. The negative implications of these widely publicised statistics have been raised by environmentalists and policy makers alike. Our analysis shows that CORINE-based estimates of land use change are biased towards larger sized land parcels. Considering that more than 63% of land parcels afforested, in Ireland, since 1990 are less than 25 ha in size, the CORINE methodology tends to under represent the majority of afforested land parcels. In addition, comparison with high resolution Irish land cover and forest area geo data suggest that ca. 30% of the peatland area in the CORINE 2000 classification was misclassified. Work carried out by the Forest Service using the best available high-resolution data, estimated that the afforested area on peatlands is much lower than estimated by the EEA, representing 43.5% of total afforestation between 1990 and 2000. These results have been recently confirmed following the completion of the national forest inventory (NFI 2007a). This field-based assessment, which comprised 1,742 permanent sample plots, suggests that the percentage of peat afforestation between 1990 and 2000 ranged from 46 to 51% of the total afforested area.


"We cannot endow people with intelligence. Intelligence fundamentally is this capacity to ask questions, and this capacity is entirely from nature." My concern here is the rule of law, in all its operations. I select the unexpected word "operations" in order to telegraph a difference from much other natural law jurisprudence. The rule of law is not just a battery of operations; however, failure to appreciate the place of operations in the rule of law leads to a straw-man rule of law—and we know too well the fate of straw men. It is flesh-and-blood men and women whose operations bring about the rule of law, if a rule of law there is to be.


The system analysis, circuit design and implementation of an active-clamp forward converter with a synchronous rectifier is presented. Different to a conventional forward converter, there is an auxiliary switch in the active-clamp forward converter. The clamp circuit is used to reset the energy stored in the leakage inductor in order to minimise the spike voltage at the transformer's primary side. Thus, the voltage stress on the main switch can be reduced. A resonant circuit based on the output capacitor and leakage inductor of the transformer is able to achieve a zero-voltage switching turn-on for both the main and auxiliary switches which will increase the circuit efficiency. A synchronous rectifier is used at the transformer's secondary side to further reduce the conduction losses. The operational principles of the active-clamp forward converter are analysed in detail and the circuit performance is compared with that of a conventional forward converter. The design procedure and an example of an active-clamp forward converter are presented. Finally experimental results are presented for a converter with an AC input voltage of 90∼130 Vrms, an output voltage of 5 V/20 A operating at a switching frequency of 150 kHz which verify the zero-voltage switching at turn-on.


The GRACE satellite mission, scheduled for launch in 2001, is designed to map out the Earth's gravity field to high accuracy every 2–4 weeks over a nominal lifetime of 5 years. Changes in the gravity field are caused by the redistribution of mass within the Earth and on or above its surface. GRACE will thus be able to constrain processes that involve mass redistribution. In this paper we use output from hydrological, oceanographic, and atmospheric models to estimate the variability in the gravity field (i.e., in the geoid) due to those sources. We develop a method for constructing surface mass estimates from the GRACE gravity coefficients. We show the results of simulations, where we use synthetic GRACE gravity data, constructed by combining estimated geophysical signals and simulated GRACE measurement errors, to attempt to recover hydrological and oceanographic signals. We show that GRACE may be able to recover changes in continental water storage and in seafloor pressure, at scales of a few hundred kilometers and larger and at timescales of a few weeks and longer, with accuracies approaching 2 mm in water thickness over land, and 0.1 mbar or better in seafloor pressure.


This paper deals with the analysis of generic uniform observability for structured bilinear systems. The proposed method is based on a graph-theoretic approach and assumes only the knowledge of the system's structure. We express, in graphical terms two conditions, the first one is necessary and the second one is sufficient, to check whether or not structured linear systems are generically uniformly observable. These conditions are quite easy to verify because they are based on comparisons of integers and on finding edges and subgraphs in a digraph. Therefore, our approach is very well suited to study large scale and/or uncertain systems.


The dynamic growth of mobile services is one of the global trends in the modern Ukrainian economy. Among the employees in the field of mobile communications services are those that not only work directly in the service industry, but also a number of employees in other sectors of the economy. In recent years, the provision of mobile communication services has become an integral part of the life in the modern society, which has a very positive impact on various aspects of life, namely: Provides convenient, accessible communication between subscribers regardless of their location (within the coverage area); simplifies cross -cultural communication; accelerates business processes, reduces the time for making managerial decisions and business communications. It is impossible not to recognize the economic importance of this market. So, it is the mobile communications industry that accounts for more than 55% of all communications services in U kraine. One of the most anticipated events in Ukraine was the launch of the fourth generation mobile communications at the end of March this year. Coverage has so far appeared in 20 cities, particular in the regional centers at frequencies of 2,600 MHz. But, as mobile operators assure, this is just the beginning. In the midst of the summer of 2018, when the information field was "resting", in the domestic mass media "prohumily" news about the emergence of a new player on the domestic mobile market. The Brit ish company Lycamobile has agreed with Trimob, the mobile daughter of Ukrtelecom, to provide services under its brand. Thus, Ukraine was among the 20 countries where this MVNO (MobileVirtualNetworkOperator) is present. The main problems of mobile communications market development are [12, p. 470]: – deterioration of the sustainability of telecommunication networks functioning and violation of the proprietary rights of telecommunications operators and telecommunication providers of Ukraine in the temporarily occupied territories and in the territory of the anti-terrorist operation; – low efficiency of management of the telecommunication network in communication at the general use in Ukraine, absence of the National center of operational and technical management at telecommunication networks in Ukraine. Стаття надійшла до редакції: 05.12.2018 Received: 05 December 2018 Електронне наукове фахове видання з економічних наук «Modern Economics», No12 (2018), 179-184 https://modecon.mnau.edu.ua | ISSN 2521-6392 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ 180 After analyzing the market of Ukrainian mobile communication services, the following directions of companies development in this industry can be offered: – use of European standards service quality; – development and implementation of tariffs that take into account the needs of the consumer as much as possible and best suit its solvency; – the formation of a mechanism for managing personnel development in the field of mobile communication, which would take into account the specifics of the industry. Based on the foregoing, it can be argued that in recent years the Ukrainian mobile communications market has undergone significant changes, and has begun moving towards world trends in the development of the communications industry. This is manifested in the stable shares of major players in the market, the approximation of the national subscribe r is based on its natural size and the transition to new forms of competition. In the future, the mobile communicati ons market of Ukraine is waiting for the development of new communication standards.


Non-isothermal reactive transport in complicated porous media is diverse in nature and industrial applications. There are challenges in the modelling of multiple physicochemical processes in multiscale pore structures with various length scales ranging from nanometres to micrometres. This study focuses on coke combustion during in situ crude oil combustion techniques. A micro-continuum model was developed to perform an image-based simulation of coke combustion through a multiscale porous medium. The simulation coupled weakly compressible gas flow, species transport, conjugate heat transfer, heterogeneous coke oxidation kinetics and structural evolution. The unresolved nanoporous coke region was treated as a continuum, for which the random pore model, permeability model and species diffusivity model were integrated as sub-grid models to account for the sub-resolution reactive surface area, Darcy flow and Knudsen diffusion, respectively. A Pe–Da diagram was provided to present five characteristic combustion regimes covering the ignition temperature and air flux in realistic field operations and laboratory measurements. The present model proved to achieve more accurate predictions of the feasible ignition temperature than previous models. Compared with the air flux of

 $\phi \sim O\textrm{(1) s}{\textrm{m}^\textrm{3}}(\textrm{air})\;{({\textrm{m}^\textrm{2}}\ \textrm{h})^{ - 1}}$

 in the field, the increasing air flux in the laboratory transformed the combustion regime from diffusion-limited to convection-limited, which led to an overpredicted burning temperature. Reactive fingering combustion was analysed to understand the potential risks in some experimental measurements. The findings provide a better understanding of coke combustion and can help engineers design sustainable combustion methods. The developed image-based model allows other types of multiscale and nonlinear reactive transport to be simulated.


