A common problem in data analysis is the separation of signal and background. We revisit and generalise the so-called sWeights method, which allows one to calculate an empirical estimate of the signal density of a control variable using a fit of a mixed signal and background model to a discriminating variable. We show that sWeights are a special case of a larger class of Custom Orthogonal Weight functions (COWs), which can be applied to a more general class of problems in which the discriminating and control variables are not necessarily independent and still achieve close to optimal performance. We also investigate the properties of parameters estimated from fits of statistical models to sWeighted data and provide closed formulas for the asymptotic covariance matrix of the fitted parameters. To illustrate our findings, we discuss several practical applications of these techniques.


Background/Aim: This survey-based study aims to explore the clinical management protocols of followed by Australian periodontists in relation to peri-implant diseases. Materials and Methods: A five-part online questionnaire was developed and administered through email. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis, with the univariate associations between a categorical outcome and the variables evaluated using Pearson's Chi-squared test. Results: The survey yielded 99 responses, resulting in a response rate of 41.8%. Most participants were male and aged 35–44 years. More than a quarter of practitioners had been placing implants for 6–10 years and almost two-fifths of practitioners placed 1–10 implants per month. The estimated prevalence of peri-implant mucositis and peri-implantitis in the general Australian population was 47% and 21%, respectively. Practitioners reported using systemic antibiotics to manage peri-implant mucositis (7%) and (72%) peri-implantitis lesions, with a combination of amoxicillin and metronidazole. Most common treatment modalities were oral hygiene instructions, nonsurgical debridement and antimicrobial gel/rinse. Surgical debridement and systemic antibiotics were also often used for peri-implantitis treatment. Practitioners preferred a 3-month clinical follow-up and 6-month radiographic evaluation. Furthermore, three-quarters of practitioners rated their management as moderately effective, although upwards of nine-tenths expressed the need for further training and awareness. Conclusion: This study confirms a significant use of empirical treatment modalities due to lack of standard therapeutic protocol. However, some approaches followed by the specialists may provide a basis to formulate a therapeutic protocol for peri-implant disease management.


Previous studies have shown that coffee has a role in regulating lipid metabolism. However, the active compounds and pharmacological mechanism(s) are still unclear. Here, four new coffee diterpenoids (1-4) were identified from roasted arabica coffee (Coffea arabica L.) beans, and together with 31 known coffee diterpenoids (5-35), their bioactivities in the regulation of lipid content in white adipocytes were evaluated. Based on their structures and correlated bioactivities, we proposed that the α,β-unsaturated-γ-lactone moiety and hydroxyl group at C-3 are required for the bioactivity. Furthermore, the pharmacological approaches revealed that the active new diterpenoid, dehydrocaffarolide B, inhibited the Akt/mTOR/GSK3β pathway and arrested cells in the G0/G1 phase of the mitotic clonal expansion process during the adipocyte differentiation and maturation, eventually resulting in the blunting of lipid accumulation in the adipocytes. Collectively, our findings identified four new diterpenoids of arabica coffee and elucidated a mechanism of an active lactone-type diterpenoid in the regulation of lipid content in white adipocytes.


Background: Skiing is a popular outdoor sport posing different requirements on musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory function to excel in competition. The extent to which genotypic features contribute to the development of performance with years of ski-specific training remains to be elucidated. We therefore tested whether prominent polymorphisms in genes for angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE-I/D, rs1799752), tenascin-C (TNC, rs2104772), actinin-3 (ACTN3, rs1815739) and PTK2 (rs7460 and rs7843014) are associated with the differentiation of cellular hallmarks of muscle metabolism and contraction in high level skiers. Material & Methods: Forty-three skiers of a world-leading national ski team performed exhaustive cardiopulmonary exercise testing as well as isokinetic strength testing for single contractions, whereby 230 cardiopulmonary measurements were performed in the period from 2015–2018. A total of 168 and 62 data measurements were from the Alpine and Nordic skiing squads, respectively. Ninety-five and one hundred thirty-five measurements, respectively, were from male and female athletes. The average (±SD) age was 21.5 ± 3.0 years, height 174.0 ± 8.7 cm, and weight 71.0 ± 10.9 kg for the analysed skiers. Furthermore, all skiers were analysed concerning their genotype ACE-I/D, Tenascin C, ACTN3, PTK2. Results: The genotype distribution deviated from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium for the ACTN3 genotype, where rs1815739-TT genotypes (corresponding to the nonsense mutation) were overrepresented in world-class skiers, indicating a slow muscle fibre phenotype. Furthermore, the heterozygous rs2104772-AT genotypes of TNC also demonstrated the best scaled peak power output values during ramp exercise to exhaustion. The highest values under maximum performance for heart rate were associated with the rs1799752-II and rs1815739-CC genotypes. The lowest values for peak power of single contractions were achieved for rs1815739-CC, rs1799752-II and rs7843014-CT genotypes. The skiing discipline demonstrated a main influence on cardiorespiratory parameters but did not further interact with genotype-associated variability in performance. Discussion: Classically, it is pointed out that muscles of, for example, alpine skiers do not possess a distinct fibre type composition, but that skiers tend to have a preponderance of slow-twitch fibres. Consequently, our findings of an overrepresentation of ACTN3-TT genotypes in a highly selective sample of elite world class skiers support the potential superiority of a slow fibre type distribution. Conclusions: We suggest that one competitive advantage that results from a slow, typically fatigue-resistant fibre type distribution might be that performance during intense training days is better preserved, whereby simply a higher technical training volume can be performed, yielding to a competitive advantage.


Abstract Proliferation of major conventional weapons (MCW) in larger numbers, at greater levels of sophistication, and to more actors is at best a waste of valuable resources and at worst fuel for more and bloodier conflicts. Given a track record of violence, repression, and corruption, norms against exporting weapons to active conflicts and human rights abusers, as well as norms in favor of transparency in weapons transfers, have grown more salient in recent years. Yet international efforts such as the UN Conventional Arms Trade Treaty show little promise for mitigating these ills. This article finds an alternate route toward moderating global arms transfers. It shows, with supporting data, how the United States, pursuing its own political interests, leverages its massive market power to slow the proliferation of dangerous technology, reduce resources spent in the developing world on weapons, stymie the deadweight losses of corruption in the arms industry, and lower the rewards for human rights abusers.


Mold invasion by Trichoderma harzianum T6776 over the surface of wood-plastic composites (WPCs) made from Juniperus procera wood-branch and polypropylene with a melt-blending technique was examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Before the addition of coupling agent, the WPC samples were made from untreated and pretreated wood-branch particles of J. procera with either cold or hot water and then mixed with polypropylene to produce panels. The surfaces of WPC samples were inoculated by a mold suspension of T. harzianum. SEM-EDX measurements of WPCs made from J. procera particles showed little or no growth of T. harzianum, irrespective of treatment with cold or hot water. The results suggest that WPCs made from the particles of J. procera wood-branch pretreated with either cold or hot water could be useable in wet conditions. In addition, using of J. procera as durable wood for manufacturing of WPCs had good effects on the prevention of the mold infestation over the surfaces of the produced panels.


This paper describes a new unsupervised machine-learning method for simultaneous phoneme and word discovery from multiple speakers. Phoneme and word discovery from multiple speakers is a more challenging problem than that from one speaker, because the speech signals from different speakers exhibit different acoustic features. The existing method, a nonparametric Bayesian double articulation analyzer (NPB-DAA) with deep sparse autoencoder (DSAE) only performed phoneme and word discovery from a single speaker. Extending NPB-DAA with DSAE to a multi-speaker scenario is, therefore, the research problem of this paper.This paper proposes the employment of a DSAE with parametric bias in the hidden layer (DSAE-PBHL) as a feature extractor for unsupervised phoneme and word discovery. DSAE-PBHL is designed to subtract speaker-dependent acoustic features and speaker-independent features by introducing parametric bias input to the DSAE hidden layer. An experiment demonstrated that DSAE-PBHL could subtract distributed representations of acoustic signals, enabling extraction based on the types of phonemes rather than the speakers. Another experiment demonstrated that a combination of NPB-DAA and DSAE-PBHL outperformed other available methods accomplishing phoneme and word discovery tasks involving speech signals with Japanese vowel sequences from multiple speakers.


The objectives of this paper are to study the characteristics of heat transfer and pressure drop of the plate heat exchanger with corrugation height by numerical analysis. Plate heat exchanger of three types was designed, which was corrugation height 3.1mm, 2.8mm and 2.5mm. The plate heat exchanger was numerically investigated for Reynolds number in a range of 950 ?3,380. The temperatures of the hot side were performed at 14.5°C while that of the cold side was conducted at 4.5°C. The results show that the performance of heat transfer coefficient for corrugation height 2.5mm increases about 9.5~17.1% compared to that of corrugation height 3.1mm. On the other hand, the performance of pressure drop for corrugation height 2.5mm is remarkably higher than that of corrugation height 3.1mm, about 65.7~86.0%.


Researchers identified a methodology for obtaining the incremental societal costs and benefits for a variable pricing project and applied that methodology to the State Route 91 (SR-91) Express Lanes in California. This is the longest running variable pricing project in the United States and, as such, it provided useful historical data and trends upon which to estimate benefits and costs. This analysis found that the incremental societal benefits of the SR-91 Express Lanes exceeded costs for the time period considered. A companion paper that examines the benefits and costs of the QuickRide high occupancy/toll lane program found similar results. However, the magnitudes of the differences in benefits and costs were dramatically different for the two projects, indicative of their relative sizes and the numbers of travelers impacted. On SR-91, tens of thousands of travelers were impacted on a daily basis where QuickRide's impact was limited to approximately 400 travelers per day. Interestingly, the benefit-cost ratios of the two projects were similar, both between 1.5 and 1.7.


