A method to computationally and experimentally identify aptamers against short peptides or amino acid clusters is introduced. The method involves the selection of a well-defined protein aptamer complex and the extraction of the peptide sequence participating in the binding of the protein to the aptamer. The subsequent fragmentation of the peptide sequence into short peptides and the in silico docking-guided identification of affinity complexes between the miniaturized peptides and the antiprotein aptamer, followed by experimental validation of the binding features of the short peptides with the antiprotein aptamers, leads to the identification of new short peptide-aptamer complexes. This is exemplified with the identification of the pentapeptide RYERN as the scaffold that binds thrombin to the DNA thrombin aptamer (DNA TA). In silico docking studies followed by microscale thermophoresis (MST) experiments demonstrate that the miniaturized tripeptides RYE, YER, and ERN reveal selective binding affinities toward the DNA TA. In addition, docking and MST experiments show that the ribonucleotide-translated RNA TA shows related binding affinities of YER to the DNA TA. Most importantly, we demonstrate that the separated amino acids Y/E/R assemble as a three amino acid cluster on the DNA TA and RNA TA aptamers in spatial configurations similar to the tripeptide YER on the respective aptamers. The clustering phenomenon is selective for the YER tripeptide system. The method to identify binding affinities of miniaturized peptides to known antiprotein aptamers and the specific clustering of single amino acids on the aptamers is further demonstrated by in silico and experimental identification of the binding of the tripeptide RET and the selective clustering of the separated amino acids R/E/T onto a derivative of the AS1411 aptamer against the nucleolin receptor protein.


Background: Transanal endorectal
one-stage pull-through (TERPT) procedure in children with Hirschsprung's disease (HD) is frequently used
worldwide. In order to give the families realistic expectations and to plan the
medical care for the years after TERPT, the long term outcome is of great
importance. Aim: To collect information on the long term outcome reported after
one stage TERPT procedure for HD in children 0 - 15 years. Method: A literature
review on the outcome of planned TERPT from 2005 through 2012 was carried out.
Information was collected on the number of daily stools a few months
postoperatively, incontinence and constipation and the measures taken to deal
with these. Results: The reports are few and prospective
studies were missing. The results show an initial high frequency of daily
stools, 12% had later abnormal stool patterns, 21% had fecal incontinence and
10% had problems with constipation. Conclusion: In order to compare the long
term outcome, it would
be desirable to have uniform regular reports on the daily frequency of passed
stools, incontinence and constipation during the first years after TERPT. Such
knowledge would be of importance for the information given to the guardians of
children with HD preoperatively to TERPT and in the planning of the future
care. The findings can, furthermore, provide a benchmark for the outcome from a
single centre.


Honey is an important functional food for human health and nutrition that is collected by honey bees and stored in the honeycombs. In this study, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and volatile compounds of 13 different honey samples collected from various districts of Malatya province were investigated. As a result of this study, it was determined that the total phenolic content varied between 8.50 mg GAE 100 g–1 and 73.90 mg GAE 100 g–1 and it was observed that the honey samples were rich in aldehydes, aliphatic acid and esters, alcohols, hydrocarbons, carboxylic acid esters, ketones, terpenes, fatty acids and esters. In addition, the antibacterial effects of honey samples were determined against 18 different pathogenic bacteria using agar well diffusion (AWD) method, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC). In AWD assay, it was recorded that inhibition zone diameters varied between 9 mm and 14 mm and honey samples were found to have a partial inhibitory effect against selected target pathogens.


A power unit constituted by a reformer, a H2 purification section and a fuel cell is being installed c/o the Dept. of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry of Universita degli Studi di Milano, on the basis of a collaboration with Helbio S.A. (Hydrogen and Energy Production Systems, supplier) and the support of some sponsors (Linea Energia S.p.A., Parco Tecnologico Padano and Provincia di Lodi). The system is suitable to obtain 5 kWelectric (a.c.) + 5 kWthermal (hot water at 70°C) as peak output. H2 is produced by steam reforming (SR) of second generation bioethanol, obtainable by different non-food competitive biomass. The assessment of the effect of biomass nature and of the consequent different impurities left in the produced bioethanol is part of the experimentation, together with the evaluation of the impact of bioethanol production cost on the final energy cost. Furthermore, the effect of different ethanol/steam ratios will be taken into account to lighten as much as possible the energy demanding ethanol dehydration process. The former point focuses on catalyst life, imposing careful ethanol characterisation and proper catalyst formulation, whereas the latter is connected with the overall energetic efficiency and economic sustainability. Indeed, the reforming process requires co-feeding of water, opening the way to the research of different, cheaper, ethanol purification strategies, leading to lower ethanol concentration with respect to the azeotrope. The reformate is purified from CO down to a concentration below 20 ppm, suitable to feed the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) stack integrated in the fuel processor. This result is achieved by feeding it to two water gas shift reactors, connected in series and operating at high and low temperature, respectively. The expected CO concentration in the outcoming gas is ca. 1 vol% and the final CO removal to meet the specifications is accomplished by selective methanation. The purified H2 is fed to a 5 kWe PEMFC stack, which should have an expected overall efficiency around 80% (including thermal output). The main goal of the present project is to check system performance under widely different operating conditions and load, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technology and to suggest adequate improvements. Different operating conditions are under evaluation as for ethanol origin, purity, concentration, temperature and space velocity of every reaction step, so to obtain the best compromise between H2 yield, power output and operating costs.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


This study aims to determine (1) differences in students ' science learning achievement after learning by using a scientific approach aided the portfolio assessment, (2) differences in students' science learning achievement after learning by using a scientific approach aided assessment portfolio, after controling the learning variable styles, and (3) contribution of covariates learning style on science learning achievement in IV grade of SD Negeri 4 Kampung Baru. The type of this study is pre-experimental study with research design with one group pretest posttest design. The study population was all students in IV grade on A class of SD N 4 Banjar Tegal at 2014/2015 academic year and consisting of 28 students. This research sample is IV grade on A class of SD Negeri 4 Kampung Baru and the totaling 28 students selected to study census techniques. Data collection instruments used in this study is the science achievement test and test Learning Styles. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Based on the results of the data analysis, the results are as follows. First there are significant differences of science student learning achievement after learning by using scientific approach assisted assessment portfolio (Fhitung = 62.642> Ftabel = 4.22), second, there is a significant difference on students' science learning achievement after learning by


X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy and X-ray microanalysis were used to determine the composition and distribution of elements in the main mineral constituents of oxidized nickel ore at the Sakhalin deposit (goethite, hematite, serpentine, talc and chlorite). The main fraction of nickel is concentrated in iron oxides, where its content reaches 2,4 %, while in magnesium silicates it does not exceed 0,4 %. The sequence and temperature intervals of transformations were established when heating ore in inert and reducing media by means of thermal analysis methods combined with mass-spectrometric analysis of gases and subsequent X-ray phase analysis of products. The temperature regimes of ore roasting for the reduction of nickel and iron from their minerals were justified. The temperature regimes of sample heating are assumed to be close to the conditions implemented in industrial units (electric furnaces) where the rate of charge heating varies within 5—15 degrees/min, up to the melting point (1450 °С) of ferronickel and slag. It is proposed to use information on material composition, thermal properties and metal forms in ore to select regimes and technologies for their pyro-or hydrometallurgical processing. Nickel and iron recovery from oxides in CO environment occurs above 800 °С, while serpentines remain stable up to 1200 °С. The use of coke as a reducing agent allows reducing iron and nickel from serpentines at temperatures above 1250 °С. The obtained data were used to substantiate the operating conditions of roaster and electric furnaces during ferronickel smelting from oxidized ores. When roasting, resulting ferronickel particles will contain 2—4 % Ni. Completing recovery processes in the electric furnace will ensure metal recovery from magnesium silicates, which will slightly increase the nickel content in ferro-nickel.


Abstract The diplolepideous-alternate peristome, when most highly developed, has endostome segments attached to a basal membrane and positioned alternate to the outer exostome teeth, with cilia often present between the segments. This peristome type defines the Bryidae ( sensu Vitt et al. 1998), which includes four orders: the Bryales, Leucodontales, Hypnales, and Hookeriales, of which the latter three are mainly pleurocarpous in their growth form. Chloroplast (rbcL, rps4, and trnL-trnF) and nuclear (18S rRNA) gene sequences have been analyzed using the parsimony optimality criterion to elucidate relationships among the Bryidae. The analyses strongly support the paraphyly of the Bryidae, with the Splachnidae, and possibly the Orthotrichidae, having arisen from ancestors within the Bryidae. The Leucodontales, Hypnales, and Hookeriales form a monophyletic group, as do the pleurocarpous members of the Bryidae. However, the two pleurocarpous clades are not resolved as sister groups, although their non-monophyly is not supported by the bootstrap. The phylogenetic hypothesis provides a context in which to infer evolutionary transitions in some key morphological characters relating to the peristome and the transition from the acrocarpous to pleurocarpous growth forms.


Summary Plants have to cope with a number of biotic stresses among which, infectious diseases. The present study was conducted to investigate the reaction of two native Greek tomato vars, 'Chondrokatsari Messinias' and 'Katsari Santorinis', to infection by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici and Rhizoctonia solani. Disease symptoms, disease incidence and severity were recorded and the effects of infection on the number of flowers, the biomass production (fresh and dry weight), CO2 assimilation, stomatal conductance and transpiration were also evaluated. Both tomato varieties were susceptible to F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici and R. solani infection. However, 'Chondrokatsari Messinias' was found to be less susceptible to F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici compared to 'Katsari Santorinis'. Both pathogens negatively affected biomass production of var. 'Chondrokatsari Messinias' but not that of 'Katsari Santorinis'. The number of fl owers produced by 'Chondrokatsari Messinias' was negatively affected by R. solani but not by F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici. Infection of both varieties by R. solani also caused reduction in the CO2 assimilation, stomatal conductance and transpiration.


