BACKGROUND
Glucose-induced kinetics of bone marrow-derived stem cells in healthy females is presently unknown. The objectives of this study were to determine whether circulating levels of CD133(+), CD34(+) and CD133(+)CD34(+) cells increase in response to glucose load in healthy females and whether the kinetics is altered in amenorrhoeic women. The other objective of the work was to compare the endothelial differentiation potential of peripheral blood-derived endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) from healthy versus amenorrhoeic women.

METHODS
In this case-control study, 44 amenorrhoeic subjects and 36 age-matched females with no menstrual disturbance were recruited at Apollo Hospitals, a Tertiary health care center in Chennai, India. Circulating bone marrow-derived stem cells were measured by two color direct flow cytometry. Cultured progenitor cells were characterized at Day 7 and 14 for expression of endothelial markers and production of nitric oxide (NO) via immunofluoroscence.

RESULTS
The amenorrhoeic subjects were insulin resistant with homeostatic model of assessment of insulin resistance values of 3.33 ± 0.3 versus 1.75 ± 0.148 observed for controls (P< 0.0001). Among the amenorrhoeic subjects, 38 subjects had polycystic ovaries with no signs of hyperandrogenism. Fasting levels of CD133(+), CD34(+) and CD133(+)CD34(+) cells were reduced in amenorrhoeic subjects (P< 0.001). There was a 1.5 to 2-fold increase in the circulating levels of these cells in response to 75 g oral glucose challenge at 1 and 2 h post-load conditions in controls, which was significantly blunted for CD133(+) (P< 0.001) and CD133(+)CD34(+) (P< 0.001) cells in amenorrhoeic subjects. A positive correlation was observed between estrogen and fasting CD133(+) (r= 0.205, P= 0.070), CD34(+) (r= 0.249, P= 0.027) and CD133(+)CD34(+) (r= 0.217, P= 0.055) cell counts. Additionally, fasting counts for CD34(+) and CD133(+)CD34(+) cells positively correlated with FSH and inversely correlated with LH and C-peptide in the polycystic group. Cultured cells from polycystic subjects exhibited reduced adherence to fibronectin and expressed lower levels of endothelial nitric-oxide synthase and NO.

CONCLUSIONS
Oral glucose-induced increase in circulating numbers of CD133(+) and CD133(+)CD34(+) cells and endothelial differentiation potential of peripheral blood-derived EPCs is attenuated in insulin resistant amenorrhoeic subjects.


Researchers at Baskent University, Adana, and other centers in Turkey report a 3-month-old Turkish girl with Vici syndrome complicated by stridor and laryngomalacia.


The human body is a complex, multisystem organism that can manifest disease processes in a multitude of ways. Over the decades, technological advancements have allowed us to make precise diagnoses so that clinicians can thoroughly treat the underlying cause. Frequently these disease processes require surgical intervention to eliminate the progression and provide the patient with positive outcomes. When surgical intervention is required, the patient is often left with large complex wounds. Just like medical advancements, wound care modalities have made vast technological improvements. Wounds previously being treated with simple but labor-intensive treatments such as gauze packings and return operating room interventions, can now be treated with negative pressure wound therapy combined with instillation and dwell (NPWTi-d). This therapy combines the benefits of negative pressure while cleansing the wound through the instillation of a topical wound cleanser in a controlled environment. In this case review, we will highlight a case of necrotizing fasciitis in which surgical intervention was required and negative pressure wound therapy with instillation and the use of reticulated open cell foam dressing with through holes (ROCF-CC) was utilized. Negative pressure with instillation was used to remove infectious material and other nonviable tissue from the wound base while promoting granulation tissue production. By utilizing this treatment, we were able to decrease the patient's return trips to the operating room (OR), enhance granulation tissue production, and ultimately achieve positive patient outcomes.


Magma decompression rate is one of the most important parameters in controlling eruption dynamics. One way to determine decompression rate is by fitting a volatile elements diffusion profile to a concentration gradient in crystal‐hosted embayments. Previous studies have used a variety of diffusion models, limiting the possibility for inter‐study comparison. Here, we introduce EMBayment‐Estimated Rates (EMBER), a standalone versatile tool that models diffusion of volatile elements along melt embayments. Our model relies on the pdepe function of MATLAB to calculate diffusion profiles of H2O, CO2, and S through the finite difference method. EMBER uses a grid search seeking out the best fits for decompression rates, initial dissolved concentration of each studied volatile and initial exsolved gas content, while setting three constants: temperature along the ascent and pressure at the beginning and end of the ascent. Our model can compute the rate for basaltic, intermediate, and rhyolitic compositions. We applied EMBER to previous studies to evaluate and validate our model. We then reprocessed "homogeneously" the raw data from the literature for a comparison. In other words, the same protocol was used for each diffusion profiles removing the literature‐specific strategies used to constrain unknown parameters. With this comparison, we found a statistically significant positive correlation between maximum magma decompression rates and explosivity of the related eruption. EMBER is expected to help increase the number of volatile diffusion in embayments studies aiming at constraining magma decompression and ascent rates and to facilitate inter‐study comparisons.


1,3-Diglyceride (1,3-DG) has attracted considerable attention as a healthful food oil component. In this study, we reported a novel method to synthesis of 1,3-DG via glycerolysis of triglyceride (TG) catalyzed by whole-cell lipase from a new isolated strain, Aspergillus niger GZUF36. The glycerolysis products include major diglyceride and minor monoglyceride. To improve yield of 1,3-DG, the optimized medium for the strain was obtained by combination of single-factor experiments, Plackett-Burman (PB), the steepest ascent and Box-Behnken design (BBD). Using the optimized medium, yield of 1,3-DG synthesized by the whole-cell lipase was 26.90 mol% and 1.42-fold yield was improved. The optimized medium lays the foundation for further studies of the reaction system for synthesis of 1,3-DG. The whole-cell catalyzed-glycerolysis process represents a significant advance toward achieving economical production of 1,3-DG at industrial scale.


It is important that we decide a maintenance scenario of a bridge. It is often that it is determined an LCC minimization model to adopt a calculated maintenance scenario. When we calculate LCC, we cannot ignore the influence that a parameter gives a result. For a parameter, it is a deterioration prediction model to calculate from a state transition probability, a life cyclc, discount rate. In this study, we show about a life cycle period and discount rate. An object is for an expensive steel reinforced concrete slab of repair frequency in steel superstructure of a national road. We calculate the influence that a difference of a life cycle and discount rate to set give LCC as a test every maintenance scenario. In addition, support to decide the maintenance scenario that LCC becomes minimization by performing the budget simulation that considered budget limitation shows that it is possible.


This paper presents a method to compute stiffness matrices for compliant grasps and fixtures. While the linear spring contact model has been widely used by robotics researchers, it is in general not accurate for practical applications. More realistic models, including the well-verified Hertz model, are incorporated by use of overlap functions. We derive a stiffness matrix formula that considers surface and material properties of the contacting bodies and applies to both planar and solid grasps. The effects of contact geometry are analyzed and illustrated with examples.


This paper investigates Nathalie Handal's re-imaging of Palestine as the Promised Land. Such a re-imaging is crystallized through two perspectives: identity politics, which spotlights two distinctively separated groups, viz., the Palestinians and the Israelis, and shared/global identity which depends on transcendence to common humanity. Handal is a French-American poet, born in Haiti to a Palestinian family from Bethlehem. She has lived in different places in Europe, the US and Arab World. She reconstructs an image of Palestine from family memories and from her strong sense of belonging enhanced by frequent journeys to Palestine in the hope that she might have a home in poetry.  In many poems such as "Ephratha" , "Bethlehem", " Regrets in Galilee", "Jenin", "Gaza City", "Haifa", "Baladna" and "Amrika" , Handal recalls a geomental image of home. However, a geopolitical image of home is put in juxtaposition in order to highlight Handal's journey for obtaining global identity.  I argue that the two perspectives, which are intricately intertwined in Handal's poems due to her life and travels, provide a version of complete portrait of Palestine. Keywords : Palestine; Memories; Identity politics; Handal


We propose a phase space logic that can capture the behavior of quantum and quantum-like systems. The proposal is similar to the more generic concept of epistemic logic: it encodes knowledge or perhaps more correctly, predictions about outcomes of future observations on some systems. For a quantum system, these predictions are statements about future outcomes of measurements performed on specific degrees of freedom of the system. The proposed logic will include propositions and their relations including connectives, but importantly also transformations between propositions on different degrees of freedom of the systems. A key point is the addition of a transformation that allows to convert propositions about single systems into propositions about correlations between systems. We will see that subtle choices of the properties of the transformations lead to drastically different underlying mathematical models; one choice gives stabilizer quantum mechanics, while another choice gives Spekkens' toy theory. This points to a crucial basic property of quantum and quantum-like systems that can be handled within the present phase space logic by adjusting the mentioned choice. It also enables a discussion on what behaviors are properly quantum or only quantum-like, relating to that choice and how it manifests in the system under scrutiny. Niklas Johansson Dept of Electrical Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, SWEDEN, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Felix Huber Atomic Optics Department, Jagiellonian University, PL-30-348 Kraków, POLAND, E-mail: email@example.com Jan-Åke Larsson Dept of Electrical Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, SWEDEN, E-mail: email@example.com


Faced with the social needs of sports media talents, in view of the problems still existing in traditional teaching, such as over-reliance on teachers' teaching, neglect of experiments and practical links, and overlooking of students' digestion and absorption of needed knowledge, this paper discusses the constructivist view of knowledge, learning activities and students on the basis of analyzing the mechanism of human brain information acceptance. Four elements or attributes of "situation", "cooperation", "conversation" and "meaning construction" in the constructivist learning environment are analyzed. Combining with the training requirements of sports media talents, the training plan, the selection of teaching contents, the reform of teaching methods and the strengthening of experimental practice contents are probed, designed, and summarized, so as to provide sports media personnel training with useful reference.