Reflectivity is usually assumed to be white for conventional deconvolution algorithms. However, the reflectivity series in practice usually demonstrates a characteristicly colored spectrum, so deconvolution algorithms should be modified accordingly. This article presents a color correction method for Gabor deconvolution, proposes different ways to conduct the color correction in case of incomplete well log information, and investigates a practical way to measure and remove the residual nonstationary phase rotation remaining after deconvolution as well. The performance of proposed approaches for color correction and the practical definition of nonstationary phase rotation are evaluated using synthetic data.


Dworkin's thesis that there is one right answer in hard cases has been much criticized over the past quarter century. This thesis is counterintuitive particularly since Dworkin has a hermeneutical theory of legal interpretation and acknowledges that contemporary liberal democracies are morally and politically pluralistic. Nevertheless, Dworkin's thesis is not easily dismissed if put in proper context. This paper reconstructs Dworkin's theory of law as systematic and unified - the one law principle - and examines his thesis from the standpoint of counterfactual reconstruction. After articulating the criteria and uses of counterfactual reconstruction, the paper assesses Dworkin's counterfactual theory of adjudication centered around the superhuman judge Hercules. Drawing on Dworkin's distinctions between principle and policy and concept and conception, the paper concludes that Dworkin's thesis does not follow from his own premises and that pluralism at times calls for a plurality rather than a single right answer in hard cases.


Isolated dorsal epithelium of the frog tongue elicited transepithelial NaCl and water responses across the tissue when NaCl was added to or removed from the adapting Ringer solution in the mucosal surface, respectively. The NaCl response which was a negative polarization in the mucosa with respect to the serosa was associated with a decrease in resistance across the tissue, whereas the water response which was a positive polarization was associated with an increase in the resistance. The decrease and increase in the tissue resistance remained unchanged by various polarizations of the transepithelial potential difference across the tissue. Characteristics of the NaCl and water responses were similar in many respects to those in the taste cells and nerves of frogs. Thus the NaCl and water responses may relate to taste reception.


In John's Gospel, the Jesus movement is represented as developing in an environment in which kinship was the primary social matrix. Combining exegetical research and anthropological analysis, the article highlights the relation between two Jewish-Palestinian social forms, coexisting within the Jesus movement: discipleship and kinship (1:35-51). In the social imagination of John, the group of disciples allows for the participation of the mother and the brothers (2:12). Kinship, however, undergoes some modifications. First, the kinship system is no longer a unique instrument for the attribution of roles. Jesus, his mother and the brothers interact dialectically, moving between acceptance and rejection (at Cana and Sukkot). Second, the kinship system is characterized by the absence of the fathers. This anomaly introduces flexibility and indefiniteness into the roles. The disappearance of wide lineages and of male relatives of women modifies contexts and re-situates all the characters. Male functions are taken on by women in substitutive ways. On the other hand, discipleship is influenced in turn by kinship, which offers unquestionable social support to Jesus and his disciples, as is shown by the mediating function of the mother at Cana and the "adivising" function of the brothers. Kinship also takes on an integrative role in the movement, as in the case of the unnamed disciple and the mother at the cross (19:25-27). In Jesus' last words, discipleship is remodelled on the basis of kinship criteria and logic. To be "in possession of" Mary, the mother, alters the balance of power within the movement.


Species diversity change, and therefore compositional changes in a biota, may be associated with changes at any of three ecological evels, involving the number of provinces within the biosphere, of communities within provinces, and of species represented within communities. Pleistocene sea level changes did not much affect the marine biosphere at any ecological level. An analysis of an extensive data set of Californian Pleistocene and Recent mollusks indicates a continuity of community and species composition during highstands of the last million years. Extensive latitudinal shifts in species' geographic ranges, associated with climatic change and not with sea level itself, created the most significant biotic changes. Extinctions were minimal, well below predicted species=area effects. Evidently, only "perched" faunas are particularly vulnerable to sea level change. Although sea level falls are commonly associated with a faunal hiatus, changes associated therewith can be referred to sea level change itself only in limited situations, and other paleobiologic explanations should be sought in most cases.


This paper investigates the impact of the Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect on near-white substrate colours. As the luminance of the test colour (or its simulated reflectance in a softproof setup) approaches that of the adapting white point the viewing mode changes from 'surface mode'
 to 'aperture mode', and the appearance of the test colour becomes self-luminous. However, some substrates with optical brighteners fall close to this threshold between viewing modes, since the OBAs not only increase the perceived reflectance but also increase the H-K effect, where it is very
 prominent in bluish colours. For graphic arts content shown on a display system, this essentially breaks the soft-proofing paradigm. The practical application of this work relates to cross-media colour reproduction, where the lightness appearance of some substrates is not adequately described
 by their colorimetric values, and this may impact on choice of proofing strategies.


The interaction between 2,2'-bithiophene-5-carboxylic acid (PT2) sublimed under ultra-high vacuum conditions and anatase (101) and rutile (110) TiO2 single crystal surfaces is investigated by studying the electronic spectral density near the Fermi level with synchrotron-based spectroscopy. The experimental results are compared to density functional theory calculations of the isolated PT2 molecule and of the molecule adsorbed on an anatase TiO2 (101) cluster. The relative concentrations of Ti, C, and S atoms indicate that the adsorbed molecule remains intact upon deposition, which is typical of a Stranski-Krastanov growth mode. The analysis of the O1s spectrum suggests a predominant bidentate geometry of the adsorption with both rutile and anatase surfaces, as supported by previous theoretical simulations. It is also theoretically and experimentally demonstrated that the PT2 adsorption causes the appearance of new electronic states in the gap near the TiO2 valence band. A pinning effect of the LUMO level of the dye is also theoretically predicted.


The major challenge for the second decade of this century is the implementation of access to high-speed internet, known as broadband internet. Thus, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has developed a new standard for wireless access, called IEEE 802.16. Also known as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), it is an emerging technology for next generation wireless networks which supports a large number of users, both mobile and nomadic (fixed), distributed across a wide geographic area. Based on these assumptions, and considering that the standard does not specify a scheduling algorithm, a new scheduler with call admission control was proposed based on Latency-Rate (LR) server theory and with system characteristics as specified by the system standard using the WirelessMAN-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) air interface. The proposed scheduler calculates the time frame (TF) in order to maximize the number of stations allocated in the system while managing the delay required for each user. Properties of this proposal have been investigated theoretically and through simulations. The results of simulations show that an upper bound on the delay can be achieved for a large range of network loads, with bandwidth optimization.


We propose a new formulation of temporal action detection (TAD) with denoising diffusion, DiffTAD in short. Taking as input random temporal proposals, it can yield action proposals accurately given an untrimmed long video. This presents a generative modeling perspective, against previous discriminative learning manners. This capability is achieved by first diffusing the ground-truth proposals to random ones (i.e., the forward/noising process) and then learning to reverse the noising process (i.e., the backward/denoising process). Concretely, we establish the denoising process in the Transformer decoder (e.g., DETR) by introducing a temporal location query design with faster convergence in training. We further propose a cross-step selective conditioning algorithm for inference acceleration. Extensive evaluations on ActivityNet and THUMOS show that our DiffTAD achieves top performance compared to previous art alternatives. The code will be made available at https://github.com/sauradip/DiffusionTAD.


This paper seeks to analyze the main education financing measures adopted by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso's administration. Between 1995 and 2002, thanks to the center-right coalition that gave the government a majority in Congress, several new laws with strong impact on education financing were approved, such as the LDB (Brazilian Education Basic Tenets Law), FUNDEF (Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Elementary Education and Enhancement of the Teaching Profession), and the Brazilian Education Plan. This administration has always assumed that the existing funds are sufficient although their use should be optimized. In conclusion, the article states that this administration will be remembered as one that spent 4% of the GDP in education and 8% of the GDP in interests and service of the public debt.


The purpose of this brief article is to initiate discussions in this special issue by proposing desiderata for calling an operator a fractional derivative or a fractional integral. Our desiderata are neither axioms nor do they define fractional derivatives or integrals uniquely. Instead they intend to stimulate the field by providing guidelines based on a small number of time honoured and well established criteria.


Convolutional neural networks have allowed remarkable advances in single image super-resolution (SISR) over the last decade. Among recent advances in SISR, attention mechanisms are crucial for high-performance SR models. However, the attention mechanism remains unclear on why and how it works in SISR. In this work, we attempt to quantify and visualize attention mechanisms in SISR and show that not all attention modules are equally beneficial. We then propose attention in attention network (A$^2$N) for more efficient and accurate SISR. Specifically, A$^2$N consists of a non-attention branch and a coupling attention branch. A dynamic attention module is proposed to generate weights for these two branches to suppress unwanted attention adjustments dynamically, where the weights change adaptively according to the input features. This allows attention modules to specialize to beneficial examples without otherwise penalties and thus greatly improve the capacity of the attention network with few parameters overhead. Experimental results demonstrate that our final model A$^2$N could achieve superior trade-off performances comparing with state-of-the-art networks of similar sizes. Codes are available at https://github.com/haoyuc/A2N.


Aim: To investigate polymorphisms in the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene in cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and controls, and further to elucidate a possible relationship between 5-HTT genotypes and external risk factors for SIDS. Method: The subjects investigated consist of 163 SIDS cases and 243 controls. Polymorphisms in both the promoter and intron 2 of the 5-HTT gene were investigated, and the genotypes were determined using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis. Results: In the promoter, there was a tendency for the L allele and L/L genotype to be found more often in the SIDS cases than in the controls (p = 0.05 and p = 0.07, respectively). Regarding the intron 2 polymorphism, there were no differences between the groups, and the SIDS cases were not found to have a higher frequency of either the L/L-12/12 genotype or the L-12 haplotype than the controls. When investigating possible correlations between genotype and risk factors for SIDS, there was a tendency towards different distribution of the promoter genotypes in cases found dead prone compared to cases found dead in other sleeping positions (p = 0.06). Conclusion: Polymorphisms in the promoter of the 5-HTT gene may be of importance with regard to SIDS.


