Background: Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is clearly underdiagnosed and undertreated. The aim of this present study is to assess the benefits of FH screening through a joint national program implemented between clinical laboratories and lipid units. Methods: All clinical laboratory tests from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2018 were reviewed, and those with LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) levels >250 mg/dl were identified in subjects >18 years of age of both sexes. Once secondary causes had been ruled out, the treating physician was contacted and advised to refer the patient to an LU to perform the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network score and to request genetic testing if the score was ≥6 points. Next Generation Sequencing was used to analyse the promoter and coding DNA sequences of four genes associated with FH (LDLR, APOB, PCSK9, APOE) and two genes that have a clinical overlap with FH characteristics (LDLRAP1 and LIPA). A polygenic risk score based on 12 variants was also obtained. Results: Of the 3,827,513 patients analyzed in 26 centers, 6,765 had LDL-C levels >250 mg/dl. Having ruled out secondary causes and known cases of FH, 3,015 subjects were included, although only 1,205 treating physicians could be contacted. 635 patients were referred to an LU and genetic testing was requested for 153 of them. This resulted in a finding of sixty-seven pathogenic variants for FH, 66 in the LDLR gene and one in APOB. The polygenic risk score was found higher in those who had no pathogenic variant compared to those with a pathogenic variant. Conclusion: Despite its limitations, systematic collaboration between clinical laboratories and lipid units allows for the identification of large numbers of patients with a phenotypic or genetic diagnosis of FH, which will reduce their vascular risk. This activity should be part of the clinical routine.


The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the notion of multiculturalism in relation to theatre and drama. In Swedish public discourse, culture and the arts are frequently referred to as a social glue which keeps society together. In this context theatre holds a particular position. On the one hand theatre is looked upon as a magic key capable of opening up all sorts of discriminatory structures. Theatre, and actors, stereotypically exhibit essential features for achieving success in late modern society. Examples of such features are charisma, creativity, and flexibility. On the other hand theatre, especially theatre as an established institution, is criticised for being discriminatory and conservative.

Theatre thus inhabits a position of ambivalence in relation to society at large. It is encouraged, even obliged, by the state to reach out to new audiences beyond that of Swedish-born, middle-class spectators. This is done in several ways; by creating mixed ensembles, with professionals and amateurs, or by producing scripts based on documentary research and "real" stories, told by "real" people. While the work produced within theatre should reflect society, artistic expressiveness is often surreal and fantastic. In this capacity theatre is ascribed an almost "magical" function in moving publics and dissolving unwanted boundaries.

The task is twofold. I start by trying to trace and describe systems of values and presuppositions underpinning multicultural theatre projects in Sweden. I then explore how such projects are launched, carried through and realized on a concrete empirical level. The observation was carried out primarily in 2006, in the setting of two theatre projects. One of them was a role play about refugees, A Journey Unlike any Other. The purpose of the project is to make teenagers understanding and sympathetic to the plights of refugees and immigrants. The other one was a version of the classical drama, Hamlet, transposed into a contemporary urban setting as Mohamlet. The play is an attempt to reach a new audience by placing it in a multicultural milieu; a falafel-restaurant reminiscent of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. These two productions are on opposit ends of the wide spectrum of late modern theatre dealing with multicultural topics.

Theatre is thus referred to, in one instance, as key, and in another as a closed door. It is at one and the same time portrayed as a solution and as a problem. My aim is to articulate, to illustrate, and to explain this duality and the processes in which it inheres, both within and beyond the confines of theatre performances and settings.


We theoretically investigate the effect of electronic correlations (including spin and Coulomb correlations) on magnetotransport through a parallel double quantum dot coupled to ferromagnetic leads. Within the framework of the generalized master equation, we analyze the current, differential conductance and tunnel magnetoresistance versus bias for different electron correlations. Our results reveal that spin correlations can induce a giant tunnel magnetoresistance, while Coulomb correlations can lead to the occurrence of negative tunnel magetoresistance and negative differential conductance, and the relevant underlying physics of this problem is discussed.


Git is used as the distributed version control system for many open-source software projects. One Git-based service, GitHub, is the most common code hosting and repository service for open-source software projects. For researchers that study software engineering, the content that is hosted on these platforms provides much valuable data. There are some alternatives to get GitHub data such as GitHub Archive, GitHub API or GHTorrent. Among these options, GHTorrent is the most widely known and used GitHub dataset in the literature. Although there are some review studies about software engineering challenges across the GitHub platform, no review of GHTorrent dataset-specific research is available. In this study, the 172 studies that use GHTorrent as a data source were categorized within the scope of open source software development challenges and a systematic literature review was carried out. Moreover, the pros and cons of the dataset have been indicated and the focused issues of the literature on and the open challenges have been noted.


Social needs are critical determinants of patient health, but their capture in clinical records began recently. A representative survey of family physicians showed that 61% of respondents document social needs using notes, with fewer using diagnosis codes or electronic forms. This preference for unstructured documentation may make it difficult to connect patients across organizations or for policymakers and planners to identify geographic variation in needs.


Crime continues to be a major area of public policy and debate, and societies expend huge amounts of intellectual and financial capital attempting to measure and understand it. The second edition of this highly respected text provides an accessible, comprehensive introduction to the study of crime in Britain, helping you to understand and critically evaluate the key issues. It is designed particularly for students coming to the subject for the first time but also those who want to dig deeper into the issues for more advanced study.

Crime and Society is essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social policy and of key interest more widely across the social sciences.


Uromyces lineolatus (Desm.) Schroet, in aecidial stage was first in Poland on Glaux maritima in 1963 in Ciechocinek and later in Wilczkowica and Kolobrzeg. On this host lives a highly specialized biological race Uromyces lineolatus f. sp. glaucis-scipi O. Jaap. Glaux maritima is an obligatory halophyte and it can be supposed that the parasitized rust fungus is also a halofilic from. In present work there are also some new localities of Uromycea lineolatus on Bulboschoenus maritimus in Poland (Gniewkowo, Rabin, Wiliczkowwice, Kolobrzeg and Zglowiączka - Majewski's unpublished dates) and in Germany (Hiddensee and Artern) on both hosts.


In 12 inbred strains of mice there was no general correlation between litter size and parental life span within strains, although a significant between-strain correlation of +0.69 was found between mean life span of the dams and the mean size of their litters. When data for AKR/J mice, which characteristically die early from leukemia, were excluded, the correlation was increased to +0.90 for the remaining 11 strains. These findings indicate that the correlation is of genetic origin—that is, that genes affecting a dam's life span also affect the size of her litters.


SUMMARY: An organism belonging to the Pseudomonas fluorescens species-group has been isolated from fermenting cucumber by enrichment culture, using acetylcholine as the sole carbon source. This organism produces an adaptive cholinesterase. Cells grown in tryptic digest broth have a very low cholinesterase activity. Growth for a few days in the presence of acetylcholine, choline, or Difco nutrient broth produces much higher cholinesterase levels. Cell-free preparations are also active. The enzyme is not identical with either of the main types of animal cholinesterase. It is sensitive to prostigmine, is not inhibited by excess of substrate, and has a unique substrate specificity pattern. The organism also produces two prostigmine-insensitive lipases, splitting triacetin and tributyrin, respectively.


Consequentialists say we may always promote the good. Deontologists object: not if that means killing one to save five. "Consequentializers" reply: this act is wrong, but it is not for the best, since killing is worse than letting die. I argue that this reply undercuts the "compellingness" of consequentialism, which comes from an outcome-based view of action that collapses the distinction between killing and letting die.


Zakat is increasingly important nowadays, especially during the covid-19 pandemic that created bigger demand for zakat and other charitable funds. Not only that, the covid-19 pandemic also accelerates the need for digitalization to support transaction processes -- including in collecting and distributing zakat funds -- in a safer and convenient way. However, few studies attempt to discuss the literature related to zakat and digitalization. This study fills in the gap by systematically reviewing literature related to zakat in digitalization. In analyzing the literature, it uses a qualitative research method as well as descriptive statistics and VOSviewer software in analysing the qualitative data. The study covers articles published in Mendeley and Scopus database journals during 2016-2021 period. The study highlights several interesting trends in relation to digital zakat literature. First, the main topics related to digital zakat are institutions, zakat collection and efficiency. Second, most of the studies related to digital zakat is published in 2016 and 2020, albeit there are high possibilities that more papers will come in 2021. Third, most studies related to digital zakat use qualitative research method. Fourth, Indonesia is dominating the research on digital zakat as most studies related to digital zakat are mostly discussed as case studies of Indonesia. Fifth, the subtopic mostly discussed within the digital zakat papers is marketing aspect of digital zakat. Sixth, the proportion of female and male authors are relatively the same. Finally, the citations of the papers are relatively still small albeit there is a high possibility that the number will significantly increase in the future. Overall, the study highlights the importance of digital zakat issue in Indonesia. This might be influenced by the fact that zakat potential in Indonesia is very high, while the actual collection is very low. Thus, digitalization of zakat is seen as an important strategy and solution' to solve the problem. In line with this, marketing aspect of digital zakat is also seen and found to be the most researched topic in the area. These results are expected to provide insight for all stakeholders of zakat in developing digital zakat in the future.


Abstract. Large-scale variations of terrestrial water storages and fluxes are key aspects in the Earth system, as they control ecosystem processes, feed back on weather and climate, and form the basis for water resources management. However, relevant observations are limited and process models used for estimation are highly uncertain. These models rely on approximations of terrestrial processes as well as on location-specific parameters (e.g.;soil types, topography) to translate atmospheric forcing (e.g.;precipitation, net radiation) into terrestrial water variables (e.g.;soil moisture, river flow). To date it is unclear which processes and parameters should be included to model terrestrial water systems on regional to global scales. Using a data driven approach we show, that skillful estimates of monthly water dynamics in Europe can be derived from information on atmospheric drivers alone and that the inclusion of land parameters does not improve the estimate. The results highlight that substantial parts of terrestrial water dynamics are controlled by atmospheric forcing, which dominates over land parameters. This is not reflected in current model developments, which are striving at incorporating an increasing number of small scale processes and related parameters. Our results thus point at major potential for theory and model development, with important implications for water resources modelling, seasonal forecasting and climate change projections.