ABSTRACT SugE of Escherichia coli, first identified as a suppressor of groEL mutations but a member of the small multidrug resistance family, has not previously been shown to confer a drug resistance phenotype. We show that high-level expression of sugE leads to resistance to a subset of toxic quaternary ammonium compounds.


The American Academy of Family Physicians and the Program Requirements for Residency Education in Family Practice acknowledge the importance of research during residency training. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires formal scholarly activity to occur in residency programs through their core competencies of medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, and systems-based practice. Finally, Stange et al recommend that the generation of relevant knowledge should be supported through incorporating the pursuit of new knowledge as a central feature of training programs and policy. Despite these recommendations, Mainous and colleagues found that research appears to have a minor role in academic family medicine. Of a potential rating of 5, research was ranked fourth in a survey of chairs of institutional members of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine. Approximately 10 peerreviewed articles per year were published per department. Departments in less intense institutions published a median of 0.7 articles, whereas those in research-intense institutions published 0.5 (P = .30). Although research is often included in the residency curriculum, it is not always a required component. In a survey of family practice residency program directors, Neale found that 48.6% of respondents reported requiring a resident research project, but only one fourth linked annual resident promotion to progress on the project. The top 2 reasons for requiring resident research were to develop critical thinking and patient care skills and to understand the medical literature. The top 2 reasons for not requiring resident research were the attitude that research isn't necessary and lack of faculty or time. Residency programs can further integrate research into their curriculum and make scholarly activity a priority. Residency directors model research behavior and should look to successful researchers as they develop their curriculum. Gonzales et al noted several key elements of a successful research program for medical students. A development program (eg, the Family Medicine Scholars Program), financial support for student research, a core of faculty mentors, a strong coordinating effort by the predoctoral office, and research agendas geared to student schedules increased the number of students involved in primary care research, presentations, and publication. In a survey of community residency faculty and nonfaculty family physicians who published at least 1 article during a 2-year period, Hueston and Mainous found that 60% of community faculty and nonfaculty family physicians reported previous research experience in the undergraduate, medical school, or residency level. The respondents noted several keys to their success: a mentor, a supportive infrastructure, and an inherent enjoyment of research. Interestingly, research training received during residency was evaluated as poor. In a follow-up interview, Dr. Hueston said curiosity is a key element in being a successful researcher. "While some people are just born curious, I think we can train our learners to be curious through modeling traits, such as the reliance on evidence-based information and challenging expert opinions, that should be part of the approach of any successful teacher." On a cautionary note, Dr. Hueston notes that "the mistake that most people make in choosing a research topic is biting off more than they can swallow. Usually, residents have to hone down their initial idea into smaller component projects that are essential to finding out the answer and, more importantly, are feasible." Family medicine programs should be able to learn from lessons of successful researchers as they further implement research into the curriculum. To be successful, the programs need to have research as a priority. As noted by Stange et al, "we cannot let the competing demands and threats of the current environment dissuade us; they make the need and opportunity even stronger." Peter J. Carek, MD, MS Member, Board of Directors, AFPRD AFPRD Representative, Research Subcommittee Academic Family Medicine Organizations (AFMO)


NF-kappaB, a family of related transcription factors, has been a focus of intense scientific research during the past decade. Multiple stimuli, both extracellular and intracellular, lead to its activation. The NF-kappaB pathway regulates expression of a diverse array of genes involved in different biological processes. Various pathological states are characterized by the dysregulated NF-kappaB pathway. Recently, NF-kappaB activation has been connected with multiple aspects of oncogenesis and serves as an important mechanism to regulate cell survival in response to chemotherapy by activating different genes that inhibit apoptosis. Several methods of inhibiting NF-kappaB activation, such as antisense oligonucleotides, proteosome inhibitors and RNA interference (RNAi) are currently under investigation. RNAi represents a powerful tool to better define the role of specific genes in different signal transduction pathways and has recently been used to define the function of genes that regulate the NF-kappaB pathway. This review discusses the emerging role of RNAi to dissect the function of regulatory factors in the NF-kappaB pathway and its potential use as a targeted therapy.


British policy may be summarized as follows: (a) cooperation in the dependencies between government and voluntary educational agenciesmissions, Moslem native authorities, and private groups-by the formation of local advisory committees, and by generous grants-in-aid encouraging nongovernment bodies to develop their schools side by side with those of government; (b) insistence upon education having a definitely religious background, whether Christian or non-Christian; (c) conservation through school activities of the best elements in native life; (d) educational programs directed toward the advancement of the peoples as a whole; (e) provision of technical and vocational training according to local needs; (f) education for girls; and (g) development of higher education for the training of native leaders. With regard to cooperation between government and private agencies and the religious basis of education, it should be noted that the greater part of educational work in nearly all British dependencies is done by missionary societies. This is partly because of historical reasons; only comparatively recently has the government regarded education as one of its proper functions, partly for reasons of economy and partly because it is traditional for the government to use existing agencies so far as it is possible to do so. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the amount of financial assistance which the government actually gives to missions is, at the present moment, still inadequate. Thus, for example, the recent East African Commission advised the government to take an increasing share in the responsibility for education. In some territories the government schools were in existence before the development of the grant-in-aid system of mission schools and, in addition, it is sometimes necessary to provide governmental schools in Moslem and other areas where for religious reasons popular feeling would resent these activities being left in the hands of missions. In addition to aiding missionary societies the government also makes grants to Mohammedan and other religious bodies, to minority groups such as Indians resident in Africa or Malaya, and to private school organizations by the people themselves.


The authors report data on the social and clinical characteristics of patients who received ECT in public or private psychiatric facilities in New York State during 1972 and 1977. The findings indicate that the predominant use of ECT is in the private psychiatric sector and that, in both private and public facilities, it is administered primarily to white, middle-aged women with depressive conditions.


The effects of assembly time on the properties of plywood were investigated in detail in this study. Three-layer plywood was fabricated, and its wet shear strength and formaldehyde emission were measured. The assembly time was varied to create three different assembly conditions (A, B, and C). The assembly condition A consisted of UF resin mixed with NH4Cl and kept for 0 to 8 h before gluing; the assembly condition B consisted of glued veneer kept in the open air for 0 to 8 h; and the assembly condition C consisted of glued veneer pre-pressed for 0 to 8 h before hot-pressing. The thermal behavior of the adhesive applied through varying assembly times was tested by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Results showed that the plywood prepared under condition C exhibited the highest wet shear strength, which was 37% and 18% higher than those under conditions A and B, respectively. The plywood prepared under condition C exhibited the lowest formaldehyde emission, which was 32% and 16% lower than those under conditions A and B, respectively. The DSC results indicated that the curing process consisted of three sections and that the rate of the curing reaction was the fastest in the first section and was similar in the latter two sections.


Ovarian cancer (OvCa) is the sixth most common cancer in women and leading cause of death from gynecologic diseases. Poor prognosis in OvCa is due to late diagnosis and acquired resistance to the commonly used platinum-based regimens. A significant setback for OvCa treatment is the lack of reliable biomarkers and effective targeted therapies. In order to discover novel therapeutic opportunities with approved and emerging drugs for OvCa, we have established primary cultures using ascites or tumor tissue samples from chemo-refractory ovarian cancer patients for ex vivo Drug Sensitivity and Resistance Testing (DSRT) and genomic profiling. In addition, we have performed DSRT with 31 established OvCa cell lines. Comparison of the drug sensitivity profiles of ten primary cancer cell cultures and 31 OvCa cell lines revealed previously unanticipated cancer selective drug vulnerabilities. Several drug groups were identified suggesting that the sensitive samples were addicted to the corresponding signaling networks. For example, in a 53-year old chemorefractory low grade serous OvCa patient, genomic and transcriptomic analyses revealed a fusion gene of NRG-1, a target that was recently reported to involve the NRG1/ERBB3 activation loop in OvCa. We found high expression of ERBB2 and ERBB3 by RNA-seq as well as high levels of phospho-ERBB3, phospho-ERBB2 and phospho-EGFR by immunohistochemistry. In agreement with the molecular mechanism, DSRT analysis identified significant sensitivity of primary cancer cells to EGFR inhibitors, such as erlotinib and to dual EGFR and Her2 inhibitor afatinib. The patient has received combination therapy of gemcitabine and erlotinib during nine months, followed by afatinib monotheraphy that has lead to complete remission after six months treatment. We have detected activated NRG1/ERBB3 activation loop also in several additional ovarian cancer patient cases, highlighting the importance of this signaling pathway in ovarian cancer pathogenesis. Our study reveals that a subset of serous ovarian cancer patients with activating NRG1/ERBB3 signaling loop have clinical benefits from repurposing dual EGFR/Her2 inhibitor afatinib, providing a basis for the clinical use of EGFR and dual EGFR/Her2 tyrosine kinase inhibitors in clinical treatment. In conclusion, DSRT technology together with molecular profiling provides a powerful strategy to identify tumor driver signals and select clinically actionable inhibitors. Hence, this type of systems medicine approach can significantly improve the power of mainly genomics-oriented personalized medicine approaches. Citation Format: Astrid Murumagi, Akira Hirasawa, Suleiman Khan, Daniela Ungureanu, Mariliina Arjama, Teijo Pellinen, Samuli Eldfors, Riitta Koivisto-Korander, Arto Leminen, Ralf Butzow, Tero Aittokallio, Olli Kallioniemi. Identifying ovarian cancer specific targeted drugs using high-throughput drug sensitivity profiles of primary cancer cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 410. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-410


The main objective of this paper is to provide a self-consistent analytical model for the approximate current distribution induced on an arbitrarily loaded wire antenna of moderate length operating in its receiving mode. The results of our analysis shed light on a debated issue regarding the circuit model of a receiving antenna and show that currently available simplified analytical models for receiving dipoles fail to satisfy basic power conservation requirements. These general findings are applied to the proper homogenization of composite materials and surfaces, and to minimum-scattering receivers and absorbers.