Cu2O is naturally p-type, which has prevented an efficient Cu2O solar cell. N-type doping of Cu2O is demonstrated during electrodeposition of Cu2O by adding a Cl precursor to the aqueous solution. Current-voltage characterization reveals that the resistivity of undoped Cu2O by electrodeposition is ∼40 MΩ-cm, while that of Cl-doped Cu2O is significantly reduced to as low as ∼7Ω-cm. X-ray diffraction confirms that the films are pure Cu2O. Photocurrent measurements verify that Cl-doped Cu2O is n-type. The solution-based doping method is particularly suitable for low-cost, large-area and high-throughput fabrication of solar cells. In addition, since the doping method substitutes chalcogen with halogen by co-precipitation of halide with chalcogenide, it is in principle universal for n-type doping in other solution-prepared chalcogenides. Several 3rd-generation concepts are enabled by the doping method through solution-prepared chalcogenide nanowires, including radial p-n junctions for enhanced charge separation in organic/inorganic hybrid cells and 3-dimensional p-n junctions for decoupling of photon absorption and charge separation in solar cells.


The dimensions of bubbles were measured in a stirrer tank electrochemical reactor, where the analysis of the bubble size distribution has a substantial impact on the flow dynamics. The high-speed camera and image processing methods were used to obtain a reliable photo. The influence of varied air flow rates (0.3; 0.5; 1 l/min) on BSD was thoroughly investigated. Two types of distributors (cubic and circular) were examined, and the impact of various airflow rates on BSD was investigated in detail. The results showed that the bubbles for the two distributors were between 0.5 and 4.5 mm. For both distributors at each airflow, the Sauter mean diameter for the bubbles was calculated. According to the results, as the flow rate raised, the bubble size for cubic distributors increased from 2.35 to 2.41 mm and for circular distributors from 2.76 to 2.88 mm.


Transport infrastructure contributes to social welfare when a basic condition is fulfilled: social benefits should exceed social costs. It has been common to see infrastructure with a biased perspective leading to the belief that the more, the bigger and the more advance technologically the better. The concept of opportunity cost of public money does not seem to be understood by many who take crucial decisions on the construction of new large projects. In this paper, the economic evaluation of projects is defended as a way to avoid the construction of socially unprofitable projects.


Canine mammary gland tumour (CMT) is the most common neoplasm that develops spontaneously in female dogs. In Malaysia, the prevalence, risk factors and the expression of potential prognostic markers in CMT have not been investigated. Thus, the objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence and risk factors of dogs in Malaysia diagnosed with mammary tumours and to determine the prognostic value and association of proliferating
cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), Vimentin and fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) with common clinicopathological parameters in CMT. The hypothesis of
the study are; CMT is among the common neoplasia in intact female dogs diagnosed at the laboratory; malignant CMT is positive for Vimentin expression and have higher number of cells expressing PCNA; Vimentin and PCNA
expressions are related to aggressiveness, proliferation, invasiveness and metastasis of CMT; FGFRs are expressed in CMT tissues. A retrospective study was conducted on CMT diagnosed at the Veterinary Histopathology Laboratory (VHL) of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (FVM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in the period of 2006 to 2012. The study involving 48 CMT cases showed that the prevalence of CMT among all tumours diagnosed in this
laboratory was 39%. Neuter status and breed were associated with CMT, as dogs with CMT were found to be intact and of pure breed. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to determine the expression of PCNA, Vimentin, FGFR2, FGFR3 and FGFR4 in 46 CMT tissues and to
evaluate the relationship of their expression level with breed size, age, neuter status, involvement of inguinal mammary gland, number of glands involved,
mitotic index, tumour size and grade and postsurgical survival in dogs with CMT. Vimentin expression has no association with any of these clinicopathological parameters and failed to predict the postmastectomy survival in CMT. The PCNA expression was significantly higher (p=0.037) in high grade tumours. Although both Vimentin and PCNA failed to predict postmastectomy survival, a positive significant correlation (p=0.029) was observed between Vimentin and PCNA expression in CMT. High grade tumour was noted in intact dogs (p=0.034) that is significantly associated with poor postmastectomy
survival (p=0.028). Forty-five tumours (97.8%) expressed FGFR2 and FGFR3. Forty-two (91.3%) tumours expressed FGFR4. Histopathology grade 3 tumours showed significantly higher (p=0.027) FGFR2 expression. The FGFR3 expression has no association with any clinical or histopathology parameters. Large breed size of dogs (p=0.044) and large tumours (p=0.045) were
significantly associated with FGFR4 expression. All of these receptors were not able to predict postsurgical survival in CMT. This study concludes the following;
(i) CMT is a common type of tumour diagnosed at the VHL, FPV, UPM with a prevalence of 39%; (ii) age, breed and intact neuter status of a dog contribute significantly to risk of CMT development; (iii) PCNA is a good marker for
aggressiveness of tumour growth; (iv) histopathology grading can be used to determine prognosis in CMT; (v) expression of FGFR2 and FGFR4 are potential markers for aggressiveness of tumour growth and tumour stage, respectively. Overall the fibroblast growth factor signalling is a pathway important for the pathogenesis of CMT and may be the potential target for new therapeutics in the disease.


Fluorescent photosensitizers (PSs) often encounter low singlet oxygen (1O2) quantum yields and fluorescence quenching in the aggregated state, mainly involving the intersystem crossing process. Herein, we successfully realize maximizing 1O2 quantum yields of fluorescent PSs through promoting radical-pair intersystem crossing (RP-ISC), which serves as a molecular symmetry-controlling strategy of donor–acceptor (D–A) motifs. The symmetric quadrupolar A–D–A molecule PTP exhibits an excellent 1O2 quantum yield of 97.0% with bright near-infrared fluorescence in the aggregated state. Theoretical and ultrafast spectroscopic studies suggested that the RP-ISC mechanism dominated the formation of the triplet for PTP, where effective charge separation and an ultralow singlet–triplet energy gap (0.01 eV) enhanced the ISC process to maximize 1O2 generation. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated the dual function of PTP as a fluorescent imaging agent and an anti-cancer therapeutic, with promising potential applications in both diagnosis and theranostics.


Over the last 25 years, a tremendous progress has been made in the Earth science space-based remote sensing observations, technologies and algorithms. Such advancements have improved the predictability by providing lead-time and accuracy of forecast in weather, climate, natural hazards, and natural resources. It has further reduced or bounded the overall uncertainties by partially improving our understanding of planet Earth as an integrated system that is governed by non-linear and chaotic behavior. Many countries such US, European Community, Japan, China and others have invested billions of dollars in developing and launching space-based assets in the low earth (LEO) and geostationary (GEO) orbits. However, the wealth of this scientific knowledge that has potential of extracting monumental socio-economic benefits from such large investments have been slow in reaching the public and decision makers. For instance, there are a number of areas such as energy forecasting, aviation safety, agricultural competitiveness, disaster management, homeland security, air quality and public health, which can directly take advantage. Nevertheless, we all live in a global economy that depends on access to the best available Earth Science information for all inhabitants of this planet. This paper surveys and examines a number such applications in terms of their architecture, maturity and economic applicability as they apply to the societal needs. A detailed analysis is also presented of various challenges and issues that pertain to a number of areas such as: (1) difficulties in making a speedy transition of data and information from observations and models to relevant Decision Support Systems (DSS) or tools, (2) data and models inter-operability issues, (3) limitations of spatial, spectral and temporal resolution,(4) communication limitations as dictated by the availability of image processing and data compression techniques. Additionally, the most critical element amongst all is the organizational and management boundaries that must be resolved at local, state, national and international levels to implement and realize free flow of such vital information. This paper also makes attempts to address this topic and discuss possible approaches to deal with this quandary.


This paper summarizes the effects of various drugs (sodium channel inhibitors, alpha and beta-adrenoceptor blocking agents, calcium antagonists and substances that interfere in various ways with the metabolism of arachidonic acid (e.g. aspirin, dazoxiben, nafazatrom) on the early consequences of experimental acute myocardial ischaemia. Particular attention is paid to effects on the serious early arrhythmias that arise within a few minutes of the onset of ischaemia, on those ventricular arrhythmias that result from the subsequent reperfusion of the ischaemic myocardium and on the severity and extent of myocardial ischaemic damage. From these experimental studies conclusions are drawn regarding possible approaches to early intervention with drugs in clinical myocardial infarction. Among those agents where, based on results from studies in animals, early administration should prove beneficial are beta-adrenoceptor blocking drugs, calcium antagonists, drugs that inhibit thromboxane synthesis or its effects at receptor level, agents that 'promote' prostacyclin, nitroglycerin and analgesics with marked antiarrhythmic properties (e.g. meptazinol). However, the answer to the question as to which (if any) of these drugs should be given early in clinical infarction is still dependent upon the results of considerably more experimental and clinical studies.


