Abstract What can a good's durability tell us about its market organization? This paper argues that the socially expected durability of goods is one of their most important features. It illuminates temporal and material aspects of market organization and social change across different markets. While recent literature in the sociology of markets tends to emphasize financial goods, intangible assets, and the service economy, markets for material durable and nondurable consumer goods are still surprisingly pervasive in everyday life and in the household economy, as well as in modern economies' basic infrastructure. Based on a comparison of the extreme cases of durable housing and fresh fish markets, we come to the general finding that the higher a good's expected durability, the smaller the share of its new production will be and the larger its aftermarkets. Furthermore, it will be more tightly linked to credit and insurance markets, and its market will be more volatile in the short-term, but more inert in the long-term. Beyond this static distinction, we show how socio-technical mechanisms can "durabilize" or "dedurabilize" goods and hence change their market form. By comparing markets along the durability dimension, this paper contributes to a comparative sociology of market organization that goes beyond single-market studies, while at the same time opening up space for a more dynamic understanding of social change and market segmentation over time.


Several (Al,Si,N) compounds have been obtained by LPCVD in a vertical hot-wall reactor using aluminium trichloride, silicon tetrachloride and ammonia as source gases, with nitrogen as the carrier gas. In order to determine both their structure and local chemical composition, several deposits have been examined by analytical transmission electron microscopy combining electron diffraction (ED), high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). It has been confirmed that the chemical composition of the materials as well as the size of the nanocrystals observed in the deposits are strongly dependent on the temperature and the reactive gas flow. It has also been shown that for the range of temperature (1273 K-1373 K) used in this work these nanocrystals have the wurtzite structure of aluminium nitride.


Motivated by the works of a Richardson's Extrapolation spreadsheet calculator for
differentiation, we have developed the Euler's spreadsheet calculator using VBA programming to
solve ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Users simply need to enter the independent and
dependent variables used, a starting value and ending value for the independent variable, an initial
value for the dependent variable, the step size, the ODE and exact function for the ODE. Lastly
click the APPLY button which is associated with the VBA programming written to solve the ODEs
by the Euler's method, and finally its full solution is automatically calculated and displayed.
Hopefully, this Euler's ODEs spreadsheet calculator can help educators to prepare their marking
scheme easily and assist students in checking their answers


This paper presents a method of finding the optimal operating point minimizing a given objective function with 3 phase power flow equations and operational constraints, called 3 phase optimal power flow. 3 phase optimal power flow can provide operation and control strategies for the distribution systems with distributed generation assets, which might be frequently in unbalanced conditions assuming that high penetration rate of renewable energy sources in the systems. As the solution technique, this paper adopts a standard particle swarm optimization (PSO).


ABSTRACT The Industrial Revolution, one of the most important developments of the nineteenth century, affected the Ottoman Empire as well as the whole world. Energy, transportation and production facilities have been built to meet the needs at various points in Anatolia. Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire, was also affected by this process. In Bursa, factories related to sericulture, electrical power plants, water and windmills, railway lines were built. These structures, which have lost their function over time due to reasons such as the change in technology and the diversification of needs, are on the verge of disappearing with the lack of function. With this study, it is aimed to document the transformer structures that constitute the industrial heritage in Bursa. A scope has been determined that includes proposals for the conservation and re-functioning. The methodology is based on the observation and documentation of the buildings with their surroundings. An extensive archive search was carried out to find out the old drawings and photos of the buildings in archives such as Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Directorate of State Archives. Within the scope of this process, the electrical transformers were documented and conservation proposals were developed.


Traditional methods for computing linkage likelihoods can be infeasible for data that involve considerable inbreeding and missing information, characteristics of large pedigrees affected by rare recessive diseases. For this type of data, we propose alternative procedures that can efficiently provide good approximates of linkage likelihoods. These approximation procedures are constructed based on a new mathematical representation of the multiloci inheritance model. Instead of representing each person by a single variable, the genotype, the disease gene alleles, and the marker alleles are taken as separate variables. This allows us to break down the computations into manageable pieces. This new representation is also potentially useful for multipoint mapping.


A federated network mainly operates with same Internet Service Provider (ISP) and virtual entities integrated with it. Foremost frustration in unified network is attack affair due to intruder intervention. Although attacks are classified according to the attack rate dynamics, they are different in many other aspects such as implementations, intention, and countermeasures. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and Low-rate DDoS attacks are vigorous threats to almost every ISP. In a merged network environment, routers work intimately to elevate early warning of DDoS attacks to evade terrible defacement. In existing FireCol a concerted protection, is used to detect flooding attack with metric computations. It delivers better detection for flooding but in case of low-rate attack, with minimum parameters it fights to find. In order to rout that, we prompt additional potential metrics such as Information distance metric, the Generalized entropy metric, the Probability metric ,the Hybrid metric (the Total variation metric and the Bhattacharyya metric) with SVM Classifier for better outsourcing performance in exposure of both high & low transmission rate attacks with diminution in false alarms. The proportions of packets are being transmitted in distributed client server topology. Both similarity and dissimilarity in the distributions of packets are taken to outline the deviation in the behaviour of user profile. Along with that, SVM classifies the attack and normal flows by using train and test files, which attains the accuracy of 73.89%. Hence, the low rate attack detection with metrics computations and classifier achieves better results compared to Firecol with decision table mechanism. General Terms Attack detection, Security in Distributed network, FireCol, Metric Computations.


How long must patients wait for us to exploit science to their advantage and turn evidence into practice? In this issue, Yamada et al (see page 282) provide crucial evidence in support of anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α therapy for the treatment of Behcet associated uveitis.1 The potential benefits of this class of drug have been long realised, but healthcare providers have rightly asked the question: are these expensive biologicals really any better than conventional treatment, and does their use put patients at unnecessary risk? At least for the former, it is increasingly evident that the answer is 'yes.'

The journey from the laboratory bench to the clinic has been slower than would even normally be predicted for moving therapies into man. Experimental models of uveitis have provided abundant evidence of TNF-α's pivotal role in mediating retinal tissue destruction,2 and it is now 13 years since initial reports confirmed the benefits of TNF-α inhibition in minimising the severity of experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis.3 At that time, similar findings in other organ-specific autoimmune diseases had already ushered in a new era of hope for patients with conditions ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to Crohn disease.4 5 However, in ophthalmology, we are still struggling to realise the full benefit of TNF-α blockade, perhaps reflecting our reluctance as a specialty to embrace developments in systemic therapies for ocular disease.

To their credit, the Japanese have taken the …


A symposium on "Trade Sanctions and International Relations" raises the fundamental question: What are the functions that economic sanctions perform for states? How we answer this question will determine our evaluations of past experience with sanctions and our policy recommendations for the future. This is essentially a political and economic question, not a question of law. We must turn to disciplines such as political science, economics, and international relations to answer the question and to clarify the analytical frameworks within which our thinking takes place. This article discusses two recent works on economic sanctions from non-legal disciplines: Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, by Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott, and Economic Statecraft, by David Baldwin. Both works are in the Realist tradition of international relations scholarship. Hufbauer and Schott and Baldwin both challenge the conventional wisdom that economic sanctions do not work very well. The two works are significantly different, however, in the way in which their authors think about sanctions, especially the fundamental question of function or purpose. Hufbauer and Schott focus on the use of sanctions to force the immediate target state to act as the sanctioning state wishes it to act: the "coercion" in the title of this article. While Baldwin also addresses the direct, coercive use of sanctions, he focuses primarily on their symbolic use, referred to in the title of this article as "communication." The contrast between these two approaches should help to clarify the frameworks within which we make our own analyses.


The complex mechanism of immune-system damage in HIV infection is incompletely understood. HIV-infected "rapid progressors" (RPs) have severe damage to the immune system early in HIV infection, which provides a "magnified" opportunity to study the interaction between HIV and the immune system. In this study, forty-four early HIV-infected patients (documented HIV acquisition within the previous 6 months) were enrolled. By study the plasma of 23 RPs (CD4+ T-cell count < 350 cells/µl within 1 year of infection) and 21 "normal progressors" (NPs; CD4+ T-cell count > 500 cells/μl after 1 year of infection), eleven lipid metabolites were identified that could distinguish most of the RPs from NPs using an unsupervised clustering method. Among them, the long chain fatty acid eicosenoate significantly inhibited the proliferation and secretion of cytokines and induced TIM-3 expression in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Eicosenoate also increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and decreased oxygen consumption rate (OCR) and mitochondrial mass in T cells, indicating impairment in mitochondrial function. In addition, we found that eicosenoate induced p53 expression in T cells, and inhibition of p53 effectively decreased mitochondrial ROS in T cells. More importantly, treatment of T cells with the mitochondrial-targeting antioxidant mito-TEMPO restored eicosenoate-induced T-cell functional impairment. These data suggest that the lipid metabolite eicosenoate inhibits immune T-cell function by increasing mitochondrial ROS by inducing p53 transcription. Our results provide a new mechanism of metabolite regulation of effector T-cell function and provides a potential therapeutic target for restoring T-cell function during HIV infection.


