We investigate the microstructure of copolymer micellar solutions with embedded laponite colloidal particles. The solutions exhibit microscopic confinement of the coated nanoparticles triggered by increasing the temperature above the gelation temperature. The copolymer is pluronic which self-assembles into well-defined nanostructured arrays. These self-assembly properties are governed by copolymer–solvent interaction through temperature. In the presence of laponite nanoparticles, a large amount of copolymer unimers adsorb onto laponite. Above the gelation temperature of the pure copolymer micelles in solution, the study demonstrates that the remaining micelles form three-dimensional polycrystallites and trigger the confinement of the nanoparticles in the interstices between them. This conclusion is supported by phase contrast optical and fluorescence microscopy techniques which show the appearance of well-contrasted grains that form when the temperature increases, with excluded fluorescent nanoparticles from the grains. Finally, the contrast matching small-angle neutron scattering displays the development of an interparticle correlation peak revealing their strong confinement in the sample.


We analyze the kinematic dynamo in a conducting fluid where the stationary shear flow is accompanied by relatively weak random velocity fluctuations. The diffusionless and diffusion regimes are described. The growth rates of the magnetic field moments are related to the statistical characteristics of the flow describing the divergence of Lagrangian trajectories. A degree of anisotropy of the magnetic field is estimated. We demonstrate that Zeldovich's 'antidynamo theorem' is wrong.


A multi-lingual speech corpus used for modeling language acquisition called CAREGIVER has been designed and recorded within the framework of the EU funded Acquisition of Communication and Recognition Skills (ACORNS) project. The paper describes the motivation behind the corpus and its design by relying on current knowledge regarding infant language acquisition. Instead of recording infants and children, the voices of their primary and secondary caregivers were captured in both infant-directed and adult-directed speech modes over four languages in a read speech manner. The challenges and methods applied to obtain similar prompts in terms of complexity and semantics across different languages, as well as the normalized recording procedures employed at different locations, is covered. The corpus contains nearly 66000 utterance based audio files spoken over a two-year period by 17 male and 17 female native speakers of Dutch, English, Finnish, and Swedish. An orthographical transcription is available for every utterance. Also, time-aligned word and phone annotations for many of the sub-corpora also exist. The CAREGIVER corpus will be published via ELRA.


This paper presents the development and implementation of a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) based control system for electrical appliances that enables the complete control of the interface on which it is based. GSM module was used for receiving short message service (SMS) from user's mobile phone that automatically enable the controller to take further action like switching ON and OFF electrical appliances such as fan, air- conditioner, light etc. The system was integrated with microcontroller and GSM network interface using C language. MPLAB software was utilized to accomplish the integration. The system is activated when user sends the SMS to the controller at home (regarded as Smart Home). Upon receiving the SMS command, the microcontroller unit then automatically controls the electrical appliances by switching ON or OFF the device according to the user's order. In other word, it reads message from the mobile phone and respond to control the devices according to the received message.


Childhood stunting, malnutrition, and WASH practices censure millions of people around the globe to a life of drawbacks and physical impairment. Diarrhea and weak development which have interminable effects on well-being of a child are mostly due to malnourishment, dietary deficiency, and exposure to contamination. Stunting is a composite challenge with reactions of those who got affected because of it and the community as a whole. To fasten the process in removing stunting, the efforts required should be broad to reach the level of the sector in nutrition to gear the underlying reasons of malnutrition. To make faster progress in eradicating stunting, more initiatives are required that go beyond dietetics to label the fundamental sources of malnourishment. According to the research reviewed, inadequate WASH situations have a significant detrimental influence on child development and growth, owing to long-term exposure to intestinal pathogens as well as larger social and economic causes. To fully realize the promise of WASH to reduce stunting, attempts to attain a universal approach to these facilities, as envisioned by the Sustainable Development Goals, must be redoubled. It can also necessitate new or converted WASH techniques that can go past typical treatments to target exposure routes in the first 24 months of life when the stunting process is mostly absorbed. The interest is increasing in whether water, sanitary practice, and hygiene (WASH) interference can help plans in reducing stunting and it may also need new and upgraded WASH techniques and plans that should work above the traditional plans in reducing the divulgence of child's early 24 months of life when the procedure of stunting is evaporated.


The age-related consequence of loss of skeletal muscle strength can be evaluated by handgrip force (HGF) tests. The assessment of this parameter is performed with dynamometers and it is frequently used as a functional indicator of different pathologies. During gripping exercises, physiological alterations occur that can be quantified with infrared thermography (IRT), adding information to an individual's health status assessment. This work focus on the use of HGF and IRT measurements to evaluate differences among populations of active and institutionalized individuals, and on the identification of correlations between thermal parameters and HGF measurements. The study's population included 30 active adults and 32 institutionalized individuals. Each performed an established handgrip exercise, mechanically stimulating forearm muscles. IRT images of this body region were recorded during the entire experiment. Three regions of interest (ROIs) were established for thermal image analysis, encompassing the digital flexor muscle region and the wrist ulnar and radial artery zone. Differences between populations were verified for the collected data, showing higher HGF measurements (Maximum force, Average force and Accumulated handgrip work) and elevated skin average temperatures for active adults, when compared to institutionalized participants. Strong correlations between HGF measurements and thermal parameters were also encountered, suggesting its relevance for future research. Thus, the results demonstrate the importance of pairing different types of technologies to increase the range of information and confidence in the results for possible medical applications. Some usages may include the diagnosis, prediction and treatment monitoring of musculoskeletal pathologies, as rheumatoid arthritis, tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.


Introduction
Music is an important component of the information society. It is known that music can render both positive and negative influence on human being and society. However mechanisms of this influence in many respects remain unclear. Network science application to the analysis of pieces of music is an effective approach of modern cognitive technologies and can play an important role in understanding not only problems of music and other kind of information impact on a person, but also other global problems facing of the present society.
The reductionism as research method dominating in modern science, assumes that the studied system can be understood if properties of its elements are described. Music belongs to number of so-called complex systems which don't manage to be described and understood formally by means of such approach.
Methods
Since the end of the last century for studying of complex systems the new effective instrument of research - the theory of complex networks [1] have been developed. Nodes in such networks represent elements of these complex systems, and links between nodes – interactions between elements. Such networks form a peculiar backbones of the relevant complex systems that allows to model such systems in general as a whole and to overcome some shortcomings inherent to a reductionism.
Results and Discussion
The purpose of this presentation is to show that works of music can be described as multilayer networks, which structural and dynamic properties can throw new light on the nature of music as complex system.
A musical melody can be easily converted into a network structure if we take the musical notes of all possible durations as its nodes. It can be easily calculated that the number of nodes in one voce in such network shall not exceed 1800. Indeed, the number of piano keys equals 88; if we multiply it by 20 – the number of all possible time durations of notes (halves, quarters, eights e.t.c.) - we get the number of 1760. Connections between nodes (notes) in the network are established according to chronological principle: if note I starts to sound at the moment in time T, when note J at this particular moment finished to sound, there is a connection between the respective nodes of the network [2].
In our approach the same notes in different octaves belong to different network layers. On an example of " Prelude in A major " by Chopin will be described relationship between melodic and harmonic structures of music. Each of these structures can be represented as networks, and music - view as multilayer network.
We constructed directed network structure for melody of F.Chopin's "Prelude A-Dur". Figure 1 shows melody network of the piece.
Figure 1. Melody network structure for the Frederic Chopin's prelude A-Dur N7 . The thickness of links corresponds to time of repetitions of appropriate musical intervals.
(See PDF version for the Figure).
Harmonic structure of a musical work has qualitatively different structure of relations between notes and should be described as a separate layer. We have created a network of harmonic structure of the Frederic Chopin's prelude A-Dur N7 as the second layer. If a piece of music has polyphonic nature, it is easy to describe this musical work as multilayer network too. Multilayer structure of musical works is the consequence of multilayer organization of the human brain networks. It is assumed to briefly discuss the possible mechanism of emotional influence of music from network science standpoint.
Conclusions
Our understanding of complex systems is always associated with incompleteness of information on their structure and properties. A quantitative measure of incompleteness of information on system is its entropy. Recently in the theory of complex networks methods of calculation of entropy both simple monolayer, and multilayer networks on the basis of generalization of the most fundamental concepts and methods of statistical physics are developed [3, 4]. We are developing entropic approach for investigation of music as complex system now.
Acknowledgments
This work is performed with assistance of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund (grant N 14-04-00369)
References and Notes

Caldarelli, G.; Scale-Free Networks: Complex Webs in Nature and Technology. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England, 2007
   Liu, X., Tse, C., Small, M. Complex network structure of musical compositions: Algorithmic generation of appealing music. Physica A 389, 2010, 126–132
Anand K., Bianconi G, Severini S. Shannon and von Newman entropy of random networks with heterogeneous expected degree. Physical Review E, 83, 2011, 036109 .
Bianconi G. Statistical mechanics of multiplex networks: Entropy and overlap. Physical Review E, 87, 2014, 062806


So far, multi-objective NK landscapes have been investigated under the assumption of a homogeneous nature of the involved objectives in terms of difficulty. However, we argue that problems with heterogeneous objectives, e.g., in terms of multi-modality, can be challenging for multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, and deserve further considerations. In this paper, we propose a model of multi-objective NK landscapes, where each objective has a different degree of variable interactions (K), as a benchmark to investigate heterogeneous multi-objective optimization problems. We show that the use of a rank-annotated neighborhood network with labeled local optimal solutions, together with landscape metrics extracted from the heterogeneous objectives, thoroughly characterize bi-objective NK landscapes with a different level of heterogeneity among the objectives.