Background TNF blockade has provided significant benefit to many patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Nonetheless, a substantial unmet medical need remains for patients who do not respond adequately to this treatment. We and others have demonstrated that dual neutralization of TNF and IL-17 provides greater efficacy than blocking either cytokine alone in mouse collagen induced arthritis 1,2,3. Objectives The goal of these studies was to determine whether an anti-TNF/IL-17 Dual Variable Domain immunoglobulin (DVD-Ig™) protein would be efficacious in a pre-clinical model of arthritis. Methods A surrogate anti-mouse TNF and IL-17 DVD-Ig™ protein was engineered from two variable domains that bind TNF and IL-17, respectively. The resulting DVD-Ig™ has high affinity and potency to both targets and is capable of simultaneous binding of TNF and IL-17 as determined by surface plasmon resonance. The efficacy of this anti-mouse TNF/IL-17 DVD-Ig™ molecule was tested in the mouse collagen induced arthritis model. Animals were treated with vehicle anti-TNF antibody (Ab) (8C11, 12 mg/kg), anti-IL-17 Ab (MAB421, 12 mg/kg), anti-TNF + anti-IL-17 Abs (12/12 mg/kg), or an anti-mouse TNF/IL-17 DVD-Ig™ protein (16 mg/kg) twice a week for 3 weeks beginning at the onset of disease. The effect on disease was measured by paw swelling, histologic evaluation, as well as micro-CT measurement of bone volume. Results Neutralization of either mouse TNF or IL-17 by their respective Abs alone resulted in a significant but partial inhibition of paw swelling (43 and 24%, respectively, p<0.05). However, neutralization of both cytokines by administration of a combination of anti-TNF and anti-IL-17 mAbs significantly reduced arthritic score to a greater extent 64%; p<0.05) and was also more effective at preventing bone destruction vs treatment with anti-TNF alone as determined by micro-CT analysis (80% vs 49 or 53%, p<0.05). Treatment with an anti-mouse TNF/IL-17 DVD-Ig™ protein inhibited inflammation, swelling, cartilage and bone destruction to a similar level as that achieved with the combination treatment with both Abs. Conclusions These data demonstrate that dual blockade of TNF and IL-17 with a DVD-Ig™ molecule is efficacious in a pre-clinical model of arthritis and support the rationale to clinically evaluate the anti-human TNF/IL-17 DVD-Ig protein, ABT-122, in rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory disorders. References Cuff et al 2013 Annual Meeting, Abstract 948. Koenders et al., Arthritis Rheum. 2011;63(8):2329-39. Alzabin et al Ann Rheum Dis. 2012;71(10):1741-8. Disclosure of Interest : C. Cuff Shareholder of: Abbvie, Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center, S. Bryant Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center, M. Hugunin Shareholder of: Abbvie, Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center, R. Kamath Shareholder of: Abbvie, Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center, J. Voss Shareholder of: Abbvie, Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center, L. Olson Shareholder of: Abbvie, Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center, C.-M. Hsieh Shareholder of: Abbvie, Employee of: AbbVie Bioresearch Center DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.5383


Abstract Let be a first-order structure; we denote by DEF() the set of all first-order definable relations and functions within . Let π be any one-to-one function from ℕ into the set of prime integers. Let ∣ and • be respectively the divisibility relation and multiplication as function. We show that the sets DEF(ℕ, π, ∣) and DEF(ℕ, π, •) are equal. However there exists function π such that the set DEF(ℕ, +, ∣), or, equivalently, DEF(ℕ, π, •) is not equal to DEF(ℕ, +, •). Nevertheless, in all cases there is an {π, •}-definable and hence also {π, |}-definable structure over π which is isomorphic to 〈ℕ, +, •〉. Hence theories TH(ℕ, π, ∣) and TH(ℕ, π, •) are undecidable. The binary relation of equipotence between two positive integers saying that they have equal number of prime divisors is not definable within the divisibility lattice over positive integers. We prove it first by comparing the lower bound of the computational complexity of the additive theory of positive integers and of the upper bound of the computational complexity of the theory of the mentioned lattice. The last section provides a self-contained alternative proof of this latter result based on a decision method linked to an elimination of quantifiers via specific tables.


Endothelial monocyte-activating polypeptide II (EMAP II) is a sensitive marker of neurotoxic injury, the expression of which increases significantly under conditions of stress, such as hypoxia or apoptosis. Studies have confirmed the extensive apoptosis of nerve cells in the brain following status epilepticus (SE), and the occurrence of SE can confer a hypoxic state on cells. The purpose of the present study was to observe the changes in the expression of EMAP II, and in the numbers and tight junction protein levels of micro-vascular endothelial cells in the hippocampus of rats with pilocarpine-induced SE. The protein expression levels of EMAP II, CD31, zonula occludens 1 (ZO-1) and occludin in the hippocampus were determined by immunofluorescence and western blot analyses. It was found that almost 75.6% of the rats in the SE group developed Racine stage IV-V seizures at approximately 44.7±18.8 min after the pilocarpine administration, and the 24-h mortality rate was almost 10.4%. The weight of the rats in the SE group was significantly decreased within 24 h following SE. Immunofluorescence staining revealed a low EMAP II expression in the hippo-campus of the rats in the control group; however, the numbers of EMAP II-positive cells were significantly increased in the SE group from 2 h to 21 days. The trend of EMAP II protein expression was consistent with that obtained with immunofluorescence staining. The numbers of CD31-positive microvascular endothelial cells were significantly increased from 24 h to 21 days compared with the levels in the control group. The protein expression of ZO-1 and occludin was most significantly decreased in the SE group. On the whole, the present study demonstrated that the expression of EMAP II in the rat hippocampus was upregulated in the SE model, which may promote angiogenesis and alter the TJ integrity of brain microvascular endothelial cells, with an increased number of CD31-positive microvascular endothelial cells and a decreased expression of ZO-1 and occludin.


securing of the airway. Would this not have an important effect on potential desaturation? The results of this study are rather alarming and we feel that a median disconnection time of 54 s would not be replicated in our own practice and wonder whether local infrastructure was to blame. Perhaps similar studies in other Trusts would confirm this? We feel that the excess amount of time to attach basic monitoring (the pulse oximetry disconnection time was 90 s) may well have been offset by better organisation of the logistics of transfer. This study has brought to light the latent dangers in the use of anaesthetic rooms. It is clear that the rates of mild (< 94%) and severe (< 84%) desaturation are untenable. We are glad that this study has highlighted areas where safety may be improved. We are advocates of anaesthetic rooms and feel that attention to the basic principles of anaesthesia may offset any 'knee-jerk' reaction against their use.


Summary The design and features of an on-line purge and cold-trap preconcentration device for rapid analysis of volatile organic compounds in aqueous samples are discussed. Excessive water is removed from the purge gas by a condenser or a water permeable membrane in order to avoid blocking of the capillary cold-trap. Synthetic mixtures covering concentrations ranging from tenths to tens of ppb's and different chemical classes are used to study the effect of various process factors on the efficiency and selectivity of water removal as well as on the purging recovery. The importance of the concentration of the solutes, the flow rateinconjunction with thevolumeof the purge gas, and the temperatureof thecondenser, thecold-trapand the sample is emphasized. Theoretical models describing the purge process and the blocking of the cold-trap agree fairly well with the highlyreproducibleexperimental results (o = 2-4'10). Both the condenserand the Nafion membrane successfullyremove water, although some compounds, dependent on volatility and polarity, are partly or completely lost. It is shown that non-polar volatile organic compounds are efficiently enriched so that recoveries between 80-100% and a detection limit of 1 ppt can be obtained. The applicability of the system is illustrated on some examples.


Digital watermarking is a way to provide the facility of secure multimedia data communication besides its copyright protection approach. The Spread Spectrum modulation principle is widely used in digital watermarking to satisfy the robustness of multimedia signals against various signal-processing operations. Several SS watermarking algorithms have been proposed for multimedia signals but very few works have discussed on the issues responsible for secure data communication and its robustness improvement. The current paper has critically analyzed few such factors namely properties of spreading codes, proper signal decomposition suitable for data embedding, security provided by the key, successive bit cancellation method applied at decoder which have greater impact on the detection reliability, secure communication of significant signal under camouflage of insignificant signals etc. Based on the analysis, robust SS watermarking scheme for secure data communication is proposed in wavelet domain and improvement in secure communication and robustness performance is reported through experimental results. The reported result also shows improvement in visual and statistical invisibility of the hidden data. Keywords—Spread spectrum modulation, spreading code, signal decomposition, security, successive bit cancellation


Aims. We probe the evolution of the fine-structure constant α with cosmic time. Methods. Accurate positions of the Fe ii lines λ1608, λ2382, and λ2600 are measured in the zabs = 1.84 absorption system from a high-resolution (FWHM ∼ 3.8 km s ) and high signal-to-noise (S/N >∼ 100) spectrum of the quasar Q 1101–264 (zem = 2.15, V = 16.0), integrated for 15.4 hours. The Single Ion Differential α Measurement (SIDAM) procedure and the ∆χ 2 method are used to set constraints on ∆α/α . Results. We have found a relative radial velocity shift between the λ1608 and λλ2382, 2600 lines of ∆v = −180 ± 85 m s (both random and systematic errors are included), which, if real, would correspond to ∆α/α = (5.4 ± 2.5) × 10 (1σ C.L.). Considering the strong implications of a such variability, additional observations with comparable accuracy at redshift z ∼ 1.8 are required to confirm this result.


To The Editor:

I read with interest the article entitled "Combined Percutaneous Internal and External Fixation of Type-C Tibial Plafond Fractures. A Review of Twenty-two Cases" (2002;84[Suppl 2]:109-15), by Manca et al. The method of reduction of small articular fragments with use of curved 3-mm Kirschner wire inserted through a proximal hole and under image intensifier control was innovative and commendable. I am interested to know whether the reduction of the fracture could have been better maintained with multiplane Ilizarov fixation instead of the monoplane Orthofix hybrid that was used. Perhaps this would have prevented the kind of malunion shown in one of the illustrations (Fig. 10-D). Also, was there any …

Corresponding author: Cesare Faldini, MD Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli Orthopaedic Department University of Bologna Via G.C. Pupilli 1 Bologna 40136 Italy cesare.faldini{at}ior.it


This study defines criteria and sub-criteria for evaluation of the transport technology for carriage of passengers by railway and road transport. The main criteria are divided into four groups: business, environmental, social and technological, named BEST analysis. Twenty-four sub-criteria have been examined. The method of multi-criteria analysis Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) has been applied to analyse importance and the relations between the criteria. Results show that e criteria of the great importance are business group (29.47%) and technological group (27.49%). The sub-criteria: transport costs for fuel (7.83%); ticket price (8.29%); time travel (6.99%); directness (6.47%) and direct operating costs (6.30%) are the most important. The defined criteria and subcriteria can be applied for evaluation, comparison and selection the transportation variant.


