The aim of our study was evaluation of the relationship between apolipoprotein E (APO E) genotype and the clinical parameters in Parkinson's disease (PD) with and without dementia. 104 PD patients were evaluated and within this group two subgroups were formed: 51 PD patients (25 males, 26 females; mean age: 70.4 +/- 6.03 years) with dementia and 53 (31 males, 22 females; mean age: 62.5 +/- 8.57 years) without dementia. The estimation of APO E genotype was executed by means of Polymerase Chain Reaction. The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale was used to quantify the severity of PD. Cognitive functions were assessed according to the Mini Mental State Examination. APO E genotype and allele frequencies did not differ between demented and nondemented parkinsonian patients.


All calves are subjected to infection with coccidia, yet most do not develop clinical disease. Where disease does occur, it can be challenging to diagnose accurately and in an era where in-feed medication or prophylactic/metaphylactic use of medicines could be banned or severely restricted this condition could become very challenging on some units. In this article we briefly explore the current evidence supporting the epidemiology, and pathogenesis of this disease, and also the challenges for treatment and control.


Human resource management has increasingly become one of the most important challenging issues in the pharmaceutical industry in general and in developing countries in particular to increase the access of societies to needed medicines. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the challenges of human resource management practices surrounding pharmaceutical firms in Iran, as a developing country. To answer the research question, a qualitative descriptive study using thematic analysis was performed through 22 semi-structured interviews with the key informants of Iranian pharmaceutical industry. Extracted themes of interviews were categorized into three main groups namely ability, motivation, and opportunity challenges based on the AMO model and briefly discussed separately. This is the first study investigating HRM challenges in the pharmaceutical industry; the research contributes to developing knowledge of human resource practices and assist pharma managers with better understanding how well implement human resource practices.


Most of the exogenous and endogenous chemical compounds are metabolized by enzymes of xenobiotic processing pathways, including the phase I cytochrome p450 species. Carcinogens and their metabolites are generally detoxified by phase II enzymes like glutathione-S-transferases (GST). The balance of enzymes determines whether metabolic activation of pro-carcinogens or inactivation of carcinogens occurs. Under certain conditions, deregulated expression of xenobiotic enzymes may also convert endogenous substrates to metabolites that can facilitate DNA adduct formation and ultimately lead to cancer development. In this study, we aimed to test the association between deregulation of metabolizing genes and brain tumorigenesis. The expression profile of metabolizing genes CYP1A1 and GSTP1 was therefore studied in a cohort of 36 brain tumor patients and controls using Western blotting. In a second part of the study we analyzed protein expression of GSTs in the same study cohort by ELISA. CYP1A1 expression was found to be significantly high (p<0.001) in brain tumor as compared to the normal tissues, with ~4 fold (OR=4, 95%CI=0.43-37) increase in some cases. In contrast, the expression of GSTP1 was found to be significantly low in brain tumor tissues as compared to the controls (p<0.02). This down regulation was significantly higher (OR=0.05, 95%CI=0.006-0.51; p<0.007) in certain grades of lesions. Furthermore, GSTs levels were significantly down-regulated (p<0.014) in brain tumor patients compared to controls. Statistically significant decrease in GST levels was observed in the more advanced lesions (III-IV, p<0.005) as compared to the early tissue grades (I-II). Thus, altered expression of these xenobiotic metabolizing genes may be involved in brain tumor development in Pakistani population. Investigation of expression of these genes may provide information not only for the prediction of individual cancer risk but also for the prevention of cancer.


Background: Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) is widely cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical areas worldwide. The tree is highly productive, resilient, and requires minimal care. Jackfruit has a characteristic flavour and is highly versatile. Several studies report the importance of the tree and fruits, ranging from food and medicine to the provision of several value-added products. In spite of the many benefits the plant offers, it has not been sufficiently incorporated in the general food system, partly because of gaps in processing, distribution and knowledge about utilization methods and nutritional and nutraceutical value.
Objective: A comprehensive literature search was done to highlight jackfruit's nutritional, health, and commercial benefits to promote its utilization.
Methodology: The literature search was conducted using three electronic databases with no constraints on publication year. Over 200 studies on the nutritional properties of jackfruit and at least 105 articles on the use of the various parts of the jack tree for their anticarcinogenic, antimicrobial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and hypoglycemic effects were found.
Findings: Jackfruit has vital nutrients, including phytochemicals, minerals, vitamins,  carbohydrates, and proteins. The literature on utilization shows that the fruit can be processed into commercial products using minimal processing technologies, dried to extend product shelf-life, or processed into various value-added products.
Conclusions: Jackfruit production and value addition are relatively under-developed despite the fruit tree's high yield potential, high nutritional value, nutraceutical and techno-functional properties. For improved benefits from jackfruit, actors need to adopt the available technologies at different value chain nodes.


Abstract The microstructures and microchemistry of four US International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition ice cores were examined, at three depths (30, 60, 90 m) each, using scanning electron microscopy, including electron backscattered patterns and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), in order to assess the relationship between chemical and physical properties. The physical characteristics (grain size, porosity, density, internal surface volume, and crystallographic orientation) at the four sites were inhomogeneous, as expected on the basis of differences in the moisture content of deposited snow and the accumulation rate at their respective locations. Evidence of shallow subgrain boundary formation and trends in internal surface volume, having implications for the study of firn densification and ice-sheet modeling, were also found. Chemical characterization revealed that site-specific variations in particulate concentration and source could accurately be determined using EDS analysis. It was also found that the combination of elements predominant within the sample controls the morphology and microstructural location of the impurities.


Observations of systematic spatial modulation of low-Z impurity radiative emissions are analysed for Tore Supra ergodic divertor discharges limited on the inner wall. Some similarities to modulations previously observed with Marfe-like conditions are observed, but significant differences are also seen in the cases studied here. A simulation of the modulations is made, using the three-dimensional edge transport code BBQ. The simulations suggest that an important role is played by charge exchange with neutral deuterium, in addition to the ergodic divertor-induced modulations of the electron temperature. The interpretation highlights the important role of intermediate-Z states in impurity transport processes.


Purpose: To evaluate the effect of age on prediction of concurrent endometrial cancer (EC) in patients with atypical endometrial hyperplasia (AEH). Materials and Methods: Medical data of 176 patients who were diagnosed with atypical endometrial hyperplasia and underwent surgical treatment enrolled the study group. Clinicopathological features, preoperative and postoperative informationwere collected. The age distrubition for patients with atypical endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial cancer were examined and stratified according to five-year age increments. Results: Concurrent endometrial cancer was detected in 35(19.8%) patients. atypical endometrial hyperplasia and lower grade hyperplasia (simple or complex) was found in 82(46.5%) and 27(15.3%) patients, respectively. Endometrial cancer was most frequently seen in 51-60 age group. Endometrial cancer in final pathology significantly increased (p = 0,0005) after the age of 53 with sensitivity of 65.52% and 76.67%. Conclusion: Endometrial cancer increases significantly after the age of 53 in patients with atypical endometrial hyperplasia. Based on this study it is recommended that clinicians shoud be aware of this knowledge while informing patients and planning treatment.


A retrospective review of static images and computerized blood flow studies (CBFS) in patients with osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) suggests that CBFS maybe useful in following the clinical course of this disease.


Using the notion of k-proper family we prove general results on the almost approximate stability of the polynomial functional equation. As one of the corollaries we obtain the generalization of the Theorem of R. Ger (cf. [4]): Theorem Let G be a uniquely n! divisible commutative semigroup and let I be a translation invariant proper ideal in G such that 1 i U ∈ I for every U ∈ I, i = 1, . . . , n. Let E be a Banach space. Then there for every e > 0 and every f : G → E satisfying ‖∆f(x, h)‖ ≤ e for Ω(I)-a.a. (x, h) ∈ G × G there exists a unique up to a constant function polynomial p : G → E of order n − 1 such that ‖f(x) − p(x)‖ ≤ 2(2 − 1)e for I-a.a. x ∈ G.


Tailoring apps based on user traits has attracted tremendous interest in developing mHealth apps and understanding a users' personality is a key challenge in that context. This challenge is typically addressed via classic surveys, which pose a regrettably high burden on app users. This study aims to reduce the response burden of personality tests by introducing a model for predicting the user personality based on digital footprints of app usage. At the same time, skipping surveys completely turns out to undermine prediction accuracy. Therefore, this paper conceptualizes a hybrid framework that utilizes user event data in combination with surveys that have fewer questions than conventionally. The proposed method demon-strates a promising trade-off between the simplicity of using user event data and the accuracy of the validated survey methods: when applying the hybrid method to a retrospective case study, the accuracy is higher than when using the event data exclusively. Also, the number of survey questions needed is significantly lower. Since this is a novel method, we expect that results will strengthen as larger data sets available over time.


Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030. They address the current global challenges of alleviating poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The 17 Goals are all integrated and interconnected urgent actions in global development that balance social, economic and environmental sustainability. Three of them are directly related to microfinance principles, including ending poverty, decent work & economic growth and reduced inequalities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how these three goals can be achieved in the practices of microfinance in four countries, namely Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. This study was library research with qualitative approach that employed content analysis in evaluating the types of financing products. The results will assist us in understanding the similarity and differences in achieving the SDGs and their significance. In addition, recommendations and suggestions are highlighted at the end of the paper to provide the solutions to the current issues faced by microfinance.


