En-bloc double lung transplantation with tracheal anastomosis and direct revascularization of the bronchial arteries to the left internal mammary artery has been carried out in Denmark since June 1992. Forty-seven patients (32 with alfa-1 antitrypsin deficiency, 11 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, two with cystic fibrosis and two with primary pulmonary hypertension), 25 men and 22 women, average age 39 years (17-64 years), have received their first double-lung transplant with bronchial artery revascularization. Arteriography of the internal mammary artery and bronchial arteries was performed in 42 (89%) of the patients from 1-150 days after the operation. Successful bronchial artery revascularization was demonstrated arteriographically in 40 patients, in two patients the arteriography failed to show bronchial artery revascularization. Arteriography was not performed in five patients due to early complications and death. Bronchoscopy showed rapid, uncomplicated airway healing in 42 patients. Mucosal necrosis under the tracheal anastomosis was found in three patients, and severe obstructive endobronchial growth of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus was diagnosed in the last two patients. The one- and two-year survival is 83% (Kaplan-Meier). Eleven patients are dead, five due to pulmonary causes and six due to extra-pulmonary causes. Pulmonary function became normal in nearly all surviving patients between three to six months after the transplantation. In conclusion, en-bloc double-lung transplantation with bronchial artery vascularization has shown good short-term results, and the one- and two-year survival gives hope that a successful bronchial artery revascularization will improve the long-term survival following lung transplantation.


BACKGROUND
The incidence of diabetes is increasing rapidly, owing to unhealthy lifestyles. The human suffering and healthcare burden caused by diabetes are mainly a consequence of its microvascular and macrovascular complications. Late diagnosis and lack of strict metabolic control lead to increased morbidity and mortality. A problem is the insidious course of the complications, diagnosed in advanced stages, when end organ damage is already present.

OBJECTIVE
Discovery of early markers of microangiopathy and macroangiopathy may help to identify patients at risk of organ damage.

METHODS
This review focuses on recent developments in proteomics, performed on body fluids and different tissues implicated in microvascular and macrovascular complications.

RESULTS
The results provide important information for the early detection of diabetic complications as well as for better understanding of their pathophysiology.


How did the consumer system develop to pervade the whole of American culture? The rise of American mass culture helped to spread consumerism, turning the country into a nation of consumers. This volume examines the consumer way of life in America as it unfolded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It traces how Americans came to value the pursuit of status objects and to rely on accumulating goods to measure cultural identity. Art, literature, advertisements, amusements, furnishings, fairs, hotels, museums, schools and shops tell a story of cultural change and the figures, events and institutions that projected new visions of what was desirable.


The binding of nuclear envelope precursor vesicles and chromatin was characterized by using an in vitro system constituted from a Xenopus egg extract and demembranated Xenopus sperm chromatin. The results of binding studies in the presence of salts, urea, and a chelator showed that the binding involves an ionic interaction. Chemical modification studies suggested that a protein(s) in the vesicles, which is responsible for the binding with chromatin, has essential lysine, histidine, and methionine residues. The vesicle protein could not be extracted from vesicles with 1 M KCl, 2 M urea, or 0.1 M Na2CO3, suggesting that it is an intrinsic membrane protein. The protein was denatured with 8 M urea and 0.1 M Na2CO3, and could be renatured by incubation at 23 degrees C, suggesting that the native conformation of the protein is important for the binding. Affinity purification of nuclear envelope precursor vesicles was achieved by binding to chromatin and dissociation with 0.24 M NaCl. The vesicle fraction thus obtained exhibited the ability to form nuclear envelope on incubation with chromatin in Xenopus egg cytosol without any other membrane fraction. These results suggested that there is a nuclear envelope precursor vesicle population containing both a chromatin targeting protein and vesicle fusion machinery.


We describe assemblages of platinum-group minerals (PGM) and associated PGE–Au phases found in alluvium along the River Bolshoy Khailyk, in the western Sayans, Russia. The river drains the Aktovrakskiy ophiolitic complex, part of the Kurtushibinskiy belt, as does the Zolotaya River ~15 km away, the site of other placer deposits. Three groups of alloy minerals are described: (1) Os–Ir–Ru compositions, which predominate, (2) Pt–Fe compositions of a Pt3Fe stoichiometry, and (3) Pt–Au–Cu alloys, which likely crystallized in the sequence from Au–(Cu)-bearing platinum, Pt(Au,Cu), Pt(Cu,Au), and PtAuCu2, to PtAu4Cu5. The general trends of crystallization of PGM appear to be: [Os–Ir–Ru alloys] → Pt3Fe-type alloy (with inclusions of Ru-dominant alloy formed by exsolution or via replacement of the host Pt–Fe phase) → Pt–Au–Cu alloys. We infer that Rh and Co mutually substitute for Fe, not Ni, and are incorporated into the pentlandite structure via a coupled mechanism of substitution: [Rh3+ + Co3+ + □ → 3Fe2+]. Many of the Os–Ir–Ru and Pt–Fe grains have porous, fractured or altered rims that contain secondary PGE sulfide, arsenide, sulfarsenide, sulfoantimonide, gold, Pt–Ir–Ni-rich alloys, and rarer phases like Cu-rich bowieite and a Se-rich sulfarsenide of Pt. The accompanying pyroxene, chromian spinel and serpentine are highly magnesian, consistent with a primitive ultramafic source-rock. Whereas the alloy phases indicate a highly reducing environment, late assemblages indicate an oxygenated local environment leading to Fe-bearing Ru–Os oxide (zoned) and seleniferous accessory phases.


Introduction Endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) remains the standard tool for biliary stone extraction, biliary drainage and intraductal stricture assessment. Cholangioscopy allows direct intraductal visualisation without requiring fluoroscopy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess radiation dose during ERCP in patients with stones or strictures with or without cholangioscopy. Methods Data from patients referred for cholangioscopy between June 2015 and December 2016, for difficult biliary stones (following failed stone extraction with conventional ERCP), or to acquire tissue diagnosis for indeterminate strictures was prospectively collected. In all patients with stones, first conventional ERCP was attempted, using mechanical lithotripsy and or sphincteroplasty combined with balloon trawls before cholangioscopy was attempted. Radiation exposure was indirectly measured using total dose area product (DAP) measured in Grey per square cm (Gy/cm2). Continuous variable differences were assessed using Student t-tests. Results A total of 194 patients, mean age 62±18 years [48% male] were included based on intention to undergo cholangioscopy. Indications comprised: 128 with stone disease, 56 strictures, 7 stone and stricture and 3 'other'. Conventional ERCP for stone clearance sufficed for 29 (23%) patients without cholangioscopy (group I); 1 patient had conventional ERCP for a stricture. Cholangioscopy was needed in 99 (77%) patients (group II) for stones and 55 (98%) patients referred for strictures (group III). The mean DAP in group I was 85±661 compared to 1912±1817 Gy/cm2 in group II; p=0.003. Radiation dose for conventional ERCP radiation for stones was comparable to the dose (857±921 Gy/cm2) needed for stricture assessment for group III; p=0.98. The mean duration of the procedure (minutes) was 48±20 in group I, vs 72±27 in group II; p=0.0001. For strictures necessitating cholangioscopy, 49±19 min were needed for assessment which was comparable to group I; p=0.92. Radiation dosages per minute were persistently higher in group I compared to group II; 17±12 vs 29±24 Gy/cm2/min (p=0.02). As only 1 patient had stricture not necessitating cholangioscopy, no comparison was made between group III for above findings. Conclusion Cholangioscopy for stones adds considerably to procedure duration and total radiation dose compared to ERCP alone for stone disease. This likely reflects the high complexity of stone cases necessitating cholangioscopy. Of note, the radiation exposure/minute for ERCP with cholangioscopy in stone disease is no different to conventional ERCP. Our data on cholangioscopy in stricture assessment suggests that this may enhance diagnostic information (ie direct visualisation) without adding procedure time or radiation exposure.


The Detection Response Task (DRT) is a standardized measure of cognitive load requiring manual responses to intermittent stimuli. Given its simplicity, it is hypothesized that its completion will not interfere with the primary task. However, recent studies challenge this assumption showing a definite cost of DRT performance. In this study we adopt signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), a measure commonly used in communication engineering: 1) to explore the cognitive cost of DRT 2) to compare the sensitivity of DRT performance and pupil size in measuring cognitive load. SNR was calculated using the data from a study wherein DRT performance and pupil size were recorded while participants completed increasingly difficult mental tasks. We conclude that DRT completion interfered with the overall cognitive task demand and showed pupil size's greater sensitivity to changes in cognitive load. Though exploratory, our study advances using SNR as a powerful tool for data integration in HF/E research.


The feasibility of using the FLP/FRT site-specific recombination system in rice for genome engineering was evaluated. Transgenic rice plants expressing the FLP recombinase were crossed with plants harbouring the kanamycin resistance gene (neomycin phosphotransferase II, nptII) flanked by FRT sites, which also served to separate the corn ubiquitin promoter from a promoterless gusA. Hybrid progeny were tested for excision of the nptII gene and the positioning of the ubiquitin promoter proximal to gusA. While the hybrid progeny from various crosses exhibited beta-glucuronidase (GUS) expression, the progeny of selfed parental rice plants did not show detectable GUS activity. Despite the variable GUS expression and incomplete recombination displayed in hybrids from some crosses, uniform GUS staining and complete recombination were observed in hybrids from other crosses. The recombined locus was shown to be stably inherited by the progeny. These data demonstrate the operation of FLP recombinase in catalysing excisional DNA recombination in rice, and confirm that the FLP/FRT recombination system functions effectively in the cereal crop rice. Transgenic rice lines expressing active FLP recombinase generated in this study provide foundational stock material, thus facilitating the future application and development of the FLP/FRT system in rice genetic improvement.


This paper surveys the ongoing physics experiments at the Electron Beam Ion Trap (EBIT) facility at NIST, with particular attention paid to the underlying physical principles involved. In addition, some new data on the performance of our EBIT are presented, including results related to the determination of the trap width, ion temperature, and number of highly charged ions in the trap.