Metaphors are powerful mechanisms by which to rally exclusionary nationalist sentiment without necessarily appearing racist. However, sometimes those metaphors are challenged, inverting exclusionary functions. In this paper, we track how metaphors in the Australian press over the last 165 years which have generally constructed migration as a threat to the integrity of the nation, are repurposed to counter the claims embedded within them. For example, while invasion, swamping and flooding are generally recruited to negative ends, the same tropes are used to argue that fears of invasion are unjustified, that numbers of migrants are too small to swamp the nation and that the so-called floods of foreigners are overstated. However, this does not necessarily result in a decrease in metaphor use, nor challenge the fundamental implications of the metaphors. We explore how the repurposing occurs, and why it may not be an effective tool for anti-racist action.


The catalytic subunit of cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (from rabbit skeletal muscle; ATP:protein phosphotransferase, EC 126.96.36.199) was found to be irreversibly inactivated by chloromethyl ketone derivatives of lysine and phenylalanine, chemical reagents originally designed for labeling the active sites of the proteolytic enzymes trypsin and chymotrypsin. This inactivation was shown to occur at pH 7.5 and 22 degrees C, conditions under which chemically related alkylating reagents such as chloroacetamide and chloroacetic acid (which do not possess the amino acid side chain) fail to inactivate the enzyme. In the case of the chloromethyl ketone derivative of N alpha-tosyl-L-lysine, the enzyme could be protected by its nucleotide substrate (MgATP), by one of its protein substrates (histone H2b), and by its regulatory subunit which, upon binding, shields the active site of the catalytic subunit. Differential labeling experiments, together with kinetic studies of the rates of modification of the sulfhydryl groups in the enzyme before and after inactivation with the chloromethyl ketone, suggest that the loss of activity is associated with one (kinetically characterized) sulfhydryl group present either at the active site of the enzyme or at a site intimately associated with it. The general implications of these results regarding the interpretation of affinity labeling experiments carried out in complex mixtures of proteins or under in vivo conditions are discussed.


Learning robust speaker embeddings is a crucial step in speaker diarization. Deep neural networks can accurately capture speaker discriminative characteristics and popular deep embeddings such as x-vectors are nowadays a fundamental component of modern diarization systems. Recently, some improvements over the standard TDNN architecture used for x-vectors have been proposed. The ECAPA-TDNN model, for instance, has shown impressive performance in the speaker verification domain, thanks to a carefully designed neural model. In this work, we extend, for the first time, the use of the ECAPA-TDNN model to speaker diarization. Moreover, we improved its robustness with a powerful augmentation scheme that concatenates several contaminated versions of the same signal within the same training batch. The ECAPA-TDNN model turned out to provide robust speaker embeddings under both close-talking and distant-talking conditions. Our results on the popular AMI meeting corpus show that our system significantly outperforms recently proposed approaches.


Marine environment in the Arabian Gulf is naturally stressed due to elevated levels of sea temperature and salinity. Discharges from desalination plants could pose additional threats to its fragile coastal and marine ecosystems. This book assesses the environmental impacts of two major desalination plants that use Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) and brackish water Reverse Osmosis (RO) technologies on macrobenthic assemblages inhabiting subtidal areas in Bahrain. Localized severe impacts on these assemblages were detected adjacent to the outlets that influenced by effluents characterized by high temperatures, salinities, and a range of chemical and heavy metal pollutants. The book also discusses measures to optimize impacts of desalination plants on marine ecosystems, including conducting holistic monitoring, applying EIA, enforcing relevant regulations and adopting strategic framework for water resource management. This book should be useful to professionals in fields of ecological and environmental studies, coastal and marine monitoring and conservation.


General opinion in the United States regarding financial markets and institutions has never been palpably favorable.  Sometimes the public has been merely skeptical, while sometimes it has been overtly hostile.  Where have such strongly unfavorable opinions come from?  Anti-bank sentiment originating in colonial America had little to do with banks or institutions that performed banking functions.  Rather, banks' association with money and money's association with both economic and political power meant that the very idea of a bank, regardless of how necessary banking is to the effective functioning of a modern economy, evoked—and still evokes—Americans' long-standing animosity towards anyone or anything that threatens their independence.


OBJECTIVES
An epidemiology analysis was performed to identify patient and dentist factors influencing over- and undertreatment of restorative services in a sample of insured adults.

METHODS
At baseline, 681 Washington State employees and their spouses, aged 20 to 34 years and residing in the Olympia or Pullman areas, were interviewed by telephone. Oral assessments were conducted to measure personal characteristics, oral disease, and restoration quality. Adults were followed for two years to measure use of restorative services from dental insurance claims. Each adult's baseline and claims data were linked with provider and practice variables collected from the dentist who provided treatment.

RESULTS
For overtreatment, 39 percent of adults received one or more replacement restorations in nondecayed teeth with satisfactory fillings at baseline, while 18 percent of adults had one or more restorations placed in teeth with no decay and fillings. An adult's probability of overtreatment was higher if the adult had more fillings at baseline, or if an adult's dentist was younger, had a busy practice, advertised, charged higher fees, had less continuing education, or had a solo practice. For undertreatment, about 16 percent of adults either received no replacement restorations in teeth with unsatisfactory fillings at baseline, or had decayed teeth at baseline that were not filled or crowned. An adult's probability of undertreatment was higher if an adult had less decayed or more missing surfaces at baseline, or if an adult's dentist believed in sharing information with patients, had a busy practice, or reported not placing fillings when radiographic evidence of new caries was present.

CONCLUSIONS
A minority of adults aged 20 to 34 experienced potential over- or undertreatment of restorative services, which are influenced by both patient and dentist factors.


This paper proposes a robust adaptive fuzzy PID control scheme augmented with a supervisory controller for unknown systems. In this scheme, a generalized fuzzy model is used to describe a class of unknown systems. The control strategy allows each part of the control law, i.e., a supervisory controller, a compensator, and an adaptive fuzzy PID controller, to be designed incrementally according to different guidelines. The supervisory controller in the outer loop aims at enhancing system robustness in the face of extra disturbances, variation in system parameters, and parameter drift in the adaptation law. Furthermore, an H∞ control design method using the fuzzy Lyapunov function is presented for the design of the initial control gains that guarantees transient performance at the start of closed-loop control, which is generally overlooked in many adaptive control systems. This design of the initial control gains is a compound search strategy called conditional linear matrix inequality (CLMI) approach with IROA (Improved random optimal algorithm), it leads to less complex designs than a standard LMI method by fuzzy Lyapunov function. Numerical studies of the tracking control of an uncertain inverted pendulum system demonstrate the effectiveness of the control strategy. From results of this simulation, the generalized fuzzy model reduces the rule number of T-S fuzzy model indeed.


Optical topography (OT) based on near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is useful for measuring changes in the concentrations of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (deoxy-Hb) in brain tissues non-invasively. Conventional OT systems limit subjects' ranges of movement to within the length of optical fibers these systems require for irradiating light on the scalp and detecting light transmitted through the tissues in the human head. We developed a prototype of a multi-channel, portable OT system without optical fibers. We used the portable system to measure changes in the concentrations of oxy-Hb and deoxy-Hb in the frontal cortex while the subjects performed a word fluency task. The results show typical changes in hemoglobin concentrations during the task and suggest the prototype system can be used to investigate brain functions in the frontal cortex.


Purpose: the analysis of dynamics of power indicators of Paralympic sportsmen in the preparatory period of a year macrocycle when using complexes of power exercises in the training process which are aimed at the development of muscles of a shoulder-girdle. Material and methods: members of the national Paralympic team of Ukraine on cross-country skiing and biathlon of two nosology (musculoskeletal device and visual impairment) in number of 12 sportsmen (6 men, 6 women) took part in the research. The age of sportsmen is 17–29 years old, the sports qualification is CMS (2), MS (4), MSIC (3), and MMS (3). Results: the technique of application of complexes of power exercises of high-speed and power character for muscles of a shoulder-girdle depending on stages of the preparatory period is developed and proved. The results of testing testify to the positive dynamics of indicators, especially at the end of the preparatory period. Conclusions: a uthors offer the technique of power training of Paralympic sportsmen on the basis of the conducted research, which is based on the use of complexes of special power exercises.


Congenital clubfoot is a common deformity of foot with unclear etiology.Departed researches showed that this diseases is related to abnormity of skeletal development,pathological change of nerve and muscle,contracture of soft tissue,deformity of vessel and hereditary effect,retardation of embryonic development,in which majority of experts agree with hypotheses of neuromuscular deformity and abnormal of skeletal development.This article just reviews related study about these.


The lives of millions of people around the world continue to be thwarted with violence, obliging them to flee from their own country or community mainly for reasons of persecution and armed conflict. Resolving this problem is a complex and pressing challenge. This is because of their needs not only while in exile, but also during their return home as the situation improves, ensuring their rights to protection and sustaining their reintegration requirements. This article focuses on the return of refugees in post-war situations, and the challenges and complexities of ensuring a durable return and sustainable reintegration in the country of return. It focuses on 'land', and the concerns and complexities surrounding it as one of the key obstacles to the sustainability of return and reintegration. Within a general discussion, the issue of land is explored by looking at it in the context of returnee reintegration against the backdrop of various aspects such as security, politics, disputes, restitution and livelihoods. The case in discussion is Afghanistan, referring to the voluminous return of refugees and the challenges in seeking solutions to their reintegration problems since the political changes in late 2001 underlined by the US-led military intervention, the ouster of the Taliban regime and the Bonn Agreement.