In this study, the mutation frequencies of the p53 gene in rat hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) induced by N‐nitroso‐2‐acetylaminofluorene (NO‐AAF) and 2‐acetylaminofluorene (AAF) were 19.23% (20 of 104) and 31.1% (33 of 106), respectively. Four noteworthy features of the mutation spectrums of the p53 gene in HCCs induced by both NO‐AAF and AAF were observed: (i) There was preferential clustering of mutations at exons 5–8 in both the NO‐AAF or AAF groups, (ii) Nearly all the mutations (98%) induced by NO‐AAF and AAF were point mutations, (iii) A high frequency of the p53 mutations were transition mutations, and the ratios of transition to transversion in the NO‐AAF and the AAF group were 13:6 and 21:12, respectively. Almost all the mutations were G→A transitions and guanosine was the major target base. (iv) The frequency and base location of p53 mutations were significantly associated with cancer cell differentiation. In poorly differentiated HCCs (58 individual tumor samples), mutations were detected in 24 of 58 samples (41.1%) and clustered mostly in exons 7 and 8 (19 of 24 samples), whereas in well‐differentiated HCCs (105 individual tumor samples), the incidence of mutations was low (one of 10 in the AAF group, 17 of 95 in the NO‐AAF group), and the mutations were located in exon 5 (11 of 18). The biological significance of these different mutational spectra among p53 genes deserves further investigation. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The evolution of visual control of the hand to assist feeding by primates is uncertain but in anthropoid primates vision contributes not only to reaching for food and grasping it but also to the withdraw movement that brings food to the mouth. The strepsirrhines are a relatively large monophyletic group of Euarchontoglires near the base of the primate cladogram that are described as using vision to reach for food, but it is not known whether they use vision to assist the withdraw movement. The present study answere this question in 22 species of captive strepsirrhines from 6 of the seven strepsirrhine families, Daubentoniidae, Cheirogaleidae, Indriidae, Lemuridae, Lorisidae and Galagidae. Animals were videorecorded as they ate their normal food provisions. Dependent measures for analyses were ground withdraw movements, bringing grasped food to the mouth, and inhand withdraw movements, brining food held in the hand to the mouth, as well as the posture and head movements associated with each type of withdraw. Frame-by-frame scores from the video record showed that there were large differences between and within strepsirrhine families in these movements. Nevertheless, for all species, the withdraw movement was mediated by somatosensation, with mouth reaching and perioral contact with food determining how food was eventually eaten. Nonvisual behavior also contributed to food grasping as many species sniffed food before or during grasping. Even amongst species that made most use of the hand for their withdraws, the insectivores Loris lydekkerianus and Galago senegalensis, and herbivores, Hapalemur simus and Eulemur flavifrons, perioral contact was used to orient food for biting. The use of somatosensation and the absence of vision in mediating getting food in strepsirrhines suggests that visual mediation of the withdraw is an anthropoid innovation.


Abstract:The Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC), formed in the early 1900s, oversaw athletic relations among most of Illinois's colleges and universities. At one point, the so-called Little Nineteen had over twenty members. In the 1930s, though, the conference fell apart, largely due to internecine conflicts over freshman eligibility. The IIAC's fracture is a case study illustrating the impact of the Great Depression on small-college athletics. In particular, it shows how private schools sought to distinguish themselves both athletically and educationally from publicly funded institutions, including teachers colleges and junior colleges. Ultimately, by forming a new conference in 1937—and by limiting competition against public institutions or nonaccredited colleges—these small, private "liberal arts colleges" helped conceptualize a distinctive type of small-time intercollegiate athletics that rejected big-time athletic commercialization.


Human (occupant) behavior has been a topic of active research in the study of architecture and energy. To integrate the work of architectural design with techniques of building performance simulation in the presence of responsive human behavior, this study proposes a computational framework that can visualize and evaluate space occupancy, energy use, and generative envelope design given a space outline. A design simulation platform based on the visual programming language (VPL) of Rhino Grasshopper (GH) and Python is presented so that users (architects) can monitor real-time occupant response to space morphology, environmental building operation, and the formal optimization of three-dimensional (3D) building space. For dynamic co-simulation, the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed, Energy Plus, and Radiance were interfaced, and the agent-based model (ABM) approach and Gaussian process (GP) were applied to represent agents' self-learning adaptation, feedback, and impact on room temperature and illuminance. Hypothetical behavior scenarios of virtual agents with experimental building geometry were produced to validate the framework and its effectiveness in supporting dynamic simulation. The study's findings show that building energy and temperature largely depend on ABMs and geometry configuration, which demonstrates the importance of coupled simulation in design decision-making.


In recent years, academic work around the application of teaching gamification techniques, has undergone a growing evolution, being the common denominator of all of them, the use of advanced technology for its implementation. However, it is considered that the key to the implementation of a gamified system is not in the use of technology itself, but in the procedure of design and elaboration of it, being able to opt for non-technological alternatives when circumstances require it. Although there are works that include the steps to be followed to implement gamification in the classroom, those found show specific experiences that are difficult to extrapolate to areas of knowledge other than those tested. Thus, it is considered to be useful for teaching community, have a starting point that can guide you on the steps to follow and how to analyze them to correctly develop a gamified plan. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose the protocol to follow to gamify a subject, aimed at helping students acquire and reinforce the competences required by the European Higher Education Area. Each step of the process is analyzed and a series of non-technological activities are provided that can be effective in achieving the learning objective. Originality underlies the consideration that it is not essential to use video games, simulators or mobile applications for a gamified system to succeed. It contributes, in this way, with a rigorous framework that can be used as a reference by the educational community in its gamified processes.


Background: The urea cycle is the central pathway involved in the detoxification of free ammonia species in mammals, which takes place at two sites: the liver and the kidney. Renal cell carcinoma is the most common type of kidney malignancy and the main subtype, clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), makes up 75% of these cancers. ccRCC is distinguished by both radio- and chemo-resistance and treatment options for this disease are limited. Argininosuccinate synthase 1 (ASS1) and arginase II (ARG2) are two key enzymes in the urea cycle, the former being responsible for the synthesis of arginine while the latter hydrolyzes arginine to ornithine in the last step of the cycle. We have shown that in vitro, both normal kidney and ccRCC cell lines require exogenous arginine for growth and this suggests that increased arginine availability contributes to the pathogenesis of ccRCC. In this study, we measured expression changes of ASS1 and ARG2, as well as other enzymes involved in arginine metabolism, in ccRCC versus normal kidney tissue from patient samples to determine the metabolic advantages of an altered urea cycle. Our findings highlight the applicability of targeting cancer metabolism of a specific nutrient to reduce the proliferative capacity of ccRCC tumors.

Methods: This study utilized both normal kidney and ccRCC cell lines to analyze the expression levels of four enzymes involved in arginine metabolism and the urea cycle. These results were confirmed in matched normal and ccRCC primary patient samples obtained from the Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN, n=26) using both qPCR analysis for mRNA and immunohistochemistry for the levels of protein in these tissues. Moreover, our results were validated on a large-scale analysis of gene expression in ccRCC tumors via bioinformatic analysis of data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA, n=480). We are currently manipulating the levels of ARG2 and ASS1 in normal kidney and ccRCC cell lines to elucidate metabolic advantages in proliferation and colony formation. Furthermore, we are working toward metabolomic analysis of primary patient samples of ccRCC tissue to discover additional altered metabolites of the urea cycle in this setting.

Results: The expression levels of ASS1 and ARG2 are decreased 4-fold and 7-fold, respectively, based on analysis of ccRCC TCGA data. Additionally, analysis of matched tissue obtained from the CHTN mirrors this data, with the majority of ccRCC samples (>85%) under-expressing at least one of these enzymes. Moreover, the arginine metabolizing enzyme glycine amidinotransferase is 3-fold under-expressed and the arginine transporter CAT-1 is 10-fold over-expressed in ccRCC. Cumulatively, these data point to an altered metabolism of arginine in ccRCC, with the modified enzyme levels leading to an increased level of arginine to support growth and biosynthesis of ccRCC tumors.

Conclusion: Our data demonstrate that arginine metabolism is altered in ccRCC tumors versus normal kidney tissue and that this increased arginine availability likely enables sustained proliferation of the tumor tissue. This study highlights the applicability of targeting cancer metabolism of a specific amino acid, arginine, as a possible therapeutic intervention for ccRCC.

Citation Format: Joshua Ochocki, Nan Lin, Bo Qiu, M. Celeste Simon. Metabolic advantages of urea cycle misregulation in renal cell carcinoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Third AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Basic Cancer Research; Sep 18-22, 2013; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(19 Suppl):Abstract nr C32.


This article challenges a popular argument in authoritarian politics that informal institutions often undermine formal institutions. We show that the state bureaucracy is able to penetrate layers of connections built by firms that aim at capturing the state and seeking rents from an imperfect market. We test this by compiling and analyzing a large, original, and panel dataset of 150 Chinese listed real estate firms from 2003 to 2012 matched with 90 real estate policies. Event studies show that political connections are largely ineffective in resisting the impact of the policies implemented by high-authority state organizations. Policies enforced by strong state bureaucracies produced a significant cumulative abnormal return of -0.016% around the 5 days of the announcement of the policy. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we find a universal effect of strong state policies on firm values regardless of political connectedness.


