A full test of the Social Dominance Theory model addressed immigration as one of the most prominent current intergroup conflicts in Europe. The hypothesis that members of high status groups tend to discriminate members of low status groups because they are more prone to Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and refer more to legitimising myths such as prejudice was tested using representative samples from eight European countries (N = 1000 each), considering income and migrant background as social status indicators, SDO, anti-immigrant prejudice and diversity beliefs, and the intention to discriminate immigrants. The results confirm that individuals with higher SDO are more likely to discriminate immigrants, partly because of stronger anti-immigrant prejudice and partly because they believe less in diversity. However, the results question the role of social status. Contrary to the expectations of Social Dominance Theory, individuals with lower income are more prone to SDO and have stronger anti-immigrant attitudes and weaker diversity beliefs. The impact of migrant background was weak and ambivalent. We suggest reconsidering the role of social status to stress status maintenance and enhancement as general social motives. Regardless of their social position, people seemingly try to enhance their relative position by devaluing lower status groups.


Visual Abstract Background and objectives Late stages of CKD are characterized by significant symptom burden. This study aimed to identify subgroups within the 5-year trajectories of symptom evolution in patients with CKD and to describe associated patient characteristics and outcomes. Design, setting, participants, & measurements Among 2787 participants (66% men) with eGFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 enrolled in the CKD–Renal Epidemiology and Information Network (CKD-REIN) cohort study from July 2013 to May 2016, we assessed symptoms annually using the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-36 (KDQOL-36) questionnaire until December 2020. A total of 9121 measures were reported over follow-up; all participants had symptoms scored for at least one time point. We used a joint latent class-mixed model to distinguish profiles of symptom trajectories. Results Patient mean age (±SD) at baseline was 67±13 years, and mean eGFR was 33±13 ml/min per 1.73 m2. The prevalence of each symptom ranged from 24% (chest pain) to 83% (fatigue), and 98% of participants reported at least one symptom. After a median (interquartile range) follow-up of 5.3 (3.4–6.0) years, 690 participants initiated KRT, and 490 died before KRT. We identified two profiles of symptom trajectories: a "worse symptom score and worsening trajectory" in 31% of participants, characterized by a low initial symptom score that worsened more than ten points over time, and a "better symptom score and stable trajectory" in 69% of participants, characterized by a high initial score that remained stable. Participants in the worse symptom score and worsening trajectory group had more risk factors for CKD progression at baseline, worse quality of life, and a higher risk of KRT and death before KRT than other participants. Conclusions This study highlights a significant worsening of symptoms in about one third of the participants, whereas the majority reported low symptom severity throughout the study.


Deep learning based techniques are broadly used in a variety of applications such as image recognition, natural language processing, etc., which express leading performance than traditional methods. However, adversarial samples can cause severe problems for deep learning models, especially for vision-based deep neural networks. Adversarial training is a commonly adopted strategy to defend adversarial samples, but it lacks generalization capability due to the transferability of adversarial samples to work on cross-task predictions. In addition, the input processing method of deep learning pipeline can improve generalization capability for cross-task predictions, whereas processing newly generated adversarial samples is the major bottleneck that limits its performance. To deal with these issues, this paper proposes a purification mechanism that combines both adversarial training-based and input processing-based methods to defend the threats of adversarial samples. The proposed mechanism has a strong generalization capability for various vision-based deep learning tasks by leveraging the advantage of input processing-based methods and maintaining the defense efficiency of adversarial training-based methods. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on multiple datasets that demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach against the state-of-the-art methods on defending adversarial samples.


A pulsating heat pipe (PHP), also known as an oscillating heat pipe (OHP), is a passive thermal transport device which consists of a single meandering microchannel making multiple passes each through an evaporator and condenser. With a sufficient number of such passes, intermittent boiling of liquid slugs within each evaporator pass perturbs flow in adjacent channels leaving the device in a perpetually unstable state of oscillation. A PHP is thus distinguished operationally from a loop thermosyphon by having a motive force other than buoyancy and the ability to operate in all gravitational orientations.The most successful PHP models to date track liquid slug motion, sensible heating of the slugs, and mass transfer between liquid slugs and vapor plugs due to evaporation and condensation. However, the predictive capabilities of PHP models remain poor and the numbers assigned to evaporation and condensation heat transfer coefficients are generally not well justified by any realistic physical process. The current study applies methods consistent with state of the art prediction methods in microchannel boiling, to obtain results which predict the PHP's heat transfer performance and the effect of gravitational orientation on performance.© 2015 ASME


Among 384 Pima Indians with impaired glucose tolerance according to World Health Organization criteria who were followed for 1.6 to 11.5 years (median, 3.3), non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) developed in 118 (31 percent), glucose tolerance remained impaired in 100 (26 percent), and glucose tolerance returned to normal in 166 (43 percent). The cumulative incidence of NIDDM was 25 and 61 percent at 5 and 10 years, respectively. The risk of development of diabetes was 6.3 times (95 percent confidence interval, 3.8 to 10.6) as high as in a normoglycemic control group (n = 752). Variables predicting deterioration to NIDDM were age up to the age of 40, after which increasing age had a beneficial effect; higher plasma glucose levels during fasting and after carbohydrate loading; and higher serum insulin levels after fasting and lower levels after carbohydrate loading, suggesting that insulin resistance and decreased beta-cell responsiveness are important determinants of the clinical outcome of impaired glucose tolerance. Obese subjects had 2.9 times (95 percent confidence interval, 2.0 to 10.9) the incidence of NIDDM as the nonobese. Obesity was not, however, predictive of progression to NIDDM after an adjustment for plasma glucose and serum insulin levels. We conclude that in this population approximately one fourth of subjects with impaired glucose tolerance have NIDDM at five years and two thirds at 10 years (approximately one third revert to normal) and that age and plasma glucose and insulin levels are the best predictors of clinical outcome.


Three-dimensional architecture appears today to be essential for the next high-density metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor generation. Thus, the classical physical vapor deposition method usually used for the electrode deposition must be replaced by more conformal deposition methods, like chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. In this paper, trapping phenomenon of MIM capacitors using CVD-TiN for electrodes and atomic layer deposition Al2O3 for insulator is studied, when integrated in planar and in 3-D MIM devices. In particular, we demonstrate the correlation between the plasma post-treatment (PT) applied to the CVD-TiN layer to ensure its low resistivity and the charge trapping in the alumina. Moreover, while applying the Di Maria method to those MIM structures, we demonstrate that charges trapped are electrons, which are located near the metal/insulator interfaces. Based on previous paper, an explanation of the origin of this trapping phenomenon is also proposed. Finally, we demonstrate that the plasma PT does not penetrate correctly into the trenches, suggesting that CVD method for the TiN electrode deposition is not suitable for high-aspect-ratio 3-D devices.


Genetic algorithm (GA) based design techniques are widely proposed for digital filters. However, the instability problem for IIR filters and the phase distortion for FIR and IIR filters occurring during the design process are important disadvantages for digital filters. In this work, an effective design method using GA for minimum phase and stable digital filters is presented both for FIR and IIR filters and the results are compared


Abstract The Best Track Change Committee of the National Hurricane Center evaluates proposed changes to the Hurricane Database (HURDAT) in the Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins. In the companion paper, Gruskin documents a possible tropical cyclone that affected portions of the eastern United States on 27–28 June 2006 and proposes that it be added to HURDAT. The committee reviewed the aircraft, radar, rawinsonde, satellite, and surface data available on this system and found it to be a challenging and complex system. A reconnaissance aircraft flying in the system in real time failed to find a closed circulation before landfall, and kinematic parameters suggest the system was more likely to have the structure of an open wave, with any surface circulation at best being poorly defined. Because of the lack of conclusive evidence regarding the existence of a closed surface circulation before landfall, the committee has decided not to add this system to HURDAT as a tropical cyclone.


Two strains of phosphate-solubilizing bacteria were isolated from the rhizosphere of Pinus tabuliformis in iron tailings vegetation restoration areas in Malan Town, Qianan City, Hebei Pro-vince. The bacterial strain D2 with strong phosphate-solubilizing capacity was obtained via screening with plate and shake flask. Based on the morphology, physiology and biochemistry, and the sequence analysis of 16S rDNA, the D2 was identified as a member of Pantoea sp. A fermentation experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of carbon and nitrogen sources on the phosphate-solubilizing capacity of the strain D2; under different nitrogen sources, the organic acids in liquid culture, as well as their types and contents were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The results showed that the strain D2 was capable of efficiently solubilizing tricalcium phosphate, and the highest value of available phosphorus was up to 392.13 mg·L-1 in liquid culture. The strain D2 displayed the strongest phosphate-solubilizing capability when glucose and ammonium sulfate were used as carbon and nitrogen sources in the culture media, respectively. Under varied nitrogen sources, the resulting organic acids and their types and contents were different. When the nitrogen source in culture media was ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate or ammonium nitrate, all four organic acids, including oxalic acid, formic acid, acetic acid and citric acid, were produced. In addition, malic acid was uniquely produced when ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride or ammonium nitrate was used as the nitrogen source. By Pearson's correlation analysis, a significant positive correlation between the acetic acid content and the available phosphorus content was found (r=0.886, P<0.05), suggesting that acetic acid produced by strain D2 played an important role in promoting inorganic phosphorus dissolution, which was most likely to be one of the important phosphate-solubilizing mechanisms of the strain.


UNLABELLED
Our Phase II study results demonstrating high efficacy and low toxicity for a weekly schedule of high-dose 5-fluorouracil/folinic acid (HD5-FU/FA) in intensively pretreated metastatic breast cancer prompted addition of paclitaxel to this regimen in a phase I/II study in outpatients.