The costs of wind energy have to be reduced in order to be competitive with conventional methods to generate electricity. The tower costs contribute significantly to the costs of a wind turbine. This thesis aimed to suggest improvements in wind turbine tower design in comparison with industry standards nowadays in order to reduce the costs of wind turbine towers. It has been investigated if modeling the mass, geometry and stiffness of the tower flanges into aeroelastic codes affects the simulation results. The effect of geometry and stiffness is not contributing as much as modeling the mass. Modeling flanges as point masses is sufficient to represent the flanges in the aeroelastic code. A constraint damping layer between the flange connections is proposed. Such a layer can be used to increase the damping of the tower. In this way, the fatigue loads on the tower can be reduced. An improved flange design optimization method is suggested. A cost performance function is created, reducing the flange costs of more than 2.5% in comparison with the optimization method used nowadays within Siemens Wind Power. Standardization of flange connections in wind turbine towers is also considered. This is beneficial for the costs of handling equipment and tower internals, as project specific design and certification of these components can be omitted. Other advantages of flange standardization are risk mitigation and supply chain benefits. Standardization of the flanges leads to a costs increase up to 7%. The tower sections can be designed less conservative if sector based fatigue loads will be considered. In combination with sector based SN-curves and stress concentration factors the tower can be directed in such a way that the fatigue loads are less severe. Up to 6% tower mass reduction can be realized for fatigue driven tower designs. The Effective Equivalent Stress Hypothesis and the Gough-Pollard algorithm, multiaxial fatigue life prediction models proposed by literature, are implemented to investigate the influence of combined loading on tower welds. According to the above multiaxial fatigue models, load safety factors between 1.16 and 1.40 are required when evaluating fatigue life in tower welds with the conventional uniaxial method. In this way the additional damage due to combined out-of-phase loading is incorporated in the fatigue life prediction. However, usage of correct multiaxial fatigue models instead of safety factors increases the accuracy of fatigue life predictions.


Abstract According to R. B. Zajonc's (1965) drive theory of social facilitation, the mere presence of others increases arousal and, thereby, the frequency of dominant responses (i.e., responses with the greatest habit strength). In the present experiment, U.S. undergraduates performed a stimulus discrimination task under 1 of 2 conditions: in the presence of another individual (audience) or alone. The mere presence condition was designed to make it difficult for the participants to attend directly to the audience. The task was designed to minimize the likelihood that the specific response (numerical preference) would be attributable to a desire to respond appropriately to the audience. There was a significant difference in the mean number of dominant responses between the participants in the audience condition and those in the alone condition. The results provide support for Zajonc's mere presence drive theory of social facilitation.


Federated learning is a training paradigm according to which a server-based model is cooperatively trained using local models running on edge devices and ensuring data privacy. These devices exchange information that induces a substantial communication load, which jeopardises the functioning efficiency. The difficulty of reducing this overhead stands in achieving this without decreasing the model's efficiency (contradictory relation). To do so, many works investigated the compression of the pre/mid/post-trained models and the communication rounds, separately, although they jointly contribute to the communication overload. Our work aims at optimising communication overhead in federated learning by (I) modelling it as a multi-objective problem and (II) applying a multi-objective optimization algorithm (NSGA-II) to solve it. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first work that \texttt{(I)} explores the add-in that evolutionary computation could bring for solving such a problem, and \texttt{(II)} considers both the neuron and devices features together. We perform the experimentation by simulating a server/client architecture with 4 slaves. We investigate both convolutional and fully-connected neural networks with 12 and 3 layers, 887,530 and 33,400 weights, respectively. We conducted the validation on the \texttt{MNIST} dataset containing 70,000 images. The experiments have shown that our proposal could reduce communication by 99% and maintain an accuracy equal to the one obtained by the FedAvg Algorithm that uses 100% of communications.


The trend towards autonomous driving and the continuous research in the automotive area, like Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), requires an accurate localization under all circumstances. An accurate estimation of the vehicle state is a basic requirement for any trajectory-planning algorithm. Still, even when the introduction of the GPS L5 band promises lane-accuracy, coverage limitations in roofed areas still have to be addressed.In this work, a method for high precision indoor positioning using a LiDAR is presented. The method is based on the combination of motion models with LiDAR measurements, and uses infrastructural elements as positioning references. This allows to estimate the orientation, velocity over ground and position of a vehicle in a Local Tangent Plane (LTP) reference frame. When the outputs of the proposed method are compared to those of an Automotive Dynamic Motion Analyzer (ADMA), mean errors of 1°, 0.1 m/s and of 4.7 cm respectively are obtained. The method can be implemented by using a LiDAR sensor as a stand-alone unit. A median runtime of 40.77 μs on an Intel i7-6820HQ CPU signals the possibility of real-time processing.


BACKGROUND
Overweight and obesity can increase the risk for certain adverse obstetric outcomes. Exercise may reduce these risks by promoting weight loss or preventing excessive weight gain. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effect of exercise therapy on pregnancy complications and birth outcomes in overweight or obese pregnant women through a meta-analysis.

METHODS
We searched the electronic databases PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science for studies on the effects of exercise therapy on pregnancy complications and birth outcomes in overweight or obese pregnant women. The data were analyzed using Stata software for meta-analysis.

RESULTS
A total of 1,709 pregnant women who met the eligibility criteria were included across 13 studies. The meta-analysis demonstrated a significant difference between the exercise group and the control group in regards to gestational weight gain [GWG; standard mean difference (SMD): -0.21, 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.32 to -0.10)] and gestational hypertension [GH; risk ratio (RR) and 95% CI were 0.53 (0.32-0.88)]. Contrastingly, no significant differences were found between the 2 groups in terms of the other evaluation indicators, including gestational length at delivery, Apgar score at 1 minute and 5 minutes, gestational diabetes, cesarean delivery, preterm delivery, preeclampsia, macrosomia, and neonatal asphyxia.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that exercise can reduce the risk of GWG and the occurrence rate of GH in overweight or obese pregnant women, however, exercise had no effect on birth outcomes.


BACKGROUND
Little is known on the peripheral and central sensory contributions to persistent dizziness and imbalance following mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

OBJECTIVE
To identify peripheral vestibular, central integrative, and oculomotor causes for chronic symptoms following mTBI.

METHODS
Individuals with chronic mTBI symptoms and healthy controls (HC) completed a battery of oculomotor, peripheral vestibular and instrumented posturography evaluations and rated subjective symptoms on validated questionnaires. We defined abnormal oculomotor, peripheral vestibular, and central sensory integration for balance measures among mTBI participants as falling outside a 10-percentile cutoff determined from HC data. A X-squared test associated the proportion of normal and abnormal responses in each group. Partial Spearman's rank correlations evaluated the relationships between chronic symptoms and measures of oculomotor, peripheral vestibular, and central function for balance control.

RESULTS
The mTBI group (n = 58) had more abnormal measures of central sensory integration for balance than the HC (n = 61) group (mTBI: 41% -61%; HC: 10%, p's <  0.001), but no differences on oculomotor and peripheral vestibular function (p >  0.113). Symptom severities were negatively correlated with central sensory integration for balance scores (p's <  0.048).

CONCLUSIONS
Ongoing balance complaints in people with chronic mTBI are explained more by central sensory integration dysfunction rather than peripheral vestibular or oculomotor dysfunction.


Background: Mutations in the HPRT1 gene cause a spectrum of clinical phenotypes known as Lesch-Nyhan disease and its variants. Results: The associated mutant enzymes demonstrate several different abnormalities in their kinetic properties. Conclusion: Residual enzyme activity correlates with overall disease severity. Significance: These studies provide a model for understanding general principles for genotype-phenotype correlations in human diseases. Lesch-Nyhan disease and its attenuated variants are caused by mutations in the HPRT1 gene, which encodes the purine recycling enzyme hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase. The mutations are heterogeneous, with more than 400 different mutations already documented. Prior efforts to correlate variations in the clinical phenotype with different mutations have suggested that milder phenotypes typically are associated with mutants that permit some residual enzyme function, whereas the most severe phenotype is associated with null mutants. However, multiple exceptions to this concept have been reported. In the current studies 44 HPRT1 mutations associated with a wide spectrum of clinical phenotypes were reconstructed by site-directed mutagenesis, the mutant enzymes were expressed in vitro and purified, and their kinetic properties were examined toward their substrates hypoxanthine, guanine, and phosphoribosylpyrophosphate. The results provide strong evidence for a correlation between disease severity and residual catalytic activity of the enzyme (kcat) toward each of its substrates as well as several mechanisms that result in exceptions to this correlation. There was no correlation between disease severity and the affinity of the enzyme for its substrates (Km). These studies provide a valuable model for understanding general principles of genotype-phenotype correlations in human disease, as the mechanisms involved are applicable to many other disorders.


Studies were carried out to determine the microbial contaminants associated with in-vitro micropropagation of Ipomea batatas (sweet potato). The contaminants were found to be mostly fungal organisms, Aspergillus Spp (62%), Penicillum Spp. (31%), Fusarium Spp. (5%) and Alternaria Spp. (2%). Bacterial contamination was insignificant compared to the fungal population. Aspergillus Spp were the dominant contaminants affecting this crop in vitro. Stunted growth, chlorosis and necrosis of the leaves as well as death of propagules were some of the effects of the contaminants on the performance of the plant in vitro. Minimal conditions for managing the plant in vitro to eliminate contaminations were also suggested. The implications of these findings in the production of disease free propagules of Ipomea batatas were discussed. Keywords: Ipomoea batatas , sweet potato, micro-propagation, microbial contaminants, fungi


—The paper provides an accounting framework for measuring the openness degree of innovation processes of companies through the analysis of annual reports. Four openness dimensions are defined - outbound, inbound, economic and financial - based on revenues and costs from open innovation activities and investments and divestments of innovation-related intangibles occurring in either separate acquisitions or business combinations. Throughout the definition of the methodological framework a number of examples referring to bio-pharmaceutical companies will be reported in order to illustrate the specific items disclosures in financial statements. This will allow to underline not only the differences that raise from adopting either IFRS or US GAAP standards, but also, within the same standards framework, the variety of both disclosing methods and terminology. The model is then applied to a sample of 138 R&D intense companies operating in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. The paper contributes to the research concerning innovation metrics, by providing an accounting framework for the measurement of what is traded in the innovation market: research and development, intellectual property and know-how.