Power grid verification has become an indispensable step to guarantee a functional and robust chip design. Vectorless power grid verification methods, by solving linear programming (LP) problems under current constraints, enable worst-case voltage drop predictions at an early stage of design when the specific waveforms of current drains are unknown. In this paper, a novel power grid verification algorithm based on hierarchical constraints is proposed. By introducing novel power constraints, the proposed algorithm generates more realistic current patterns and provides less pessimistic voltage drop predictions. The model order reduction-based coefficient computation algorithm reduces the complexity of formulating the LP problems from being proportional to steps to being independent of steps. Utilizing the special hierarchical constraint structure, the submodular polyhedron greedy algorithm dramatically reduces the complexity of solving the LP problems from over O(km3) to roughly O(kmlogkm), where km is the number of variables. Numerical results have shown that the proposed algorithm provides less pessimistic voltage drop prediction while at the same time achieves dramatic speedup.


Argon plasma jet is generated at atmospheric pressure under monopolar pulsed conditions. Images demonstrating luminous activity due to excited gaseous species are presented in combination with voltage-current waveforms in nanosecond scale. The jet is physically altered (length, diameter, and luminosity) as a function of two electrical parameters, i.e., the amplitude and frequency of the high voltage applied. Temperature measurements indicate the potential use of this system to diverse surface treatments, laying from biomedical applications at room temperature to inert material modification where thermal effect is a prerequisite.


Saltpans with different management levels were studied for macroinvertebrate community and abiotic variables like water depth, water conductivity, and organic matter in sediments. Significant variation was observed between saltpans, between ponds within saltpans, and between periods within ponds for abundance, and also between saltpans for biomass. Environmental variables varied significantly between saltpans and between ponds. Significant positive correlations occurred between depth and total abundance, between depth and Corixidae abundance, and also between organic matter in sediments and diversity. Significant negative correlations were observed between depth and diversity and between organic matter in sediments and total abundance. Multidimensional Scaling and Canonical Correspondence Analysis confirmed results of analysis of variance and correlations. Invertebrate communities were numerically dominant as also revealed by ABC method. Abandoned saltpan ponds show the largest changes in water depth, with communities dominated by some opportunist species, varying within short temporal scales, which is typical from highly disturbed systems.


Hemangiopericytoma (HPC) is an unusual vascular tumor derived from pericytes, first described in 1942 by Stout and Murray1,2. These cells can be found surrounding all capillaries and are thought to be immature smooth muscle derived from mesenchyme. Pericytes add structural support to the capillaries and have a contractile capability playing a role in capillary blood flow regulation, modulating both flux and permeability1,3,4. Approximately 1% of all vasoformative neoplasms are HPC, with 15 to 25% presenting in the head and neck4,5. Of those occurring in the head and neck, approximately 50% involve the paranasal sinuses and nasal cavity. Other sites of predilection are the soft tissues of the scalp, face, and neck, parotid gland, orbit and rarely the salivary glands and larynx. There is no gender predilection and the age of incidence is usually between 50 to 70 years in 90% of cases with only 10% occurring in children. Since HPC is derived from capillary pericytes of Zimmerman`s, its theoretical site of origin can be virtually anywhere in the body. Indeed, HPC has been reported in a wide variety of tissues outside the head and neck, most frequently occurring in skeletal muscle and the retroperitoneum4, 6. The site of lesion has a significant bearing on clinical behavior and perhaps on histological character as well. Keywords: mesenchyme, retroperitoneum, Zimmerman


Cystoscopy in the female, especially when the irrigation of the kidneys, the dilation of ureteral constrictions, injections in pyelography, or the study of urine specimens is undertaken, necessitates a technic that requires the services of a trained assistant or nurse, and this fact limits the use of the cystoscope to one who is surrounded by such assistants. There can be no doubt that many an enthusiast in this work is forced to disregard his desires, owing to the fact that cystoscopy and treatment of the female kidney and ureteral tract cannot be properly and successfully carried out without competent assistance. With the technic that I employ, and with a trained assistant nurse, it is often found necessary for the assistant to hold the cystoscope under such conditions as during the changing of catheters, in irrigations, in pyelography when the cystoscope is not removed that the catheter may be reintroduced to


Currently the debate on the role of urodynamic tests in the preoperative evaluation of female stress urinary incontinence is alight. Although urodynamic investigation (UDI) has been considered mandatory before surgery in all female patients affected by stress urinary incontinence, nowadays international guidelines are more cautious. Literature on this topic has been reviewed in order to clarify the role of UDI before surgery for "complicated" and "uncomplicated" stress urinary incontinence in female patients. We focused on if and how UDI may improve clinical outcomes and alter clinical decision making. In conclusion, we believe that in most patients (the "complicated" ones) the role of UDI has not been fully evaluated. In "uncomplicated" cases, pretreatment UDI might not improve clinical outcomes but it could give important informations (voiding dysfunction in about 10% of cases) offering a valuable guide to the surgeon and to the patient. Interestingly though, UDI could alter clinical decision making being a valuable tool in counseling our patients with the aim of cure their symptoms, never risking of worsening them or causing further discomfort.


Changes in the hepatitis C virus (HCV) viral load (VL) were assessed in a retrospective study of 50 HIV/HCV-coinfected patients who initiated highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Most patients responded to HAART [during the first 6 months, plasma HIV VL fell by a mean 1.39 log10, becoming undetectable (<400 copies/ml) in 22% and CD4+ T cells increased by a mean of 100 cells/μl], but surprisingly, 27 (54%) showed some rise and 25 (50%) showed a significant increase in the HCV VL. This figure was considered to be a minimum estimate. A majority of the patients showed an increase of less than 1 log10 that was associated with a rapid decrease in the HIV VL, whereas an increase in the HCV VL of greater than 1 log10, noted in eight patients, was associated with a baseline CD4+ cell count of less than 200 cells/μl. The increase in the HCV VL was not associated with hepatitis as determined by raised alanine transferase.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the compensation amount as well as the mode through which compensations are paid on farmers' satisfaction with the compensation received for farmland expropriation in China.

Design/methodology/approach
Using rural household survey data collected among 450 households in three provinces, located in eastern, central and western China, this paper estimates the impacts of compensation payments, compensation modes, household characteristics and other control variables on farmers' satisfaction applying an ordinal probit model.

Findings
The major findings are: farmers' satisfaction with the compensation depends not only on the size of the compensation but also on the gap between the compensation and the market value of the expropriated land; and the compensation amount positively affects farmers' satisfaction when the social security compensation mode is used, but does not significantly affect farmers' satisfaction when other modes are used.

Originality/value
First, it contributes to the literature on farmland expropriation by providing empirical evidence of the direct impact of the compensation amount and other factors on the degree of farmers' satisfaction with farmland compensations. Second, potential interactions between compensation amount and compensation mode are taken into account in estimating factors affecting farmers' satisfaction.


The outbreak of COVID-19 is a public health emergency, which not only threatens people′s physical health, but also brings psychological impact to the public, causing corresponding psychological and behavioral problems. On January 26, 2020, the government issued the Guiding Principles of Emergent Psychological Crisis Intervention in the COVID-19. This paper summarizes the general contents of the guiding principles from five aspects: who provides (psychological crisis intervention service), provides to whom, what to provide, how to provide and precautions, and puts forward some thoughts to help the mental health workers who provide relevant services better understanding and implementing the guiding principles.

Key words:
COVID-19; Crisis intervention; Public health emergency


BACKGROUND
Staphylococcus aureus is a common pathogen causing hospital acquired infections (HAIs) in neonates. In this study, the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) colonization and infections in a 30-bed, level III university-affiliated neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) located in a children's hospital was retrospectively investigated for the period 2014-2018.

METHODS
Genes encoding Panton-Valentine Leukocidin (lukS/lukF-PV, PVL), toxic shock syndrome toxin (tst), exfoliative toxins (eta, etb), and the resistance genes mecA, mecC and fusB, were defined in 46 representative strains by PCRs. Relatedness of strains was assessed by MLST.

RESULTS
Of 1538 neonates, 77 (5%) had a positive culture for MRSA (23/77 were NICU-acquired and 54/77 imported cases). Four MRSA bacteremias occurred. Most isolates were multi-resistant. One major clone was identified, ST225, among 40 tested neonatal strains (23/40, 58%). Of these, 14/23 were imported from the same maternity hospital (MH). Another clone, ST217, was predominant (4/6) among health care workers (HCWs), found colonized. Four isolates classified as ST80 were PVL-positive. Additional four strains carried tst (10%), belonging to ST30 and ST225 (two strains each), and two etb. The implicated MH was notified for the problem, decolonization treatment was successfully performed in HCWs and neonates. Strengthening of infection control measures with emphasis on hand hygiene was applied.