Considers reasons for failure among pure play Internet grocery retailers. Notes that two factors seem to be significant. First, they did not achieve anything like a competitive advantage over the traditional "bricks and mortar" food retailers on those dimensions that drive the consumer store/channel choice process. Second, they did not develop a business model that reaches profitability, perhaps ever. They apparently did not foresee that total operating costs per customer were substantially higher for Internet grocery retailing than for "bricks and mortar" grocery stores, and that this new channel would have to charge consumers substantially more to reach breakeven operating levels. In fact, many pure play Internet grocers tried to price competitively against traditional food retailers and as a result, did not even cover variable costs. Hence, the more they sold, the more they lost. Eventually, they ran out of cash and were unable to raise additional monies in the market. Finally, there is some evidence that Internet grocers dramatically overestimated the size of the market for grocery shopping from the home. In the final analysis, pure play Internet grocer retailers appeared sexy and were hot for a short period of time because of the romance of the Internet. In fact, they were nothing more than fancy grocery delivery companies – which have never made money in the mass market and probably never will.


Objective
Access to pregabalin via Ontario's public drug insurance program was expanded to an unrestricted model on April 1, 2013, from a prior authorization model. This study aims to identify the effect of expanded access on the rate of pregabalin use by publicly insured persons and to assess the characteristics of new patients initiating pregabalin following this expanded access.

Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional time series analysis using the linked health administrative records of residents of Ontario, Canada, with public drug coverage who were dispensed a prescription for pregabalin between April 1, 2006, and December 31, 2014.

Results
A total of 108,047 publicly insured persons were dispensed pregabalin over the study period. The overall rate of pregabalin use increased from 1.0 per 1,000 individuals in Q1 of 2013 to 22.0 per 1,000 individuals in Q4 of 2014. Musculoskeletal (81.6%) and neurological (68.1%) conditions were the most prevalent diagnoses in patients who initiated pregabalin following the expansion of access. Past and concomitant use of opioids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and antidepressants was also common in this population.

Conclusions
Formulary changes in Ontario have led to expanded access to pregabalin, which may have led to an increase in off-label use of these products and potential patient risk associated with concomitant use of pregabalin with central nervous system-depressing drugs.


Background : Spleen being in close proximity to radiation field in patients of gastric and gastroesophageal carcinomas treated with radiotherapy will inadvertently receive a part of the dose. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of radiation dose and fractional volume of irradiated spleen in the setting of chemoradiation therapy for gastric and gastroesophageal junctional cancers on haematologic toxicity. Materials and Methods: 40 patients with gastric and gastroesophageal junctional cancers who received concurrent chemoradiation were retrospectively analysed in the Department of Radiation oncology, Father Muller Medical College. Splenic dose-volume histogram (DVH) parameters were calculated as mean splenic dose (MSD) and percentage of splenic volume receiving 10 Gy (V10), 20 Gy (V20), 30 Gy (V30) and 40 Gy (V40) dose and correlated with clinical blood parameters.Mean, percentage, standard deviation and Student paired t-test were used to analyse the results. Results: All the patients experienced haematological toxicities, including 7 patients with grade 3 leukopenia and 3 had grade 4 leukopenia, 19 with grade 2 thrombocytopenia and 4 had grade 3 thrombocytopenia, 28 with both leukopenia and lymphopenia. Mean dose to the spleen was 32 Gy (range 27–37). Higher spleen V10-V40 was correlated with leukopenia, lymphopenia and thrombocytopenia. Conclusion: This dosimetric study demonstrates that splenic radiation was correlated with haematological toxicities, however role of chemotherapy as cause for toxicity could not be assessed as separate variable in this study. Future clinical correlational studies are needed to significantly determine the splenic dose contraints. Key Messages: Radiation therapy for gastric and gastroesophageal carcinoma leads to significant dose to spleen causing an impact in acute haematological toxicities. © This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


I show that the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus as a tool for counter-cyclical stabilization depends not only on how much of changes in income households spend, but also on the composition of that expenditure. By combining expenditure and production data I measure the extent to which households cut back expenditure on labor-intensive goods upon unemployment. The result is quantitatively relevant because the labor share with which different final consumption goods are produced varies widely across the economy. I find that upon unemployment, a household reduces demand for other workers' labor by 6.5%, 15% more than what is implied when heterogeneity in production and expenditure is ignored. In the context of the Great Recession, the expenditure response to unemployment accounts for a fifth of the drop in labor compensation. Using a multi-good, multi-sector New-Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents, I show that my findings have significant implications for the targeting and evaluation of fiscal stimulus. First, the fiscal multiplier of government purchases of labor-intensive goods is almost five times larger than for purchases of capital-intensive goods. Second, the heterogeneity I document explains the lower effectiveness to stimulate the economy of capital-intensive military spending, as compared to highly labor-intensive general government spending. Third, I show that the decline of the labor share in the last decades has reduced the effectiveness of fiscal policy.


SincN FIR filters resulting of a cascade of N sinc filters, each of length M, are considered. Straightforward recurrence relations are derived allowing fast computation of their impulse response coefficients. A table of coefficients is given. A simple general expression of the coefficients is also obtained, valid for all the coefficients. This latter can be easily applied for given values of M and N.


OBJECTIVE
To use a novel method of estimating income loss associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS
For the 26 RA patients (16 female and 10 male, mean age 52.77 yrs) participating in our study, job histories were used to estimate earning potential based on the United States Department of Labor job analysis. To estimate current function, work samples were performed using the Valpar Instrument Battery. The tests include measures of motor coordination, finger dexterity, and manual dexterity. Databases were used to estimate current earning potential on the basis of these performance measures.

RESULTS
Estimated earnings decreased from $18,409 to $13,900 per yr. Furthermore, it was estimated that the number of jobs patients could perform dropped from 11.5 million to 2.6 million.

CONCLUSION
These preliminary estimates suggest that RA causes significant reductions in earning potential and in the number of jobs that can be performed. This methodology, using a small sample of patients, produced results consistent with larger population studies.


Neurosurgical treatment in psychiatry is an uncommon technique that is only used in some serious mental diseases which are very refractory to conventional treatment. There is no doubt that the documented cases have efficiently contributed to those cases where combined treatment (drug-psychotherapy) does not lead to clear improvement and where the course leads to serious psychosocial deterioration. We present a clinical case of neurosurgery in obsessive compulsive disease with good results. This seems to be a good strategy to make the results of these techniques known because of the shortage of controlled studies published.


ABSTRACT The expression of Staphylococcus aureus virulence proteins is under the control of RNA III, a central pleiotropic regulator transcribed from the agr locus. RNA III is activated by at least two two-component systems, one encoded by the agr locus (AgrC-AgrA) and another encoded outside of this locus (TRAP-RAP). In this work, we developed new typing methods based on genes encoding these two systems, which we used to characterize a nonclonal population of S. aureus bovine mastitis isolates. Twelve agr restriction types were identified in this population, but the majority of strains (56.3%) were grouped in the R III-A1 type. No strain isolated from humans, whose agr sequence is available from GenBank, was found to belong to this major type. Restriction maps constructed for all of those agr variants allowed the linking of all types in an evolution scheme and their grouping in one of the four agr interference groups. This analysis indicates that groups 2, 3, and 4 probably evolved from the more frequently encountered type, which belongs to group 1. agr group 1 was also found to be the most prevalent (69.0% of the strains) and the most polymorphic interference group. By developing an agr group-specific multiplex PCR, we confirmed the above classification of strains in the agr interference groups. Four allelic variants of trap were also identified, indicating that this two-component system is also polymorphic. The majority of strains was grouped in the trap 1 type (71.8%). Whereas no relationships between agr group and trap types were found, strains of similar agr restriction type were also of similar trap type (with the exception of strains belonging to the agr R IV-A5 and R VI-A8 types). Our analysis indicates that S. aureus isolated from cows has predominantly a clonal structure and that the highly prevalent agr R III-A1, trap 1 type (56.3% of the strains) probably possesses a genetic background which endows it with superior ability to infect the bovine mammary gland.


Wikipedia, WordNet and word co-occurrences are knowledge sources that have been used in text processing to solve various problems. In text classification, these knowledge sources are used to enrich the document representation and increase classification accuracy. Easy articles can be classified correctly by looking at just the title or author while others might require more processing to classify correctly. Such an approach has interesting correspondences to how humans progressively resort to more involved processing once shallower approaches fail. As part of doctoral research, we attempt to propose a method, where we try to suggest a principled combination of knowledge sources for each document that uses minimal knowledge to solve the problem. This is done by estimating the difficulty in processing the documents and suggesting the right knowledge source that would reduce this difficulty.