The file contains on-farm and on-station agronomy data sets generated in Eastern and Southern Africa between 2010 and 2016 under the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project. The five countries involved were Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. The experimental trials tested the performance of various Conservation Agriculture based maize-legume intercrops or rotations relative to the commonly practiced conventional till farmer practice systems. In most of the tested cropping systems, the conventional farmer practice involved tillage using the moldboard plough, the manual hand hoe or in some cases the ridge and furrow system. Conservation Agriculture involved reduced soil disturbance, provision of soil cover and the use of leguminous crop rotations or intercrops. Crop establishment techniques involved hoe prepared planting basins or stations, ripping using animal traction, direct seeding using the dibble stick, jab planters, or animal traction direct seeding equipment. Crop management in terms of planting date, plant populations, fertilization, pest and weed control, were similar across all tested cropping systems. Experiments were mostly run in the same locations over the seven year period in order to also get an understanding of how the systems performance changed over time. On-station data has 43 variables and 1114 observations On-farm data has 43 variables and 5242 observations


OBJECTIVE
Theoretical conceptualizations of interpersonal dependency and dependent personality disorder suggest that (a) high levels of dependency in parents may increase risk for perpetration of child abuse and neglect and (b) children who are victimized may show elevated levels of dependency later in life. This study used meta-analytic techniques to examine these hypothesized links.

METHOD
A systematic search of psychological and medical online databases revealed 14 published studies (21 effect sizes) examining the link between parental dependency and perpetration of abuse or neglect (overall N of perpetrators = 1,321), and 14 published studies (25 effect sizes) assessing dependency in victims of child abuse and neglect (overall N of victims = 38,265).

RESULTS
The dependency-abuse effect size (d) for perpetrators collapsed across all moderating variables was 0.36, which is considered to be in the medium range. The dependency-victimization effect size (d) collapsed across all moderating variables was 0.29, also a medium effect size.

CONCLUSION
These results support and extend analyses of the relationship between dependency and child maltreatment, and suggest that dependency may be both a precipitant of child maltreatment and consequence of victimization. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed, with suggestions for further research outlined.


Abstract. Due to a growing revolution of the citizen science era with the involvement of non-professionals in scientific tasks such as species observation, yields an opportunistic data for modeling and planning purposes. Such citizen science based scientific observations can be a sustainable option to answer many research questions. Here, citizen science data of the Clamator jacobinus bird is taken from Global Biodiversity Information facility to predict its habitat suitability through maximum entropy approach. The distribution data is divided into two monthly sets – June to October and November to May for critically analysing the probable climatic reasons for its migration and understanding the influence of climatic variables in its suitability during the Indian monsoon season and Southern Africa rainy season. Also, the influential role of different bioclimatic variables in determining the bird's suitability is described in this paper and to predict how this bird will react to different climate change scenarios in 2050 year. The maximum entropy modeling is performed on both sets of data and results are surprisingly interesting, which verifies an Indian myth that this bird is harbinger of the monsoon in India. This study concluded that the precipitation during warmest and wettest quarter, and isothermality are the major factors in determining the migration of Clamator jacobinus, but, hot, dry and cold climate is not suitable for this bird suitability. Such study using the citizen science data can be used in biodiversity planning as well as in improving the agricultural economy because monsoon is considered as an auspicious season for functioning of biodiversity and agricultural tasks.


An automated pretreatment method using column switching technique to determine antibacterials in meat was developed. Antibacterials were divided into three groups and compouds of each group were determined under different condition. The pretreatment column was cooled and sample solvent was diluted with buffer solution using bypass to trap antibacterials efficiently. 2m1 of pork extract was injected. Detection limit was 1ti69ng/g.


Significant improvements in the quality of imagery data available from multibeam echo sounders have recently been made. The intensity time series values are derived from the same transmit beam pattern that produces the sounding values. This sampling approach provides a dataset with co-located bathymetry and imagery. This paper presents examples of seafloor features imaged with both a Klein system 2000 towed side scan sonar and with Reson 8100 series multibeam echo sounders. The multibeam echo sounder imagery presented is derived from the receive beams formed to make the bathymetric measurements. The comparison focuses on depths shallower than 40 metres, and including a variety of terrains surveyed along the northeastern US. The areas investigated include hydrographically significant bottom features and multiple benthic habitats imaged with both types of systems. This paper demonstrates the contribution that can be made when the multibeam echo sounder imagery data is acquired and processed along with the bathymetry data from a multibeam echo sounder. The imagery data can provide complimentary information during the processing and analysis phases of data reduction. While the resulting imagery is not as sharp as the imagery from a towed side scan sonar, the resulting dataset does offer some significant advantages. This approach can support a wide range of survey applications including: hydrography, search and locate, route survey, habitat mapping, and seafloor characterization.


Blood gas measurements and complementary, noninvasive monitoring techniques provide the clinician with information essential to patient assessment, therapeutic decision making, and prognostication. Blood gas measurements are as important for ill newborns as for other critically ill patients, but rapidly changing physiology, difficult access to arterial and mixed venous sampling sites, and small blood volumes present unique challenges. This paper discusses considerations for interpretation of blood gases in the newborn period. Blood gas measurements and noninvasive estimations provide important information about oxygenation. The general goals of oxygen therapy in the neonate are to maintain adequate arterial PaO2 and SaO2, and to minimize cardiac work and the work of breathing. Pulse oximetry and transcutaneous oxygen monitoring are extraordinarily useful techniques of estimating and noninvasively monitoring the neonate's oxygenation, but each method has limitations. Arterial blood gas determinations of pCO2 provide the most accurate determinations of the adequacy of alveolar ventilation, but capillary, transcutaneous, and end-tidal techniques are also useful. An approach to and examples of acid-base disorders are presented. Three hemoglobin variants relevant to the newborn are considered: fetal hemoglobin, carboxyhemoglobin, and methemoglobin. Blood gases obtained in the immediate perinatal period can help assess perinatal asphyxia, but particular attention must be paid to the sampling site, the time of life, and the possible and proven diagnoses.


This article examines how people of color can biologically inherit the deleterious effects of white racism. Drawing primarily on the field of epigenetics, I demonstrate how transgenerational racial disparities are in fact racist disparities that can be manifest physiologically, helping constitute the chemicals, hormones, cells, and fibers of the human body. Epigenetics can be used to demonstrate how white racism can have durable effects on the biological constitution of human beings that are not limited to the specific person who is the target of white racism, but instead extend to that person's offspring. In this way, the field of epigenetics can help philosophers and others understand the transgenerational biological impact of social forces such as white racism. It reveals that the damage done by white racism is more extensive than critical philosophers of race might have realized, and also that interventions against white racism must address not just the economic, geographical, social, and psychological, but also the biological aspects of human existence. In particular, the article examines racist disparities in preterm birth rates and argues that the scope and significance of prenatal care for African American women must be expanded intergenerationally and include wide-scale forms of racial justice.


Background: Complete seal at dentin-sealer-core interface of the root canal is required to maintain long-term periapical health. Aim: The aim of this in vitro scanning electron microscopic (SEM) study was to determine which of the commonly used root canal sealer among AH-Plus, GuttaFlow, and RealSeal provides a superior marginal adaptation with the dentin in the apical third region of root canals. Materials and Methods: Selected 30 human freshly extracted maxillary central incisors were biomechanically prepared, then divided equally into three groups and obturated with AH-Plus, GuttaFlow, and RealSeal using single-cone obturation technique. After sectioning longitudinally, apical third of the roots was observed under SEM; dentin-sealer-core interface was focused. Marginal adaptation and interfacial gaps at dentin-sealer interface of all the samples were evaluated and analyzed statistically in this part of the article. Statistical Analysis Used: Analysis of variance and post hoc Tukey's test. Results: GuttaFlow exhibited least average marginal gap of 2.38 ± 1.43 μm, followed by AH-Plus (4.11 ± 2.85 μm) and RealSeal (4.65 ± 3.91 μm) with no significant difference (P > 0.05) among the groups. Conclusions: As the dentin-sealer interfacial gap is seen to be minimum in GuttaFlow, it is better adapted to dentin in the apical third of root canals compared to AH-Plus and RealSeal.


A real‐time, sensitive, and selective detection device to monitor the healing status of chronic wounds at the point of care is urgently required to render the management of this disease more effective. The photonic properties of porous silicon resonant microcavity (pSiRM) afford an excellent opportunity to be developed as a highly sensitive optical biosensor to monitor the presence of specific biomarkers found in the wound exudate, such as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). In this study, the pSiRM is designed, fabricated, and functionalized using a fluorogenic MMP peptide substrate featuring both a fluorophore and a quencher. The peptide‐functionalized pSiRM is then employed as a fluorescence‐based optical biosensor for MMPs. Active MMPs recognize and cleave the peptide sequence of the substrate, producing an immobilized peptide fragment carrying the fluorophore. The fluorescence intensity of the fluorophore embedded within the pSiRM matrix is enhanced by the photonic structure of the pSiRM compared to other pSi photonic structures. This fluorescence enhancement translates into high sensitivity, enabling detection of MMP‐1 at a limit of detection as low as 7.5 × 10−19 m after only 15 min incubation time. Finally, the biosensor also allows the detection and quantification of the concentration of MMPs in human wound fluid.