Scedosporium prolificans and Scedosporium apiospermum are resistant to most antifungal agents and cause refractory pulmonary and disseminated infections. The combined effects of deoxycholate amphotericin B, amphotericin B lipid complex and liposomal amphotericin B with human polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMNs) in damaging hyphae of these fungi were evaluated by XTT assay. Amphotericin B lipid complex displayed a significant additive effect with PMNs against both Scedosporium species (22% for S. prolificans and 81% for S. apiospermum; P < 0.04). None of the formulations adversely affected the PMN antifungal activity. These findings may be important in designing better strategies for management of infections due to these organisms.


Anna Berliner's (1888-1977) book on the tea-cult in Japan (Leipzig, 1933) is an extensive and highly instructive manual of the practice of the Japanese tea-ceremony. It is based on first-hand experiences in Japan where the author had worked as psychological adviser to an advertising company in Tokyo from 1921 to 1925. During that time she took private lessons from a well-known teacher once or twice a week. She firmly believed that the tea-ceremony is a genuine expression of basic traits of Japanese culture and that the stepping-stones to a tea-hut lead us straight into deeper layers ot the Japanese mind. As a psychologist, however, who did her Ph.D. under the guidance of Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig in 1913 with an empirical study of subjective/objective patterns of cognitive processes, she does not indulge in "japonistic" projections of "otherness" but describes in great detail, and richly illustrated with drawings and photos from her own collection as well, (a) the elaborate prerequisites necessary for the tea-cult, and (b) its different seasonal patterns and rules of appropriate behaviour that minutely prescribe each and every movement of host and guests. Finally (c) the inner meaning of the tea-cult and its systematic elaboration over centuries is derived from Japanese sources. It is a sad fact that due to the author's Jewish origin this path-breaking study did not receive the attention it deserved at the time of publication nor thereafter, neither in Germany nor abroad. Together with her husband Siegfried Berliner (1884-1961) Anna Berliner migrated to the USA in 1938 where she died in 1977 after a career as Professor of Psychology at the Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon from 1948 until 1968.


Comparison of radiation-induced segregation (RIS) measurements from austenitic iron- and nickel-base alloys with calculations using the Perks vacancy-driven RIS model have shown that chromium segregates slower and iron segregates faster than expected from high temperature diffusion measurements. The effect is more pronounced in nickel-base alloys. The segregation process is affected by short range ordering forces and the ordering is strongest in nickel-base alloys. Since nickel enriches and chromium depletes in all iron-chromium-nickel alloys under irradiation, a tendency to form nickel-chromium pairs reduces the chromium segregation, especially in nickel-base alloys. In this work, Perks` model is altered to include ordering energies, and the calculated RIS is compared to segregation measurements from iron-chromium-nickel alloys irradiated with 3.2 MeV protons. A single set of ordering energies, an attractive potential between nickel and chromium and a repulsive potential between nickel and iron are used for each alloy. Calculations that do not include ordering overpredict the chromium depletion by up to 4 at% in iron-base alloys and 8 at% in nickel-base alloys. Calculations that include the ordering reduce the difference between model predicted and measured chromium concentrations to less than 2 at% for most iron- and nickel-base alloys.


ed and indexed in the SAE Global Mobility Database. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, in an electronic retrieval system or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0148-7191 Copyright 1990 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions will be printed with the paper if it is published in SAE Transactions. For permission to publish this paper in full or in part, contact the SAE Publications Group. Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication through SAE should send the manuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Activity Board, SAE.


This paper is an application of 2D electron-electron double resonance (2D-ELDOR) with the "full Sc- method" to study model membranes. We obtain and confirm the phase diagram of 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycerophosphatidylcholine (DPPC)-cholesterol binary mixtures versus temperature and provide quantitative descriptions for its dynamic molecular structure using 2D-ELDOR at the Ku band. The spectra from the end-chain 16-PC spin label in multilamellar phospholipid vesicles are obtained for cholesterol molar concentrations ranging from 0 to 50% and from 25 to 60 degrees C. This phase diagram consists of liquid-ordered, liquid-disordered, and gel phases and phase coexistence regions. The phase diagram is carefully examined according to the spectroscopic evidence, and the rigorous interpretation for the line shape changes. We show that the 2D-ELDOR spectra differ markedly with variation in the composition. The extensive line shape changes in the 2D-plus-mixing-time representation provide useful information to define and characterize the membrane phases with respect to their dynamic molecular structures and to determine the phase boundaries. The homogeneous T2's are extracted from the pure absorption spectra and are used to further distinguish the membrane phases. These results show 2D-ELDOR to be naturally suitable for probing and reporting the dynamic structures of microdomains in model membrane systems and, moreover, providing a very detailed picture of their molecular dynamic structure, especially with the aid of the "full Sc- method".


Background and Purpose— The possible role of inflammatory reaction of the cerebral artery in the pathogenesis of cerebral vasospasm has been noted in recent studies. We quantitatively measured the levels of expression of genes related to inflammation in the spastic artery in a canine double-hemorrhage model. Methods— Twenty dogs were assigned to 4 groups: group D0, control; group D2, dogs killed 2 days after cisternal injection of blood; group D7, dogs given double cisternal injections of blood and killed 7 days after the first injection; and group D14. Angiography was performed twice: on the first day and before the animals were killed. Total RNA was extracted from the basilar artery. The expressions of interleukin (IL)-1&agr;, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, E-secretin, fibronectin, intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, transforming growth factor-&bgr;, basic fibroblast growth factor, and collagen types I, III, and IV were examined with TaqMan real-time quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. Results— Prolonged arterial narrowing peaking on 7 day was observed. There was a significant difference in vessel caliber between D0, D2, D7, and D14 groups (P <0.0001). There were significant differences in mRNA expression in the basilar artery for IL-1&agr;, IL-6, IL-8, ICAM-1, and collagen type I between D0, D2, D7, and D14 groups (P =0.0079, 0.0196, 0.0040, 0.0017, and <0.0001, respectively). The average level of mRNA was highest in D7 for IL-1&agr;, IL-6, IL-8, and ICAM-1 (17-, 16-, 131-, and 1.7-fold compared with those of D0, respectively) and in D14 for collagen type I (10.9-fold). Conclusions— Increased expression of genes related to inflammation in the spastic artery suggests that inflammatory reaction of the cerebral artery is associated with sustained contraction.


As companies increase their efforts in retaining customers, being able to predict accurately ahead of time, whether a customer will churn in the foreseeable future is an extremely powerful tool for any marketing team. The paper describes in depth the application of Deep Learning in the problem of churn prediction. Using abstract feature vectors, that can generated on any subscription based company's user event logs, the paper proves that through the use of the intrinsic property of Deep Neural Networks (learning secondary features in an unsupervised manner), the complete pipeline can be applied to any subscription based company with extremely good churn predictive performance. Furthermore the research documented in the paper was performed for Framed Data (a company that sells churn prediction as a service for other companies) in conjunction with the Data Science Institute at Lancaster University, UK. This paper is the intellectual property of Framed Data.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To explore nursing students' experiences of death and dying in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND
The encounter with death constitutes one of the most stressful experiences reported by nursing students during their clinical training. In particular, it can be difficult for student nurses to cope with the patient's suffering, to provide postmortem care and to communicate with the patient and his/her family as death approaches. Although some research has been carried out in relation to this phenomenon, there remains a need to identify and understand the situations and experiences that are of most concern to students, those which may affect their ability to cope and, therefore, interfere with the care they are able to offer to the dying patient and his/her family.

DESIGN
Qualitative descriptive and hermeneutic study.

METHODS
Semi-structured interviews (n = 12) were conducted with nursing students. Data were collected in 2012-2013. Transcripts were analysed using Colaizzi's seven-step procedure.

FINDINGS
The analysis identified five themes: impact, training in end-of-life care, ethical issues, coping and learning/growth/healing connections. The central theme was the enormous impact the encounter with death had, while the other themes were a response to and/or modulators of this impact. An explanatory model was derived on the basis of the relationship between all these emergent themes.

CONCLUSIONS
It is essential to understand nursing students' experience of death so as to minimise its impact. The explanatory model described here could be a useful tool for the design of training programmes on end-of-life care.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Adequate training of this kind would help to ensure that future nurses offer high-quality care to patients and their families, minimising the impact of death and preventing emotional fatigue.


Identifying cross-language plagiarism is challenging, especially for distant language pairs and sense-for-sense translations. We introduce the new multilingual retrieval model Cross-Language Ontology-Based Similarity Analysis (CL\nobreakdash-OSA) for this task. CL-OSA represents documents as entity vectors obtained from the open knowledge graph Wikidata. Opposed to other methods, CL\nobreakdash-OSA does not require computationally expensive machine translation, nor pre-training using comparable or parallel corpora. It reliably disambiguates homonyms and scales to allow its application to Web-scale document collections. We show that CL-OSA outperforms state-of-the-art methods for retrieving candidate documents from five large, topically diverse test corpora that include distant language pairs like Japanese-English. For identifying cross-language plagiarism at the character level, CL-OSA primarily improves the detection of sense-for-sense translations. For these challenging cases, CL-OSA's performance in terms of the well-established PlagDet score exceeds that of the best competitor by more than factor two. The code and data of our study are openly available.


| Rabies is a fatal zoonotic infection caused by negative-strand RNA-virus classified in the genus Lyssavirus , family Rhabdoviridae of the order Mononegavirales . Despite the importance of the RABV for human and animal health, little is known about the spread of the virus in different animal populations in Egypt. Therefore, the current study aimed to identify and analyze the nucleotide sequences of nucleoprotein (N), phosphoprotein (P) and Glycoprotein (G) genes of the rabies virus from 10 suspected rabid cases of cattle and foxes from Elwadi- Elgedid province, which collected in 2017-2019. Specimens from the brains of suspected animals with rabies were collected and identified using direct FAT and RT-PCR. Three positive samples were further subjected to sequencing the partially amplified N, P, and G genes. The phylogenetic analysis was performed concerning the Egyptian rabies virus isolates, vaccinal strains and other sequences from the neighbouring countries available on the GenBank. It was found that the nucleotide identity in comparison to our new Egyptian isolates of Elwadi- Elgedid decreases by time at the level of three genes of previously isolated strains. Our results revealed that these new RABV isolates were more homologous to each other and were genetically related to Egyptian dog rabies, which previously identified two decades ago. The studied vaccinal strains were of low nucleotide identity with the new isolates. They also share some similarities with the RABV isolates in the neighbouring endemic regions in the Middle East. Furthermore, these data extend our knowledge of the relatedness and genetic variation of RABVs circulating in Egypt.