TREATMENT
Patients were treated with HD5-FU (24-hour infusion)/FA (2h infusion prior to FU) weekly for 6 weeks (d1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 36) and Paclitaxel (3-hour infusion) was administered additionally on day 1 and day 22, q day 50. During Phase I we chose the following dose levels (dl): Fixed doses of FA d11-4 500 mg/m2 followed by HDFU, 24-hour infusion d11: 1.5, d12: 1.8, d13 and d14: 2.0 g/m2. .3-hour infusion of Paclitaxel on day 1 and day 22 d11 to d13: 135. d14: 175 mg/m2. D14 was chosen to be further evaluated during phase II. Results of an interim analysis were presented.

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS
46 patients entered this trial during phase II and had the following characteristics: age 46 years (26 to 70) WHO performance status 0/1, metastatic disease sites 2.5(1 to 4). All patients had bidimensionally measurable disease. PRETREATMENT: 9 patients had received adjuvant chemotherapy, 16 patients prior chemotherapy for metastasis, and 21 both adjuvantly and for metastasis. Of 29 anthracycline-pretreated patients, 25 had anthracycline-resistant disease.

RESULTS
We observed the following results in 35 evaluable patients: CR 3% (1/35), PR 51% (18/35), SD 40% (14/35). PD 6% (2/35). RR (Response rate) was 54%, 95% confidence interval 36 to 76%. The response concerning 20 patients with anthracycline resistant disease was: RR 55% (11/20). Median number of treatment cycles per patient was 3 (1 to 5), time to maximum response 2 months (1 to 5), remission duration 8+ months (2 to 17). Median survival time is not yet reached.

CONCLUSIONS
The combination of paclitaxel with weekly HDFU/FA is well tolerated in the second-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer and indicates high efficacy also in anthracycline-resistant disease. In an ongoing phase II study, we examine the addition of cisplatin to the regimen in the first-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer. Those trials confirm that infusional weekly HD-5-FU plus folinic acid is of considerable interest in the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Randomized studies are warranted.


D R A F T Abstract This document complements and completes what was submitted last year to PAC45 [1] as an update to the proposal PR12-16-001 Dark matter search in a Beam-Dump eXperiment (BDX) at Jefferson Lab [2] submitted to JLab-PAC44 in 2016. Following the suggestions contained in the PAC45 report, in coordination with the lab, we ran a test to assess the beam-related backgrounds and validate the simulation framework used to design the BDX experiment. Using a common Monte Carlo framework for the test and the proposed experiment, we optimized the selection cuts to maximize the reach considering simultaneously the signal, cosmic-ray background (assessed in Catania test with BDX-Proto) and beam-related backgrounds (irreducible NC and CC neutrino interactions as determined by simulation). Our results confirmed what was presented in the original proposal: with 285 days of a parasitic run at 65 µ A (corresponding to 10 22 EOT) the BDX experiment will lower the exclusion limits in the case of no signal by one to two orders of magnitude in the parameter space of dark-matter coupling versus mass.


The envelopes of the overall conductivities of effective medium intergranularly random and completely random polycrystalline aggregates are compared with the available bounds on the polycrystals' properties. The geometrically realizable models cover the major parts of the property ranges permitted by the bounds, hence the estimates represent the behaviour of realistic random aggregates well, given the uncertainty in the shapes of constituent crystals.


Infrared thermal imaging method has started to be used in routine controls due to the disadvantages (uses ionizing energy, applies pressure) of mammography, which is frequently used in the diagnosis of breast cancer. With passive thermography, infrared radiation emitted naturally from the body surface is detected by a thermal camera and the surface temperature distribution is displayed. Using a passive thermal imaging system with 30 mK thermal sensitivity, 10 mm tumor can be detected at a depth of 12 mm. The performance of passive thermography is limited for small and deep tumors. In the active thermography method, it is aimed to detect deeper tumors by using an external heat source. In the active thermography method, deeper tumors are detected using external heat sources. In this study, the currents induced by time varying magnetic fields (27.12 MHz) were used as the external heat source. In the simulation study, breast and cancerous tissue were modeled in three dimensions and the bioheat equation for active and passive modes was solved by using realistic values of the tissues. As a result of the simulation studies, it was observed that a 10 mm malignant tumor could be detected up to a depth of 20 mm. It was shown that this method can be used with multiple frequencies as the temperature distributions obtained from the surface for different frequency values are different from each other.


Magnetomechanical damping measurements are commonly made using wire specimens in a torsion pendulum. Twisting the cylindrical wires produces tensile stresses along a helix. An analytical study was made relating the direction of these stresses with the directions of the crystallographic axes assuming three different orientations of the crystal, 〈100〉, 〈110〉, and 〈111〉, along the axis of the wire. The results make it possible to calculate the correct magnetostriction values to be used in the mathematical model of magnetomechanical damping when there is preferred orientation in the specimens. Magnetostriction values are calculated over the temperature range of 78° to 300° K for iron, nickel, and an iron‐3.8% silicon alloy and these are compared with the magnetomechanical damping maxima in the same temperature range.


Knowledge of the forces applied to the pedals during cycling is of great importance both from the point of view of improving sporting performance and medical analysis of injuries. The most common equipment for measuring pedal forces is usually limited to the study of forces in the sagittal plane. Equipment that measures three-dimensional forces tends to be bulky and to be incorporated into bicycles that are modified to accommodate it, which can cause the measurements taken to differ from those obtained in real pedalling conditions. This work presents a device for measuring the 3D forces applied to the pedal, attachable to a conventional bicycle and pedals, which does not alter the natural pedalling of cyclists. The equipment consists of four gauges located on the pedal axis and two on the crank, controlled by a microcontroller. Pedal forces measurements were made for six cyclists, with results similar to those shown in the literature. The correct estimation of the lateral-medial direction force is of great interest when evaluating a possible overload at the joints; it will also allow a comparison of the effectiveness index during pedalling, showing the role of this component in this index from a mechanical standpoint.


INTRODUCTION The use of highly active antiretroviral therapy has reduced progression to AIDS and increased survival among seropositive persons; yet, appearance of resistant viruses may jeopardize these benefits. In Cuba, HIV mainly affects adults; at the end of 2009 of the 41 children infected, 25 were still alive; of these, 22 were under antiretroviral treatment. Until now, nothing was known about HIV-1 antiviral resistance and viral subtypes in the pediatric population in Cuba. OBJECTIVE This study aims to identify presence of antiretroviral-resistant HIV-1 strains in Cuban children and their mothers, and to provide a phylogenetic characterization and comparison of pol gene sequences in the same. METHODS Plasma samples were collected from 22 children and their mothers, all HIV-1-infected, from 2004 through 2009. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to amplify the pol gene fragment coding for HIV protease and reverse transcriptase enzymes; this was then sequenced and subjected to phylogenetic analysis of HIV subtypes and recombinant forms to compare sequences between mothers and children. HIV mutations conferring antiretroviral resistance were determined. RESULTS Viral amplification was achieved in samples from 11 children and 8 mothers. Subtypes detected were: CRF19_cpx in five children, subtype B in three, CRF18_cpx in two, and subtype C in one child. In all mother-child pairs, samples were grouped within the same viral subtype in the phylogenetic tree. One mother was under treatment and five children had been treated before the sample was collected. In viruses amplified from samples of children under treatment, resistance was most frequently found to lamivudine (3 cases) and nevirapine (4 cases). Two untreated children carried resistant viruses possibly acquired from their mothers. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study to describe HIV-1 antiviral resistance in the pediatric population in Cuba; it also identified viral subtypes infecting the mother-child pairs studied. We recommend antiretroviral resistance assays before initiating treatment in pregnant seropositive women and their newborns.


Although a great deal of research exists on gender and agriculture, few studies investigate the implications of reduced gender disparities in households for technical efficiency. In this article, I compare the levels of technical efficiency achieved on plots operated by households with different levels of gender disparities. Using plot-level data from the 2011–2012 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey and drawing on indicators derived from the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index, I estimate a stochastic frontier production function model, which includes women's empowerment in agriculture as an exogenous determinant of technical inefficiency. I find that reduced gender disparities within households (measured in terms of the empowerment gap between spouses) are associated with higher levels of technical efficiency. This result extends to plots that women jointly manage with their spouses, as well as those that women do not actively manage.


We report a case of a patient who self-injured her ear and peri-auricular skin. Self-mutilation is an unusual behaviour in ENT practice. We give some elements for the diagnosis and treatment, and we emphasize the importance of the psychiatric treatment. The suicidal risk makes the vital prognosis uncertain.


INTRODUCTION
Endothelin antagonist receptors (ERAs) and phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (PDE5i) are beneficial in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and digital ulcers (DU) and prevent from DU recurrences. Our study aimed to determine the difference in the incidence rate of PAH and scleroderma renal crisis (SRC) in patients with SSc and DU (SSc-DU) under ERAs/PDE5i or without treatment.

METHODS
We conducted a retrospective cohort study including SSc-DU patients from the Spanish Scleroderma Registry (RESCLE). The primary outcome was the incidence rate of PAH and SRC in patients under ERAs/PDE5i or not.

RESULTS
Some 544 patients out of 1817 (29.9%) in the RESCLE database had DU, 221 (40.6%) under ERAs/PDE5i and 323 (59.4%) not. The incidence rate (95% CI) difference between patients under treatment or not under did not reach statistical significance in PAH [-0.1 (-4.8, 4.69), P = 0.988] or in SRC [0.7 (-2.2, 3.7), P = 0.620]. However, the time from the first DU to the diagnosis of SRC was delayed in treated patients [mean (s.d.) 7.6 (5.8) years vs 2.9  (5.3); P = 0.021]. The dcSSc subset was more prevalent in the treatment group (36 vs 26%; P = 0.018), along with anti-topoisomerase I antibodies (34 vs 18%; P < 0.001) and tendon friction rubs (12 vs 6%; P = 0.038), whereas the lcSSc subset was more prevalent in the no-treatment group (57 vs 66%; P = 0.031) along with ACA (37 vs 46%; P = 0.031).