Several clinical trials describe the effectiveness of xenogeneic collagen matrix (XCM) as an alternative option to surgical mucogingival procedures for the treatment of marginal tissue recession and augmentation of insufficient zones of keratinized tissue (KT). The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the clinical and patient-centred outcomes of XCM compared to other mucogingival procedures. Applying guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta analyses statement, randomized controlled trials were searched for in electronic databases and complemented by hand searching. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration's Risk of Bias tool and data were analysed using statistical software. A total of 645 studies were identified, of which, six trials were included with 487 mucogingival defects in 170 participants. Overall meta-analysis showed that connective tissue graft (CTG) in conjunction with the coronally advanced flap (CAF) had a significantly higher percentage of complete/mean root coverage and mean recession reduction than XCM. Insufficient evidence was found to determine any significant differences in width of KT between XCM and CTG. The XCM had a significantly higher mean root coverage, recession reduction and gain in KT compared to CAF alone. No significant differences in patient's aesthetic satisfaction were found between XCM and CTG, except for postoperative morbidity in favour of XCM. Operating time was significantly reduced with the use of XCM compared with CTG but not with CAF alone. There is no evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of XCM in achieving greater root coverage, recession reduction and gain in KT compared to CTG plus CAF. Superior short-term results in treating root coverage compared with CAF alone are possible. There is limited evidence that XCM may improve aesthetic satisfaction, reduce postoperative morbidity and shorten the operating time. Further long-term randomized controlled trials are required to endorse the supposed advantages of XCM.


Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and intense. In cities, the urban heat island (UHI) can often intensify extreme heat exposure, presenting a public health challenge across vulnerable populations without access to adaptive measures. Here, we explore the impacts of increasing residential air-conditioning (AC) adoption as one such adaptive measure to extreme heat, with New York City (NYC) as a case study. This study uses AC adoption data from NYC Housing and Vacancy Surveys to study impacts to indoor heat exposure, energy demand, and UHI. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, coupled with a multilayer building environment parameterization and building energy model (BEP–BEM), is used to perform this analysis. The BEP–BEM schemes are modified to account for partial AC use and used to analyze current and full AC adoption scenarios. A city-scale case study is performed over the summer months of June–August 2018, which includes three different extreme heat events. Simulation results show good agreement with surface weather stations. We show that increasing AC systems to 100% usage across NYC results in a peak energy demand increase of 20%, while increasing UHI on average by 0.42 °C. Results highlight potential trade-offs in extreme heat adaptation strategies for cities, which may be necessary in the context of increasing extreme heat events.


Purpose
The purpose of this study is to construct quartic trigonometric tension (QTT) B-spline collocation algorithms for the numerical solutions of the Coupled Burgers' equation.

Design/methodology/approach
The finite elements method (FEM) is a numerical method for obtaining an approximate solution of partial differential equations (PDEs). The development of high-speed computers enables to development FEM to solve PDEs on both complex domain and complicated boundary conditions. It also provides higher-order approximation which consists of a vector of coefficients multiplied by a set of basis functions. FEM with the B-splines is efficient due both to giving a smaller system of algebraic equations that has lower computational complexity and providing higher-order continuous approximation depending on using the B-splines of high degree.

Findings
The result of the test problems indicates the reliability of the method to get solutions to the CBE. QTT B-spline collocation approach has convergence order 3 in space and order 1 in time. So that nonpolynomial splines provide smooth solutions during the run of the program.

Originality/value
There are few numerical methods build-up using the trigonometric tension spline for solving differential equations. The tension B-spline collocation method is used for finding the solution of Coupled Burgers' equation.


Supplemental digital content is available in the text. Objectives Severe depression is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia, however, whether treatment with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) modify this risk remains unknown. Methods In this matched cohort study, 1089 consecutive in-patients with affective disorders, receiving ECT during the period 1982 to 2000, were matched with 3011 in-patients with affective disorders not treated with ECT (non-ECT), and 108,867 individuals randomly selected from the background population. The comparison cohorts were matched on sex, age, and the non-ECT cohort was further matched according to diagnoses and admission period and hospital. Dementia diagnoses were retrieved from the national patient health registry. Analyses were adjusted for disease severity, somatic, and psychiatric comorbidities. Results The cumulative incidence of dementia was 13.45% (10.75–16.46%) in the ECT cohort after 34 years of follow-up, 10.53% (8.5–12.81%) in the non-ECT cohort, and 8.43% (8.17–8.7%) in the background cohort. Using the ECT cohort as reference and age as the underlying time scale, the adjusted hazard ratio of developing dementia was 0.73 (0.52–1.04) in the non-ECT cohort and 0.61 (0.49–0.76) in the background cohort. The stratified analysis based on age at index (<65 years; 65–80 years; >80 years) found no age-related difference in the risk of developing dementia between the ECT cohort and non-ECT cohort. Conclusions The ECT treatment of affective disorders was not associated with an increased long-term risk of developing dementia compared with in-patients with affective disorders not treated with ECT.


This paper proposes a novel methodology for LiDAR point cloud processing that takes advantage of the implicit topology of various LiDAR sensors to derive 2D images from the point cloud while bringing spatial structure to each point. The interest of such a methodology is then proved by addressing the problems of segmentation and disocclusion of mobile objects in 3D LiDAR scenes acquired via street-based Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS). Most of the existing lines of research tackle those problems directly in the 3D space. This work promotes an alternative approach by using this image representation of the 3D point cloud, taking advantage of the fact that the problem of disocclusion has been intensively studied in the 2D image processing community over the past decade. Using the image derived from the sensor data by exploiting the sensor topology, a semi-automatic segmentation procedure based on depth histograms is presented. Then, a variational image inpainting technique is introduced to reconstruct the areas that are occluded by objects. Experiments and validation on real data prove the effectiveness of this methodology both in terms of accuracy and speed.


Experiments performed on male rats with chronically implanted electrochemotrodes showed bemitil (12.5 and 25.0 mg/kg, intra-abdominally, 24 h prior to the locus creation) suppresses he pathological activity of (100 ED) epileptogenic locus induced by he sodium salt of penicillin in the hippocampus of the animals. Probable mechanisms of antiepileptic action of bemitil are considered.


Given the capacity of self-renewal and multilineage differentiation, stem cells are promising sources for use in regenerative medicines as well as in the clinical treatment of certain hematological malignancies and degenerative diseases. Complex networks of cellular signaling pathways largely determine stem cell fate and function. Small molecules that modulate these pathways can provide important biological and pharmacological insights. However, it is still challenging to identify the specific protein targets of these compounds, to explore the changes in stem cell phenotypes induced by compound treatment and to ascertain compound mechanisms of action. To facilitate stem cell related small molecule study and provide a better understanding of the associated signaling pathways, we have constructed a comprehensive domain-specific chemogenomics resource, called StemCellCKB ( http://www.cbligand.org/StemCellCKB/ ). This new cloud-computing platform describes the chemical molecules, genes, proteins, and signaling pathways implicated in stem cell regulation. StemCellCKB is also implemented with web applications designed specifically to aid in the identification of stem cell relevant protein targets, including TargetHunter, a machine-learning algorithm for predicting small molecule targets based on molecular fingerprints, and HTDocking, a high-throughput docking module for target prediction and systems-pharmacology analyses. We have systematically tested StemCellCKB to verify data integrity. Target-prediction accuracy has also been validated against the reported known target/compound associations. This proof-of-concept example demonstrates that StemCellCKB can (1) accurately predict the macromolecular targets of existing stem cell modulators and (2) identify novel small molecules capable of probing stem cell signaling mechanisms, for use in systems-pharmacology studies. StemCellCKB facilitates the exploration and exchange of stem cell chemogenomics data among members of the broader research community.


The long-term immunogenicity of universal hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine is seldom studied in large-scale prospective community-based populations, especially in adolescents. This study enrolled 1200 children aged 7 years with complete HBV immunization in infancy and determined HBV surface antigen (HBsAg), its antibody (anti-HBs), and HBV core antibody (anti-HBc) annually until the children were aged 14 years. Eleven children had new HBV infections with anti-HBc positivity as the only marker. None became positive for HBsAg or had detectable HBV DNA by polymerase chain reaction. The percentage of protective anti-HBs in 951 children without booster vaccination gradually decreased from 71.1% at age 7 years to 37.4% at age 12 years. Only 1 of the 200 children in the booster group and 2 of the 258 children in the nonbooster group developed new anti-HBc positivity. The results suggest that routine booster vaccination may not be required to provide protection against chronic HBV infection before age 15 years.


This paper explores the evolution of idealized tropical cyclones in the Community Atmosphere Model CAM 5 with the spectral element (SE) dynamical core at grid spacings of 111, 55 and 28 km. Over 10 simulation days the storms become increasingly intense and compact with increasing resolution. The experiments reveal unrealistically strong tropical cyclone intensities of minimum surface pressures ranging from 845 to 865 hPa and absolute maximum wind speeds greater than 100 m s−1 at the highest resolution, especially when small physics time steps are used. This unphysical behavior is related to the manner in which the physics time step is applied in CAM 5. The analysis indicates that the behavior of the physics parameterizations, namely the partitioning between convective and large‐scale precipitation, at small time steps contributes to this intensity. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society


BACKGROUND Chemotherapy is a standard strategy for stage IV gastric cancer patients. However, some cases cannot undergo conversion surgery because of their frailty, even if the patients had response to chemotherapy. For these patients, local tumor progression is a problem. We report here the case of a patient whose residual gastric cancer was resected through endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) after concomitant chemotherapy for metastatic gastric cancer. CASE SUMMARY An 85-year-old male complained of difficulty swallowing, and examination revealed gastric cancer with multiple liver metastases. Although he received concomitant chemotherapy, a residual tumor was observed in the primary lesion while the metastatic lesions disappeared completely. Conversion surgery was considered optional treatment; however, he could not undergo that because of advanced age and comorbidities. Thus, we performed ESD to treat the residual tumor. As a result, we resected the residual lesion completely. The patient has been alive for 29 mo since ESD, without recurrence. CONCLUSION We achieved local control using ESD, and these findings may provide therapeutic improvements both in local control and patient survival outcomes.