We study the problem of tracking an object moving through a network of wireless sensors. In order to conserve energy, the sensors may be put into a sleep mode with a timer that determines their sleep duration. It is assumed that an asleep sensor cannot be communicated with or woken up, and hence the sleep duration needs to be determined at the time the sensor goes to sleep based on all the information available to the sensor. Having sleeping sensors in the network could result in degraded tracking performance, therefore, there is a tradeoff between energy usage and tracking performance. We design sleeping policies that attempt to optimize this tradeoff and characterize their performance. As an extension to our previous work in this area, we consider generalized models for object movement, object sensing, and tracking cost. For discrete state spaces and continuous Gaussian observations, we derive a lower bound on the optimal energy-tracking tradeoff. It is shown that in the low tracking error regime, the generated policies approach the derived lower bound.


Jacqueline Piatigorsky's memoir, Jump in the Waves, is not exactly a book about music or a musician, although it will probably be initially attractive to anyone who is curious to know more about the private side of one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century-Gregor Piatigorsky. (Actually, it focuses on two great musicians. The renowned French pianist, Alfred Cortot, featured prominently in Mrs. Piatigorsky's early life.) Jumpin the Waves is the story of how a human being triumphed over life's obstacles and difficulties to finally blossom into a fulfilled and happy person. Although being born a Rothschild would not seem to be a hardship to most people, Jacqueline Piatigorsky tells how, in her case, it led to a nightmarish childhood. Her entire life since has been a struggle to escape from fear, frustration, and repression. Even though she has had many successesbecoming a champion chess player and champion tennis player, having a loving marriage and raising a happy family, becoming a recognized sculptor-none of these alone brought fulfillment. In her own words,


This paper discusses the problem of estimating the performance of an OFDMA receiver operating in a selective channel, prone to interference, wherein only a set of the OFDM sub-carriers is allocated to a user. Planning and deployment of an OFDMA system requires estimation of system performance in various signal to noise and interference (SINR) conditions. The problem is not trivial as both signal and interference undergo selective fading, and that the signal and interference have partially overlapping spectra. The effect of interference is a function of both its strength and its structure, namely how many of the sub-carriers are affected by it. In this paper we analyze the problem using various link to system mapping techniques. It is shown, by analysis and simulation, that the interference structure has an effect on the effective SINR, however it is small, in Rayleigh fading channels.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 45, 2004

2957

The acute inflammatory response is accompanied by an increased number of granulocytes. However, granulocytes are short-lived cells in the circulation; they spontaneously undergo apoptosis. The number of these cells is regulated by the balance of their production and elimination through apoptosis. Since extremely rapid changes in the number of granulocyes have to be made in response to insults, other mechanisms than an enhanced production and maturation of these cells in the bone marrow are required. The root of Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer is one of the most popular medicinal plants in oriental countries. Ginsan is a purified acidic polysaccharide isolated from the roots, with molecular weight of 150,000. We studied the effect of Ginsan on the spontaneous apoptosis of human granulocytes in vitro by morphological analysis of cell nuclei, gel electrophoresis of DNA fragments, and Annexin V staining. Almost 60% of granulocytes underwent spontaneous apoptosis by 20 h. Ginsan inhibited the spontaneous apoptosis of granulocyes in a dose-dependent manner. At a concentration of 50 μg/ml, Ginsan reduced the rate of apoptotic cells to as low as 10%. Previous studies have shown that mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are involved in the spontaneous apoptosis of granulocytes. To determine whether the p38 MAPKor the extracellular signal-related protein kinase (ERK) pathway is involved in the spontaneous apoptosis of these cells, we used a specific inhibitor of p38MAPK, SB203580 or MAPK kinase (MEK) inhibitor, PD98059. Treatment of granulocytes with either of these inhibitors significantly inhibited the spontaneous apoptosis. On the other hand, Ginsan activated ERK and inhibition of the ERK pathway by PD98059 blocked the anti-apoptotic effect of Ginsan, whereas inhibition of p38MAPK did not affect. Our findings suggest that both p38MAPK and ERK pathways are involved in the spontaneous apoptosis in granulocyes and that Ginsan inhibits their spontaneous apoptosis through a pathway requiring activation of ERK. Recent studies have shown that Ginsan is an immuno-modulator and also a radio-protector. Regulation of granulocyte survival may be one of the important mechanisms responsible for activities of Ginsan.


This article aims to contribute to the literature on World War I in Palestine while studying the experience of the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the war. By focusing on a city and its residents, this article offers an analysis of the war from a dimension and lens yet to be explored in the history of Palestine. More specifically, the article will use relief networks in order to analyze not only the ways people experienced the war, but also as a way of exposing inter-communal dynamics between the different communities living in this mixed urban center.


In this paper, we introduce a specific kind of doubly reflected Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (in short DRBSDEs), defined on probability spaces equipped with general filtration that is essentially non quasi-left continuous, where the barriers are assumed to be predictable processes. We call these equations predictable DRBSDEs. Under a general type of Mokobodzki's condition, we show the existence of the solution (in consideration of the driver's nature) through a Picard iteration method and a Banach fixed point theorem. By using an appropriate generalization of It\^o's formula due to Gal'chouk and Lenglart, we provide a suitable a priori estimates which immediately implies the uniqueness of the solution.


1. The net transport of sodium into the haemolymph by sodium-deficient 4th-instar larvae of Aedes aegypti (L.) has been studied by means of flame photometry. The fluxes associated with this net transport have been studied by means of 22Na.

2. The net transport is much more rapid in fed larvae (rate about 50 mM./l./hr.) than in starved larvae (rate about 10 mM./l./hr.). The fluxes are also much greater in the fed larvae.

3. The fluxes associated with net transport in fed and starved larvae are much greater (initially at any rate) than the fluxes occurring in normal fed and starved larvae during steady-state exchange.

4. In both fed and starved larvae almost all the net transport and the fluxes associated with it occur through the anal papillae, so these organs must be responsible for almost all the difference between fed and starved larvae in the rate of net transport and fluxes.

5. Cytological changes in the anal papillae following upon feeding and starvation are described.

6. The results are discussed in terms of possible carrier mechanisms in the anal papillae.


In this work, the authors propose parallel architectures for computing square and cube of a given number based on ancient Indian Vedic mathematics. While the square architecture is based on the 'duplex' property of binary numbers, the cube architecture is based on the Anurupya Sutra (algorithm) of ancient Indian Vedic mathematics. Extensive simulations of the architectures indicate that they are faster than any of those found in literature for finding square and cube of a given number.


Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) define a diverse class of nanoporous materials having potential applications in adsorption-based and membrane-based gas separations. We have previously used atomically detailed models to predict the performance of MOFs for membrane-based separations of gases, but these calculations require considerable computational resources and time. Here, we introduce an efficient approximate method for screening MOFs based on atomistic models that will accelerate the modeling of membrane applications. The validity of this approximate method is examined by comparison with detailed calculations for CH4/H2, CO2/CH4, and CO2/H2 mixtures at room temperature permeating through IRMOF-1 and CuBTC membranes. These results allow us to hypothesize a connection between two computationally efficient correlations predicting mixture adsorption and mixture self-diffusion properties and the validity of our approximate screening method. We then apply our model to six additional MOFs, IRMOF-8, -9, -10, and -14, Zn(bdc)(ted)0.5, and COF-102, to examine the effect of chemical diversity and interpenetration on the performance of metal organic framework membranes for light gas separations.


Two forms of nonlinear-feedback shift-registers are considered. In the Type-I register, the feedback output is added to the shift-register contents at an arbitrary number of stages. In the type-II register, the feedback is input to the first stage only. It is shown that for every Type-I register there is an equivalent Type-II register in the sense that the autonomous state diagrams differ only by a labelling of the states. Moreover, the mapping between equivalent states can always be chosen to be a linear transformation. This theorem is a well-known result in the theory of linear-feedback shift-registers and is thus seen to apply unchanged to the nonlinear case.


The dynamic system-of-equations approach has been used to analyze the demand for outbound tourism among a number of destinations. However, this approach has not been applied to the context of the tourist consumption of different products in a given destination. Given the importance of understanding tourists' consumption behavior to destination management, this study seeks to gain new insights into Hong Kong inbound tourist expenditure patterns using a dynamic system-of-equations approach: the almost ideal demand system model. Based on the estimation of a complete demand system, this study investigates the interactions among the demand for different tourism products (i.e., shopping, hotel accommodation, meals outside hotels, and other) and the impacts of price changes on demand. Tourists from different source markets are examined separately, and the results show that their consumption behavior differs significantly.


Susceptibility of immature individuals of the spider Theridion impressum to 17 pesticides (6 insecticides, 4 acaricides, 4 fungicides and 3 herbicides) was tested in the laboratory. The pesticides were applied at recommended rates in a Potter tower. Mortality was evaluated for 4 subsequent days. Broad-spectrum insecticides, cypermethrin+chlorpyrofos (Nurelle), α-cypermethrin (Vaztak), and deltamethrin (Decis), were toxic to spiders. Selective insecticides, pirimicarb (Pirimor), Bacillus thuringiensis (Novodor), and triazamate (Aztec), were harmless. All tested acaricides, pirimiphos-methyl (Actellic), flufenoxuron (Cascade), τ-fluvalinate+thiometon (Mavrik), and bifenthrin (Talstar) showed high toxicity. Of the fungicides, dithianon (Delan), benomyl (Fundazol), iprodione (Rovral), and dodine (Syllit), only dithianon was slightly harmful, while the remaining fungicides were harmful. All herbicides, metazachlor (Butisan), clomazone (Command), and clopyralid (Lontrel), were harmless to T. impressum. Three selective insecticides, 3 fungicides and 3 herbicides are recommended for use in plant protection.