According to the reports from Ministry of Health in each country, the average life spans were expanded over the past century. This trend is expected to be extended further in the future and at the same time continuous efforts should be made. That indicates that the quantitative objective, as one of the objectives people have aimed at since ancient times to attain the perpetual youth and longevity, are almost achieved in this way. However, as the next objective, it is necessary for us to be concerned about improving the more advanced quality of life.
In an effort of improving the quality of life, other than the western medicine, we have attempted to bring many traditional medical practices, including the Oriental medicine, from various parts of the world into the medical field as alternative medicine. Judging both positive and negative aspects by the evaluation standard of the Western medicine, we try to obtain numerical values of QOL, and after that, set a numerical target for improvement of QOL. Some methods of alternative medicine taken in this review are acupuncture moxibustion, Chinese medicine and other traditional medicine. Above all, WHO suggests selecting the suzerain nation of acupuncture moxibustion, which has been developed in the Oriental countries and realized as a specialized cure, by raising good & bad points and ascertaining which nation advocating the best modeling method could be. At the moment for evaluating CAM, for example, what kind of methods is/are suitable for evaluating each CAM. We have been trying to propose the peripheral leukocyte is one of the best ways for evaluating CAM. Our trials are hot spring hydro therapy, acupuncture and moxibution, light exercise and undle heating. In these evaluations, we found the common results from leukocyte effects which exhibited strong correlation for the regulation. The contents are the result from the data showing the much in number tend to downly regulate, on the other hand lower number one is up-regulated. This kind of regulation showed within a 24 hrs, for the leukocyte subsets, granulocyte and lymphocyte are changed under circadian rhythm. So for purpose of evaluating leukocyte deviation, we set the point for evaluation at the same-time zone from the first set of evaluation. Under these condition, we got a same results reproductively that the whole number of leukocyte, and its subset, granulocyte and lymphocyte also regulated within a 24 hrs. This kind of phenomenon is the case that we confirm a lot of kind of CAM and repetition. However, the life span of leukocyte are at lease 3-4 days and no such a drastic apoptosis was induced such a stimulation. For the purpose of scientific explanation, we proposed that the emotional hormone are concern this change of leukocytes population. For the results of this hypothesis, there were reasonable change were seen in the peripheral blood about emotional hormone, adrenaline and dopamine. Other hormone concern thyroid grand was not changed significantly. In this review, I plan to collect evidence and judge them with the content suggested in the case of CAM setup. In other words, as a judging standard, setting immunologic factors as main items, we will judge superior and inferior of methods of each country. Recommending not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively to evaluate "balance of the lymphocyte which is the associate of the white blood corpuscle and the polymorph" as a standard of the alternative medicine in the concept of this international medical magazine.


In polarization optics unitary and non-unitary operations can be carried out by the Jones matrix. Z matrix is the 4 × 4 analogue of the Jones matrix and the Mueller matrix of a nondepolarizing optical medium can be written as M = ZZ ∗ . Jones matrix acts on the two component complex Jones vector, while the Z matrix acts on the four component real Stokes vector. Polarizer and retarder Z matrices can be written in compact forms in terms of the components of the position vector on the Poincar´e sphere. In this note it is shown that the Pancharatnam-Berry geometric phase can be demonstrated by unitary and non-unitary Z matrix operations.


Sulfur mustard (SM) is an important chemical warfare agent. The mechanism of SM toxicity still has not been fully recognized. However, oxidative stress and following the damaging of macromolecules in the human body is considered one of the crucial steps in SM toxicity. Rats intoxicated with pure (i.e., distilled) SM were used as a model organism. The doses, 0 (control), 5, 20, and 80 mg/kg of body weight, were applied intradermally. A hormone with strong antioxidant potency, melatonin, was applied (25 and 50 mg/kg, subcutaneously) into the other group of rats exposed with the same doses of SM. Total plasma protein, ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), thiobarbituric-acid–reactive substances (TBARS), and plasma protein carbonyls were assayed in blood plasma. A significant decrease of total plasma proteins was found for control, and the lowest dose of SM was treated with melatonin. Melatonin was also able to enhance the production of low-molecular-weight antioxidants, as the SM-intoxicated rats had significantly (P ≤ 0.01) increasing FRAP levels after intoxication with SM in doses of 20 and 80 mg/kg, when compared to the control treated with melatonin. Melatonin also decreased TBARS level, representing reduced lipid peroxidation (LPO). However, LPO seems to be of less importance for SM toxic impact. The more reliable parameter was the level of total plasma protein carbonyls. The carbonyl levels were significantly increased due to SM, and the carbonylation was slowed due to melatonin intake. In conclusion, melatonin seems to be a prospective compound in reducing SM toxicity impact in the rat.


Importance
Novel approaches are needed to improve outcomes in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity. Neoadjuvant immunotherapy given prior to surgery and combining programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) immune checkpoint inhibitors are 2 strategies to enhance antitumor immune responses that could be of benefit.

Design, Setting, and Participants
In this randomized phase 2 clinical trial conducted at 1 academic center, 29 patients with untreated squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity (≥T2, or clinically node positive) were enrolled between 2016 to 2019.

Interventions
Treatment was administered with nivolumab, 3 mg/kg, weeks 1 and 3, or nivolumab and ipilimumab (ipilimumab, 1 mg/kg, given week 1 only). Patients had surgery 3 to 7 days following cycle 2.

Main Outcomes and Measures
Safety and volumetric response determined using bidirectional measurements. Secondary end points included pathologic and objective response, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival. Multiplex immunofluorescence was used to evaluate primary tumor immune markers.

Results
Fourteen patients were randomized to nivolumab (N) and 15 patients to nivolumab/ipilimumab (N+I) (mean [SD] age, 62 [12] years; 18 men [62%] and 11 women [38%]). The most common subsite was oral tongue (n = 16). Baseline clinical staging included patients with T2 (n = 20) or greater (n = 9) T stage and 17 patients (59%) with node-positive disease. Median time from cycle 1 to surgery was 19 days (range, 7-21 days); there were no surgical delays. There were toxic effects at least possibly related to study treatment in 21 patients, including grade 3 to 4 events in 2 (N), and 5 (N+I) patients. One patient died of conditions thought unrelated to study treatment (postoperative flap failure, stroke). There was evidence of response in both the N and N+I arms (volumetric response 50%, 53%; pathologic downstaging 53%, 69%; RECIST response 13%, 38%; and pathologic response 54%, 73%, respectively). Four patients had major/complete pathologic response greater than 90% (N, n = 1; N+I, n = 3). With 14.2 months median follow-up, 1-year progression-free survival was 85% and overall survival was 89%.

Conclusions and Relevance
Treatment with N and N+I was feasible prior to surgical resection. We observed promising rates of response in both arms, supporting further neoadjuvant studies with these agents.

Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02919683.


Updates the story of Japanese cinema for the 21st century. This book looks at some of the key genres in Japanese cinema since 1997. In several cases it considers in detail the ways in which individual films have both drawn and departed from those films that have comprised the key works and trends in these generic categories, and in others it looks at some significant recent developments that have little real precedence in filmmaking in Japan. Through close textual analysis of representative films, the study seeks to elucidate the prevalence of repetition and variation in contemporary Japanese genre cinema, to understand some of the reasons behind this paradigm, and analyse where relevant how and to what extent new modes or generic groups fit into the schema. In so doing it seeks for the first time in English language discourse to offer an academic appreciation and overview of popular Japanese of the last two decades. It considers and analyses numerous films and filmmakers that have yet to feature predominantly in western discourse on Japanese cinema; the first study of the significant developments in Japanese genre filmmaking since the turn of the new millennium; analyses in detail the dialogue that can be seen between new Japanese cinema and the significant trends and practices of past generations; includes for the first time in western discourse a discussion of the modern state of the Japanese documentary feature, based on interviews with some of its leading practitioners and also includes a review of Japanese language criticism and a consideration of how the country's cinema has been perceived within Japan.


Strain JII screened out from different odor origins can efficiently degrade methyl mercaptan and ethanethiol whereas has no ability to remove dimethyl sulfide. The results indicated that the strain JII breaks only the C-SH bond. The optimum temperature and pH of JII are 20-30 degrees C and 6.0-8.3 respectively. A systematic identification method-16S rDNA gene sequence comparison, for deodorizing bacteria was carried out. The 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis of strain JII showed the highest level of 97% homology to Rape rhizosphere.


Ad hoc networks are characterized with frequent link failures and network topology change. These features result in a great challenge to transmit video over ad hoc networks. We propose a novel content-based layered multiple description coding scheme C-LMDC for robust video transmission over ad hoc networks. First determine the region of interest (ROI) of the video image before actual coding. Then divide the video sequence into ROI group and regular group using dynamic flexible macro block ordering (FMO) technology. After that, carry out layered multiple description coding scheme and protect ROI slices by redundant slices technology. Finally transmit the bit-stream using multi-path transmission. The simulation results show that our method improves the objective and subjective quality of the reconstructed video sequence obviously and ensure a robust video transmission over Ad Hoc networks.


Classical rigid plastic optimum design cannot take into account displacement constraints or bounds on residual plastic strains which goal however maybe important when designing a structure. Using holonomic elastic-plastic constitutive law, the elastic-plastic optimum design problem can be formulated on the basis of the elastic-plastic analysis problem like the rigid plastic optimum design problem is based on rigid plastic limit analysis. In this way, the elastic properties can be included in the optimum design problem and also semi-rigid connections can be taken into account. This paper deals with several elastic-plastic optimum design problems, namely, geometrically linear and nonlinear holonomic elastic-plastic optimum design and geometrically linear shakedown optimum design. Each of these problems leads to nonlinear programming. The different design problems are illustrated on a sample frame by using the MINOS mathematical programming package for the solution.