CONCLUSION
There was no difference in the incidence rate of PAH and SRC between groups. However, treatment with ERAs and/or PDE5i appeared to delay the occurrence of SRC.


Alexander Gerschenkron understood the development of backward countries as a contextual process that varied from country to country depending on which perquisites were present or absent. In the past twenty years, Brazilian agriculture evolved from "backward" to an agricultural powerhouse. Its production and total factor productivity more than doubled. Brazil is in the worlds' top five producers of coffee, soybeans, oranges, beef and corn. Yet, some segments of agriculture lag far behind. We draw on the insights of Gerschenkron and Albert Hirschman, inter alia to conceptualize the development process. As an illustrative aid we apply fitness landscapes to the process of development. Fitness landscapes are good representations of a contextual view of development. We portray the process as an evolutionary search for good designs across a large, uncertain and not pre-statable set of possibilities. In such circumstances a controlled strategy of following predetermined stages is not effective. Rather we need an approach relying on creativity and imagination to find solutions to specific problems faced by each country.


The tremendously rapid popularization of smart phones has significantly impacted our daily lives. Smartphones are used not only for voice communication but also for various purposes such as information search (e.g., Web, Location-Based Services (LBS), etc.), E-commerce (e.g., on-line shopping, trading, etc.), and establishing social relationships (i.e., Social Networking Services (SNSs)). Meanwhile, in the last decade, various new technical advances such as Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), cloud computing, and crowdsourcing have become a big trend and have had significant impacts on both academic and social aspects.


Curated by the fashion designer and Senior Research Fellow at Chelsea College of Art and Design Rebecca Earley, this exhibition presents twenty-odd designers based in the UK who use ecologically sensitive approaches to the design, production and consumption of fashion. Earley's own efforts as a designer in this field have not gone unnoticed (her PET recycled scarves won an award at the first Peugeot Design Awards in 1999) and in her role as curator she offers us a veritable little black book to eco fashion in Britain today. Fair trade practices, natural dyes and the use of sustainable materials such as hemp are likely to be the approaches the general public most readily associates with this emerging discipline. But one of the greatest strengths of Well Fashioned is its acknowledgement of many other insightful reactions to the waste and pollution the fashion industry, and its consumers, create.


MRI/CT fusion may enable MRI-guided biopsy without the requirement for dedicated interventional MRI facilities. Assessment and training in MRI/CT-fusion biopsy requires phantoms containing targets that can be seen on MRI but not on CT and can be biopsied. These requirements are not met using commercially available phantoms. We produced a phantom containing targets that can be appreciated on MRI but not CT, which is reproducible, can be biopsied and assessed for core adequacy. We successfully biopsied targets (1-3cm diameter) using a commercially available interventional robot equipped with work-in-progress MRI/CT-fusion software, including targets with steep out-of-plane angulations, within clinically reasonable timeframes.


When online social networks change privacy control features (i.e. methods of sharing consumer information), the result is often media attention and public outcry. Facebook introduced new privacy controls in 2009 causing the Electronic Frontier Foundation to accuse them of pushing users to disclose more information than ever before. However, there is little research to indicate that such practices are effective. Although research on privacy control designs is emerging, few studies adopt theoretical bases or empirically test the results of the design. This study fills a theoretical and methodological gap in the context of privacy controls. We adopt feature fatigue theory from the marketing literature to explain the effects of privacy control complexity on consumer self-disclosure behavior. We test our model with a unique longitudinal field experiment wherein participants are randomly assigned to various treatments of privacy control complexity. We found support for our theoretical extension we term "privacy fatigue."


In this paper we present a mobile operator endorsed authentication and payment platform for the consumption of Web services by a mobile station. We propose a protocol where the mobile operator plays the role of dusted third party to issue authentication and authenticated payment authorisation tokens to facilitate a transaction between a mobile station and a Web service provider. We consider the structure and syntax of these tokens to minimise service latency, and provide security services to protect against the threat model. To validate our proposal we have developed code to create a Web service test scenario utilising readily available J2ME, Java Card, J2SE and J2EE platforms, Wtb Services tools from Apache, the KToolBar emulator from Sun, and a Gem-plus Java Card


Differences between observations in the near and distant tail and MHD simulations have motivated a statistical study of the MHD structure of the plasmasheet boundary in the near tail, utilizing data from the AMPTE/IRM spacecraft. The relationship between the change in the tangential velocity predicted by the Rankine-Hugoniot relations for a discontinuity with a normal magnetic field and the measured change in the tangential velocity for ∼80 crossings is presented. The measured change is almost always much less than the predicted value. This suggests that either: (1) There is not usually a normal component of the magnetic field across the boundary; combined with previous work on pressure balance, this implies that the boundary is a tangential discontinuity; or (2) The boundary is not usually well-modeled as a planar, time-stationary MHD discontinuity. This is very different from the case of the deep tail where the plasmasheet boundary is usually a slow mode shock tailward of the neutral line. It agrees with MHD simulations, including the effects of the ionosphere, which do not have slow mode shocks earthward of the neutral line. These results suggest that the magnetic connection to the earth inhibits the formation of slow mode shocks. There is a small subset of the crossings which are consistent with the identification of part of the plasmasheet boundary as a slow mode shock. These may be cases where the substorm neutral line formed in close proximity to the satellite.


A nonlinear optical loop mirror is reported, employing a semiconductor laser amplifier (SLA). The input-output characteristic is distinctly nonlinear, and when operating as an optical correlator, an extinction ratio of 13 dB was achieved.


Background: While the CD4 cell count plays a pivotal role for antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation, plasma viral load (PVL) provides additional guiding information, especially in patients with a relatively high CD4 cell count. This study was carried out to quantify PVL and CD4 cell count in ART naïve cases and determine their correlation. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 82 ART naïve patients of ≥15 years of age attending the Fluorescent Activated Cell Sorter Count (FACSCount) center, Department of Microbiology at a tertiary care center after the Institutional Ethics Committee approval, from August 2014 to November 2015. Blood samples were collected after obtaining written informed consent. PVL was quantified by COBAS® TaqMan® human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) version 2.0 Test and CD4 cell count was measured by FACSCountTM System. The correlation analysis was performed by Pearson's correlation test (r) using SPSS 16.0 software. Results: In this study, mean PVL and CD4 cell counts were 108,000 ± 206,200 copies/mL and 348.2 ± 296 cells/μL, respectively. Among those with PVL ≥50,000 copies/mL, CD4 cell count was >350 cells/μL in 10.4%. PVL was not detectable in 8.5%. There was significant negative correlation (r = −0.54, P < 0.00) between PVL and CD4 cell count in ART naïve patients. Conclusion: Consideration of PVL in ART initiation guidelines for those with CD4 cell count >350 cells/μL will maximize ART coverage of highly infectious ART naïve patients, which in turn will reduce the risk of HIV transmission at individual and population level.


Sulfur passivation of Ge(100) is achieved using aqueous ammonium sulfide (NH4)2S(aq). The passivation layer is largely preserved after atomic layer deposition of the high-κ dielectric material HfO2 when sufficiently low growth temperatures (e.g., 220°C) are employed. Oxygen incorporation is moderate and results in an electrically passivating GeOS interface layer. The HfO2∕GeOS∕Ge gate stack exhibits lower fixed charge and interface state density than a more conventional HfO2∕GeON∕Ge gate stack fabricated via an ammonia gas treatment.


(1) Background: During 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic was threatening healthcare services and workers, and acquiring immunity was an option to stop or limit the burden of this pandemic. Herd immunity was a top priority worldwide as the virus was spreading rapidly. It was estimated that 67% of the total global population should be immunized against COVID-19 to achieve herd immunity. The aim of the current study is to investigate different perceptions of healthcare workers in the Kingdom of Bahrain and Egypt using an online survey in an attempt to evaluate their awareness and concerns regarding new variants and booster doses. (2) Methods: This study conducted a survey on healthcare workers in the Kingdom of Bahrain and Egypt about their perception and concerns on the COVID-19 vaccines. (3) Results: The study found that out of 389 healthcare workers 46.1% of the physicians were not willing to take the booster doses (p = 0.004). Physicians also did not support taking the COVID-19 vaccine as an annual vaccine (p = 0.04). Furthermore, to assess the association between the type of vaccine taken with the willingness of taking a booster vaccine, healthcare workers beliefs on vaccine effectiveness (p = 0.001), suspension or contact with patients (p = 0.000), and infection after COVID-19 vaccination (p = 0.016) were significant. (4) Conclusion: Knowledge about vaccine accreditation and regulation should be dispersed more widely to ensure that the population has a positive perception on vaccine safety and effectiveness.


Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) and tissue inhibitors of MMP (TIMP) regulate tissue remodeling events necessary for ovulation. Thus, changes in MMP and TIMP expression and protein enzyme activity were examined in vivo and in vitro during follicular development and atresia in the horse. Equine granulosa cells and follicular fluid from medium (15 to 29 mm) healthy and atretic follicles and from large (>30 mm) healthy and preovulatory follicles were collected by transvaginal aspiration. The cells were either snap-frozen (in vivo study) or cultured for 48 h (in vitro study) to determine gene expression and protein enzyme activity of MMP-2 and MMP-9 and TIMP-1 and TIMP-2. Concentrations of progesterone and estradiol were determined by RIA in follicular fluid and conditioned media and were used along with follicle dynamics to classify follicles. In vivo, expression of MMP-2 and TIMP-2 was increased (P < 0.05) in large-preovulatory follicles, whereas TIMP-1 was decreased. The ratio of MMP-2:TIMP-2 expression was decreased (P < 0.05) in medium-healthy and large-preovulatory follicles, whereas the MMP-9:TIMP-1 ratio was increased only in large-preovulatory follicles compared with large-healthy follicles. Estradiol was greatest (P < 0.05) in the fluid of large-healthy and large-preovulatory follicles. However, medium-atretic follicles were associated with the least estradiol concentrations, both in vivo and in vitro. Progesterone concentrations were greatest (P < 0.05) in large-preovulatory follicles both in vivo and in vitro. In healthy follicles in vivo, the diameter was correlated with estradiol concentration, the estradiol:progesterone ratio, MMP-9 and TIMP-1 expression, and MMP-2 and MMP-9 protein activity. In contrast to in vivo studies, the ratio of MMP-9:TIMP-1 expression was increased (P < 0.05) in medium-healthy follicles; TIMP-2 expression decreased in large-preovulatory follicles in vitro. In addition, MMP-9 protein activity was decreased (P < 0.05) in the media samples of cells from large-healthy follicles compared with those from medium-healthy follicles. These results indicate that changes in MMP-2 and MMP-9 activities may be essential to the tissue reorganization necessary for ovulation in the equine ovary.


To highlight how holistic occupational therapy processes contribute to the level of parent's perception and satisfaction, improve the therapist's level of care, update therapist about client understands of their services, increase client's awareness of different modes of occupational therapy treatment services. Quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study design, POC-20 Questionnaire is used to measure the processes of care questionnaire with parents ticking each column of items according to their perception and satisfaction. MPOC-20 question output from the interview results shows the treatment care services that enable parents to understand how the therapist takes effort and satisfied them day to day life. Therapist expressed their confidence in the holistic approachability to manage the child's behaviors and act as the family center-point of contact for their ongoing care. This research clearly demonstrates the value of the holistic approach, parent and child place on receiving their service care close to home and how the therapist uses their holistic approach to enable this. The success of this study demonstrates this model of care can be implemented in other services across the world.


Background/introduction/Aims To establish whether point of care testing is being carried out in the appropriate populations. We endeavoured to see if our rapid HIV testing met the guideline specificity of 99.4% Methods We carried out a retrospective analysis of 674 patients who received point of care tests (POCTs) after attending the sexual health clinic at the Royal Liverpool Hospital between October 2014 and May 2015. We reviewed the point of care tests based upon the indication, age and sex of the patient. The outcome measures included whether the test was reactive or not and the final result of the laboratory HIV test. Indications were defined by individual staff members logging the information and if multiple indications were given, the aspect deemed to be higher risk was used Results Of the 674 patients 499 were female and 175 were male. The four most common indications were for testing were MSM (36%), Worried/Anxious (15%), PEP (11.5%) and HIV positive partner (9%). 31 tests (4.8%) were reactive and 23 tests (3.4%) produced a corresponding positive final laboratory result. This equated to a specificity of 98.77%. Positivity of indications varied remarkably-MSM, 3.7% versus Worried,0%. Discussion/conclusion The study developed our understanding of the uptake of POCTs. A larger sample could have increased the specificity to the national guidance. The variability in documentation made it difficult to categorise risk in different indications. For example, indications of "high risk" and "worried" are vague and potentially misleading.


Scuba studies primarily focused on physiological aspects of the sport. A few studies about consumer dive behavior have surfaced in the tourism and leisure literature since the 1980s. The recreational scuba market is not homogeneous. Hence the purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of scuba diver characteristics and to conduct an exploratory examination of scuba specific values and involvement. The study sought to identify differences between local scuba divers and visitors, and classify subgroups of divers based on scuba specific values. Data (%=377) was collected in the Florida Keys. Results showed that visitors had less years of certification experience but spent more on scuba, compared to local resident divers. Cluster analysis identified four groups of scuba divers 'fun-seeking belongers', 'actualizers', 'innercircles' and 'moderates'. Group characteristics and scuba specific values were presented. Results may be useful to scuba stakeholders such as marketers and tourism administrators.


The industrial chimney has been the symbol of the Industrial Revolution par excellence. Transcending both regionalism and traditional forms of construction, some specimens found in Spain, dating mainly from the early twentieth century, follow unique schools of construction with regard to the mastery with which the brick is handled. All this was achieved without being endorsed by famous architects; rather they were the product of master masons, skilled in their craft and relishing the opportunity to give to the best of their ability. Currently unimaginable in today's construction climate, their work shows signs of enduring, despite their obsolescence and disappearance of their original function. One of the most beautiful and spectacular types of chimney, whatever cross section it has, is the helical chimney. The paper reviews the origin of these chimneys and illustrates their various types of construction using both historical photographs of lost chimneys and photographs of some spectacular ones that have survived. In an interview with the author, one of the last great chimney builders explained how to erect a helical chimney using the tool he invented for the purpose. The paper ends by noting that heritage legislation in Spain is gradually including industrial heritage and that, in Valencia, industrial brick chimneys of merit, constructed before 1940, are now protected.


The concept of a new organization for congenital heart surgeons in North America to discuss their difficult cases and offer each other potential solutions began in 1973. This article pays tribute to the founders of the Congenital Heart Surgeons' Society and offers insight into the desire of these surgeons to improve clinical outcomes for children with congenital heart disease.


MLL (mixed-lineage-leukemia) gene rearrangements are typical for acute leukemia and are associated with an aggressive course of disease, with a worse outcome than comparable case, and thus require intensified treatment. Here we describe a 69-year-old female with adult B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL) with hyperleukocytosis and immunophenotype CD10- and CD19+ with cryptic MLL rearrangements. G-banding at the time of diagnosis showed a normal karyotype: 46,XX. Molecular cytogenetics using multitude multicolor banding (mMCB) revealed a complex rearrangement of the two copies of chromosome 11. However, a locus-specific probe additionally identified that the MLL gene at 11q23.3 was disrupted, and that the 5′ region was inserted into the chromosomal sub-band 4q21; thus the aberration involved three chromosomes and five break events. Unfortunately, the patient died six months after the initial diagnosis from serious infections and severe complications. Overall, the present findings confirm that, by far not all MLL aberrations are seen by routine chromosome banding techniques and that fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) should be regarded as standard tool to access MLL rearrangements in patients with BCP-ALL.


Urea accumulation in the renal inner medulla plays a key role in the maintenance of maximal urinary concentrating ability. Urea transport in the kidney is mediated by transporter proteins that include renal urea transporter (UT-A) and erythrocyte urea transporter (UT-B). UT-A1 and UT-A2 are produced from the same gene. There is an active tonicity-responsive enhancer (TonE) in the promoter of UT-A1, and the UT-A1 promoter is stimulated by hypertonicity via tonicity-responsive enhancer binding protein (TonEBP). The downregulation of UT-A2 raises the possibility that TonEBP also regulates its promoter. There is some evidence that TonEBP regulates expression of UT-A in vivo; (1) during the renal development of the urinary concentrating ability, expression of TonEBP precedes that of UT-A1; (2) in transgenic mice expressing a dominant negative form of TonEBP, expression of UT-A1 and UT-A2 is severely impaired; (3) in treatment with cyclosporine A, TonEBP was significantly downregulated after 28 days. This downregulation involves mRNA levels of UT-A2; (4) in hypokalemic animals, downregulation of TonEBP contributed to the down regulation of UT-A in the inner medulla. These data support that TonEBP directly contributes to the urinary concentration and renal urea recycling by the regulation of urea transporters.


Abstract Two flagellates of the family trypanosomatidae were isolated from the fruits of Lycopersicon esculentum (tomato) and Annona cherimolia (cherimoya) in the southeastern region of Spain. The isolates were characterized by isoenzyme analysis using nine different isoenzymes and by analysis of kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) restriction fragment length polymorphism using four different restriction endonucleases. Most of the isoenzymes were unable to distinguish between the two fruit isolates, while they were all able to distinguish these two from four other Phytomonas isolates, three of which were from laticiferous plants i.e. Euphorbia characias E. hirta and E. hyssopifolia, and one was a phloem-restricted isolate associated with Hartrot disease. Only the enzyme Superoxide dismutase was able to differentiate between the two fruit isolates. Electrophoretic and restriction endonuclease analysis of kDNA minicircles, using four restriction enzymes, showed similar if not identical restriction cleavage patterns of the minicircles of the two isolates from fruits, while the patterns were different for the other isolates. These results confirm the hypothesis that the two isolates from fruits constitute a group of trypanosomatids that are the same or closely related and that this group can parasitize more than one host plant.


Recent changes in early childhood special education have led professionals to take a hard look at personnel preparation. It is clear that personnel certification standards and personnel preparation programs currently do not reflect the training called for by expanding roles or by the growing knowledge base. One of the major issues addressed has been the delineation of similar and disparate roles of early interventionists who will be employed to work with particular populations of children within the age continuum between birth and 6. Currently, the best guidance as to these different roles comes from expert opinion. The purpose of this paper is to summarize results of two studies designed to describe the roles of personnel employed in special programs for two different age groups, infants/toddlers and 3- to 5-year-olds, as well as perceived preservice training needs of these personnel.