CONCLUSIONS
Uncovering reservoirs for on-going MRSA transmission in NICUs has proved challenging. Well known nosocomial MRSA clones are being constantly introduced and transmitted via MHs and HCWs. Effective infection prevention and control requires constant vigilance.


Honeycomb panel has a constructive advantage because it is constructed with a honeycomb core, so it has relatively higher strength ratio to weight. Therefore honeycomb panel has been used as the light weight panels in the high-speed railway technology and high-speed ship like as cruise yachts. Also it has been used in the aircraft and aerospace industry as a structural panel because light weight structure is indispensible in that field of industry. Recently, the honeycomb panel is embossed in the viewpoints of high oil prices as the lightweight panel of the transport machine, however the sound insulation capacity of the honeycomb panel is poorer than those of uniform and another sandwich panels. In this paper a method to improving the sound absorption coefficient of a honeycomb panel is studied by using the Helmholtz resonator. The sound absorption coefficients for some kinds of honeycomb cores are demonstrated by the normal incident absorption coefficient method.


Effective medium theory is a powerful tool to solve various problems for achieving multifarious functionalities and applications. In this article, we present a concise empirical formula about effective permittivity of checkboard structures for different directions. To verify our empirical formula, we perform simulations of checkboard periodic structures in squares, rectangles, and sectors in two dimensions. Our results show that the formula is valid in a large range of parameters. This work provides a new way to understand and design composite materials, which might lead to further optical applications in transformation optics.


A BEC interacting with an optical field via a feedback mirror can be a realisation of the quantum Hamiltonian Mean Field (HMF) model, a paradigmatic model of long-range interactions in quantum systems. We demonstrate that the self-structuring instability displayed by an initially uniform BEC can evolve as predicted by the quantum HMF model, displaying quasiperiodic"chevron"dynamics for strong driving. For weakly driven self-structuring, the BEC and optical field behave as a two-state quantum system, regularly oscillating between a spatially uniform state and a spatially periodic state. It also predicts the width of stable optomechanical droplets and the dependence of droplet width on optical pump intensity. The results presented suggest that optical diffraction-mediated interactions between atoms in a BEC may be a route to experimental realisation of quantum HMF dynamics and a useful analogue for studying quantum systems involving long-range interactions.


Nance-Horan syndrome (NHS) is a rare X-linked developmental disorder caused mainly by loss of function variants in the NHS gene. NHS is characterized by congenital cataracts, dental anomalies, and distinctive facial features, and a proportion of the affected individuals also present intellectual disability and congenital cardiopathies. Despite identification of at least 40 distinct hemizygous variants leading to NHS, genotype-phenotype correlations remain largely elusive. In this study, we describe a Sicilian family affected with congenital cataracts and dental anomalies and diagnosed with NHS by whole-exome sequencing (WES). The affected boy from this family presented a late regression of cognitive, motor, language, and adaptive skills, as well as broad behavioral anomalies. Furthermore, brain imaging showed corpus callosum anomalies and periventricular leukoencephalopathy. We expand the phenotypic and mutational NHS spectrum and review potential disease mechanisms underlying the central neurological anomalies and the potential neurodevelopmental features associated with NHS.


Bartonella henselae is an etiologic agent of cat-scratch disease and, in immunocompromised patients, of bacillary angiomatosis and other severe syndromes. Cat-scratch disease usually presents as lymphadenopathy, which resolves spontaneously within 2-4 months. The utility of antibiotic therapy remains controversial. In Tyrol four cases of human cat-scratch disease were diagnosed in children in 1994, yielding a prevalence of 0.7/100,000 per year. A 3-year-old boy had lymphadenitis coli since one year despite antituberculosis therapy which was initiated because of the histopathological picture and a positive tuberculin reaction (despite negative mycobacteria-cultures and -PCR). Two girls, age 9 and 13 years, had lymphadenitis at upper or lower extremities after cat-scratches from kittens. A 13-year-old boy presented with febrile illness and right hip pain, computer tomography revealed an osteolytic lesion; symptoms subsided within 3 weeks. Diagnosis of cat-scratch disease is based on cat contact, negative studies for other similar diseases, characteristic histopathologic features (if available), and results of an indirect immunofluorescence test (antigen: Houston-1 isolate, ATCC 49882). We believe that the availability of this serological test will increase the number of diagnosed cases of human Bartonella henselae infections.


We study the impact of fiber-optic loss due to realistic cable deployment and optical connector loss variation and distance between the transmitter antennas in a radio-over-fiber transmission system with 2 × 2 MIMO. We evaluate an upper bound on the system capacity based on measured values of the error vector magnitude and the condition number of the channel matrix. For this, assuming a Rayleigh fading environment, we derive conditional probability density functions of eigenvalues of a 2 × 2 Wishart matrix. We compare the obtained results with another approach, which is based on IEEE 802.11 relations between the allowed relative constellation error and the achievable data rate for an individual stream. Trends predicted by both models agree very well. Our analysis shows that (i) about 1 meter spatial separation of fiber-fed transmitter antennas is optimum and results in the maximized system performance and (ii) the maximum tolerable optical power imbalance in two fiber optic links is about 6 dB.


Tool change is one among the most frequently performed machining processes, and if there is improper percussion as the tool's position is changed, the spindle bearing can be damaged. A spindle malfunction can cause problems, such as a knife being dropped or bias in a machined hole. The measures currently taken to avoid such issues, which arose from the available machine tools, only involve determining whether the clapping knife's state is correct using a spindle and the air adhesion method, which is also used to satisfy the high precision required from mechanical components. Therefore, it cannot be used with any type of machine tool; in addition, improper tapping of the spindle during an automatic tool change cannot be detected. Therefore, this study proposes a new type of diagnostic framework that combines cloud computing and vibration sensors, among of which, tool change is automatically diagnosed using an architecture to identify abnormalities and thereby enhances the reliability and productivity of the machine and equipment.


At 9:46:23 pm Pacific Time on March 10, 2011 (05:46:23 UTC on March 11), a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred 129 km (80 miles) off the coast of Sendai, a city in Honshu, Japan. The Tōhoku earthquake triggered a catastrophic tsunami that produced an inundation wave height as high as 30 m that propagated throughout the entire Pacific Ocean basin. Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys positioned around the Pacific Ocean provided real-time data of the impending tsunami as it travelled across the ocean towards the U.S. West Coast. Because of this warning, coastal communities in Washington and Oregon were on guard by the time the tsunami hit the West Coast almost 9 hours after the earthquake occurred. Harbors along the Oregon coast, including Depoe Bay, Coos Bay, and Brookings, and in Crescent City, California reported damage to docks and boats in the harbor. In the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), the regional association that manages and operates the Regional Coastal Ocean Observing System (RCOOS) for this area of the country as part of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) enterprise, provided extensive information to the public about the timing, severity, and government agency recommended actions to take as a result of this event. These included Tsunami Evacuation Zones for the Oregon Coast, providing users of the NANOOS Visualization System with easy access to near real-time current, water height, and other information for a wide variety of U.S. IOOS assets, and posting NANOOS Facebook updates regarding the tsunami passage. We discuss the implications of the use of standard (web-based) means of disseminating coastal hazard mitigation information and discuss possible opportunities that social networking technologies present for providing such information as our society increasingly depends on mobile-technologies and applications.


I may underrate the difficulty of my task, but it seems to me very simple. Physicians can improve the Pharmacopeia by taking a more direct and critical interest in it. I have had occasion lately in a paper read before the Philadelphia County Medical Society to present some facts concerning the change of control in the Pharmacopeia and to suggest radical changes in the method of revision. That paper has been deemed of sufficient importance by several pharmaceutic journals to be published in full. It is not necessary to present in any detail the history of the nine issues of the Pharmacopeia. The important data are given in the book itself. The first issue (1820) was under exclusive medical control. No college of pharmacy then existed in this country, and advice was but indirectly received from pharmacists. Notwith-standing the fact that colleges of pharmacy were established before the first revision


Cofactor-less oxygenases perform challenging catalytic reactions between singlet co-substrates and triplet oxygen, in spite of apparently violating the spin-conservation rule. In 1-H-3-hydroxy-4-oxoquinaldine-2,4-dioxygenase, the active site has been suggested by quantum chemical computations to fine tune triplet oxygen reactivity, allowing it to interact rapidly with its singlet substrate without the need for spin inversion, and in urate oxidase the reaction is thought to proceed through electron transfer from the deprotonated substrate to an aminoacid sidechain, which then feeds the electron to the oxygen molecule. In this work, we perform additional quantum chemical computations on these two systems to elucidate several intriguing features unaddressed by previous workers. These computations establish that in both enzymes the reaction proceeds through direct electron transfer from co-substrate to O2 followed by radical recombination, instead of minimum-energy crossing points between singlet and triplet potential energy surfaces without formal electron transfer. The active site does not affect the reactivity of oxygen directly but is crucial for the generation of the deprotonated form of the co-substrates, which have redox potentials far below those of their protonated forms and therefore may transfer electrons to oxygen without sizeable thermodynamic barriers. This mechanism seems to be shared by most cofactor-less oxidases studied so far.