Objective

Solitary cavitary lung cancer is one of the rare types of lung cancer. Generally, the relationship between cavitary lung adenocarcinoma and immunotherapy remains unknown. We aimed to assess programmed cell death ligand-1(PD-L1) expression and CD8-positive (CD8+) tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) density, and evaluate their prognostic significance of patients with cavitary lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD).
Methods

65 patients diagnosed as solitary cavitary LUAD were included in this study, 30 cases of noncavitary LUAD patients were collected as controls, and their specimens from surgery or biopsy were obtained. Expression of PD-L1 protein and CD8+ TILs were detected by traditional immunohistochemistry and multiplex quantitative immunofluorescence technology. The correlations of PD-L1 expression and clinicopathological features, including overall survival in cavitary LUAD patients was evaluated based on the follow-up data.
Results

Overexpression of PD-L1 protein was detected in the tumor tissues of cavitary LUAD patients compared to the noncavitary LUAD controls. PD-L1 expression level was significantly related to the lymph node (P = 0.001), TNM stage (P = 0.024), and CD8+ TIL status (rs= -0.272, P = 0.025). High PD-L1 expression predicted high mortality rate (P < 0.001), but CD8+ TIL group showed better survival in cavitary LUAD patients (P = 0.011). This phenotype with high PD-L1 expression and low CD8 + TIL predicted poorer overall survival of the patients with cavitary LUAD, compared to the other phenotypes. Moreover, CD8+ TIL was an independent good prognosis factor.
Conclusion

We firstly demonstrated that PD-L1 is upregulated in the cavitary LUAD patients, and high expression of PD-L1 negatively correlated with CD8 T cell infiltrating status. High PD-L1 expression and low CD8 + TIL can predict poorer overall survival of the patients with cavitary LUAD.


An analytical model of the input capacitance of Vertical DMOSFETs in 4H-SiC is presented, in order to provide an accurate instrument for the quantitative analysis and synthesis of the device and for accurate interpretations of C-V measurements. The model describes the charge dynamics into the channel and the accumulation region of the device, in presence of the energy dependent oxide-semiconductor interface trapped charge. Comparisons with numerical simulations show that the model correctly describes the variations of the surface potential induced by the gate voltage in all the device regions covered by the oxide, from accumulation to strong inversion of the channel, and to correctly relate them to the capacitance variations.


Village always be integral part of Indonesia, and also their village democracy. Village Democracy became way of life in Indonesia even before independence. The concept of village democracy is seen in the form of deliberation, consensus, and mutual help. Either ungrateful or forgotten, Village democracy today is still isolated by regulation. The regulation that established always put the village as objects of development, not as a subject. The village democracy even in the New Order Era absolutely suppressed, through Law No. 5 of 1979 on village government. Thousand Village spread around Indonesia is required to equalize the structure, governments, even culture into Javanization concept. Village regulations in Reform Era are also not much dissimilar. The village was ordered as the executor of the rest of the tasks of the government. Village development is Top-Down and just based on mere government's desire, not on the ideas and desires of Village. The presence of Law No. 6 of 2014 on Village, changed the paradigm of village development. Village democracy being soul of villages development in Law No. 6 of 2014. The rise of democracy was also supported by extraordinary sources of funding. It is seen in Article 72 Law No. 6 of 2014 and Government Regulation No. 60 Year 2014. Opportunities to realized village democracy and access the funds have many requirements. Village must making RPJMDes, APBDes, and various legal instrument in the form of PeraturanDesa. This condition is certainly a challenge for Village, to be ready in human resources, institutions, and civil society.


This paper describes BiographyNet, a digital humanities project (2012-2016) that brings together researchers from history, computational linguistics and computer science. The project uses data from the Biography Portal of the Netherlands (BPN), which contains approximately 125,000 biographies from a variety of Dutch biographical dictionaries from the eighteenth century until now, describing around 76,000 individuals. BiographyNet's aim is to strengthen the value of the portal and comparable biographical datasets for historical research, by improving the search options and the presentation of its outcome, with a historically justified NLP pipeline that works through a user evaluated demonstrator. The project's main target group are professional historians. The project therefore worked with two key concepts: ``provenance'' -understood as a term allowing for both historical source criticism and for references to data-management and programming interventions in digitized sources; and ``perspective'' interpreted as inherent uncertainty concerning the interpretation of historical results.


This paper is based on the PhD thesis written by the author. Post-fordist production system has raised since 1970's. Main firms have divided production process into different stages and transferred some stages of the production to either other firms in the same factory or another firms in another spaces. Not only production process but also different parts of supply chain have been moved to different geographies. Apparel industry in Turkey has faced with similar development. Large apparel producers have moved some part of their production to the different locations in both Turkey and abroad. The aim of the paper is to investigate which parts of the supply chain of Turkish apparel industry have moved to different geographies and which of those have stayed where it is established. Moreover, it is searched the location and relocation criteria of these firms. A case study has conducted for the research. Eroglu Giyim, one of the biggest apparel supplier of Turkey and owner of very well-known brand of Colin's, and its supply chain have been investigated. Semi-structured deep interviews have been made with Eroglu Giyim, its subcontractors and its input suppliers. Supply and production maps of Eroglu Giyim for the year of 2002 and 2012 have been produced. 27 suppliers of total 35 suppliers have been interviewed to find out their location and re-location criteria. Eroglu Giyim has expanded its production network globally since 2003. The main reasons of this expanding are flexible and international production system, expectations and demands of their customers, legal and trade regulations as well as qualifications and strategies of the firm. Which products to be produced in which geography has been determined by customer demands and expectations. Those are related to some advantages of geography, for example, accessibility, human capital, innovation, proximity and face-to-face contact. Geography of the input supplier of Eroglu Giyim has been mainly shaped by strategies and qualifications of the firm and its suppliers. Legal regulations, which are made by the state in order to restrict the import, causes input to supply from generally Turkey. However, some input are purchased from the foreign international suppliers that make production in Turkey. All these local and international suppliers have mainly concentrated on Marmara Region where Istanbul in. It has observed that Turkish fabric companies have expanded their marketing networks globally for last 10 years. Most of them have a contact office in numerous countries in different continents, especially in Europe. Some of these companies have started to make production abroad. It has been seen obviously in the survey that Turkish fabric suppliers have become international companies for more than 10 years. Geographical proximity still is a very important location criteria for producer firms, suppliers and main customers. Istanbul presents some advantages like transportation, proximity to market, skilled labour force and face-to-face contact for the firms. Especially skilled labour force of Istanbul causes more complicated goods to produce in this city. So, Istanbul still is an important city for the apparel firms although its disadvantages like expensive production cost.


OBJECTIVES
To analyze risk factors associated to acute renal failure (ARF) post deep hypothermia circulatory arrest (DHCA) surgery of type A aorta dissection patients, researching correlations to hospital mortality rate.

METHODS
There were 273 samples of type A aorta dissection patients collected between September 2011 and May 2013 , all of which had surgery done under DHCA. Categorize the samples into two groups based on whether postoperative ARF happened: non-ARF group(n = 163) and ARF group(n = 110). Conducted regression analysis correlations between postoperative ARF and mortality and one or more risk factors of gender, age, history of illness, type of aorta dissection, heart functional class, pre- and post-operative serum creatinine (sCr), DHCA time, blood loss and blood transfusion volume, postoperative complications, etc.

RESULTS
Among the 110 samples of ARF group (40.3%), 21 (7.7%) conducted continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). Among 16 (5.9%) died in hospital, 3 (1.8%) died with functional renal, 13 (11.8%) died with ARF. Single factor analysis: male (χ(2) = 6.075, P = 0.014), preoperative sCr (t = 2.955, P = 0.004), dissection extended to renal artery(χ(2) = 5.103, P = 0.024), cardiopulmonary by-pass (CBP) time (t = 2.435, P = 0.017), DHCA time (t = 2.215, P = 0.031), average lower limb artery blood pressure during CBP (t = -2.832, P = 0.007), during surgery and 24 h postoperative blood loss (t = 2.157, P = 0.034) and blood transfusion (t = 2.426, P = 0.018), postoperative acute respiratory dysfunction (χ(2) = 36.307, P = 0.000), postoperative endotracheal reintubation (χ(2) = 9.167, P = 0.002), postoperative low blood pressure (χ(2) = 10.202, P = 0.001), postoperative temporary neurological deficits (χ(2) = 7.512, P = 0.006), postoperative infection (χ(2) = 11.088, P = 0.001) were the risk factors for ARF. The logistic regression analysis revealed that preoperative sCr (P = 0.023) and acute respiratory dysfunction (P = 0.011) were independent determinants of ARF; preoperative ARF (P = 0.022), CRRT (P = 0.003) and permanent neurological deficits were independent determinants for hospital mortality.

CONCLUSIONS
ARF is a common complication of post Type A aorta dissection surgery under DHCA, and is the risk factor of hospital mortality. It is important to enhance peri-operative protection of the renal function.


Energy plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of modern nations. Today, hydrogen is considered the most promising alternative fuel as it can be generated from clean and green sources. Moreover, it is an efficient energy carrier because hydrogen burning only generates water as a byproduct. Currently, it is generated from natural gas. However, it can be produced using other methods, i.e., physicochemical, thermal, and biological. The biological method is considered more environmentally friendly and pollution free. This paper aims to provide an updated review of biohydrogen production via photofermentation, dark fermentation, and microbial electrolysis cells using different waste materials as feedstocks. Besides, the role of nanotechnology in enhancing biohydrogen production is examined. Under anaerobic conditions, hydrogen is produced during the conversion of organic substrate into organic acids using fermentative bacteria and during the conversion of organic acids into hydrogen and carbon dioxide using photofermentative bacteria. Different factors that enhance the biohydrogen production of these organisms, either combined or sequentially, using dark and photofermentation processes, are examined, and the effect of each factor on biohydrogen production efficiency is reported. A comparison of hydrogen production efficiency between dark fermentation, photofermentation, and two-stage processes is also presented.