Moving object segmentation is highly beneficial to human identification and behavior analysis in intelligent video surveillance. The widely-used background subtraction works not well in dynamic scenes. In this paper, the problem is addressed by first localizing the object by tracking and then segmenting it locally via Graph cuts. We also propose a robust tracker combining the merits of two existing methods [1] and [2], and display an interactive segmentation system. Experiments verify the feasibility of our method and that the proposed tracker outperforms most state-of-the-art methods.


Recent data suggest that erythropoietin (EPO) plays a substantial role in cancer development and clinical outcome by stimulating cell proliferation, invasion and angiogenesis. A functional polymorphism (rs1617640 G>T) in the promoter region of the EPO gene increases EPO protein expression. In the present study, we investigated the association of EPO rs1617640 G>T with susceptibility and clinical outcome of early-stage breast cancer. Genomic DNA of 539 female patients with histologically confirmed early-stage breast cancer and 804 controls was genotyped for EPO rs1617640 G>T. No association was found between EPO rs1617640 G>T and early-stage breast cancer susceptibility and clinical outcome (hazard ratio=1.24, 95% confidence interval=1.82-1.90, p=0.31). In conclusion, our findings suggest a lack of influence of EPO rs1617640 G>T on early-stage breast carcinogenesis and clinical outcome.


In the past decades the clinical laboratory had made significant technological advances focused on clinical efficiency and efficacy. Responding to the demand of an increased efficiency in clinical laboratory diagnosis, there has been a recent trend towards a more decentralized diagnostic analysis near to the patients. The idea of this so-called point-of-care testing (POCT) is to bring the test immediately and in a convenient way to the patient. These devices have been developed to offer improvements in convenience, patient care and turnaround time. POCT systems should be fast, small, and simple to use while maintaining state-of-the-art performance features. The concept of POCT represents a fundamental shift in diagnostic testing where the objective is cost-effective, patient-focused testing at the site of diagnosis. In this chapter, the concept of POCT, as well the idea of Lab-on-a-Chip technology is discussed in the fields of diabetes care, including the use of glucometers, gestational diabetes, continuous blood glucose monitoring, multiparameter analysis, general clinical chemistry, and the modern diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. Modern methods in hematology also make use of the Lab-on-a-Chip and POCT technology. Last, but not least, the clinical use and performance characteristics of these laboratory tests are discussed in this chapter. The authors conclude that POCT and Lab-on-a-Chip technologies provide a revolutionary diagnostic technology in improving patient outcomes.


Background

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are widely used in the treatment of various autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but the effect of GCs on the development of colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC) is largely undefined.
Methods

We first established azoxymethane and dextran sulfate sodium (AOM/DSS)-induced colorectal cancer and DSS-induced colitis in mice. Dexamethasone (DEX) was then administered at different periods of time to determine its effect on tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Moreover, body weight, stool property and fecal blood of mice were recorded. At the end of the study, the number and load of tumors were evaluated, and the expression of proteins associated with cell proliferation were measured. To evaluate the inflammation in colon, we detected the level of pro-inflammatory cytokine TNFα, and mucosal infiltration of inflammatory cells. Meanwhile, we also assessed the activity of MAPK/JNK pathway.
Results

AOM injection followed by three cycles of drinking water containing 1.5% DSS successfully induced multiple tumor formation in mouse colon and rectum. Both early and late DEX intervention suppressed tumor growth in mouse colorectum and significantly downregulated the expression of PCNA and cyclin D1. Meanwhile, DEX treatment significantly inhibited the TNFα production, mucosal infiltration of inflammatory cells and the activity of JNK pathway, which was more prominent in mice with early DEX intervention. However, DEX treatment deteriorated the general state of mouse manifested by greater loss of body weight and rectal bleeding.
Conclusions

Our data conclude that both early and late DEX intervention significantly ameliorate colonic inflammation and inhibit the development of AOM/DSS-induced colorectal cancer, at least partly due to the inhibition of MAPK/JNK pathway. However, the deleterious effect on the general condition of mouse may limit the duration of GCs treatment.


Sponsor of Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) is responsible for submitting the sufficient information which demonstrates that their proposed generic version is equivalent to Reference Listed Drug (RLD) in quality, safety & efficacy with enhanced awareness in pharmaceutical industry and regulatory agencies after Ritonavir history in 1998, Polymorphism evolved out as a major point of attention for industry as well as regulatory agencies. Many pharmaceutical compounds exist in different crystalline forms and thus exhibit polymorphism. Polymorphism may affect Chemical and Physical Stability, Apparent Solubility, Dissolution, Bioavailability and Bioequivalence and Manufacturability of drug product, which require special attention during product development as it affects the quality, safety and efficacy of drug product. In addition to this, impact of polymorphism, monitoring and control of polymorphism and reporting scheme of polymorphic information in Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) are also covered in this review. Careful attention is given to the issue of irrelevance of polymorphism for establishing drug substance " sameness ". For better understanding, case studies are also provided for scientific and regulatory assessment of polymorphism in Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA).


Two newly synthesized Schiff base molecules are herein reported as anion sensors. -NO2 substituted receptor (P1) is comparatively more acidic and can sense F(-), OAc(-) and H2PO4(-), whereas -CN substituted receptor (P2) is less acidic and is selective for F(-) only. Reversible UV-Vis response for both receptors with F(-) can mimic multiple logic gate functions, and several complex electronic circuits based on XNOR, XOR, OR, AND, NOT and NOR logic operations with 'Write-Read-Erase-Read' options have been executed. Interesting 'turn on and off' fluorescence responses were noticed for the receptors with F(-). Intracellular F(-) detection as a diagnosis of non-skeletal fluorosis was successful using a fluorescence microscope with Candida albicans (prokaryotic cell, a diploid fungus) and pollen grains of Tecoma stans (eukaryotic cell) incubated in 10(-6) M fluoride-contaminated hand-pump water collected from Bankura, West Bengal, India. Furthermore, a solution test kit was fabricated for easy and selective detection of F(-) in an aqueous solvent.


The goal of this paper is to introduce a new neural network architecture called Sigmoid Diagonal Recurrent Neural Network (SDRNN) to be used in the adaptive control of nonlinear dynamical systems. This is done by adding a sigmoid weight victor in the hidden layer neurons to adapt of the shape of the sigmoid function making their outputs not restricted to the sigmoid function output. Also, we introduce a dynamic back propagation learning algorithm to train the new proposed network parameters. The simulation results showed that the (SDRNN) is more efficient and accurate than the DRNN in both the identification and adaptive control of nonlinear dynamical systems.


The research is relevant as it defnes the optimal level of taxation for the BRCS members in the frames of consensual tax, budgetary and fscal policy in order to achieve the sustainable rate of economic growth, balanced development, moderate rates of inflation, high volume of production, balance of current account and low unemployment. The development of the BRICS countries as a new model of integration and inclusive development in the globalizing economy requires consensual macroeconomic policy. The author hypothesizes that consensual macroeconomic (tax and budgetary policy) may contribute to the harmonization of national economies of the BRICS members by parameters of an integration model proposed in the article. As a result of economic and mathematical modeling there were drafted the curves of the BRICS members' budget revenue and expenditure. The author identifes the optimal weighted average tax rates to establish the balance. The graphic method is used to demonstrate the influence of tax, budgetary and fscal policy of the BRICS members on national economies and combined effect of its implementation. The practical importance of the research lies in identifying the optimal level of taxation which makes it possible to balance the BRICS members' budgets. The calculation of the effectiveness of consensual tax, budgetary and fscal policy of the BRICS members is made on the basis of comparative analysis of the variants of fnancing the budget defcit by own means and the sources of hypothetical common debt market. The article proves that functioning of common market of debt fnance is optimal for the BRICS members on condition of using comparative advantage of China in providing credit resources to the members of the group. The theoretical signifcance of the results is the development of the methodology of harmonization of tax, budgetary and fscal policy of the BRICS members using gradual approach as opposite to"shock therapy" scenario.