We evaluated the clinical usefulness of near-infrared spectroscopic quantitative measurement of placental tissue oxygenation for noninvasive estimation of uteroplacental function in pregnant women. We performed a prospective observational clinical study. Women without complications (N = 15) and women with pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH; N = 6) were enrolled. Measurements of placental tissue oxygenation index (TOI) using NIRO-300 (Hamamatsu Photonics, Hamamatsu City, Japan) were recorded. The mean TOI in women without complications was 72.36 +/- 5.36% and 80.28 +/- 2.78% in pregnant women with PIH. The mean TOI in pregnant women with PIH was higher than that of pregnant women without complications. There were no differences in the TOI in relation to gestational age at onset of PIH, forms of PIH, or severity of hypertension. Higher TOIs in pregnant women suggest the reduced ability of the placental function. Monitoring the TOI by near-infrared spectroscopic quantitative measurement may have a high potential for clinical application, particularly in prenatal management.


Radiopharmaceuticals targeting the enzyme prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA; synonyms: glutamate carboxypeptidase II, NAALADase; EC 126.96.36.199) have recently emerged as powerful agents for diagnosis and therapy (theranostics) of prostate carcinoma (PCa). The radiation doses for therapeutic application of such compounds are limited by substantial uptakes in kidneys and salivary glands, with excess doses reportedly leading to radiotoxicity-related adverse effects, such as kidney insufficiency or xenostomia. On the basis of the triazacyclononane-triphosphinate (TRAP) chelator, monomeric to trimeric conjugates of the PSMA inhibitor motif lysine-urea-glutamic acid (KuE) were synthesized by means of Cu(I)-mediated (CuAAC) or 5-aza-dibenzocyclooctyne (DBCO)-driven, strain-promoted click chemistry (SPAAC), which were labeled with gallium-68 for application in positron emission tomography (PET), and characterized in terms of PSMA affinity (determined in cellular displacement assays against I-125-BA) and lipophilicity (expressed as log D). Using subcutaneous murine LNCaP (PSMA-positive human prostate carcinoma) xenografts, the influence of ligand multiplicity, affinity, polarity, and molar activity (i.e., mass dose) on the uptakes in tumor, kidney, salivary, and background (muscle) was analyzed by means of region-of-interest (ROI) based quantification of small-animal PET imaging data. As expected, trimerization of the KuE motif resulted in high PSMA affinities (IC50 ranging from 6.0-1.5 nM). Of all parameters, molar activity/cold mass had the most pronounced influence on PET uptakes. Because accumulation in nontumor tissues was effected to a larger extent than tumor uptakes, lower molar activities resulted in substantially better tumor-to-organ ratios. For example, for one trimer, 68Ga-AhxKuE3 (IC50 = 1.5 ± 0.3 nM, log D = -3.8 ± 0.1), a higher overall amount of active compound (12 pmol vs 2 nmol, equivalent to molar activities of 1200 and 8 MBq/nmol) resulted in a remarkable reduction of the kidney-to-tumor ratio from 11.4 to 1.4, respectively, at 60 min p.i. Our study suggests that, for PSMA-targeting radiopharmaceuticals, molar activity has a more pronounced influence on small-animal PET imaging results than structural or in vitro parameters.


OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to explore whether Team Based Learning (TBL) was effective method compared with Traditional Didactic Lecture (TDL) in improving problem solving and study ability about clinical course of ophthalmology in medical students. We also cared about the view and satisfaction of TBL in Chinese students.
METHODS

Two hundred and seventy-five students of 5-year clinical medicine program from Central South of China University participated in our study program, one hundred and forty enrolled in modified TBL course. A questionnaire including closed and open-ended items, was distributed to students immediately following completion of the TBL session and we collect one hundred and eight valid questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data. The effects of the TBL module on student performance were measured between the groups using a one-way between groups Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test by the Individual Readiness Assurance Test (IRAT), the Group Readiness Assurance Test (GRAT), and final examination scores (FESs) compared with other class which didn't apply TBL session.
RESULTS

140 students achieved 72.65 mean test scores on test questions that assessed their knowledge of ophthalmology using the modified TBL strategy compared 135 students achieve 70.8 mean scores with TDL method (p=0.3434). The performance was significantly better during GRAT compared to IRAT in pre-class quiz. TBL learning method was favored and acceptable by most medical students compared to the TDL session.
CONCLUSIONS

Application of modified TBL to ophthalmology improved students' performance, self-study, teamwork and increased their class engagement and satisfaction. But TBL should be further optimized and developed to enhance the educational outcomes.


We describe 17 medieval kurgans at Murlinka, dating to the late 1st millennium AD and associated with archaeological sites at Aitkulovo, in the Tarsky District of the Omsk Region, on the right bank of the Irtysh, in the borderland between the forest-steppe and the taiga. The deceased were buried in a supine extended position. Some burials were made on the virgin soil, and some on the buried soil. Most kurgans accommodated one grave, but in some cases the number of graves was two and more. Inside the kurgans, at the buried soil level and above, limb bones of animals and small potsherds were found. In certain graves, traces of fi re, such as partly burned bones, charcoal, ash, or charred earth, were detected. We also found ditches and various structures inside the mounds. In eleven mounds, there were funerary offerings, such as vessels, arrowheads, celts, bits, and ornaments, similar to those found in the graves. We give a detailed description of bronze ornaments and pommels, tools, and belt sets made of white metal, as well as glass and ceramic beads, iron artifacts, details of horse harness, iron and bone weapons, and pottery. Parallels are found in the taiga regions of the Middle Ob, Ural, and the steppe zone of northern Altai. We discuss the chronology and cultural attribution of the fi nds in the context of the ethnic processes that occurred in the region.


Background: Pulse oximetry (SpO2) is a standard monitoring device in patients presenting to EMDs and intensive care units (ICUs). Pocket pulse oximeters (PPOs) are used widely in wards, EMDs, and small hospitals/clinics. These inexpensive PPOs also guide therapeutic interventions. Few studies have evaluated the accuracy of SpO2 in patients presenting to critical care areas vis-à-vis devices like PPO and standard pulse oximeter (SPO). This study becomes extremely relevant in view of the ongoing crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic wherein SpO2 monitoring is very important in hospitals, quarantine centers, small clinics, or even at home.
 Methods: Patients presenting to critical areas who underwent arterial blood gases (ABG) analysis on the recommendation of the treating physician between November 2016 and October 2018 were included in this study. Along with the ABG analysis, a simultaneous assessment of SpO2 was done with a single PPO and SPO and all values were noted. Statistical analysis was done using the SPSS v.21.0 for Windows.
 Results: The study included 300 patients. We compared the O2 saturations of ABG, SPO, and PPO with respect to sex, different age groups, and at different levels of ABG pCO2, HCO3, and pH in all patients. All parameters were compared using the Pearson's correlation test; the results showed that ABG O2 saturations were closer to the SPO than the PPO but the differences were not statistically significant as the Pearson's correlation values for all parameters were >0.8. We also compared the parameters by Bland Altman Plot and all observations were outside 95% CI (confidence interval), which means that there was a good agreement between O2 saturations by all three methods, that is, ABG, SPO, and PPO; however, ABG O2 saturations were closer to SPO than PPO but this difference was not statistically significant. Hence, we conclude that the PPO is a useful tool for reliable monitoring of O2 saturations.
 Conclusion: This study highlights that inexpensive and noninvasive PPO can be used as a standard monitoring device with reliability in critically ill patients presenting to EMDs, ICUs, and small hospitals/clinics, quarantine centers, and even at home.


Innovations not only contribute to competitiveness of the company but have also positive effects on revenues. On average, product innovations account to 14 percent of companies' sales. Innovation management has substantially changed during the last decade, because of growing reliance on external partners. As a consequence, a new task for purchasing arises, as firms need to understand which suppliers actually do have high potential contributing to the innovativeness of the firm and which do not. Proper organization of the purchasing function is important since for the majority of manufacturing companies deal with substantial material costs which pass through the purchasing function. In the past the purchasing function was largely seen as a transaction-oriented, clerical function but today purchasing is the intermediate with supply chain partners contributing to innovations, be it product or process innovations. Therefore, purchasing function has to be organized differently to enable firm innovation potential. However, innovations are inherently risky. There are behavioral risk (that some partner will take advantage of the other party), technological risk in terms of complexity of products and processes of manufacturing and incoming materials and finally market risks, which in fact judge the value of the innovation. These risks are investigated in this work. Specifically, technological risks which deal with complexity of the products, and processes will be investigated more thoroughly. Buying components or such high edge technologies necessities careful investigation of technical features and therefore is usually conducted by a team of experts. Therefore it is hypothesized that higher the technological risk, higher will be the centralization of the purchasing function as an interface with other supply chain members. Main contribution of this research lies is in the fact that analysis was performed on a large data set of 1493 companies, from 25 countries collected in the GMRG 4 survey. Most analyses of purchasing function are done by case study analysis of innovative firms. Therefore this study contributes with empirical evaluations that can be generalized. Keywords—Purchasing function organization, innovation, technological risk, GMRG 4 survey.


Using density functional theory, based on the pseudo-potential plane wave basis set, the geometries and electronic structures of Li/Si(001) systems with different Li atom coverages were investigated systematically. The effect of Li adsorption on surface properties was also investigated. Our results indicated that Li atoms preferred to adsorb on high symmetry sites between adjacent Si-Si dimers and that the smallest average adsorption energy was predicted for the 0.75 monolayer (ML) coverage. By analyzing the band structures, the Si(001) surface varied from semiconductor to conductor, then to semiconductor again with increasing Li coverage. The bandgap of the Si(001) surface increased obviously at 1.00 ML coverage because of the significant destruction of surface Si-Si dimers after Li adsorption. Since electrons obviously transferred from the Li atom to the substrate, the work function of the surface decreased and oscillated with an increase in coverage. Furthermore, according to the calculated surface formation energy, the phase corresponding to 0.75 ML coverage should be difficult to observe.