The provisioning of fairness to various network applications is an important Quality-of-Service demand and has thus become a challenging research issue in contemporary communication networks. Deficit Round Robin (DRR) is a promising fair scheduling mechanism owing to its low complexity and excellent ability of achieving a good degree of fairness in terms of throughput. On the other hand, self-similar traffic was found to be pervasively present in communication networks and has great impact on the performance of scheduling systems. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has not been any analytical model reported in the open literature for the DRR mechanism in the presence of self-similar traffic. To fill this gap, this paper analytically investigates the queueing performance of DRR and develops a new analytical model for deriving the upper and lower bounds of the queue length distributions of individual traffic flows in DRR scheduling systems subject to self-similar traffic. Extensive comparison between simulation and analytical results validates the accuracy of the developed model. To demonstrate its applications, the analytical model is used to investigate the effects of packet size on the performance of the queueing system. The developed model is further applied to study the configuration of weights of individual traffic flows. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Retail pharmacists should recognize their inadequate knowledge of Ipecac instructions. When confronted with an acute poisoning, these patients should be referred to their physician or nearest regional poison control center (3). Providing improper instructions creates the risks of: Vomiting a substance with which emesis is contraindicated; Unnecessary emesis; and Use of ineffective and unsafe methods of inducing emesis. Only 2 (6.25%) pharmacists gave complete and accurate instructions for the use of Ipecac--with the exception of mentioning the contraindications to emesis. However, both pharmacists referred the caller to their regional poison control center.


Little is known about the sustainability of the landuse systems and people's food security in Nagaland (North-East India) where a population growth of 6.3 % leads to an apparent shortening of the fallow period and concomitant decline in soil productivity. This situation is especially severe in the study area of the Mon District, where 93% of the population depend on shifting cultivation. An initial survey revealed that fallow periods have been reduced to five years and additional land for cultivation is hardly available. This study was carried out in two villages, Hongphoy and Minyakshu of the Mon District to quantify the gap between local farmers' food demand in cereals and amounts harvested on the so-called Jhum fields as dependent on population density. Data collection comprised comprehensive interviews of family size, food consumption, crop yields and duration of fallow period in households as well as the determination of field sizes over two years. The data revealed that the available per caput area for Jhum cultivation averaged 1,800 m2 in Hongphoy and 1,200 m2 in Minykashu, compared to a minimum requirement of 2,000 m2 for subsistence purposes. The daily caloric intake from harvested cereals such as rice (Oryza sativa L.), millet (Pennisetum glaucum L.) maize (Zea mays L.) and from additionally bought rice from Assam was about 8190 to 8715 KJ (1,950 to 2,075 kCal) in the years 2004 and 2005. These values are far below the food-security thresholds defined by FAO. While in Hongphoy 16 % of the caloric intake came from bought Assam rice in 2004 and 29 % in 2005, these figures were about 83 % and 85 %, respectively, for Minyakshu, which means that the formerly autonomous village of Minyakshu depends much more strongly on additional food supplies than Hongphoy. This leads to an almost Malthusian scenario. Even improved agricultural practices such as improved fallow systems with Alnus nepalensis, the construction of irrigated rice terraces or the cultivation of higher yielding rice varieties were unable to fill the food gap of 277 tons rice in Hongphoy and of 1,219 tons in Minyakshu in 2004.


A simple criterion is given which can be used to determine the variation of coercivity with particle size for small particles.


There is a growing need for supply chain partners to work together in improving their performance and systems of operation. New information and communication technologies can be used to improve operations and facilitate the building of closer relationships, but they can also serve to undermine relations and create tensions. RFID represents the first major improvement traceability technology that potentially supersedes barcodes and our study seeks to develop a simulation model that moves beyond a purely technical analysis, towards an assessment that is able to accommodate the social and cultural dimensions in providing a dynamic


Our consortium previously reported that older age, elevated glycemic gap, higher BMI and DKA on admission predicted mortality in adults with diabetes or stress hyperglycemia (glucose >180 mg/dl twice in 24 hrs) admitted with COVID-19 from March 2020 - February 2021 to 5 university hospitals. Here we examine those from this cohort who were readmitted (19.4%) after their initial discharge (Table). Of those readmitted 90.3% were readmitted within 30 days [median (IQR) 4 (0, 14) days]. Older age, lower eGFR, comorbidities, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, DKA and longer length of stay during the initial hospitalization were associated with readmission. Higher A1c and admission glucose, diagnosed diabetes, glycemic gap and BMI did not predict increased risk of readmission. Hispanics were less likely to be readmitted. Mortality during readmission was 8.0%. Those who died were older than those who survived (74.9±9.5 vs 65.2±14.4 yrs, p= 0.002) and were more likely to have had DKA during the first hospitalization (p< 0.001). Mortality analyses were limited by the small number of deaths (n=23). In conclusion, in adults with diabetes or stress hyperglycemia hospitalized with COVID-19, older age and non-glycemic comorbidities were associated with the risk of readmission, while glycemic gap and higher A1c were not. These results are important for guiding treatment strategies.

 A.S.Chaugule: None. G.P.Westcott: None. R.S.Weinstock: Consultant; Jaeb Center for Health Research, Other Relationship; Wolters Kluwer Health, Research Support; Insulet Corporation, Medtronic, Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, Boehringer Ingelheim Inc., Hemsley Charitable Trust, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc., Kowa Pharmaceuticals America, Inc. K.Howard: None. D.C.Simonson: Stock/Shareholder; Phase V Technologies, Inc., GI Windows. M.E.Mcdonnell: None. R.K.Garg: None. G.Gopalakrishnan: Research Support; Spruce Biosciences, Sparrow Pharmaceuticals Inc, Medtronic. J.Mitri: Other Relationship; Novo Nordisk, Research Support; Kowa Company, Ltd. J.Lebastchi: None. N.E.Palermo: Research Support; Dexcom, Inc.


Background: Abnormal blood lipid profiles have been associated with many malignant diseases especially in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia on L-asparaginase therapy Objective: To investigate the frequency and clinical significance of altered lipid profiles in children with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) on L-asparaginase therapy Patients and Methods: A prospective study was carried out between February 2008 till January 2009 on a total of 50 patients with recently diagnosed and non-treated acute lymphoblastic leukemia who were admitted to pediatric oncology unit at Basrah Maternity and Children hospital. Fasting blood for lipid profiles [cholesterol (CH), Triglycerides (TG), high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein(LDL), very low density Lipoprotein (VLDL)] were obtained from 30 children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at diagnosis, during induction therapy with L-Asparaginase and after induction without L-Asparaginase, their ages range between (1-15) years and 20 patients were excluded because of incomplete information (non compliance). Results: Thirty patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) were studied, 20(66.7%) males and 10(33.3%) females. An altered lipid profile was observed during therapy with L-asparaginase especially (CH,TG), the means (222.3±62.9 mg/dl, 223.1±88.31 mg/dl) respectively were higher than the level before the initiation of therapy (158±36 mg/dl, 119.4±57.3mg/dl) and after induction (139.8±61.5 mg/dl, 96.2±30.7 mg/dl) and these were statistically highly significant (P-value <0.001) while no significant changes regarding other types of lipid profile. This study showed no significant changes of lipid profiles in relation to morphological type, risk of leukemia, sex, age and body mass index (BMI), before, during and after therapy with L-Asparaginase. Conclusion: Hyperlipidemia especially cholesterol and triglyceride levels were significantly higher during treatment with L -Asparaginse and were reversible after drug discontinuation but showed no significant correlation with age, BMI, risk group and morphological types.


The spherical nonagglomerated and uniform nanometer-size SiOparticles are synthesized by the injection of TEOS vapor, irons and reaction gas in a furnace. Ions are generated by corona discharge and these ions charge SiOparticles. As a result, spherical, nonagglomerated and ultrafine particles are generated in various conditions. Their morphology, charging portion and size distribution are examined by using TEM, ESP and SMPS. As the applied voltage of electrode changes from 0 to 5.0 kV, it is observed that the melon diameter of SiOparticle decreases from 94 nm to 42 nm.


Digital literacy has become an essential form of literacy for the students of the 21st century. This development had been significantly accelerated by the Covid- 19 pandemic, when all students in Austria had to switch to distance learning at some point between the years 2020 and 2022. Based on a web-based survey conducted among Austrian EFL students, this paper aims to investigate the current status of digital literacy among 5th and 6th grade EFL students from their perspective. A special focus is placed on students who have received a digital device for e-Learning purposes within the school year 2021/2022.
The following key results were observed: Students have a generally positive attitude towards e-Learning that also shows a connection to their level of digital skills. Furthermore, there are significant differences in experiences and attitudes toward e- Learning based on grade level. Further research into manifold areas of digital literacy could be beneficial in order to gain a deeper understanding of the topic and practical assistance for educators and students.


This textbook and atlas presents a practical guideline for indication, radiologic technique, and normal and pathological findings of the endocrine system, including pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenals, pancreas, APUD system, testis and ovary. The key features are - technique, pituitary and thyroid gland, parythyroid, adrenal gland, pancreas, carcinoid, multiple endocrine neoplasia, testis, ovary, quantification of osteoporosis, positron emission tomography in endocrine disease.