Background Immunogenic cell death has been suggested as a mechanism for HIPEC, through the release of heat shock proteins, and resulting in activation of tumor-specific T cells. Methods This is a subgroup analysis of a Phase I trial using HIPEC with cisplatin 75 mg/m2 at time of optimal cytoreduction. Metastatic tumors from nine ovarian cancer patients were collected intraoperatively before and after HIPEC. Differentially expressed genes and pathways of pre- and post-HIPEC tumors were analyzed via whole-transcriptome sequencing (WTS). Immunofluorescent (IF) staining and multispectral imaging were used to determine composition and PD-1 expression of CD8+ and conventional CD4+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), using antibodies against CD8, FOXP3, PD-1, and pancytokeratin (to distinguish cancer islands from stroma). Kaplan-Meier and log-rank tests compared the overall and progression free survivals (PFS) of patients with low versus high%PD-1 changes, based on dichotomization with respect to the median%PD-1 change. Results Heatshock proteins comprised the top differentially upregulated genes in HIPEC-treated tumors. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed significant upregulation of immune pathways, including antigen processing/presentation. IF staining demonstrated increased%PD-1 in cancer islands of CD8+ and CD4+ TILs after HIPEC. In stroma, the largest%PD-1 change occurs in an exceptional responder (PFS, OS 5 years), while the lowest%PD-1 change occurred in a poor responder. Kaplan-Meier curves demonstrate superior PFS in patients with high stromal PD-1 changes in TILs after HIPEC. Conclusions Increased PD-1 expression after HIPEC suggests early HIPEC-induced T cell activation, and is associated with improved survival, implicating a potential future role for PD-1 inhibitors following HIPEC in ovarian cancer.


In machine learning and statistical data analysis, we often run into objective function that is a summation: the number of terms in the summation possibly is equal to the sample size, which can be enormous. In such a setting, the stochastic mirror descent (SMD) algorithm is a numerically efficient method—each iteration involving a very small subset of the data. The variance reduction version of SMD (VRSMD) can further improve SMD by inducing faster convergence. On the other hand, algorithms such as gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent have the implicit regularization property that leads to better performance in terms of the generalization errors. Little is known on whether such a property holds for VRSMD. We prove here that the discrete VRSMD estimator sequence converges to the minimum mirror interpolant in the linear regression. This establishes the implicit regularization property for VRSMD. As an application of the above result, we derive a model estimation accuracy result in the setting when the true model is sparse. We use numerical examples to illustrate the empirical power of VRSMD.


South Africa boasts an advanced real estate market compared toot her African countries. A recent study showed that the real estate sector has strong linkages toot her leading sectors in Gauteng's regional economy; its contribution through multiplier effects because of these inter-sectoral linkages is enormous. The real estate sector directly contributed substantially to economic development; constituting 17% of regional employment and 16.6% (159,968.1 million Rand) of the region's total GVA (Vom Hofe and Cheruiyot 2018). Moreover, with past evidence, especially where initial shocks in the real estate markets–following the 2008/09 financial crisis–led to massive macro-economic instabilities and economic decline, motivate for a need to understand in more detail the size and inter-sectoral linkages of real estate sector if regional economies are continually to formulate economic resilient strategies. This paper will use Quantec economic data as well as employ principal component analysis to decompose Gauteng's SAM to measure the size and identify inter-sectoral linkages of real estate sector. Possible policy recommendations will be suggested.


Patellar fractures in children are uncommon and represent 1% of all pediatric fractures1-3. Of all patellar fractures, less than 2% occur in the skeletally immature patient2. Intra-articular dislocation of the patella is also a rare occurrence. Sleeve fractures represent the most common type of patellar fracture in children2, with most reported cases involving sleeve fractures of the inferior patellar pole. To our knowledge, only two cases of sleeve fractures of the superior pole have been reported in the English-language literature4,5 and the association of a sleeve fracture of the superior patellar pole with an intra-articular dislocation of the patella has not been previously reported. Our patient and his family were informed that data concerning the case would be submitted for publication, and they consented.

A fourteen-year-old boy presented to our institution after sustaining a direct blow to the suprapatellar area of the right knee. The injury occurred as a result of the knee striking a concrete block while the patient was swinging on a rope. Following the injury, the boy was unable to walk and could not move the right knee. Examination revealed bruising of the anterior aspect of the knee and an unusual shape of the patella. The patient could neither perform a straight leg raise nor flex the knee. Radiographs of the knee revealed an intra-articular dislocation of the patella (Figs. 1-A and 1-B). In the lateral projection (Fig. 1-B), the patella was seen to be lying in a transverse position, with the articular surface facing in a distal direction.

Fig. 1-A Fig. 1-B
Preoperative anteroposterior (Fig. 1-A) and lateral (Fig. 1-B) radiographs of the knee, showing the transverse orientation of the patella with the articular surface facing in a distal direction.

With the patient under intravenous morphine sedation, the patella …


would have been formed in the present case; if, there. fore, the collection of dumb-bell crystals had been washed out of the kidney soon after their formation by diluents, the further precipitation of calculous matter would have been entirely prevented. It is important that we should make numerous observations on the nuclei of various calculi, and endeavour to determine their exact nature by microscopical investigation and by the application of chemical tests. In this inquiry you will find it advantageous to take the smallest calculi and examine them as soon as possible after they have been passed. After they have become dry, it is, in many cases, quite useless to attempt investigations on the nature of the nucleus.


In 1972, European social psychologist Serge Moscovici (1972/2000) claimed that a discipline could not remain in good health if it prioritised the way questions were investigated over the way in which questions were asked. This chapter addresses issues around the questions that critical psychology has asked and the ways in which these questions have been investigated. In doing so it traces some of the paths that critical research has followed on the road to institutionalisation. More specifically, the chapter asks what are the methods that can be found in a critical researcheri?½s i?½toolboxi?½? Which are absent? What vicissitudes in critical research are reflected by these representations? In conducting research, how much consideration should be given to resonances or dissonances with work that does not carry the critical i?½brandi?½? This enquiry into method raises obvious questions around epistemology, but also around politics and the way it is practiced within the academy. How do claims become legitimised? How can my way become the way to do research? To conclude, the chapter touches on the implications that these choices might have for future practice.


The purpose of the article is to investigate the development of Ukrainian cinema, taking into account historical events and realities, in which took place the of national cinema emergence. Trace the conditions for the new wave of young kin and the emergence of a new hero. Highlighting the historical events of Ukraine at the present stage, which not only changed the ideology of the country, but also became the impetus for new themes in cinema. The research methodology . The analytical and comparative analyses were conducted in the study of Ukrainian cinematography and the following research methods have been applied, namely: methods for comparing different spatial variants in the framework of a single screen reality. A descriptive method, which is based on a detailed description of the plot, characters and the essence of the conflict; a structural method of which is inherent symbiosis with synergetic; contextual method exists on the basis of studying the context of the art work. The scientific novelty of the article consists in finding new names of young cinema heroes at the present stage of Ukrainian cinema development. Conclusions . The article presents material on the study of Ukrainian cinema, as of historical events of the last day and at the present stage, taking into account the emergence of the young generation and the new hero on the screen.


The problem of specifying the minimum magnitude of the maximum electric field over an azimuthally symmetric slotted cylinder subject to the constraint of a specified radiated power into a given wedge angle is treated. Aperture bounds are presented for both the TE, TM and the general TE/TM excitation of the slot. The degree to which these bounds are attainable is discussed, and their relationship to uniform illumination of the aperture is examined. The problem of synthesizing a specified field pattern over the given angle is also treated.


Fruit ripening has direct implications to a significant component of human diets, nutrition and agriculture. While ripening brings about positive changes in fruit physiology and chemistry in terms of flavor, appearance, texture and nutrition, over-ripening leads to post-harvest loss and decreased fruit quality. Researchers have studied numerous species with the intent of identifying strategies and technologies toward improving desirable ripening attributes while minimizing those with negative consequences. Tomato has emerged as a model for fleshy fruit ripening, in. part due to simple genetics, numerous characterized mutants, cross-fertile wild germplasm to facilitate genetic studies and routine transformation technology. In recent years, the tomato system has been further complemented with dense genetic maps, large EST collections and the recently initiated genome sequencing effort. Here we summarize recent advances in understanding the genetic regulation of fruit ripening and current and developing genomics tools that will impact this model system in the coming decade.


We make the case for investigating the gap between the potential and the actual level of production, and review contributions that point to the reduced power of standard policy in- struments in presence of a prolonged gap. We also highlight di¢ culties in measuring where an economy stands relative to its potential. We review links between human capital accumulation and technology, and sketch a basic Schumpeterian model that puts at the center stage of the growth process investments in innovation and the foundation of new Orms, arguably two key sources of growth that could revitalize the faltering European Economies. The gap between the short and long run behavior is illustrated through quantitative experiments.