CD spectroscopy has been applied to clarify the mechanism for the conformational enantiomerism of bilirubin (BR) upon complexation with bile salts in water. The BR dianion when bound to the deoxycholate (1), cholate (2), chenodeoxycholate (3), ursodeoxycholate (4) or taurodeoxycholate ion (6) shows a (+)-to-(–) bisignate CD Cotton effect in water at pH 10.8 (NaOH), indicating that BR bound to these bile salts selectively adopts a (R)-helix configuration. Solubilization of BR in bile salt micelles is not necessary to induce the conformational enantiomerism of BR. The CD spectroscopic results on complexation of BR with various bile acids and their derivatives in methanol indicate that the hydrogen-bonding interactions between the hydroxy groups of a steroid and the carboxy groups of BR promote the conformational enatiomerism of BR. The mechanism for the enantioselective complexation in water at pH 10.8 has been deduced from the results obtained in methanol as that hydrogen bonding between the carboxylate ions of BR and the hydroxy groups of bile salt, as well as van der Waals interactions between the host and the guest, dominates the enantioselectivity in the BR–bile salt complexation.


Excited states in 57 Cr have been populated to high spin in the 14 C ( 48 Ca ,αn) reaction at a beam energy of 130 MeV. A regular sequence of stretched quadrupole transitions has been established above the yrast 9 / 2 + level. This sequence is interpreted as a rotational band associated with prolate deformation induced by the excitation of the odd neutron into the 1 / 2 + [ 440 ] orbital. Total Routhian surface calculations, which follow this configuration to high spin, reproduce the observed features of the band. They are also able to account for a similar, but less well developed structure in 55 Cr. In contrast, the isomeric yrast 9 / 2 + state in 59 Cr appears to be a band-head state dominated by the 9 / 2 + [ 404 ] configuration, which is favoured at oblate deformations. Such a marked difference presents a significant challenge for theoretical descriptions, but is consistent with features exhibited by the low-lying negative-parity states in 59 Cr.


Background: Although recorded cancer mortality should include both deaths from cancer and deaths from cancer treatment, there is evidence suggesting that the measure may be incomplete. To investigate the completeness of recorded prostate cancer mortality, we compared other-cause (non-prostate cancer) mortality in men found and not found to have prostate cancer following a needle biopsy.
Methods: We linked Medicare claims data to SEER data to analyze survival in the population of men aged 65+ enrolled in Medicare who resided in a SEER area and received a needle biopsy in 1993-2001. We compared other-cause mortality in men found to have prostate cancer (n=53,462) to that in men not found to have prostate cancer (n=103,659).
Results: The age-race adjusted other-cause mortality rate was 471 per 10,000 person-years in men found to have prostate cancer vs. 468 per 10,000 in men not found to have prostate cancer (RR = 1.01;95% CI:0.98-1.03). The effect was modified, however, by age. The RR declined in a stepwise fashion from 1.08 (95% CI:1.03-1.14) in men age 65-69 to 0.89 (95% CI:0.83-0.95) in men age 85 and older. If the excess (or deficit) in other-cause mortality were added to the recorded prostate cancer mortality, prostate cancer mortality would rise 23% in the youngest age group (from 90 to 111 per 10,000) and would fall 30% in the oldest age group (from 551 to 388 per 10,000).
Conclusion: Although recorded prostate cancer mortality appears to be an accurate measure overall, it systematically underestimates the mortality associated with prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment in younger men and overestimates it in the very old. We surmise that in younger men treatment-related deaths are incompletely captured in recorded prostate cancer mortality, while in older men the diagnosis "sticks"-- once diagnosed, they are more likely to be said to have died from the disease.


Peripheral blindness to the secondary effects of its regulations is a frequent peculiar characteristic of government. An outstanding example of this phenomenon is the current situation triggered by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus' decision of June 14, 1972, to cancel all DDT registrations except those for public health and quarantine uses, and for export. The order goes into effect after Dec 31, 1972. This regulation, which effectively abolishes US agricultural use of the organochlorine DDT for all except a few minor crops (onions, sweet potatoes, and green peppers, if need for the pesticide can be proved at hearings) is a culmination of social and political pressures that have represented DDT as the chief chemical villain in the modern environmentalist movement. This it almost certainly is not. But much worse, the organophosphate insecticides, which will usually now be substituted for DDT, may prove to be the real villains. It


Power line inspection and maintenance robots have been developed for more than two decades as a substitute for linemen to work under the dangerous working condition. The fault and obstacle detection through the information collected by robot sensors is an important research filed. Currently, visual information remains the most common, practical and easily collected data for robots amongst all kinds of sensing data. This paper presents a visual detection method for the broken strand fault. The broken strand fault can be detected by judging the intensity distribution of histogram of edge gradient(HOEG) in the following steps: at first, the region of interest (ROI) of captured images is selected; then, the HOEG descriptor is extracted in ROI as image feature; at last, the intensity distribution of HOEG descriptor can differentiate the broken strand fault from the normal wire. In addition, the location of detected broken strand fault is given for the practical repair. Both laboratory and field experiments results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.


: Most of the studies on the labour market integration of migrants in Europe have hitherto focused on host countries' efforts to foster integration and the consequent effectiveness of these efforts. This study, however, emphasises on the much-needed migrant-side of the integration process to explore migrants perceived cultural challenges and their corresponding ability to deal with these challenges. With the help of a series of in-depth interviews targeted at exploring the lived experiences of highly skilled Muslim migrants settled in Innsbruck, this study shows that the religious beliefs and value systems, rather than the ability to speak and understand the local language, mainly hinder Muslim migrants from fully integrating into the Austrian society. Using the framework of French pragmatic sociology of conventions, the study further articulates that in order to be perceived as 'included' migrants use the instrument of compromise at three levels of extent, i.e., liberation, selective adaptation, and simulation. Some migrants are able to get liberated and they bring themselves closer to the local value system at the ontological and ideological level (liberation). Others change a few selective principles (values) to make use of most of the integration opportunities (selective adaptation). And yet at another level of compromise, some migrants pretend in the public as if they are very close to the local norms while in actual continuously believing in their originating belief systems and keep disliking the value system of the host country from deep within (simulation).


This paper presents a new solution for choosing the K parameter in the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm, the solution depending on the idea of ensemble learning, in which a weak KNN classifier is used each time with a different K, starting from one to the square root of the size of the training set. The results of the weak classifiers are combined using the weighted sum rule. The proposed solution was tested and compared to other solutions using a group of experiments in real life problems. The experimental results show that the proposed classifier outperforms the traditional KNN classifier that uses a different number of neighbors, is competitive with other classifiers, and is a promising classifier with strong potential for a wide range of applications.


Super-resolution microscopy is the term commonly given to fluorescence microscopy techniques with resolutions that are not limited by the diffraction of light. Since their conception a little over a decade ago, these techniques have quickly become the method of choice for many biologists studying structures and processes of single cells at the nanoscale. In this review, we present the three main approaches used to tackle the diffraction barrier of ∼200 nm: stimulated-emission depletion (STED) microscopy, structured illumination microscopy (SIM), and single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM). We first present a theoretical overview of the techniques and underlying physics, followed by a practical guide to all of the facets involved in designing a super-resolution experiment, including an approachable explanation of the photochemistry involved, labeling methods available, and sample preparation procedures. Finally, we highlight some of the most exciting recent applications of and developments in these techniques, and discuss the outlook for this field.


Supply chain management is often associated with disruptions and chaos. This paper intends to explore the factors causing supply chain disruptions and develop a framework for supply chain resilience, thereby highlighting the significance of integrating quality assurance and risk management. With the help of in-depth interviews of management officials involved in the pharmaceutical supply chains in Pakistan, the study finds that a holistic approach towards quality assurance function is indispensable in the supply chain of pharmaceuticals. Drawing on the theoretical framework of chaos theory and complexity theory, the results of this study show that supply chain resilience can be achieved effectively by implementing a proper risk management system identifying the possibilities, and quantifying and mitigating the risks before they emerge. The study also highlights the differences between the supply chain resilience capability of large and small-scale pharmaceutical firms in Pakistan


The West Midlands (WM) ICT industry is one of ten sectors identified by the regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands (AWM), for clustering development. AWM is investing resources to fund projects that will meet the needs of industry in encouraging development of clustering activity and the growth of the ICT Cluster, including helping companies to adopt new technologies. During 2007 as part of a PhD study, research was commissioned by AWM which involved 200 ICT SMEs in the West Midlands (WM) UK. This work indicated that common misconceptions are as endemic in ICT companies as in any other sector. This research is unique in that it targets one sector only which has often been assumed not to need support in ICT adoption. This paper concentrates specifically on the micro company owner-manager's education and skills. Whilst owner-manages have a major influence on ICT adoption in other sectors; in the ICT industry adoption and diversification are necessary at an alarming speed, the implications of this influence are not only on the micro company itself but are far wider-reaching. Consequently, this research has identified specific educational concerns with regard to owner-managers and technology adoption.


Sinorhizobium meliloti is the nitrogen-fixing bacterial endosymbiont of the root nodules of Medicago spp. that are agriculturally important as pasture legumes. Establishment of medic pastures on many soils worldwide has been limited by the acid sensitivity of S. meliloti. Among the S. meliloti genes identified as being essential for acid tolerance are actS and actR, which encode the ActS histidine kinase and cognate ActR response regulator. This study was undertaken to further understanding of the role of ActSR in relation to acid tolerance and the general physiology of S. meliloti.

A preliminary search for the transcriptional targets of ActSR using mutagenesis with a promoterless gusA-carrying minitransposon identified eight fusions that were transcriptionally regulated by ActSR. Among the regulated genes were those encoding assimilatory nitrate reductase, cytochrome cbb3, oxidase, glutathione S-transferase, hydantoinase, a PAS two-component receiver protein and the CO2-fixing enzyme ribulose- 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase.