Description and documentation is one of the major prerequisites for disseminating and exchanging machine-readable historical sources and data. This proposal for description and documentation items is an attempt for standardizing information requirements in historical research; it does not give recommendations for all possible description and documentation needs, but instead attempts to set essential parameters for describing and documenting machine-readable historical sources and data. In the appendix to this proposal, an example using the 1851 Census of England and Wales is given to provide a detailed illustration of the proposal.


Abstract In Vytal and Hamann (2010) we reported a neuroimaging meta-analysis that found that basic emotions can be distinguished by their brain activation correlates, in marked contrast to Lindquist et al.'s conclusions in the target article. Here, I discuss implications of these findings for understanding emotion, outline limitations of using meta-analyses and neuroimaging as the sole basis for deciding between emotion views, and suggest that these views are essentially compatible and could be adapted and combined into an integrated emotion framework.


In order to assess the involvement of the cardiopulmonary receptors in the regulation of the coronary circulation, changes in coronary resistance produced by the application of a -10 mmHg pressure to the lower body were studied in 6 healthy subjects and 6 patients with arterial hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy. The results show that the inhibition of the ventricular receptors significantly increases coronary resistance and that this reflex response is eliminated in hypertensive patients with ventricular hypertrophy. The results show that the inhibition of the ventricular receptors significantly increases coronary resistance and that this reflex response is eliminated in hypertensive patients with ventricular hypertrophy.


Longitudinal surveys of anglers or boat owners are widely used in recreational fishery management to estimate total catch over a fishing season. Survey designs with repeated measures of the same random sample over time are effective if the goal is to show statistically significant differences among point estimates for successive time intervals. However, estimators for total catch over the season that are based on longitudinal sampling will be less precise than stratified estimators based on successive independent samples. Conventional stratified variance estimators would be negatively biased if applied to such data because the samples for different time strata are not independent. We formulated new general estimators for catch rate, total catch, and respective variances that sum across time strata but also account for correlation stratum samples. A case study of the Japanese recreational fishery for ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis) showed that the conventional stratified variance estimate of total catch was about 10% of the variance estimated by our new method. Combining the catch data for each angler or boat owners throughout the season reduced the variance of the total catch estimate by about 75%. For successive independent surveys based on random independent samples, catch, and variance estimators derived from combined data would be the same as conventional stratified estimators when sample allocation is proportional to strata size. We are the first to report annual catch estimates for ayu in a Japanese river by formulating modified estimators for day-permit anglers.


Research suggests that social capital has positive influences on the improvement of quality of life (livability) and the creation of wealth. Some Western scholars have been interested in traditional social capital as an important element of modernization and rapid economic development in East Asian countries. This study compares and contrasts elements of social capital and residential satisfaction across three different residential communities in South Korea, namely apartment estates (Seoul and Gwacheon) and a rural village (Yeoju). Two major questions are posed: first, what differences exist in terms of the perception of the level of social capital and the reputation of the area within the different neighbourhood contexts? Second, what is the relationship between residential satisfaction and the perception of social capital? Using the results from 487 heads of households surveyed, this study assesses commonly recognized elements of each community, which includes social capital, social mix and residential satisfaction in the communities. The study findings suggest that three factors—norms, trust and networks—contribute equally to the case study areas. Also, ageing population and duration of residence were relevant to the development of neighbourhood-based social capital and residential satisfaction, and these factors need to be carefully considered by housing policy makers, social planners and others involved in implementing human settlements policies.


The best arrangement of source quenching (SQ) and credit management (CM) at the subscriber network interface (SNI) is investigated using simulation. Source quenching is intended to allow the packet loss to occur at the source rather than inside the network and to reduce the number of retransmissions. Potential implementations of credit management and source quenching are presented. In addition to shifting the packet loss from core network access (CNA) to terminal network access (TNA), source quenching also shortens the delay across SNI at high network loads. The optimum configuration of SQ and CM is CM-SQ, which provides the load balance on the CPUs of TNA and CNA and shortens the delay across SNI according to queuing theory.<<ETX>>


The static routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem for wavelength routing optical networks has traditionally been solved using Integer Linear Programming (ILP) and graph colouring. These problem domain search schemes become inefficient for solving large NP-hard (Non Polynomial Time - hard) optimization problems and in dynamic environments because of their computational complexity and execution time. In this paper, a heuristic approach inspired by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is proposed for solving static RWA. A new encoding scheme for members of the swarm population is proposed. To help the particles to converge towards an optimal solution quickly, a novel scheme is devised for route selection, during particle's search. In order to diversify the search in problem space, a special operation is proposed for the global best particle. The proposed scheme achieves a good solution in a significantly lower number of iterations as compared to other heuristic algorithms.


In order to develop a hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis of testimony, this essay will first argue that testimony is "said in many ways" without being homonymous and that contemporary epistemological approaches to testimony are not capable of accounting for all paradigmatic forms of testimony. Second, it is argued, following and extending the work of Paul Ricoeur, that by emphasizing the sense of engagement or Bezogenheit as a basic characteristic of testimony, we may find another approach to testimony that offers a phenomenological alternative to the observational model of witnessing and the accompanying conception of testimony as report. Third, this approach is further developed and analyzed in terms of the four elements of testimony, namely, subject matter, witness, act of testifying, and addressee.


This paper provides a detailed experimental study of an interface model developed in the companion article F. Cazals and F. Proust, Revisiting the description of Protein-Protein interfaces. Part I: algorithms. Our experimental study is concerned with the usual database of protein-protein complexes, split into five families (Proteases, Immune system, Enzyme Complexes, Signal transduction, Misc.) Our findings, which bear some contradictions with usual statements are the following: (i)Connectivity properties incur important variations across families. These properties are sensitive to water molecules and their variations upon consideration of structural water quantify the filling of packing defects by water molecules. (ii)The model of interfaces as a hydrophilic rim and a hydrophobic core is not general. (iii)At the interface scale, curvature properties correlate with the interface surface area, while locally, the absolute mean curvature follows a bimodal distribution. (iv)About 10% of interfaces consists of several connected components, and this multi-patch structure is independent from structural water. Almost all interfaces feature holes of significant size filled by structural water. Stable crystallographic water molecules play a prominent in reconnecting disconnected interfaces. (v)The chemical composition of interfaces in terms or pairwise contacts features a constant ratio of undetermined interactions, with subtle inter-families variations of determined interactions. Overall, these conclusions shed some light on which structural parameters are most relevant to describe protein-protein interactions.


Nowadays, cloud computing is a very interesting environment for researcher to look deep. It is more on computing delivery whereby service rather than a product. It provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and storage as a service. This technology is not involved end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system when users deliver the services. The cloud computing concepts is derived from grid computing, whereby end-user no need to understand the devices and components or infrastructure required in retrieved the service. It is based on virtualization resources. Cloud computing is consider as a new area in research and there have a lots of problem especially regarding to Service Level Agreement (SLA). This research is focusing to verify whether the SLA is follow the contract or violated. All the results are used for validation of the cloud services based on its own SLA.


Urbanization increases stormwater run-off volumes through the widespread use of impervious surfaces. This leads to localized flooding, water pollution and morphologically degraded water bodies. Rain gardens – a shallow, vegetated form of bioretention – are one strategy for mitigating these hydrologic consequences of urbanization. Rain gardens in highly urban areas typically require greater infiltration rates due to their smaller volumes. The application of urban rain gardens in a Mediterranean climate is further challenged by contrasting wet and dry seasons. These have significant implications for run-off, infiltration, treatment and plant survival. Soil selection is critical to all of these, because it performs the necessary and competing functions of drainage and plant-available water retention. An appropriate soil mix will sufficiently infiltrate stormwater to reduce run-off, while also holding some plant-available water to reduce irrigation needs during dry periods. Similarly, an appropriate plant palette will utilize species adapted to drought, well-drained soils and periodic flooding. The San Francisco Bay Area has a number of rain garden soil specifications, with little data on relative performance and minimal monitoring of existing sites. In this research, I will examine current soil specifications by regional agencies and municipalities. Furthermore, I will measure infiltration rates at nine locally sampled rain gardens sites, comparing these to cultivation needs of associated plant species. The implications for other Mediterranean climate regions, particularly southern Europe, are significant. While the Water Framework Directive recommends that stormwater be dealt with at the source, the EU and particularly the Mediterranean member states lag in rain garden implementation. A better understanding of the soil requirements for Mediterranean-climate rain gardens will advance their implementation in California and Mediterranean-climate regions generally.


The hypersonic velocity and sound attenuation for liquid CD3OD, CH3OH and CD3OD/6% D2O are reported for a temperature range of 190 K-300 K. The results, measured from Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering, indicate the presence of at least one viscous relaxation phenomenon for which the relaxation time is evaluated. The non-Arrhenius behaviour of the latter magnitudes shows evidence of the appearance at low temperatures of a second relaxational mechanism.