Objective. To evaluate students' performance/attitudes toward a flipped team-based learning (TBL) format in a "very large" self-care course based on student content delivery preference. Design. Third-year students enrolled in the course were surveyed regarding elements of redesign and homework completion. Additionally, their performance and incoming grade point average were evaluated. Assessment. A survey was completed by 286 of 305 students. Nineteen percent of respondents preferred traditional content delivery, whereas 30% preferred flipped TBL, 48% preferred a mixed format, and 3% had no preference. The grades achieved in the course were: A (49%), B (48%), C (3%) and D (0%). The majority completed "all" or "most" of the homework, appreciated attributes of course redesign, felt home preparation and in-class activities engaged them, and reported improved communication/evaluation skills. Content delivery preference significantly affected attitudes. Conclusion. Students positively received a flipped team-based learning classroom format, especially those who preferred flipped TBL or mixed content delivery. A minority with preference for traditional teaching style did not enjoy the new format; however, their academic performance did not differ significantly from those who did.


A high-performance liquid chromatographic procedure was developed for determination of T-3761 in human serum and urine. The method was based on column switching for serum, and direct injection for urine. The peaks were monitored by ultraviolet detection. The calibration curve was linear and quantitative in the concentration range of 0.01-30 micrograms/ml for serum and 0.5-900 micrograms/ml for urine. The intra-assay coefficient of variation was less than 7%. The intra-day and inter-day coefficient of variation were less than 4%.


Multiple sclerosis is a CD4 + T cell-mediated autoimmune disease affecting the CNS. Multiple sclerosis and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), have been thought to be Th1-mediated diseases. However, recent studies provide strong evidence that the major pathogenic T cell subsets in EAE are Th17 cells. IL-9, a hematopoietic growth factor, is considered to be a mediator of Th17 cells, but the precise mechanisms of its action are largely unknown. The present study was designed to investigate the role of IL-9 in autoimmune demyelination. IL-9 blockade with anti–IL-9 mAb inhibited the development of EAE, reduced the serum levels of IL-17, the CNS mRNA expression of IL-17, IL-6, IFN- g , and TNF- a , and the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)-induced IL-17, IFN- g secretion of lymphocytes. Furthermore, anti–IL-9 mAb in culture suppressed IL-17 production of MOG-reactive T cells and their potency in adoptive transfer EAE. These findings indicate that the protective effect of IL-9 blockade in EAE was likely mediated via inhibition of the development of MOG peptide-specific T cells, which in turn led to reduced infiltration of T cells into the CNS. Thus, anti–IL-9 mAb treatment may provide an effective therapeutic strategy against autoimmune diseases. The Journal of Immunology , 2010, 185: 000–000.


Introduction Globally, tuberculosis takes the first rank for the ill-health of people living with HIV/AIDS. Despite the favorable outcome of antiretroviral therapy, the risk of tuberculosis remains higher among HIV patients. This obliges to identify factors for its occurrence and further prevention of drug-resistant tuberculosis. There is a contradiction between different studies and studies conducted in Ethiopia studied poorly the association between adherence to antiretroviral therapy and viral load with tuberculosis. Studies conducted in the study area were limited to cross-sectional study design. Therefore, this study claimed to identify factors determining the occurrence of tuberculosis after initiation of antiretroviral therapy. Methods This study was conducted at Dessie Referral Hospital by using a case-control study design on a sample of 565 with a control: case ratio of 3:1. Participants from controls were selected by systematic random sampling and from cases by consecutive random sampling. The data were collected by interviewing through structured questionnaires and from the medical record. The data were entered into Epi data version 3.1. In the multivariable analysis, variables with a P-value of ≤0.05 were anticipated as independent determinant factors. Result Patients without separate kitchen (AOR: 3.547, 95% CI: 2.137, 5.888), having opportunistic infection (AOR: 3.728, 95% CI: 2.058, 6.753), CD4 count of <350 cells/mm3 (AOR: 3.383, 95% CI: 1.520, 7.528), baseline WHO stage III (AOR: 3.321, 95% CI: 1.688, 6.534) or IV (AOR: 2.900, 95% CI: 1.251, 6.722), don't taking IPT (AOR: 3.701, 95% CI: 2.228, 6.147) and those who were poorly adherent (AOR: 2.626, 95% CI: 1.272, 5.423) or moderately adherent (AOR: 3.455, 95% CI: 1.885, 6.335) to anti-retroviral therapy were more likely to develop tuberculosis after anti-retroviral therapy initiation. Conclusion Poor housing conditions, having an opportunistic infection, low CD4 count, starting ART at the advanced HIV stage, don't take IPT, and being poorly adherent to antiretroviral therapy were associated with the occurrence of TB after initiation of ART. The institution should screen for TB as early as possible and strictly follow their drug adherence.


The detection of groups of people is attracting the attention of many researchers in diverse fields, with a growing number of approaches published each year; despite this, the evaluation metrics are not consolidated, with some measures inherited from the people detection fields, other ones designed specifically for a particular approach, generating a set of not comparable figure of merits. Moreover, existent methods of analysis are scarcely expressive, for example ignoring the fact that groups have different cardinalities, and that obviously larger groups are harder to find. This paper fills this gap presenting GRODE, a suite of measures of accuracy which defines precision and recall on the groups, including the group cardinality as variable. This gives the possibility to investigate aspects never considered so far, such as the tendency of a method of over- or under-segmenting groups, or of better dealing with specific group cardinalities. The metrics have been applied to all the publicly available approaches of group detection, discovering interesting strength and pitfalls of the current literature, and promoting further research in the field.


Earth dams are subject to external loading that induce deformation in the structure and its foundation. The self weight of the dam together with the reservoir water pressure induce stresses in the structure and with time creates horizontal and vertical displacement in the structure. In this study, analysis of the measurement data obtained by differential GPS at the Ikpoba River Dam was carried out. The measurement system consisted of 19 control and reference stations. DGPS data were collected during two measurement campaigns carried out in 2008 and 2009 respectively using five dual frequency receivers. The computation and adjustment of each epoch measurement was carried out separately in the first instance. Thereafter simultaneous adjustment using the two measurement epoch data was carried out.Points displacements were then determined and 95% confidence ellipse used to carry out an analysis of the movement vector. Analysis of the result indicated that nine of the points have moved in horizontal position while no horizontal movements have taken place in 10 locations. On the other hand, vertical shift has occurred in seven locations whereas no vertical movement has taken place in 13 locations both outside and along the Dam crest. Journal of the Nigerian Association of Mathematical Physics , Volume 19 (November, 2011), pp 493 – 498


HYPOTHESIS
The magnitude of risk would be highest for those reporting both types of abuse compared with those reporting 1 type or none.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the independent associations between physical or sexual abuse or both and self-reported health status, mental health, and health-risk behaviors among a national school-based sample of adolescent girls.

DESIGN
A secondary data analysis of a cross-sectional survey.

SETTING
A nationally representative sample of 3015 girls in grades 5 through 12 from 265 public, private, and parochial schools (with an oversampling of urban schools) completed an anonymous survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund Adolescent Health Survey.

PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS
Girls were eligible for this study if they responded to 2 questions assessing past physical and sexual abuse.

RESULTS
Among the respondents, 246 (8%) reported a history of physical abuse; 140 (5%), sexual abuse; and 160 (5%), both. Logistic regression controlling for grade, ethnicity, family structure, and socioeconomic status found that those who reported both types of abuse compared with those who did not report any were significantly more likely to experience moderate to severe depressive symptoms (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 5.10), moderate to high levels of life stress (AOR, 3.28), regular smoking (AOR, 5.90), regular alcohol consumption (AOR, 3.76), use of other illicit drugs in the past 30 days (AOR, 3.44), and fair to poor health status (AOR, 1.74). Finally, girls who reported both types of abuse were 2.07 times more likely to report moderate to high depressive symptoms compared with those reporting only sexual abuse (95% confidence interval, 1.14-3.74).

CONCLUSIONS
The magnitude of risk for adolescents reporting both types of abuse compared with no abuse is much greater than that for either abuse type alone. However, compared with both types, no significant increase in risk was detected in those reporting physical abuse only, and only depressive symptoms increased in those reporting sexual abuse only.


Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light is critical for the study of molecules and materials, but the generation of femtosecond pulses in the VUV region at high repetition rates has proven difficult. Here, we demonstrate the efficient generation of VUV light at MHz repetition rates using highly cascaded four-wave mixing processes in a negative-curvature hollow-core fiber. Both even and odd order harmonics are generated up to the 15th harmonic (69 nm, 18.0 eV), with high energy resolution of ~40 meV. In contrast to direct high harmonic generation, this highly cascaded harmonic generation process requires lower peak intensity and therefore can operate at higher repetition rates, driven by a robust ~10 W fiber-laser system in a compact setup. Additionally, we present numerical simulations that explore the fundamental capabilities and spatiotemporal dynamics of highly cascaded harmonic generation. This VUV source can enhance the capabilities of spectroscopies of molecular and quantum materials, such as photoionization mass spectrometry and time , angle , and spin-resolved photoemission.