Objective To report the percentile distribution of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores in older people by age, sex, and education level, estimated from longitudinal data, after correcting for loss due to dropout. Methods The Cambridge City over 75 Cohort is a population-based study of a cohort of 2106 subjects age 75 years and older at study entry followed up over 9 years. At each of the four waves, cognitive function was assessed using MMSE. Based on these data, the relationship between age and MMSE score was modeled. Percentile distributions by age, sex, and education level were provided using inverse probability weighting to correct for dropouts. Results Performance on MMSE was related to age in men and women. In women, at age 75, MMSE score ranged from 21 (10th percentile) to 29 (90th percentile). At age 95, the range was 10 (10th percentile) to 27 (90th percentile). The upper end of MMSE distribution was slightly modified with age, whereas the lower end of the distribution was very sensitive to age effect. A similar pattern was observed in both sexes. Conclusion These findings provide norms for MMSE scores in subjects age 75 years and older from longitudinal population-based data. Such norms can be used as reference values to determine where an individual's score lies in relation to his or her age, sex, and education level.


One hundred consecutive patients who underwent coronary artery bypass surgery at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center from December 1972 through February 1975 were evaluated at surgery and then followed for as long as 4½ years to study their postoperative psychosocial and behavioral course. One patient died during the first 30 days. At 4½ years, 23 patients were reported as deceased, 15 from cardiac causes. The majority of the long-term survivors had substantially less angina and greater exercise capacity; surgery did not increase the number of patients who were employed, but led to substantial improvements in the quality of life, including general pleasure, reduction of anxiety and depression and subjective improvement in job and family roles. Sexual adjustment improved the least; the frequency of sexual relations tended to decrease. Compliance with the medical regimen was relatively good for smoking and exercise, but not for diet or type A behavior, suggesting a need for psychological intervention.


It has been observed in recent years a valorisation of agricultural, energetic, and metallic commodities and consequent increase in the use of these assets within the financial market for investment portfolio allocation. However, if compared to other traditional financial assets, the commodities have an additional factor of variation due to their cyclical and seasonal behaviour. This fact, despite generating excellent investment opportunities, has become a difficult management obstacle for the market agents. Within this context, the objective of the present book was to propose the development of a tool to predict the cyclical prices of the commodities, sugar specifically, based on the model of antecedent indicator. As a result, three antecedent indicators were obtained, all signalising consistently the majority of peaks and troughs of the sugar price cycle for a two-year period in advance. These indicators present a predictive performance very close to real prices sugar. This tool is intended to be source of subsidies for asset managers to formulate strategies regarding the sugar commodity, thus sweetening their portfolios, with an asset exhibiting high return and high volatility.


Introduction As with most emerging nations, Brazil lacks up-to-date data on the prevalence of obesity and overweight among its children. Of particular concern is the lack of data on children in early adolescence, considered by many to be the crucial stage for weight-related healthcare. Objective To assess regional, socioeconomic, and gender differences in the prevalence of obesity and overweight among Brazilian early adolescents. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted on a racially diverse sample of students aged 10–13 years, from schools in three geographic regions (north, northeast, south) (N = 1,738). Data on gender, age, race, socioeconomic status (SES), weight, and height were obtained. Weight class was calculated from age- and gender-adjusted body mass index, based on children's weight and height. Bivariate and multivariable analyses, with post hoc tests, were conducted to estimate differences between groups and were corrected for multiple comparisons. Procedures were approved by institutional review boards at study sites. Results Analyses revealed a higher prevalence of obesity and/or overweight among: (1) children of higher SES; (2) children in southern Brazil; (3) males; and (4) Black females. Conclusion The most salient predictor of weight risk among Brazilian early adolescents is higher SES. This finding is consistent with previous findings of an inverse social gradient, in weight risk, among emerging-nation population groups.


The sub-optimal content of the sulfur containing amino acids methionine and cysteine prevent common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) from being an excellent source of protein. Nutritional improvements to this significant crop require a better understanding of the biosynthesis of sulfur containing compounds including the non-proteogenic amino acid S-methylcysteine and the dipeptide γ-glutamyl-S-methylcysteine which accumulate in seed. In this study, seeds were incubated with isotopically labeled serine, cysteine or methionine and analyzed by reverse phase chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry to track the stable isotopes as they progressed through the sulfur metabolome. We determined that serine and methionine are the sole precursors of free S-methylcysteine in developing seeds, indicating that this compound is likely to be synthesized through the condensation of O-acetylserine and methanethiol. BSAS4;1, a cytosolic β-substituted alanine synthase preferentially expressed in developing seeds, catalyzed the formation of S-methylcysteine in vitro. A higher flux of labeled serine or cysteine was observed in a sequential pathway involving γ-glutamyl-cysteine, homoglutathione and S-methylhomoglutathione, a likely precursor to γ-glutamyl-S-methylcysteine. Preferential incorporation of serine over cysteine supports a subcellular compartmentation of this pathway, likely in the chloroplast. The origin of the methyl group in S-methylhomoglutathione was traced to methionine. There was substantial incorporation of carbons from methionine into the β-alanine portion of homoglutathione and S-methylhomoglutathione, suggesting breakdown of methionine by methionine γ-lyase and conversion of α-ketobutyrate to β-alanine via propanoate metabolism. These findings delineate the biosynthetic pathways of the sulfur metabolome of common bean and provide insight that will aid future efforts to improve nutritional quality. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


The obese population has been increasing over the world wide and obesity became a socioeconomic problems. It is become more serious by the accumulation of the knowledge that the obesity is related directly or indirectly with several diseases like, diabetes, hypertension, etc. With these reasons, many functional food or agents for the purpose of weight loss have been developed. However, most of these remedies are unproven and some have produced even dangerous side effects due to the ephedrine alkaloids contained in Ma-Hang. Because of these reasons, they banned using of these agents in US and regards the antiobesity functional agents as drugs in Europe. Several functional agents are known for weight loss activities like, HCA, L-canitine, CLA, chitosan, calcium supplements and capsaicin containing red pepper, kimchi and kochujang. We describe here about the function, efficacy and mechanism of these antiobesity functional agents. Furthermore, the trial of the mixture of weight loss related herbal ingredients for safe multifunctional antiobesity functional agents are discussed here, as well.


Synthetic antigen Poly EYK(EYA)5 induces T cells of narrowly defined fine specificity as represented by the two I-Ad-restricted T cell hybridomas, A.1.1 and B.1.1. Both these hybridomas recognize the minimum 15-amino-acid peptide sequence EYK(EYA)4. We have characterized the residues involved in the recognition of EYK(EYA)4 peptide by these hybridomas with synthetic peptides and discovered a distinct functional hierarchy for the residues in the sequence. Even with the repeating tripeptide (EYA)5, which is recognized by B.1.1 cells, the residues that are essential cluster near the middle of the sequence but not near the N- or C-terminal region. Different MHC binding and TCR contacting residues were found for each of the hybridomas. The results suggest that different T cells either recognize different parts of the peptide MHC complex or that the peptide binds to MHC in multiple conformations. This was supported by the fact that Poly EYK(EYA)5 is alpha-helical but the peptides used here showed only a slight propensity to adopt this structure and it did not correlate with their functional activity. We also found that (EYA)5 does not compete with EYK(EYA)4 in the stimulation of A.1.1 cells despite its obvious capacity to interact with I-Ad when it stimulates B.1.1 cells. This may be because these peptides have a low affinity for Ia and therefore only appropriate TCR interactions would stabilize the antigen-Ia complex. In conclusion, antigen-MHC-TCR interaction appears to be a dynamic process which allows recognition of different residues of a T cell determinant by different T cells.


Circular polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) offers the possibility of detecting rotations of the universe and magnetic fields in the primeval universe or in distant clusters of galaxies. We used the Milano Polarimeter (MIPOL) installed at the Testa Grigia Observatory, on the italian Alps, to improve the existing upper limits to the CMB circular polarization at large angular scales. We obtain 95% confidence level upper limits to the degree of the CMB circular polarization ranging between 5.0⋅10−4 and 0.7⋅10−4 at angular scales between 8° and 24°, improving by one order of magnitude preexisting upper limits at large angular scales. Our results are still far from the nK region where today expectations place the amplitude of the V Stokes parameter used to characterize circular polarization of the CMB but improve the preexisting limit at similar angular scales. Our observations offered also the opportunity of characterizing the atmospheric emission at 33 GHz at the Testa Grigia Observatory.


Although L-type voltage-dependent calcium channels play a major role in mediating vascular smooth muscle cell contraction in the renal vasculature, non-L-type calcium entry mechanisms represent a significant component of vasoactive agonist-induced calcium entry in these cells as well. To investigate the role of these non-voltage-dependent calcium entry pathways in the regulation of renal microvascular reactivity, we have characterized the function of store- and receptor-operated channels (SOCs and ROCs) in renal cortical interlobular arteries (ILAs) of rats. Using fura 2-loaded, microdissected ILAs, we find that the L-type channel antagonist nifedipine blocks less than half the rise in intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)) elicited by norepinephrine. SOCs were activated in these vessels using the sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) ATPase (SERCA) inhibitors cyclopiazonic acid and thapsigargin and were dose dependently blocked by the SOC antagonists Gd(3+) and 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB) and the combined SOC/ROC antagonist SKF-96365. Gd(3+) had no effect on the non-L-type Ca(2+) entry activated by 1 microM NE. A low concentration of SKF-96365 that did not affect thapsigargin-induced store-operated Ca(2+) entry blocked 60-70% of the NE-induced Ca(2+) entry. Two different calmodulin inhibitors (W-7 and trifluoperazine) also blocked the NE-induced Ca(2+) entry. These data suggest that in addition to L-type channels, NE primarily activates ROCs rather than SOCs in ILAs and that this receptor-operated Ca(2+) entry mechanism is regulated by calmodulin. Interestingly, 2-APB completely blocked the NE-induced non-L-type Ca(2+) entry, implying that SOCs and ROCs in preglomerular resistance vessels share a common molecular structure.