Development policy, practice and research have largely adhered to a North–South, geographic and aid-driven view of the world. Over the last ten years the approaches of South–South cooperation have also come to prominence. However, more attention is being paid to universal development based on the assumption that development challenges are as relevant for the North as for the South, with many common problems. More needs to be known about the nature of learning from South to North in order to complete the paradigm of universal development. The articles chosen for this Archive Collection are addressed to how South and North approaches to development can be interlinked: they show that this topic has been debated for many years. With the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals, there is now a framework in place with which to address a universal approach to development.


MRI protocols are instruction sheets that radiology technologists use in routine clinical practice for guidance (e.g., slice position, acquisition parameters etc.). In Mayo Clinic Arizona (MCA), there are over 900 MR protocols (ranging across neuro, body, cardiac, breast etc.) which makes maintaining and updating the protocol instructions a labor intensive effort. The task is even more challenging given different vendors (Siemens, GE etc.). This is a universal problem faced by all the hospitals and/or medical research institutions. To increase the efficiency of the MR practice, we designed and implemented a web-based platform (eProtocol) to automate the management of MRI protocols. It is built upon a database that automatically extracts protocol information from DICOM compliant images and provides a user-friendly interface to the technologists to create, edit and update the protocols. Advanced operations such as protocol migrations from scanner to scanner and capability to upload Multimedia content were also implemented. To the best of our knowledge, eProtocol is the first MR protocol automated management tool used clinically. It is expected that this platform will significantly improve the radiology operations efficiency including better image quality and exam consistency, fewer repeat examinations and less acquisition errors. These protocols instructions will be readily available to the technologists during scans. In addition, this web-based platform can be extended to other imaging modalities such as CT, Mammography, and Interventional Radiology and different vendors for imaging protocol management.


ABSTRACT The study of the physical activity engagement (PA) has given rise to a relevant research agenda in a wide range of fields, such as its close relationship with subjective well-being, self-perceived health and social capital. Previous evidence has identified interrelationships among these variables, but without considering different levels of physical activity. We have thus considered three levels of activity: light (walking), moderate and vigorous. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is undertaken on data from Spain's National Health Survey in 2011–2012 to analyse these interrelationships. The SEM shows a simultaneous and bidirectional relationship between different levels of PA (moderate and vigorous activities) and happiness, with a more robust association stemming from happiness to PA than vice versa. This relationship is mediated through health. From a policy perspective, this implies a virtuous circle: involvement in different levels of PA increases happiness and self-perceived health, while happiness involves higher PA and subsequent positive increases in health and happiness. Nevertheless, this virtuous circle does not always run successfully when social capital is considered to mediate the relationship between PA and happiness, which might explain why it has proven to be very difficult for health policymakers to fight against inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle within a great part of the population. Highlights We investigate bidirectional interrelationships between different levels of physical activity (PA) and happiness. We consider the mediation role played by self-perceived health (SPH) and social capital. Our results highlight a network of association between different levels of PA, SPH, social capital and happiness. SPH positively mediates this relationship for any type of PA level, whereas social capital only mediates positively when vigorous PA is developed. From a health policy perspective, the simultaneity between PA levels and happiness implies a virtuous circle.


To improve the depth accuracy of an indirect time-of-flight CMOS image sensor, high modulation frequency is often adopted. It will result in high power consumption of an on-chip demodulation driver, and this problem will be much more serious when the resolution of the sensor is much higher. In this paper, a power reduction method that can lower the power consumption of the demodulation driver circuit during the integration time while obtaining accurate high-resolution depth maps is proposed and analyzed theoretically. The method decreases the number of driven pixels at a high-modulation frequency by a programmable resolution adjustment circuit to obtain an accurate low-resolution depth map. A low-depth accuracy high-resolution depth map is obtained at a low modulation frequency, and then a modified super-resolution algorithm is used to obtain an accurate high resolution solution depth map. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a model is established based on the actual indirect time-of-flight sensor architecture, then the depth error and power consumption are analyzed by the simulation results of the model. In the simulation, 25 MHz and 100 MHz are used as the low modulation frequency and high modulation frequency, respectively. With the best scenario in depth accuracy kept, average power consumption decreases 38.47% and peak power consumption decreases 49.83% while the depth error that is represented by RMSE merely increases 8.08%.


Objectives: This study aimed to determine the expression profile of HPV-16 E1 in cervical samples and the role of E1 in cervical carcinogenesis. In addition, this work also aimed to determine whether the HPV-16 E1 63bp duplication is present in the Thai population.

Methods: One-hundred and twenty-four HPV16 positive cervical samples ranging from normal, CIN1, CIN2/3, and SCC lesions were studied. E1 mRNA expression was determined by ddPCR. Methylation of promoters p97 and p670 was quantified by pyrosequencing, while PCR and sequencing were used to determine the physical state and variations of HPV16 E1 genome. HEK 293T cells were transfected with pEGFP-C1 containing HPV16 E1. Cell proliferation of transfected cells was measured using cell viability count and cell metabolism assay. Apoptosis and necrosis was determined in transfected cells treated with or without QVD-OPH (pan-caspase inhibitor) by Annexin V and propidium iodide staining and quantitated using flow cytometry. RNA expression Microarray analysis was performed on FACS sorted HPV16 transfected cells. RNA expression was confirmed by Real-time reverse transcription (RT) PCR. Plasmid containing pEGFP-C1 was used as a vector control throughout the experiments.

Results: Increased E1mRNA expression related to disease progression (normal 0.18, CIN 1 0.41, CIN 2/3 0.65 and SCC 0.79) was demonstrated with significant positive correlation (r = 0.661, p =0.019). No association between physical state and E1 expression was found.� Methylation of p97and p670 promoters showed significant elevation in SCC compared to normal samples. Only 4.2% showed genomic variations of HPV16 E1 63 bp duplication. HPV16 E1 transfected HEK293T cells showed a significant decrease in number of viable cells and cell proliferation 24 h post-transfection (p < 0.0001). HPV16 E1 significantly induced both apoptotic and necrotic cell death 48 h post-transfection. Treatment of HPV16 E1 transfected cells with QVD-OPH showed a decreasing trend without statistical significance. Microarray and real-time RT PCR results revealed that E1 dysregulated genes involved in protein synthesis (RPL36A), metabolism (ALDOC), cell proliferation (CREB5, HIF 1A, JMJD1C, FOXO3, NFKB1, PIK3CA, TSC22D3), DNA damage (ATR, BRCA1 and CHEK1), and immune response (ISG20) pathways. Kinetic host gene expression in HPV16 E1 transfected cells indicated that most genes were downregulated after 48 h post-transfection.

Conclusion: Detection of E1 mRNA and p97 methylation were beneficial as cancer prognostic markers. The presence of 63 bp duplication in HPV16 E1 was observed in the Thai population and related to low grade lesions. The presence of HPV16 E1 protein alone was able to dysregulate many cellular pathways in a time dependent manner. Notable genes disrupted by HPV16 E1 included genes involved in cell proliferation and host DNA damage response. This study suggests that E1 may play a role in cancer development however HPV16 E1 transfection experiments did not provide a definite carcinogenic pathway which warrants further studies.


The paper is devoted to estimate of wear rates of working surfaces of the frictional wedges from cast iron СЧ25 according to the survey results at ordering them to depot repair. The insufficient wedge resistance to wear is demonstrated. To create a new design the review and analysis of Russian and foreign models are performed.


Most anal fistulas are either intersphincteric or low transsphincteric and are treated by fistulotomy with a few recurrence and minimal risk of incontinence. In high and complicated fistulas, fistulotomy should not be used because of a high chance of incontinence. High transsphincteric or suprasphincteric fistulas, anterior fistulas in female, patients with coexisting inflammatory bowel disease, elderly patients with poor sphincter function, multiple simultaneous fistulas, or patients with multiple prior sphincter injuries need alternative technique to minimize the incidence of incontinence. The alternative techniques include seton placement, advancement flap closure, muscle filling procedure, fibrin glue, etc. depending on the status of fistula and patients. The various sphincter sparing techniques used widely are reviewed.


Early work with size-tunable periodic particle arrays (PPAs) fabricated by nanosphere lithography (NSL) demonstrated that the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) could be tuned throughout the visible region of the spectrum. Further developments of the NSL technique have produced a myriad of nanoparticle configurations. Presented in this paper are several array types and examples of their utility in current applications. Both the sensitivity and tunability of the LSPR have been firmly established using single layer PPAs. Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) has been used to show that double layer PPAs act as single domain magnets and give strong MFM contrast. Angle-resolved NSL has produced nanogap and nano-overlap structures with manipulation resolution of one nanometer. Nanowell structures extend the original twodimensional structure into the third dimension. Exploitation of this flexible, materials-general NSL technique allows for investigation of the catalytic, electrochemical, magnetic, optical and thermodynamic properties of nanoparticles.


The tools and techniques utilized in the technical communications profession are constantly improving and changing. Information Technology (IT) organizations devote the necessary resources to equip and train engineering, marketing, and sales teams, but often fail to do so for technical documentation teams. Many IT organizations tend to view documentation as an afterthought; however, consumers of IT products frequently base their purchasing decisions on the end user documentation's content, layout, and presentation. Documentation teams play a unique role in IT organizations as they help to build and create a public identity through end user manuals and the corporate website, as well as maintain intellectual knowledge through knowledge sharing and management. The technical communicator "makes sense" of complex engineering specifications by creating user-friendly manuals for the layman. The practitioner who compiles and records this complex information is a valuable resource to any IT organization. Therefore, on-going training for technical documentation teams is essential to stay competitive in the fast-paced technical market. Technical communicators in IT organizations who only write end user manuals are becoming a rarity. Research indicates a marked trend toward technical writers in multiple roles and varied responsibilities that include web design and development, and business systems analysis functions. Although these added roles and responsibilities require training on some of the newer software tools and more complex programming tools, technical communicators are experiencing difficulty keeping pace with these tools. This article discusses technical documentation teams in IT organizations and provides an on-going training assessment to help technical documentation managers identify their team's strengths and weaknesses. In addition, measures and results from a study conducted at eight IT organizations, are provided to show the effect of how the integration of on-going training for documentation teams enhances individual competency and improves team performance.