Introduction: In order to advance a primary cell culture model of human colonic carcinogenesis we developed methods for the isolation and in vitro maintenance of intact colonic crypts from normal human colon tissue and adenomatous polyps. Methods: Fresh biopsy samples were transported in culture medium containing 1.5mM Ca 2+ and antimicrobials. The mucosa/submucosa was surgically separated from the muscularis propria and incubated in 10mM dithiothreitol followed by 8mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. Crypts were agitated free, washed with slow spins, and immediately embedded in a 3-dimensional environment at a density of 50 crypts/50μl Matrigel. After 3 hours, media was replaced to remove non-viable cellular products. Serum-free medium, containing low Ca 2+ (0.15mM), was used to maintain crypt cultures. Cell proliferation and differentiation were assessed with markers Ki67 and E-cadherin by confocal microscopy. The fluorescence signal was quantified for the bottom 1/3 of the crypts (35 cells from base on one crypt edge) using morphometric imaging software. In parallel studies, abnormal crypt-like structures were isolated from adenomatous polyps/adenocarcinoma and maintained in a similar culture system. Results: At day-1 in culture, Ki67 expression was strong in the proliferating cells at the crypt base, with E-cadherin staining increasing towards the crypt apex. By day-3, E-cadherin expression became much more prominent and Ki67 decreased dramatically. This culture system preserved the in vivo phenotype of the crypts and allowed for the colonic epithelial cells to follow the physiological sequence of progression from proliferation to differentiation. Adenomatous tissue in culture at day-1 showed expression for Ki67 and E-cadherin but lacked spacial organization. Conclusion: Intact colonic crypts from normal and abnormal human mucosa can be viably maintained in 3-D culture for 72 hours. This primary human in vitro 3-D model may be used to model efficacy of colonic cancer chemopreventives. Citation Format: Michael K. Dame, Yan Jiang, Danielle Kim Turgeon, Henry Appelman, Muhammad N. Aslam, Kelly Copley, Durga Attili, Dean E. Brenner, James Varani. Human colon mucosal crypts in culture: a model to assess colon chemoprevention. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3711. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-3711


P300 Speller is a P300-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), which help users write the desired characters to the computer screen by detecting the P300 event-related potentials in users' electroencephalographic (EEG). This article proposes a feature extraction method for P300 detection. This method combines discrete wavelet transform (DWT) with Fisher criterion. This method, firstly transforms the EEG signal into wavelet domain by DWT. Then, the feature space where best distinguish two kinds of EEG signals will be found by means of Fisher criterion. Finally, a feature extraction matrix will be constructed to extract feature vector from EEG signals. The method was tested on EEG data that obtained by P300 Speller paradigm. The result shows that, the proposed method is better than the existing method used in BCI2000, in terms of averaged accuracy over 238 runs.


Amlena is a branded mineralo-herbal drug used to treat peptic ulcers. Purpose of our study was to explore the acute and sub-acute oral toxicities of drug Amlena in experimental rats. In acute toxicity studies the drug Amlena 5000 mg/kg was administered orally, observed after 1hr dosing and also observed for 14 days. In sub- chronic oral toxicity study, evaluations were carried out after administering daily oral doses of 500 and 1000 mg/kg body wt., for 28 days to the rats. Biochemical and haematological assessments as well as body and relative organ weights of the rats, gross necropsy was carried out. Results were statistically analysed using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the level of significance set at P < 0.05. The limit dose of 5000 mg/kg did not cause any mortality or signs of acute toxicity in the rats tested during the observation period. In the sub-chronic tests, the results did not show any significant variations in terms of haematological and biochemical parameters. The weekly body and organ weight of the rats showed no statistically significant differences between the control and treated rats.


Background Scleroderma is a chronic connective tissue disease of unknown aetiology. In early stages, vascular injury and inflammation lead to fibrosis, resulting in irreversible damage in various organs. Inflammation is believed to be necessary in order to activate fibroblasts to over-produce extracellular matrix components. At the present, there is no effective standard treatment to reverse or slow down the progression of scleroderma but one of the feasible approaches is to target key inflammatory pathways that are involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. MKP-1 (Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Phosphatase-1) is a nuclear phosphatase present in most cell types and tissues. Studies with MKP-1 deficient mice have undoubtedly shown that MKP-1 is an important regulator of innate and adaptive immune responses to limit and suppress inflammation (1) but its role in fibrosing diseases has not been studied. Objectives In the present study, we aimed to investigate the potential protective role of MKP-1 in the pathogenesis of scleroderma by using MKP-1 deficient mice and a widely studied experimental model of scleroderma. Methods We used bleomycin-induced dermal fibrosis in the mouse as an experimental model of scleroderma (2). Wild type (WT) and MKP-1 deficient mice were injected subcutaneously with bleomycin every other day for 28 days. Dermal thickness and collagen accumulation were determined by histological analyses. The expression of several inflammatory and pro-fibrotic mediators were measured by quantitative RT-PCR. Results We found that bleomycin-induced dermal thickness and lipodystrophy were increased in MKP-1 deficient mice. Collagen accumulation in the dermis and mRNA expression of collagens 1A1 and 3A1 were enhanced in the skin from MKP-1 deficient mice as compared to the skin from WT animals. Affected skin from MKP-1 deficient mice presented increased expression of factors related to inflammation and fibrosis, namely IL-6, TGF-β1, fibronectin-1 and YKL-40 as well as chemokines MCP-1, MIP-1α and MIP-2. Conclusions This study demonstrates, for the first time, that MKP-1 deficient mice develop more severe bleomycin-induced dermal fibrosis than their WT counterparts, indicating that MKP-1 regulates the inflammatory and fibrotic processes typical for experimentally-induced scleroderma. These findings suggest that compounds which enhance expression/activity of MKP-1 have potential as novel drugs for the stage-specific modulation of the pathogenesis of scleroderma. References Korhonen R, Moilanen E. Mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase 1 as an inflammatory factor and drug target. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2014; 114:24–36. Yamamoto T et al. Animal model of sclerotic skin. I: Local injections of bleomycin induce sclerotic skin mimicking scleroderma. J Invest Dermatol. 1999; 112:456–62. Disclosure of Interest None declared


The role that epigenetic mechanisms play in phenomena such as cellular differentiation during embryonic development, X chromosome inactivation, and cancers is well-characterized. Epigenetic mechanisms have been implicated to be the mediators of several functions in the nervous system such as in neuronal-glial differentiation, adult neurogenesis, the modulation of neural behavior and neural plasticity, and also in higher brain functions like cognition and memory. Its particular role in explaining the importance of early life/social experiences on adult behavioral patterns has caught the attention of scientists and has spawned the exciting new field of behavioral epigenetics which may hold the key to explaining many complex behavioral paradigms. Epigenetic deregulation is known to be central in the etiology of several neuropsychiatric disorders which underscore the importance of understanding these mechanisms more thoroughly to elucidate novel and effective therapeutic approaches. In this review we present an overview of the findings which point to the essential role played by epigenetics in the vertebrate nervous system.


In a situation where multiple sound sources are concurrently active, the signals of the individual sources often overlap in time and in frequency. This is particularly likely for voiced instruments where the frequencies of some of the partials of one single note coincide with the frequencies of some of the partials of another instrument playing a harmonically related note. A source separation algorithm suitable for musical applications must address the problem of overlapping partials. A method is proposed for the separation of overlapping narrow-band partials in multichannel mixtures. The method is based on the observation that, for many instruments, all the partials of a single note have similar temporal envelopes. For narrow band partials these similarities can be exploited in order to estimate demixing matrices in the frequency domain. Effectively, one can recover estimates of the original partials from a multichannel mixture where they overlap. The method is computationally efficient in that it works on highly downsampled narrow frequency bands. It performs well for closely spaced and colliding partials, and (to some extent) also for frequency modulations such as vibrato effects.


We present a method to generate virtual woodblocks for virtual printing from a gray value image or a full-color image. In this method, a virtual board is carved automatically by the virtual sculpting system extracting features or colors of the given image. A printing image is synthesized using the woodblock in the virtual printing system. Using a gray value image as a draft, the sculpting system generates one virtual woodblock that expresses gray values with carving marks, and the draft image can be transformed into another one like a woodblock print by using it in the printing system. Using a full-color image, several virtual woodblocks for each color of ink are generated, and we can synthesize a multi-colored woodblock print by printing a virtual paper sheet with virtual woodblocks for each color one after another. The methods we propose here are useful in synthesizing non-photorealistic images with computer graphics.


Video Question Answering is a task which requires an AI agent to answer questions grounded in video. This task entails three key challenges: (1) understand the intention of various questions, (2) capturing various elements of the input video (e.g., object, action, causality), and (3) cross-modal grounding between language and vision information. We propose Motion-Appearance Synergistic Networks (MASN), which embed two cross-modal features grounded on motion and appearance information and selectively utilize them depending on the question's intentions. MASN consists of a motion module, an appearance module, and a motion-appearance fusion module. The motion module computes the action-oriented cross-modal joint representations, while the appearance module focuses on the appearance aspect of the input video. Finally, the motion-appearance fusion module takes each output of the motion module and the appearance module as input, and performs question-guided fusion. As a result, MASN achieves new state-of-the-art performance on the TGIF-QA and MSVD-QA datasets. We also conduct qualitative analysis by visualizing the inference results of MASN.


ABSTRACT Increasing environmental pollution in urban areas has been endangering the survival of carbonate stones in monuments and statuary for many decades. Numerous conservation treatments have been applied for the protection and consolidation of these works of art. Most of them, however, either release dangerous gases during curing or show very little efficacy. Bacterially induced carbonate mineralization has been proposed as a novel and environmentally friendly strategy for the conservation of deteriorated ornamental stone. However, the method appeared to display insufficient consolidation and plugging of pores. Here we report that Myxococcus xanthus-induced calcium carbonate precipitation efficiently protects and consolidates porous ornamental limestone. The newly formed carbonate cements calcite grains by depositing on the walls of the pores without plugging them. Sonication tests demonstrate that these new carbonate crystals are strongly attached to the substratum, mostly due to epitaxial growth on preexisting calcite grains. The new crystals are more stress resistant than the calcite grains of the original stone because they are organic-inorganic composites. Variations in the phosphate concentrations of the culture medium lead to changes in local pH and bacterial productivity. These affect the structure of the new cement and the type of precipitated CaCO3 polymorph (vaterite or calcite). The manipulation of culture medium composition creates new ways of controlling bacterial biomineralization that in the future could be applied to the conservation of ornamental stone.