"Human Rights and Law: Bonded Labour in India deals with the problem of debt bondage and the way it has been treated during the British as well as in the post-independence period. Analysis has been made of the motivations for carrying out the reform; the processes involved in formulating the legislation, contributions by different agencies, discussion in the parliament, etc. The two legislations: the Indian Slavery Act, 1843 and bonded labour system (Abolition) Act, 1976 provide a comparative perspective in the making of social legislation in two different historical settings and different political systems. The statute on debt and its enforcement has been carried out by four distinct political authorities. India under the Company, India under the Crown; Provincial Governments (1937-1939); and Independent India . The problems in the enforcement of the statues have been analyzed drawing evidence from modern Indian history, state-society relationship, motivations of the officials and the political context of administration."


BACKGROUND: Organic–inorganic nanocomposites were prepared by copolymerization of various monomers and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) derivatives. Preliminary results showed that styrene/styryl–POSS copolymers could be obtained using CpTiCl3 catalyst. In the work reported here, the copolymerization of styrene and styryl-substituted POSS was studied in detail for a more effective catalyst, Cp*TiCl3.

RESULTS: The glass transition temperature (Tg) of the copolymers prepared increased with increasing POSS content. The degradation temperature (Td) of the copolymers was 60 °C higher than that of syndiotactic polystyrene under nitrogen. Although the thermal properties were improved by incorporation of POSS, the catalytic activity decreased with POSS content. The racemic triad and syndiotactic index of the copolymers decreased with increasing POSS content. Gel permeation chromatograms of the copolymers exhibited multimodal distribution due to the presence of multi-active centres, which were formed by interaction of Ti with the POSS siloxane linkage.

CONCLUSION: With the incorporation of POSS, the thermal properties of polystyrene were improved. The styrene/styryl–POSS copolymers are formed through the various active sites arising from the interactions of Ti with POSS. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry


This paper presents a theory for the anomalous magnetic gradient tensor due to a uniformly magnetised general triaxial ellipsoid. Expressions for the magnetic field vector and its gradient tensor are derived from expressions for the gravitational field or the gravity gradient tensor via an application of Poisson's theorem. This theory provides increased capability in forward modelling, inversion and equivalent source applications in both magnetic and gravimetric exploration. It provides an accurate and computationally efficient means of modelling the magnetic gradient tensor of ellipsoidal bodies which may possess isotropic or anisotropic magnetic susceptibility, remanent magnetisation and, in the case of highly magnetic ellipsoids, may be subject to the effect of self-demagnetisation. This paper presents a novel method based on the eigenvector decomposition of the magnetic gradient tensor to provide estimates of the magnetisation direction over an ellipsoidal source. This includes an investigation of the influence of shape detail, observation height and inclination of magnetisation on the positioning of global maxima in normalised source strength and how this affects the problem of estimating magnetisation direction. This study confirms that magnetisation directions may be accurately estimated for extremely elongated ellipsoidal bodies where the ratio of smallest observation height to maximum elongation (in plan view) is greater than 1.


This study characterized the mechanism by which bovine serum albumin (BSA) reduces the Km for phenytoin (PHY) hydroxylation and the implications of the "albumin effect" for in vitro-in vivo extrapolation of kinetic data for CYP2C9 substrates. BSA and essentially fatty acid-free human serum albumin (HSA-FAF) reduced the Km values for PHY hydroxylation (based on unbound substrate concentration) by human liver microsomes (HLMs) and recombinant CYP2C9 by approximately 75%, with only a minor effect on Vmax. In contrast, crude human serum albumin increased the Km with both enzyme sources. Mass spectrometric analysis of incubations containing HLMs was consistent with the hypothesis that BSA sequesters long-chain unsaturated acids (arachidonic, linoleic, oleic) released from membranes. A mixture of arachidonic, linoleic and oleic acids, at a concentration corresponding to 1/20 of the content of HLMs, doubled the Km for PHY hydroxylation by CYP2C9, without affecting Vmax. This effect was reversed by addition of BSA to incubations. Ki values for arachidonic acid inhibition of human liver microsomal- and CYP2C9-catalyzed PHY hydroxylation were 3.8 and 1.6 μM, respectively. Similar effects were observed with heptadecanoic acid, the most abundant long-chain unsaturated acid present in Escherichia coli membranes. Extrapolation of intrinsic clearance (CLint) values for each enzyme source determined in the presence of BSA and HSA-FAF accurately predicted the known CLint for PHY hydroxylation in vivo. The results indicate that previously determined in vitro Km values for CYP2C9 substrates are almost certainly overestimates, and accurate in vitro-in vivo extrapolation of kinetic data for CYP2C9 substrates is achievable.


A study of 15 Nigerian children with parotid fistulae was carried out. The causes of the fistulae were found to be infection in nine children (60%), trauma in five (33.3%) and carcinoma in one (6.7%). The commonest infection was tuberculosis, with the primary site in the palatine tonsil and with associated tonsillar gland enlargement. In these cases there was no good response to tympanic neurectomy, surgical repair and anti-tuberculous therapy until palatine tonsillectomy was performed. It is therefore advised that the continued role of the tonsils as a primary site of tuberculous infection in the head and neck must always be sought, even in the management of parotid fistulae in children.


Real-time video and image processing is used in a wide variety of applications from video surveillance and traffic management to medical imaging applications. This paper presents the implementation of an canny edge-detection using in realtime video from camera. The Canny algorithm uses an optimal edge detector based on a set of criteria which include finding the most edges by minimizing the error rate, marking edges as closely as possible to the actual edges to maximize localization, and marking edges only once when a single edge exists for minimal response.


The increasing number of clinical nurse specialists could result in a return to task orientation and fragmentation of care, it was claimed. Sophie Thomas, a senior nurse from the Hammersmith Hospital Haematology Unit, described this as one of the threats posed to nursing by an increasingly specialised, high-technology health service.


A NUMBER of studies have been made of elections and electioneering during the late Stuart period. These investigations cover almost every phase of electoral processes, including the subjects of election procedure, electioneering practices, and ideas of representation during the reigns of Charles I , James 11, and Anne.2 Several volumes, concerned with elections in specific counties and boroughs or with elections in general, contain only sketchy treatments of the late Stuart period.3 None of these studies has dealt with the serious election irregularities of the reign of William III or with the influence of these practices upon parliamentary opinion. It is, therefore, the purpose of this study to describe the election irregularities (bribery, treating, intimidation, and trickery) and to evaluate their influence upon parliamentary election policy. Bribery was a time-honored method used to win a seat in the house of commons. During the reign of Charles II, it had been the main device for winning elections.4 In the reign of XVilliam III, the practice increased rather than diminished. Because of the prevalence of irregularities, this reign has the reputation of being "the most corrupt period of Eng-


Deep penetration welding, also called Keyhole welding, is one of the most interesting flow and heat transfer phenomena in laser welding. Once a threshold power density is reached a small diameter vapor cavity, which is characteristic of keyhole welding, is formed. Understanding the fundamental aspects of deep penetration welding will aid in the design and control of welding processes. Of particular interest is the prediction of penetration depths given certain process parameters such as material velocity and laser power.
 The present investigation focuses attention on the lower portion of the keyhole where the essential features of the flow are primarily two-dimensional in the plane perpendicular to the axis of the laser. Further it is proposed that by focusing on the stagnation region an approximate solution can be obtained which would capture the essential features of the problem for large Peclet numbers. This work can later be used as a basis for more exact methods of solving the Navier-Stokes equations.


We know that in today's advanced world, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-grounded methodologies are playing a very optimistic role in performing difficult and time-consuming activities very conveniently and quickly. However, for the training and testing of these procedures, the main factor is the availability of a huge amount of data, called big data. With the emerging techniques of the Internet of Everything (IoE) and the Internet of Things (IoT), it is very feasible to collect a large volume of data with the help of smart and intelligent sensors. Based on these smart sensing devices, very innovative and intelligent hardware components can be made for prediction and recognition purposes. A detailed discussion was carried out on the development and employment of various detectors for providing people with effective services, especially in the case of smart cities. With these devices, a very healthy and intelligent environment can be created for people to live in safely and happily. With the use of modern technologies in integration with smart sensors, it is possible to use energy resources very productively. Smart vehicles can be developed to sense any emergency, to avoid injuries and fatal accidents. These sensors can be very helpful in management and monitoring activities for the enhancement of productivity. Several significant aspects are obtained from the available literature, and significant articles are selected from the literature to properly examine the uses of sensor technology for the development of smart infrastructure. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used to give these attributes weights. Finally, the weights are used with the multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) technique to provide the different options in their order of importance.


p55Cdc is a mammalian homologue of a family of cell cycle proteins from widely divergent species, which contains WD repeats and has been implicated in cell cycle-regulated ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. p55Cdc is highly expressed in proliferating but not in differentiated or growth-arrested cells. The expression, phosphorylation, and degradation of this protein have been shown to be cell cycle-regulated. We analyzed a 5.3-kb genomic region that contains the entire rat p55Cdc gene. The gene contains 10 exons ranging in size from 97 to 373 bp. The promoter region has a TAT box, four E-box consensus sequences, and potential binding sites for cell cycle-specific transcription factors. In transient transfection assays, a construct containing a 1000-nucleotide p55Cdc promoter region upstream of the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene demonstrated a 12-fold increase in transcriptional activity. Finally, using radiation hybrid mapping techniques, we localized this gene to the human chromosome, 9q13-21.


The authors prove the space of harmonic functions with polynomial growth of a fixed rate on a complete noncompact Riemannian manifold with asymptotically nonnegative curvature is finite dimensional.


Introduction:
 Aortic root dilation is a known finding in the acute/subacute phase of Kawasaki disease (KD). These changes may be inflammatory and related to the degree of coronary artery (CA) dilation, and may lag when compared to CA changes. Long-term changes in the aorta have not been previously reported.