Introduction The improvements in genetic characterization of AML allowed the ELN to propose a prognostic classification into 4 categories: Favorable, Intermediate I, Intermediate II and Adverse. Several groups have tested the outcome of AML patients based on these genetic subgroups in registries and databases from prospective trials. Since ALLOSCT recommendations are being established based on the ELN risk categories, we considered of interest to investigate whether these also have an impact on the results of allogeneic transplants. This could be helpful to identify the patients that may benefit the most from ALLOHCT in the first complete remission (CR1). Objectives To investigate whether the ELN genetic groups of AML have any impact on the results of ALLOHCT performed in CR1. To identify the patients who are best candidates for transplantation, based on the ELN categories as well as in other characteristics. Methods Patients were transplanted between 1990 and 2012. In all cases, treatment prior to transplant had consisted of anthracycline based induction and intermediate-dose cytarabine consolidation according to the CETLAM AML-88, AML-94, AML-99 and AML-03 trials. Upper age limit for transplantation was 60 years until 2002 and 70 years thereafter. Most patients above 50 years received either CD34 selected grafts or reduced intensity conditioning. GVHD prophylaxis after transplant was usually based on cyclosporine and prednisone or methotrexate. The main characteristics of patients and transplants were included in the exploratory analysis of variables influencing survival; those with a p- value up to 0.1 were incorporated as covariates to the multivariable model. Results One hundred ninety two patients in CR1 received an ALLOHCT from HLA-identical siblings (n=140), adult unrelated donors (n=26) or umbilical cord blood (n= 26). Age distribution of the patients was as follows: 16-35 years-old (y-o) n=65 (34%), 36-50 y-o n= 55 (29%), 51-60 y-o n= 54 (28%), >60 y-o n=18 (9%). Twenty-three patients (12%) were classified as in the favorable ELN category, 54 (28%) in the intermediate I, 41 (21%) in the intermediate II and 74 (39%) in the adverse. One-hundred fifty-seven patients (82%) had achieved CR1 after a single course of chemotherapy. Conditioning was myeloablative (MA) in 139 (72%) patients and reduced-intensity (RIC) in 53 (28%). In 76 cases of the MA regimens total body irradiation was included. Thirty-eight patients (20%) died due to transplant complications other than relapse and 47 (24%) experienced a leukemia recurrence. Overall survival (OS) and leukemia-free survivals at 8-years were 55±4% and 53±4%, respectively. Multivariate analysis of factors influencing OS included as covariates age at diagnosis of AML, ELN categories, courses to CR1 and conditioning regimen (MA versus RIC), since they had a p-value 60, p=0.01) and courses to CR (1 vs more, p=0.03). Conclusions The ELN genetic categories have impact on OS of AML patients who receive an ALLOHCT in CR1. The results were very good in the favorable category and, most important, in intermediate II patients. Even patients in the adverse category had a substantial probability of long-term survival. This is remarkable, since the outcome of patients with adverse genetic features when treated with CT only is very poor. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This study presents results of a May 2009 online survey that asked foreign language program directors at U.S. universities about corrective feedback options their teachers use in response to student writing in beginning and intermediate courses. Survey categories included: 1) general information, 2) general written corrective feedback (WCF) policies, 3) specific WCF types applied at different instruction levels, and 4) open-ended commentaries. Results indicate a number of common tendencies: 1) teachers in most programs provide WCF on multiple drafts of student writing; 2) the number of programs with uniform writing policies has been recently increasing; and 3) written feedback on holistic aspects in addition to surface-level error correction is expanding. The study concludes with suggestions for further research and pedagogical applications.


Exciplex or excited complex emission is an excited state process, arising from considerable charge transfer of an excited energy donor to an acceptor, which can be identified by the occurrence of a redshifted emission band that is absent in the individual constituents. Particularly interesting are exciplexes that are formed by intramolecular excited state interaction, which are inherently concentration independent. Based upon our previous experience in the Ugi-4CR syntheses of donor-acceptor conjugates capable of photo-induced intramolecular electron transfer (PIET), that is, generation of light-induced charge separation, we now disclose the diversity-oriented approach on unimolecular exciplex emitters and their reference systems by Ugi-4CR. The photophysics is studied by absorption and emission spectroscopy and accompanied by density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations.


Abstract Global warming is generally predicted to increase the intensity of herbivore pressure on plants. Support for this prediction often comes from short-term studies, or studies conducted in controlled laboratory settings. We examined the effect of long-term experimental warming on an aphid-sagebrush interaction (Obtusicauda coweni and Artemisia tridentata) in natural field plots in the Rocky Mountains. In no year did we find support for the prediction that warming increased aphid abundance or population growth. In fact, warming decreased aphid density on sagebrush in one year, tended to decrease aphids in a second year, and had no effect in a third year. In enclosures that excluded predators, warming decreased aphid population growth by an amount consistent with observed field density differences. Warming increased sagebrush carbon:nitrogen (C∶N) ratio and plant size, but there was no significant correlation between these variables and aphid growth or density. In a separate snow-manipulation experiment in unwarmed plots, the timing of snowmelt did not affect aphid density. In conclusion, warming reduced or did not affect aphid density in each of three years, but this effect could not be explained by differences in plant size, bulk C∶N ratio, predation, or snowmelt date. Our results suggest that long-term studies within a natural community context may provide counterexamples to the prediction that warming will increase herbivore pressure on plants.


Abstract Political discussions and negotiation processes are often used to classify rational or emotional behavior that enhances one's own and the other's devaluation. In the paper this is elaborated with a view to the clash of state planning euphoria and civic protest in the wake of the great administrative reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. Both supporting the reforms and criticizing them are highly complex emotional processes. But how is this reflected in the arguments and actions of the actors? To answer this question, the contemporary ideas and interpretations of a rational and emotional behavior come into focus. The emotions associated with the debate are analyzed at various levels: as a strategy of citizens' initiatives, as a media strategy, as a factor of community involvement or the "emotional community" and as an attribution.


Weak vertex corrections to the quark-gluon vertex functions produce differing form-factor corrections for quarks of differing chiralities. These differences grow with increasing four-momentum transfer in the gluon leg. Consequently, inclusive polarized proton--proton scattering to a final state jet should show a large parity-violating asymmetry at high energies. The absence of large signals at sufficiently high energies can be interpreted as being due to balancing vertex corrections from a right-handed weak vector boson of limited mass, and limits on the strength of such signals can, in principle, give upper bounds on that mass. 2 refs.


The histone modifications and associated changes in chromatin structure and function have emerged as important epigenetic mechanisms impacting gene expression and have significant translational relevance in cancers, including multiple myeloma (MM). Epigenetic intervention with histone deacetylases (HDACs) inhibitors is emerging as a promising therapeutic strategy in combination with current anti-myeloma agents. Although pan-HDAC inhibitors have been shown to be effective both in preclinical and clinical setting, they seem to be associated with toxicity. It is, therefore, extremely important to understand the biological and molecular roles of individual HDACs to then selectively target them to limit toxicities observed with pan-HDAC inhibitors. Based on our observation that elevated HDAC8 expression correlates with poor overall survival in MM patients in three different datasets including one publicly available dataset (GSE39754), we evaluated its functional role in MM.
 HDAC8, a member of class I HDAC isoenzymes, is responsible for the deacetylation of lysine residues on the N-terminal part of the core histones as well as non-histone proteins. We performed genetic modulation of HDAC8 by loss-of-function studies, using shRNA as well as siRNAs targeting HDAC8. Downregulation of HDAC8 in 3 different MM cell lines caused MM cell growth inhibition in a time-dependent manner which was associated with induction of cell apoptosis. Consistently, treatment with a selective and potent HDAC8 inhibitor (OJI-1) caused a significant inhibition of MM cell growth in a panel of 20 MM cell lines (IC50 = 80 nM) in a time- and dose-dependent manner, while having a minimal impact on six PBMC samples from healthy donors both in resting and activated state (IC50 = 150 nM).
 The mechanism of cell death was apoptosis as demonstrated by annexin-labeling. Importantly, both the HDAC8 knockdown and OJI-1 treatment inhibited DNA breaks as evidenced from γH2AX expression or a single cell gel electrophoresis method to visualize and quantitate DNA breaks. HDAC8 inhibition also caused inhibition of RAD51 foci and HR activity, as measured by strand-exchange assay. Interestingly, non-homologous end joining in MM cells was not impacted by these treatments. Consistent with these data, the overexpression of HDAC8 in MM as well as in normal cells increased DNA breaks and HR activity. Furthermore, the inhibition of HDAC8 (by knockdown and OJI-1) inhibited, whereas its overexpression increased genomic instability, as assessed by micronucleus assay, in surviving MM cells. We also demonstrate that HDAC8 interacts with RAD51 and impacts its acetylation. The treatment of MM cells with HDAC8 inhibitor (OJI-1) increased RAD51 acetylation. Next, we examined the in vivo efficacy of the HDAC8 conditional knockdown in a human xenograft mouse model, using H929 cells injected subcutaneously in SCID mice. HDAC8 knockdown not only caused a significant reduction in tumor growth but also increased survival (p=0.0016) compared to mice injected with control cells. Evaluation of tumors from these mice confirmed in vivo inhibition of DNA breaks and HR activity, and induction of apoptosis following HDAC8-knockdown. HDAC8 inhibitor OJI-1 also synergistically increased the cytotoxicity of existing MM drugs including dexamethasone, bortezomib and lenalidomide.
 In conclusion, our results demonstrate that elevated HDAC8 in MM cells is involved in inhibition of apoptosis but also contributes to increased DNA breaks and dysregulation of homologous recombination and genome stability. Therefore, HDAC8 is a novel target for therapeutic application in MM. Selective and potent HDAC8 inhibitor OJI-1 has shown a favorable therapeutic index with synergistic effect in combination with existing MM drugs.

 Hajek: Pharma MAR: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; AbbVie: Consultancy, Honoraria; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Amgen: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding. Munshi: Janssen: Consultancy; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Consultancy; Amgen: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Karyopharm: Consultancy; Abbvie: Consultancy; Adaptive Biotechnology: Consultancy; Oncopep: Consultancy, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company, Other: scientific founder, Patents & Royalties; Novartis: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Legend: Consultancy.