The fixNOQP genes that encode the symbiotically-essential cytochrome cbb3 terminal oxidase required ActSR for low pH induction and for full expression under microaerobic conditions. The activation of fixNOQP by ActSR did not appear to occur directly, but instead by ActR regulating the transcription of the FixK transcriptional activator, which in turn activates fixNOQP. In addition to the cytochrome cbb3 terminal oxidase, ActR was also found to activate expression of the nifA gene that encodes the NifA nitrogen fixation regulator, and of the cta and qxt operons that encode cytochrome aa3 and a quinol oxidase, respectively, in response to low pH and reduced oxygen tension.

Biochemical and genetic analyses revealed that ActR also coordinated the expression of genes encoding enzymes involved in C1 metabolism. ActR functioned as a transcriptional repressor of the fds operon encoding a NAD+-linked formate dehydrogenase, while this operon was activated independently of ActR by the presence formate. Conversely, ActR activated the cbb operon that encodes enzymes of the Calvin-Benson-Bassham (CBB) reductive pentose phosphate pathway during organoautotrophic growth on formate. The cbb operon was also positively regulated by the CbbR regulator, being essential for the high-level of cbb induction under these conditions.

ActR was overexpressed in E. coli and purified as a His6-tagged recombinant protein. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays revealed that this protein was able to bind specifically to DNA target sequences that are known to be bound by ActR homologues from other species. The binding affinity of His6-ActR was increased several fold by incubating the protein with carbamyl phosphate, which presumably mimics the effect of ActS-mediated phosphorylation of ActR. An analysis of the promoter regions of the identified ActR transcriptional targets revealed the presence of DNA sequences with significant similarity to previously defined binding motifs of ActR homologues from other bacterial species. A DNase footprinting analysis also showed that ActR protected a region from -33 to -10 of the nifA promoter region. The protected region also shared significant sequence similarity to the consensus binding sequence of an ActR homologue from Rhodobacter capsulatus.

The results of this study indicate that ActSR are involved in the transcriptional regulation of a diverse range of physiological processes and clearly play an important role as global regulators of redox-sensitive processes in S. meliloti.


Here, we report a novel case of corneal ulcer in a 72-year-old patient with diabetes caused by Corynebacterium amycolatum. This organism should not be ignored as a harmless commensal whenever it is isolated in pure form in repeat cultures of the specimen along with a leucocyte reaction in direct microscopic examination. Moreover, this organism is multidrug-resistant, so species identification of diphtheroids is important to start appropriate antibiotic therapy. There are very few published reports of ocular infection and none of corneal ulcer by this organism.


Psychometric critiques of cross-cultural research emphasize testing whether instruments measure the same construct across cultural groups. We tested for measurement invariance (by race/ethnicity) of instruments used to evaluate the relationship between alcohol and tobacco use with perceived discrimination and socioeconomic status (SES). Tests of psychometric equivalence across race/ethnicity focused on: the latent organization of constructs (configural invariance); if observed indicators have equal factor loadings or "true score" variance (metric invariance); and whether manifest indicators change uniformly contingent on change in the latent variable (scalar invariance). A cross-sectional survey of 2,376 cigarette smokers (794 Black, 786 Latinx, 796 White; mean age = 43 [SD = 12]; 58% female) was recruited via an online research panel. Discrimination was indicated by self-report; SES was indicated by self-reported education, employment, income, and the "SES Ladder;" alcohol use was indicated by frequency and typical quantity of drinking, and frequency of heavy drinking; tobacco use was indicated by frequency of smoking, cigarettes per smoking day, and time to first cigarette. All instruments demonstrated configural invariance; either full metric invariance (alcohol and discrimination) or partial metric invariance (tobacco and SES); and all constructs demonstrated partial scalar invariance. Results support psychometric critiques; for example, all of the SES indicators violated assumptions of classical measurement theory for valid between group comparisons. All of our instruments displayed some degree of systematic bias in measurement across race/ethnicity. Studies testing ethnic/racial differences may need to move beyond classical measurement theory, and may benefit from using statistical approaches that can test for (and model) bias in measurement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).


Sporadic or familial germline mutations in GATA2 frequently result in a bone marrow failure syndrome characterized by recurrent life-threatening infections, cytopenias, and progression to myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), or chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML). Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) represents the only definitive therapy for GATA2 deficiency. However, the highly variable disease penetrance in different families, and in mutation positive individuals within a single family, make the timing of HSCT challenging. We assessed the utility of scoring patient characteristics according to the Revised International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS-R) to predict survival after HSCT in a cohort of 51 patients with GATA2 deficiency who had progressed to MDS. Higher IPSS-R scores significantly correlated with reduced overall survival after transplant. In evaluating the components of the IPSS-R score for patients with GATA2 deficiency, cytopenias, including anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia, were important variables in placing these patients in higher risk IPSS-R categories. Since GATA2 deficiency patients have very low peripheral blood monocyte, B cell, and NK cell counts, we evaluated these cytopenias in conjunction with IPSS-R scoring. These cytopenias also had prognostic value for outcome after HSCT in patients with GATA2 deficiency. Cytogenetics, another component of the IPSS-R score, also placed patients with GATA2 deficiency into higher risk categories. In particular, patients harboring monosomy 7 had poorer survival outcomes than patients with normal cytogenetics or trisomy 8. Of note, all five patients with GATA2 deficiency and trisomy 1q successfully underwent HSCT. Clonal cytogenetic progression with the development of additional cytogenetic aberrations was a harbinger of myeloid progression and led to HSCT. In a cohort of four patients who underwent HSCT following progression to AML/CMML, there was only one survivor. Thus, HSCT is recommended in patients with GATA2 deficiency and intermediate or high-risk IPSS-R scores before the development of AML or CMML.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Background Following the public healthcare scandal surrounding Poly Implant Prothese breast implants, there is increased focus on the surveillance of medical devices. A number of clinical specialties in the UK prospectively collect clinical data on procedures performed. We explore a surveillance programme in the case study of prosthetic aortic valve heart implants, reusing routinely collected data. Methods Demographic, comorbidity and operative pseudonymised data from the UK National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit registry were extracted for all patients undergoing an aortic valve replacement (AVR) operation from 1998-onwards. Rules were developed to classify implants, recorded as free-text, by manufacturer, series, model and prosthesis type, and cleaning algorithms applied to the dataset. Patient outcomes are assessed across implants. Long-term mortality follow-up was tracked by record linkage to the Office for National Statistics death register, and surgical re-intervention tracked by reoccurrence in the registry. Results Data on 95,000 AVR operations were extracted. Prosthetic implants were classified into 97 models from ten manufacturers. There were substantial differences in implant volumes by manufacturers, deconstructed into temporal trends, prosthesis type and models, and healthcare providers. Significant differences were observed in outcomes between models. These differences are influenced by case-mix selection bias. Conclusion Reuse of routinely collected clinical data for medical device surveillance is viable and economically effective. Data collected, when properly analysed, can potentially be used to detect inferior devices, inform manufacturers and clinicians of device quality, supplement research, facilitate development of (inter-) national clinical guidelines for implant choice and inform businesses and healthcare procurement officers about market access. Linkage to other routinely collected data, including Hospital Episode Statistics, product data and other audits, offer richer surveillance capabilities.


Author(s): Solis, Jessica | Advisor(s): Matsumoto, Valerie | Abstract: Chamorros are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands. This region's long colonial history can be seen in the strong presence of Catholicism. As a part of the Catholic religion, the rosary prayer is used for many occasions including, death. This particular rosary prayer is known in the Chamorro language as a lisayo. Drawing on twelve interviews, newspaper articles, and several scholarly works I explore how the lisayo is an important space for examining aspects of Chamorro traditions. Just as these traditions continue to be perpetuated, they are nonetheless in flux, renegotiated in response to the changing socio-economics of Chamorros wherever they may be. One example I discuss is the role of the techa or prayer leader. The role is seen as a powerful position for Chamorro women within their community and continues to perpetuate the Chamorro culture by teaching its language and values. However, this role has undergone changes as perceptions of the techa become feminized in response to larger flows of power such as capitalism, Catholicism, and migration. Due to these continuous forces, the future of the role of the techa and the rosary practice remains unknown as they continue to impact how Chamorros practice and perceive their traditions. As second-generation Chamorros in Southern California reexamine what it means to be Chamorro away from the Mariana Islands, the rosary practice and its future remains unclear. This thesis addresses the concerns and perspectives of Chamorros living on the Mariana Island of Guam and second-generation Chamorros living in Southern California, exploring how these narratives paint a larger picture of Chamorro culture change and adaptation.


The core pathological concept of functional somatic syndrome (FSS) is the discrepancy between patients' subjective experience of somatic symptoms and objective explanation by medical evaluation. Based on the discrepancy, the somatic symptoms with medically unexplained origins maintains, prolonged chronically, and grow up to FSS owing to various factors; physiological pathways, mood disturbance such as anxiety or depression, doctor-patient relationship, psychosocial stresses, alexithymia and alexisomia, and lack of support systems. As the pathology becomes more and more complicated, the psychosocial stresses, mood disturbance, and physiological dysfunction become more significant. Thus, the pathology falls into a vicious circle. Patients with FSS have common problems or characteristics, and have several overlapped diagnoses. FSS should be treated from aspects of both the similarity and the difference.