Abstract Background: There is currently very little data available on the consistency of quantitative and qualitative faecal immunochemical test (FIT) for colorectal cancer screening. Methods: A representative random population (n=1889, 40–74 year olds) in Jiashan, China was invited for FIT screening in 2012. Faecal samples were collected by a single specimen collection device and simultaneously tested by a quantitative FIT (OC-SENSOR, OC) and two qualitative FITs (FIT A and FIT B with intrinsic positive haemoglobin cut-off concentrations of 20 μg Hb/g faeces and 40 μg Hb/g faeces, respectively). The observational criteria for a positive result of the qualitative FIT were set according to the density of the colour appearing in the test strip. The results produced by the quantitative and qualitative FIT for each sample were compared. κ coefficient was used to measure consistency. Results: A total of 1368 (72.4%) individuals returned faecal samples. Both FIT A and FIT B precisely identified all faecal samples with haemoglobin concentration above 100 μg Hb/g faeces, but the overall consistency was poor for OC & FIT A (κ=0.32, 95% CI 0.20–0.44) and was moderate for OC & FIT B (κ=0.74, 95% CI 0.64–0.85). A more favourable consistency (κ=0.64, 95% CI 0.57–0.72) was achieved when a different positive criterion was employed for FIT A. Conclusions: The diagnostic inconsistency between quantitative and qualitative FITs mainly exists in the faecal samples with low haemoglobin concentrations. Refining the criterion for a positive result may be a feasible way to improve the accuracy of qualitative FIT.


Background: Several cardiovascular, neurological and other diseases are associated with coenzyme Q10( CoQ) deficiency. The objective is to evaluate possible benefits of ubiquinone supplementation in cardiovascular diseases and degenerative diseases of the brain. Methods: An internet search in PubMed, Vitasearch, In Circulation. Net, till 2008, discussions with colleagues, own experiences. Results: Ubiquinone (Coenzyme Q10 ) deficiency has been observed in several cardiovascular and neurological diseases. CoQ10 has strong influence on lipid metabolism, oxidation of blood lipids, vascular inflammation and on the cell mem- branes of cardiac and arterial cells and neurons. These pathogenetic mechanisms seem to be important in patients with neurological and cardiac disease as well as in brain-heart connection. Its supplementation has several beneficial effects in- cluding the stabilisation of atherosclerotic plaque and decreasing the size of myoacardial infarction and the protection of neurons. Antioxidant properties of CoQ10 are responsible for the prevention of many drug side effects. Several studies have suggested the beneficial effect of CoQ10 in neuro-cardiovascular diseases, that will require further confirmation. Adverse effects such as nausea and vomiting may be reduced by using highly bio-available brands, that reduce the oral dosage of COQ. Conclusions: CoQ10 is still in the investigational stages and the list of possible indications related to brain and heart dis- eases and their linkage, appears to be quite extensive. There is still the need for a number of large, double blind multicen- ter, randomized, controlled clinical trials, in order to confirm the possible beneficial effects of CoQ10 supplementation in different neurocardiological conditions.


Reactions of NO in the Gaseous Phase (G. Dorthe). Gas Phase Reactions of Nitrogen Dioxide (B. Weiner & K. Barnhard). Nitrogen Dioxide Reactivity Toward Organic Donors in the Liquid Phase (E. Bosch & J. Kochi). Reactions of NO2 in Argon Matrices (M. Nakata). Nitrogen Dioxide in Biology: Correlating Chemical Kinetics with Biological Effects (P. Wardman). Toxicity of Nitrogen Oxides (N. Elsayed). Experimental Study of the Nitrate Radical (R. Wayne). Reactions of NO3 Radicals in the Gas Phase (G. LeBras). Reactions of NO3-Radicals in Aqueous Solution (H. Hermann & R. Zellner). Reactions of NO3 Radicals in Organic Solvents (O. Ito). NOx in the Atmosphere (C. Cantrell). NO2 and NO3 Radicals in the Radiolysis of Nitric Acid Solutions (Y. Katsumura). NH Radical Reactions (W. Hack). Reactions of NH2 in the Gas Phase (A. Mebel, et al.). The NH2 Radical in Aqueous Solutions (Z. Alfassi, et al.). Reactions of NCO and NCS Radicals (J. Hershberger). SCN and OCN Radicals in Aqueous Solutions (Z. Alfassi). Imidyl Radicals (J. Lind & G. Merenyi). Indolyl Radicals (L. Candeias). Anilinyl Radicals (G. Merenyi & J. Lind). Chemistry of Nitroarene and Aromatic N-oxide Radicals (P. Wardman). Homolytic Addition Reactions of Dialkylaminyl Radicals (B. Maxwell & J. Tsanaktsidis). Thermochemistry of N-Centered Radicals (D. Armstrong). Index.


Water-level changes at different monitoring stations are observed during the Wenchuan earthquake ( M S 8.0) in the Chinese mainland. In the intermediate field, we observed coseismic water-level changes of different amplitude in wells with similar epicentral distances. In order to study the mechanism of those coseismic water-level changes, we calculated the static strain change with the Okada dislocation model (Okada, 1992; Lin and Stein, 2004; Toda et al. , 2005). By comparing the calculated coseismic water-level change based on the poroelastic theory with the observed water-level change, we can judge whether the poroelastic theory can be applied to the aquifer of the well. From our research, we find the poroelastic theory can be applied to the area with epicentral distance≲1.5 fault rupture length. Bearing this in mind, we find that when the water-level change of those wells can be explained by the poroelastic theory and that the difference of the water-level change in wells with similar epicentral distances is mostly related to the difference of Skempton's coefficient B . Otherwise, the water-level change may be induced by the transition of the seismic waves because it is usually larger than the one induced by the undrained dilatation and consolidation, and changes more gradually.


The purpose of this study was to examine whether L-carnitine and its precursor L-lysine could have any beneficial effect in racing pigeons, and if so, whether this effect is influenced by the extent of exercise (short-distance flight: 135 km vs. long-distance flight: 580 km). Birds were divided into seven groups of animals. Group 1: negative control, no flight, no treatment, Group 2: positive control, placebo treatment before the short-distance flight, Group 3: 200 mg/day L-carnitine treatment before the short-distance flight, Group 4: 400 mg/day L-lysine treatment before the short-distance flight, Group 5: positive control, placebo treatment before the long-distance flight, Group 6: 200 mg/day L-carnitine treatment before the long-distance flight, Group 7: 400 mg/day L-lysine treatment before the long-distance flight. L-carnitine, L-lysine and distilled water (placebo) were orally administered (tube feeding) for 7 days before flight. Just after returning home, blood samples were collected and analyzed for glucose, fructosamine, cholesterol, triglycerides and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances. Pigeons were euthanized using carbon dioxide as an inhalation agent, and the whole body was subjected to proximate analysis. The status at arrival was referred to as a basis for comparison. Sex did not affect the measured parameters. As a result of the L-carnitine and L-lysine administrations, the body fat mobilization was higher during the 580 km flight, whereas no changes were noted during the 135 km flight. The main changes in the measured blood parameters were caused by the extent of exercise. This experiment considered the extent of exercise as a factor potentially modulating L-carnitine supplementation effects. In conclusion, flight distance affected several parameters but the supplements of L-carnitine and L-lysine were not effective in the tested situations.


The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredits U.S. institutions that offer graduate medical education, including that in obstetrics and gynecology. The ACGME's 23 Residency Review Committees (RRCs) monitor these programs. The RRC for obstetrics and gynecology has identified 18 common problems in obstetrics-gynecology residency programs. Upon identifying one or more of these problems in an obstetrics-gynecology residency program, the RRC can withdraw accreditation or grant probation or continued probation.