The global climate is changing due to human activities. This
human‑induced climate change is mainly caused by global emissions
of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Most scientists agree
that in order to mitigate climate change, by 2050, global CO2
emissions must be reduced by at least 50% compared to their
1990 level. Fossil fuels, however, are expected to continue playing
a dominant role in the world energy supply far into this century.
As yet, the combined effect of improving energy efficiency and
increasing the use of renewable energy (and perhaps nuclear power)
cannot achieve the required reductions in CO2 emissions. Therefore,
CO2 capture and storage (CCS) may become an important (third)
option for mitigating climate change. The Dutch government has the
ambition to build two large scale demonstration projects by 2015.


15 cases of contact dermatitis to Primula obconica Hance are reported, 14 female and 1 male. None were of occupational origin. The incidence among our patients increased from 0.45 to 3.4% when we included an ether extract of primula in our standard series. A doubtful patch test reaction was found in 19.6% of the patients tested. Active sensitization was observed in 5 of 20 patients retested 1–16 months later.


Epidemiologists are increasingly concerned with the health effects of interventions and of exposure to noninfectious agents, but there may be long periods between exposure and outcome. Collecting information from respondents is a costly and often inefficient way of obtaining the longitudinal data necessary to study these effects. Linking existing data can be an effective and efficient alternative. However, it is often not practicable to obtain informed consent from the individuals whose records are to be linked. This raises important issues relating to protection of privacy. This paper examines the health benefits and privacy issues of epidemiological and health services research involving record linkage in Australia. The future potential for studies based on record linkage is discussed in the context of recent national and international developments in data protection. In the interests of public health and the rational use of health resources a balance must be struck between protecting individual privacy and conducting such health research for the common good.


This paper is concerned with problems relevant to motion planning in robotics. Configuration spaces are of practical relevance in designing safe control schemes for robots moving on a track. The topological complexity of a configuration space is an integer which can be thought of as the minimum number of continuous instructions required to describe how to move robots between any initial configuration to any final one without collisions. We calculate this number for various examples of robots moving in different tracks represented by graphs. We present and implement an explicit algorithm for two robots to move autonomously and without collisions on a lollipop track.


Research in commercial organizations has provided a multitude of examples on how leadership development can effectively foster employees' performance and work-related attitudes such as commitment or satisfaction. In contrast, to date systematic leadership development is largely lacking for employees in higher education. However, we suggest that the positive effects of leadership development in commercial organizations also apply to the academic context. Thus, the purpose of this applied article is to present two approaches to the development of leadership in higher education. More specifically, we provide a detailed description of two different programs offered to researchers at a large German university. The first program constitutes a leader development initiative for junior faculty on an individual level, whereas the second focuses on the development of leadership within university departments on a group level. We provide recommendations for establishing and evaluating effective leadership development in higher education.


The proportion of non-performing loans (NPLs) constitutes an objective measure of capital adequacy for individual banks and is one of the critical indicators of a country's economic efficiency. Beginning with the United States in the late 1980s, there has been a succession of non-performing loan crises in different countries around the world (Lindgren, Garcia, and Isaal 1996). While NPLs are found in every industry, real estate loans and other loans backed by real estate, have dominated the recovery efforts made by governments. Real estate assets often serve as collateral for the securitization of NPLs, and have been the focus of Wall Street in bringing capital to invest in NPL-backed securities.The purpose of this chapter is to examine the efforts undertaken by the Chinese government to resolve the non-performing loan problems the country has faced since the mid-1990s, and to analyze the associated impacts of this resolution process in the context of China's rapid urbanization and transitional economic reform. To better highlight some unique characteristics of the Chinese NPL resolution process and to draw implications for the China case, the NPL experiences of two other East Asian countries that also faced severe NPL problems in the 1990s — specifically, South Korea (henceforth, Korea) and Japan — will be summarized briefly.


Verrucous carcinoma is a less aggressive variant of penile carcinoma that rarely has lymph node metastasis. In this type of tumor, surgical treatment is the best way to control the disease. This study reports a case of penile verrucous carcinoma in a 44 years old man who underwent surgical treatment by total penectomy.The patient had an ulcerated lesion in the dorsal region of the penis, that progressed with local infection and bilateral inguinal lymphadenopathy. The biopsy diagnosed verrucous carcinoma of the penis. Penectomy was nominated for the patient. Although verrucous carcinoma is not so invasive, total penectomy was opted with implantation of the urethra in the perineum, due to the large extent of the tumor which affected the whole body. Despite good tumor differentiation, the performance of total penectomy was necessary in this case due to the great extent of the lesion. The lymph node dissection was not performed and the need for these cases is not proven. Treatment with antibiotics is mandatory and generally improves regional adenopathy as described.


Recent changes to the rules governing pet travel, combined with an expansion in the ranges of a number of different tick species, mean that the veterinary profession and pet owners need to become more aware of the risks of tick infestation and tickborne disease, says Richard Wall

CLEAR changes in tick distributions in Europe have been evident over the past 10 to 20 years. Climate change may be responsible for part of this, but changes in habitat management and host availability may also be influential. In the UK, the abundance of our most widespread tick vector, Ixodes ricinus , has increased, and the introduced European meadow tick, Dermacentor reticulatus , appears to have expanded its range. Recent relaxation in the regulations governing the treatment of travelling companion animals entering the UK brings with it further risks of the introduction of novel tick species, particularly the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus . These changes necessitate a greater awareness among the veterinary profession and pet owners of the risks of tick infestation and tickborne disease.

Ticks are familiar, opportunistic, blood-feeding parasites, with characteristically long, slow life cycles and unusually low rates of metabolism. They cause damage and disease in their hosts as they feed, either directly through the transfer of saliva, injection of neurotoxins, skin injuries, allergic reactions and blood loss, or indirectly through the transmission of an extensive range of bacteria, viruses and protozoa (Bowman and Nuttall 2008). A recent randomised survey of 3534 dogs in the UK showed that, between March and October 2010, 15 per cent were carrying attached ticks without their owners' knowledge (Smith and others 2011), suggesting that infestation and the risks from tickborne disease are considerably higher than generally presumed (Smith and others 2012). Of particular concern is the fact that many species of tick appear …


Hearing thresholds have been measured in 236 cotton weaving mill workers (124 women: average age 42.5 +/- 11.2 years, average length of employment 19.5 +/- 10.6 years and 112 men: average age 41.2 +/- 10.3 years, average length of employment 19.0 +/- 11.1 years) exposed to continuous broadband noise of the constant level of approx. 100 dB-A. 90% of subjects exhibited the permanent threshold shift characterized by a great individual variability and maximum loss at the 4 kHz frequency. Those lesions were getting enhanced with increasing length of exposure and were more serious in elder age groups. No significant differences between the hearing loss intensity in men and women were found. The development of the hearing loss is characterized by its rapid increase within 3, 4 and 6 kHz during the initial 8 years of exposure, stabilization between years 9-12 and slow moderate increase within the further 13-31 years of exposure. Those conclusions should be implemented into practice through an increase in the frequency of preventive audiometric tests in the initial period of work in exposure which has such a great impact on the development of the hearing impairment.


Recent years have seen increased interest in non-parametric reinforcement learning. There are now practical kernel-based algorithms for approximating value functions; however, kernel regression requires that the underlying function being approximated be smooth on its domain. Few problems of interest satisfy this requirement in their natural representation. In this paper we define value-consistent pseudometric (VCPM), the distance function corresponding to a transformation of the domain into a space where the target function is maximally smooth and thus well-approximated by kernel regression. We then present DKBRL, an iterative batch RL algorithm interleaving steps of Kernel-Based Reinforcement Learning and distance metric adjustment. We evaluate its performance on Acrobot and PinBall, continuous-space reinforcement learning domains with discontinuous value functions.


Hermeneutics of presence, developed by M. Heidegger, and possible ways of its further transformation are considered. This tendency was embodied and developed in the project of philosophical hermeneutics H.-G. Gadamer, who focuses not on the analytics of presence, but on the language as a horizon of meaning and understanding. A comparative analysis of these theories shows that the understanding of hermeneutics as an ontological interpretation of presence is completed not only in the framework of ontological discourse, but also in the representation of language as an independent agent, which is also the most developed topos of existence. The analytics of presence is the main content of Heidegger's main work, and at the same time it should become the basis of the fundamental ontology, which grows directly from such hermeneutics and, in a sense, is its substantive mode. Such a theory is an understanding that is carried out not as an act of thinking, but as a way of staying, a special Dasein modus, which is given not so much epistemologically as existentially.Although Gadamer lacks the required hermeneutic analytics of the language, he never departs from his postulate of the linguistic nature of understanding. For him, the soil on which human existence is built as understanding is initially language, while Heidegger comes to language through speech, which is seen as the existential-ontological foundation of language. Language, according to Gadamer, is an a priori condition for any act of understanding, the space for its implementation and, at the same time, the result, expressed in the total "stipulation" of the world by the word.


Abstract
 Some agricultural fields of Razevi and North khorasan provinces were sampled for identification and resistance to metalaxyl of Pythium ultimum species isolates. Isolation was done between years of 2007 to 2009. Van der plaats- niterink key to species of Pythium and specific ITS region of rDNA were used for morphological and molecular identification respectively. Micrometric characteristics of isolates sexual and asexual organs corresponded to van der Plaats-niterink criterion. Fourteen isolates were randomly selected among fourthy identified isolates of Pythium ultimum for determination of sensitivity to metalaxyl. Concentration of metalaxyl which causes fifty percents growth inhibitions (EC50) obtained using logistic function; I=KC (erC). That varied between 0.0228-0.044 µg ml-1 i.e. the results indicate that all isolates were sensitive to metalaxyl, but there was significantly differences among isolates in response to metalaxyl.