The building of the Alpine Rif belt (southern limb of the Betic-Rif orocline) is restored, mostly based on the Tertiary stratigraphic and metamorphic data set. The Betic-Rif Internal zones derive from an exotic Alboran Terrane partly involved in a S-dipping Betic subduction during the Late Cretaceous ?-Eocene. Incipient collision of the terrane against Iberia triggered back-thrust tectonics south of the Internal mountain belt during the latest Eocene-Oligocene. A N-dipping Maghrebian subduction developed from that time up to Middle Miocene, responsible for the rifting of the internal Alboran Terrane. Docking of the extending Alboran Terrane onto the North African margin occurred during the Neogene through the closure of the Maghrebian Flysch oceanic trough, with southwestward growth of the external accretionary prism, and foredeep subsidence. Subduction zone westward roll back associated with delamination of the dense lithosphere seem to account for the Betic-Rif late orogenic evolution.


Objective. To investigate the ability of two-dimensional longitudinal strain echocardiography (2DST), to detect the early doxorubicin cardiotoxicity. Patients and Methods. The study included 25 children with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) aged 5–15 years and 30 healthy control children. They had echocardiographic examination with conventional 2-dimensional (2D), pulsed tissue Doppler (PTD), and 2DST echocardiography before and within 1 week after doxorubicin treatment. Results. There was no significant difference in left ventricle (LV) systolic and diastolic functions measured by conventional 2-D and PTD echocardiography between patients and controls. However, there was significant decrease in LV global and peak systolic strain detected by 2-DST echocardiography in study group than control. After doxorubicin treatment, there was no significant difference in LV systolic and diastolic functions measured by conventional 2-D and PTD echocardiography than before treatment except for prolonged IVCT and IVRT, but LV global and peak systolic strain was significantly lower after treatment. Conclusion. 2-D longitudinal strain echocardiography was more sensitive than conventional 2-D and PTD in detecting the early LV doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in children with ALL.


In the microbial world, pigments are one of the most conspicuous traits. Marine bacteria associated with Acropora sp. collected from Taka Cemara, Karimunjawa Islands were screened for the production of a yellow pigment. The isolation of bacterial symbionts from Acropora sp. on Zobell 2216E medium resulted in one bacterium, KJ5, positively synthesized carotenoids. By reverse phase HPLC analysis, one peak of the pigment types was identified as a β-carotene peak which appeared at 60.24 min. Then, sample of the β-carotene was collected and identified according to their spectral characteristics and compared with the published data in different types of solvent. Based on the HPLC analysis, the total β-carotene contents were calculated by converting the broad absorption of β-carotene. Molecular identification of the bacterium KJ5 using 16S rDNA showed that bacterium KJ5 was closely related to Erythrobacter flavus with 96% homology value.


The transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling pathway plays an essential role in maintaining homeostasis in joints affected by osteoarthritis (OA). Here, we detected that overexpression of USP15, rather than USP15 C269S (a USP15 mutant), activated p-SMAD2 in ATDC5 cells, which also went down by USP15 knocked out followed by the latest gene editing technology Crispr/Cas9. And we established rat knee OA models through anterior cruciate ligament transection and partial medial meniscectomy (ACLT+pMMx) after 8 weeks and conducted the corresponding Adeno-associated virus (AAV) intraarticular injections. Next, experimental data including immunohistochemical staining, HE/Safranin-O fast green staining, histological evidence analysis, relevant Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) scores, expression of molecules involved in cartilage anabolism and so on indicated that USP15 can reduce damaged cartilage by activating TGF-β signaling pathway in vivo. We further observed that ERK2 of non-SMAD signaling can maintain the cartilage phenotype by regulating the TGF-β signaling pathway through USP15 in vitro and in vivo. Most importantly, USP15 is required during this process and can form a complex with ERK2 to regulate ubiquitination of ERK2. Specifically, USP15, instead of USP15 C269S, deubiquitinates and activates ERK2, followed by translocation of phosphorylated ERK2 from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. Taken together, our study revealed a positive feedback regulation between USP15 and ERK2, which plays a critical role in the interaction of SMAD and non-SMAD signaling pathways to promote cartilage repair in experimental OA. Therefore, this specific mechanism can guide clinical treatments of OA.


The unique odors of yeast proteins (YPs) are decisive for their application in meat substitutes. Sensory evaluation, electronic nose, and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/olfactory (GC-MS/O) were combined to characterize the aroma profiles and aroma-active compounds of YPs. The sensory evaluation results indicate that the sweaty aroma had the strongest intensity in YP #10, followed by rice bran, sour, and plastic. The electronic nose could effectively distinguish the aroma differences among five YPs. A total of 27 aroma-active compounds in the five YPs were identified by GC-MS/O. The concentration of 2-methyl-propanoic acid (6.37 μg/kg), butanoic acid (47.46 μg/kg), 3-methyl-butanoic acid (22.50 μg/kg), and indole (943.40 μg/kg) in YP #10's aroma was higher than that of the other YPs. The partial least squares regression method results show that o-cresol, (3S)-3,7-dimethyloct-7-en-1-ol, benzyl alcohol, octanal, 2-methyl-propanoic acid, butanoic acid, 3-methyl-butanoic acid, hexanal, heptanal, and indole were predicted as the potential aroma-active compounds significantly contributing to the aroma profiles of the five YPs. Addition experiments confirmed that the overall aroma profile intensities of the five YP samples were extended with the addition of these ten compounds, verifying their significant contributions.


ABSTRACT . Aceh province is a potential area of agricultural resources. This resource is the main livelihood in rural communities. The low income of farmers and resulted in the inability of agricultural management resulted in the magnitude of the farming community who are in poverty. This study aims to provide models of agribusiness development to reduction of poverty in Aceh. The results of review provide an indication of the factors that support poverty in the farming community is the lack of tried ability and creativity, lack of education and skills and lack of access to capital and land availability. Measures to reduce poverty in the agricultural sector can be done with agribusiness development upstream-downstream, to strengthen the partnership of farmers and groups, partnership groups and entrepreneurs (market access), improving skills match the needs and based on local resources, create and develop regional integrated agribusiness based on local resources.


This thesis describes the different steps needed to design a steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) wind farm wake model. The ultimate goal of the project was to design a tool that could analyze and extrapolate systematically wind farm measurements to generate wind maps in order to calibrate faster and simpler engineering wind farm wake models. The most attractive solution was the actuator disc method with the steady state k-ε turbulence model. The first step to design such a tool is the treatment of the forces. This thesis presents a computationally inexpensive method to apply discrete body forces into the finite-volume flow solver with collocated variable treatment (EllipSys), which avoids the pressure-velocity decoupling issue. The second step is to distribute the body forces in the computational domain accordingly to rotor loading. This thesis presents a generic flexible method that associates any kind of shapes with the computational domain discretization. The special case of the actuator disc performs remarkably well in comparison with Conway's heavily loaded actuator disc analytical solution and a CFD full rotor computation, even with a coarse discretization. The third step is to model the atmospheric turbulence. The standard k-ε model is found to be unable to model at the same time the atmospheric turbulence and the actuator disc wake and performs badly in comparison with single wind turbine wake measurements. A comparison with a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) shows that the problem mainly comes from the assumptions of the eddy-viscosity concept, which are deeply invalidated in the wind turbine wake region. Different models that intent to correct the k-ε model's issues are investigated, of which none of them is found to be adequate. The mixing of the wake in the atmosphere is a deeply non-local phenomenon that is not handled correctly by an eddy-viscosity model such as k-ε . i AAU DCE Thesis No. 22


This article provides a thorough analysis of John Dewey and his theory experimentalism. John Dewey was a leader in education and philosophy of his time. Still today his ideologies have a place in educational curriculums across the globe. John Dewey believed that students learn from human experiences. Furthermore, Dewey believed that student experiences shape the future decisions that a learner engages in. Although Dewey's work faced scrutiny, Dewey's thoughts are still relevant in education reform today. This article resurfaces the need for whole child research considerations and inclusive learner experiences like Dewey's work many years ago when making educational decision and building curriculum that meet the needs of individuals to promote a positive global change.


This convergent parallel mixed methods study investigated pre-service teachers' motivation and self-regulation learning and its impact on their academic achievement during their professional training in colleges of education. In addition, the contributory factors of beliefs and values that lay behind some pre-service teachers' motivational orientations were examined through episodic narratives. The multi-stage sampling technique was used in selecting 500 teacher trainees from 40 residential colleges of education in Ghana and data sources included surveys, archival and interview data. The results from the study indicated that taken as a set, the motivation component of pre-service teachers' self-regulation learning construct mediated the relationship between prior performances (entry aggregates) and academic achievement (GPA). The learning strategies component intervened significantly in the influence of prior performance on academic achievement. In the final model, prior performance showed a moderately large indirect effect on academic achievement through ten out of the fifteen variables of the self-regulation learning construct. The research findings indicated that desirable attributes such as critical thinking, metacognitive strategy use, and students' value for task on the courses on the teacher training programme were non-existing and did not predict pre-service teachers' academic performance in college. The pre-service teachers' narratives suggested that family members and friends, instead of candidates themselves, played a significant role in their choice of colleges of education for training and accordingly the teaching profession; motivation was principally external and teaching was mainly perceived as a means of imparting knowledge to young ones. However, participants held some positive values such as recognizing diversity among children, collaborating with parents to achieve optimal learning for children and holding high the ethical principles of the teaching profession. This study provides an ecological and empirical foundation for the specification and explanation of the theoretical connections between pre-service teachers' prior attainment, motivational orientations and self-regulation learning strategy use and their academic achievement in professional training context.