Nutrient management of plants is the most practical and easiest way of combating salt stress. The effect of silicon (Si) nutrition on salt stress symptoms was investigated in hydroponically grown rice seedlings. Seeds from Khazar (salt sensitive) and Zayandehrood (salt tolerant) cultivars of rice were exposed to 0 and 100 mM NaCl in the absence and presence of silicon (3 mM) using sodium silicate. Plant growth parameters, sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) concentrations, Si accumulation, chlorophyll content and efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm) were determined in 25 days old seedlings exposed to salinity for 96 h. The results showed that salt stress generally inhibited seedling growth and reduced photosynthesis efficiency. However, the addition of Si significantly decreased shoot Na+ concentration, but increased Si uptake. Additionally, in salinized plants, the addition of Si increased Fv/Fm in Khazar cultivar. It could be concluded that Na+ concentration, Si accumulation and Fv/ Fm ratio play key role in salinity stress tolerance. Application of Si, however, alleviated to some extent detrimental effects of salinity stress by improving growth and physiological performance of both cultivars under saline conditions.


QCR8, the gene encoding the 11-kDa subunit of ubiquinol-cytochrome-c oxidoreductase of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been resequenced in the course of a search for mutants disturbed in subunit function. Resequencing shows that the previously published sequence [Maarse A.C. & Grivell L.A. (1987) Eur. J. Biochem 155, 419-425] lacks a C at position 185 of the coding sequence. As a result of this extra nucleotide, the reading frame now contains 285 base pairs and it codes for a protein of 94 amino acids with a calculated molecular mass of 11.0 kDa. Despite the altered C-terminus, similarity to the corresponding beef heart subunit is not significantly altered. One mutant (LTN1), arising from hydroxylamine mutagenesis, has been studied in detail: Assembly of the enzyme appears to be normal, as judged from the levels of the subunits observed in Western blots, while spectral analysis showed that only holo-cytochrome b was lowered to 70% of that of the wildtype. Measurement of the specific activity and calculation of the turnover number of the enzyme showed that these were 45% and 56% of that of the wild type, respectively. Further analysis of the mutant showed that the affinity for the inhibitor myxothiazol was decreased, that the 11-kDa subunit stabilises the enzyme once assembly has occurred, and that the reduction of cytochrome b via the Qout site is impaired. Sequence analysis showed that this mutant carries a deletion of 12 nucleotides at position 206-217 of the coding sequence, resulting in the replacement of residues 69-73 (WWKNG) by a cysteine. These results are discussed in terms of the 11-kDa subunit contributing to the conformation of the Qout binding domain.


Background: Osteopontin (OPN) is a bone matrix derivative, whose levels reflect active lesions of aggravated periodontal disease accompanied by alveolar bone resorption. OPN is also a component of human atherosclerotic plaque, suggesting a role of OPN in cardiovascular diseases. The present study was conducted to assess and compare plasma OPN levels in subjects with healthy periodontium and generalized chronic periodontitis and to evaluate the effect of scaling and root planing on Plasma OPN levels of generalized chronic periodontitis subjects. Materials and Methods: 40 gender matched subjects were divided into two equal groups, Group I- Healthy and Group II- Generalized chronic periodontitis, based on the Periodontal Disease Index. Blood samples were collected from the subjects at the time of clinical examination (Group I, II) and two months after Scaling and Root planning of Group II. Plasma OPN level was determined using a OPN Enzyme Immunometric Assay Kit (Quantikine). Results: The mean value of plasma OPN levels in subjects with generalized chronic periodontitis was higher (153.08 ng/ml) as compared to the subjects with Healthy periodontium (55.09 ng/ml). After treatment of generalized chronic periodontitis group, the level of plasma OPN decreased to 91.53 ng/ml. Conclusion: The findings from the study suggest that Plasma OPN levels were highest in plasma from sites with periodontal destruction; however, scaling and root planing resulted in the reduction of OPN levels.


This investigation is aimed at evaluating the polyphenol profile, antioxidant, α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibitory and the hypoglycemic activities of Acalypha hispida leaf extract in vivo. Powdered Acalypha hispida leaves were macerated with 70 and 96 % ethanol and decocted in distilled water. The filtrates were evaporated to obtain dry extracts. The extracts were found to have a polyphenol profile (ultraperformance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight) and to exhibit antioxidant activity (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibition (spectrophotometer) in vitro and a hypoglycemic effect in vivo. This study revealed that the number of polyphenol subclasses of the 96 % ethanol extract was greater than that of the other extracts. The 70 and 96 % ethanol and aqueous extracts exhibited strong antioxidant activity (IC50<10 µg/ml). The 96 % ethanol extract showed very high inhibition of α-glucosidase and α-amylase activities. A hypoglycemic assay of the 96 % ethanol extract at 300 mg/kg dose exhibited a significant hypoglycemic activity in experimental rats. The present results suggested that the ethanol extract of Acalpha hispida leaves could be an effective hyperglycemic agent acting through inhibiting α-glucosidase and α-amylase.


While often assumed a gold standard, effective human evaluation of text generation remains an important, open area for research.We revisit this problem with a focus on producing consistent evaluations that are reproducible—over time and across different populations. We study this goal in different stages of the human evaluation pipeline. In particular, we consider design choices for the annotation interface used to elicit human judgments and their impact on reproducibility. Furthermore, we develop an automated mechanism for maintaining annotator quality via a probabilistic model that detects and excludes noisy annotators. Putting these lessons together, we introduce GENIE: a system for running standardized human evaluations across different generation tasks.We instantiate GENIE with datasets representing four core challenges in text generation: machine translation, summarization, commonsense reasoning, and machine comprehension.For each task, GENIE offers a leaderboard that automatically crowdsources annotations for submissions, evaluating them along axes such as correctness, conciseness, and fluency.We have made the GENIE leaderboards publicly available, and have already ranked 50 submissions from 10 different research groups. We hope GENIE encourages further progress toward effective, standardized evaluations for text generation.


This study is a contribution in comprehending the role of binarity upon late stages of stellar evolution. We determine the binary status of six Galactic RV Tauri stars, namely DY Ori, EP Lyr, HP Lyr, IRAS 17038-4815, IRAS 09144-4933 and TW Cam, which are surrounded by a dusty disc. We also place them on the HR diagram, thereby establishing their evolutionary nature. All the six Galactic RV Tauri stars included in this study are binaries with orbital periods ranging between $\sim$ 650 and 1700 days and with eccentricities between 0.2 and 0.6. The mass functions range between 0.08 to 0.55 M$_\odot$ which points to an unevolved low mass companion. In the photometric time series we detect a long-term variation on the time-scale of the orbital period for IRAS 17038-4815, IRAS 09144-4933 and TW Cam. Our derived stellar luminosities obtained from a calibrated PLC relation indicates that all except DY Ori and EP Lyr, are post-AGB stars. DY Ori and EP Lyr are likely examples of the recently discovered dusty post-RGB stars. The orbital parameters strongly suggest that the evolution of these stars was interrupted by a strong phase of binary interaction during or even prior to the AGB. The observed eccentricities and long orbital periods among these stars provides a challenge to the standard theory of binary evolution.


In the Northeast Atlantic fishery for roundnose grenadier Coryphaenoides rupestris, discards account for about 30% of the catch in weight. Data on discards are scarce; however, length distributions and discard rates appear to be relatively stable from year to year. In contrast, landings data available since 1990 show that the average pre-anal fin length has decreased from 20.7 cm in 1990 to 15.2 cm in 2008, resulting in a 58% reduction of the mean individual weight (850 g in 2008) and an increasing occurrence of overlapping class sizes between landings and discards in recent years. For stock assessment, the method of separable virtual population analysis (SVPA) was used. However, because of the lack of discard data for many of the years covered by the study, the catch data used as input to the assessment model had to be reconstructed from the available information (landings, discards, fishing effort and bathymetric distribution of the stock) using two methods. The first method relied on the assumption that the recent length distributions of discards were applicable to the earlier years (1990-1997). It resulted in unrealistic bimodal length distributions, suggesting a change in discarding practices through time, with larger individuals being discarded in the early days. The second method, based on the fishing effort and length distribution by depth strata, produced unimodal distributions for the whole period and confirmed that the average length of discarded fish was higher in the early days of the fishery. In both cases, the estimates of biomass follow parallel trends, suggesting a strong decline in the population. The available information and methods are discussed.


We renew an exchange of letters from 2008 regarding the meaning of responsible leadership, which applies to senior executives of firms as they attempt to engage in corporate social responsibility. An interesting aspect to this discussion is that, depending on one's theoretical perspective, responsible leadership can be defined in multiple, somewhat disparate ways. We use the terms strategist versus integrator to characterize the most common delineation of responsible leader orientations. While the strategist orientation implies the planning and use of corporate social responsibility initiatives for the direct targeting of return on investment, the integrator orientation involves senior leaders' use of corporate social responsibility to serve the interests of a range of corporate stakeholders. Although a divergence of opinion is expressed in our letters, we concur in our conclusion that more research is necessary to better understand these diverse orientations and their effects on organizations.