Scenarios/use cases have gained wide-spread use over the last couple of years. In software engineering they are mainly used to capture requirements and specify a system. Many software engineering approaches, most notably the UML (Unified Modeling Language [RJB99]), use some notion of scenario to support requirements elicitation and to provide a means for improved communication between software engineers, customers and users, and for enhanced user integration in the software development process. Yet prominent and renowned approaches like the UML lack a concept for modeling dependencies and relations between scenarios and offer only little support for the description and management of scenarios and of inter-scenario relationships. However, dependencies between scenarios are common, in fact dependencies between scenarios occur in any software development project of reasonable size. The existence of dependencies among scenarios needs to be perceived, acknowledged and accepted, they have to be captured and modeled to fully specify and better understand the system, and their impact on system modeling, on design, implementation and on testing needs to be recognized. In this paper we argue that dependencies among scenarios play too important a role in the software development process to omit them from system models and not to consciously consider them in analysis, design and testing. Therefore, we introduce a new kind of chart and a notation to model dependencies among scenarios. We discuss briefly the reasons why a new kind of chart is needed. An example of a dependency chart is presented.


ABSTRACT Osteoarthritis (OA), characterized by pain and stiffness, swelling, deformity and dysfunction of joints, affects large numbers of population. The purpose of this study was to discover the effects of taurine in human OA chondrocytes and explore the underlying mechanisms. 46 patients with different grades of OA were recruited. Of these patients, 24 underwent total knee replacement and cartilages were harvested. The mRNA expressions of type II collagen (Collagen II) and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress markers (GRP78, GADD153 and Caspase-12) in cartilages were quantified by qRT-PCR. Cell viability and apoptosis of patient-derived chondrocytes were assessed by the CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry assay, respectively. Meanwhile, protein levels of Collagen II and ER stress markers both in cartilages and chondrocytes were evaluated by Western blot. The mRNA and protein levels of Collagen II decreased as OA progressed, while the expressions of ER stress markers increased dramatically. H2O2 induced ER stress in chondrocytes, as shown by the significant increase in the expression of ER stress markers, inhibited chondrocyte viability and Collagen II synthesis, promoted apoptosis. However, taurine treatment inhibited these above phenomena. These results indicated that taurine exhibited anti-OA effect by alleviating H2O2 induced ER stress and subsequently inhibiting chondrocyte apoptosis.


Combining adiabatic passage and Rydberg antiblockade, we propose a scheme to implement a two-qubit phase gate between two Rydberg atoms. Detuning parameters between frequencies of atomic transitions and those of the corresponding driving lasers are carefully chosen to offset the blockade effect of two Rydberg atoms, so that an effective Hamiltonian, representing a single-photon detuning Λ-type three-level system and concluding the quantum state of two Rydberg atoms excited simultaneously, is obtained. The adiabatic-passage technique, based on the effective Hamiltonian, is adopted to implement a two-atom phase gate by using two time-dependent Rabi frequencies. Numerical simulations indicate that a high-fidelity two-qubit π-phase gate is constructed and its operation time does not have to be controlled accurately. Besides, owing to the long coherence time of the Rydberg state, the phase gate is robust against atomic spontaneous emission.


Learning to Study the Bible is another of the many study guides designed to assist lay people in the art of personal Bible study. The book is well organized, clearly articulated, and instructional. After introducing various methods and tools commonly used by Bible students, McQuay, a professor at Columbia Biblical Seminary, leads students in a study of Philippians by engaging in induc tive procedures. Chapters 8-15 provide students with a number of study methods by focusing on one passage, Philippians 1:1-11. As students master these methods, they are encouraged to complete the remainder of Philippians with less assistance.


Despite the growing awareness of the importance of researching core strategic resources and activities, the work that has been done to date has largely taken the form of anecdotal reports and case study analysis. We have yet to see large-sample studies demonstrating how organizational elements, independently, complementarily and interactively, may or may not enhance the organization's performance. Moreover, little attention has been given to researching this topic in public sector organizations. The present study aims to bridge this gap by examining the impact of a set of independent intangible organizational elements and the interactions among them on a set of objective organizational performance measures in a sample of local government authorities in Israel. The results of a multivariate analysis indicate that organizational performance (measured by self-income ratio, collecting efficiency ratio, employment rate, and municipal development) can be well explained by six intangible organizational elements (managerial capabilities, human capital, internal auditing, labor relations, organizational culture, and perceived organizational reputation) and the interactions among them, which need to be taken into account in any cost effective development. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Introduction: Heath care-associated infections are a major threat to patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Owing to the difficulty in gathering reliable data, evidence regarding ICU-acquired infections in the developing world is limited. This study aimed to assess the epidemiology of hospital-acquired infections in ICU patients in Saqr Hospital, Ras Al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. Material and methods: A retrospective review of nosocomial infections in the ICU of Saqr Hospital between 2013 and 2014 was performed. Nosocomial infections were defined according to the definitions outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The incidence of patient nosocomial infection, the excess length of stay, causative agents and the distribution of nosocomial infection sites were determined, then pathogen and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles were further investigated. Results: The study included 364 patients admitted to the ICU in the years 2013 and 2014. The overall patient nosocomial infection rate was 20.9%. Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) accounted for half of the infections (50%), followed by bloodstream (24%) and urinary tract (UTI, 18%) infections. In addition, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans were the most frequent pathogens isolated in patients with LRTIs, bloodstream infections and UTIs, respectively. The average length of stay for infected patients was 15.5 days, which was 10 days more than the average for non-infected patients. Empirical antibiotics were used to treat these patients and antimicrobial susceptibility results were positive for all organisms except C. albicans. The overall mortality rate among patients admitted during 2013 to the ICU of Saqr Hospital was 27.7%. The mortality rate of patients admitted to the ICU with positive culture results was 26%. Conclusion: Guidelines for surveillance and prevention of nosocomial infections must be implemented in order to reduce the rate of infection. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Dr Rasha A Salama for supervising and supporting our research and Dr James Donato for his help.


Two forms of leishmaniasis occur in Peru. One, known as uta, occurs in the western valleys of the Andes and produces a cutaneous lesion of spontaneous remission that rarely causes contiguous mucosal damage. The other, called espundiu, occurs in the Amazon region and produces cutaneous lesions that in some cases are indistinguishable from those of utu. However, it can also produce destructive metastatic mucosal lesions, typically in the nasal septum or the oropharyngeal mucosa c-1,2). Little is known about the epidemiology of the two forms, particularly in the Amazon region, or about the natural history, distribution, reservoirs, transmission mechanisms, and pathogenic agents of the disease in these areas. Furthermore, an indeterminate number of cases go unreported every year in Peru, largely because of the sociocultural circumstances of the affected populations. Nevertheless, endemic areas are recognized within the country; and the focal behavior of the


Takatāpui (Māori LGBTIQ+) challenge static notions of relationality and belonging or whanaungatanga for Māori. Explorations of Māori and LGBTIQ+ identity can often polarise experiences of family as either nurturing spaces or sites comprised of actors of spiritual and physical violence. However, such framing ignores the ways in which cultural practices for establishing relationality for takatāpui extend beyond dichotomies of disconnection or connection within families and into spaces of new potential. In this paper we outline a bricoleur research praxis rooted in Māori ways of being which underpins the research. We engage in photo-poetry as an analytic tool, constructing poetry from our interviews with Waimirirangi, a twenty-year-old whakawahine (Māori term for trans woman or trans femme) and bring them into conversation with the images she provided as part of the broader research project. As the interface between her ancestors and future generations, Waimirirangi demonstrates the potentiality of whanaungatanga as a restorative practice for enhancing takatāpui wellbeing.


Chlamydia psittaci ( Cp ) is capable of inducing acute pulmonary zoonotic disease (psittacosis) or persistent infection occurring in patients with pulmonary emphysema and/or COPD. To elucidate the pathogenesis of this infection, a defined respiratory model in calves was recently introduced [1] , which resembles the situation in humans more closely than mice. This investigation was undertaken to identify pulmonary dysfunctions induced by Cp . Eighteen calves were inoculated with Cp , whereas another 18 control calves received uninfected cell culture. Respiratory disorders were characterized non-invasively applying pulmonary function tests from human medicine (i.e. impulse oscillometry and capnography) to spontaneously breathing animals from 7 days before challenge until 14 days post inoculation. Compared to control calves, calves exposed to Cp had significantly increased respiratory resistance at low frequencies (≤ 5 Hz), while respiratory reactance at all frequencies (3 – 15 Hz) decreased significantly, indicating that both obstructive and restrictive pulmonary disorders were induced by the pathogen. In spontaneous breathing, expiration was more impaired than inspiration. Alveolar hypoventilation was confirmed by decreased tidal volume, increased dead space ventilation, increased FRC, and decreased end-tidal CO 2 . In conclusion, this bovine model has been found to be suitable for studying functional host-pathogen interactions in the mammalian lung. Pulmonary dysfunctions assessed in this model provide relevant insights into the pathophysiology of acute respiratory illness induced by Cp . [1] Reinhold P. et al. (2012) PLoS ONE 7(1): e30125.