 Methods:
 A retrospective review of patients with KD from our institution was conducted, identifying individuals with American Heart Association (AHA) Risk Level 3, 4 or 5 over a 20 year period (1994-2014). Aortic annular and root dimensions were measured at the most recent echocardiogram and converted to z-score measurements. When possible, ascending aorta dimensions were measured, and all studies were evaluated for the presence of aortic regurgitation. Time from KD diagnosis to the last echocardiogram was determined. Patients with disease processes predisposing to aortic dilation were excluded, as were those with duration of echocardiographic follow-up <1 year.

 Results:
 Fifty-three patients were identified, with a median age at diagnosis of 29 months (SD 42, 1.2-162 months). Twenty-seven (51%) were AHA Risk Level 3, 20 (38%) Risk Level 4 and 6 (11%) Risk Level 5. The mean time from diagnosis to latest echocardiogram was 7.3 years (1.4-17.3 years). Aortic annular and root dimensions were obtained in all patients (mean aortic annular z-score -0.06, mean aortic root z-score 0.67). Four patients (8%) had a dilated (z-score >2) aortic root, one also had a dilated annulus. Ten patients (19%) had borderline root dilation (z-score >1.5). Ascending aorta dimension measurements were possible in 72% (38/53) of the cohort, of which only 1 (3%) had a z-score >2 and 3 (8%) had a z-score >1.5. Importantly, no patients demonstrated aortic regurgitation.

 Conclusion:
 In patients with history of KD and significant coronary artery involvement, borderline/mild dilation of the aortic root is not uncommon at intermediate to long- term follow-up, suggesting the possibility of a higher degree of aortic involvement in the acute and subacute phase of the disease process. The ascending aorta appears to be less affected and there was no evidence of functional derangements of the aortic valve. Accurate measurement of the aortic root dimension at all stages of KD is warranted.


Background Syphilis is still a worldwide health problem with 80–90% of new cases occurring in developing countries with little or no diagnostic access. The availability of new diagnostic test such as rapid test or point-of-care test can improve the medical care of syphilis. Most rapid syphilis tests currently available are treponemal tests, one of them is STANDARD™ Q Syphilis Ab. This study aims to assess STANDARD™ Q Syphilis Ab's rapid test capability using serum and fingerprick whole blood specimens compared with Treponema pallidum Haemagglutination Assay (TPHA) as the gold standard in detecting syphilis in high-risk populations comprised of transgenders, men who have sex with men, and female sex workers. Methods This study is a diagnostic test with a cross sectional study design done in January 2018 in Pasar Rebo Public Health Center, East Jakarta, Indonesia. Samples were selected consecutively with total of 127 samples. All steps in this research; history taking, physical examination, and blood tests were done blindedly. Results The results of this study using serum specimens were sensitivity of 91.30%, specificity of 97.53%, positive predictive value 95.45%, negative predictive value of 95.18%, and accuracy 95.28. Test results with fingerprick whole blood specimens gave sensitivity of 84.78%, specificity of 98.77%, positive predictive value of 97.50%, negative predictive value of 91.95%, and accuracy 93.70%. Compatibility of rapid test STANDARD™ Q Syphilis Ab results between serum and fingerprick whole blood specimens was very good(κ=0.8223). Conclusion Rapid test STANDARD™ Q Syphilis Ab can be used as an option for treponemal test in supporting syphilis diagnosis, either as routine screening or confirmation of nontreponemal test result. The fingerprick whole blood specimen can be used as treponemal test alternative which is faster and easier to do. Disclosure No significant relationships.


In watershed and irrigation command area, major thrust is given for the optimum utilization of soil and water. Before we start any such activities, land evaluation is required to know the capability of soil for crop production, irrigation management, soil conservation practices and other alternative uses of land. This book provide information on basic understanding of how to evaluate land for development of the command area; assess the land capability and irrigability classification for providing long-term irrigation benefit for a designed gross command area; ensure optimum and effective utilisation of soil resources in a watershed; and determine soil suitability for various crops and formulate crop planning on different classified area. The book provides practical tips and training guidelines for prospective trainers, researchers, academician and others who have minimal background on the various aspects of soil science and geography.


Since the beginning of the 21 th century, demand for natural food additives especially food colorant has increased  sharply. The natural one were considered safer, while the synthetic ones are less safe. One source of natural food colorant is anthocyanin pigments from purple sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas L.). Anthocyanins have good stability at acidic pH especially pH 2-4 so that it can be applied for food products such as beverages with low pH like jelly drink. Nevertheless, anthocyanins are very sensitive to the temperature and light. It is thus important to store food containing anthocyanins in proper condition. The purpose of this study was to determine the proper storage conditions and to predict shelf life of jelly drinks containing encapsulated anthocyanin pigments from purple sweet potato. This research used experimental methods by regression analysis of four treatments and four replications. The treatments were storage of jelly drink in (1) Room temperature with light exposure ( 25 o C±2 o C ) , (2) Room temperature without light exposure (25 o C±2 o C), (3) Refrigerator temperature  with light exposure (5 o C±2 o C)  and (4 ) Refrigerator temperature  without light exposure (5 o C±2 o C).  Parameters analysed were: (a) intensity of red color; (b) total anthocyanins; (c) pH value. Observations were made on days 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30. The results showed that the temperature and light affected the decrease in colour intensity, and total anthocyanins of jelly drink. The best treatment was stored at refrigerator temperatures without light exposure,  has the smallest decreasing of total anthocyanins (46,03% ) and decreasing of red intensity (3,19 %) during 30 days storage in which the shelf life spanned to around 200 days based on the color intensity. Keyword : anthocyanins pigments; purple sweet potato; regression analysis


Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of white reflecting material (slings) hung from the sides of compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) phototherapy equipment in reducing the duration of phototherapy in healthy term neonates with non-hemolytic jaundice. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Postnatal ward of a tertiary level neonatal unit. Participants and Intervention: Healthy term neonates with non-hemolytic jaundice between 24 h and 14 days of age were randomly assigned to receive single surface phototherapy with (n=50) or without slings (n=50). Outcome Measure: Primary outcome was rate of reduction of serum bilirubin levels and secondary outcome was duration of phototherapy (hour) required.  Results: Birth weight (2780±360 vs. 2790±260 g), gestation (38.22±1.0 vs. 38.08±0.90 week), and initial serum total bilirubin (17.36±1.06 vs. 16.96±1.20 mg/dL) were comparable between the two groups. There was a significant difference in the duration of phototherapy (mean ± standard deviation [SD]) between the sling (53.28±21.02 h) and no sling (62.88±20.22 h) groups (p=0.02). The irradiance of phototherapy equipment (μW/cm2/nm, mean±SD) was higher in sling group compared to no sling group (24.17±0.13 vs. 22.11±0.21). Conclusion: Hanging of white reflective sling on sides of CFL phototherapy equipment resulted in marginal increase in irradiance and reduction in the duration of phototherapy.


By now, most bankers are convinced that Internet banking is for real. Ditto multi-billion-dollar levels of annual retail sales on the Internet, almost all of it by credit cards. ABAecom, a for-profit subsidiary of the American Bankers Association, is looking to the next phase of e-commerce: transactions that require legally valid signatures in order to be accepted by all the parties involved. Traditionally, higher-value transactions are signed and sealed with handwritten signatures that make deals legally enforceable. That is, none of the parties can later repudiate a deal on the grounds that somebody else forged their consent, that they didn't realize they were making a legally binding deal, or that the description of the deal was changed from what they agreed to. Most business-to-business transactions--contracts, purchase orders, legal descriptions, etc.--require such handwritten signatures. Government at all levels likewise requires signatures to receive licenses, services, or benefits. In turn, most banking transactions--among them registrations, applications, mortgages, and loans--are legally anchored to handwritten signatures. Atoms move easier Morphing the myriad practices of paper-based commerce into new electronic forms that can be implemented over the Internet calls for big changes in both communications technology and business culture. In view of such daunting challenges, why do most observers say that these changes are inevitable? In a word, productivity. It's simply a lot cheaper and faster to handle information, automatically, in the form of weightless atoms than it is to fuss with bulky paper documents. Many transactions can be done electronically at a tiny fraction of the cost of doing them in paper or in person. Futurists say that electronics could reduce the overall cost of commerce in the information age by as much as 30%. But e-commerce can't happen until a worldwide electronic infrastructure comes into being to enable those billions upon billions of paperless transactions. Most of the technology already exists and has been tested: a global communications network (the Internet), a thoroughly proved payments system (EFT), and mathematical encryption techniques that can actually bring financial transactions to a higher level of security than present paper systems afford. What remains to be developed is a new commercial culture that has the confidence and trust of all participants. The key word here is trust--chiefly trust between parties that are unknown to each other. ABA's vision, widely shared, is that banks are the most logical and generally acceptable choice to become the trust intermediaries for e-commerce. This is because banks are heavily supervised, are required to know their customers, and already have trusted financial relationships with nearly every business. ABAecom was set up last year under president Thomas Greco to take proactive steps to help banks fill that crucial role. ABAecom then partnered with Digital Signature Trust, a subsidiary of Zions National Bank in Utah, to help bankers use the new public key infrastructure (PKI) for e-commerce. PKI employs a combination of public and private keys to create legally enforceable digital signatures. (See "PKI in a Nutshell," below.) The PKI has actually been used for a few years, although only for assuring the security of messages sent over the Internet--between, say, a consumer's PC and her bank's web server. But that system doesn't guarantee the bank's identity. Was the website claiming to be FirstBest National Bank really that bank, or could it be an imposter website created by bad guys to get into your bank account? (Several such imposters have been exposed recently.) Who goes there? ABAecom's first project is to guarantee the identity of any member bank's website. It does this with its SiteCertain seal, free to any ABA member, which appears on the bank's website. …


The Chesapeake Bay menhaden population provides a number of ecosystem services that help keep the bay's waters suitable for marine life, and enjoyable and profitable for the bay's human users. Overfishing of menhaden within the bay may, however, be eroding the ability of the species to provide these services, which are foundational to rights traditionally secured by the public trust doctrine: fishery, commerce, and navigation. The Virginia courts' failure to protect these foundational ecosystem services threatens the viability and sustainability of these public trust rights. Given the chance, Virginia courts should protect menhaden by expanding the state's narrow conception of the public trust doctrine to comport with developments in ecology and state constitutional, statutory, and case law.