The efficacy of monoethanolamine and sodium bisulfite pulping black liquors at three concentrations of 1; 1,5 and 2% on the preservation of poplar wood from white rot (Trametes versicolor) was investigated. The wood specimens were impregnated with the black liquors using a full-cell method. The black liquors enhanced the decay resistance without any reduction in mechanical strength, and a remarkable increase was observed at higher concentrations and weight gain percentage. The performance of monoethanolamine black liquor was more pronounced, probably due to lower kappa number and higher pH. The durability class of specimens impregnated with 2% monoethanolamine and sodium bisulfite black liquors improved from 5 (not durable) to 1 (very durable), and from 5 to 3 (moderately durable), respectively. Chemical analysis showed that the presence of additional lignin in wood alters the white rot. Results of anatomical studies showed that the fibers of the control and impregnated wood specimens were collapsed after 16 weeks of incubation. Leaching tests confirmed that the fixation of black liquors in wood should be examined for further studies.


The 1-methoxy-, 1-methoxy-3-rnethyl-, and 1-methoxy-2,3-dimethylallyl cations, 2, 5, and 9, were prepared by treatment of the dimethyl acetals of acrolein, crotonaldehyde, and tiglaldehyde, respectively, with FSO3H. Each of these ions was capable of existing in various stereoisomeric forms. The thermodynamically preferred conformation of 2, 5, and 9 all had a C1—O, E configuration and 5 and 9 an E configuration about the C2—C3 bonds. Irradiation of FSO3H solutions of these ions at −70 °C using 254 nm light caused them to be converted to the other stereoisomers. Relatively efficient photoisomerism about both the C1—O and C2—C3 bonds was observed. The rates of the reverse thermal conversion of the photoproducts to 2, 5, and 9 were measured and on the basis of medium and substituent effects it was concluded that thermal isomerism about the C1—O bond takes place by an inversion process while stereomutation about the C2—C3 bond involves the addition of base to C3.


In the dynamic entrepreneurial environment of Northwest Nigeria, understanding the catalysts of entrepreneurial intentions among female undergraduates is paramount. This study examines the influence of proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness on Entrepreneurial Intentions among female undergraduates in Federal Universities. Anchored on the Entrepreneurial Orientation Theory, which accentuates proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness, a cross-sectional survey targeting final-year female students was employed. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the research hypotheses. Findings spotlights proactiveness as a potent influencer of entrepreneurial intentions, underscoring the imperative of integrating proactiveness training in academic curricula. Conversely, competitive aggressiveness did not exhibit a significant association with entrepreneurial intentions, suggesting the interplay of other predominant factors. The study concludes that fostering proactive traits in academic settings can sculpt future entrepreneurial trailblazers, while emphasizing the balance between competitiveness and collaboration. Hence, it is recommended that Federal Universities in Northwest Nigeria infuse proactiveness-driven modules to amplify entrepreneurial zeal among female undergraduates.


Background A significant correlation has been identified between lncRNA and tumor cell resistance, diagnosis, and prognosis. Although mRNA studies have dominated the field of non-coding RNA biology in tumorigenesis in recent years, long-chain non-coding RNA (the biological function) has also attracted increasing attention. However, the lncRNA associated with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains unexplored. This study used bioinformatics analysis to screen and identify LncRNA01977 as a key oncogenic driver of LUAD. Methods The experiment was divided into blank serum group (normal serum medium) and lung compound low, medium and high dose groups (5%, 10%, 15% and 15% lung compound drug serum medium, respectively). Transwell invasion ability of A549 cells was detected, and Western blot tested A549 cells SDF-1 specific receptor CXCR4, and CXCR4 gene expression in A549 cells were determined by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). In addition, western blotting, MTT proliferation test, colony formation test and apoptosis detection techniques were used to explore the mechanism of LncRNA01977's effects on LUAD. Results In vitro assays demonstrated that LncRNA01977 can significantly promote the progression of LUAD and that stromal cells in tumor microenvironment secrete chemokine CXCL12, also known as stromal derived factor-1 (SDF-1), and its receptor CXCR4 is low expressed in normal tissues and high expressed in LUAD tissues. Lung cancer patients with high expression of CXCR4 are more prone to metastasis. Conclusions LncRNA01977 can be used as a new prognostic indicator of LUAD, and can help patients to find more effective target treatment options for LUAD.


A new sustained release theophylline (CAS 58-55-9) formulation was especially designed for the elderly and children. Microcapsules of theophylline, administered as a suspension in water, proved to be a suitable dosage form for a clientele with impaired or difficult deglutition. Pharmacokinetic characteristics of 2 batches at the lower (T1) and upper (T2) in vitro dissolution specification range of this new formulation and a pellet formulation (R) as a comparator were evaluated in an open, randomised, 3-way, multiple dose, crossover study with an asymmetric dosage regimen of 400 mg and 200 mg theophylline. Smooth and safe plasma concentrations with a high and long-lasting plateau were achieved with this new formulation. Plateau times which are independent of the asymmetric dosage regimen ranged from 16.4 h (T1) to 13.8 h (T2) and could therefore cover sufficient time of the dosage interval. Maximum plasma levels of 9.6 micrograms/ml and 10.0 micrograms/ml were attained 6.6 and 6.1 h after dosing of T1 and T2, coinciding perfectly with the time of the critical morning dip at 2-6 a.m. With a nocturnal excess of 15.5% (T1) and 17.9% (T2), this circadian-tailored asymmetric dosage regimen proved to take into account the chronopathology of asthma and the chronopharmacokinetics of theophylline sustained release preparations. Bioequivalence of all 3 formulations compared with each other with regard to rate (Cmax ss) and extent (AUCss) of absorption could be established for the 2 batches at the upper and lower in vitro specification range and for both batches of the new formulation compared to the reference. All in all, the safety and efficacy of this new liquid sustained release theophylline preparation could be established. Furthermore, in vitro specifications were justified according to current EC guidelines.


Power control is an important problem in today's wireless systems, which is related to battery utilisation in the mobile units. In the present study, this problem is addressed using a distributed approach. The uplink of a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access communication (DS-CDMA) system is studied, and through a proper selection of the tracking error function, the non-linear coupling among active users is transformed to individual linear loops, where equivalent power references incorporate the information of the remaining active users in the cell. It is concluded that the uplink channel variations do not destroy the stability of these feedback structures. However, the delays in the closed-loop paths can severely affect the stability and performance of the resulting feedback schemes. A linear quadratic (LQ)-optimal power control strategy is derived and compared to a dead-beat approach. In this sense, the dead-beat algorithm shows sensitivity to the roundtrip delays estimation, but the LQ-optimal control can be adjusted to be robust to this estimation error. In fact, there is a severe compromise between robustness and performance. But through an appropriate selection of the LQ parameters, a stable closed-loop system can be always guaranteed independently on the uncertainty in the estimation of the roundtrip delay. Simulation results are presented to compare the proposed control algorithms to a standard single-step power correction approach.


Because of the possible response to main, current and global issues, a particular attention is paid to deeptech start-ups and their growth mechanisms. Nevertheless, first observations on technological start-ups point out a limited growth. As deeptech start-ups are developing by nature advanced technologies, they are intended to be deployed on different markets, revealing technological genericity. Scaling these technologies encounters unfortunately some hurdles and seems to be more complex. This article focuses on scale-up for deeptech start-ups and on means to achieve this development phase. Literature usually considers scale-up as a phase of business model replication, suggesting low learnings. On the contrary, our hypothesis is to regard scale-up as a more complex phase in deeptech start-ups development, through additional means and learnings that have to be determined. This research is based on 8 case studies from different fields: For each start-up, we study what should be learnt and what should be relevant design strategies to ensure scale-up. Main issue in scale-up phase appears to prove that most of activities will not change, that should refer to the concept of creation heritage, taking into account external interactions.


This paper deals with a popular fin-de-sieck genre which reflected and fictionalized contemporary debates on the New Woman. In reclaiming the much-berated notion of propaganda literature, I argue that in its most typical form New Woman fiction was a female-authored and feminist genre. It was produced by and for women, and proved immensely successful as a means of promoting and popularizing the main concerns of the nineteeth-century women's movement. In defining the characteristics of the genre, I discuss the marked differences between feminist and anti-feminist writing of the fin de siecle. While ant-ifeminist works tended to be aesthetically one-dimensional, feminists wrote at the intersection of a number of textual traditions, such as the social document, the political pamphlet, auto/biography, and fiction. Male writers who concerned themselves with the New Woman colonized the genre in order to attack feminism and to explore misogynist sexual fantasies; femal anti-feminist novels were riddled with contradictions which reveal the ideological inconsistencies in their writers' lives. Neither group produced definitive New Woman fiction which was a committed feminist genre.