This study aimed to discover the cultural contents in the digital authentic greeting cards as English teaching materials for junior high schools. The research data were the cultural values in the form of words, phrases, clauses, or sentences that are contained in the texts on the digital authentic greeting cards. The data sources were taken from several websites providing free digital greeting cards to be downloaded. The data were analyzed with the framework of the cultural dimensions by Moran (2001) and the cultural sources by Chao (2011) by using a qualitative content analysis method. The findings revealed 101 cultural contents that were classified into the four cultural dimensions and three sources of culture. The cultural contents were mostly identified in the Universality across Culture and represented by the Practices dimension through activities and language expressions. It was indicated that a large proportion of the cultural contents were included in universal contents that are not specific to any particular country and were represented by actions and interactions carried out by the cultural members.


The optical nonlinear effects can provide different advanced electromagnetic functionalities, such as wave mixing and phase conjugation, which can be applied in a variety of new applications. However, these effects usually suffer from extremely weak nature and require high input intensity values in order to be excited. Interestingly, the large third order nonlinearity of graphene, along with the strong field confinement stemming from its plasmonic behavior, can be utilized to enhance several relative weak nonlinear effects at infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) frequencies. Towards this goal, various nonlinear graphene metasurfaces are presented in this work to effectively increase the efficiency of different optical nonlinear effects and, as a result, decrease the required input intensity needed to be excited. In particular, we will show that the efficiency of four-wave mixing (FWM) can be improved by several orders of magnitude by using a nonlinear metasurface composed of patterned graphene ribbons, a dielectric interlayer, and a metallic reflector acting as substrate. We also demonstrate that the self-phase modulation (SPM) nonlinear process can be enhanced by using an alternative graphene nonlinear metasurface, operating as coherent perfect absorber, leading to a pronounced shift in the resonant frequency of the coherent perfect absorption (CPA) effect of this structure as the input intensity of the impinging incident waves is increased. This property will provide a robust mechanism to dynamically tune and switch the CPA process. Furthermore, it will be presented that strong negative reflection and refraction can be achieved by a single graphene monolayer film due to the enhancement of another nonlinear process, known as phase conjugation. This nonlinear process is envisioned to be used in the construction of a perfect imaging device with subwavelength resolution.


Learning Objectives: A partial anomalous pulmonary venous return (PAPVR) is a rare congenital anomaly of the pulmonary veins present in 0.5% of the population. Right-sided PAPVR are ten times more common than left-sided PAPVR. This case report will discuss the placement of a central line in an unknown left PAPVR as well as considerations in the longitudinal care of these patients. Methods: A 45-year-old Jehovah's Witness woman presenting to the emergency department with hypotension due to a massive gastro intestinal bleed. Central venous access needed to be obtained for resuscitation and a left internal jugular (IJ) triple lumen catheter was placed under ultrasound guidance. All catheter ports drew and flushed easily and a chest x-ray was obtained to confirm correct placement. Chest x-ray revealed the line in an aberrant location in the left chest. A pressure of 32/15 was obtained from the line. A chest CT was performed after a right IJ was placed and prior to the removal of the left IJ. This chest CT revealed a left PAPVR. Unfortunately, due to lab error, an PO2 was not able to be obtained from the line. Results: PAPVR is a rare, but interesting consideration when placing a central venous catheter. As more sophisticated imaging modalities are utilized including TEE, CT angiography, and cardiac MRI, the frequency with which this condition is diagnosed may increase. Further discussion in regard to central line placement in a PAPVR include the functionality of the line, complications of line placement, as well as if or when the line should be removed. Considerations in the further evaluation for other anomalies associated with PAPVR such as an atrial septal defect (ASD), which is present in 90% of cases, will be discussed. Similarly, further discussion about the development and prevention of long-term complications of PAPVR, such as pulmonary hypertension, is important in the longitudinal care of these patients.


One way of approaching the phenomenology of the actor is to consider him as a kind of storyteller whose speciality is that he is the story he is telling. Presumably, the transitional "voice" between the true storyteller and the actor would be the rhapsode who tells his story (or rather someone else's) directly to the audience, simulating the more exciting parts of it in the manner of the First Player in Hamlet, who gets so carried away by the plight of Hecuba. With the actor, of course, the narrative voice ("Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks") disappears entirely, and we hear only the fictitious first-personal voice ("Now I am alone," or "Now, mother, what's the matter?")rather, we overhear it, since the voice is no longer speaking to us. The audience is now an implicit or unacknowledged "you," at least in the more naturalistic styles of acting. This is, of course, what bothered Rousseau so much, that the actor was the final step in the disintegration of presence and direct discourse.


SUMMARY: The energy-based classification of heterotrophic substrates requires biochemical evaluation because some substrates can be assimilated by a variety of different metabolic pathways. By using the Y
ATP-concept it was shown that the classification depends on the yield of ATP and reducing equivalents already generated on the way to the precursor (phosphoglycerate). With carbon-excess substrates a part of the total substrate consumed must be oxidized to completion merely for energy production, whereas with energy-excess substrates more energy is provided on the route to the precursor than is needed for assimilation of the precursor carbon. By means of this approach it was possible to assess experimental growth yields obtained on mixed substrates and to predict the optimum mixing proportion in order to attain the maximum carbon conversion efficiency. The validity of this method was shown for some examples.


In recent years, the influence of automobile emissions and noise on the environment has become an increasingly serious problem. Particularly, exhaust system is known to be a predominant component of the automobile emissions and noise. Fortunately, over the last few decades, engine exhaust noise is controlled through the use of silencers or mufflers. Mufflers are installed within the exhaust system of most internal combustion engines. The muffler is engineered as an acoustic soundproofing device designed to reduce the loudness of the sound pressure created by the engine by way of acoustic quieting. We can install an aftermarket muffler when engine tuning in order to increase power output or reduce fuel consumption because of economic or environmental concerns. Here in this project we designed a muffler model by using solid works design software and done analysis by using various materials such as stainless steel, 2014 aluminum alloy and titanium alloy. We have done static analysis to find the maximum stresses and deformations of muffler and modal analysis to find natural frequencies and deformations induced in muffler these analyses are done in solid works simulation tool, various commands, different types of analysis and material properties are studied in this project.


A microplate enzyme immunoassay (EIA) was developed for the measurement of glycine- and taurine-conjugated 7α-hydroxy-3-oxo-4-cholenoic acids (CDCA-Δ4-3-one) in human urine. The antiserum was prepared by immunizing rabbits with N-(7α-hydroxy-3-oxo-4-cholen-24-oyl)-3-aminopropionic acid - bovine serum albumin conjugate. A colorimetric EIA was established using horseradish peroxidase-labeled antigen having a shorter bridge length than that of the immunogen, and 3, 3', 5, 5'-tetramethylbenzidine/hydrogen peroxide for the measurement of the enzyme activity. The reactivities of the antiserum for glycine and taurine conjugates of CDCA-Δ4-3-one was almost the same. The specificity of the antiserum was investigated by determining the cross-reactivities of various bile acids and related compounds. An appropriate dose-response curve for conjugated CDCA-Δ4−3-one was obtained in the range of 0.05–10 ng/well. This method was used for direct analysis of conjugated CDCA-Δ4−3-one in urine of healthy infants and patients with liver diseases.


The current development of fishery research can be considered as much a technical development as a scientific-conceptual one. In relation to the technical development we analyse the evolution of the concepts fishing effort and fishing power, as well as vulnerability, availability and accessibility. In the conceptual analysis of the basic parameters we consider new contributions with regards to recruitment and evolution of populations based on concepts such as the system's carrying capacity and the effect of inverse density dependence. The impact of the available space is analysed as well as the effect of the prey-predator relationship in the context of the flows between the different levels in the trophic web. We point out that fishery analysis strategies need to consider that, from both the biological and socio-economic points of view, the system is never balanced but rather is at the very limit or even over the limit. On the whole, fishing (human action on the resource) can be understood within the context of the ecosystem. This situation implies introducing the concept of uncertainty. Aspects such as ecosystem elasticity are analysed in their broadest sense. In these terms, recovery of an ecosystem and of Large Marine Ecosystems (LME) is still possible, but the result can be different due to the appearance of opportunistic species. Some concepts such as fuzzy sets, and chaos and fractal analysis are important tools for analysing the evolution and management of ecosystems exploited by fisheries.


The Author critiques the Supreme Court's analysis in its Shelby County v. Holder decision, which found the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional by applying a disparate treatment analysis to how States were treated under the Act. Such a reading of the Act makes a number of tacit and explicit assumptions with regard to the choice by the Federal Government and by the States of whose rights governmental actors must protect. The Court reached its conclusion by decontextualizing the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act from decolonization and post-World War II expressions of human rights, a time in which there was a move toward greater global recognition that the "other" has rights that are enforceable based on recognition of individual human equality. In this Essay, the Author considers the context of the Fifteenth Amendment and its work in overturning prior jurisprudence that indicated a divorcing of constitutional protections from the African-American population. The Author then turns to the context of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the connection between U.S. rights-protective legislation and a global shift toward rights-protective treatises and laws. Then the Author juxtaposes the positivist stance of international law with the current Court's jurisprudential posture of seeking congressional clarification and justification of rights above all else, even in the context of civil and human rights. Finally, the Author concludes that without positivist interpretations that have permeated U.S. civil rights legislation and jurisprudence in the past, new voting rights legislation can achieve neither its domestic nor global potential.


Unsupervised Deep Distance Metric Learning (UDML) aims to learn sample similarities in the embedding space from an unlabeled dataset. Traditional UDML methods usually use the triplet loss or pairwise loss which requires the mining of positive and negative samples w.r.t. anchor data points. This is, however, challenging in an unsupervised setting as the label information is not available. In this paper, we propose a new UDML method that overcomes that challenge. In particular, we propose to use a deep clustering loss to learn centroids, i.e., pseudo labels, that represent semantic classes. During learning, these centroids are also used to reconstruct the input samples. It hence ensures the representativeness of centroids - each centroid represents visually similar samples. Therefore, the centroids give information about positive (visually similar) and negative (visually dissimilar) samples. Based on pseudo labels, we propose a novel unsupervised metric loss which enforces the positive concentration and negative separation of samples in the embedding space. Experimental results on benchmarking datasets show that the proposed approach outperforms other UDML methods.