Sustainability Pedagogy in Practice: An Example from Health Education At the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the period between 2005 and 2015 was declared to be the decade of sustainability. Therefore, it is important to see the implementation of sustainability pedagogy come to the fore in every country. Putting this into practice may lead to hardships for headmasters and teachers in schools. This process requires changes in behavior and approaches, besides, the development of certain students' skills have to be considered that the institutions have not perceived as their duty so far. To implement the idea of sustainability in education, in every country from elementary to higher education, properly trained and prepared teachers are needed. Post-graduate teacher training, international interchange of experience have to be stressed. Furthermore, to understand the content of sustainability and put it into everyday practice in schools, the activities have to be fact-based, with clear directions and have easily available teacher aids. The article demonstrates method how to implement projects related to healthy nutrition.


Thankfully,healthcareworkersperformingtracheostomyinpa-tientswithCOVID-19seemtobesafe,butwecannotignorethe existence of asymptomatic carriers and the consequences. No studytodatehasreliablyperformedCOVIDtestingofclinicians. In the past year, we learned that we do not need to wait for 21 to 28 days to perform a tracheostomy in a patient with COVID-19. The current evidence, however, does not justify early tracheostomy. We trust that the emerging evidence will help us better determine the optimal timing of tracheostomy based on patient-centered outcomes.


The evolution of near‐surface air temperature is influenced by various dynamical, radiative, and surface‐atmosphere exchange processes whose contributions are still not completely quantified. Applying stepwise multiple linear regression to Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) model simulations and focusing on radiation (diagnosed by incoming shortwave and incoming longwave radiation) and land surface conditions (diagnosed by soil moisture and albedo) about 79% of the interannual variability and 99% of the multidecadal trend of monthly mean daily maximum temperature over land can be explained. The linear model captures well the temperature variability in middle‐to‐high latitudes and in regions close to the equator, whereas its explanatory potential is limited in deserts. While radiation is an essential explanatory variable over almost all of the analyzed domain, land surface conditions show a pronounced relation to temperature in some confined regions. These findings highlight that considering local‐to‐regional processes is crucial for correctly assessing interannual temperature variability and future temperature trends.


The (Nd,Ce)2Sr2Cu2MOx (M=Ga,Ta) are structurally related to YBCO with yttrium replaced by a fluorite-type block of composition (Nd,Ce)2O2 , and barium by strontium. Neutron powder diffraction studies on these materials have been performed to compare structural order within the layers containing the M atoms. For M=Ga, long-range ordering of the corner-linked GaO4 tetrahedra along the (110) direction of the simple perovskite cell results in an orthorhombic supercell. These zigzag chains of tetrahedra are of two types which are distinguished by the direction of atomic displacements in the chains; equal quantities of both types occur in (Nd,Ce)2Sr2Cu2GaOx. When the tetrahedral Ga ions are replaced by octahedral Ta, the oxygen positions in the basal plane are fully occupied, and the tetrahedral chains are converted into octahedral layers to give a smaller tetragonal unit cell. Cooperative rotation of the TaO6 octahedra within these layers has been confirmed.


Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a relatively new computational intelligence paradigm inspired by the behaviour of natural ants (Bonabeau, Dorigo & Theraulaz, 1999). The natural behaviour of ants that we are interested in is the following. Ants often find the shortest path between a food source and the nest of the colony without using visual information. In order to exchange information about which path should be followed, ants communicate with each other by means of a chemical substance called pheromone. As ants move, a certain amount of pheromone is dropped on the ground, creating a pheromone trail. The more ants follow a given trail, the more attractive that trail becomes to be followed by other ants. This process involves a loop of positive feedback, in which the probability that an ant chooses a path is proportional to the number of ants that have already passed by that path. Hence, individual ants, following very simple rules, interact to produce an intelligent behaviour – a solution to a complex problem – at the higher level of the ant colony. In other words, intelligence is an emergent phenomenon; that is, "the whole is more than the sum of the parts". In this article we present an overview of Ant-Miner, an ACO algorithm for discovering classification rules in data mining (Parpinelli, Lopes & Freitas, 2002a, 2002b). In essence, in the classification task each case (record) of the data being mined consists of two parts: a goal attribute, whose value is to be predicted, and a set of predictor attributes. The aim is to predict the value of the goal attribute for a case, given the values of the predictor attributes for that case. To the best of our knowledge, the use of ACO algorithms (Bonabeau, Dorigo & Theraulaz, 1999; Dorigo et al., 2002) for discovering classification rules is a very under-explored research area. There are other ant algorithms developed for the data mining task of clustering – see for example Monmarché (1999) – but that task is very different from the classification task addressed in this article. Note that Ant-Miner was designed specifically for discovering classification rules, rather than for solving other kinds of data mining tasks. In other research areas ACO algorithms have been shown to produce effective solutions to difficult realworld problems. A detailed review about many other ACO algorithms (designed to solve many other different kinds of problems) and a discussion about their performance can be found in Bonabeau, Dorigo and Theraulaz (1999) and Dorigo et al. (2002). A typical example of application of ACO is network traffic routing, where artificial ants deposit "virtual pheromone" (information) at the network nodes. In essence, the amount of pheromone deposited at each node is inversely proportional to the congestion of traffic in that node. This reinforces paths through uncongested areas. Both British Telecom and France Telecom have explored this application of ACO in telephone networks.


The Internet... a Web of information technology. The potential exists now and increasingly in the future to use this technology to deliver widely distributed, creative, innovative learning to students across vast distances and at times which suit individual needs. The implications of this technology for nurse education, and indeed health care in general, are exciting. The technology is growing at such a vast rate that it would be easy to blindly accept it and promote its use. However, there is a need to stop and consider some of the practical barriers to the use of this technology, particularly for nursing education.


The role of collaborative biostatisticians and epidemiologists in academic medical centres and how their degree type, supervisor type and sex influences recognition and feelings of respect is poorly understood. We conducted a cross‐sectional survey of self‐identified biostatisticians and epidemiologists working in academic medical centres in the United States or Canada. The survey was sent to 341 contacts at 125 institutions who were asked to forward the survey invitation to faculty and staff at their institution and posted on Community sections of the American Statistical Association website. Participants were asked a variety of questions including if they felt pressured to produce specific results, whether they had intellectual and ethical freedom to pursue appropriate use of statistical methods in collaborative research and if they felt their contributions were appropriately recognized by collaborators. We received responses from 314 biostatisticians or related methodologists. A majority were female (59%), had a doctorate degree (52%) and reported to a statistician or biostatistician supervisor (69%). Overall, most participants felt valued by their collaborators, but that they did not have sufficient calendar time to meet deadlines. Doctoral‐level participants reported more autonomy in their collaborations than master's level participants. Females were less likely to feel recognized and respected compared with males. The survey results suggest that while most respondents felt valued by their collaborators, they have too many projects and need more time to critically review research. Further research is needed to understand why response differs by sex and how these responses fluctuate over time.


Abstract— Several classes of chondritic meteorites experienced heterogeneous aqueous alteration and subsequent brecciation before agglomeration into the final parent bodies. These processes resulted in intimate mixing of materials altered to various degrees. In the past, this mixing has been attributed solely to impact processes. However, our investigation of the physical consequences of aqueous alteration processes in bodies accreting from a mixture of silicate and ice grains shows that aqueous alteration was commonly accompanied by substantial gas production. The asteroids may have become so internally pressurized by these gases that the sudden onset of gas release led to partial or complete disaggregation of the body. In some cases, fragments may have escaped completely from the parent asteroid and could potentially have been incorporated into other accreting asteroids. In other cases, fragments originating from different parts of the initial body, having various sizes and temperatures and exhibiting varying degrees of alteration, may have re‐accreted into a second‐generation object and undergone further stages of alteration. Such events could have been repeated two or three times during the lifetime of 26Al, the likely heat source for these processes.


This paper aims to explore the idea of the importance science ethics in the Islamic spirituality perspectives. This study used library research to determine the ethical dimension of Islamic science which is more concerned with the benefit of the people rather than the negative impact of the development of science and technology. By using the view of Islamic spirituality, the development of modern science should be guided by ethics and morals that represent esoteric wisdom as the heart of religion. This study shows that the ethics of science in the view of Islamic spirituality always emphasizes the dimensions of wisdom as reflected in the use of science without neglecting the most basic human values. The ethics of science contained in Islamic spirituality is a reflection of the esoteric dimension that encourages its people to be more sensitive to the future of nature which becomes the most beautiful representation of God's face. The ethical-esoteric dimension inherent in Islamic science is expected to be implemented by religious people to better appreciate the universe as God's creation.


Rubus Linnaeus (1753: 492) ser. Micantes Sudre (1908: 16) is a series of intermediate taxonomic position, including species originating via the hybridization of glandular and non-glandular bramble biotypes (Holub 1992, Weber 1995). The number of species in this series is approximately 60; their distribution centre is in central and north-western Europe (Kurtto et al. 2010). The east-central European representatives of the series (ca. 15 species) are well known, both their taxonomy and distribution seem to be clarified due to recent investigations (Holub 1995, Weber 1995, Maurer & Drescher 2000, Matzke-Hajek 2004, Zielinski 2004, Kiraly et al. 2014), and practically all species occurring in this region (excluding Rubus styriacus Halacsy 1890: 432) have satisfactorily been typified (Weber 1991, 1998, Kiraly et al. 2013, 2015). However, even the lack of the typification of R. styriacus indicates unresolved questions; thus, the aim of this correspondence is the circumscription its original material and the typification of the name.


Holographic dark (bright) screening solitons are predicted in one dimension for a series circuit consisting of two photorefractive crystals connected electronically by electrode leads in a chain with a voltage source. Each crystal can support a holographic screening soliton. The two solitons are known collectively as a separate holographic screening soliton pair with three types: bright–bright, bright–dark and dark–dark. The numerical results show that the two solitons in a soliton pair can affect each other through a light-induced current and their coupling can affect their spatial profiles under the limit in which the optical wave has a spatial extent much less than the width of the crystal.