Transcription factor CCAAT enhancer binding protein α (C/EBPα) is the master regulator of myeloid differentiation programme. Tumor suppressor function of C/EBPα is shown by the deregulation of C/EBPα in AML by various mechanisms. Mutations in the CEBPA gene are reported in around 9% of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The CEBPA mutations reported are frame shift mutation at N-terminal domain, which results in C/EBPα-p30 and point mutations at the basic region Leucine zipper. The mutant form of C/EBPα (C/EBPα-p30) displays dominant negative function over the wild type protein and induces AML in mouse model. The mechanism for the dominant negative action of C/EBPα-p30 in AML is poorly understood. Peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerase, PIN1 binds to and isomerizes specific pSer/Thr-Pro motifs. Recent studies show that PIN1 is overexpressed in many types of cancers and it acts as a crucial catalyst for oncogenesis. Here we investigated the role of PIN1 in AML with CEBPA mutations. We report C/EBPα-p30 could induce PIN1 mRNA and protein levels as revealed by quantitative Real-Time RT-PCR analysis and western blot analysis, respectively. Affymetrix mRNA expression analysis shows that PIN1 mRNA is upregulated in patients with AML. Interestingly, the wild type C/EBPα down regulates PIN1 mRNA and protein levels. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrate that induction of C/EBPα-p30 results in recruitment of E2F1 in the PIN1 promoter. Silencing PIN1 with inhibitor against PIN1 (PiB) in AML blast cells with CEBPA mutation and in Kasumi-6 cells leads to myeloid differentiation as assessed by myeloid markers by FACS analysis and quantitative Real-Time RT-PCR analysis. Furthermore, PIN1 inhibition by PiB leads to upregulation of wild type C/EBPα protein level. Next, we investigated the mechanism through which the C/EBPα-p30 blocks the wild type protein. c-Jun expression has been shown to be high in AML patients with CEBPA mutation and c-Jun blocks C/EBPα function by proteinprotein interaction. In vivo ubiquitination assay demonstrates that PIN1 increases the stability of the c-Jun protein by inhibiting c-Jun ubiquitination. We also show that c-Jun blocks granulocytic differentiation mediated by C/EBPα as assessed by myeloid specific markers. In summary, C/EBPα-p30 induces PIN1 expression and increases the stability of c-Jun and c-Jun blocks the wild type C/EBPα. Our data suggest the inhibition of PIN1 could be a potential strategy in the treatment of AML patients with CEBPA mutation.


Plato's Ion , despite its frail frame and traditionally modest status in the corpus , has given rise to large exegetical claims. Thus some historians of aesthetics, reading it alongside page 205 of the Symposium , have sought to identify in it the seeds of the post-Kantian notion of 'art' as non-technical making, and to trace to it the Romantic conception of the poet as a creative genius. Others have argued that, in the Ion , Plato has Socrates assume the existence of a technē of poetry. In this article, these claims are challenged on exegetical and philosophical grounds. To this effect, Plato's use of poiētēs and poiēsis in the Symposium is analysed, the defining criteria of technē in the Ion and other dialogues are identified and discussed, and the 'Romantic' interpretation of the dialogue is traced to Shelley's tendentious translation of it. These critical developments lead to what is presented as a more faithful reading of the dialogue. In the Ion , it is claimed, Plato seeks to subvert the traditional status of poetry by having Socrates argue that poetry is both non-rational and non-cognitive in nature. In the third part of the article, suggestions are offered as to the contribution made by the Ion to the evolution of Plato's reflections on poetic composition, and particularly as to the reasons which later induced Plato to substitute the concept of mimesis for that of inspiration in his account of poetry.


Aim of the present study was assessment of the StarClose Vascular Closure System - novel device for mechanical closure of femoral artery puncture site. We included in this study 29 patients in whom after procedure of endovascular treatment puncture site was closed with the given device. Control group comprised 34 patients in whom hemostasis was conducted by way of manual compression of puncture site according to standard technique. Femoral artery was clipped immediately after completion of the stenting procedure irrespective of the last result of activated partial thromboplastin time measurement. Success of the use of the StarClose was 100%. Activation of a patient was undertaken substantially earlier compared with the group of manual hemostasis. Sitting up in bed was performed in 2 hours after completion of hemostasis procedure compared with 16 hours in control group, walking within ward was started in 3.5 hours compared with 17 hours in control group ( < 0.0001 in both cases). Duration of the procedure of hemostasis was substantially smoller in the group of closing device compared with the group of manual hemostasis (1.7 and 23 min, respectively). With this no complications from the site of puncture were observed in the group of closing device. In the group of manual hemostasis one patient (2.9%) had hematoma nor requiring special treatment and in one more patient (2.9%) after violation of bed regimen minor bleeding occurred from puncture site (was eliminated by additional manual compression for 20 min). Total number of complications in the group of manual compression was 5.8%. Thus compared with traditional manual hemostasis. The use of StarClose clip device allows to activate patients after endovascular treatment substantially earlier.


Novel porous organic polymers (POPs) have been synthesized using functionalized Cr and Co–salen complexes as molecular building blocks. The integration of metalosalen catalysts into the porous polymer backbone permits the successful utilization of the resultant functionalized material as a solid-state catalyst for CO2–epoxide cycloaddition reactions with excellent catalytic performance under mild conditions of temperature and pressure. The catalysts proved to be fully recyclable and robust, thus showing the potential of POPs as smart functional materials for the heterogenization of key catalytic elements.


The recognition of big animals on the images with road scenes has received little attention in modern research. There are very few specialized data sets for this task. Popular open data sets contain many images of big animals, but the most part of them is not correspond to road scenes that is necessary for on-board vision systems of unmanned vehicles. The paper describes the preparation of such a specialized data set based on Google Open Images and COCO datasets. The resulting data set contains about 20000 images of big animals of 10 classes: "Bear", "Fox", "Dog", "Horse", "Goat", "Sheep", "Cow", "Zebra", "Elephant", "Giraffe". Deep learning approaches to detect these objects are researched in the paper. Authors trained and tested modern neural network architectures YOLOv3, RetinaNet R-50-FPN, Faster R-CNN R-50-FPN, Cascade R-CNN R-50-FPN. To compare the approaches the mean average precision (mAP) was determined at IoU≥50%, also their speed was calculated for input tensor sizes 640x384x3. The highest quality metrics are demonstrated by architecture YOLOv3 as for ten classes (0.78 mAP) and one joint class (0.92 mAP) detection with speed more 35 fps on NVidia Tesla V-100 32GB video card. At the same hardware, the RetinaNet R-50-FPN architecture provided recognition speed of more than 44 fps and a 13% lower mAP. The software implementation was done using the Keras and PyTorch deep learning libraries and NVidia CUDA technology. The proposed data set and neural network approach to recognizing big animals on images have shown their effectiveness and can be used in the on-board vision systems of driverless cars or in driver assistant systems.


Received: Revised: Accepted: Online available: February 02, 2015 October 12, 2015 October 25, 2015 January 13, 2016 In ruminants, the preoptic area (POA) and arcuate (ARC) are the main hypothalamic nuclei through which kisspeptin influences gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons for reproductive functions. The relationship between kisspeptin and GnRH releasing in many species has been studied, but not in buffalo. The aims of this study were to detect the localization of Kiss-1 mRNA and the distribution of kisspeptin protein in the POA and ARC hypothalamic nuclei of cycling buffalo cows. Brains were collected from 6 buffaloes and processed for paraffin blocks. Four-micron paraffin sections of the POA and ARC hypothalamic nuclei were prepared for (1) chromogenic in situ hybridization using a Kiss-1cRNA probe designed from the ovine kisspeptin gene sequence (GenBank accession no. DQ059506) and (2) immunohistochemistry using a rabbit anti-mouse kisspeptin-10 antibody. The signals for Kiss-1 mRNA and the localization of kisspeptin proteins were detected in the cytoplasm of the POA and ARC neuronal soma and some small neuronal cells. Kisspeptin proteins were also found in the cellular process of the POA and ARC neurons. The population of kisspeptin-immunoreactive neurons distributed in the POA (79.8±2.5%) was greater than in the ARC area (62.5±4.5%) (P≤0.01). This study provides evidence of Kiss-1 mRNA and kisspeptin protein in the hypothalamus of buffalo, and it will hopefully help lay the groundwork for a further understanding of the role of kisspeptin in buffalo and its relation to reproduction and the hypothalamicpituitarygonadal axis. ©2015 PVJ. All rights reserved


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

Prostate cancers frequently metastasize to bone and cause predominantly osteoblastic lesions. When tumor cells metastasize to bone, they interact with the bone microenvironment. Bidirectional interactions between prostate cancer cells and bone microenvironment increase expression of cytokines, chemokines and adhesion molecules. These factors can be produced by tumor cells as well as bone marrow cells including osteoclasts, osteoblasts/stromal cells and macrophages. It has been demonstrated that M2 macropahge enhanced tumor growth, survival and metastasis. However, whether M2 macropahges play roles in prostate cancer-induced osteoblastic lesions, specifically in osteoblast differentiation is unknown. We initially isolated M2 macrophages from primary murine bone marrow cells culturing with IL-4 and IL-13. Then M2 macrophages were co-cultured with or without prostate cancer C4-2B or LNCaP cells at ratio 5:1. Then the conditioned media (CM) from M2 co-cultures were collected. We incubated murine bone marrow cells or MC3T3 E1 cells with different concentrations of the CM and performed Von Kossa Staining. We found that the co-cultured CM, but not the CM collected from either macrophages or prostate cancer cells, significantly induced bone marrow cells or MC3T3 E1 mineralization in vitro. This induction was partially blocked by anti-BMP-2 and anti-BMP-7 neutralizing antibodies. We further observed that the co-cultured CM significantly induced alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and osteocalcin (OCN) production. Finally, we determined the cytokine productions from the co-cultured CM by using ELISA. The production of BMP-2 and BMP-7 were detected. The conditioned media collected from M1 macrophage were used as corresponding and negative controls throughout the whole study. We concluded that M2 macrophages co-cultured with prostate cancer cells promote osteoblast differentiation mediated by BMP-2 and BMP-7. Supported by NSF projects 81171993 and 81272415; NSF key project 81130046; 973 Grant (2009CB918902); Guangxi projects 201201ZD004 and 2012GXNSFCB53004.