A bright long gamma-ray burst GRB 141207A was observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and detected by both instruments onboard. The observations show that the spectrum in the prompt phase is not well described by the canonical empirical Band function alone, and that an additional power-law component is needed. In the early phase of the prompt emission, a modified blackbody with a hard low-energy photon index (α = +0.2 to +0.4) is detected, which suggests a photospheric origin. In a finely time-resolved analysis, the spectra are also well fitted by the modified blackbody combined with a power-law function. We discuss the physical parameters of the photosphere such as the bulk Lorentz factor of the relativistic flow and the radius. We also discuss the physical origin of the extra power-law component observed during the prompt phase in the context of different models such as leptonic and hadronic scenarios in the internal shock regime and synchrotron emission in the external forward shock. In the afterglow phase, the temporal and spectral behaviors of the temporally extended high-energy emission and the fading X-ray emission detected by the X-Ray Telescope on-board Swift are consistent with synchrotron emission in a radiative external forward shock.


The authors studied the time course in changes of the physiological indices and regularities of the restoration of intraosseous pressure (IOP) parameters after acute disturbance of the blood flow in arteries and veins of the bone and extremity in experiments. The static parameters characterizing the intraosseous circulation were determined. It was established that short-term blood flow disorders lead to regular shifts of the IOP level which are compensated by the inflow of blood from collateral channels; stable disorders of the blood flow--embolization of the diaphyseal artery--lead to the formation of an extensive zone of excluded microcirculation due to cellular block of the sinusoidal bed and end in ischemic necrosis of the bone marrow.


Shanghai Journal of Stomatology(Shanghai Kou Qiang Yi Xue,ISSN 1006-7248),a peer reviewed national journal on oral medicine, oral and maxillofacial surgery, prosthodontics, pediatric dentistry, preventive dentistry, oral pathology, oral radiology, etc, was recently accepted and included in index Medicus and MEDLINE. This is an exciting and encouraging event both for the Editorial Board and authors. The journal will do its best to improve the academic and printing quality in accordance with the demands of MEDLINE and international conventions. The Editorial Board was re-founded last year with addition of internationally renowned experts on stomatology. Every submitted manuscript was evaluated by a minimum of 2 expert reviewers. Almost all of the manuscripts were returned to the corresponding authors with recommendations for revision and correction. In addition, statistics will be addressed for each manuscript to ensure the scientific credibility and repeatability. To help the authors to understand and apply statistics soundly, a series of tutorials on statistics will be published in the 6 issues of this year. All the English information is revised and processed by our invited experts. What we should do next is to increase the impact factor of the journal and shorten the publication periods(currently 9 to 12 months)as much as possible. what we wish is that the impact of this journal will be magnified through the joint efforts from our reviewers, editors and authors worldwide in the future.


TUMULT, (Twente University multiprocessor) is described. Its aim is the design and implementation of a modular extendable multiprocessor system. Up to 15 processing elements are connected through an interprocessor communication network, using message-passing for the exchange of data. The hardware is controlled by a distributed real-time operating system, written in modular Pascal and Modula-2. Each processing element can contain one or more processor (M680X0), memory boards, and I/O interfaces, all connected through a VME bus, which acts as a local bus. The network offers a fully connected communication service with error detection and recovery. In the version realized, the transfer rate is 20 Mbyte/s.<<ETX>>


type="main" xml:lang="en"> Employment Nondiscrimination Acts (ENDAs) have received much political attention in the recent past. Despite the political attention, very little research has investigated the impact of ENDAs. I analyze the impact of ENDAs on labor supplies, which is under-researched in the policy analysis literature. My work is the first to investigate the labor supply patterns of behaviorally gay men using data that are representative of the entire behaviorally gay population. I show that ENDAs motivate behaviorally gay men to work roughly 15–20 h more per week and increase the probability that behaviorally gay men will supply any labor by approximately 7%. These results suggest that ENDAs increase the labor supply of behaviorally gay workers by increasing workplace tolerance of homosexuality. (JEL J2, J7, J1)


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Long term outcomes of transobturator male sling evaluated according to baseline urinary incontinence severity has not been reported. We aim to present the long-term outcome of transobturator sling for male stress urinary incontinence clustered according to baseline urinary incontinence severity and further determine the predictors for durability of treatment success. METHODS: After IRB approval, a non-concurrent study was performed on a prospectively maintained database for all males with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) who underwent transobturator sling at our institution from August 2006 to June 2012. Patient demographics and perioperative data such as co-morbidities, history of pelvic radiation, prior treatments, concomitant urge incontinence, concomitant procedure, and urodynamic (UDS) findings were extracted. Baseline SUI severity was clustered into mild (⩽2 ppd), moderate (3-4 ppd) or severe (≥5 ppd). The treatment outcomes such as post-treatment pads per day (ppd), outcome satisfaction and need for subsequent procedures were extracted up to 5 years post-op. Success was defined as complete dryness with zero wet pad used (cured) and patient satisfaction without further procedures needed. Bivariate analysis was performed to determine difference between groups and significant clinical variables associated with treatment success. Time to event (treatment failure) analysis was performed using Kaplan-Meier analysis with log-rank test. Predictors for long-term treatment outcome were determined using Multiple Cox regression analysis. RESULTS: A total of 215 patients (mild 59, moderate 94, severe 62) with mean follow-up duration of 56.4±41.6 were included for analysis. On last clinic follow-up evaluation, 96 (44.7%) patients were determined to have post-procedural success. When clustered according to baseline SUI severity as mild, moderate and severe, the outcome success was 67.8%, 46% and 19.4%, respectively. Bivariate analysis showed that pelvic radiation (p=0.044), concomitant urgency symptoms (p=0.003), SUI severity clusters (p<0.0001), detrusor overactivity on UDS (p=0.001) and Valsalva leak point pressure (p=0.033) were significantly associated with successful outcome. Kaplan-Meier with Log-rank test and Multiple Cox regression determined that baseline SUI severity (p=0.002) is the only independent predictor for long-term durability of outcome success. CONCLUSIONS: Given our strict criteria on successful outcome as perceived by the patient, our study data gives a more realistic representation of long-term outcome of transobturator sling for the treatment of male SUI. Furthermore, the time to event analysis up to 5-year postoperative follow-up has determined that baseline SUI severity is the only independent predictor for treatment success sustainability. Hence, we suggest that transobturator male sling is an appropriate option for patients with mild incontinence, who may benefit with better long-term success rates. Source of Funding: None


In the ATLAS event store, files are sometimes 'an inconvenient truth.' From the point of view of the ATLAS distributed data management system, files are too small—datasets are the units of interest. From the point of view of the ATLAS event store architecture, files are simply a physical clustering optimization: the units of interest are event collections—sets of events that satisfy common conditions or selection predicates—and such collections may or may not have been accumulated into files that contain those events and no others. It is nonetheless important to maintain file-level metadata, and to cache metadata in event data files. When such metadata may or may not be present in files, or when values may have been updated after files are written and replicated, a clear and transparent model for metadata retrieval from the file itself or from remote databases is required. In this paper we describe how ATLAS reconciles its file and non-file paradigms, the machinery for associating metadata with files and event collections, and the infrastructure for metadata propagation from input to output for provenance record management and related purposes.


Many long-lived marine species exhibit life history traits. that make them more vulnerable to overexploitation. Accurate population trend analysis is essential for development and assessment of management plans for these species. However, because many of these species disperse over large geographic areas, have life stages inaccessible to human surveyors, and/or undergo complex developmental migrations, data on trends in abundance are often available for only one stage of the population, usually breeding adults. The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is one of these long-lived species for which population trends are based almost exclusively on either numbers of females that emerge to nest or numbers of nests deposited each year on geographically restricted beaches. In this study, we generated estimates of annual abundance for juvenile green turtles at two foraging grounds in the Bahamas based on long-term capture-mark-recapture (CMR) studies at Union Creek (24 years) and Conception Creek (13 years), using a two-stage approach. First, we estimated recapture probabilities from CMR data using the Cormack-Jolly-Seber models in the software program MARK; second, we estimated annual abundance of green turtles. at both study sites using the recapture probabilities in a Horvitz-Thompson type estimation procedure. Green turtle abundance did not change significantly in Conception Creek, but, in Union Creek, green turtle abundance had successive phases of significant increase, significant decrease, and stability. These changes in abundance resulted from changes in immigration, not survival or emigration. The trends in abundance on the foraging grounds did not conform to the significantly increasing trend for the major nesting population at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. This disparity highlights the challenges of assessing population-wide trends of green turtles and other long-lived species. The best approach for monitoring population trends may be a combination of (1) extensive surveys to provide data for large-scale trends in relative population abundance, and (2) intensive surveys, using CMR techniques, to estimate absolute abundance and evaluate the demographic processes' driving the trends.


In this study, performances of tractor's driver seat with passive damping system under simulated input vibration test conditions have been investigated. For this purpose 78/764/EEC Type Approval Directive and ISO 2631-1 numbered standard have been used. 18 seats which have been used in this study were classed according to their damping systems firstly. Two main classes are determined: mechanical type and pneumatic type. Mechanical type suspension group is also divided into three subgroups: L type, vertical type, and horizontal type. Pneumatic type seats are divided into two subgroups: automatic driver's mass adjustable seats and manually driver's mass adjustable seats. All seats have been tested under class 1, class 2, and class 3 vibration conditions according to 78/764/EEC Type Approval Directive. Test results have been taken as RMS frequency weighted acceleration according to ISO 2631-1. For class 1 and class 2 all seats are evaluated as positive. For class 3 tests only two seats which are into L type mechanical suspension group are evaluated as negative for heavy driver. For class 1 and class 2 tests automatic driver's mass adjustable pneumatic type suspension group is determined the best suspension group according to Duncan analyze which has been done by means of test results. There is no important difference between the groups statistically for class 3 tests.