This article presents the work of mental health practitioners and laywomen who have developed and applied a new model of working with women in groups, a model founded on feminist principles that uses women's writing as the vehicle for group work. The model maintains a delicate balance between the needs of the group, the needs of the women in their social environment, and the women's ability to be the broker of their time, place, and mode of expression. This article presents the theoretical roots of the model and the qualitative evaluation of the writing groups that have been held over seven years, and it discusses how and why this model works for women of all ages and from all walks of life.


Many computer-controlled systems are distributed, consisting of computer nodes and a communication network connecting the various systems. It is not uncommon for the sensor, actuator, and control calculations to reside on different nodes. Wireless connections permit to apply these control systems in a wide spectrum of application and environments. In this paper, we describe the development process of small, low cost and powerful embedded systems based on open source kernels and Zigbee protocol. The development is based on a small, customisable and embeddable real-time kernel called PaRTiKle. PaRTiKle is a new open source real-time kernel for embedded systems, distributed under the terms of the GNU public license. Wireless communication are provided by means of a communication architecture by means of a algorithm of communication. This protocol schedules the packet data using a policy called EDF (earliest deadline first) which assigns priorities taking into account temporal. An example of a network sensor is build to illustrate the use of the architecture.


The COVID-19 disease has infected many countries, causing generalized impacts on different income categories. We carried out a survey among households (n = 412) representing different income groups in Nigeria. We used validated food insecurity experience and socio-psychologic tools. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The earning capacities of the respondents ranged from 145 USD/month for low-income earners to 1945 USD/month for high-income earners. A total of 173 households (42%) ran out of food during the COVID-19 pandemic. All categories of households experienced increasing dependency on the general public and a perception of increasing insecurity, with the high-income earners experiencing the greatest shift. In addition, increasing levels of anger and irritation were experienced among all categories. Of the socio-demographic variables, only gender, educational level of the household head, work hours per day, and family income based on society class were associated (p < 0.05) with food security and hunger due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although psychological stress was observed to be greater in the low-income earning group, household heads with medium and high family income were more likely to have satisfactory experiences regarding food security and hunger. It is recommended that socio-economic groups should be mapped and support systems should target each group to provide the needed support in terms of health, social, economic, and mental wellness.


During the Twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr was not only an important public intellectual but also a seminal thinker in IR. His prophetic voice echoed in the American culture from the Thirties until the Sixties and beyond. At the same time, statesmen and public opinion found in his political theory an essential contribute both for reflection and action. However, the protestant theologian suffered a harsh contrast by scholars, in particular by the positivist ones. This article analyses the path of Niebuhr's international political thought across the "Great Debates" of IR. From the First "mythical" debate until the last and still open one, it examines the role of Niebuhr's Christian realism in the development of the discipline. By using Flannery O'Connor's concept of "realist of distances", this essay tries to prove how Niebuhr was able to anticipate and, what's more, exceed all debates.


For analysis of the relationship among blueberry cultivars, the growth period and morphological characteristics were investigated in 28 blueberry cultivars, and cluster analysis using the SAS program was conducted based on the morphological data. The harvest period was later and longer in rabbiteye blueberry cultivars (Austin, Brightwell, Powderblue, Southland, Tifblue) than in highbush blueberry cultivars. The L/D ratio of flower was more than 2.0 in the Austin, Brightwell, Powderblue, Southland, Tifblue, and Brigitta cultivars, and this could be disadvantageous for pollination. The 28 blueberry cultivars were classified into two groups by the cluster analysis based on growth period and morphological characteristics. Group I included rabbiteye blueberries and Group II included highbush blueberries. However, the northern, southern, and half-highbush blueberry cultivars were not differentiated.


The development of the unsteady pressure field on the floor of a rectangular cavity was studied at Mach 0.9 using high-frequency pressure-sensitive paint. Power spectral amplitudes at each cavity resonance exhibit a spatial distribution with a streamwise-oscillatory pattern; additional maxima and minima appear as the mode number is increased. This spatial distribution also appears in the propagation velocity of modal pressure disturbances. This behaviour was tied to the superposition of a downstream-propagating shear-layer disturbance and an upstream-propagating acoustic wave of different amplitudes and convection velocities, consistent with the classical Rossiter model. The summation of these waves generates a net downstream-travelling wave whose amplitude and phase velocity are modulated by a fixed envelope within the cavity. This travelling-wave interpretation of the Rossiter model correctly predicts the instantaneous modal pressure behaviour in the cavity. Subtle spanwise variations in the modal pressure behaviour were also observed, which could be attributed to a shift in the resonance pattern as a result of spillage effects at the edges of the finite-width cavity.


Aromatase encoding by the CYP19 gene catalyzes the conversion of androgens to estrogens. In order to determine if polymorphisms of the CYP19 gene are associated with breast cancer risk, we analyzed the frequency of tetranucleotide (TTTA) tandem repeats and a 3-bp insertion (I)/deletion (D) polymorphism in intron 4 of the CYP19 gene in genomic DNA from 70 Korean breast cancer patients and 102 age-matched, healthy women. The 3-bp deletion allele was found more frequently in the breast cancer group than in the control group (p=0.001). Logistic regression analysis of the CYP 19 insertion/deletion (I/D) genotype showed a strong association between ID polymorphisms and breast cancer. The frequency of DD and ID alleles was significantly increased in the breast cancer group (DD genotype p=0.004, OR=12.81; and ID genotype p=0.005, OR=2.62). However, there were no differences in the genotype distributions of the (TTTA)n polymorphism of CYP19 between breast cancer patients and healthy controls. A positive association was noted between TTTA polymorphisms with 10 or more repeats and ER-negative tumors, as well as between lower repeat polymorphisms and ER-positive tumors (p=0.019). With respect to TTTA polymorphisms, we confirmed that the expression of aromatase in ER-positive MCF7 cells with 7-3 and 11 allele heterozygosity was significantly higher than in ER-negative MDA-MB231 cells with 11 allele homozygosity. These results suggest that 3-bp I/D polymorphisms of the CYP19 gene may be associated with breast cancer and that the (TTTA)n repeat genotype would be useful in selecting candidates for tamoxifen therapy, as well as predicting breast cancer risk in Korean women.


The decoherence of a test particle interacting with an ideal gas is studied by the help of the effective Lagrangian, derived in the leading order of the perturbation expansion and in order $\ord{\partial^2_t}$. The stationary decoherence time is found to be comparable to or longer than the diffusion time. The decoherence time reaches its minimal value for classical, completely decohered environment, suggesting that physical decoherence is slowed down as compared with diffusion by the quantum coherence of the environment.


Thesis (M.S.)--American University of Beirut. Department of Crop Production and Protection, 1999;"Advisor: Dr. Salma Talhouk, Assistant Professor, Crop Production and Protection--Member of Committee: Dr. Riad Baalbaki, Associate Professor, Crop Production


The scattering of plane, harmonic electromagnetic waves from perfectly conducting right-circular cylinders is studied by making use of a surface radiation condition. Using spherical polar coordinates, the surface profile of the cylinder is described and the particular form taken by the surface radiation condition is determined. A numerical scheme is outlined and the problems caused by the discontinuity of curvature across the surface are discussed. The results produced are then favourably compared with those produced by the numerical electromagnetics code and physical optics.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to establish a link between communication apprehension and communication self-efficacy in accounting students. Design/methodology/approach - This is achieved by the use of two questionnaires jointly distributed to the students involved. The Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) developed by McCroskey to measure oral communication apprehension[1] (OCA) and the instrument for written communication apprehension (WCA) developed by Daly and Miller and a questionnaire to measure communication self-efficacy. This had been developed using the guidelines set out by Bandura and was designed to measure two constructs: oral communication self-efficacy, and written communication self-efficacy. Findings - The two separate statistical tests to identify the connection between the two concepts both indicated the existence of a strong relationship between the two. This was shown not only in the overall relationship between communication apprehension and self-efficacy but also equally strongly in their constituent components. Practical implications - The existence of this relationship is important because it provides a possible development in terms of understanding the barrier to the development of communication skills and also indicates a possible redirection to alleviate and remove the barrier. In order for accountants to meet future challenges, there is substantial evidence that the development of communication skills will be vital. Originality/value - This paper draws the conclusion that in the future consideration needs to be given to incorporating into the pedagogy of accounting education, especially in those areas involving the development of communication skills, approaches that increase self-efficacy.


In Scott (2002) and Congdon (2006, 2007), a new method is advanced to compute posterior probabilities of models under consideration. It is based solely on MCMC outputs restricted to single models, i.e., it is bypassing reversible jump and other model exploration techniques. While it is indeed possible to approximate posterior probabilities based solely on MCMC outputs from single models, as demonstrated by Gelfand and Dey (1994) and Bartolucci et al. (2006), we show that the proposals of Scott (2002) and Congdon (2006, 2007) are biased and advance several arguments towards this thesis, the primary one being the confusion between model-based posteriors and joint pseudo-posteriors.


Field emission characteristics of single-walled carbon nanotubes were studied by using a simple method in a field emission microscope. The nanotube emission gun works effectively at the room temperature under a threshold field as low as 3.9 mV/μm. A typical I-V relationship of field emission was obtained with a high current density. The observed stable bright spots on the fluorescent screen originate from an ensemble emission from micro-ropes of the single-walled carbon nanotubes.