In this paper, we present an analytical model for the performance evaluation of GSM/GPRS cells with different resource allocation schemes. The presented model is based on the modified Engset model with a finite number of users generating ON/OFF sessions in the cell. The closed formula following from the model is applicable for calculating different performance parameters like user throughput, blocking probability and radio resource utilization. Our study is focused on two main radio resource allocation strategies: complete partitioning and partial sharing.


Time-course studies on the microsomal cytochrome P450s in the livers of carcinogen-resistant (DRH) and sensitive (Donryu) rats were carried out during a long-term administration of 3'-methyl-4-dimethylaminoazobenzene (3'-Me-DAB). Total contents of the microsomal cytochrome P450s were gradually reduced with time in the Donryu rat livers, while those in the DRH rats did not alter significantly under these conditions. The activities of several isoforms of cytochrome P450 (CYP1A1, CYP1A2, and CYP2E1) were determined separately during these experimental periods. However, we could not obtain satisfactory evidence which may explain the different susceptibility to chemical carcinogenic actions in the livers between DRH and Donryu rats. Lower total contents of cytochrome P450s in the Donryu rats during the later stage may be due to the hepatic injuries caused by long-term administration of 3'-Me-DAB.


The ability to provide flexibility and allow fine-grain circuit specialization make field programmable gate arrays (FPGA's) ideal candidates for computing elements within application-specific architectures. The benefits of gate-level specialization and reconfigurability can be extended by reconfiguring circuit resources at run-time. This technique, termed run-time reconfiguration (RTR), allows the exploitation of dynamic conditions or temporal locality within application-specific problems. For several applications, this technique has been shown to reduce the hardware resources required for computation. The use of this technique on conventional FPGA's, however, requires additional time for circuit reconfiguration. A functional density metric is introduced that balances the advantages of RTR against its associated reconfiguration costs. This metric is used to justify run-time reconfiguration against other more conventional approaches. Several run-time reconfigured applications are presented and analyzed using this approach.


The effect of thermal cycling was carried out on steel bars (0.4 %C). A single run was performed at a lower temperature of 320C and an upper temperature of 5000C cooled in water and seawater. For several numbers of cycles up to 30 cycles for an accurate determination of heating and cooling times. The effect of thermal cycling on the corrosion rate was evaluated. The effect of thermal cycling on the following properties was evaluated the corrosion rate. The comparison between the effect of thermal cycling on carbon steel (0.4% C) seawater cooled (previous results, sea-water cooled [1]) and the effect of thermal cycling on carbon steel (0.4 C %) (in this manuscript, water-cooled) has been studied. From the obtained test results (previous and in this paper, it was found that the type of corrosion is uniform, the corrosion rate of the first stage gradually increases with the number of thermal cycling up to 15 cycles, then it takes steady-state up to 30 cycles. It was found that the rate of corrosion (previous results, seawater cooled) is more than (the results in this paper, water-cooled).


BACKGROUND
The Phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3Ks) is a member of intracellular lipid kinases and involved in the regulation of cellular proliferation, differentiation and survival. Overexpression of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling has been reported in various forms of cancers, especially in colorectal cancers (CRC). Due to their significant roles in the initiation and progression events of colorectal cancer, they are recognized as a striking therapeutic target.

OBJECTIVE
The present review is aimed to provide a detailed outline on the role of PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway in the initiation and progression events of colorectal cancers as well as its function in drug resistance. Further, the role of PI3K/Akt/mTOR inhibitors alone and in combination with other chemotherapeutic drugs, in alleviating colorectal cancer is also discussed. The review contains pre-clinical and clinical evidence as well as patent literature of the pathway inhibitors which are natural and synthetic in origin.

METHODS
The data were obtained from PubMed/Medline databases, Scopus and Google patent literature.

RESULTS
PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling is an important event in colorectal carcinogenesis. In addition, it plays significant roles in acquiring drug resistance as well as metastatic initiation events of CRCs. Several small molecules of natural and synthetic origin have been found to be potent inhibitors of CRCs by effectively downregulating the pathway. Data from various clinical studies also support these pathway inhibitors and several among these are patented.

CONCLUSION
Inhibitors of the PI3K/mTOR pathway has been successful for the treatment of primary and metastatic colorectal cancers, rendering the pathway as a promising clinical cancer therapeutic target.


Macroeconomic data have been shown to vary substantially between sources, especially so for low-income countries. While the impact of data revisions on inference is well documented for cross-country studies, there is no systematic analysis of the robustness of results obtained from time series analysis. This is despite the fact that time series analysis is an integral part of the econometric toolkit of government analysts, and informs policy decisions in many areas of macroeconomics. This study fills this gap for the notoriously controversial aid-effectiveness debate using the statistical framework by Juselius et al. (2014, Oxf Bull Econ Stat): by adopting alternative sources of GDP data in 36 sub-Saharan African countries The author finds that results remain robust across datasets in two thirds of the countries, but sometimes drastically change in others. These findings suggest that robustness checks such as those carried out here should become standard procedure for macroeconomic analysis using single-country time series.


Based on a relativistic quark model approach, the transition properties of the first nucleon resonance Delta(1232), and the coupling constants gpiNN, gDeltapiN are investigated. Two different ways to remove the center of mass motion are considered. The results of the relativistic approaches with and without center of mass correction are compared with those of nonrelativistic constituent quark model. Moreover, pion meson cloud effect on these calculated observables is explicitly addressed. Better results are obtained by taking the pion meson cloud into account.


Prostatism is caused by one of three conditions: median bar, hyperplasia or cancer. It is treated by one of three routes: the transurethral, the suprapubic or the perineal. This trebleness of kind and approach is confusing and a cause of contention. To differentiate a median bar from hyperplasia, either of which may be associated with cancer, and to recognize cancer when it occurs alone as well as when it is so associated is the problem of diagnosis. None of the three conditions can be cured without surgical intervention. To treat each kind of prostatism therefore by a transurethral, a suprapubic or a perineal operation is the choice of surgery, at least in theory. This reasoning may be false, since it is not followed in every practice. Some surgeons never choose a twofold or threefold plan of treatment but fit one method to all conditions. It follows that the diagnostic problem


The National Lung Cancer Audit was developed to improve the quality and outcomes of services for patients with lung cancer, knowing that outcomes vary widely across the UK and are poor compared to other western countries. After five years the audit is capturing approximately 100% of the expected number of incident cases across hospitals in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Jersey. Measures of process and outcome have improved over the audit period, such as the histological confirmation rate (64-76%), the proportion of patients discussed in a multidisciplinary team meeting (78-94%), and the proportion of patients having anti-cancer treatment (43-59%), surgical resection (9-14%) and small cell lung cancer chemotherapy (58-66%). These national averages hide wide variations between hospitals providing lung cancer care which cannot be accounted for by differences in casemix. This paper describes the evolution of the audit, and describes the ways in which it may have improved clinical practice.


A series of C-glycosylated cinnamoylfuran derivatives were synthesized in excellent yield from free sugars. The C-glycosylated furan derivatives were prepared under aqueous reaction conditions. The anticancer potentials of the synthesized compounds were evaluated on the basis of their comparative cytotoxic effects on cancer cells (MCF-7 and HeLa) and normal cells (NKE). Among 28 compounds evaluated for their cytotoxic effects on cancer cells, three compounds (compounds 8, 24 and 28) were shown to have significant cytotoxic effects on MCF-7 and HeLa cell lines and comparatively less toxicity against normal NKE cell line. Based on its selectivity index, compound 24 was considered the most promising anticancer agent amongst the above three compounds. Further biochemical studies with compound 24 showed that both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis contribute to compound 24 mediated cytotoxicity.


We reviewed our experience with 28 unselected, consecutive patients undergoing left main coronary artery (LMCA) angioplasty who had been considered unsuitable for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). Fourteen patients (50%) had a protected LMCA circulation. Balloon angioplasty was performed in 11 patients (39.3%), and stents were implanted in 17 patients (60.7%). The procedure was elective in 22 patients (78.6%) and acute in the setting of myocardial infarction/cardiogenic shock in 6 (21.4%). The mean follow-up duration was 15.9 +/- 12 months. There were 5 early (before hospital discharge) and 4 late deaths (total 32.1%), 1 myocardial infarction (3.6%), 6 repeat angioplasties (21.4%), and 3 subsequent CABG (10.7%). All 5 early deaths occurred in patients with cardiogenic shock and unprotected circulation. The results of our study suggest that when patients have prohibitive surgical risks, elective LMCA angioplasty and/or stenting may be undertaken with a high procedural success rate. However, our data do not support intervention in the presence of acute myocardial infarction/cardiogenic shock.


In this paper an investigation on the influence of the photodiode's active area and its position relative to the fiber end facet to the performance of a Large Core Step Index Polymer Optical Fiber link is presented. It is shown with extensive numerical simulations that an effective higher order mode filtering occurs, depending on the geometrical properties of the interface, which can significantly improve the performance of the link. These findings are confirmed experimentally. Depending on the photo-receiver's axial offset relative to the fiber facet, an improvement in the BER performance of many orders of magnitude has been achieved for a fiber link of 37.5 m and a bit rate of 1.25 Gbps.