This paper explores the impact of international migration on school enrollment of children staying behind in Tajikistan, by using data from a large nationally representative household survey. The methodology employed is a switching probit model that accounts for the endogeneity and self-selection of migration and remittance with respect to school enrollment. Counterfactual situations are constructed for children belonging to households with and without migrants, remittance receiving and nonreceiving households, and households with migrant parents to single out the impact of migration and remittances. The results show that migration of household members reduces the probability of enrolling in school by 10 percentage points for children who belong to households with migrants. The effect of parental migration is much larger than that of migration of other household members. Receiving remittances reduces the adverse impact of migration by only 1‒3 percentage points. The effect is especially prominent for poor households with young and uneducated household heads.


Abstract Background Over half of people living with HIV are over 50 years of age. Clinicians must balance HIV care with the management of age-related comorbidities such as, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver and kidney disease, and cancer. Methods To improve HIV/ID specialists' ability to develop a comprehensive care strategy for aging men and women living with HIV, a CME/CE/CPE-certified educational intervention comprising two patient case scenarios was developed. It launched on a website dedicated to continuous professional development on March 23, 2018. The interactive, text-based, "test and teach" approach elicited cognitive dissonance; clinicians were presented with multiple-choice questions to evaluate their application of evidence-based recommendations. Each response was followed by detailed, referenced, feedback to teach. Educational effectiveness was assessed with a repeated pairs pre-/post-assessment study design, in which each individual served as his/her own control. Responses to three multiple-choice, knowledge questions, and one self-efficacy confidence question were evaluated. A chi-squared test assessed changes pre- to post-assessment. P values of <0.05 are statistically significant. Effect sizes were evaluated using Cramer's V (<0.05 modest; 0.06–0.15 noticeable effect; 0.16–0.26 considerable effect; >0.26 extensive effect). Data were collected through April 27, 2018. Results 4,130 HCPs, including 795 physicians, participated in the activity. Data from HIV/ID specialists (n = 76) who answered all pre-/post-assessment questions during the study period were analyzed. Significant improvements were observed overall (P < 0.0001; V = 0.496) and in several specific areas of assessment (figure). Following activity participation, the % of ID specialists who answered all assessment questions correctly increased dramatically: 9% (pre) vs. 88% (post). Additionally, 77% of HIV/ID specialists indicated a commitment to incorporate one or more changes into practice. Conclusion Participation in this online, interactive, case-based educational intervention significantly improved ID specialists' ability to care for aging patients living with HIV. These findings highlight the positive impact of well-designed online education. Disclosures S. Hurst, ViiV Healthcare: Independent Medical Education, Educational grant. S. Smith, ViiV Healthcare: Independent Medical Education, Educational grant.


The effect of an antiepileptic drug, valproic acid (VPA), on an experimental form of epilepsy, the kindling phenomenon, is described. In cat, 50 mg/kg i.p. per day is sufficient to block the progressive establishment of generalized seizures produced normally by repetitive electrical stimulation of the amygdala. However, a focal afterdischarge persists during the entire treatment. Higher doses (75–150 mg/kg) are necessary to protect the animal against the generalized tonicclonic seizure when the kindling phenomenon is established. These effects and the action of barbiturates, which was also tested, seem to attribute to VPA a complex role in the mechanism of this action.


Sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) stems in the form of infusions and decoctions are traditionally consumed for diuretic and anti-inflammatory purposes. This study aimed to evaluate antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity of ethanolic and methanolic extract made from sweet cherry stems. Extracts are obtained by the Soxhlet extraction and maceration procedures. For the determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration, the broth microdilution method is employed, and the assessment of the microbiocidal activity of the extracts is conducted. The antibiofilm activity was tested through the tissue culture plate method, which also allowed the determination of the biofilm-forming categories of investigated strains. The final step involved the calculation of the biofilm inhibition percentage. Examined extracts with the balanced activity inhibited the growth of all microorganisms, with Gram-negative bacteria being more sensitive in comparison to Gram-positive. The values of the minimum inhibitory concentration were 125 µg/ml, and 250 µg/ml, respectfully. Candida albicans was the most susceptible and the minimum inhibitory concentration of both extracts was 62.50 µg/ml. The microbiocidal activity of the extracts was not recorded. Extracts exhibited different impacts on the biofilm-forming capacity of the investigated microbes, and both inhibition and stimulation effects are noted. The percentage of the biofilm inhibition was from 14.27% to 84.78%, with the highest inhibition recorded for the multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, treated with the ethanolic extract. Sweet cherry stems are a valuable source of natural bioactive compounds, but their usage in the treatment of microbial infections should be correctly and carefully implemented.


The advent of the Industrial Internet technologies in Asia has altered the dynamics of the manufacturing sector requirements for competitive success. In examining many of the fundamental building block concepts deemed the 'required knowledge' of e-commerce, be it production-related or market-related information (Glazer, 1999), the paper focuses on the development of an Industrial-focused strategic Inter¬net initiative. In an industry where the consulting dollars may be as high as the soft¬ware dollars, the key concept of an industrial Internet strategy is in viewing information as an enterprise-wide, multi-tier communications asset (Hoske, 1999). The Industrial Internet reaches not only from the front office to the factory floor, but from the factory floor to an authorized lap top anywhere in the world. Although there is an abundance of importance being placed in recent literature on sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management (CRM) software, advances in factory supply chain management software and systems offerings may prove to be of a more highly critical value. For reemerging Asian industrialists, too much importance cannot be placed upon their propensity for assimilating vital industrial Internet technologies, and transforming the vicissitudes of e-commerce markets toward the fulfillment of their own competitive advantage.


Obesity is one of the leading medical problems facing our society today. At least two thirds of the U.S. adult population is considered overweight and approximately one-third of American adults are obese, creating an epidemic of obesity. Clearly, there has been an increase in the number of individuals struggling to lose weight. Additionally, obesity has become increasingly prevalent in the pediatric population and 30% of U.S. children have a BMI greater than the 85th percentile for their age.1 The relationship of childhood and adolescent obesity to adult obesity is a strong one with 20% of children who are obese at 4 years of age and 80% of adolescents who are obese will be obese as adults.2 The annual cost of managing obesity in the United States alone amounts to approximately $100 billion, of which $52 billion are direct healthcare costs. Hypertension, sleep apnea, diabetes, stroke, myocardial infarction and malignancy is a short but representative list of problems associated with obesity. Approximately 300,000 U.S. deaths per year are related to obesity.


Does the interaction between context and individual-level features affect political attitudes? By using the case of Catalonia, a receiver region of international and national immigration since the fifties, this paper intersects a classic acculturation model and a newly reemerging literature in political science on contextual determinants of political behaviour to analyze how context affects subjective national identity. Results reveal that environment matters. The Percentage of Spain-born population in the municipality is statistically significant to account for variance in the subjective national identity, even after controlling for age, sex, origin, language and left–right orientation and other contextual factors. This conclusion suggests that researchers should not underestimate the direct effect of the environment on feelings of belonging in contexts of rival identities.


ABSTRACT Introduction Proteins are molecules that have role in the progression of the diseases. Proteomics is a tool that can play an effective role in identifying diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers for lung cancer. Cytokines are proteins that play a decisive role in activating body's immune system in lung cancer. They can increase the growth of the tumor (oncogenic cytokines) or limit tumor growth (anti-tumor cytokines) by regulating related signaling pathways such as proliferation, growth, metastasis, and apoptosis. Areas covered In the present study, a total of 223 papers including 196 research papers and 27 review papers, extracted from PubMed and Scopus and published from 1997 to present, are reviewed. The most important involved-cytokines in lung cancer including TNF-α, IFN- γ, TGF-β, VEGF and interleukins such as IL-6, IL-17, IL-8, IL-10, IL-22, IL-1β and IL-18 are introduced. Also, the pathological and biological role of such cytokines in cancer signaling pathways is explained. Expert opinion In lung cancer, the cytokine expression changes under the physiological conditions of the immune system, and inflammatory cytokines are associated with the progression of lung cancer. Therefore, the cytokine expression profile can be used in the diagnosis, prognosis, prediction of therapeutic responses, and survival of patients with lung cancer.


Support for Europe is largely argued to be based on the self-interest of individuals as well as being influenced by their national identity. Relatively little is known, however, about the attitudes of immigrants regarding Europe, although they form a growing part of the European population and are strongly affected by European policies. In this article, attitudes of immigrants towards European unification are analysed to determine how far they differ from the native population and between immigrants from different regions. The main theories on attitudes towards Europe would predict overall more positive attitudes. First, self-interest should lead migrants to evaluate Europe more favourably, as certain groups in particular have gained from it in the past mainly in terms of enhanced mobility and legal rights as immigrants, and can realistically expect to gain more in the future. Secondly, being an immigrant as opposed to a native citizen can be expected to have an impact on national identities, with the supranational level likely to be more attractive to people with multiple national affiliations. Findings confirm this, and highlight that migration status, region of origin and citizenship status are important predictors of attitudes. Furthermore, explanatory factors related to economic interests, which have been shown to be of major importance for natives, matter less for immigrants. It would appear that issues related to mobility and a less exclusively defined national identity may be of more importance for immigrants' attitudes than socio-economic position.