Keywords: Pythium ultimum, metalaxyl sensitivity, cucumber, Khorasan


The paper is devoted to the problems related to the teaching of physics at medical high schools. Among them are the analysis of the subject programs according to profi lisation conception, including the use of achievements of modern physics, which became the basis of a number of high technology methods of diagnostics and treatment: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computerized Tomography (CT), visualization with the x-Rays and Ultrasound, the method of electronic paramagnetic resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, luminescent analysis and laser mass-spectroscopy. In the bounds of laboratory practice series of the new laboratory works with the utilization of diagnostic and treating equipment were developed. Some of them are: «The study of ultrasound test technology using the echo probe», «The audiometric tests of hearing», «The study of physical principles of haemodialisis», «Fiber optics in modern endoscopy» etc. Another matter of topical interest is the test control of the current and fi nal knowledge of students. The general principles of composing of test assignments – their structure, multiplicity and equivalency, creating of the multilevel tests are discussed.


Organizations with well-developed strategic foresight capabilities have higher level awareness about the emerging pattern of external environment threats and opportunities and make better decisions to respond to these challenges. Scholars emphasise that even though topics on leadership and leadership capabilities have become increasingly popular, there is still little research on concepts and methods of "futures studies". Research purpose is to investigate the level of development of strategic foresight capabilities on the top management level in the drone industry and its application for ensuring long term business sustainability. Research methodology: a case study method and semi-structured inter-views. The main results of the research show that the drone industry applies some strategic foresight capabilities which are not fully recognized and exploited systematically by the business leaders. De-velopment and application of strategic foresight capabilities could be considered as a strategic priori-ty in the industry.


Abstract. Trends of extreme-temperature episodes in cities are
increasing (in frequency, magnitude and duration) due to regional climate
change in interaction with urban effects. Urban morphologies and thermal
properties of the materials used to build them are factors that influence spatial and temporal climate variability and are one of the main
reasons for the climatic singularity of cities. This paper presents a
methodology to evaluate the urban and peri-urban effect on extreme-temperature exposure in Barcelona (Spain), using the Local Climate Zone
(LCZ) classification as a basis, which allows a comparison with
other cities of the world characterised using this criterion. LCZs were
introduced as input of the high-resolution UrbClim model (100 m spatial
resolution) to create daily temperature (median and maximum) series for
summer (JJA) during the period 1987 to 2016, pixel by pixel, in order to
create a cartography of extremes. Using the relationship between mortality
due to high temperatures and temperature distribution, the heat exposure
of each LCZ was obtained. Methodological results of the paper show the
improvement obtained when LCZs were mapped through a combination of two
techniques (land cover–land use maps and the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools – WUDAPT – method), and the paper proposes a methodology to obtain the exposure to high temperatures of
different LCZs in urban and peri-urban areas. In the case of Barcelona, the
distribution of temperatures for the 90th percentile (about
3–4  ∘ C above the average conditions) leads to an increase in
the relative risk of mortality of 80 %.


This paper analyses the influence of welfare benefit levels on migrants' location choices within their host country and thus provides a rare empirical test of the Welfare Magnet Hypothesis. In Austria, asylum seekers are distributed across federal states according to a quota, but once they are granted protection, they are free to move wherever they want. Welfare benefit levels for refugees vary over states depending on a person's protection status and – due to a series of welfare benefit reforms at the state level – over time. This institutional structure allows to causally identify the effect of welfare benefit differentials on refugees' first autonomous location choice. We employ two complementary identification strategies, the first is based on variation over states and protection-status groups. The second is based on the welfare reforms at the state level and exploits variation over states, groups and time. The results provide evidence in favour of the Welfare Magnet Hypothesis.


Wound healing is a complex cellular, pathophysiological and biochemical cascade of sequence resulting in reconstruction, remodeling as well as regeneration of injured tissues. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of essential oil based polyherbal spray on wound repair. Seven horses with accidental wounds were treated with a topical application of an essential oil based polyherbal spray, under field conditions. When compared with a contra-lateral control (therapy regime included conventional topical antibiotic dressing), the phytogenic spray succeeded in an early and healthy reconstruction of the wound site. This phytogenic spray also worked as a fly repellent and prevented myiasis. It was concluded that the topical use of phytogenic spray is not only effective, safe and simple, but also reduces the otherwise physiological body burden of antibiotics in horses.


We focus on a particular connection between queueing and risk models in a multidimensional setting. We first consider the joint workload process in a queueing model with parallel queues and simultaneous arrivals at the queues. For the case that the service times are ordered (from largest in the first queue to smallest in the last queue), we obtain the Laplace-Stieltjes transform of the joint stationary workload distribution. Using a multivariate duality argument between queueing and risk models, this also gives the Laplace transform of the survival probability of all books in a multivariate risk model with simultaneous claim arrivals and the same ordering between claim sizes. Other features of the paper include a stochastic decomposition result for the workload vector, and an outline of how the two-dimensional risk model with a general two-dimensional claim size distribution (hence, without ordering of claim sizes) is related to a known Riemann boundary-value problem.


BACKGROUND Human blood till date has no substitute. Every unit of blood has to be used judiciously with minimal discard. The aim of this study is to evaluate the causes for discarding of blood and blood components. METHODS A total of 10597 units of blood collected from donors in ESIC MH Blood period from January, 2016 to December 2018, was studied. RESULTS Among the total of 10597 units of blood collected, 164 were not separated into any components. Of these 164 blood bags containing whole blood, a total of 66 (40.2%) was discarded. Of these, 93.9% were discarded due to expiry of date and 3.03% were discarded because these units were seropositive for Transfusion Transmitted Infections (TTI). 3498 (13.5%) units of blood components were discarded from a total of 25789 blood components prepared. The most common component discarded was platelets (21.7%) followed by FFP (17.3%). Causes for discarding components was leakage in 1774 component units (42.4%), component expiry due to non-utilization in 1287 (30.7%) and seropositivity for TTI in 438 (10.4%). Training of staff as well as implementation of blood transfusion policies help to improve process and output of BTS. This would reduce the discarding of blood components and wastage due to non-conformance. Reducing the amount of discarded blood can contribute towards decreasing the total cost of blood and its components.


: In Japan, drivers frequently use their vehicle horn as a signal in various situations such as when passing each other. Furthermore, pedestrians are honked at by drivers. Such horn use may create noise problem for people nearby. Therefore, a questionnaire survey was carried out to ascertain the current circumstance of vehicle horn use in Kanto and Kansai of Japan, while a similar survey was previously carried out in Fukuoka. Respondents were asked about the latest or last-remembered case of horn use in various situations of being drivers and pedestrians. With regard to an experience of being honked at by another driver, the questionnaire included questions relating to the aim of horn use, the timing pattern of the horn, and the respondent's psychological reaction. The results revealed that drivers' brief and frequent vehicle horn use to express gratitude or gain another's attention in various places from narrow lanes to main roads was similar among the three surveyed areas including Fukuoka. Long honks and horn use to gain another's attention or to alert another to danger remarkably aroused negative psychological reactions in pedestrians. No significant difference in the manner of the driver's horn use was found among the three surveyed areas.


The main aim of this research was to determine the potential effects of different tillage systems (TT: traditional tillage and RT: reduced tillage) on runoff and erosion at two different locations (Kahramanmaras and Tarsus, Southern Turkey) under (i) fallow, (ii) wheat (Triticumaestivum L.), and (iii) sainfoin (Onobrychissativa L.) crops. Rainfall simulations with intensity of 120 mm h−1 and 30-min duration, representing a typical extreme thunderstorm in this area, were used. We quantified the elapsed time to runoff generation (ET), total runoff volume (R), soil loss (SL), sediment concentration (SC), and runoff coefficient (RC). At both locations, the fallow plots indicated the first runoff response ranging between 1.2 and 3.1 min, while the range was between 9.4 and 8.9 min for the sainfoin plots. The highest runoff coefficient was recorded for the fallow parcel in Tarsus (57.7%), and the lowest runoff coefficient was recorded for the sainfoin parcel in Kahramanmaras (4%). For both study sites, the fallow plots showed higher soil erosion rates (871 and 29.21 g m−2) compared with the wheat plots (307 and 11.25 g m−2), while sainfoin recorded the lowest soil losses (93.68 and 3.45 g m−2), for Tarsus and Kahramanmaras, respectively. Runoff and sediment yield generated from sainfoin and wheat parcels under the RT system were less than under the TT system at the Kahramanmaras location. At the Tarsus location, the effect of soil tillage on soil and water losses was insignificant on the sainfoin planted plots. The reduced tillage system was successful in reducing sediment yield and runoff generated from parcels growing wheat and sainfoin compared to traditional tillage in Tarsus location, but runoff and soil loss were found to be very high compared to parcels constructed in the Kahramanmaras location.