Citation Format: Lihui Wang, Xin Huang, Jianhua Wang, Yi Lu. M2 macrophages co-cultured with prostate cancer cells promote osteoblast differentiation mediated by BMP-2 and BMP-7. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1541. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1541


Humans have a natural ability to effortlessly comprehend linguistic commands such as "park next to the yellow sedan" and instinctively know which region of the road the vehicle should navigate. Extending this ability to autonomous vehicles is the next step towards creating fully autonomous agents that respond and act according to human commands. To this end, we propose the novel task of Referring Navigable Regions (RNR), i.e., grounding regions of interest for navigation based on the linguistic command. RNR is different from Referring Image Segmentation (RIS), which focuses on grounding an object referred to by the natural language expression instead of grounding a navigable region. For example, for a command "park next to the yellow sedan," RIS will aim to segment the referred sedan, and RNR aims to segment the suggested parking region on the road. We introduce a new dataset, Talk2Car-RegSeg, which extends the existing Talk2car [1] dataset with segmentation masks for the regions described by the linguistic commands. A separate test split with concise manoeuvre-oriented commands is provided to assess the practicality of our dataset. We benchmark the proposed dataset using a novel transformer-based architecture. We present extensive ablations and show superior performance over baselines on multiple evaluation metrics. A downstream path planner generating trajectories based on RNR outputs confirms the efficacy of the proposed framework.


Introduction. Self-regulation is an important variable in education and research, but in educational context self-regulated learning is the construct more studied. For this, there are a scarcity of studies that seek to establish relationships between personal self-regulation and other educational variables. We aim to delimit the relationships between personal self-regulation (Presage variable) and different process variables: approaches to learning, self-regulated learning and coping strategies, establishing the importance of these variables in future research in meta-cognition. Method. A total of 1101 students participated in the study (university and candidate students). The analyses made to meet the proposed objectives and test hypotheses were: Association analysis through Pearson bivariate correlations (Association objectives and hypotheses); linear regression analysis (Regression objectives and hypotheses); Cluster analysis, ANOVAS and MANOVAS, with Scheffe post hoc, and effect size estimates (Inferential objectives and hypotheses). Results. A significant associative relationship appeared between self-regulation and learning approaches and self-regulated learning; and negative correlation with emotion-focused coping strategies. The different levels of personal self-regulation (presage learning variable) determine of the type of learning approach and of coping strategies. Discussion and Conclusions. The importance of personal self-regulation that determines the degree of cognitive self-regulation during the process of university learning; the relationship between personal self-regulation and the type and quantity of coping strategies, and the relationship between self-regulated learning and coping.


Previous reports have underscored antagonism that may result from mixing glyphosate and glufosinate across a wide range of application rates and for various broadleaf and grass weed species, but no investigation has been conducted to characterize glyphosate absorption and translocation when combined with glufosinate. The objectives of this study were to evaluate herbicide efficacy and assess herbicide interaction and physiological response with combinations of glyphosate and glufosinate on common lambsquarters, velvetleaf, and giant foxtail. Greenhouse studies to determine interaction resulted in strong and persistent antagonism between glyphosate at 110 and 220 g ae ha-1 and glufosinate at 20 or 40 g ae ha-1 in giant foxtail, whereas only transient and reduced antagonism was noted for velvetleaf and common lambsquarters. Combining glyphosate and glufosinate increased the maximum absorption of glyphosate by 9% and 23% in velvetleaf and giant foxtail, respectively, compared with glyphosate alone. In velvetleaf, averaged over time, only 2.6% of the applied radioactivity translocated out of the treated leaf when glufosinate was mixed with glyphosate compared with 9.9% when glyphosate was applied alone. In giant foxtail, 21.6% of the [14C]glyphosate translocated out of the treated leaf when glufosinate was mixed with glyphosate compared with 52.4% when glyphosate was applied alone. Conversely, no change in the radioactive pattern of translocation was noted for common lambsquarters. These results suggest that reduced translocation of glyphosate is the physiological mechanism responsible for the antagonism observed between glyphosate and glufosinate in giant foxtail and, to a lesser extent, in velvetleaf. Nomenclature: Glufosinate; glyphosate; common lambsquarters, Chenopodium album L. CHEAL; giant foxtail, Setaria faberi Herrm. SETFA; velvetleaf, Abutilon theophrasti Medik. ABUTH.


Alternative energy technologies are being popular for power generation applications nowadays. Among others, Fuel cell (FC) technology is quite popular. However, the FC unit is costly and vulnerable to any disturbances in input parameters. Thus, to perform research and experimentation, Fuel cell emulators (FCE) can be useful. FCEs can replicate actual FC behavior in different operating conditions. Thus, by using it the application area can be determined. In this study, a FCE system is modelled using MATLAB/Simulink®. The FCE system consists of a buck DC-DC converter and a proportional integral (PI) based controller incorporating an electrochemical model of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The PEMFC model is used to generate reference voltage of the controller which takes the load current as a requirement. The characteristics are compared with Ballard Mark V 5kW PEMFC stack specifications obtained from the datasheet. The results show that the FCE system is a suitable replacement of real PEMFC stack and can be used for research and development purpose.


This study aims to examine the effect customer perceived risks as moderator in the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty relationship. Researcher used convenience sampling survey. The respondents were customers in Yogyakarta that has experienced as online buyer, to be respondent. The hypothesis be tested using hierarchical regression analysis. The findings show that customer satisfaction positively influences customer loyalty. In addition, perceived risks affect the relationship of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Keyword: customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, perceived risks


UNLABELLED
We present the first case of intestinal transplant (IT) performed in Spacin.

CASE REPORT
28 months old boy with secretory diarrhea since the first month of life, diagnosed of microvillous inclusion disease (MID). He is on total parenteral nutrition (TPN) and had suffered of multiple episodes of catheter related sepsis with lost of standard venous access. An isolated small bowel transplant from a cadaveric donor was performed at the age of 3 years. The native ileocaecal valve and colon were not removed.

RESULTS
Enteral feeding was started in the 2nd. week after the IT. On the 25th day he was off TPN. Since the 77th day, he eats regular foods by mouth. At the 6th month post IT the ileostomy was closed. Among the complications, he suffered a rotavirus infection on the 38th post IT day and an episode of mild rejection responsive to methil-prednisolone bolus.

CONCLUSIONS
The IT is a therapeutic option that can be already offered with possibilities of success in our country. Although the colonic enterocytes express MVD, the recipient ileocaecal valve and colon can be preserved.


Tellurite glasses containing CuO with the nominal composition (CuO)x(TeO2)1−x, where x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5, have been prepared and investigated by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The core level binding energies of Cu 2p, Te 3d, and O 1s in these glasses have been measured. The appearance of a satellite peak in the Cu 2p spectra provides definitive evidence for the presence of Cu2+ ions in these glass samples where the asymmetry and broadening of the peaks are indicative of the presence of both Cu2+ and Cu+ ions. The broadened Cu 2p3/2 peaks were decomposed into two distinct peaks separated by approximately 2.0 eV, with the lower energy peak being associated with Cu+ and the higher energy peak with Cu2+. The relative Cu2+ content determined from the relative areas under these peaks and the satellite peak is found to be 44% for x = 0.5 glass sample while it is more than 70% for the remaining samples. The O 1s spectra for all glasses show slight asymmetry and were, therefore, fitted with two contributions, one from bridging oxygen (BO) and the other from non-bridging oxygen (NBO). The BO signal is due to the presence of oxygen atoms in the environment Te–O–Te while the NBO is due to oxygen atom in the environment Te–O–Cu. The ratio BO/Total oxygen was evaluated for each glass sample and was found to be in good agreement with the theoretical values. The Te 3d core level spectra show symmetry for all glass samples indicating that the chemical environment of Te atoms does not vary much with the concentration of copper.


Background/Aims To develop a deep learning system (DLS) that can automatically detect malignant melanoma (MM) in the eyelid from histopathological sections with colossal information density. Methods Setting: Double institutional study. Study population: We retrospectively reviewed 225 230 pathological patches (small section cut from pathologist-labelled area from an H&E image), cut from 155 H&E-stained whole-slide images (WSI). Observation procedures: Labelled gigapixel pathological WSIs were used to train and test a model designed to assign patch-level classification. Using malignant probability from a convolutional neural network, the patches were embedded back into each WSI to generate a visualisation heatmap and leveraged a random forest model to establish a WSI-level diagnosis. Main outcome measure(s): For classification, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were used to evaluate the efficacy of the DLS in detecting MM. Results For patch diagnosis, the model achieved an AUC of 0.989 (95% CI 0.989 to 0.991), with an accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 94.9%, 94.7% and 95.3%, respectively. We displayed the lesion area on the WSIs as graded by malignant potential. For WSI, the obtained sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 100%, 96.5% and 98.2%, respectively, with an AUC of 0.998 (95% CI 0.994 to 1.000). Conclusion Our DLS, which uses artificial intelligence, can automatically detect MM in histopathological slides and highlight the lesion area on WSIs using a probabilistic heatmap. In addition, our approach has the potential to be applied to the histopathological sections of other tumour types.


Presents a methodology for the generation of circuit structures using artificial intelligence concepts and symbolic simulation tools. A mixed declarative-algorithmic approach is used for circuit-architecture selection. The usefulness of the declarative languages Prolog, in comparison with classical procedural languages, is pointed out for such an approach. A practical example is given in the domain of mixed analog-digital silicon or gallium arsenide integrated circuits, concerning the generation of integrator building blocks for high frequency applications. This study was executed with SCYMBAL, the symbolic simulator for switched-capacitor networks.<<ETX>>


Abstract - In order to obtain a more stable and reusable immobilized spore laccase for dye decolorization, the spores from Bacillus pumilus W3 were immobilized on diethylaminoethyl cellulose (DEAE-cellulose). Free and immobilized spore laccase retained 34.38% and 46.11% of their initial activity, respectively, after 10 days incubation at pH 9.0. Their residual activity remained at 27.36% and 31.84% after 10 h incubation at 70 °C. Immobilized spore laccase was more stable than free spore laccase in the presence of most organic solvents, metal ions and inhibitors. The tested dyes, including methyl green, methyl red and acid red 1, were removed 86.82%, 78.14% and 88.60%, respectively, by immobilized spore laccase after 24 h at 37 °C, and 74.34% of initial decolorization activity after 7 cycles was retained when it decolorized acid red 1. These properties indicated that immobilized spore laccase may be useful in textile effluent treatment. Keywords : Spore laccase; Bacillus pumilus ; DEAE-cellulose; Decolorization; Immobilization.