We investigate Americans' stereotypes of Muslims. We distinguish specific dimensions of stereotypes and find that negative stereotypes relating to violence and trustworthiness are commonplace. Furthermore, these stereotypes have consequences: those with less favorable views of Muslims, especially in terms of violence and trustworthiness, are more likely to support several aspects of the War on Terror. Our findings contrast with some previous research that emphasizes the role of a generalized ethnocentrism, rather than specific stereotypes of Muslims, in explaining public opinion in this domain. We argue that citizens do use specific stereotypes when there is a close correspondence between the dimension of the stereotype and the policy in question.


We consider contracting issues in the care of patients with chronic conditions within the principal-agent framework. The government, acting as a principal, contracts with several health care providers in an effort to maximise population health minus the cost. We consider the decision of whether to contract with individual health care providers or groups of such providers, as well as which contract type to use. We show that the first best outcome can be achieved by both individual and group contracts through the use of either outcomes-adjusted capitation or outcomes-adjusted per-patient contracts. We also examine possible issues which can arise as the entities that are contracted with are not necessarily the ones making decisions about patient care. Individual contracts can fail to provide the desired incentives if providers under such contracts jointly make decisions about the care for their patients (collusion); however, so can group contracts if the group members fail to coordinate their actions (free-riding). We show that both of those result in potential deviations from optimal decisions, with direction and magnitude of deviation depending on the contract type held. We conduct numerical experiments calibrated using data from United Kingdom's NHS and demonstrate that individual outcomes-adjusted capitation contracts are the most robust to these adverse effects.


UNLABELLED
Total condylar knee replacement presently has more than 10 years of history in Hungary. Besides a large number of routine primary implantations, the number of exchange arthroplasties performed due to aseptic loosening is continuously growing as well. One of the most significant difficulties of revision interventions is the management of bone defects.

OBJECTIVE
Aim of present study is to describe the treatment options of bone deficiencies found during knee arthroplasties. Indication criteria of different methods are introduced together with the results of revision operations dealing with bone defects in the authors' patient sample.

METHOD
Between 1995 and 2001, 35 revision total knee replacements have been performed at the authors' institute where significant bone defects had to be dealt with. Because of aseptic loosening, unior bicondylar implant revision has been carried out in 24 cases and total condylar prosthesis revision in 11 cases. With 14 patients autologous bone, in 7 cases allogenic cancellous bone and in two cases structural allografts have been used. Metal augmentation of the prosthesis in itself was applied in 4 patients, in 8 further patients in combination with bone grafts.

RESULTS
During physical and radiological control examination of 31 knees in average 3 years after the operation, authors found good clinical results in all cases except one. Bone grafts showed good remodeling, and the implants were all fixed well on the control radiographs except of the one failed case. With this patient, collapse of the structural allograft used for reconstruction of a large medial tibial defect was evident and the tibial component became loose.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on international literature data and their own experiences, authors conclude that aseptic loosening of total knee endoprostheses can be managed with good results even if it is combined with massive bone loss. For a successful revision, an appropriate technical background, personal skills and a well-functioning bone bank is unavoidable. For the management of tibial defects, authors highly recommend the usage of long stem extensions.


Chemotherapy is one of the effective methods used in the treatment of cancer. The greatest concern during the use of chemotherapeutic drugs is side effects. Increasing free radical formation in cells and tissues and thus oxidative stress is known as one of the most damaging systems. Antioxidants used during chemotherapy may increase the efficiency of treatment by decreasing the formation of radicals due to oxidative stress and prevent healthy cells from being damaged. From this point of view, the therapeutic and protective properties of Isgin (Rheum ribes) and Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) giant toxic effects of Doxorubicin, one of the drugs used in chemotherapy, were investigated by conducting survival rate experiments on Drosophila melanogaster. For this purpose, in each experimental set, fly larvae (72±4 hours) were placed in the media and individuals who developed from larvae were recorded. As a result of the study, it was determined that the percentage of survival rate decreased in Doxorubicin treated group compared to the control. In addition, while the percentage of survival rates belonging to Isgin and Dandelion treated groups were higher than the control, the values in plant extracts plus Doxorubicin treated groups were close to the control. These differences in survival percentage were statistically significant (p<0.05). This protective effect can be explained by the inhibition of the formation of free oxygen radicals by the antioxidant properties of plants and the removal of them from the biological system.


Aims. Completing the poorly known substellar census of the solar neighbourhood, especially with respect to the coolest brown dwarfs, will lead to a better understanding of failed star formation processes and binary statistics with different environmental conditions. Methods. Using UKIDSS data and their cross-correlation with the SDSS, we searched for high proper motion mid- to late-T dwarf candidates with extremely blue near-infrared (J−K +2.5) colours. Results. With 11 newly found T dwarf candidates, the proper motions of which range between 100 and 800 mas/yr, we increased the number of UKIDSS T dwarf discoveries by ≈30%. Large proper motions were also measured for six of eight previously known T4.5T9 dwarfs detected in our survey. All new candidates can be classified as T5-T9 dwarfs based on their colours. Two of these objects were found to be common proper motion companions of Hipparcos stars with accurate parallaxes. The latter allow us to determine absolute magnitudes from which we classify Hip 63510C as T7 and Hip 73786B as T6.5 dwarfs with an uncertainty of ±1 spectral subtype. The projected physical separation from their low-mass (M0.5 and K5) primaries is in both cases about 1200 AU. One of the Hipparcos stars has already a known very low-mass star or brown dwarf companion on a close astrometric orbit (Hip 63510B = Gl 494B). With distances of only 11.7 and 18.6 pc, deduced from their primaries respectively for Hip 63510C and Hip 73786B, various follow-up observations can easily be carried out to study these cool brown dwarfs in more detail and to compare their properties with those of the already well-investigated primaries.


With increased calls for documenting the educational impact of communication deficits and treatment outcomes, the need for systematic measures of students' communicative effectiveness in the classroom has never been greater. Teachers are in an excellent position to observe and measure their students' verbal and nonverbal communicative abilities and use of compensatory strategies; thus, speech-language pathologists in schools may benefit from a use of teacher rating scales. This article describes the initial development and possible applications of such a measure, the Teacher Assessment of Student Communicative Competence (TASCC), for use with students in the first through fifth grades.


Initial observation shows that there are some problems that teachers face in mathematics learning. One of those problems is difficulty in encouraging student about the understanding concept of proposition and scale. This research is aimed to improve student's learning activiy and output in learning mathematics by implementing problem based learning model. This is classroom action research with subject are students grade VI SDN 04 Nan Sabaris. Data were obtained through observation on student's participation in learning, observation on teacher's activities, and final test for students. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Hasil analisis data diketahui bahwa aktivitas belajar siswa meningkat. Based on the result of this research, percentage of student's activity in learning is 66.19% for cycle I and 81.90% for cycle II. Thus, implementation of problem based learning in learning mathematics can improve student's learning activity and output.


A novel fluorescence microscopic technique, based on the application of low-molecular fluorescent dyes, was used to study the expression of the enzyme guanidinobenzoatase in malignant tumors of the head and neck area. Frozen sections have shown that moderately and highly differentiated squamous cell carcinomas express this enzyme, particularly in the area of tumor invasion. The protease is capable of breaking down fibronectin, an important component of the extracellular matrix. In less differentiated squamous cell carcinomas as well as malignant melanomas almost all tumor cells exhibited guanidinobenzoatase activity. The fluorescence microscopic technique presented here provides a fast and easy method for the localization of tumor cells. At the same time it provides a better understanding of the biological control of a tumor-associated protease, thus furnishing important new information on the invasion behavior of malignant tumors.


Semantic query optimization uses dependencies between attributes to formulate query transformations and revise the number of processed rows, with direct impact on performance. Commercial databases present facilities to define dependencies as not enforced constraints. The goal is to help the query optimizer in cases where the database is denormalized or simply lost dependencies in the design. However, feeding these facilities is a manual task which is tedious and error-prone. An attractive alternative is the automatic discovery of dependencies, but the cost of finding dependencies increases with the number of rows and attributes in the dataset. In this paper, we stick to the automatic discovery approach, but to reduce the cost we focus on dependencies matching the current queries in the pipe (ie., workload). Initially, we rely on a large set of functional dependencies computed in batch with state of the art algorithms in the literature. Over time our focused dependency selector (FDSel) chooses exemplars to feed the query optimizer. Therewith we eliminate further manual interactions. The automatically selected exemplars exhibit statistical properties that resemble those of the initial dependency set. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed approach. In the best case scenario, by applying the FDSel for join elimination on a real-world database, we reduce query response time by more than one order of magnitude.