This paper presents experimentson classifyingweb pages by genre. Firstly, a corpus of 1 539 manually labeled web pages was prepared. Secondly, 502 genre features were selected based on the literature and the observation of the corpus. Thirdly, these features were extracted from the corpus to obtain a data set. Finally, two machine learning algorithms, one for induction of decision trees (J48) and one ensemble algorithm (bagging), were trained and tested on the data set. The ensemble algorithm achieved on average 17% better precision and 1.6% better accuracy, but slightly worse recall; F-measure did not vary significantly. The results indicate that classification by genre could be a useful addition to search engines.


New drugs and new targets are urgently needed to treat tuberculosis. We discovered that d-phenylalanine-benzoxazole Q112 displays potent antibacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) in multiple media and in macrophage infections. A metabolomic profiling indicates that Q112 has a unique mechanism of action. Q112 perturbs the essential pantothenate/coenzyme A biosynthetic pathway, depleting pantoate while increasing ketopantoate, as would be expected if ketopantoate reductase (KPR) were inhibited. We searched for alternative KPRs, since the enzyme annotated as PanE KPR is not essential in Mtb. The ketol-acid reductoisomerase IlvC catalyzes the KPR reaction in the close Mtb relative Corynebacterium glutamicum, but Mtb IlvC does not display KPR activity. We identified the essential protein Rv3603c as an orthologue of PanG KPR and demonstrated that a purified recombinant Rv3603c has KPR activity. Q112 inhibits Rv3603c, explaining the metabolomic changes. Surprisingly, pantothenate does not rescue Q112-treated bacteria, indicating that Q112 has an additional target(s). Q112-resistant strains contain loss-of-function mutations in the twin arginine translocase TatABC, further underscoring Q112's unique mechanism of action. Loss of TatABC causes a severe fitness deficit attributed to changes in nutrient uptake, suggesting that Q112 resistance may derive from a decrease in uptake.


ABSTRACT Granular materials forming part of natural slopes, embankments, subgrades of foundations and pavement structures are subjected to both static and dynamic loads during their engineering lives. As a result of these loads, particle crushing occurs. The present study focuses on the evolution of crushing in a simulated granular material subjected to different combinations of biaxial stresses. It was found that the Discrete Element Method (DEM) can be used to visualize and understand the evolution of crushing experienced by a granular material under these conditions. Even though DEM does not normally consider particle breakage, it is possible to simulate crushing by replacing one particle that has failed in tension with a combination of many particles of different sizes. The results from the developed simulations indicated that the samples tended to achieve a fractal distribution of particle sizes, although at the end of the simulations these distributions were still being dominated by the size of the original particles. Changes in other properties of the simulated granular material such as the void ratio and the shear strength were also recorded and analyzed. It was found that the internal friction angle decreased as a result of particle crushing.


The number of poor moslem people always increase. Education and income gaps are regarded as cause of the poor getting poorer and the rich get richer. It is the responsibility for Muslims to help each other to alleviate poverty through performing and empowering the zakat. Zakat plays an important role in the economy, especially in reducing poverty. The existence of zakat will increase aggregate demands from mustahiq raise; then it will increase aggregate supply and employment. This is known as an economic multiplier. The well managed zakat will bring about the great benefit of zakat in economy, especially to overcome the destituiton. kemiskinan; zakat; multiplier ekonomi


Question Answering (QA) tasks are used as benchmarks of general machine intelligence. Therefore, robust QA evaluation is critical, and metrics should indicate how models will answer any question. However, major QA datasets have skewed distributions over gender, profession, and nationality. Despite that skew, models generalize—we find little evidence that accuracy is lower for people based on gender or nationality. Instead, there is more variation in question topic and question ambiguity. Adequately accessing the generalization of QA systems requires more representative datasets.


This keynote paper sets the scene for the Internati o l Scientific Workshop 'Virtual Reality and Prototyping Conference' organised by t he Laval International Virtual Reality Meeting. It briefly examines the background of toda y's impressive VR technology, which can be used to evaluate complex products from the c onceptual design stage through to the manufacturing process. The emerging virtual revolut i n has wide and far-reaching consequences for many organisations. The paper look s at virtual prototyping and where opportunities exist for its application. It highlig hts also the urgent need for greater understanding of the associated human factors issue s.


This study aims to determine the struggle of a young woman to hand over a mailbox and get the signature of an old man in Prague. The scene is visualized in the film Surat from Prague. Then this study also sought the meaning of the struggle contained in each scene in the film. The approach used in this study is qualitative with a narrative analysis method that uses the character of the Vladimir Propp performer's function. The focus of this research is to describe the description of 31 character functions, knowing the opposing opposition characters in the film. The data collection technique used by the writer is watching the original film Surat from Prague and conducting interviews with the film's writer, M. Irfan Ramli. The results obtained from this study are the function of actors as many as 16 functions of the meaning of the struggle of 31 functions of the perpetrators. Starting with the initial situation which is then followed by the function of the perpetrator. There is a repetition of functions that occur but in different events. As in narration 4 and 8 both have the Mediation function. The structure of the function of the meaning of the struggle in the film Letter from Prague when arranged as follows: α, M, ↑, B, A, Rs, γ, B, D, e, e, E, C, N, H, and Ex.


BACKGROUND
Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) is a curative therapy for many hematological diseases, but there are many complications following allo-HSCT, among which neurological complications (NC) are one of the most commonly described ones. However, little is known about idiopathic inflammatory demyelinating diseases (IIDDs) of the central nervous system (CNS) in patients following allo-HSCT.

METHODS
A nested case-control study was conducted in a large cohort of 1365 patients, who underwent allo-HSCT at the Institute of Hematology and Peking University People's Hospital, between January 2004 and December 2009, 36 patients of whom developed CNS IIDDs. Kaplan-Meier method, univariate and multivariate Cox regression were applied in our statistical analysis using SPSS 16.0.

RESULTS
The cumulative incidence of all cases of IIDDs at 6 years posttransplantation was 3.6%. Thirty-five patients (97.2%) suffered IIDDs after transplantation, 16 patients (44.4%) between day 0 to day 100 post-transplantation, 10 patients (27.8%) between day 100 to 1 year post-transplantation, and 9 patients (25.0%) 1 year post-transplantation. Multivariate regression analysis identified donor type (P = 0.031), infection (P = 0.009), and acute lymphatic leukemia (P = 0.017) as independent risk factors for posttransplantation IIDDs. The median survival time of patients with IIDDs was 514 days after transplantation (95%CI: 223 - 805). Survival at 6 years was significantly lower in patients who developed the diseases compared to those who did not (26.6% vs. 73.5%, P < 0.001). Of the 36 patients experiencing IIDDs, 58.3% (n = 21) died. The causes of death were graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) (n = 4), underlying disease relapse (n = 3), infections (n = 12), and other causes (n = 2).

CONCLUSIONS
IIDDs is an uncommon but serious complication of allo-HSCT, especially in patients with a primary diagnosis of acute lymphatic leukemia, mismatched transplants, and infections. Our study results indicate that patients with IIDDs tend toward a poor prognosis following allo-HSCT.


Analysis of examination of 320 children with the spastic forms of cerebral palsy from 3 to 18 years old was carried out. All children were treated by surgical therapy. Children received sirdalud before the operation, after the operation they received sirdalud, massage and therapeutic gymnastics. This remedy reduces muscular tonus and pain


Basel is known for its successful global players in Pharma, Agro and Chemicals. The wealth of top-tier companies, universities and academic institutions in such a small region is unparalleled. It creates an optimum climate for world-class research and its translation into successful businesses. This is also reflected in a strong start-up scene. Over the past decades the multinational players have shown that they are able to adapt to the ever-increasing challenges in the market. Basel has seen blue-chip company mergers, accompanied by the transfer of business assets into spin-off companies. This process created a mind-set for change which has positively influenced the local start-up environment. Actelion is one of these former spin-offs that successfully made the transition to become a global player. BioVersys and PIQUR are two of the most promising very early stage Swiss biotech companies. Many other examples can be found in Northwestern Switzerland. The region also offers a solid background of supporting activities. Infrastructure, coaching and all other support are offered and complement national innovation initiatives.


We show that reproductively mature male sea lampreys release a bile acid that acts as a potent sex pheromone, inducing preference and searching behavior in ovulated female lampreys. The secreted bile acid 7α,12α,24-trihydroxy-5α-cholan-3-one 24-sulfate was released in much higher amounts relative to known vertebrate steroid pheromones and may be secreted through the gills. Hence, the male of this fish species signals both its reproductive status and location to females by secreting a pheromone that can act over long distances.


In this paper, we investigate the outage performance of selective Relaying in cooperative OFDM networks over independent but not identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) Nakagami-m fading channels, with integer values of parameter m. Closed-form outage probability is derived for two selective relaying schemes. Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to validate our analysis.


Red light camera (RLC) systems are believed to decrease the right-angle crashes that they are targeting but to have the undesirable side effect of increasing rear-end crashes. This belief was confirmed in a before–after study of 132 RLC installations in seven U.S. jurisdictions, as reported in a companion paper. In that research, the extent to which the increase in rear-end crashes negates the benefits for right-angle crashes was unclear, given the perceptions of severity differences in the two crash types. This paper reports on an examination of the changes in crash costs, based on a consideration of rear-end and right-angle unit crash costs for various severity levels, to establish the aggregate effects of the RLC programs evaluated. Part of the project derived the required unit costs by using information from national U.S. databases. The overall results show a modest to moderate economic benefit of between $28,000 and $50,000 per treated site year, depending on assumptions made. The ability to aggregate economic costs across crash types and severity created the opportunity to try to isolate program implementation factors and intersection characteristics that would favor the installation of RLC systems by using the aggregate economic benefit at each RLC site as the outcome variable. This investigation found, for example, that the greatest economic benefits are associated with the highest total entering annual average daily traffic, the largest ratios of right-angle to rear-end crashes, and the presence of protected left-turn phases.