This book demonstrates the swift progress achieved in the field of diamond for electronic and bioelectronic applications. Predicted to become the 'ultimate semiconductor' in the early 1990s, diamond initially failed to match the impressive developments made with other wide-bandgap semiconductors. The situation is changing, with single-crystal electronic-grade diamond becoming a commercially available material. As importantly, the spectacular properties of single-point defects in diamond, as well as its superlative thermal conductivity, radiation 'hardness' and inherent biocompatibility, are being recognized as vital for devices used in biosensing, quantum informatics, and environmentally challenging applications. Not all recent advances relate to single-crystal diamond. Nanocrystalline diamond (NCD), ultra-nanocrystalline diamond (UNCD) and diamond-like carbon (DLC) are very important forms of carbon, as are multiphase carbon nanostructures and graphene. This book features results in all areas of high-performance diamond research. Chemical, electrochemical, and biochemical sensing, including nanodiamond for sensing in-cellular environment, and the integration of diamond within biological systems, are highlighted.


The effect of burrow-dwelling fauna on sediment denitrification within the Swan River Estuary, Western Australia, was assessed by determining the spatial profile of potential denitrification activity surrounding individual burrows of a polychaete. This activity was described for Ceratonereis aequisetis and compared with uninhabited sediment. Potential porewater denitrification activity was measured as N'2O production in the presence of acetylene (which blocks N2O reduction and NH4+ oxidation) and supplementary NO3-(provided as a substrate for denitrification). Snap-freezing of sediment cores in liquid nitrogen allowed easy sectioning in both the vertical (perpendicular depth from surface sediment) and radial (depth from burrow wall) planes. Overall, potential denitrification activity was significantly greater in inhabited sediment than in uninhabited sediment, although uninhabited sediment had higher surficial (0–10 mm) potential denitrification activity. Potential denitrification activity was also greater closer to the burrow wall (0–9 mm) rather than further into the sediment (9–13 mm). Greater sampling resolution would be required to determine whether a thin oxygenated surface layer (of either the vertical or radial plane) exists in which denitrification is inhibited. Although this study accurately demonstrates the spatial effect of C. aequisetis on sediment potential denitrification, the reported denitrification intensity may not reflect the rate in situ.


The NHS in England avoided a winter crisis this year with reduced waiting times for emergency cases and hospital admissions, a report published this week says.

The report, Winter and the NHS 2003-4 , showed that during this winter—traditionally winter is the most pressured time of year for the health service—the NHS improved on previous performance in terms of waiting times and influenza vaccination. More than 90% of patients were treated within four hours (the government target) of arrival at hospital accident and emergency departments throughout the winter period—compared with 80% last winter.

Presenting the findings, Professor George Alberti, national clinical director for emergency access, suggested that increased capacity and investment had meant that …


Basal-like breast cancer is a highly aggressive and lethal form of cancer, not amenable to treatment by molecularly targeted agents or conventional chemotherapy effective against other forms of breast cancer. Thus, discovery of novel intervention targets regulating tumorigenesis in basal-like breast cancer cells is critical. The success of molecularly targeted therapies against some forms of cancer has led to a search for additional cancer cell-specific targets that will permit effective tumor inhibition with minimal damage to normal cells. These efforts are largely focused on identification of novel oncogenes and tumor suppressors by genome sequencing or synthetic lethalities found via genome-wide RNAi screens. We employ a novel approach to identify cancer cell vulnerabilities among genes disregulated downstream of cooperating oncogenic mutations, which drive malignant transformation in large part through synergistic modulation of non-mutated downstream effector genes, the 'cooperation response genes' (CRGs) [McMurray et al., Nature, 19 June 2008]. After assessing how common was CRG disregulation in different epithelial cancers, via comparative genomic analysis of CRG expression patterns in tumor vs. normal tissue, we found that 34 CRGs (∼35%) were significantly disregulated in breast cancer. Because of the need for novel intervention targets in basal-like breast cancer, we focused our functional analysis there. We have tested a subset of CRGs disregulated in breast tumors for their contribution to malignancy in basal-like breast cancer cells, re-setting CRG levels toward normal cell levels by stable cDNA expression or shRNA-mediated knock-down and testing tumor formation capacity of perturbed cells. Our studies reveal that CRGs play an essential role in controlling tumor formation of basal-like breast cancer cells, with significant reductions in tumor volume, and in some cases reduced tumor incidence, upon CRG modulation. Disruption of cell behavior appears to be limited to cancer cells, as non-transformed mammary cells harboring analogous perturbations retain capacity to form acinar structures in 3D culture. Several FDA approved pharmacological agents, identified to reverse the CRG expression pattern, display inhibitory effects on basal-like breast cancer cell lines, with minimal effects on non-transformed cells. CRGs thus represent cancer cell-specific vulnerabilities in basal-like breast cancer, providing novel and unexpected opportunities for intervention against this difficult-to-target disease. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2012;72(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-06-18.


An early step in the transposition of bacteriophage Mu DNA in vitro is a DNA strand-transfer reaction that generates an intermediate DNA structure in which the Mu donor DNA and the target DNA are covalently joined. DNA replication, initiated at the DNA forks in this intermediate, generates a cointegrate product; simple insert products can also be formed from the same intermediate by degradation of a specific segment of the structure, followed by gap repair. This DNA strand-transfer reaction requires ATP, magnesium, the Mu A and Mu B proteins, and a factor supplied by an Escherichia coli cell extract. We have now shown that the host protein factor requirement can be satisfied by purified protein HU. The defined system has been used to determine the DNA substrate requirements for the reaction. The reaction requires the two Mu ends, located on the same DNA molecule, in the same relative orientation to one another as in the phage Mu genome. To participate in the strand-transfer reaction efficiently the mini-Mu plasmid, used as the transposon donor, must be supercoiled; the target DNA molecule may be supercoiled, relaxed circular, or linear.


In the US, judicial review constrains executive power. However, presidents appoint members of the court, potentially weakening this constraint. Elections may discipline who presidents appoint, but those appointments may also affect elections by shaping voter expectations about the court's constraint on future officeholders and thereby altering the voting calculus. We develop a model of electoral accountability to study these strategic links between voters, politicians, and judges. An executive appoints a judge who constrains present and future policy. Our analysis delivers four substantive insights. First, electoral accountability may encourage moderate appointments, thus alleviating the counter-majoritarian difficulty. Second, policy reforms that increase turnover on the court may backfire and reduce voter welfare if they go too far. Third, polarization has important effects, but these effects are conditioned on the source of polarization. Finally, electoral forces may help to explain some empirical patterns not well explained by existing theory. ∗We thank John Duggan, Jean Guillaume Forand, Ryan Hübert, Federica Izzo, Nolan McCarty, Davin Raiha, Tara Slough and audiences at Princeton, Vanderbilt, Stanford, APSA, MPSA, and SPSA for helpful suggestions. †Vanderbilt University, (firstname.lastname@example.com). ‡Princeton University, (email@example.com). §Vanderbilt University, (firstname.lastname@example.com)


Known as an excellent energy storage material, ZnMn2O4 has a wide range of applications in supercapacitors. In this report, a special sandwich-like structure of ZnMn2O4/C has been first designed and synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method and subsequent calcinations. The designed special sandwich-like structure can benefit ion exchange and remit the probable volume changes during a mass of electrochemical reactions. Furthermore, the porous carbon nanosheets, derived from low-cost glucose, can effectively increase ion flux. Therefore, the novel sandwich-like ZnMn2O4 nanoparticles encapsulated in carbon nanosheets can undoubtedly demonstrate an exceptional electrochemical performance for SCs. In this work, the composite material with porous sandwich-like structure exhibits excellent cyclic stability for 5000 cycles (∼5% loss) and high specific capacitance of 1786 F g−1.


The freud Python library analyzes particle data output from molecular dynamics simulations. The library's design and its variety of highperformance methods make it a powerful tool for many modern applications. In particular, freud can be used as part of the data generation pipeline for machine learning (ML) algorithms for analyzing particle simulations, and it can be easily integrated with various simulation visualization tools for simultaneous visualization and real-time analysis. Here, we present numerous examples both of using freud to analyze nano-scale particle systems by coupling traditional simulational analyses to machine learning libraries and of visualizing per-particle quantities calculated by freud analysis methods. We include code and examples of this visualization, showing that in general the introduction of freud into existing ML and visualization workflows is smooth and unintrusive. We demonstrate that among Python packages used in the computational molecular sciences, freud offers a unique set of analysis methods with efficient computations and seamless coupling into powerful data analysis pipelines.