Pulsed laser irradiation in near field is one of effective ways to break optical diffraction limit for surface nano-structuring. Femtosecond laser (400 nm, 100 fs) irradiation through near-field scanning optical microscopy for sub-50 nm resolution is studied. Application of transparent particles' mask by the self-assembly for nano-hole array fabrication is also investigated. It is attributed to light enhancement in near field through the particles.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

Nearly half of human cancers harbor TP53 mutations, which are predominantly through missense mutations that result in accumulation of mutant p53 proteins in cancer cells. More and more findings indicate that the mutant p53 proteins acquire gain-of-function abilities to promote carcinogenesis, metastasis, tumor recurrence and chemoresistance. TP53 mutations are the most frequent genetic alterations in breast cancer, observed in 30% of breast carcinomas, especially the triple negative breast cancer (TNBC),which most easily metastasizes and confers chemoresistance. Therefore targeting TP53 mutation in breast cancer might be another promising approach of therapeutics. Our previous investigation showed that the AKT-mTOR dual inhibitor, NVP-BEZ235(called BEZ235 thereafter), could inhibit AKT-mTOR pathway activation, most interestingly mutant p53 was significantly reduced with BEZ235 treatment(unpublished data). In this study, three TNBC cell lines MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-436, MDA-MB-468 as TP53 mutation group and MCF-7 as control were employed with BEZ235 treatment at different dosages and time points. We found that AKT-mTOR signaling pathway were highly activated in these TNBC cells but were inhibited obviously after BEZ235 treatment; most importantly, mutant p53 in these TNBC cells decreased significantly, but rare changes were detected in MCF-7 cells with BEZ235 treatment. Interestingly, we found miR-23a-24-27a cluster was about 2 fold upregulation in TNBC cells after BEZ235 treatment while exploring the decline of p53 by detecting microRNAs expression in those cell lines. To address whether BEZ235 could affect the metastasis ability of TNBC cells, cell invasion assay Transwell was used to measure the invasiveness of TNBC cells with BEZ235, and we observed that BEZ235 could inhibit the metastasis of TNBC cells, on the other hand miR-23a-24-27a cluster mimics could also induce the inhibition of metastasis in TNBC cells. Our results suggest that BEZ235 might target mutant p53 accumulation and downregulate miR-23a-24-27a cluster to inhibit the metastasis abilities of triple negative breast cancer cells, which might provide an important direction to further study the breast cancer harboring mutant p53, and also have promising therapeutic benefits for cancer patients carrying such p53 mutations.

Citation Format: Dongsheng Wang, Qin Du, Binfeng He, Yibin Deng, Xiaolan Guo. NVP-BEZ235 decreases mutant p53 and downregulates miR-23a-24-27a to inhibit metastasis in breast cancer cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 584. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-584


We have performed neutron spin-echo measurements on the supercooled glass-forming system 7LiCl,6D2O above its glass transition temperature (Tg=135 K). This investigation has permitted us to determine the time dependence of the density correlation function phi (Q, t) between 2 ps and 2 ns at the maximum of the structure factor (Q=1.9 AA-1). We have shown for the viscosity, the existence of two temperature domains limited by two critical temperatures (fixed points). This crossover from the stable liquid to the metastable liquid might be related to a change in the multiplicity of the microscopic interactions. In this study we show that the dynamics of the structural relaxation is consistent with the two scaling laws of the viscosity. Both the average relaxation time and the stretched exponential behaviour indicate a crossover regime around 210 K. However, the scaling of the density correlation function differs, in the lower-temperature regime, from the scaling of the shear viscosity. For the supercooled liquid dynamics, the results are more or less correlated to the mode-coupling theory.


Objective This study assessed the predictive value of preoperative computed tomography (CT) scans and clinical factors for optimal debulking surgery (ODS) in patients with advanced ovarian cancer (AOC). Methods Patients with AOC in International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage III-IV who underwent primary debulking surgery (PDS) between 2016 and 2019 from nine tertiary Chinese hospitals were included. Large-volume ascites, diffuse peritoneal thickening, omental cake, retroperitoneal lymph node enlargement (RLNE) below and above the inferior mesenteric artery (IMA), and suspected pelvic bowel, abdominal bowel, liver surface, liver parenchyma and portal, spleen, diaphragm and pleural lesions were evaluated on CT. Preoperative factors included age, platelet count, and albumin and CA125 levels. Results Overall, 296 patients were included, and 250 (84.5%) underwent ODS. The prediction model included age >60 years (P=0.016; prediction index value, PIV=1), a CA125 level >800 U/ml (P=0.033, PIV=1), abdominal bowel metastasis (P=0.034, PIV=1), spleen metastasis (P<0.001, PIV=2), diaphragmatic metastasis (P=0.014, PIV=2), and an RLNE above the IMA (P<0.001, PIV=2). This model had superior discrimination (AUC=0.788>0.750), and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test indicated its stable calibration (P=0.600>0.050). With the aim of maximizing the accuracy of prediction and minimizing the rate of inappropriate explorations, a total PIV ≥5 achieved the highest accuracy of 85.47% and identified patients who underwent suboptimal PDS with a specificity of 100%. Conclusions We developed a prediction model based on two preoperative clinical factors and four radiological criteria to predict unsatisfactory debulking surgery in patients with AOC. The accuracy of this prediction model needs to be validated and adjusted in further multicenter prospective studies.


Abstract Objectives. Compensatory hindfoot alignment for deformities at the knee level has been demonstrated in patients with knee osteoarthritis. However, this phenomenon has not been elucidated in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between knee deformity and hindfoot alignment and the effect of subtalar joint destruction in patients with RA. Methods. We retrospectively investigated RA patients (110 patients, 205 limbs) using radiographs in the standing anteroposterior knee, standing lateral foot, and hindfoot alignment views. The grade of destruction at the knee and subtalar joints was assigned using Larsen's grading system. The correlation between the femorotibial and tibiocalcaneal angles and the effect of joint destruction on this correlation were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficients. Results. There was moderate correlation between the femorotibial and tibiocalcaneal angles in a group of knees with a Larsen grade of ≥ 4 (r = 0.544, p = 0.0239). This correlation was stronger in a group with less damaged subtalar joints with a Larsen grade of ≤ 3 (r = 0.705, p = 0.0049). Conclusion. These findings emphasized the importance of examining foot and ankles in patients with RA who undergo total knee arthroplasty.


Pulmonary haemodynamics was studied in the course of a calibrated exercise test on an ergometric cycle in 55 patients with chronic obstructive respiratory disease. Three groups of patients could be distinguished: absent pulmonary artery hypertension, both at rest and on exercise (group I), pulmonary artery hypertension on effort only (group II), permanent pulmonary hypertension, both on effort and at rest (group III). If adaptation of the cardiac output to exercise was identical in three groups and appeared to be normal, the relationship between pulmonary artery pressure and flow differed clearly from one group to another. Elements of orientation make it possible to foresee this latent pulmonary artery hypertension on the basis of rest gazometry and simple spirography data. The prognostic and aetiologic significations were discussed.


In this study, an energy-saving adaptive fast-charging strategy is developed and applied to a Li-FePO
 4 battery module. In this strategy, there are three options including an adaptive constant current (CC)/constant voltage (CV) control scheme, an adaptive variable current (VC) control scheme, and an adaptive current-voltage control scheme to be selected by the user. The objectives of fast charging and energy saving can be simultaneously achieved by the well-designed circuit components in a charge circuit (i.e. a boost converter) plus the proposed adaptive fast-charging strategy. In this study, the maximum conversion efficiency of the boost converter is 97.7- and its average conversion efficiency is over 95-. Moreover, the charge speed and energy saving of a CC/CV framework with a conventional proportional-integral control scheme can be enhanced to reach uppermost 19.2 and 1.33- improvement rates by the adaptive current-voltage control scheme and the adaptive VC control scheme, respectively.


Charging a higher price during periods of congestion should more efficiently allocate scarce resources by encouraging users to conserve. We study its benefits by conducting several pricing experiments over two semesters with students in the dormitories using a computer-telephony-service. Users can use the service to make and receive phone calls from their computers or telephones. While we do not charge users real money, we limit each user to a certain number of tokens a week. With this experimental setup, we conducted a different pricing experiment each week to better understand how prices can be used to entice users to talk less, talk at another time, or use a lower quality connection. With our token scheme as a budget constraint, we can use static pricing policies to influence users' behaviors, but cannot use a simple congestion pricing scheme to encourage users to talk less. For example, we can use time-of-day pricing to encourage users to shift 30% of their usages from the peak to the off-peak hours. We can also use call-duration pricing, a higher rate as a call lasts longer, to encourage 3 times as many calls (18% instead of 6%) to terminate after a price increase. However, when using a simple congestion pricing scheme that charges a rate depending on the number of people calling, we find that we cannot get users to terminate their calls earlier. We believe that users do not change their behaviors because they do not know how long the price increases or decreases will last. Thus to make a congestion pricing scheme more effective, we believe that the price changes need to be more permanent to entice users to change their behaviors'.


ABSTRACT Silence is often considered under the sign of repression or oppression, and as such, the result of forces hostile to democracy. In this paper we will try to demystify that unilateral image of silence, reviving the dialectic between silence and democracy in which the former operates as a foundational precondition for exchanges in the democratic public spheres. An increased awareness of the structures of silence will help us reflect upon what remains external to ongoing public discourses. Through a reading of Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger, it will be shown that understanding silence not as the passive negative of speaking, but as an active form of reflection, will help us become aware of what is pre-emptively excluded from discursive exchanges. It is argued that an awareness of this kind of silence can help us reflect upon the structures of public discourses.


we have developed the Zig system for the voltage controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO) performance evaluation with positive emitter coupled logic(PECL). The VCXO is a crystal oscillator which includes a varactor diode and associated circuitry allowing the frequency to be changed by application of a voltage across that diode. The characteristics of the PECL has the delay time less than 2 ns and the faster logic gate, and the high level output greater than 2.3 V and the low level output smaller than 1.68 V.