Lossless or near-lossless video compression with a certain maximum absolute reconstruction error is required in many professional applications like archiving or medical imaging. However, lossless coding resulting in rather high bit rates and near-lossless coding being traditionally used and especially optimized for still image coding prevents these techniques from practical application. Consequently, this paper proposes a system for scalable lossy to near-lossless video compression, where the inter picture correlations are exploited by the base layer codec and near-lossless enhancement layer compression delivers the required final reconstruction fidelity in terms of maximum absolute reconstruction error. For the proposed near-lossless enhancement layer codec we extended the Sample-based weighted prediction for Enhancement Layer Coding (SELC) scheme, and the HEVC reference software is used for base layer coding. The experimental results show significant average savings compared to both JPEG-LS single layer coding (27%) and also JPEG-LS for enhancement layer coding (about 14 percentage points).


: Nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) has been intensively studied for the treatment of a plethora of pollutants through reductive reaction, however, the nano size should be of concern when nZVI is considered for water treatment, due to difficulties in recovery. The loss of nZVI causes not only economical loss, but also potential risk to human health and environment. Thus, the immobilization onto coarse or structured support is essential. In this study, two representative processes for nZVI immobilization on granular activated carbon (GAC) were evaluated, and optimized conditions for synthesizing Fe/GAC composite were suggested. Both total iron content and Fe 0 content can be significantly affected by preparation processes, therefore, it was important to avoid oxidation during preparation to achieve higher reduction capacity. Synthesis conditions such as reduction time and existence of intermediate drying step were investigated to improve Fe 0 content of Fe/GAC composites. The optimal condition was two hours of NaBH 4 reduction without intermediate drying process. The prepared Fe/GAC composite showed synergistic effect of the adsorption capability of the GAC and the degradation capability of the nZVI, which make this composite a very effective material for environmental remediation.


A new on-line tool wear states detecting method, with spindle and feed current signal in boring, is presented. By analyzing the effects of tool wear, as well as the cutting parameters on the current signals, the models of the relationship between the current signals and the cutting parameters are established under different tool wear states with partial experimental design and regression analysis. Fuzzy classification method is then used to obtain the membership degree of each tool wear classification with measured spindle and feed current values. Finally, the membership results of the spindle current and feed current are fused by the fuzzy inference method, and the tool wear state may be detected effectively. The validity and reliability of the method are verified by experimental results. The method can be effectively employed in practice.


A new species, formerly identified as P. maculatus La Cepede, 1803, is described. It differs from its congeners, except P. maculatus and P. mysteriosus Azpelicueta, 1998 by the color pattern with dark brown blotches in the flanks. The new species is morphometricaly similar to P. argenteus Perugia, 1891 and P. mysteriosus, differing, respectively, by the blotched color pattern and by the smaller maxillary barbel. The described new species differs from P. maculatus for presenting the supraoccipital process more robust, with base as broad as long (versus longer than broad); anterior nostrils 25% of distance between the margin of snout to posterior nostrils (versus 33% of this distance); small saws in the pectoral spine more developed and present in more than half of the anterior margin of spine (versus small saws present in less than half of that margin); very thin skin covering the head, allowing the grooves in the bones surfaces conspicuous; 22-27 (mode=24) gill rakers in the first branchial arch [versus 19-24 (mode=21)]. This new species was also discriminated from P. maculatus in the size free canonical variates analysis by presenting larger values of interorbital distance, mouth width and maxillar barbel length and smaller base length of adipose-fin.


We present a proposal to manipulate the Goos-Haenchen shift of a light beam via a coherent control field, which is injected into a cavity configuration containing the two-level atomic medium. It is found that the lateral shifts of the reflected and transmitted probe beams can be easily controlled by adjusting the intensity and detuning of the control field. Using this scheme, the lateral shift at the fixed incident angle can be enhanced (positive or negative) under the suitable conditions on the control field, without changing the structure of the cavity.


During routine cadaveric dissection of the upper extremity an unusual muscle was discovered arising from the tendon of the flexor carpi ulnaris and inserting into the muscle belly of the flexor digiti minimi. The muscle's course was superficial to the ulnar nerve and artery in Guyon's canal. We review the literature regarding such muscle variations and discuss the potential for compression of the ulnar nerve by such muscles.


ABSTRACT This study investigated how early childhood teachers might reflect on their teaching-learning process related to the unconventional instructional modalities necessitated by COVID-19 during the 2020–2021 school year. The participants consisted of 15 teachers (ages 24–45 years, M = 32 years) teaching children in preschool to third grade in New Jersey, USA. Data collection involved interviewing each teacher virtually via Zoom for 60–90 minutes (M = 75 minutes). This study analyzed only the data directly related to reflection, leading to 20 most salient 'Reflective Instances' (RIs) being identified and subsequently coded according to a 3 (types: reflection-for-action, reflection-in-action, and reflection-on-action) x 3 (dimensions: technical, practical, and critical) framework. The analysis revealed four main findings. First, while there was evidence of all three types of reflection, reflection-on-action was the most prominent. Reflection-on-action was also the only type exhibiting evidence of all three dimensions. Second, the RIs concentrated most predominantly on the practical dimension, which was also the only one occurring in all three types of reflection. Third, the intersection between reflection and dimension revealed that reflection-in-action along the practical dimension was the most salient. Fourth, the teachers' sociodemographic characteristics did not appear to account for the variations in the patterns of the reflection types and dimensions.


Space debris Long-Term orbit propagation is one of the main problems for the space debris environment engineering model. This paper provides arithmetic for the space debris Long-Term orbit propagation in LEO. The arithmetic regards the atmosphere drag as the main perturbation, provides an average method to calculate the effect for the atmosphere drag; then import variable step in order to reduce the amount of calculation; at last validate the correctness of the algorithm by comparing the results between this algorithm and STK software.


In order to obtain excellent flatness and surface roughness of glass substrate disk, uniform distribution of abrasives should be important for uniform polishing. We introduced coated-type magnetic abrasives and magnetic field to a lapping for the improvement of surface roughness and removal rate. Polishing properties with the conventional diamond abrasives and the coated-type magnetic abrasives were compared. As a result, the coated-type magnetic abrasives showed small surface roughness and large removal rate by applying magnetic field. And it also was shown that coated-type magnetic abrasives could save the more amount of polishing liquid under the same removal rate than the conventional diamond abrasives can.


This volume describes six computer programs that are needed to implement the improved overlay design procedure developed for the state of Alaska. These programs are: ELSDEF, ELSCRN, BOUSDEF, AMOD, MECHOD, and ELSYM5. Each program is used for different purposes. Specifically, ELSDEF is used to determine pavement layer moduli from deflection basin data. ELSCRN is an auxiliary tool for use with the ELSDEF program and it makes ELSDEF much more easy and friendly. BOUSDEF is a backcalculation program. Like ELSDEF, the BOUSDEF determines pavement layer moduli using deflection basin data. BOUSDEF runs much faster than ELSDEF; therefore, it can be used for screening deflection data. AMOD is used to determine the modulus of asphalt concrete mixtures based on laboratory test data. MECHOD is a computerized procedure for mechanistic overlay design. Finally, ELSYM5 is a program used to calculate stresses, strains, deformation in a pavement using layered elastic theory.


Robert Frost's poetry is consolidation of theme, content, form, technique, and prosody. When words are forced into a strict prosody without apprehension of connotation, they become forced obstinate and merely clinking sounds. The combination of form, content, and music generate beauty in verse. By means of the use of dialogue and monologue, he gives genuine treatment to realistic situation in his poems. Three poems: "The Death of the Hired Man", "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "West Running Brook" present brilliance, vivacity, and a sense of exhilaration due to the dramatic techniques of presentation. The speaker in these poems should not be taken literally to represent Frost, rather a character who replies in typical ways to the world around him. The speaker is independent, lonely, and sensitive and he often yearns for acquaintance. The magnitude of his verse lies in its handling of man in relation to nature through dramatic technique.


The novel carriers have been exploited through almost all the routes of administration. Association of drugs with carriers is normally noncovalent, based on collective strength of weak binding forces. Many newer carriers are evolving with the advent of technology and the demand of targeted delivery like microemulsions. Microemulsions are clear, stable, isotropic mixtures of oil, water and surfactant, frequently in combination with a cosurfactant. These systems are currently of interest to the pharmaceutical scientist because of their considerable potential to act as drug delivery vehicles by incorporating a wide range of drug molecules. They offer the advantage of spontaneous formation, ease of manufacturing and scale-up, thermodynamic stability, and improved drug solubilization and bioavailability. Preparing a pharmaceutically acceptable dosage form demands a clear understanding of the micro-emulsion structure, phase behavior, factors leading to its thermodynamic stability, factors influencing drug release from the formulation, requirements of ideal microemulsion excipients, and the potential uses and limitations of the microemulsion system.


This paper studies the problem of high-precision positioning of laser beams by using a robust Fractional-Order Proportional-Integral-Derivative (FOPID) controller. The control problem addressed in laser beams aims to maintain the position of the laser beam on a Position Sensing Device (PSD) despite the effects of noise and active disturbances. The FOPID controller is well known for its simplicity with better tuning flexibility along with robustness to noise and output disturbance rejections. Thus, a control strategy based on FOPID to achieve the control objectives has been proposed. The FOPID gains and differentiation orders are optimally tuned in order to fulfill the robustness design specifications by solving a nonlinear optimization problem. A comparison to the conventional Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and robust PID is also provided from simulation and experiment set-up. Due to sensor noise, practical PID controllers that filter the position signal before taking the derivative have been also proposed. Experimental results show that the requirements are totally met for the laser beam platform to be stabilized.