Castleman disease (CD) describes a group of heterogeneous lymphoproliferative disorders with characteristic histopathology that are classified based on the number of enlarged lymph node (LN) stations, etiological drivers, and clinical phenotype. CD histopathology includes a broad spectrum from plasmacytic to hyaline/hyper vascular with a mixed pattern in between. Unicentric CD (UCD) involves a single enlarged LN station and mild symptoms, whereas multicentric CD (MCD) involves multiple stations of enlarged LNs and more severe symptoms. MCD is subclassifed into Human Herpesvirus-8 associated MCD, POEMS-associated MCD, and idiopathic MCD (iMCD). iMCD cases are further subdivided into thrombocytopenia, anasarca, fever/elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), renal dysfunction, organomegaly (TAFRO) or iMCD-not otherwise specified (NOS), who often have thrombocytosis and hypergammaglobulinemia. Recently, it has been reported that some iMCD patients can have more oligocentric lymphadenopathy (above or below the diaphragm) whereas others have generalized lymphadenopathy (above and below the diaphragm). Given the heterogeneity across CD, we leveraged data from a longitudinal natural history study of CD to characterize the spectrum of CD. Specifically, we set out to determine if patients with multicentric lymphadenopathy localized to above or below the diaphragm (oligocentric CD, OCD) appeared to be more similar to UCD or iMCD with more generalized lymphadenopathy.
 In total, 130 patients enrolled in an international CD registry were confirmed to have CD by a panel of experts. Patients were assigned UCD, OCD, or iMCD per the following: UCD, 1 station of enlarged LNs (N=32); OCD, ≥2 stations of enlarged LNs, either above or below the diaphragm (N=29); iMCD, ≥2 stations of enlarged LNs, both above and below the diaphragm (N=69). Clinical data is provided closest to date of diagnosis +/-90 days. Sustained response is defined as ≥50% symptom improvement sustained without the addition of subsequent drug treatments. When appropriate, statistical testing was performed by Chi-square, Fisher's exact, or two-tailed T test.
 Among the 69 iMCD patients, 42 (61%) were classified as TAFRO and 27 (39%) were NOS. In contrast, only 1 of 29 OCD patients (3%) was TAFRO and 28 (97%) were NOS. No UCD patients were TAFRO. Breakdown of histopathological subtype can be found in Table 1. There was a mean (SD) of 8.4 (3.7) enlarged LNs in iMCD at diagnosis, compared with 2.8 (1.4) in OCD and 1 (0) in UCD. While enlarged LNs in the abdomen/pelvis region occurred in 56% of UCD, only 19% of OCD patients demonstrated lymphadenopathy in this region. Clinically, OCD patients demonstrated symptoms and laboratory abnormalities more comparable to UCD than iMCD (Table 2). In fact, there was no difference in symptoms between UCD and OCD groups, while there were significantly more symptoms in iMCD than OCD. iMCD had significantly worse anemia, albumin, creatinine, CRP, and other markers of inflammation than OCD, whereas OCD patients had significantly increased CRP (p=0.03) and alkaline phosphatase (p=0.03) compared to UCD. IgM was greater in OCD than both UCD (p=0.02) and iMCD (p=0.01) (Table 2). The number of patients receiving drug treatments differed by subtype: 7 UCD (22%), 18 OCD (62%), and 67 iMCD (97%). Fifty-five patients (UCD: 1, OCD: 7, iMCD: 47) received anti-IL-6 therapy (+/- steroids), including the only FDA-approved drug, siltuximab. Sustained response to anti-IL-6 (+/- steroids) was observed in 23/47 (49%) iMCD, 3/7 (43%) OCD, and 0/1 UCD. Within iMCD clinical subgroups, response was observed in 12/27 (44%) iMCD-TAFRO and 11/20 (55%) iMCD-NOS as well as across the histopathogical subtypes, suggesting that anti-IL-6 therapy can be effective across the spectrum.
 Overall, this study highlights the heterogeneity of CD. Importantly, it uncovers a group of CD patients that meet diagnostic criteria for iMCD but their lymphadenopathy is confined to above or below the diaphragm and they appear to behave more similarly to UCD. Given that 1/3 of OCD patients were managed without drug treatment, further work is needed to determine the relative benefits of UCD-like surgical treatment versus iMCD-like drug-based therapy for OCD. The clinical subtype of TAFRO, which was present in more than half of the iMCD patients, was observed in only one OCD case and no UCD cases. Further work is needed to determine optimal treatments across these subgroups.
 Figure 1 Figure 1.

 Bagg: Scopio Labs: Research Funding. Lim: EUSA Pharma: Honoraria. Srkalovic: Takeda: Speakers Bureau; Janssen Pharmaceuticals: Speakers Bureau; EUSA Pharma: Speakers Bureau; Foundation Medicine: Speakers Bureau. Uldrick: Merck: Other: Receives study drug; Roche: Research Funding; Regeneron: Current Employment; Celgene: Research Funding. Fajgenbaum: Pfizer: Other: Study drug for clinical trial of sirolimus; N/A: Other: Holds pending provisional patents for 'Methods of treating idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease with JAK1/2 inhibition' and 'Discovery and validation of a novel subgroup and therapeutic target in idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease'; EUSA Pharma: Research Funding.


This paper investigates whether technological innovation and exports affect the size and productivity of manufacturing firms in Brazil. In order to do so, we employ a new dataset and try to control for self-selection, a problem that is particularly important for the issue under examination. Regression analyses show a positive relation among innovation, exports, and size and productivity, while causality exercises show that innovation and exports imply higher productivity and higher firm sizes. Our results suggest that policies aimed at improving technology and innovation, and internationalization of firms are good for the firms' competitiveness and, therefore, the economy's competitiveness.


During the solidification of solder joints composed of near-eutectic Sn–Ag–Cu alloys, the Sn phase grows rapidly with a dendritic growth morphology, characterized by copious branching. Notwithstanding the complicated Sn growth topology, the Sn phase demonstrates single crystallographic orientations over large regions. Typical solder ball grid array joints, 900 μm in diameter, are composed of 1 to perhaps 12 different Sn crystallographic domains (Sn grains). When such solder joints are submitted to cyclic thermomechanical strains, the solder joint fatigue process is characterized by the recrystallization of the Sn phase in the higher deformation regions with the production of a much smaller grain size. Grain boundary sliding and diffusion in these recrystallized regions then leads to extensive grain boundary damage and results in fatigue crack initiation and growth along the recrystallized Sn grain boundaries.


Like the ragpicker, "everything that the big city threw away, everything it lost, everything it despised, everything it crushed underfoot, he catalogues and collects…sorts things out and makes a wise choice" (Sontag 1977:78).
My first experience with skipping involved crawling under a fence in a London back alley adjacent to a Tesco. We were trying to gain entry into Tesco's garbage: a set of bins under lock- and-key. We did this not out of necessity but by choice. Skipping, also known as dumpster diving, is the act of going through commercial food waste to find edible items. The dented beer cans, the mounds of bread, the Brussels sprouts with a premature expiration date, the individually wrapped sushi rolls sold just moments ago. These were the type of food items one could successfully pluck from the dark.
Squatters were the ones who showed me how to skip successfully. Their logic was divergent from traditional institutionalized aestheticism; they had adopted a view of the city not as a space for consumption but as a space for alternative living. Squatter culture is unrefined with a focus on creativity and self-expression through bricolage and culturally subversive activities. This branch of squatting is related to Western Marxism and the rise of Marxist Geography within the 1970s. Generally, squatters do not belong to the upper class, they do not follow what David Harvey calls the excessive logics of accumulation like that of the city tourist. Squatters locate or buy items out of necessity, refraining from making purchases as symbols of wealth, power or prestige. This appeal to necessity-based action is also present in their views towards food consumption practices and urban food policies.
Taken with a camera purchased for one euro and gifted expired film, these photos are meant to be forensic, intimate and 'anti-aesthetic'. They are personal images that highlight both the skipping process and the faces behind the movement.


The writings of Martha Nussbaum broadly defend an account of transcendence as internal, always rooted in the human context. Her account implies that any and all projects of normative theological ethics are superfluous, since they transcend the natural bounds of human experience and reason. This essay points toward a space for theology, specifically Jewish theology, in Nussbaum's work, through an analysis of her recent philosophical and autobiographical writings on Judaism. Nussbaum's account in Upheavals of Thought associates Judaism with carnality and vulnerability; this essay supplements her account by pointing to a non-natural origin of emotional judgments in some of the texts Nussbaum treats. This move serves to temper the emphasis on autonomy in liberal Jewish thought, and provides an account of transcendence which can serve as the basis of a more traditional Jewish theological ethics.


This paper argues that unless community-based rehabilitation CBR programmes enter into genuine consultation with the disability rights movement they are in danger of repeating the mistakes of institution-based rehabilitation. Partnership between CBR programmes, and disabled people's and parents' organisations in southern Africa has led to the development of a more consumer focused approach to CBR Where disabled adults and parents have been fully involved in the design and implementation of programmes, CBR workers have a clearer understanding of disability as a development issue. Education, employment and poverty alleviation have been given a higher priority than medical rehabilitation in these programmes. The evolving concept of CBR and its relationship with the disability rights movement has been observed and documented by The Save the Children Fund, and forms the basis of this paper.


Dear Editor:

Acanthosis nigricans (AN) is a velvety thickening of the epidermis that may signify internal diseases1. During childhood, AN is obesity-associated amongst majority of cases, and it is considered an important cutaneous marker of insulin resistance (IR)1. Axillae, posterior neck fold and flexor skin surfaces represent primarily affected areas. However, although rarely, a generalized form of AN has been described2-5, which is not associated with IR or internal diseases. We present the case of a 2-year-old Caucasian girl that sought consultation to our clinic for the onset of skin roughness and darkening of the wrists. The mother reported that the skin roughness started a few months after birth, slightly extended to periflexural areas and was associated to a mild pruritus. The girl was born from non-consanguineous parents, with a normal pregnancy and delivery. Psychophysical development was normal. Weight, height and body-mass-index were normal according to age and sex. Skin examination revealed bilateral thickening, darkness, and rough plaques which affected the neck, main folds, navel, upper and lower limbs (Fig. 1). Mucosae, palms, soles, genitalia, hair and nails were not involved. A 3-mm-incisional-biopsy specimen obtained from the popliteal region showed papillomatosis, basket weave pattern hyperkeratosis, mild hypergranulosis and acanthosis with focal upward projections of finger-like dermal papillae. Superficial dermis indicated the presence of a slight perivascular lymphocytic infiltration (Fig. 2). Laboratory examinations, including routine blood cell counts, haemoglobin, platelets, glycemia, insulin, blood urea levels, creatinine, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, high density lipoprotein, triglycerides, hepatic transaminases, bilirubine, alkaline phosphatase, gamma-glutamil-transpeptidase, lactate dehydrogenase, serum electrolytes, C-reactive protein, erythrosedimentation velocity, serum protein electrophoresis, immunoglobulins, thyroid-stimulating hormone, thyroxine, anti-thyroperoxidase antibodies, anti-thyroglobulin antibodies were within the normal range in relation to age and sex. Chest X-ray was also normal. There was no history of drug intakes. There were no records of similar skin lesions from previous generations, nor history of maternal diabetes. Secondary causes of AN were excluded thus supporting the final diagnosis of generalized idiopathic benign AN. The patient was treated for 3 months with moisturizers and topical isotretinoin 0.05% gel being applied twice daily, and we repeated the treatment after further recurrences of the skin disease. The patient is currently under follow up, the skin lesions have improved significantly with the topical treatment.