Granulomatous inflammation in salivary tissues is most often a response to liberated ductal contents, particularly mucin, in various degrees of obstructive sialadenopathy. Far less often is a granulomatous sialadenitis the result of specific infective granulomas or systemic granuloma-forming diseases, In these instances, the salivary parenchymal involvement is usually secondary to disease localization in regional lymph nodes.


Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) is a hallmark of bronchial asthma. Important features of this exaggerated response to bronchoconstrictive stimuli have mostly been investigated in vivo in intact animals or in vitro in isolated tracheal or bronchial tissues. Both approaches have important advantages but also certain limitations. Therefore, the aim of our study was to develop an ex vivo model of isolated lungs from sensitized mice for the investigation of airway responsiveness (AR). BALB/c mice were sensitized by intraperitoneal ovalbumin (Ova) and subsequently challenged by Ova inhalation. In vivo AR was measured in unrestrained animals by whole body plethysmography after stimulation with aerosolized methacholine (MCh) with determination of enhanced pause (P(enh)). Twenty-four hours after each P(enh) measurement, airway resistance was continuously registered in isolated, perfused, and ventilated lungs on stimulation with inhaled or intravascular MCh or nebulized Ova. In a subset of experiments, in vivo AR was additionally measured in orotracheally intubated, spontaneously breathing mice 24 h after P(enh) measurement, and lungs were isolated further 24 h later. Isolated lungs of allergen-sensitized and -challenged mice showed increased AR after MCh inhalation or infusion as well as after specific provocation with aerosolized allergen. AR was increased on days 2 and 5 after Ova challenge and had returned to baseline on day 9. AHR in isolated lungs after aerosolized or intravascular MCh strongly correlated with in vivo AR. Pretreatment of isolated lungs with the beta(2)-agonist fenoterol diminished AR. In conclusion, this model provides new opportunities to investigate mechanisms of AHR as well as pharmacological interventions on an intact organ level.


Background: This study for the first time examines the biomedical potential of using anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) for culturing Oryctolagus cuniculus (European Rabbit) Kidney (RK-13) epithelial cells. Methods: The cellular response of RK-13 cells towards in-house synthesised AAO membranes, a commercially available membrane and glass controls were investigated by examining cell adhesion, morphology and proliferation. The in-house membranes were anodized using a two-step procedure to produce a highly ordered hexagonal pore and channel structure. Results: Cell proliferation over a 48 h period indicated that the AAO membranes were more than comparable with the glass control substrates. Subsequent microscopy observations revealed evidence of focal adhesion sites and cellular extensions interacting with the underlining porous membrane surface structure. Conclusions: The study has shown that AAO membranes have the potential to culture RK-13 cells and indicate a possible tissue engineering technique for producing tissues.


Abstract In chronic pain states there are major changes in the peripheral and central nervous system. These are dynamic, responding to changes in input and displaying significant alterations over time. This article outlines some of the changes found peripherally, at the level of the spinal cord and in the brain, focussing on neuropathic pain. Peripherally, action potentials arise spontaneously at sites distant from peripheral nociceptors. These ectopic discharges are found at the nerve injury site and at the dorsal root ganglia. They may contribute to the generation of spontaneous pain. Peripheral nerves also show an increased responsiveness to stimulation as mechanosensitive areas appear on the nerves. Both these phenomena may be related to changes in sodium channel subtypes. The general increase in primary afferent drive is likely to contribute towards changes occurring in the spinal cord. In the spinal cord, degeneration of central primary afferent terminals occurs with subsequent trans-synaptic degeneration of intrinsic spinal neurons. Major changes are seen in the neurotransmitters synthesized and released by primary afferent neurons. Central sensitization with an increase in the effect of glutamate is seen, involving a variety of glutamate receptor subtypes, including the NMDA receptor. Brainstem systems modulate spinal input, facilitating onward transmission, with a reduction in tonic inhibitory control normally exerted by some of these systems. Cortical processing also changes in some chronic pain states. The challenge to clinicians is whether improved understanding of neurobiology can be translated into prevention or more effective treatment of chronic pain.


British universities, American and Canadian theses are microfilm. This collection of articles deals with the social differentiation process in rural areas of select Southeast Asian countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. As is typical in classical Marxian analysis, the various authors use Hegelian dialectics. However, they deviate from classical analysis by analyzing the differentiation process within concrete situations. The classical two-class polarization model predicts that the penetration of capitalism into rural society gradually divides that society into capitalists (landowners) and the proletariat (landless workers), each class with its associated "consciousness." Many scholars who have previously studied rural differentiation have simply attempted to confirm this. The authors here unanimously reject this approach. Instead, they effectively argue that the differentiation process is profoundly influenced by economic, political, and cultural forces peculiar to a society and thus may evolve in ways that differ from those in other societies. In particular, they emphasize the role of the state in influencing the process and how the process in turn affects the character of the state. Given that states differ across countries, the differentiation process will tend to follow different paths. Hence, they concur that an analysis of rural differentiation must be flexible, not tied to a rigid paradigm. Their individual studies suggest that a general model of rural differentiation may not exist and that the most one can develop is a framework for analyzing the process that is flexible enough to encompass the contexts within which it evolves.


In cross-version defect prediction (CVDP), historical data is derived from the prior version of the same project to predict defects of the current version. Recent studies in CVDP focus on subset selection to deal with the changes of the data distributions. No prior study has focused on training data arriving in streaming fashion across the versions where the significant differences between versions make the prediction unreliable. We refer to this situation as Drift Propensity (DP). By identifying DP, necessary steps can be taken (e.g., updating or retraining the model) to improve the prediction performance. In this paper, we investigate the chronological defect datasets and identify DP in the datasets. The no-memory data management technique is employed to manage the data distributions and a DP detection technique is proposed. The idea behind the proposed DP detection technique is to monitor the algorithm's error-rate. The DP detector triggers DP, warning, and control flags to take necessary steps. The proposed technique is significantly superior in identifying the distribution differences (p-value < 0.05). The DP's identified in the data distributions achieve large effect sizes (Hedges' g ≥ 0.80) during the pair-wise comparisons. We observe that if the error-rate exponentially increases, it causes DP, resulting in prediction performance deterioration. We thus recommend researches and practitioners to address DP in the chronological datasets. Due to its potential effects in the datasets, the prediction models could be enhanced to get the best results in CVDP.


There has been a great deal of material in the area of discrete-time transforms that has been published in recent years. This book does an excellent job of presenting important aspects of such material in a clear manner. The book has 11 chapters and a very useful appendix. Seven of these chapters are essentially devoted to the Fourier series/transform, discrete Fourier transform, fast Fourier transform (FFT), and applications of the FFT in the area of spectral estimation. Chapters 8 through 10 deal with many other discrete-time transforms and algorithms to compute them. Of these transforms, the KarhunenLoeve, the discrete cosine, and the Walsh-Hadamard transform are perhaps the most well-known. A lucid discussion of number theoretic transforms i5 presented in Chapter 11. This reviewer feels that the authors have done a fine job of compiling the pertinent material and presenting it in a concise and clear manner. There are a number of problems at the end of each chapter, an appreciable number of which are challenging. The authors have included a comprehensive set of references at the end of the book. In brief, this book is a valuable contribution to the general areas of signal processing and communications. It can be used for a graduate level course in perhaps two ways. One would be to cover the first seven chapters in great detail. The other would be to cover the whole book by focussing on different topics in a selective manner. This book  by  Elliott  and Rao  is extremely  useful to researchers/engineers who are working  in the areas of signal processing and communications. It i s also an excellent reference book, and hence a valuable addition to one's library


Two species of discosorinid nautiloids, Cyrtogomphoceras sp. cf. C. thompsoni Miller & Furnish, and Parryoceras strandi, n. sp., are illustrated and described from the Upper Ordovician of the Oslo region, Norway. Two additional nautiloids from the Norwegian Lower Silurian represent a new genus and species of Cyrtogomphoceratidae, for which the name Konglungenoceras norvegicum is proposed. Neither Cyrtogomphoceras nor Parryoceras has previously been reported with certainty from Europe; in addition, the Cyrtogomphoceras exhibits endocones in the siphuncle, structures not heretofore known to occur in the Cyrtogomphoceratidae. Konglungenoceras is like the phragmoceratid Protophragmoceras externally, but similar to advanced Cyrtogomphoceratidae internally. It may represent an unrecognized discosorinid family, perhaps including the Devonian genus, Alpenoceras.


It is of great significance to study the index weight that plays an important role in the system of comprehensive evaluation-signs of multimedia courseware. To eliminate the randomicity in the process of overall evaluation, this paper analyses and constructs the evaluation model of index weight based on artificial neural network back propagation (BP) algorithm as well as the method of designing and realization. By comparing the emulation with the artificial evaluation, the results indicate that the evaluation model could effectively avoid the subjective factors and uncertainty in the process of computing weight and the relevance modulus, which provides not only the objective criterion, but also reasonable and scientific method for the qualitative and quantitive evaluation of multimedia courseware.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the prevalence of an acquired deficiency of protein S, a coagulation inhibitor, in children infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and to identify clinical and laboratory features associated with this coagulation abnormality.

METHODS
A convenience sample of HIV-infected children, ages 2 to 18 years, was evaluated for total, free and functional protein S; total and functional protein C; prothrombin and activated partial thromboplastin times; fibrinogen; antithrombin III activity; dilute Russell viper venom time; IgG anticardiolipin antibodies; von Willebrand factor antigen; C4b-binding protein; CD4+ T lymphocyte counts; HIV p24 antigen concentration; and serum beta 2-microglobulin concentrations.