A series of dimeric liquid crystalline (LC) epoxy monomers containing azo groups with different length of central spacers were synthesized. The mesogenic behavior of these monomers was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC), polarized optical microscopy (POM) and wide-angle X-Ray diffraction(WAXS). Like other dimeric LC epoxy monomers, the melting points, clear points and mesophase of these compounds were influenced by the carbon numbers of the central spacers. Cure kinetics of these monomers with anhydride was studied by non-isothermal DSC at different heating rates. With the increasing of conversion, the values of activation energy show a tendency to decrease. The formation and development of LC phase during curing were also studied by POM. Finally LC thermosets with nematic phase were obtained.


The intensive follow up of breast cancer patients is not safer than a minimalist policy for breast cancer surveillance. The survival rate is not modified by the use of expensive exams. The follow up program is anxiogenous, delay the reinsertion of the patients and useless because in 75% of cases the patient herself discovered the relapse. A good clinical examination, including gynaecological examination and a mammography are sufficient for a good follow up practice. The guidelines for the follow up of breast cancer patients include self examination of the breast monthly, clinical examination twice a year and an annual mammography during five years and an annual clinical examination and a mammography after. The radiotherapist, the surgical or medical oncologist should be involved with the general practitioner for this follow up.


The properties of Cu ions in dealuminated faujasite-type zeolites (Si/Al = 31) containing 1, 2, and 5 wt.% of Cu were investigated by IR spectroscopy with CO and NO as probe molecules. Cu was introduced by impregnation into zeolites in both protonic (HFAU) and sodium (NaFAU) forms of zeolite. Four kinds of Cu species were found: Cu+exch., Cu+oxide, Cu2+exch. (square, planar, and square pyramidal), and Cu2+oxide (CuO). The proportions between these four kinds of Cu depended on the amount of Cu and on the form of zeolite to which Cu was introduced (HFAU or NaFAU). Zeolites with 1 wt.% of Cu introduced to HFAU (denoted as Cu(1)HFAU) contained only Cu+exch., whereas other forms of Cu were present in zeolites of higher Cu contents. The concentration of Cu+exch. was determined by quantitative IR studies of CO adsorption. According to the IR results, some Cu ions were situated inside hexagonal prisms and/or cuboctahedra, and were inaccessible to adsorbed molecules. IR studies also evidenced that Cu ions in oxide forms—Cu+oxide and Cu2+oxide (CuO)—were better electron donors than Cu in exchange positions (Cu+exch. and Cu2+exch).


Japan was the first Asian nation in the nineteenth century which successfully implemented modernization. Therefore, to ensure its economic progress it sought new markets to sell its products. Iran, also with various motivations, to compensate for its backwardness sought to develop its relations with Japan. The present study attempts to study the ups and downs of trade relations between Iran and Japan in the contemporary era. Based on its findings, the study reveals that the First World War and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia boosted the trade between Iran and Japan and Japan became one of the Iran's top ten trade partners and the Japanese products officially entered Iran. Due to official relations, the trade activities between the two nations entered a new phase. Iran needed to be industrialized. Therefore, it hired Japanese experts and specialists to accelerate its progress. The trade balance between the two nations was equal in the beginning years of the Reza Shah era but gradually the Japanese benefitted more and this process continued.


An analytic preconditioner for the electric field integral equation, based on the Calderon identities, is considered. It is shown, based on physical reasoning, that RWG elements are not suitable for discretizing the electric field integral operator appearing in the preconditioner. Instead, the geometrically dual basis functions proposed by Buffa and Christiansen are used. However, it is found that this preconditioner is vulnerable to roundoff errors at low frequencies. A loop/star decomposition of the Buffa-Christiansen basis functions is presented, along with numerical results demonstrating its effectiveness.


Patients recovering from infectious hepatitis have usually been advised to avoid alcohol for 6 – 12 months.1 2 The scientific basis for this is hard to find. A study of servicemen during the second World War suggested that relapse was more likely when patients resumed drinking within a few weeks of apparent clinical recovery. The intensity of jaundice appeared to increase when alcohol was taken during the illness, and alcohol taken during the incubation period of the hepatitis precipitated the appearance of jaundice.3 On this basis abstention from alcohol was recommended for a period of 3 – 6 weeks after the clinical illness. In another study on 114 patients 6 – 12 months after discharge from hospital after infectious hepatitis no relationship was found between drinking habits and the recurrence of hepatitis.4


Background/Aims: Influenza vaccination is the most effective method for preventing influenza infection and its complications. The risk groups are children with chronic kidney diseases (CKDs) such as children on peritoneal dialysis (PD) and hemodialysis (HD), predialysis CKD (pCKD) and renal transplant (RTx) patients and immunosuppressed children. The aim of the present study was to assess the safety and immunogenicity of a single administration of a monovalent inactivated pandemic (H1N1) 2009 vaccine in children with CKD. Methods: Patients were given a single intramuscular injection of 0.5 ml of monovalent inactivated vaccine. Results: Totally, there were 25 pediatric patients with a diagnosis of CKD (16 PD, 2 HD, 3 pCKD and 4 RTx). Seroconversion was observed in 15 of the 16 patients with PD. Seroconversion occurred in all patients undergoing pCKD and HD. However, 3 of the RTx patients were seronegative. Conclusion: This study demonstrated a high level of immunogenicity and safety of an (H1N1) 2009 influenza vaccine in children with CKD.


The molecular chaperone Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is essential for the folding, stability, and activity of several drivers of oncogenesis. Hsp90 inhibitors are currently under clinical evaluation for cancer treatment, however their efficacy is limited by lack of biomarkers to optimize patient selection. We have recently identified the tumor suppressor tuberous sclerosis complex 1 (Tsc1) as a new co-chaperone of Hsp90 that affects Hsp90 binding to its inhibitors. Highly variable mutations of TSC1 have been previously identified in bladder cancer and correlate with sensitivity to the Hsp90 inhibitors. Here we showed loss of TSC1 leads to hypoacetylation of Hsp90-K407/K419 and subsequent decreased binding to the Hsp90 inhibitor ganetespib. Pharmacologic inhibition of histone deacetylases (HDACs) restores acetylation of Hsp90 and sensitizes Tsc1-mutant bladder cancer cells to ganetespib, resulting in apoptosis. Our findings suggest that TSC1 status may predict response to Hsp90 inhibitors in patients with bladder cancer, and co-targeting HDACs can sensitize tumors with Tsc1 mutations to Hsp90 inhibitors.


Background: Treatment of A3 thoraco-lumbar and lumbar spinal fractures nowadays remains a controversial issue. Percutaneous techniques are becoming very popular in the last few years to reduce the approach-related morbidity associated with conventional techniques. Hypothesis: Purpose of the study was to analyze the clinical and radiological outcome of patients who underwent percutaneous posterior fixation without fusion for the treatment of thoraco-lumbar and lumbar A3 fractures. Materials and methods: Sixty-three patients, having sustained a single-level thoraco-lumbar fracture, underwent short segment percutaneous instrumentation and were retrospectively analyzed. sagittal index (SI) was calculated in all patients. Clinical and functional outcome were evaluated by Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Short Form General Health Status (SF-36). Results: Average operative blood loss was 82 mL (50–320). Mean pre-operative SI in the thoraco-lumbar segment was 13.3◦ decreased to 5.8◦ in the immediate postoperative with a mean deformity correction of 7.5. Mean pre-operative SI in the lumbar segment was 16.5◦ decreased to 11.3◦ in the immediate postoperative with a mean deformity correction of 5.2. Not statistically significant correction loss was registered at 1-year minimum follow-up. Constant clinical conditions improvement in the examined patients was observed. Conclusion: Percutaneous pedicle screw fixation for A3 thoraco-lumbar and lumbar spinal fractures is a reliable and safe procedure. Level of evidence: Level IV. Retrospective study.


Atlantic hurricanes and severe tropical storms are a serious threat for the communities in the Gulf of Mexico region. Such storms are violent and destructive. In response to these dangers, coastal evacuation may be ordered. This paper describes the development of a simulation model to analyze the movement of vehicles through I-65, a major US Interstate highway that runs north off the coastal City of Mobile, Alabama, towards the State of Tennessee, during a massive evacuation originated by a disastrous event such a hurricane. The constructed simulation platform consists of a primary and two secondary models. The primary model is based on the entry of vehicles from the 20 on-ramps to I-65. The two secondary models assist the primary model with related traffic events such as car breakdowns and accidents, traffic control measures, interarrival signaling, and unforeseen emergency incidents, among others. Statistical testing was performed on the data generated by the simulation model to indentify variation in relevant traffic variables affecting the timely flow of vehicles travelling north. The performed statistical analysis focused on the closing of alternative on-ramps throughout the Interstate.


In this paper we analyze how stock market liquidity affects the abnormal return to target firms in mergers and tender offers. We predict that target firms with poorer stock market liquidity receive larger announcement day abnormal returns based on the following considerations. First, target firms with poorer stock market liquidity receive greater liquidity improvements after a merger or tender offer. Second, deals that involve less liquid targets are less anticipated and/or more likely to be completed. Third, less liquid stocks have more diverse reservation prices across shareholders and thus require a higher takeover return. Consistent with these expectations, we show that abnormal returns to target firms' shareholders are significantly and positively related to the difference in liquidity (measured by the bid‐ask spread) between acquirers and targets as well as the magnitude of target firms' liquidity improvement.