BackgroundSevoflurane reacts with carbon dioxide absorbents, such as soda lime, to release the volatile products compounds A and B. These two products, which have been detected in anesthesia circuits, are among five formed when sevoflurane is degraded by soda lime at increased temperature; the others, compounds C, D, and E, have been detected only in heated sealed systems. The current study attempted to determine the influence of soda lime temperature on compounds A and B generation in an anesthesia circuit and whether a decrease in soda lime temperature could eliminate product formation in the circulating gases. MethodsSevoflurane (1.5% in oxygen) was circulated (6 1/ min) in a partially closed, low-flow (215 ml/min fresh gas) anesthesia circuit that included a canister containing 1.2 kg fresh soda lime. Carbon dioxide was introduced into the circuit at 200 ml/min, and gas samples for analysis of sevoflurane, compounds A, B, C, and D, and carbon dioxide were taken at the opening of an attached artificial lung. The circuit was operated for 8 h under conditions whereby the soda lime temperature could increase freely or the soda lime was chilled with ice. ResultsA maximum core soda lime temperature of about 46°C was measured when the experiment was run under conditions whereby the soda lime temperature was allowed to increase. Compounds A and B Increased with time to a maximum of 23 and 9 ppm, respectively. At 4.5 h of circuit operation, compound C/D was found. Chilling of the soda lime canister, which produced a maximum core soda lime temperature of 26°C, resulted in neither compound B nor C/D being detected during the 8-h period. Compound A was present in the circuit at all times at approximately 10 ppm; however, its concentration did not Increase as occurred when the experiment was conducted under nonchilled conditions. Carbon dioxide levels at the opening of the lung remained at a constant 5% for 8 h with or without soda lime chilling. ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that the release of volatile sevoflurane degradation products in an anesthesia circuit is highly dependent on soda lime temperatures. A reduction of the temperature of soda lime may be a feasible method of preventing the release of significant levels of sevoflurane degradation products without interfering with carbon dioxide absorption or altering the sevoflurane concentration.


The removal of turbidity from produced water by chemical coagulation/flocculation method using locally available coagulants was investigated. Aluminum sulfate (alum) is selected as a primary coagulant, while calcium hydroxide (lime) is used as a coagulant aid. The performance of these coagulants was studied through jar test by comparing turbidity removal at different coagulant/ coagulants aid ratio, coagulant dose, water pH, and sedimentation time. In addition, an attempt has been made to examine the relationship between turbidity (NTU) and total suspended solids (mg/L) on the same samples of produced water. The best conditions for turbidity removal can be obtained at 75% alum+25% lime coagulant at coagulant dose of 80 mg/l at pH 6 and 120 min for sedimentation time. At these conditions, the turbidity reading was reduced from 92 to 2.1 NTU.


Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a common disorder characterized by the recurrent collapse of upper airway anatomy during sleep. This leads to a physiologic cascade of transient hypoxia, changes in intrathoracic pressure, increased sympathetic output, and cortical arousals associated with excessive daytime sleepiness. It is estimated to occur in approximately 5% of the population. The incidence is reported to be higher (~20%) in patients with systemic hypertension. Several trials have indicated that treatment of OSAS can lead to reductions in hypertension and prehypertension. The question then arises of how this is best accomplished. Diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can be limited by availability, accessibility, and the cost of in-laboratory polysomnography: the gold standard for diagnosis. Further, many patients are uncomfortable with the concept of sleeping in a laboratory connected to a myriad of monitors. In recent years, there has been a great amount of development of home sleep testing (HST) equipment. Currently, there are at least 16 different production models available for home testing. One of the challenges inherent in this is that there has not yet been an established standard of what types of channels should be recorded in a home sleep study. In 2007, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) published clinical guidelines indicating that at minimum, devices record airflow, respiratory effort, and blood oxygenation. Most commercial devices replicate the equipment used in laboratory polysomnography (including nasal airflow, thermistor, respiratory effort, heart rate, body position, limited electroencephalography [EEG], and oximetry). The majority of these devices do not utilize EEG; as such, most home sleep studies are not able to discriminate whether a respiratory disturbance occurs during a period of wakefulness or sleep. As a result, the overall severity of OSA tends to be underestimated. Therefore, HST is best utilized for the detection of severe OSA rather than mild OSA. Further, home sleep studies are limited in their ability to recognize patterns of central sleep apnea (CSA) such as Cheyne-Stokes respiration. This is an important consideration in studying patients with comorbid heart failure or end-stage renal disease, wherein the risk of CSA is elevated. In this issue of the journal, Gurbuhagavtula and colleagues present a study that validates a strategy to screen for severe OSAS in hypertensive outpatients, without the need for the cumbersome task of inlaboratory polysomnography. They looked at several clinical parameters and paired them with a straightforward HST device that measured unattended oximetry, chest and abdominal movement, and nasal airflow pressure. A real strength in their study is that they identified at least two potential models (one measuring neck circumference and obtaining a home sleep study, and another calculating a clinical risk score, multivariable apnea prediction score [MVAP] followed by HST) that had good predictive ability and could easily be translated into clinical practice by a non-sleep specialist caring for at-risk patients. Although the facial morphometrics score had slightly greater predictive ability, it is likely limited in practice based on technical expertise of providers. It should also be noted that the authors used an autoscoring system built into the HST equipment to determine an unattended apnea-hypopnea index. This certainly has the advantage of ease of use, and allows the technology to be employed by a wide variety of providers, although the potential for increased error/ misinterpretation is elevated. This is akin to using the automatic interpretation software built into electrocardiography machines. The AASM guidelines for out-ofoffice sleep testing encourage manual scoring/validation of all studies. Looking forward, the results presented in this issue offer us evidence that checking a few straightforward clinical parameters coupled with a home sleep study, can reliably help identify patients at risk for severe OSAS. The clinical parameters recognized (measuring neck circumference, asking about snoring, apneas, and basic demographics) can easily be obtained. Further work is needed to look at the value of this type of screening tool in broader populations. In addition, as a field we must consider who is best suited to conduct these studies. Should they be completed and interpreted in-house by a generalist/nephrologist/cardiologist? Should this be referred to a sleep medicine specialist? Or, should it be outsourced to the growing market of independent sleep testing companies? Another practical consideration moving forward is how we approach patients who have a clinical screen suggestive of possible OSAS and have negative results on a home sleep study. We would propose that they likely would benefit from follow-up in-laboratory polysomnography. The strategy validated in this study has the potential to be an efficient Address for correspondence: Jonathan A. Marcus, MD, URMC Sleep Disorders Center, 2337 South Clinton Avenue, Rochester, NY 14618 E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


The data rate of a point-to-point link can be substantially increased by using antenna arrays at both transmitter and receiver. Similar gains can be realized in the downlink of a cellular system with respect to the total cell throughput, if the base station serves multiple single-antenna mobiles simultaneously; however, the maximum rate of each individual user is relatively small then. In this paper, it is investigated, whether channel state information at the base station ("smart MISO") or additional receive antennas at the mobile terminals ("dumb MIMO") are more important from a cross-layer scheduling perspective. To this end, simulation results for a typical indoor scenario are presented.


Abstract Research into the (re)construction of the professional and private lifeworlds as well as additional categories of the 'political', technological and performative has opened up the field of video as a space of organisation of forms for resistance to the dominant discourse in contemporary arts. This article examines the examples of video installation works from new EU territories of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) that attend to both ambiguous constructions of self and the difficulty of political identifications with realities of post‐Socialist transformation in the context of expanded cities, as reflected in the works of Marina Grzinič and Aina Šmid (Slovenia), Julita Wójcik (Poland) and Ene‐Liis Semper (Estonia). Artistic strategies enveloped in feminist politics discussed here can offer a productive perspective to reflect on the complexity of identity representation in Europe. The author will examine paradoxes of identity construction in the expanded cities of expanded Europe represented in the selected video/installation works, and their inconsistencies in terms of the conjunction between memory, self, and (un)conscious reflection.


Cytokine dysregulation is one of the important hallmarks of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in both pediatric and adult patients. Owing to the substantial role of Janus kinase (JAK) and suppressor of cytokine signaling (SOCS) in cytokine signaling, we compared the methylation status of the promoter of JAK2 and SOCS3 between patients with JSLE and healthy controls. Peripheral blood samples were obtained from patients with JSLE and healthy controls. The promoter methylation was assessed by using the bisulfite conversion system and real-time quantitative multiplex methylation-specific PCR (QM-MSP). The methylation assessments were performed on the blood samples of 25 patients with JSLE and 24 healthy controls. The promoter of JAK2 was significantly hypomethylated in patients with JSLE compared to healthy controls. The median relative unmethylation of the promoter of JAK2 was higher in the JSLE group compared to the control group [0.44 (0.32,0.59) vs. 0.18 (0.12,0.86), respectively; P-value 0.026]. The promoter of SOCS3 was significantly hypermethylated in patients with JSLE compared to the controls. The median relative unmethylation of the promoter of SOCS3 was lower in the JSLE group compared to the control group [0.52 (0.10, 1.41) vs 1.18 (0.39, 2.19), respectively; P-value 0.032]. According to the results of our study, hypomethylation of the promoter of JAK2 and hypermethylation of the promoter of SOCS3 associate with JSLE. These alterations are possible mechanisms for activation of the JAK2 and suppression of the SOCS3 gene, respectively.