RESULTS
Thirty-four subjects were evaluated. Twenty-four subjects were infected perinatally and 10 by transfusion. Nine of the subjects were CDC Class N (asymptomatic), 13 were Class A/B (symptomatic without AIDS-defining condition) and 12 were Class C (AIDS). None had previously documented thrombosis, nephrosis or significant hepatic dysfunction. Twenty-six subjects (76.5%) had decreased free protein S, and 19 (55.9%) had functional protein S < 2 SD below the mean of laboratory controls. Decreased functional protein S was seen in 33.3% of Class N, 53.8% of Class A/B and 75.0% of Class C subjects. The prevalence of decreased total and functional protein S was greater in those with absolute CD4+ T lymphocyte counts < 200/mm3 compared to those with CD4+ counts > or = 200/mm3 (75.0% vs. 38.9%; chi square, 4.48, P = 0.034). A trend toward negative correlation was observed between protein S and duration of HIV infection only for Class N subjects. No linear correlation was seen between protein S and CD4+ T lymphocyte counts; and no significant relationships were observed between protein S values and CMV status, HIV p24 antigen, C4b-binding protein, von Willebrand factor antigen, IgG anti-cardiolipin antibodies or serum beta 2-microglobulin values.

CONCLUSIONS
Acquired protein S deficiency is common in HIV-infected children. The high prevalence of this anticoagulant abnormality suggests an increased risk for thrombotic complications in this population.


Smoking has become a major public health problem in Latin America, and its scope varies from country to country. Despite difficulty in obtaining methodologically consistent data for the region, we analyzed the results from prevalence surveys in 14 Latin American countries. We observed that smoking prevalence among men varied from 24.1% (Paraguay) to 66.3% (Dominican Republic) and among women from 5.5% (Paraguay) to 26,6% (Uruguay). By applying point prevalence data to the stage model of the tobacco epidemic in developed countries, we concluded that the Latin American countries are in stage 2, i.e., with a clearly rising prevalence among men, a prevalence for women that is beginning to increase, and mortality attributable to smoking among men still not reflecting peak prevalence. None of the countries analyzed appeared to have reached stage 3, in which one observes a downward trend in prevalence of smoking among men and peak prevalence among women, with broad impact on tobacco-related mortality. The only exception appears to be Paraguay, which is still emerging from stage 1, i.e., with low prevalence rates among men, too. Nevertheless, high lung cancer mortality rates in Uruguay and Argentina are comparable to those of the developed countries.


Abstract Zips, D., Petersen, C., Junghanns, S., Eicheler, W., Brüchner, K. and Baumann, M. Selection of Genetically Distinct, Rapidly Proliferating Clones does not Contribute to Repopulation during Fractionated Irradiation in FaDu Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Radiat. Res. 160, 257–262 (2003). Acceleration of clonogen repopulation during fractionated irradiation after about 3 weeks has been demonstrated previously in FaDu human squamous cell carcinoma in nude mice (Petersen et al., Int. J. Radiat. Oncol. Biol. Phys. 51, 483–493, 2001). Selection of genetically distinct, rapidly proliferating clones might contribute to this phenomenon. To address this question, three sublines (R1–R3) were established from FaDu tumors that recurred locally after fractionated irradiation. The tumors were retransplanted and irradiated under clamp hypoxia with single doses or with 18 × 3 Gy within 18 days or 36 days, followed by graded top-up doses. The results were compared with data obtained after the same treatment schedules in the parental tumor line. Histologies, tumor volume doubling times, and potential doubling times of FaDu sublines R1–R3 were not different from those of the parental line. The radiation dose required to control 50% of the tumors (TCD50) after single-dose irradiation of 37–38 Gy was the same for the FaDu sublines R1–R3 and the parental tumor. The top-up TCD50 values for the FaDu sublines R1–R3 after 18 fractions within 36 days were 14–17 Gy higher than those after 18 fractions within 18 days, indicating significant repopulation. The magnitude of this effect was not significantly different between the sublines R1–R3 or between these sublines and the parental FaDu tumors. The results indicate that selection of genetically distinct, rapidly proliferating clones does not contribute to the acceleration of repopulation during fractionated irradiation in poorly differentiated FaDu tumors.


For the pulp and paper industry (PPI), earlier research has shown that there are many technology pathways, proven and new, available for improvement of energy efficiency and additional sales of (new) products. Some pathways can only be implemented in kraft mills, e.g. black liquor gasification (BLG), but some can be implemented industry-wide, e.g. carbon capture and storage (CCS). From a future perspective it is not clear which pathway is the most profitable one or which pathway gives the lowest emissions of CO2 due to uncertainties in both the future value of different products and the future development of energy infrastructure. This can lead to decision anxiety, both for the PPI regarding the choice of pathways and for decision-makers creating new policy schemes.
The overall aim of this thesis is to analyse six technology pathways for the European PPI: increased electricity production, export of bark, extraction of lignin, CCS, BLG and export of heat for district heating purposes. To elucidate the potential for, and effects of, implementation of these pathways, three themes of research questions are addressed:
1. General integration opportunities in different types of existing mills.
2. Economic performance and global CO2 emissions assuming different future developments of the European energy market.
3. Factors influencing the potential for industry-wide implementation.
The results show that for kraft pulp mills, proven pathways, such as increased electricity production and district heat production, are economically robust, i.e. they are profitable for varying energy market conditions. The new and emerging technology pathways studied, CCS, BLG and lignin extraction, hold a larger potential for reduction of global CO2 emissions, but their economic performance is more dependent on the development of the energy market. Further, the thesis shows how earlier, detailed research can be lifted to a higher system level in order to be put in context and to answer research questions on a more aggregated industry level. The thesis also shows that improving the availability (and accuracy) of public data and statistics is a key factor if good industry level analyses are to be performed.


Junction breakdown voltage instability in a p-n junction formed in bulk silicon adjacent to a deep trench filled with polysilicon was investigated. The structure investigated consists of a 5- mu m-deep trench filled with heavily p-doped polysilicon. The trench is open at the bottom and is consequently shorted to the p-substrate. The time-dependent behavior of the walkout or the breakdown voltage instability is similar to that reported for planar p-n junctions terminating on surface oxide. Results suggest that trapping of holes in the trench sidewall dielectric is responsible for this phenomenon. The product of trapping center concentration and capture cross section N sigma is estimated to be 90 cm/sup -1/. >


. ZHANG, L., WU, J., ZHEN, Y. and SHU, J., 2004, A GIS-based gradient analysis of urban landscape pattern of Shanghai metropolitan area, China. Landscape and Urban Planning, 69, pp. 1–16. ZHOU, S. and SU, J., 1994, Urban Climatology (Beijing: China Meteorological Press). 3226 Land surface temperature and NDVI, Shanghai


The method of checking voltmeters and ammeters involves checking certain intervals on the tool scale, which requires a sufficient amount of time from the verifier engineer. In the considered graphs, which revealed repeated dependences of the main calibration errors on the calibration time. Therefore, this study is important to verify that it is not. The main design of the study was to improve the scale of the voltmeter based on the meter readings during meter calibration at Techpribor during the testing lab from 2016 to 2018. When studying the calibration graphs, jumps in the segment in the range from 40 to 90 V. It is assumed that an increase in the relative error provided that it was used for various fields of technology to improve the verification procedure for analog instruments. The marked interval should be checked on each scale mark on each limit.


A rapid screening method for detection of Escherichia coli producing heat-labile enterotoxin is described. Single colonies are transferred directly from primary culture plates into 96-well microculture plates containing 0.3 ml of brain heart infusion broth in each well. After 24 h at 37 degrees C, each brain heart infusion broth culture is assayed by the miniculture method in the corresponding well of a microculture plate in which Y-1 mouse adrenal tumor cells have been grown. All enterotoxigenic isolates detected by this method were confirmed in the assay but with culture supernatants.


The development of cholinesterase (ChE) was studied in embryonic rat diaphragm muscles, and aneural and control muscles compared to determine the influence of innervation on its development. (i) ChE deposits developed in their normal positions in aneural muscles, giving a fainter histochemical reaction than in controls. (ii) Muscles denervated at day 16 of gestation, the time at which ChE deposits are first seen normally, and examined at later times had \`junctional' deposits with a more normal histological appearance, but there were also many \`extra-junctional' deposits scattered across the muscle. (iii) Velocity sedimentation analysis of muscle homogenates revealed that the nerve-specific 16S form of the enzyme was present in aneural muscles. (iv) It is suggested that the special relationship between ACh receptor clusters, ChE deposits and nerve terminals may reflect the presence of an organizing substructure which coordinates their differentiation within developing skeletal muscles. In the absence of the nerve, potential postsynaptic structures begin to develop autonomously.


Robotics in the 21st century will progress from scripted interactions with the physical world, where human programming input is the bottleneck in the robot's ability to sense, think and act, to a point where the robotic system is able to autonomously generate adaptive representations of its surroundings, and further, to implement decisions regarding this environment. A key factor in this development will be the ability of the robotic platform to understand its physical space. In this paper, we describe a rationale and framework for developing spatial understanding in a robotics platform, using knowledge representation in the form of a hybrid spatial- ontological model of the physical world. While such a system may be implemented with classical ontologies, we discuss the advantages of non-hierarchical modes of knowledge representation, including a conceptual link between information processing ontologies and contemporary cognitive models.


Abstract This study presents the estimated remaining quantity of overburden material (topsoil, completely to highly weathered rock) and remaining geological reserve at Sibanyis Quarry, Kuching after the quarry has been operated for years. Desktop study including literature search was carried out prior field investigation. Three boreholes together with latest topographical and detail survey was conducted to obtain the latest data at Sibanyis Quarry, Kuching. Based on this Geological Reconciliation Study, the estimated total remaining geological rock reserve is 40,022,767 metric tons, and the weathered rock and top soil are 2,159,688 BCM and 1,247,697 BCM respectively. The assumptions that are taken into consideration are top soil thickness of 11m, weathered rock thickness of 15m and rock density of 2.64 mt/m3.