If you use Word enough, you probably feel that you should be able to write reports, fax memos, or perform simple word processing tasks -- particularly repetitive ones -- with far greater ease and efficiency than you do now. The solution is to use Visual Basic for Applications to control Word programmatically. By writing a VBA macro, you can tap into the Word object model to automate common or repetitive tasks, thereby increasing your overall productivity. "Learning Word Programming" is the introduction to Word VBA that allows you to do just that."Learning Word Programming" provides Word users, as well as programmers who are not familiar with the Word object model, with a solid introduction to writing VBA macros and programs. In particular, the book focuses on: The Visual Basic Editor and the Word VBA programming environment. Word features a complete and very powerful integrated development environment for writing, running, testing, and debugging VBA macros.The VBA programming language (which is the same programming language used by Microsoft Excel, Access, and PowerPoint, as well as the retail editions of Visual Basic).The Word object model. Word exposes nearly all of its functionality through its object model, which allows Word to be controlled programmatically using VBA. While the Word object model, with almost 200 objects, is the largest among the Office applications, readers need be familiar with only a handful of objects. "Learning Word Programming" focuses on these essential objects, but includes a discussion of a great many more objects as well."Learning Word Programming" is written in a terse, no-nonsense manner that is characteristic of Steven Roman's straightforward, practical approach. Instead of a slow-paced tutorial with a lot of hand-holding, Roman offers the essential information about Word VBA that you must master to program effectively. This tutorial is reinforced by interesting and useful examples that solve practical programming problems, like generating tables of a particular format, managing shortcut keys, creating fax cover sheets, and reformatting documents."Learning Word Programming" is the book you need to delve into the basics of Word VBA programming, enabling you to increase your power and productivity when using Microsoft Word.


Background Inadequate classification criteria for IIM are a fundamental limitation in clinical studies. An international, multidisciplinary collaboration, the International Myositis Classification Criteria Project (IMCCP), supported by ACR and EULAR, was established to address this problem. Objectives Develop and validate new classification criteria for adult and juvenile IIM and its major subgroups. Methods Candidate variables were selected from published criteria and inclusion criteria in controlled trials of myositis. Comparator conditions confused with IIM were defined. Clinical and laboratory data from IIM and comparator patients were collected from 47 rheumatology, dermatology, neurology and pediatrics clinics worldwide from 2008-2011. Crude pair-wise associations among all measured variables and between each variable and clinicians' diagnoses were assessed. The explored approaches were: Traditional: case defined by specified number of items from a set of variables Probability score: case assigned a probability score by summing score-points associated with a set of variables Classification tree: case defined by a decision tree Internal validation using bootstrap methods was performed. Results Data from 973 IIM patients (74% adults; 26% children), representing subgroups of IIM, and 629 comparators (81% adults; 19% children) were obtained. Two probability score models were developed: Model 1 comprised clinical variables on muscles, skin, and laboratory measures; Model 2 additionally comprised muscle biopsy variables. Model 1 performed nearly as well as Model 2 (specificity 87% vs. 88%, sensitivity 89% vs. 89%, and correctly classified 87% vs. 89%). Both models performed as well as, and often better than, the classification tree that was developed (sensitivity 88%, specificity 72%, and correctly classified 84%) and published criteria. Conclusions New classification criteria for IIM with readily clinically assessable measurements and symptoms have been developed. They generally show superior performance compared with existing criteria. External validation is in progress. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Modification of Aluminium surface by injecting, dispersing and melting TiB2 powder with the help of a laser beam promises to enhance tribological properties of Aluminium. The present work consists of making single lines and various overlapping lines of TiB2 powder on an Aluminium substrate using Nd:YAG laser and analysing their microstructures and hardness. The role of various processing parameters such as laser power, scanning speed, laser beam diameter, percentage of overlap, powder flow rate on laser cladding has been described. It is possible to make a clad layer of uniform thickness of 0.55 mm having hardness of 100 HV.


The increasing relevance of cottonseed in a farmer's revenue makes it necessary to have reliable methods to measure its yield. There are two approaches to measuring cottonseed yield. Actual cottonseed yield, obtained from a grab-sample at the ginning mill, and estimated cottonseed yield, obtained from lint yield and lint percentage of seed cotton. These two measures may differ due to various factors. The purpose of this research was to estimate seed yield from lint yield and lint percentage of seed cotton, and to determine biasedness and accuracy of the estimate. A sample of 468 experimental trials, with three Texas locations, two irrigation levels, and 15 varieties was used in the statistical analysis, which consisted of three parts. The first part deter-mined that there is a 9.1 lb. per acre bias in cottonseed yield estimation. The second part determined that variety and irrigation level were significant sources of bias. For the irrigation level effect, dryland trials showed no significant bias, while irrigated trials showed a 21.5 lb. per acre bias. The third part of the analysis showed a close relationship between actual and estimated seed yields (r = .99), and a standard error of the estimate of 78.3 lb. per acre. It was concluded that estimated cottonseed yield (from lint yield and lint percentage of seed cotton) can be used as a reliable estimator of actual cottonseed yield.


JPT • JULY 2011 In Pennsylvania, recycling water from wells in the Marcellus Shale has been transformed from a trend to an essential skill. The tipping point came in mid-April in a notice from the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) telling 15 public water treatment plants to stop handling waste water from wells in the Marcellus. The order to the only public facilities treating water from fracturing was voluntary, but the intent was clear. In the letter, Michael Krancer, the DEP secretary said: "Now is the time to take action to end this practice." If there was any doubt, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed up with a letter in May telling the state agency to make that a mandatory order. The federal agency said it would contact large oil and gas companies and the water treatment facilities to ensure they were no longer processing water that had flowed back after fracturing, and then disposing it in the state's waterways. At that time two-thirds of the water from fracturing was recycled in Pennsylvania, where water use for shale gas companies has become a battleground with environmentalists, politicians, and the people who live on the land holding enormous natural gas reserves. The industry was already moving toward recycling, said Pete Miller, water resources manager of the Marcellus Shale division at Range Resources, which reuses nearly all the water from its wells there. "When the standard came out, it was another push in that direction." The state's letter sparked a rush by those who faced higher disposal costs because they could no longer have their waste water treated in state. "People are calling and telling me, 'I've got to figure this out,'" said Dave Grottenthaler, general manager of Kroff Oil Services, a Pittsburgh water treatment specialist that got into fracturing water reuse early on. "I've been telling them for a while, you can reuse all your flowback and you will be safe." Range Resources is evidence to how fast this transition can happen. It first used a mixture of fracturing flowback From Flowback to Fracturing: Water Recycling Grows in the Marcellus Shale


OBJECTIVE
To discuss the primary stability of the fixed interface between the cementless prosthesis and femur, and its influence on bone ingrowth and secondary stability under the roughened surface and press fit of different prostheses by finite element analysis.

METHODS
:A three-dimensional finite element module of total hip arthroplasty (THA) was developed with Mimics software. There was a collection of data when simulating hip arthroplasty. The frictional coefficient between the fixed interface was 0,0.15,0.40 and 1.00 representing the roughness of prosthesis surface. The press fit was 0, 0.01,0.05 and 0.10 mm according to the operation. The Vion Mises stress distribution and the contact pressure,friction stress and relative sliding displacement between the interface were analysed and compared when simulating the maneuver of climbing stairs.

RESULTS
At a fixed press fit of 0.05 mm,the contact pressure between the interface was 230 , 231, 222 and 275 MN under four different frictional coefficient (0,0. 15,0.40 and 1.00) with little change; the relative sliding displacement was 0.529, 0.129, 0.107 and 0.087 mm with a consistent and obvious decline. As the fixed frictional coefficient was 0.40,the contact pressure between the interface were 56.0,67.7 ,60.4 and 49.6 MN under four different press fit (0, 0.01, 0.05 and 0.10 mm) with a reduction; the relative sliding displacement was 0.064,0.062,0.043 and 0.042 mm with an obvious decline, and there was a maximal friction stress when press fit of 0.01 mm.

CONCLUSION
There is a dynamic process of the bone remodeling and bone integration between the interface after hip replacement, determining the long-term outcome. The interface clearance and the frictional coefficient are the key factors of the bone integration.


While the transnational dimensions of the Harlem Renaissance are widely acknowledged, scholarly accounts often suggest that the Great Depression narrowed the scope of African American writing to localized concerns such as social improvement and folk expression. The chapter complicates this assumption by drawing attention to the little-known sonnets Claude McKay and Countee Cullen wrote in the 1930s, some of which remained unpublished until the early twenty-first century. These sonnets show that African American poetry sustained a range of transnational conversations throughout the 1930s. The chapter examines two such conversations: the negotiation of black travel around the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and the Pan-Africanism incited by the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935/36. Besides McKay and Cullen, the chapter considers sonnets by the neglected poets J. Harvey L. Baxter, Alpheus Butler, and Marcus Bruce Christian.


Patients with chronic low-back pain and depression were treated double blind with desipramine or doxepin. During this treatment several hypotheses regarding the modes of action of these drugs were examined. A low serotonin hypothesis was supported by the fact that patients who had pain relief following an acute challenge with fenfluramine, a relatively pure releaser of serotonin, were significantly more likely to have pain relief on either antidepressant. The antidepressants did not change cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) beta-endorphin levels, acute pain tolerance, or electromyogram (EMG) levels. The nonsedating antidepressant desipramine was as effective as doxepin; 60% of patients had significant pain relief. Pain relief was associated with depression relief, but several patients had only pain or depression relief. Patients who had a substantial physical basis for their pain responded as well as those who did not.


We present a custom PCB which integrates a novel, fast, high-voltage tolerant, capacitive sensing circuit. This board makes it possible to turn Electro-Luminescient (EL) materials into interface elements with no modification. This sensing works at a distance (and through materials like fabric). It is the first device that makes it possible to make commodity EL materials interactive, without requiring additional modification to the EL elements. EL materials come in a number of forms, including wires, panels, and paint. They are light, flexible, low-power, and can produce even illumination over large areas without needing a diffuser. This makes them well suited for integrating lighting into everything from wearables to complex architectural installations.