The potential to sequester atmospheric carbon in agricultural and forest soils to offset greenhouse gas emissions has generated interest in measuring changes in soil carbon resulting from changes in land management. However, inherent spatial variability of soil carbon limits the precision of measurement of changes in soil carbon and hence, the ability to detect changes. We analyzed variability of soil carbon by intensively sampling sites under different land management as a step toward developing efficient soil sampling designs. Sites were tilled cropland and a mixed deciduous forest in Tennessee, and old-growth and second-growth coniferous forest in western Washington, USA. Six soil cores within each of three microplots were taken as an initial sample and an additional six cores were taken to simulate resampling. Soil C variability was greater in Washington than in Tennessee, and greater in less disturbed than in more disturbed sites. Using this protocol, our data suggest that differences on the order of 2.0 Mg C ha(-1) could be detected by collection and analysis of cores from at least five (tilled) or two (forest) microplots in Tennessee. More spatial variability in the forested sites in Washington increased the minimum detectable difference, but these systems, consisting of low C content sandy soil with irregularly distributed pockets of organic C in buried logs, are likely to rank among the most spatially heterogeneous of systems. Our results clearly indicate that consistent intramicroplot differences at all sites will enable detection of much more modest changes if the same microplots are resampled.


It is fashionable to argue that nature and society are obsolete categories. The two, we are told, can no longer be distinguished from one another; continuing loyalty to the 'binary' of the natural and the social blinds us to the logic of current ecological crises. This article outlines an argument for the opposite position: now more than ever – particularly in our rapidly warming world – we need to sift out the social components from the natural, if we wish to understand the crises and retain the possibility of intervening in them. Tracing the current of hybridism to the writings of Bruno Latour, this article ends with a critique of the foremost proponent of a hybridism in Marxist garb: Jason W. Moore. Against his theories, it suggests that historical materialism is a form of property dualism that distinguishes between social and natural relations while considering them equally material in substance. That is also the analytical premise of ecological class hatred, the flames of which ecological Marxism seeks to fan.


A series of novel 4-aminoquinoline analogues bearing a methyl group at 4-aminoquinoline moiety were synthesized via a new and robust synthetic route comprising in situtert-butoxycarbonyl (Boc) deprotection–methylation cascade resulting in the corresponding N-methylated secondary amine using Red-Al and an efficient microwave-assisted strategy for the fusion of N-methylated secondary amine with 4-chloroquinoline nucleus to access the series of novel 4-N-methylaminoquinoline analogues. The new series of compounds were evaluated for their antimalarial activity in in vitro and in vivo models. Among 21 tested compounds, 9a–i have shown a half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value less than 0.5 μM (i.e., <500 nM) against both chloroquine-sensitive strain 3D7 and chloroquine-resistant strain K1 of Plasmodium falciparum with acceptable cytotoxicity. Based on the in vitro antimalarial activity, selected compounds were screened for their in vivo antimalarial activity against Plasmodium yoelii nigeriensis (a multidrug-resistant) parasite in Swiss mice. Most of the compounds have shown significant inhibition on day 4 post infection at the oral dose of 100 mg/kg. Compound 9a has shown 100% parasite inhibition on day 4, and out of five treated mice, two were cured till the end of the experiment. The present study suggests that 4-methylamino substitution is well tolerated for the antiplasmodial activity with reduced toxicity and therefore will be highly useful for the discovery of a new antimalarial agent against drug-resistant malaria.


Non-cognitive skills, such as the Big Five personality traits, determine many work and behavioral outcomes, such as labor market sorting. Likewise, numerous studies have shown that motives predict public versus private sector employment. This study is the first to investigate whether the interaction of motives and a further form of non-cognitive skills, namely locus of control, results in public versus private sector employment. Using a longitudinal German dataset, I determine that intrinsic motives (importance of civic engagement) moderate the relationship between locus of control and public sector employment, whereas the interaction of extrinsic motives (importance of career) and locus of control leads to private sector employment. Selection patterns at the start of the career and during the career explain a major part of the results. The findings are largely robust for revealed preferences, hold for the occupation groups of managers and professionals, and are driven by men and individuals without a migration background.


PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the evolution of real estate degree programs since their inception in Uganda in 2005. It further assesses the relevance in regard to solving the land management challenges which they were intended to solve.DESIGN/METHODS/APPROACH: This study was mainly a case study research. Purposive sampling was vital in selection of relevant departments in universities where programs are taught and stratified techniques wereused in collecting data from the different stakeholders; in addition, there was a review of several documents to enhance knowledge obtained from the primary data.FINDINGS: The study established that, although real estate programs were introduced in Uganda more than a decade ago to cub the glaringly unguided property market and the challenges of the land management anddevelopment function, policy makers haven't yet appreciated their existence. Relevance of the initial curricula designs weren't sustainable, hence necessitating thorough reviews both on course content, weightings and even total replacements.RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: This research hasn't made a comparative study of relevance of real estate programs with key states within the East African Community. The time period is also limited to since the inception of the programs and little focus has been put on the magnitude of the land challenges during the period before their inceptionPRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Results of this research can be instrumental in boosting the quality of real estate programs to become more relevant and sustainableORIGINALITY/VALUE OF WORK: Since their inception in Uganda, this study provides the first opportunity to 'stoke take' on the focus and relevance of the real estate programs to the Ugandan property industry.


This study has shown that utilization of the unique features of a fusion reactor can result in a novel and potentially economical method of decomposing steam into hydrogen and oxygen. Most of the power of fusion reactors is in the form of energetic neutrons. If this power could be used to produce high temperature uncontaminated steam, a large fraction of the energy needed to decomposee the steam could be supplied as thermal energy by the fusion reaction. Proposed high temperature electrolysis processes require steam temperature in excess of 1000/sup 0/C for high efficiency. The design put forth in this study details a system that can accomplish that end.


Residue Number System (RNS) allows parallel digital signal processing due to the absence of carry propagation between its arithmetic units. The RNS implementation results in great performance in terms of speed and power, especially when recursive multiply-and-accumulate operations are required. In this paper, we propose a direct residue-to-analog conversion architecture. The proposed architecture, based on the Chinese Remainder Theorem, eliminates the need of conversion to binary encoding as an intermediate stage. The proposed converter is useful for direct interaction of residual arithmetic-based signal processing with the analog world.


Only a small percentage of individuals living in endemic areas develop severe malaria suggesting that host genetic factors may play a key role. This study has determined the frequency of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in some pro and anti-inflammatory cytokine gene sequences: IL6 (-174; rs1800795), IL12p40 (+1188; rs3212227), IL4 (+33; rs2070874), IL10 (-3575; rs1800890) and TGFb1 (+869; rs1800470), by means of PCR-RFLP. Blood samples were collected from 104 symptomatic and 37 asymptomatic subjects. Laboratory diagnosis was assessed by the thick blood smear test and nested-PCR. No association was found between IL6 (-174), IL12p40 (+1188), IL4 (+33), IL10 (- 3575), TGFb1 (+869) SNPs and malaria symptoms. However, regarding the IL10 -3575 T/A SNP, there were significantly more AA and AT subjects, carrying the polymorphic allele A, in the symptomatic group (c2 = 4.54, p = 0.01, OR = 0.40 [95% CI - 0.17- 0.94]). When the analysis was performed by allele, the frequency of the polymorphic allele A was also significantly higher in the symptomatic group (c2 = 4.50, p = 0.01, OR = 0.45 [95% CI - 0.21-0.95]). In conclusion, this study has suggested the possibility that the IL10 - 3575 T/A SNP might be associated with the presence and maintenance of malaria symptoms in individuals living in endemic areas. Taking into account that this polymorphism is related to decreased IL10 production, a possible role of this SNP in the pathophysiology of malaria is also suggested, but replication studies with a higher number of patients and evaluation of IL10 levels are needed for confirmation.


This research was aimed at describing how is the model of educational character in High School Al-Istiqamah Simpang Empat, West Pasaman, West Sumatera and what strategy that was used by High School Al-Istiqamah to keep the quality outputs which have character, then this research became a model in organizing educational character related to the sustainable development and capacity human building. To get the aim of the research, the researcher used qualitative ethnography methodology. This study carried out on the condition of natural and cultural nature, it is more descriptive, it emphasis on the process rather than the product or outcome, data analysis conducted inductively, and further emphasize the significance (data behind the observed). The techniques of collecting data consisted of interviewing, observation, documentation, and triangulation. The model of educational character was (1) religious; (2) moderate; (3) smart; and (4) independent. The Strategy which was done to keep the output was forming the school's culture such behavior, tradition, daily life, and symbols which were applied by all members of school and society around school.


Abstract The evolution of referees' physical fitness has been studied over one or several seasons, however, the variation of the physical performance between the end of the competitive season (T1) and the start of the following pre-season (T2) has not been ascertained. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the effects of the transition period on physical performance variables (i.e. linear straight sprint, change of direction ability and endurance) in National Soccer Division referees. Forty-five Spanish referees volunteered to participate in this study. Participants were classified according to competitive status, field referees (FR, n = 23) and assistant referees (AR, n = 22). A loss of performance (p < 0.05) was observed in the 20 and 30 m linear straight sprint between T1 and T2 in both FR (1.64-1.56%, d = 0.29 to 0.32) and AR (2.01-3.41%, d = 0.33 to 0.60). In T2 the FR significantly improved the distance covered (p < 0.05, 13.11%, d = 0.39) in the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery test (YYIR1). Besides, significant differences were observed between FR and AR in the distance covered (p < 0.05, −23.55%, d = −0.97) in the YYIR1 test in T2. More research may be necessary to focus on the off-season period in order to implement specific training programs and consequently reduce the loss of sprint ability in field and assistant referees and the decrease in cardiovascular fitness in assistant referees.