We describe a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) model of a long (edge-emitting) gain medium based on a quantum-dot (QD) in-a-well structure under the framework of the Maxwell-Schrödinger equations. The model includes the dynamic behavior of a QD gain medium including an excited state incorporated within carrier rate equations and considers the carrier density dependence of the refractive index. The model enables us also to calculate carrier diffusion effects, which, unlike in quantum well based structures, play an important role in QD devices, since carrier capture and escape processes modify the effective carrier diffusion length. We present results of basic static and dynamic lasers properties as well as of the interaction of a QD amplifier with short, 150 fs pulses. We identify four regimes of operation for the pulse-QD interaction, two of which are important: the linear-saturated regime and the Rabi-oscillation dominated regime. The latter leads to Rabi floppings with a period shorter than the pulse itself. The model can be easily employed for any complicated process such as four-wave mixing, saturable absorption, semiconductor pulse laser sources, etc.


This paper introduces Home Appreciation Participation Notes (HAPNs), an innovative new housing finance tool. Housing is a commodity providing two distinct utilities: shelter and investment. Traditionally, buyers have had to purchase both elements in tandom. HAPNs allow buyers to purchase these elements individually. Thus, buyers can focus on purchasing housing units that best fit their shelter needs, investing in housing appreciation to whatever extent is appropriate for the needs of their investment portfolio. HAPNs are different from previous financing tools in three key ways: there is no payment burden until ownership of the home is transferred, the risk of housing price declines is shifted to investors, and the final payoff is indexed to the appreciation rates of local housing prices. With these three features, HAPNs considerably improve the affordability of homeownership while reducing the risk of default and avoiding the moral hazard associated with shared appreciation instruments.


Malaysia experienced unusual political turmoil during the general elections in 2008 (GE 2008) and 2013 (GE 2013). This study examines how such exogenous political shocks affect the stock price crash risk of politically connected firms (PCFs) compared to non-PCFs in Malaysia. The data for this study covers from the year 2002 to 2017. A balanced panel of 529 firms from 2002-2017 is used for analysis. This study finds that PCFs display a significantly lower stock price crash risk after GE 2008 and GE 2013 but not before GE 2008. However, the results are only applicable to the PCFs through the politically connected board of directors and businessmen. Further analysis reveals that increasing foreign (government) strategic free float shareholdings result in lower stock price crash risk of PCFs through the politically connected board of directors (government direct shareholdings). Our results provide several perspectives on the connection between stock price crash risk and political stability.


We study three quantities that can each be viewed as the time needed for a finite irreducible Markov chain to 'forget' where it started. One of these is the mixing time, the minimum mean length of a stopping rule that yields the stationary distribution from the worst starting state. A second is the forget time, the minimum mean length of any stopping rule that yields the same distribution from any starting state. The third is the reset time, the minimum expected time between independent samples from the stationary distribution. Our main results state that the mixing time of a chain is equal to the mixing time of the time-reversed chain, while the forget time of a chain is equal to the reset time of the reverse chain. In particular, the forget time and the reset time of a time-reversible chain are equal. Moreover, the mixing time lies between absolute constant multiples of the sum of the forget time and the reset time. We also derive an explicit formula for the forget time, in terms of the 'access times' introduced in [11]. This enables us to relate the forget and reset times to other mixing measures of the chain.


Fluctuation-induced dynamo forces are measured over a wide range of electron collisionality in the edge of TPE-1RM20 Reversed-Field Pinch (RFP). In the collisionless region the Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) dynamo alone can sustain the parallel current, while in the collisional region a new dynamo mechanism resulting from the fluctuations in the electron diamagnetic drift becomes dominant. A comprehensive picture of the RFP dynamo emerges by combining with earlier results from MST and REPUTE RFPs.


Study Design. Retrospective radiographic analysis of patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) status after instrumentation removal. Objective. To evaluate the effect of instrumentation removal in surgically corrected AIS. Summary of Background Data. Spinal instrumentation is occasionally removed for various reasons, most commonly for postoperative pain or infection, in surgically corrected AIS. The fate of instrumentation removal in adults has been previously reported with documented loss of sagittal alignment. However, to our knowledge, the long-term follow-up after instrumentation removal in AIS has not been reported. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the preoperative, pre-instrumentation removal, postoperative following instrumentation removal, and latest follow-up radiographs of all patients with a primary diagnosis of AIS who underwent instrumentation removal after posterior spinal fusion. There were 21 patients (15 females, 6 males) from 2 institutions, at an average age of 14.8 years (range 9−19), who were originally treated between 1988 and 2002. Instrumentation removal occurred at an average of 2.4 years after surgery (range 8 months to 4 years, 2 months), with an average follow-up of 5.2 years (range 2−11). Fifteen patients underwent removal secondary to pain (2 of these with undetected infection) and 6 for known infection. Evaluation included coronal proximal thoracic, main thoracic, thoracolumbar/lumbar (TL/L), and sagittal T2–T5, T5–T12, T2–T12, T10−L2, T12−S1, and sagittal balance before surgery, before instrumentation removal, at immediate post-removal evaluation, and at latest follow-up. Results. There were 12 main thoracic curves (Lenke type 1), 6 double thoracic curves (Lenke type 2), and 3 double major curves (Lenke type 3) in the series. Average proximal thoracic curve was 19.7° (range 5°−35°), the main thoracic curve 63.3 (range 42°−112°), and the TL−L curve averaged 31.4° (range 17°−53°). There was an immediate loss of approximately 4° (range 0°−8°) in the main thoracic curve and 6° (range 1°−15°) in the TL/L curve after removal, with continued settling of an additional 6° (10° total, P = 0.002) in the main thoracic curve, and 3° in the TL/L curve (9° total, P = 0.01). There was also a significant difference in the group that underwent instrumentation removal <2 years after surgery compared to >2 years (main thoracic curve 13° vs. 7°, P = 0.017; TL/L 11° vs. 7°, P = 0.036). There were no significant changes in sagittal curvature or sagittal balance in either group (P > 0.39). Conclusions. Instrumentation removal in AIS is not always a benign process because the long-term follow-up of this cohort of patients shows a "settling" effect in the coronal plane of the main thoracic and TL/L curves after instrumentation removal. Interestingly, there was no change in the sagittal plane with time. Parents and patients should be counseled for this result when instrumentation removal is contemplated, and limited removal of focally symptomatic implants should be considered.


This application note will help the designer of a high-performance, multichannel data acquisition system (DAS) configure the proper interface between industrial sensors and high-performance ADCs. The example used is a power-grid monitoring system. The article explains advantages of the MAX11040 ADC's sigma-delta architecture, and how to select the proper schematic and components to achieve optimum system performance. Introduction Many new advanced industrial applications require an interface between a high-performance data-acquisition system (DAS) and multiple sensors. When this interface requires multichannel highly accurate amplitude and phase information, these industrial applications can take advantage of very high-dynamic-range, simultaneous-sampling, multichannel ADCs like the MAX11040. This application note explains the MAX11040's sigma-delta architecture and how to select the proper schematic and components to achieve optimal system performance. The benefits of a high-speed, sigma-delta architecture Consider as an example an advanced 3-phase power-line monitoring/measurement system shown in Figure 1. These industrial applications require accurate simultaneous, multichannel measurement over a wide dynamic range up to 117dB at a sample rate up to 64ksps. To optimize system precision, signals from the sensors (e.g., the CT and PT transformers in Figure 1) should be properly "conditioned" to meet the ADCs input ranges and ensure that the DAS characteristics will enable measurements in compliance with international standards.


A DETAILED study of the laminar organization in the lateral geniculate body of primates has been presented in an earlier paper. 1 In the present paper an attempt will be made to relate the distribution of color sensitivity in the visual field to the laminar pattern in the human geniculate nucleus. The distribution of the transneuronal degeneration in the lateral geniculate body after localized retinal lesions, affecting portions of all three cell laminas related to each eye, has led to the inference 2 that the conducting unit in the optic nerve and tract from the retina is a three fiber unit. It has also been suggested 3 that the three fiber unit and the trilaminar pattern in the geniculate body may have a relation to the three fundamental colors of the Young-Helmholtz color theory. Some of the indirect evidence in favor of this thesis has been presented elsewhere. 4 It