This paper proposes high energy-efficient IP network architecture with Giant Center Router and Optical Aggregation Network. User IP packets are aggregated and transferred to Giant Center Router through Optical Aggregation Network transparently by dynamic optical resource allocation. Giant Center Router is power scalable with an amount of traffic proportionally. Optical Aggregation network is realized by circuit switches, wavelength converters, and wavelength multiplexers/ demultiplexers. The proposed network scheme reduces the power consumption to 1/20-1/30 compared to the conventional Internet, realizes a network structure well suited to traffic centralization, and offers smooth migration from the conventional Internet.


In ovarian cancer chemotherapy initially reduces tumor burden; however, >70% of patients experience tumor recurrence, creating a need for additional therapies. We evaluated the ability of Ruxolitinib, a FDA approved JAK 1/2 kinase inhibitor, as a potential adjunctive therapy for paclitaxel treatment of ovarian cancer. Using murine ID8 and human TOV-112D ovarian cancer cells we tested the ability of Ruxolitinib alone and in combination with low-dose paclitaxel to limit cell proliferation and colony formation in vitro. Additionally, using flow cytometry we assessed the capacity of paclitaxel to induce the expression of cell surface markers associated with stemness and the cellular stress response. We next determined if Ruxolitinib could reduce paclitaxel-induced expression of stemness and stress markers. Finally daily administration of Ruxolitinib, both alone and in combination with a single low-dose administration of paclitaxel, was tested for the capacity to reduce tumor growth and extend survival using the syngeneic ID8 luciferase-expressing model of ovarian cancer in C57Bl/6 mice. Our in vitro data demonstrate that Ruxolitinib can sensitize both murine ID8 and human TOV-112D cells to low concentrations of paclitaxel, as evidenced by a significant reduction of cell proliferation and colony formation. We find that pre-incubation with Ruxolitinib is sufficient to sensitize cells to subsequent incubation with paclitaxel. Paclitaxel-induced expression of stemness and stress markers (SCA-1, GRP78 and CD133) is reduced by co-incubation with Ruxolitinib. In vivo, Ruxolitinib plus administration of a single low-dose paclitaxel treatment is sufficient to limit tumor growth and significantly extend median survival from in mice bearing ID8 ovarian cancer tumors (Control 59days vs Ruxolitinib-paclitaxel 77 days). Together, these data indicate that Ruxolitinib can increase the susceptibility of both murine and human ovarian cancer cells to reduced concentrations paclitaxel chemotherapy in vitro and that combination therapy with Ruxolitinib and a single low-dose paclitaxel administration extends survival in mice. Our data provide important pre-clinical data to support the use of Ruxolitinib to enhance the efficacy of paclitaxel therapy for patients with ovarian cancer. Citation Format: Patrick Reeves PhD, Mojgan Abbaslou MD, Mark C. Poznansky MD PHD. RUXOLITINIB SENSITIZES OVARIAN CANCER CELLS TO LOW–DOSE PACLITAXEL THERAPY [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Ovarian Cancer Research Symposium; Sep 12-13, 2016; Seattle, WA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2017;23(11 Suppl):Abstract nr NTOC-105.


abstract Scarcity of freshwater resources increases the importance of seawater and brackish water desalination processes. However, still, large amount of specific energy requirement, leading to high operational costs, presents a big challenge in adopting desalination technologies. This challenge can be addressed by considering the newly emerging nanomaterials especially those made from carbon. This paper presents a comprehensive literature survey and review that brings those carbon nano-materials (CNMs) into focus which directly participate in desalination processes. The structural and functional properties of CNMs, their fabrication into membranes, their formation into bucky papers, and their composite electrodes are some of their usages in desalination processes which are exploited. The survey and analysis of the available literature shows that CNMs can enhance capacity and efficiency of next generation desalination systems, particularly reverse osmosis, membrane distillation, capacitance deionization, ...


We use front tracking data structures and functions to model the dynamic evolution of fabric surface. We represent the fabric surface by a triangulated mesh with preset equilibrium side length. The stretching and wrinkling of the surface are modeled by the mass-spring system. The external driving force is added to the fabric motion through the "Impulse method" which computes the velocity of the point mass by superposition of momentum. The mass-spring system is a nonlinear ODE system. Added by the numerical and computational analysis, we show that the spring system has an upper bound of the eigen frequency. We analyzed the system by considering two spring models and we proved in one case that all eigenvalues are imaginary and there exists an upper bound for the eigen-frequency. This upper bound plays an important role in determining the numerical stability and accuracy of the ODE system. Based on this analysis, we analyzed the numerical accuracy and stability of the nonlinear spring mass system for fabric surface and its tangential and normal motion. We used the fourth order Runge-Kutta method to solve the ODE system and showed that the time step is linearly dependent on the mesh size for the system.


We have found that the metal - insulator transition can occur in Al - Pd - Re alloys on choosing the annealing conditions appropriately, and McMillan's scaling theory of the metal - insulator transition in amorphous materials can be applied to quasicrystals equally well. That is, the low-temperature conductivity on the metallic side of the metal - insulator transition varies as , and the determined value of the correlation gap , spanning about five orders of magnitude, is proportional to the inverse of the square of the zero-temperature resistivity .


In this essay, I call on scientific persona and autobiographical discourse theory to examine Dr. Sara Josephine Baker's 1939 autobiography Fighting for Life. Through this framework, I consider how Baker and other U.S. women health professionals conceived of individual identity and collective persona during the early twentieth century. Baker helped to revolutionise well-baby and well-child care in the U.S., and in Fighting for Life, she relates the genesis and evolution of her groundbreaking work. Like her contemporaries, Baker was engaged in the research, practice, teaching, and administration of medicine and public health. Presently, scientific persona has been theorized as a conglomerate of dispositions, practices, and characteristics that are associated with scholar-practitioners of the human and natural sciences; it therefore offers a novel lens for the individual and collective fashioning of women health professionals like Baker whose work traversed disciplines and institutions. By considering how Fighting for Life, as autobiography, facilitates Baker's conception of self and persona, I show that Baker adopts prevailing personas for women health professionals as well as women working in other fields. At the same time, Baker in her autobiography also emphasizes why and how these models transform in actual practice. Thus, scientific personas tend to emerge as subtle variations of previous forms, while Baker's autobiography also bears witness to the rise of new personas for women health professionals, as demonstrated by her radical reconfiguration of expert knowledge and scientific motherhood.


Basic data about physiological evoked responses properties of the brain structures highest level (telencephalon) are presented. Contemporary ideas concerned to mechanisms of these responses are summed up. Data about their distribution in telencephalic structures and morphological basis of the distribution are adduced. The evoked responses especialities of telencephalic structures in awake animals in chronic experiments are revealed. The functional significance of processes that form this bioelectrical reaction is observed. Special attention is paid to earlier (to 100 ms) components. The possibility to use the evoked responses as the functional instruments of investigations of the brain is discussed.


Abstract Introduction: Our previous study demonstrated marked regression of amyloid deposits in abdominal fat tissues of familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) patients treated with liver transplantation (LT). To determine whether similar changes in deposited amyloid can also occur in other organs, we examined gastric mucosal amyloid before and after LT in FAP patients with ATTRV30M. Methods: We histopathologically and biochemically investigated gastric mucosal amyloid before and after LT in six FAP patients with ATTRV30M.The amounts of amyloid deposits in biopsied gastric mucosa were determined by microscopy, and the proportion of wild-type transthyretin (TTR) in extracted amyloid fibril proteins was assayed by liquid chromatography-ion trap mass spectrometry. Similar examinations were also performed in 21 untreated FAP patients and 13 transplanted patients with ATTRV30M. Results: The amount of deposited amyloid was not markedly different before and after LT in six patients. However, the composition ratios of wild-type TTR in gastric mucosal amyloid increased markedly from 20.0% ± 11.4% before LT to 43.2% ± 13.8% after LT. In addition, the ratio of wild-type TTR in all transplanted patients was significantly higher than that in untransplanted patients (72.7% ± 25.5%, 23.8% ± 14.3%, respectively). Conclusions: Our results showed that the components of amyloid fibril proteins in gastric mucosa of transplanted FAP patients are different from those in untreated patients: a significant portion of preexisting ATTRV30M-derived amyloid seemed to be replaced by wild-type TTR-derived amyloid postoperatively, indicating that continuous turnover of amyloid deposits can occur in all organs in transplanted FAP patients. It was also confirmed that wild-type TTR plays an important role in the pathogenesis of postoperative amyloid deposition in transplanted FAP patients.


This paper explores the effect of research and development (R&D) and capital on factor intensity and skill bias in a sample of manufacturing plants. Firm and industry R&D as well as plant level capital increase the factor intensity of labor over materials. In contrast, skill bias originates in portions of capital and R&D. Equipment capital and firm R&D in the same product as a plant are consistently skill biased, while structures are biased against skill. Furthermore, general firm and industry R&D increase investment in equipment but not structures. This shows that the skill bias of R&D occurs through two distinct channels. First, firm R&D specific to the product increases the relative demand for skilled labor directly and in the short run through the cost function. Second, general firm and industry R&D exert an additional skill bias by favoring equipment over structures in the long run, demonstrating the broader compass of the skill bias of R&D over time.


1502. Browne, S. THE GOTHIC VOICE IN EIGHTEENTH-eENTURY ORATORY. Communication Quarterly. 1988, 36(3): 227-236. This essay cites historical and textual evidence of gothic strains in eighteenth-century rhetorical practice. Edmund Burke's oration on Fox's East India Bill illustrates a number of representative themes, images, and strategies of appeal common to gothicism. The gothic voice is judged to be significant as an instance of the ways in which general aesthetic sensibilities are deployed for rhetorical ends.