The distribution of specific receptors on target organs is a major factor in the host range restriction of influenza A viruses. To assess the correlation between host receptors and the receptor specificity of influenza A viruses from sea mammals, we examined the receptors for influenza A virus in seal and whale lungs. A binding assay using two sialyloligosaccharide (SAalpha2,3Gal and SAalpha2,6Gal)-specific lectins showed that SAalpha2,3Gal, but not SAalpha2,6Gal, was found in both seal and whale lungs. Correspondingly, seal and whale influenza viruses preferentially recognized SAalpha2,3Gal, but not SAalpha2,6Gal. These results indicate that sialyloligosaccharides present at the replication site of influenza A viruses correlate with the receptor recognition of the viruses isolated from sea mammals.


Traumatic peripheral nerve injury occurs frequently and is a major clinical and public health problem that can lead to functional impairment and permanent disability. Despite the availability of modern diagnostic procedures and advanced microsurgical techniques, active recovery after peripheral nerve repair is often unsatisfactory. Peripheral nerve regeneration involves several critical events, including the recreation of the microenvironment and remyelination. Results from previous studies suggest that the peripheral nervous system (PNS) has a greater capacity for repair than the central nervous system. Thus, it will be important to understand myelin and myelination specifically in the PNS. This review provides an update on myelin biology and myelination in the PNS and discusses the mechanisms that promote myelin clearance after injury. The roles of Schwann cells and macrophages are considered at length, together with the possibility of exogenous intervention.


Credit risk can be calculated using the credit spreads in the measurement of additional yield rates to be taken into account. According to Rizal, et al. (2008), credit spreads rate it is a premium that compensates the risks faced by bond holders. During global crisis in 2008, risk of financial failure rapidly spread thoughout the world, including Indonesia, as seen from the turmoils in capital market and money market. This case demands investors to be more thorough in assessing the credit risk of debt instruments. Besides credit risk, bonds are also strongly correlated to market risk through the macro economy of a nation (Bielecki & Kurtowski, 2002). This study explored the influence of macroeconomic variables including interest rates, Rupiah exchange rate, and the return of the Composite Stock Price Index (IHSG) towards the bond credit spreads rate in Indonesia. The result of this study shows that the return of the IHSG did not have any significant influence on the credit spreads rate. However, the interest rates and Rupiah exchange rates had significant and positive influence on the creadit spreads rate of both long-term and short-term bonds in Indonesia. The positive direction showed that when increases occurred in those two variables, the credit spreads rate of bonds would increase as well. Increases in the credit spreads rate of bonds indicated higher risk that investors would experience as stock issuers had more burden in fulfilling their obigations to the investors. Keywords: credit risk; credit spreads rate; market risk; interest rate; Rupiah exchange rate; return of the Composite Stock Price Index; Indonesian bond


A total of 84 people were killed in the 1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) raid on Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas. Debates continue about who was responsible--e.g., was it a government conspiracy or cultist militants intent on mass suicide? What hasn't been fully considered, however, is the role the guns, tanks, toxic gases, and other "theater of war" accoutrements themselves played in the siege and resultant deadly inferno. Traditional metaphysical inquiries rest on the presupposition that the subject is separate from and sovereign over the object it examines. But as we have entered this intensely visual consumer culture, differences between subject and object disappear and the power of the subject collapses. Employing the postmodern metaphysics--here and elsewhere called "pataphysics"--of Jean Baudrillard to investigate this tragic battle, the author will argue that the ATF and the FBI were seduced by the compound's castle and arsenal as well as their own. The helicopters, snipers, tanks, and CS gas turned what had begun on February 28, 1993, as a raid to serve a search warrant into a full scale military-style attack on a fortress and its peoples. Could it be that the federal agents became and were subordinate to the tools they were using? Keywords: Baudrillard, Branch Davidians, metaphysics, pataphysics, postmodernism, sect, visual culture.


The genetic and phenotypic basis of grain selenium concentration (GSeC) and yield per plant (GSeY) was studied in a tetraploid wheat population consisting of 152 F6 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross between Triticum dicoccoides (accession G18-16) and durum wheat cultivar Langdon (LDN) grown under three different environments over 2 years. Wide genetic variation was found among RILs for GSeC and GSeY. A total of 15 QTL effects on 9 chromosomes associated with GSeC and GSeY were detected, with a logarithm od the odds (LOD) score ranging from ca. 3.2 to 11.7, explaining 1.4% to 18.6% of the phenotypic variation. Higher GSeC and GSeY were conferred by the G18-16 allele at 10 loci and by the LDN allele at 5 loci. Seven QTLs showed interactions with environmental conditions. Five genomic regions harbouring QTLs for grain Se concentrations and yields were selected for further marker-assisted selection programs, facilitating the use of wild alleles for improvement of elite wheat cultivars.


The incorporation behaviour of C in InP is investigated by performing photoluminescence (PL) measurements on variously C-doped ( to C at. ) InP both before and after a deliberate hydrogenation. The C incorporation is shown to take place preferentially on donor sites (C on group-III In site, ), but also found to occur unambiguously on the acceptor sites (C on group-V P site, ) for all doping levels studied here. High C dopings severely degraded the overall PL efficiency and led to the formation of broad-band deep-level (DL) emissions. The hydrogenation, on the other hand, greatly improved the PL quality and enhanced the C donor activity by passivating (or neutralizing) the DLs. In light of these new data, we finally discussed the incorporation behaviour of C in InP.


Abstract In this article the effectiveness of open-ended tasks and multiple-choice item tests on students' achievement in a linguistic course was investigated. To this end, a true-experimental research method with a randomised pre-test–post-test experimental group design was applied. The author had the participants in the two groups actively participate in the classes and they were advised to study in such a way that they would master the content of the course. The only difference between the two groups was that the participants in the experimental group were told that their learning achievement would be evaluated via open-ended item tests and/or quizzes, whereas those in the control group were informed that multiple-choice tests and/or quizzes would be used to measure the knowledge they obtained. To analyse the collected data, an independent samples t-test was run. The results showed that the students who expected and were given open-ended quizzes or tests in their final assessment outperformed those who expected and were given multiple-choice quizzes or tests in their final assessment. The implication drawn from these results is that requiring students to construct their own responses to assessment questions is a more effective way to assist them to master course content than having them do multiple-choice type tasks.


Hydropower development is occurring at a rapid, though controversial, pace in the Mekong. We highlight the role of scientific assessment in shaping the Mekong hydropower debate, taking the strategic environmental assessment of the twelve planned mainstream dams as a case study. While environmental impact assessments are designed as science-based decision-making tools, they have often been criticized in practice as a political means to justify already made development decisions. In this case we demonstrate how the Mekong River Commission, operating in a constrained political environment, has instead used environmental impact assessment as a way of providing political space and opening the discussion on dams to a wider public. The main argument of this paper is that scientific assessment can be politically maneuvered to shape governance alliances at both national and transboundary levels, and to a certain extent democratize decision-making processes.


the simulation of pedestrian has been studied for a long time from various points; however, most of them have not considered the psychological and terrain factors for pedestrians. Firstly, we develop the fundamental model of pedestrian simulation based on Cellular Automata. To consider the terrain factors, this paper embeds neural network into these agents to ensure intelligent and realistic. The data of training neural network are collected from real pedestrians, which make agents more realistic. This model can help us find the best path of pedestrians' simulation in both single and many pedestrians. This method can be widely used in the business strategy and security control. These implementations are based on the open-sourced toolboxes in S cilab, including Neural Network Toolbox and Cellular Automata Toolbox.


Background—Analysis of myocardium has revealed mechanistic insights into arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy but cardiac samples are difficult to obtain from probands and especially from family members. To identify a potential surrogate tissue, we characterized buccal mucosa cells. Methods and Results—Buccal cells from patients, mutation carriers, and controls were immunostained and analyzed in a blinded fashion. In additional studies, buccal cells were grown in vitro and incubated with SB216763. Immunoreactive signals for the desmosomal protein plakoglobin and the major cardiac gap junction protein Cx43 were markedly diminished in buccal mucosa cells from arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy patients with known desmosomal mutations when compared with controls. Plakoglobin and Cx43 signals were also reduced in most family members who carried disease alleles but showed no evidence of heart disease. Signal for the desmosomal protein plakophilin-1 was reduced in buccal mucosa cells in patients with PKP2 mutations but not in those with mutations in other desmosomal genes. Signal for the desmosomal protein desmoplakin was reduced in buccal mucosa cells from patients with mutations in DSP, DSG2, or DSC2 but not in PKP2 or JUP. Abnormal protein distributions were reversed in cultured cells incubated with SB216763, a small molecule that rescues the disease phenotype in cardiac myocytes. Conclusions—Buccal mucosa cells from arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy patients exhibit changes in the distribution of cell junction proteins similar to those seen in the heart. These cells may prove useful in future studies of disease mechanisms and drug screens for effective therapies in arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy.


Public awareness and political concern over the environmental impact of the growth in civil aviation over the past 30 years have intensified industry efforts to address CO2 emissions [5]. CO2 emissions are directly proportional to aircraft fuel burn and one way to minimise the latter is by having engines with reduced Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC) and installations that minimise nacelle drag and weight. Significant factors affecting SFC are propulsive efficiency and thermal efficiency. Propulsive efficiency has been improved by designing turbofan engines with bigger fans to give lower specific thrust (net thrust divided by fan inlet mass flow) until increased engine weight and nacelle drag have started to outweigh the benefits. Thermal efficiency has been improved mainly by increasing the Overall Pressure Ratio (OPR) and Turbine Entry Temperature (TET) to the extent possible with new materials and design technologies.