We report here the development of an orthotopic-transplant model of human patient breast cancer in nude mice. Histologically-intact patient breast tumor tissue was transplanted as intact tissue to the mammary fat pad of nude mice where the tumor tissue grew extensively and metastasized to the lung. This is the first orthotopic-transplant metastatic model of human breast cancer. The potential clinical and basic-science uses of the model are discussed.


Logic rules and inference are fundamental in computer science and have been studied extensively. However, prior semantics of logic languages can have subtle implications and can disagree significantly, on even very simple programs, including in attempting to solve the well-known Russell's paradox. These semantics are often non-intuitive and hard-to-understand when unrestricted negation is used in recursion.
This paper describes a simple new semantics for logic rules, founded semantics, and its straightforward extension to another simple new semantics, constraint semantics, that unify the core of different prior semantics. The new semantics support unrestricted negation, as well as unrestricted existential and universal quantifications. They are uniquely expressive and intuitive by allowing assumptions about the predicates, rules, and reasoning to be specified explicitly, as simple and precise binary choices. They are completely declarative and relate cleanly to prior semantics. In addition, founded semantics can be computed in linear time in the size of the ground program.


The Malay version of the WHOQOL-BREF was published approximately 15 years ago. Since then, no known research has been conducted to identify the psychometric properties of the scale using confirmatory factor analysis. This study aimed to establish a model by applying a scientific approach to the translation and adaptation method. The back translation technique was used for the translation process. This cross-sectional study involved 282 employees at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The instrument received satisfactory Cronbach's alpha reliability values. The data were analysed with SEM using AMOS. Results showed that the model produced is parsimonious, with CMIN/df = 0.23, CFI = 0.93, SRMR = 0.08, RMSEA = 0.08 and PCLOSE = 0.07. Adopting the Malay version of the WHOQOL-BREF for future research is highly recommended due to its properties.


The aim of this contribution is to study empirically the effect of trade liberalization on productivity growth exploiting a large micro-dataset of more than 20,000 French and Italian food firms, over the 2004-2012 period. This relationship has been studied focusing on import penetration at both industry and upstream sectors level, to investigate the role played by imports in intermediate inputs. Main findings show that import penetration in both final products and intermediate inputs systematically contributed to firm-level productivity growth. Yet, the productivity growth effect induced by import penetration in upstream sectors is 10 times higher than the one at the industry level. Horizontal import competition coming from the EU15 and OECD countries exerts the strongest effect on productivity growth. By contrast, when vertical import penetration is considered, also sourcing intermediate inputs from emerging markets appears important for firms' productivity growth. Finally, we also find a strong confirmation that the effects of import penetration are increasing with the initial level of firms' productivity. All these stylized facts may have interesting policy implications.


It is great practical significance to conduct a scientific, accurate, and complete analysis, assessment or even early warning on the safety of current and future medicines. In this paper, Data Mining Algorithm is put forward and suggested to be used for GSP drug regulation of the government. In light of the massive GSP data, we, with the help of the Decision-tree theory and related analysis, work out a fairly scientific and rational data mining structure, which will be then built and pruned to get the classification rules and then comprehensive assessment, ultimately providing GSP decision-makers with more effective management decision-making basis.


We investigate Lipschitz-Killing curvatures for excursion sets of random fields on ℝ2under a very specific perturbation, namely a small spatial-invariant random perturbation with zero mean. An expansion formula for mean curvatures is derived when the magnitude of the perturbation vanishes, which recovers the Gaussian Kinematic Formula at the limit by contiguity of the model. We develop an asymptotic study of the perturbed excursion area behaviour that leads to a quantitative non-Gaussian limit theorem, in Wasserstein distance, for fixed small perturbations and growing domain. When letting both the perturbation vanish and the domain grow, a standard Central Limit Theorem follows. Taking advantage of these results, we propose an estimator for the perturbation variance which turns out to be asymptotically normal and unbiased, allowing to make inference through sparse information on the field.


Sole structures, typically developed on basal bedding surfaces of turbidite sandstones, are commonly used as palaeocurrent indicators and indicators of the current ability to erode. Detailed analysis of types and frequency of sole structures in the 128 m thick succession of Early Oligocene Cergowa Sandstone (Outer Western Carpathians) also shows their potential as an indicator of flow condition during the deposition. The massive and amalgamated sandstones, predominantly containing load casts and minor flutes and grooves with unidirectional orientation, are suggested to be deposited by highly turbulent flow after reaching hydraulic jump behind the topographic obstacle. High range of sole structures in thick and medium thick sandstones, suggesting inferior oblique and reverse flows, implies deposition from density stratified flows where lower, denser part has a tendency to deflect when hit the basin floor obstacle. The upper, less dense part has an ability to come over the obstacle and shows only small scatter in the palaeocurrent direction.


Our investigationes during the last seven years stress the importance of mycoplasma hominis and ureaplasma on the so called abacterial inflammation of the urogenital tract. Because of diagnostic problems and differential diagnoses only specialized centers should explore these inflammatory conditions. Therapy is possible, however, by dermatologists, urologists, gynecologists, and general practitioners.


The purpose of this pre-test, post-test, quasi-experimental study was to examine the relationship between the Interactive Metronome[registered] (IM) protocol and cognitive plasticity, cognitive retention, and motor skills of older adults in southeastern North Carolina. The IM protocol was carried out in various settings with an occupational therapist and/or graduate occupational therapy students present for motivation and guidance. All participants underwent pre- and post-test assessments in order to track cognitive and motor function as they moved through the protocol. Cognitive assessments included the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III) and the d2 Test of Attention (d2). Motor assessments included the Four Step Square Test (FSST) and the Nine Hole Peg Test (NHPT). The participants' scoring and progress within the IM program was also tracked and examined for trends and indicators. This pre-test, post-test, quasi-experimental design was used to compare the differences between the assessment scores before and after intervention with the IM protocol. In all, a relationship was delineated between positive percentage of change on IM performance and positive percentage of change on the cognitive and motor assessments.


Cloud computing has an indispensable role in the modern digital scenario. The fundamental challenge of cloud systems is to accommodate user requirements which keep on varying. This dynamic cloud environment demands the necessity of complex algorithms to resolve the trouble of task allotment. The overall performance of cloud systems is rooted in the efficiency of task scheduling algorithms. The dynamic property of cloud systems makes it challenging to find an optimal solution satisfying all the evaluation metrics. The new approach is formulated on the Round Robin and the Shortest Job First algorithms. The Round Robin method reduces starvation, and the Shortest Job First decreases the average waiting time. In this work, the advantages of both algorithms are incorporated to improve the makespan of user tasks.


Abstract Following extensive bibliographical research, a chronological history of the pharmaceutical use of gold is outlined through four periods: antiquity, the Middle Ages, early modern times and the seventeenth century. At the time of its highest popularity as a medicine, gold was usually acquired and employed in the form of fine filings or thin leaves of standard size. The most complex and famous medicine containing gold was Aurea Alexandrina, created in the late Middle Ages and later copied into many books. A complete list of its ingredients in Latin and English is included in the present paper. As in Aurea Alexandrina, gold was very often accompanied in a formula by other precious components like silver, gems and pearls. In addition to being an important ingredient in many medicines, gold was also used for making surgical instruments and for coating pills that otherwise had a bad taste or smell. The medicinal use of gold, even when it was very fashionable, was not unanimously regarded as effective and many authors clearly expressed either enthusiasm or scepticism about this matter.


Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction: Toward a New General Management Model Part I The Promise of Beyond Budgeting 1. The Annual Performance Trap 2. Breaking Free Part II The First Beyond Budgeting Opportunity: Enabling Adaptive Management Processes 3. How Four Organizations Introduced Adaptive Processes 4. Principles and Practices 5. Insights into Implementation Part III The Second Beyond Budgeting Opportunity: Enabling Radical Decentralization 6. How Four Organizations Have Radically Decentralized 7. Leadership Principles 8. Embedding the Principles in the Management Culture Part IV Realizing the Full Promise of Beyond Budgeting 9. The Roles of Systems and Tools 10. The Vision of a Management Model Fit for the Twenty-First Century Glossary Notes Index


In this letter, we propose an entropy-based time window function for artifact removal in ultra-wideband (UWB) imaging of breast cancer detection. The artifact is due to the incident and skin-breast backscattered signal in such an imaging system. Observing that artifacts at different antennas are very similar, we define an entropy function in the antenna domain to measure the similarity of different antenna signals and design a rectangular window function to eliminate the artifacts. This window function is applied to the computed finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) data of the breast model with a tumor embedded. Compared with the Wiener filtering algorithm, this entropy-based algorithm is computationally simple. In addition, it requires no prior knowledge about the breast and the tumor and brings no distortion to the tumor reflection


The primary objective of this paper is to investigate distributed ordinary differential equation (ODE) and distributed temporal difference (TD) learning algorithms for networked multi-agent Markov decision problems (MAMDPs). In our study, we adopt a distributed multi-agent framework where individual agents have access only to their own rewards, lacking insights into the rewards of other agents. Additionally, each agent has the ability to share its parameters with neighboring agents through a communication network, represented by a graph. Our contributions can be summarized in two key points: 1) We introduce novel distributed ODEs, inspired by the averaging consensus method in the continuous-time domain. The convergence of the ODEs is assessed through control theory perspectives. 2) Building upon the aforementioned ODEs, we devise new distributed TD-learning algorithms. A standout feature of one of our proposed distributed ODEs is its incorporation of two independent dynamic systems, each with a distinct role. This characteristic sets the stage for a novel distributed TD-learning strategy, the convergence of which can potentially be established using Borkar-Meyn theorem.