Fig. 1

A 2-year-old girl with benign, idiopatic generalized acanthosis nigricans. Clinical details of (A) neck; (B) popliteal folds; (C) right hand, right inguinal fold; and (D) feet, revealing thick, rough, plaques and darkening of the skin.

Fig. 2

A 3-mm-incisional-biopsy specimen obtained from the popliteal region showing epidermis with acanthosis and overlying hyperkeratosis, and focal upward projection of finger-like dermal papillae (H&E, ×10).

Childhood AN is classified into 8 different clinical types: benign, obesity-associated, syndromic, malignant, acral, unilateral, drug-induced, mixed. Although the etiopathogenesis of AN remains unclear, proliferation of keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts could be induced by IR and high levels of insulin binding capacity1. Nevertheless, not all types of AN could be related to this mechanism, beca use hyperinsulinemia is not always present. In fact, in malignant AN, the inductor of keratinocytic growth could be a product of tumor tissue, tumor growth factor α, stimulating epidermal growth factor receptor and thus, inducing proliferation. Moreover, a familial series of non syndromic AN due to mutation of fibroblast growth factor receptor-3 has been recently reported6.

Benign AN has been considered a rare genodermatosis, inherited as an autosomal dominant trait with variable penetrance. Benign AN may rarely present a generalized involvement of the skin1. We found that 8 of the cases of generalized benign AN had been previously reported in literature which showed similar clinical presentations to our case2-5, with generalized hyperpigmentation and velvety thickening of the skin, sometimes associated with pruritus in otherwise healthy children. However, only one4 had a familiarity for AN. On the basis of these data, we propose to distinguish this type of generalized benign AN from the benign form reported in literature. We propose to call it generalized, idiopathic, benign acanthosis nigricans (GIBAN). This could be considered a singular variant, probably related to a new mutation, occurring for the first time in the family; thus, it is not possible to demonstrate autosomal transmission, due to the absence of familiarity and not being associated with IR or other internal diseases.

Larger case series and long-term follow-ups of these patients should exclude this scenario as the first cutaneous sign of IR only developed years after the clinical appearance of AN.


Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIPO) may result from dysfunctional intestinal nerves or muscles. Primary causes are uncommon and include familial and sporadic visceral myopathies. Visceral myopathy may be characterized by CIPO, ureterohydronephrosis, and hepatobiliary dilation. The diagnosis is made by the clinical history and characteristic findings of fibrous replacement of the muscularis externa, vacuolar degeneration, and cytoplasmic inclusions in myocytes on a full thickness specimen of affected viscera. Few case reports highlight sporadic hollow visceral myopathy (SHVM) in an adult involving the entire GI, biliary, and urinary tract, We present a unique case of abrupt onset of CIPO, biliary and urinary tract dilation in a 35-year-old Mexican woman, initially presumed to have lupus enterocolitis, and after failure to respond to immune modulating therapy, diagnosed by full thickness rectal biopsy with SHVM, Early full thickness biopsy of affected viscera in patients presenting with CIPO with associated biliary and urinary tract dilation should be considered. Our case demonstrates the safety and adequacy of a full thickness rectal biopsy in making a diagnosis of SHVM.


BACKGROUND
People with psychiatric diagnoses have increased physical health difficulties.

OBJECTIVES
To examine the physical growth parameters documented in children receiving psychiatric treatment.

METHODS
A chart review was performed on consecutive paediatric consultations in 1997 and 1998 on 34 children six to 12 years of age admitted to an intermediate-stay psychiatric inpatient service. Growth parameters of each child were plotted on standard growth curves. The prevalence of obesity (body mass index at or above the 95th percentile), absolute weight at or above the 95th and 50th percentiles, underweight status, tall and short stature, macrocephaly and microcephaly were calculated. The prevalence of atypical findings was compared with the expected prevalence of typical growth parameters in the general population. Risk factors for atypical growth parameters were recorded. An association between weight and specific medication use was explored.

RESULTS
It was found that 11.8% of the children were obese. It was also found that 23.5% of the children had weight at or above the 95th percentile, 79.3% had weight at or above the 50th percentile, 14.7% had macrocephaly and 79.4% had a head circumference above the 50th percentile; these results were statistically significant. The mean number of psychotropic medications prescribed was 6.4, although there was no significant association between higher weight and current medication type.

CONCLUSIONS
Children receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment were more likely to have higher weight than typical children. Monitoring growth parameters is an important component of the paediatric care of children with psychiatric diagnoses. Guidelines are required for obesity prevention and intervention in the context of the risk factors experienced by this high risk population.


Topical ophthalmic delivery of active ingredients can be achieved using cationic nanoemulsions. In the last decade, Novagali Pharma has successfully developed and marketed Novasorb, an advanced pharmaceutical technology for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases. This paper describes the main steps in the development of cationic nanoemulsions from formulation to evaluation in clinical trials. A major challenge of the formulation work was the selection of a cationic agent with an acceptable safety profile that would ensure a sufficient ocular surface retention time. Then, toxicity and pharmacokinetic studies were performed showing that the cationic emulsions were safe and well tolerated. Even in the absence of an active ingredient, cationic emulsions were observed in preclinical studies to have an inherent benefit on the ocular surface. Moreover, clinical trials demonstrated the efficacy and safety of cationic emulsions loaded with cyclosporine A in patients with dry eye disease. Ongoing studies evaluating latanoprost emulsion in patients with ocular surface disease and glaucoma suggest that the beneficial effects on reducing ocular surface damage may also extend to this patient population. The culmination of these efforts has been the marketing of Cationorm, a preservative-free cationic emulsion indicated for the symptomatic treatment of dry eye.


The trigeminal blink reflex can be evoked by delivering an air puff to the eye. If timed appropriately, e.g., during motor preparation, the small, loopy blink-related eye movement (BREM) associated with eyelid closure disinhibits the saccadic system and reduces the reaction time of planned eye movements. The BREM and intended eye movement overlap temporally, thus a mathematical formulation is required to objectively extract saccade features – onset time and velocity profile – from the combined movement. While it has been assumed that the interactions are nonlinear, we show that blink-triggered movements can be modeled as a linear combination of a typical BREM and a normal saccade, crucially, with an imposed delay between the two components. Saccades reconstructed with this approach are largely similar to control movements in their temporal and spatial profiles. Furthermore, activity profiles of saccade-related bursts in superior colliculus neurons for the recovered saccades closely match those for normal saccades. Thus, blink perturbations, if properly accounted for, offer a non-invasive tool to probe the behavioral and neural signatures of sensory-to-motor transformations. New and noteworthy The trigeminal blink reflex is a brief noninvasive perturbation that disinhibits the saccadic system and provides a behavioral readout of the latent motor preparation process. The saccade, however, is combined with a loopy blink related eye movement. Here, we provide a mathematical formulation to extract the saccade from the combined movement. Thus, blink perturbations, when properly accounted for, offer a non-invasive tool to probe the behavioral and neural signatures of sensory-to-motor transformations.


Thin current sheets (TCSs) with thicknesses about ion Larmor radii are widespread in space. It is important to describe their equilibrium structure allowing them to store and then explosively release the accumulated free energy. When ions are moving along quasi‐adiabatic trajectories while magnetized electrons follow guiding center drift orbits, TCSs can be described within the framework of a hybrid approach. The thickness of the embedded electron sheet remains uncertain because of the scale‐free character of electron motion. In this work, we propose a novel analytical model of the multilayer TCS that provides a universal expression describing the inner (embedded) electron sheet in dependence of TCS characteristics. An unusual property of the embedded electron layer revealed in this analysis is the nonlinear profile of the magnetic field in the inner layer: B(z) ~ z1/3, which conforms excellently with MAVEN observations of 43 TCSs in the Martian magnetotail.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze factors associated with discordance between tuberculin skin test (TST) and interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) results among household contacts of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients.

DESIGN
TST (purified protein derivative) and IGRA (QuantiFERON-TB Gold) were performed on household contacts of PTB patients diagnosed between 2006 and 2007 in Salvador, Brazil. Discordant test groups were compared with the TST-/IGRA- group.

RESULTS
Of 261 household contacts satisfactorily tested by TST, 145 (55.6%) had positive TST results; of 298 satisfactorily tested by IGRA, 127 (43.1%) had positive results. The test agreement was 0.76 (kappa = 0.53, 95%CI 0.43-0.63). Sixty-one (24%) were discordant: 44 (72%) with TST+/IGRA- and 17 (28%) with TST-/IGRA+ results. Compared to the TST-/IGRA- group, the TST+/IGRA- and TST+/IGRA+ groups were significantly more likely to have a chest X-ray showing old lung scars (OR = 6.8, 95%CI 1.3-35.0; OR = 7.4, 95%CI 2.2-24.4, respectively). The TST-/IGRA+ group was exposed to their index cases for significantly longer than the TST-/IGRA- group (OR = 7.2, 95%CI 1.7-29.3).

CONCLUSION
The TST+/IGRA- and TST+/IGRA+ groups shared more similar characteristics with each other than with the TST-/IGRA- group. In a setting endemic for TB, TST results appear to be more suitable in the decision to treat latent TB infection.