Education, which is believed as a fundamental role to play in developing of human resources, is directly affected by the school system and the learning methods. Implementing metacognitive strategies in learning methods are expected to have positive association with the developing of students' learning methods, particularly in reading methods. However, although implementing metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension is believed to have positive association with students' reading performance and motivation, it seems rarely to be applied in the reading comprehension strategies. The purpose of this study was to study the effectiveness of teaching and implementing one of metacognitive strategies, which was generating questions before, during, and after reading on student's motivation and reading performance. This study was looking at how metacognitive strategies could be implemented in reading strategies and how they could change student's motivation, including student's self efficacy, interest, and attribution. Teaching metacognitive strategies were conducted three times to an international university student and the observation was done by using think aloud method and filling a motivational questionnaire. Motivation (self-efficacy, interest, and attribution) changes have revealed after the metacognitive training given. However, there is no difference in reading comprehension performance before and after implementing the metacognitive strategies. It was found that motivation changes did not associate with reading comprehension performance in this study. More comprehensive and explicit metacognitive training in longer time was suggested to see the improvements of the reading comprehension.


A 19 W, TEM00 mode, Ho:YLF laser pumped by continuous wave Tm:fiber laser has been demonstrated at the room temperature. The slope efficiency and optical-to-optical efficiency are 65% and 55%, respectively.


In the novel "Elim-ai", Smatayev S. turned to the distant past of his native people, describing one of the difficult periods in the life of the Kazakh steppe, the exploits and struggle of real national heroes of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the "Elim-ai", a large number of khans and sultans, princes and heroes are represented, and the life of the ordinary people takes a large place. His works cover the existence of historical figures, the true events of the tragic and heroic period in the life of the Kazakh nation. In the novel, a broad picture of the he- roic battles for the Motherland and the heroism of the people were depicted. Within this article, the researchers analyzed the secondary data dedicated to this trilogy, which enabled to reveal the new facts described by Smatayev S. and other authors. Thematic analysis was used to determine the patterns (themes) which emerged from the secondary data. The data, which was collected during the inquiry, was read and themes determined on a sentence-by-sentence principle to enable the researchers to detect the fundamental ideas, suppositions, and conceptualizations embedded within the secondary sources. This enabled to look from the different angle at the historical figures described in these works. The results contribute to a better understanding of the indicated novel and the Kazakh literature in general.


We determined appearance energy (AE) values AE(Xn+/X) for the formation of singly (He+) and doubly charged (He2+) He ions and multiply charged Kr ions Krn+ up to n = 6 following electron impact on He and Kr atoms using a high-resolution electron impact ionization mass spectrometer. The data analysis employs an iterative, non-linear least-squares fitting routine, the Marquart–Levenberg algorithm, in conjunction with either a 2-function or a 3-function fit based on a power threshold law. This allows us to extract the relevant AEs and also the corresponding exponents for a Wannier-type power law from the measured near-threshold data. The values of the AEs determined in this work are compared with other available experimental and with spectroscopic AE values and the extracted exponents p are compared with other available experimental data and with the predictions of the various Wannier-type power law models. One observation is particularly noteworthy, namely the fact that none of the available experimental data seem to support the large values of 'p' predicted by the Wannier–Geltman and the generalized Wannier law for n > 3.


A future electrification scenario is envisaged where the energy demand from heat and transportation is supplied by electricity. In this scenario the current electricity network must adapt to prepare for high penetration levels of renewable energy sources and new energy applications, all connected to the MV and LV networks. This paper focuses on the associated LV network challenges, including roof-top Photovoltaic panels, Plugin electric vehicles, Heat pumps that could significantly influence the future LV network design and operation. An innovative power electronics based concept called "Flexible LV Network Interface" is proposed. In this article, its capability to cope with the imminent challenge of voltage regulation is discussed. Time domain simulation results, performed in Powerfactory®, are presented and discussed as proof of control concept for "Flexible LV Network Interface".


Type 2 diabetes is more common in non‐Europeans and starts at a younger age and at lower BMI cut‐offs. This review discusses the insights from genetic studies about pathophysiological mechanisms which determine risk of disease with a focus on the role of adiposity and body fat distribution in ethnic disparity in risk of type 2 diabetes. During the past decade, genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 400 genetic variants associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes. The Eurocentric nature of these genetic studies has made them less effective in identifying mechanisms that make non‐Europeans more susceptible to higher risk of disease. One possible mechanism suggested by epidemiological studies is the role of ethnic difference in body fat distribution. Using genetic variants associated with an ability to store extra fat in a safe place, which is subcutaneous adipose tissue, we discuss how different ethnic groups could be genetically less susceptible to type 2 diabetes by developing a more favourable fat distribution.


In this paper a mechanism is designed for the desired performance output of the machine and these mechanisms are being used in case of climbing wheels. In cities the buildings are generally three or four storied and it is not convenient and also financially not easy to fit electric lifts everywhere. A four bar lift can be used by old or disabled person to climb one floor as subjected to lift. Hence a four bar mechanism to be implemented on every wheel to make the frame to be moved and to make synthesis and simulation for same mechanism to track its actual path and to understand its motion of stair of height of 220 mm. Taking into consideration the available dimensions of the four links a software is prepared with help of Fraudenstein's equation being compared graphically with existing dimensions so as to calculate the actual deviation graphically and programmatically. Also the sensitivity of each link being carried out for variation of +1 mm and –1 mm in actual dimensions available.


The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is a frequently used tool to study periodicity in climate and other time series. Periodicity plays a significant role in climate reconstruction and prediction. In numerous studies, the use of CWT revealed dominant periodicity (DP) in climatic time series. Several studies suggested that these "natural oscillations" would even reverse global warming. It is shown here that the results of wavelet analysis for detecting DPs can be misinterpreted in the presence of local singularities that are manifested in lower frequencies. This may lead to false DP detection. CWT analysis of synthetic and real-data climatic time series, with local singularities, indicates a low-frequency DP even if there is no true periodicity in the time series. Therefore, it is argued that this is an inherent general property of CWT. Hence, applying CWT to climatic time series should be reevaluated, and more careful analysis of the entire wavelet power spectrum is required, with a focus on high frequencies as well. A conelike shape in the wavelet power spectrum most likely indicates the presence of a local singularity in the time series rather than a DP, even if the local singularity has an observational or a physical basis. It is shown that analyzing the derivatives of the time series may be helpful in interpreting the wavelet power spectrum. Nevertheless, these tests are only a partial remedy that does not completely neutralize the effects caused by the presence of local singularities.


In recent times, the need for the use of image classification techniques of machine learning to solve worldly problems in various areas such as agriculture, the health sector, and tourism is rocketing up day by day. Traditionally, one of the most used techniques in image classification is the use of deep neural networks called convolution neural networks (CNN). To come up with a good network model, one needs to have an enormous quantity of data in the form of images and design a network model from scratch in a trial-and-error way. This not only takes a lot of time but also requires very powerful computation equipment such as graphical processing units (GPU). To overcome such barriers, a machine learning technique called transfer learning enables the use of already trained network models in the form of fine-tuning them to solve related issues. In this work, the 2014 ImageNet winner model called Vgg16 was adopted to classify landscape images in the Intel dataset. The dataset contains 5 categories of images namely buildings, forest, glacier, mountain, sea, and street. The performance of Vgg16 was compared to that of a 7-layer ordinary convolution neural network and the results showed that transfer learning with Vgg16 outperformed the ordinary network by 90.1% for Vgg16 compared to 62.5% for the ordinary convolutional neural network model.


BACKGROUND
The major biochemical characteristic of Dupuytren disease is the progressive and irreversible deposition of excess fibrous collagen characterized by an enhanced type III collagen proportion.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate the influence of changes of the collagen spectrum on the biophysical properties of the palmar aponeurosis.

DESIGN
Variably affected palmar regions from 30 individuals with Dupuytren disease were classified according to histologic test results and clinical stage. Biochemical, biomechanical, and thermal contracture studies were performed.

RESULTS
The relative type III collagen content increased with increasing tissue involvement and was found to correlate with calorimetric and biomechanical properties with the exception of the Young modulus. In experiments on the thermal isometric contracture, the collagen denaturation temperature decreased with increasing type III collagen content, ie, increasing involvement. To study the dependence of biophysical properties from the collagen type distribution independent of structural changes, as seen in Dupuytren disease, we investigated rat skins from animals of an age range characterized by dramatic changes in type III collagen content (0-18 months). Biomechanical data also correlated significantly with type III collagen content in rat skin with the exception of the time constant of stress relaxation.

CONCLUSION
In light of these results, we suggest that structural changes, such as reduced collagen fibril diameters, associated with alterations in the type III collagen proportion may influence biophysical properties of connective tissues in the involved palmar aponeurosis in addition to alterations of the cross-linking pattern.


Unlike other muco-cutaneous lesions Oral lichen Planus(OLP) is often chronic and rarely undergoes spontaneous remission which make knowledge of the disease more important for oral physicians and dental practitioners. The etiology is not known, but there are several hypothesis involving genetic, infectious, psychogenic and autoimmune factors. Pathogenesis of OLP has been extensively studied but still the controversies surround the disease.Understanding the nature and behavior of OLP is also required in order to provide better treatment modalities. This book is an attempt to unify the proposed hypothesis and make understanding of the disease simple for not only oral physicians but also for dental practitioners.