High-pressure Raman scattering studies have been performed on a glass-based composite consisting of nanometer-sized gallium oxide aggregates embedded in a potassium-silicate host glass using the diamond anvil cell technique. The Raman spectra of this heterophase nanocomposite showed a range of pressure-induced structural transformations occurring in the glass matrix. Compression from ambient pressure up to 10.8 GPa indicated a progressive reduction in the width of the intertetrahedral SiOSi angle distribution, which was completely reversible on decompression to ambient pressure. At higher pressures, the Raman spectra demonstrated a breakdown of the intermediate-range order in the glass matrix of the nanocomposite. The enhancement of scattering intensity in the region of the D-defect band at 565 cm−1 together with the blue shift of the main SiOSi symmetric stretching wavenumber are evidence of a permanent reduction in SiO4 ring statistics toward smaller-than-six-ring configurations in the three-dimensional glass network. Starting from 13 GPa, the Raman spectra displayed a remarkable decrease in the scattering intensity of the SiOSi symmetric stretching that has been related to a coordination change of the silicon atom. The Raman spectrum of the composite quenched from 23 GPa to ambient conditions illustrated the pressure-driven, permanent reconstructive modification of the glass matrix in the nanocomposite. The pressure-induced evolution of the Raman peaks assigned to the gallium oxide phase indicated a progressive densification of the nanocrystalline phase, reversible on decompression to ambient pressure. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Experimental crash testing has shown static design procedures are inadequate to predict the complex interaction that occurs when an errant vehicle strikes a bridgerail system. As a result of this deficiency, bridgerail systems designed to old standards do not provide the optimum protection to the occupants of the vehicle in terms of personal safety, or of helping to ensure that the driver of the vehicle is able to maintain control after impact. Following the publication and adoption of the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CAN/CSA-S6-00) by Alberta Transportation (AT), a series of standard drawings incorporating the new safety concepts were developed for use on new construction projects. It was also decided that in addition to applying the improved standards for new construction, it would be prudent to apply the same safety concepts to the upgrading of existing bridgerail systems whenever practical. However, since it is not practical to crash test existing installations, and that there are limitations on the amount of funding available in the construction program for rehabilitation, it was recognized that guidelines on when and how to rehabilitate would need to be developed. It was also recognized that in addition to engineering issues, the Guidelines would have to include features that would enable priorities for rehabilitation to be established, and from these priorities a program for upgrading the existing rail systems could be developed as funds become available. This paper gives an overview of the development of the Guidelines, and discussion will include the evaluation of existing AT bridgerail systems and approach guardrail transitions, and the needs to upgrade with respect to safety. The paper will also discuss prioritizing projects using cost-benefit analysis, based on encroachment rates, severity indices, and present value costs.


Abstract Some have proposed that the evolution of ultrasound as a male courtship cue in milkweed tussocks has arisen stepwise through transitional stages of redundant courtship cues (both pheromone and ultrasound). Furthermore, it has been proposed that ultrasound courtship was evolutionarily linked to a switch to cardenolide-producing larval host plants. To test the hypothesis of a transitional stage and proposed correlation of the behavior with larval hosts, the phylogenetic relationships of the phaegopterines Euchaetes, Cycnia, Ectypia, Pygarctia, and Pareuchaetes were assessed with 88 characters (205 states) derived from adult morphology. The resulting strict consensus placed the Pareuchaetes among the outgroup genera and recovered the remaining four genera as a clade. Euchaetes was not monophyletic; however, removal of Pareuchaetes results in monophyly. Based on this phylogeny, the ancestor of the ingroup clade fed on cardenolide-containing host plants, possessed well developed tymbals and lacked coremata (pheromone distributing structures). Thus, the use of male ultrasound in courtship was correlated with larval feeding on cardenolide hosts. The hypothesis that ultrasound first arose as a redundant courtship cue, with a subsequent loss of the male pheromone, was not supported by our data. Rather, male pheromone courtship was reacquired after ultrasound courtship in two lineages, based on the presence of coremata and behavioral data.


Individuals suffering from mental illness face challenges that are related to stigma and lack of education that are often reinforced by the media. Specifically, the elite athletic culture is not conducive for athletes who suffer from mental illness because there is at times a belief that mental illnesses are less prevalent in elite sport. Even though incidence of mental illness in elite athletes has gained more prominence in the popular media, there is still a lack of research in this area. Specifically, there is limited research regarding media representations of athletes who suffer from mental illness. To address this gap in the literature, an ethnographic content analysis (ECA) was done to examine Suzy Favor Hamilton's open discussion of bipolar disorder surrounding the release of her new memoir, Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running From Madness. ECA yielded one overarching theme with three supporting sub-themes. Results indicated that even though Favor Hamilton's book worked to spread awareness, the media attention surrounding the book release represented omission of mental illness in the environment of athletics. Overall, sports culture provides an environment that is not often willing to accept that mental illnesses exist in athletes.


The composition and band gap of the shell that formed during the growth of axial GaAs/GaAs81Sb19/ GaAs heterostructure nanowires have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy combined with energy dispersion spectroscopy, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations. On the GaAs81Sb19 intermediate segment, the shell is found to be free of Sb (pure GaAs shell) and transparent to the tunneling electrons, despite the (110) biaxial strain that affects its band gap. As a result, a direct measurement of the core band gap allows the quantitative determination of the band offset between the GaAs81Sb19 core and the GaAs shell and identifies it as a type I band alignment.


Despite software-defined networking's proven benefits, there remains a significant reluctance in adopting it. Among the issues that hamper SDN's adoption, two issues stand out: reliability and fault tolerance. At the heart of these issues is a set of fate-sharing relationships: the first between the SDN control applications and controllers, wherein the crash of the former induces a crash of the latter, thereby affecting the controller's availability; and, the second between the SDN-Apps and the network, wherein the failure of the former violates network safety, e.g., network-loops, or network availability, e.g., black holes. In this paper, we argue for a redesign of the controller architecture centering around a set of abstractions to eliminate these fate-sharing relationships and thus improve the controller's availability. We present a prototype implementation of a framework, called LegoSDN, that embodies our abstractions, and we demonstrate the benefits of our abstractions by evaluating LegoSDN on an emulated network with five real SDN-Apps. Our evaluations show that LegoSDN can recover failed SDN-Apps 3x faster than controller reboots while simultaneously preventing policy violations.


Multimodal fusion and multitask learning are two vital topics in machine learning. Despite the fruitful progress, existing methods for both problems are still brittle to the same challenge—it remains dilemmatic to integrate the common information across modalities (resp. tasks) meanwhile preserving the specific patterns of each modality (resp. task). Besides, while they are actually closely related to each other, multimodal fusion and multitask learning are rarely explored within the same methodological framework before. In this paper, we propose Channel-Exchanging-Network (CEN) which is self-adaptive, parameter-free, and more importantly, applicable for multimodal and multitask dense image prediction. At its core, CEN adaptively exchanges channels between subnetworks of different modalities. Specifically, the channel exchanging process is self-guided by individual channel importance that is measured by the magnitude of Batch-Normalization (BN) scaling factor during training. For the application of dense image prediction, the validity of CEN is tested by four different scenarios: multimodal fusion, cycle multimodal fusion, multitask learning, and multimodal multitask learning. Extensive experiments on semantic segmentation via RGB-D data and image translation through multi-domain input verify the effectiveness of CEN compared to state-of-the-art methods. Detailed ablation studies have also been carried out, which demonstrate the advantage of each component we propose. Our code is available at https://github.com/yikaiw/CEN.


The dependence of the laser damage threshold (LDT) on the bulk optical properties of model optical materials is described. At a wavelength of 10.6 mu m, metal fluorides (CaF2, SrF2 and BaF2), germanium of a range of resistivities and silicon of a range of carrier concentrations are examined. Theoretical predictions of the LDTs of the silicon, when compared with experiment, show that surface properties can be important in determining the LDT. This aspect is examined in detail for Ge. The LDTS of Si and Ge are examined at 1.064 mu m and the behaviour compared with that at 10.6 mu m.


We have designed, developed, and applied a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture using multi-task learning to search for and characterize strong HI Lya absorption in quasar spectra. Without any explicit modeling of the quasar continuum nor application of the predicted line-profile for Lya from quantum mechanics, our algorithm predicts the presence of strong HI absorption and estimates the corresponding redshift zabs and HI column density NHI, with emphasis on damped Lya systems (DLAs, absorbers with log NHI > 20.3). We tuned the CNN model using a custom training set of DLAs injected into DLA-free quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), data release 5 (DR5). Testing on a held-back validation set demonstrates a high incidence of DLAs recovered by the algorithm (97.4% as DLAs and 99% as an HI absorber with log NHI > 19.5) and excellent estimates for zabs and NHI. Similar results are obtained against a human-generated survey of the SDSS DR5 dataset. The algorithm yields a low incidence of false positives and negatives but is challenged by overlapping DLAs and/or very high NHI systems. We have applied this CNN model to the quasar spectra of SDSS-DR7 and the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS, data release 12) and provide catalogs of 4,913 and 50,969 DLAs respectively (including 1,659 and 9,230 high-confidence DLAs that were previously unpublished). This work validates the application of deep learning techniques to astronomical spectra for both classification and quantitative measurements.


STUDY QUESTION
Does IVF affect the biochemical pregnancy rate?

SUMMARY ANSWER
The likelihood of an early pregnancy loss may be lower and is certainly not higher in IVF cycles when compared with published rates of biochemical pregnancy in fertile women ≤42 years old.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY
The use of gonadotrophins to stimulate multi-folliculogenesis alters endometrial expression of genes and proteins, compared with unstimulated cycles. Exogenous estrogen and progesterone taken for endometrial preparation in frozen embryo transfer cycles, also cause changes in endometrial gene and protein expression .These endometrial alterations may compromise the ability of embryos to develop once implanted, possibly increasing the biochemical pregnancy rate.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION
This is a retrospective study, involving 1636 fresh and 188 frozen, single embryo transfer (SET) IVF cycles performed between August 2008 and December 2012. The biochemical pregnancy rate of the 1824 combined IVF and frozen cycles were compared with fertile controls, derived from the three prospective studies in the medical literature that evaluate this rate.

PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS
Subjects ≤42-years old, who underwent a SET, as part of a fresh or thawed IVF cycle were considered for inclusion. Each subject is represented only once. The biochemical pregnancy rates were compared with those of historical standard, fertile populations with spontaneous conceptions.

MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE
The pregnancy rates per transfer for fresh and frozen IVF cycles were similar at 39 and 40%, respectively. There was also no significant difference in the likelihood of pregnancy outcomes (clinical, biochemical and ectopic pregnancy) between fresh IVF and frozen cycles (85.4 versus 85.6%, 13.8 versus 14.8%, 0.5 versus 0%, P = 0.82). However, pregnancy rates decreased in older patients when compared with younger ones P < 0.0001. The biochemical pregnancy rate for fresh and frozen IVF cycles combined was 13.8% of all pregnancies. IVF and frozen cycles were combined as the IVF group treated with hormones for further comparison with the fertile control group. The biochemical pregnancy rate (14%) in the IVF group was lower than the rate based on the total fertile group (18%), P = 0.01 and differed significantly from the rate in two out of the three studies used to establish the normative rate. The age ranges of the IVF and fertile controls were 21-42 years. The mean age in the IVF population was 34.8 years, as compared with 29 years, 29, 4 years and 30.6 years (Zinaman) in the three published studies (mean: 29.4 years).

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION
This is a retrospective study and it was impossible to recruit an in-house biochemical pregnancy control population.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
Lower early pregnancy wastage after IVF may be due to the opportunity to select the embryo for transfer. This finding should be confirmed in further studies but supports the idea that embryo selection is an important step.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTERESTS
None.


Electrooptic measurements have been performed around the SmA-SmCα* phase transition point in an antiferroelectric liquid crystal 4-(1-methyl-heptyloxycarbonyl)phenyl 4'-octyloxybiphenyl-4-carboxylate (MHPOBC). The first-order electrooptic response was continuous with a small slope change at the SmA to SmCα* transition point in the temperature dependence curve, while the second-order electrooptic response exhibited an anomalous increase near the transition point. We present a simple theory and demonstrate that this anomaly originates in the pretransitional fluctuations. The frequency dispersion of the electrooptic response is also presented.


Sertoli‐Leydig cell tumors (SLCT) constitute only 1‐0.5% of all primary ovarian neoplasms. We report a SLCT in a postmenopausal woman aged 69 years. The physical examination revealed severe hirsutism. Basal hormonal evaluation showed high plasma testosterone and estradiol values, with suppressed plasma gonadotropins. Computer tomograph scan revealed a right ovarian tumor mass of 4,3/3 cm, confirming an androgen secreting ovarian tumor. The histopathological and immunocytochemical examination established the diagnosis of well differentiated Sertoli‐Leydig cell tumor. The tumor was positive for cytokeratin KL 1 and S‐100 protein and, in isolated tumor cells, positive for alpha‐fetoprotein. Postsurgical evolution was favorable; controls after 6 months and 3,5 years showed marked reduction of hirsutism, normal plasma testosterone values and gonadotropins in normal postmenopausal range. We discuss the complex aspects of etiology and pathogenesis, the clinical and hormonal settings, the role of immunocytochemical markers in diagnosis, as well as the therapy and the prognostic features of this ovarian tumor.


On 79 samples of amniotic fluid coming from 50 cases of Rh-isoimmunization submitted to amniocentesis one or more times, the following tests were done: a) creatinine; b) proteins; c) uric acid; d) urea; e) lecithin/sphingomyelin ratio. The results were related to the degree of immunization as determined by spectrophotometric curve of the amniotic fluid. For reasons of comparison, the same tests were performed on samples of amniotic fluid from 79 pregnant non-immunized patients. Determinations of creatinine, uric acid and lecithin/sphingomyelin ratio have pointed out a delayed fetal maturity in Rh-isoimmunized pregnant women, more marked in the more severe cases. The proteins level were increased, probably also because of the transfer of IgG antibodies into the amniotic fluid, whereas the estimation of fetal maturity based on urea concentrations is quite unreliable.


Channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) enables high rates in multiuser systems with multiple transmit antennas, as it can be used for multiplexing gain and multiuser diversity. However, CSIT is often obtained through information fedback from the users, and it can be severely quantized to limit overhead. In this case, transmitting to multiple users will typically cause interference among them, which degrades the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). In this letter, we derive bounds on this SINR, assuming that the transmitter uses zero-forcing beamforming, and that active users are almost orthogonal to one another. Simulation results show that our bounds may be used as a metric for user scheduling.


A version of the projection method for solving the scattering problem for acoustic and electromagnetic waves is proposed and shown to be more efficient numerically than the earlier ones.


Plasma concentration data points (n = 2,640) from 16 healthy adults were used to develop and validate limited sampling strategies (LSS) for estimation of phenotypic metrics for CYP enzymes and the ABCB1 transporter, using a cocktail of subtherapeutic doses of the selective probes caffeine (CYP1A2), metoprolol (CYP2D6), midazolam (CYP3A), losartan (CYP2C9), omeprazole (CYP2C19), and fexofenadine (ABCB1). All-subsets linear regression modelling was applied to estimate the AUC0–12h for caffeine, fexofenadine, and midazolam, and the AUC0–12h ratio of metoprolol:α-OH metoprolol and omeprazole:5-OH omeprazole. LSS-derived metrics were compared with the parameters' 'best estimates' obtained by non-compartmental analysis using all plasma concentration data points. The correlation coefficient (R 2) was used to identify the LSS equations that provided the best fit for n timed plasma samples, and the jack-knife statistics was used as an additional validation procedure for the LSS models. Single time-point LSS models provided R 2 values greater than 0.95 (R 2 > 0.95) for the AUC0–12h ratio of metoprolol:α-OH metoprolol and omeprazole:5-OH omeprazole, whereas 2 time-point models were required for R 2 > 0.95 for the AUC0–12h of caffeine, fexofenadine, and midazolam. Increasing the number of sampling points to three led to minor increases in R 2 and/or the bias or prediction of the estimates. In conclusion, the LSS models provided accurate prediction of phenotypic indices for CYP1A2, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, CYP3A, and ABCB1, when using subtherapeutic doses of selective probes for these enzymes and transporter.


Abstract This paper presents results of the research on impact of microstructure of austenitic-ferritic steel of duplex type on its mechanical properties and susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking. As showed, improper processing technologies more and more often used in shipbuilding industry for plates and other half-finished products made of duplex steel may cause significant lowering their properties, which frequently makes their replacing necessary. Results of the tests on stress corrosion under tension with low strain rate (SSRT) conducted in an inert and corrosion (boiling magnesium chloride) environment, are presented. It was proved that even minor structural transformations taking place in 500°C ageing temperature lower corrosion resistance of the steel. Structural transformations occurring in 700°C temperature to a smaller extent influence susceptibility to stress corrosion of the steel, however they cause drastic drop in its plasticity.


Data regarding syphilis screening in resource-limited settings is limited. We aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of positive syphilis serology in HIV-infected adult patients in an outpatient setting in Thailand. A cross sectional study was conducted among 178 HIV-infected patients. Ninety-eight patients (55%) were male; then median (interquartile range; IQR) age was 43 (36-49) years. The majority of the patients (84.3%) had a heterosexual risk. Three patients (1.7%) had a positive rapid plasma reagin (RPR) test (range, 1:2 to 1:16), 9 (5%) patients had a positive Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA) test, and 3 patients (1.7%) had positive results on both tests. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, a pruritic papular eruption [odds ratio (OR) 5.37; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.09-26.38; p = 0.038], current CD4 cell count (OR 1.22, per 50 cells/mm3; 95% CI: 1.01-1.46; p = 0.035), and using abacavir in the current regimen (OR 59.19; 95% CI: 2.15-1,628.68; p = 0.016) were associated with positive syphilis serology. In conclusion, the prevalence of positive syphilis serology among Thai HIV-infected patients was low. Routine screening for syphilis in HIV-infected patients who are asymptomatic may need to be re-considered at the national level in this resource-limited setting.


Let Mg be the moduli space of smooth, genus g curves over an algebraically closed field K of zero characteristic. Denote by Mg(G) the subset of Mg of curves δ such that G (as a finite nontrivial group) is isomorphic to a subgroup of Aut(δ), and let be the subset of curves δ such that G ≅ Aut(δ), where Aut(δ) is the full automorphism group of δ. Now, for an integer d ≥ 4, let be the subset of Mg representing smooth, genus g, plane curves of degree d, i.e. smooth curves that admits a plane non-singular model of degree d, (in this case, g = (d − 1)(d − 2)/2), and consider the sets and . Henn in [7] and Komiya and Kuribayashi in [10], listed the groups G for which is nonempty. In this article, we determine the loci , corresponding to nonsingular degree 5 projective plane curves, which are nonempty. Also, we present the analogy of Henn's results for quartic curves concerning nonsingular plane model equations associated to these loci (see Table 2 for more details). Similar arguments can be applied to deal with higher degrees.


In this paper, we present 50 GHz spaced 25 × 40 Gbit/s WDM transmission over 560 km using SMF-based Large Effective Area Fiber (LEAF) in a recirculating loop. The paper uses band-limited RZ signals carrying 2 31 -1 PRBS data, and shows that transmission distance of 560 km can be achieved with BER ≤ 10 -9 using 1 mW peak power and 4 ps pulse-width for each data signal. To attain this, optical filters with sharp transmission characteristics are used in both transmitter and receiver. The results demonstrated in this paper are based on simulation, and the author believes that the propagation distance reached in the paper is the longest distance achieved for such system


For applications of optical amplifiers it is important to know the range of amplifier input powers that cause no or negligible system performance degradation. This dynamic range sets limits on information capacity and amplifier cascadability. A 27-dB dynamic range was measured for a traveling-wave optical amplifier with 10-dB fiber-to-fiber and 0.8-dB gain ripple. The device was used in a 150-Mb/s coherent transmission system. The result, the widest dynamic range reported to date, indicates the suitability of the optical amplifier for coherent photonic networks and systems.<<ETX>>