Bones are believed to alter their shape in response to changes in tissue strains produced by physical activity and the goal of this study is to examine whether modeling responses of a growing bone to changes in physical exercise are adjusted to maintain a uniform distribution of functional strains. We test this idea by comparing in vivo strains recorded in the tibiotarsus of white leghorn chicks during 'intensive' treadmill exercise (60% of maximum speed, carrying a weight equal to 20% body weight on the trunk: 60%/L) with strains that had been recorded previously during 'moderate' treadmill exercise (35% of maximum speed, unloaded: 35%/UNL) at similar bone sites. Our hypothesis is that modeling adjustments of bones subjected to the intensive load-carrying exercise should re-establish strains recorded in the bones subjected to moderate exercise. At each exercise level, the animals were exercised for 5 days per week (2500 loading cycles per day) from 2 to 12 weeks of age. As in the moderate exercise group studied earlier, strains measured at six functionally equivalent sites on the tibiotarsus of the 60%/L group were consistently maintained during growth from 4 to 12 weeks of age. In addition, the pattern of strain recorded at these sites was uniformly maintained over the full range of speeds recorded (from 0.48 to 2.70 m s-1 at 12 weeks of age). Peak strains measured at 4 weeks of age in the load-carrying exercise group were initially elevated by 57% overall compared with peak strains recorded in the moderate exercise group. At 8 weeks of age, strain levels in the 60%/L group differed by only 4% overall compared with those recorded in the 35%/UNL group. The nature of strain (tensile versus compressive) and the orientation of principal strain at corresponding sites were also similar in the two groups. At 12 weeks of age, however, bone strain levels in the 60%/L group were again elevated (47% overall) compared with those recorded in the 35%/UNL group, although the general pattern and orientation of strains remained similar. This finding suggests a transient modeling response of the bone to the onset of exercise training, which was lost during subsequent growth, possibly because the normal pattern of functional strain was not altered significantly by the faster load-carrying exercise.


Background: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted volume, management strategies and patient outcomes of acute appendicitis. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate whether the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in higher incidence of complicated appendicitis in children presenting with acute appendicitis compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. The secondary aim was to investigate the proportion of the patients treated by non-operative management (NOM). Methods: A systematic search of four scientific databases was performed. The search terms used were (coronavirus OR SARS-CoV-2 OR COVID-19 OR novel coronavirus) AND (appendicitis). The inclusion criteria were all patients aged <18 years and diagnosed with acute appendicitis during the COVID-19 and pre-COVID-19 periods. The proportion of children presenting with complicated appendicitis and the proportion of children managed by NOM was compared between the two groups. The Downs and Black scale was used for methodological quality assessment. Results: The present meta-analysis included thirteen studies (twelve retrospective studies and one cross-sectional study). A total of 2782 patients (1239 during the COVID-19 period) were included. A significantly higher incidence of complicated appendicitis (RR = 1.63, 95% CI 1.33–2.01, p < 0.00001) and a significantly higher proportion of children managed via the NOM (RR = 1.95, 95% CI 1.45–2.61, p < 0.00001) was observed in patients during the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. Conclusion: There is a significantly higher incidence of complicated appendicitis in children during the COVID-19 pandemic than in the pre-COVID-19 period. Additionally, a significantly higher proportion of children was managed via the NOM during the pandemic in comparison to the pre-pandemic period.


Graphene nanosheets offer intriguing electronic, thermal and mechanical properties and are expected to find a variety of applications in high-performance nanocomposite materials. The great challenge of exfoliating and dispersing pristine graphite or graphene sheets in various solvents or matrices can be achieved by facilely and properly chemical functionalization of the carbon nanosheets. Here we reported an efficient way to functionalize graphene sheets with presynthesized polymer via a combination of atom transfer nitroxide radical coupling chemistry with the grafting-onto strategy, which enable us to functionalize graphene sheets with well-defined polymer synthesized via living radical polymerization. A radical scavenger species, 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO), was firstly anchored onto COOH groups on graphene oxide (GO) to afford TEMPO-functionalized graphene sheets (GS-TEMPO), meanwhile, the GO sheets were thermally reduced. Next, GS-TEMPO reacted with Br-terminated well-defined poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) homopolymer, which was presynthesized by SET-LRP, in the presence of CuBr/N,N,N′,N′,N″-pentamethyldiethylenetriamine to form PNIPAM-graphene sheets (GS-PNIPAM) nanocomposite in which the polymers were covalently linked onto the graphene via the alkoxyamine conjunction points. The PNIPAM-modified graphene sheets are easily dispersible in organic solvents and water, and a temperature-induced phase transition was founded in the water suspension of GS-PNIPAM. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2011


Negative-pressure pulmonary edema has been increasingly reported in surgical literature since 1977, yet there are no references to this condition in current orthopedic textbooks. We report a case of negative-pressure pulmonary edema occurring during arthroscopic surgery of the shoulder. The patient required reintubation for 5 days and hospitalization for 1 week. Because arthroscopic surgery is widely believed to be without complications, we want to make orthopedic surgeons aware of the possibility of negative-pressure pulmonary edema.


The determination of past climate from annually banded corals and other integrators of marine processes was the topic of the Geological Indicators of Climate From Marine Environments (GICME) Workshop held at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Mass., May 25–26, 1988. This event, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Geological Survey, was attended by 22 scientists from geological, chemical, biological, and modeling backgrounds. Their primary goal was to present state-of-the-art observations made from marine organisms (i.e., corals, mollusks) and varved sediments, which record some aspect of their environment for the past few decades or centuries. It is projected that these indicators, when used in conjunction with global oceanographic models, will be useful in decadal or interdecadal climatic predictions.


Cytokinin activity in young rose petals was higher than in old ones. The content of endogenous cytokinins in petals of a short-lived variety (Golden Wave) was lower than in a long-lived variety (Lovita). Application of the cytokinin, N(6)-benzyladenine, increased longevity of the short-lived variety. This strengthens the view that cytokinins participate in the endogenous regulation of senescence in rose petals.


Probabilistic inference procedures are usually coded painstakingly from scratch, for each target model and each inference algorithm. We reduce this effort by generating inference procedures from models automatically. We make this code generation modular by decomposing inference algorithms into reusable program-to-program transformations. These transformations perform exact inference as well as generate probabilistic programs that compute expectations, densities, and MCMC samples. The resulting inference procedures are about as accurate and fast as other probabilistic programming systems on real-world problems.


Multi-channel imaging like RGB is common today, however, a custom configuration of other modalities, such as wavelengths or polarization, is expensive and often unavailable. We propose a novel configurable multi-modal imaging system that solves this problem by using off-the-shelf components and proper fusion algorithms. The paper shows the application of polarization imaging for machine vision inspection. Sequential images acquired with different cameras and polarization angles are first registered and then fused together. With standard components, we demonstrate a superior image quality to existing specialized cameras while being significantly cheaper, available, and easily configurable.


crystals was visible under the C&A monolayer. X-ray diffraction of samples collected from the surface showed that 75-95 % of the crystals were aragonite (observed d-spacings in A: 3.40 (lll), 3.28 (021), 2.88 (002), 2.74 (121), 2.71 (012), 2.49 (200), 2.41 (031), 2.38 (112). 2.34 (130); 2.33 (022), 2.19 (211), 2.11 (220), 1.98 (221)


This paper examines an approximation method to qualitatively assess the air-cleaning performance (i.e., specifically the elimination of aerial nitrogen oxide, NO, released within vehicular exhaust) by full-scale pavements which contain photo-catalytically reactive titanium dioxide under optimal conditions. Two hypothetical road configurations were considered using this method, including both a two-lane, low traffic density (i.e., 4,000 full-day AADT) and a four-lane, moderate traffic density (i.e., 10,000 full-day AADT) design. These options were then comparatively examined on the basis of expected European Union or United States vehicular emission levels. In each case, this method's day-time-only percentile elimination approximation results were derived using an extrapolation of lab-based specific contaminant elimination rates (i.e., mass NO removed per surface area per time) relative to contaminant release rates which were projected for EU or US vehicular contaminant emission levels. Using this paper's approximation method, and assuming best-case scenario conditions (i.e., original, un-aged, peak catalytic performance under optimal temperature, relative humidity, etc. conditions), day-timeonly percentile removals in the ~mid-60% to ~90% range were predicted for EU twoand fourlane roadways with low to moderate traffic densities. These EU contaminant elimination approximation percentiles were higher than the actual, observed range (e.g., typically ~mid-10% to ~mid-60% day-time removal percentiles) of published contaminant elimination values which had been measured according to gas-phase contaminant changes during a number of full-scale studies completed at various EU locations and with EU-related vehicle types and emissions. In the case of similar US highway options, this method's approximated day-time-only elimination percentile results were lower than what was predicted for similar EU road options, with a range of ~30% to ~40%. These latter, lower US road approximations were believed to be related to higher expected US versus EU vehicle emission levels (i.e., by a factor of ~twoto ~three-fold for light and heavy duty vehicles).


Aim. To study the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in an unorganized population of Orenburg city. Methods. The sample was formed by the method of random numbers. Examined were 301 people aged 25 to 75 years, of which 148 were males and 153 females. Studied were the socio-demographic characteristics and medical history (including filling out of a questionnaire), the clinical status of study participants (with the measurement of blood pressure, height, weight, waist and hip circumference, biochemical blood analysis to determine the concentration of glucose and lipid profile). In order to identify the metabolic syndrome the following diagnostic criteria were used: of the Work Group on the treatment of adults of the National Cholesterol Education Program of the U.S. (2001-2005), of the International Diabetes Federation (2005) and of the All-Russian Scientific Society of Cardiology (2009). Results. The prevalence of abdominal obesity was reduced by using less stringent thresholds for waist circumference. The most common variant of the metabolic syndrome was the combination of the following components: abdominal obesity, arterial hypertension and a low content of high-density lipoproteins. According to the criteria of the International Diabetes Federation such a combination occurred in 7.6%, while in accordance with the Criteria of the Work Group on for the treatment of adults of the National Cholesterol Education Program of the U.S. - it occurred in 4.3%. Conclusion. The frequency of registration of the metabolic syndrome depends on the criteria for its diagnosis.