In the advanced industrial countries the most favorable, least expensive sites for surface reservoirs are already in use or the land already is preempted for other uses and is unavailable for the storage of water. In addition, there are many flat areas in coastal zones, also underlain by saline aquifers, that are unsuitable for water storage although a surplus of fresh water is available in such areas at certain times of year. The lack of a reliable, year-round supply of water has been a major factor in preventing commercial and residential development in these areas. The storage of fresh water in slightly saline aquifers has been tried empirically several times with some success. To study the physical process in the laboratory we have constructed and operated several miniaquifers and, simultaneously, have devised some approximate mathematical models. The annual cycle of injection, storage, and withdrawal of the fresh water has been found to be feasible under the idealized assumptions normally found in groundwater hydrology--a horizontal, isotropic, homogeneous aquifer of uniform porosity, transmissivity, and storativity. Laboratory experiments on a single-well system built into a miniaquifer constructed of epoxy-consolidated, uniform blasting sand show that the efficiency of the process, per cycle, increases as the number of cycles increases. Our omputational procedure verifies this and has enabled us to change inexpensively and quickly such parameters as density difference, dispersion coefficient, input rate and period, withdrawal rate, storage period, etc. The studies show that storage of fresh water in an aquifer that contains brine is feasible, if a sufficient number of cycles is considered. The cost, in terms of irretrievable fresh water, is calculable under these conditions. Additional studies were and are being made on a 9-unit well field. Preliminary results show that although the recovery percentage at the end of the first cycle is smaller than that of a single well operating by itself, by the time the third cycle is reached a multiwell system is more efficient. A greater percentage of the water injected during the third cycle is recovered than is recovered by a single well under the same circumstances. Most water-bearing formations dip and, in many, a measurable groundwater flow occurs under natural, undisturbed conditions. Each of these circumstances affects the position and configuration of the "bubble" of fresh water. For example, the injected fresh water is lighter than the saline water and should tend to move to the roof of the aquifer and thence updip. This should result in a lower recovery efficiency compared with that from a horizontal aquifer. However, the recovery efficiency depends greatly on the duration of the storage part of the cycle. Single-well experiments in a dipping aquifer verify and quantify this expectation. There are indications that it may be possible to overcome the effect of dip and to stabilize the position of the injected fresh water by constructing and perating a system of injection and withdrawal well updip and downdip from the injection well. This paper is a progress report on work that is well underway but not yet complete. As to the effect of various combinations of dip, movement of native ground water, and density differences, on the recovery efficiency of a multiwell project, we have some qualitative ideas, but at present are trying to devise a quantitative basis for design that will handle all of the variables simultaneously. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1598------------


My first impressions of this book were somewhat mixed although on reading it fully I became very impressed with the content. It certainly deserves the title encyclopedia as all species, common, rare or non-existent in aviculture have entries. However, on nicking through the book, as one would a reference, it is possible to stumble on inconsistencies. The most noticeable of these being within the colour photographs showing suitable accommodation which showed a number of larger display aviaries more suited to much larger birds rather than for Estrildids. However, on reading the book through, it is apparent that the authors  have amassed a wealth of information based on experience. The book is separated into two parts, the first comprising five chapters detailing management while the second part gives detailed species' accounts. On reading through the book its value can be appreciated. It starts with a chapter entitled Understand the Origin of Your Pet Finch, which gives a good understanding of the environmental requirements of estrildids in a general way. This leads into Housing, Management and Care which builds on the previous chapter and is full of good advice. Common Illnesses and Their Treatment, Food and Water, and Breeding complete the management aspects of keeping cstrildids and all in all is discussed in a very comprehensive fashion. The species' accounts are very detailed and in most cases, bearing in mind this book has been produced in north America, the accepted avicultural nomenclature is used. However, it does seem that the accounts have been written from a north American perspective and hence some birds which have been kept and bred successfully in Europe have been dismissed with just a few lines, even though the authors acknowledge a number of British and European sources. The book is very well illustrated with 56 pages of colour photographs comprising nearly 200 photographs of the birds and about 50 photographs showing accommodation etc. The photographs of the species are well exposed and clear....


Frequencies of 25 immunoglobulin heavy-chain and kappa light-chain variable (VH + V kappa) gene-family pairings expressed in splenic B-cell populations were determined by hybridization of VH- and V kappa-family-specific DNA probes to mitogen-induced B-cell colonies from C57BL/6 mice or hybridomas derived from BALB/c and NZB mice. Both analyses support the conclusion that VH and V kappa gene families pair without bias; as would be expected for random association, the frequencies of specific VH + V kappa pairs may be estimated by the product of the independent VH and V kappa frequencies. Based upon the frequencies at which 9 VH and 12 V kappa gene families are expressed, we calculated the expected usage for approximately 100 VH + V kappa family pairings in neonatal and adult C57BL/6 mice. Variability in the expression of such VH + V kappa pairings is considerable; pairs representing greater than 10% to less than 0.01% of the splenic B-cell population occur. This variability is most pronounced in the neonate, where 6 VH + V kappa family pairs account for nearly 40% of all mitogen-reactive B cells. As the neonate matures, the distribution of frequencies for VH + V kappa pairings becomes more nearly uniform. This process may underlie the patterned acquisition of humoral immune responsiveness.


An erratum was issued for: Contact Hypersensitivity as a Murine Model of Allergic Contact Dermatitis. The Protocol and Representative Results sections were updated. Step 3.2.1 of the Protocol has been updated from: On day "4", prepare 0.4% hapten: TNCB in an acetone-ethanol mixture (ratio 1:1). Prepare the solution just before use in a glass vial and protect it from light by covering the vial with aluminum foil. to: On day "4", prepare 0.4% hapten: TNCB in an acetone: olive oil mixture (ratio 1:1). Prepare the solution just before use in a glass vial and protect it from light by covering the vial with aluminum foil. Figure 1 of the Representative Results has been updated from: Figure 1: Induction of CHS. Sensitization, challenge, and ear measurement.

ABBREVIATIONS
CHS = contact hypersensitivity reaction; TNCB = 2,4,6-trinitrochlorobenzene. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure. to: Figure 1: Induction of CHS. Sensitization, challenge, and ear measurement.

ABBREVIATIONS
CHS = contact hypersensitivity reaction; TNCB = 2,4,6-trinitrochlorobenzene. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure. Figure 2 of the Representative Results has been updated from: Figure 2: Adoptive transfer of the CHS-effector cells.

ABBREVIATIONS
ALNs =axillary and inguinal lymph nodes; CHS = contact hypersensitivity reaction; i.v. = intravenously; SPLs = spleens; TNCB = 2,4,6-trinitrochlorobenzene. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure. to: Figure 2: Adoptive transfer of the CHS-effector cells.

ABBREVIATIONS
ALNs =axillary and inguinal lymph nodes; CHS = contact hypersensitivity reaction; i.v. = intravenously; SPLs = spleens; TNCB = 2,4,6-trinitrochlorobenzene. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.


Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of associated hepatic diseases, previously known or not, in patients with established HF diagnosis, followed in a specialized outpatient clinic. Methods and results: It was an observational study. Patients underwent clinical evaluation, functional class determination, cardiopulmonary, abdominal and lower limbs examination thus laboratory. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed in all patients. The patients were also submitted to hepatic elastography (HE) and, when altered, submitted to abdominal ultrasonography evaluation, to exclude or confirm the presence of liver diseases. Sixty-eight patients (71.6%) had hepatitis A. Two patients (2.1%) had positive serology for the hepatitis C virus and ten (10.5%) for hepatitis B virus and sixteen (16.8%) were protected by hepatitis B vaccine. All patients with liver stiffness (LS)>7.0 kpA, who were twenty-eight (29%), underwent abdominal ultrasonography. The median LS for the entire population was 6.3 (interquartile range 2.5-41.2) kPa. LS correlated with NT-proBNP (r=0.35, p<0.002), total bilirubin (r=0.44, p<0.0001), direct bilirubin (r=0.49, p<0, 0001), alkaline phosphatase (r=0.38, p<0.0001), and GGT (r=0.49, p<0.0001). Conclusion: We found a low frequency of hepatic comorbidities in patients with chronic HF. In addition, we found a large number of patients with altered LS evaluated by HE that was not associated with liver diseases, suggesting that these results are due to hepatic congestion.


The past decade has seen a substantially increased need for animal health professionals who have advanced education in areas that impact on veterinary public health (VPH). The University of Sydney has made a significant contribution to the international capacity for training in this field by developing an online, distance program in Veterinary Public Health Management. This paper describes the distinctive characteristics of this program, which combines technical material in a range of units that influence VPH with leadership and project management. It then describes the educational model developed for delivery of its course material, including the four modalities that are structured to support engaged learning by busy animal health professionals who are working full-time (self-led, facilitator-led, peer-led, and assessment-led instructional approaches). Finally, having reflected on the efficacy of this model for post-graduate training in VPH, we discuss the progress of the program since its inception in 2002, reflecting on the challenges it has encountered and defining the factors that are critical to the success of this program.


A method for producing a shaped body (10) made of glass or glass ceramics comprising the steps of: (a) placing at least two glass blanks (12a, 12b) side by side on a shaped surface (14) of a temperature-resistant Absenkform (13), (b) lowering the glass blanks (12a, 12b) on the shaped surface (14) by heating the Absenkform (13) and the glass blanks (12a, 12b), (c) securing the lowered glass blanks (10a, 10b) together to form the shaped body (10) and (d) lifting off the shaped body (10) from the Absenkform (13). A molded body (10) comprises at least two mutually fixed, by lowering shaped glass blanks (10a, 10b).


Routing protocols for opportunistic social network (OSN) utilize popular nodes to achieve good routing performance with low overhead. This, however, may result in a severe energy consumption imbalance. The existence of Transient Connected Components (TCC) further complicates the problem due to the randomness of TCC's topology. This paper investigates the energy consumption imbalance problem in OSNs with TCCs. We show that TCC-aware routing protocols, despite their superiority in routing performance, suffer from a more severe imbalance problem. We propose an Energy Consumption Balanced Routing protocol, which includes a new metric and a routing protocol independent mechanism. We analytically show that our protocol leads to the convergence of aggregate traffic carried by each node. Through simulation on real world traces, we show that our protocol reduces the energy imbalance by up to 31%, while maintaining comparable routing performance, and that our protocol independent mechanism balances the energy consumption of existing OSN routing protocols.