OBJECTIVE
To investigate the impact of adding folic acid, vitamin B(12) and probucol to standard antihypertensive medication on plasma homocysteine (Hcy) and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), serum NO and eNOS of essential hypertensive patients.

METHOD
A total of 120 patients with hypertension were randomly divided to three groups (n = 40 each): group 1 (standard medication), group 2 (adding folic acid 5 mg/day and vitamin B(12) 500 µg twice daily) and group 3 (adding folic acid 5 mg/day and vitamin B(12) 500 µg twice daily and probucol 500 mg twice daily). Plasma Hcy and ADMA, serum NO and eNOS levels were observed at baseline, 2 and 12 weeks after various therapy.

RESULTS
In group 1, concentrations of plasma Hcy [(23.06 ± 14.15) µmol/L, (23.67 ± 12.31) µmol/L, (23.25 ± 11.64) µmol/L], ADMA [(0.21 ± 0.12) µmol/L, (0.23 ± 0.13) µmol/L, (0.21 ± 0.09) µmol/L] and serum NO [(64.14 ± 15.07) µmol/L, (65.29 ± 15.04) µmol/L, (65.32 ± 13.58) µmol/L], eNOS [(20.02 ± 4.50) µg/L, (20.79 ± 4.03) µg/L, (19.82 ± 5.70) µg/L] remained unchanged during the 12 weeks therapy (all P > 0.05). In group 2, concentrations of plasma Hcy [(12.54 ± 6.49) µmol/L] and ADMA[(0.18 ± 0.07) µmol/L] were significantly decreased after the treatment of 12 weeks than the treatment baseline value [(21.51 ± 7.82) µmol/L, (0.20 ± 0.12) µmol/L] and 2 weeks value[(19.38 ± 8.14) µmol/L, (0.21 ± 0.12) µmol/L], however the concentrations of serum NO and eNOS showed contrary results of the Hcy and ADMA's. (all P < 0.05). In group 3, similar changes occurred at 2 weeks after therapy (P < 0.05 2 weeks vs. baseline and 12 weeks vs. 2 weeks). Plasma ADMA level was positively correlated with Hcy at baseline (r = 0.546, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Supplementation of folic acid, VitB(12) and/or probucol helps to improve endothelial function and reduce plasma Hcy and ADMA levels in patients with hypertension.


With the Tropic of Cancer separating temperate climate zones to the north and tropical climate zones to the south, Yunnan province, China is an area of tremendous ecological and cultural diversity. The tropical Xishuangbanna Prefecture in southern Yunnan is one of the most culturally and biologically complex places in the province and the whole of China. In studying local expressions of the relationships that exist between tropical plant ecology, ecological knowledge of Xishuangbanna's Dai people, and Theravada Buddhist religious practices in Ganlanba, China, I aim to present an example of the complexities that exist between humans, human spirituality, and the natural world while acknowledging the spiritual realities within the Dai socio-cultural universe. As a representative case study of the way local ecology can help condition our human ecology (and vice versa) in manners of culture, practice, perception, and behavior I hope to provide insight into the impact of ecological knowledge on Dai spiritual agency.


Initially released in 2017, Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC) intentionally deceives, pretending to be an unremarkable Bishōjo or Japanese dating simulator, but as players progress through the story, they encounter a series of violent glitches that reveal the game's true identity as a surreal horror experience taking place within the player's computer. To stop the violence, players must delete certain files that the game installs on their computer during installation.
In this article, I argue that DDLC makes the player's relationship with technology weird and highlights the casual cruelty with which many treat others online. Uniting player testimonies with aesthetic analysis, I explore the ways that the game offers a complicated (and incomplete) playable critique of sexualized and racialized violence online.


An empirical study is described that derives the dimensionality of the concept of information. The resulting information structure was found to be in agreement with the structures suggested in the literature. Additionally, subject evaluations of three distinct report formats were determined using the derived dimensions of information. A graphical format was found to be preferred over both a tabular format and a bar chart format.


The authors discuss the influence of the two-step excitation mechanism on the shape of autoionization resonances in electron emission spectra of helium. The parameters of the (2s2)1S resonance, allowing for correlation and the two-step excitation mechanism, with the inclusion of the Coulomb interaction in the final state in the direct and resonance ionization amplitudes, have been calculated for ionization of helium by intermediate-energy protons.


The permanently growing demands on clinic and laboratory constrain to considerations concerning a rational diagnostics. The spectrum of clinical interrogations which needs a clarification by laboratory diagnostics increases continuously. For the nephrologic diagnostics is again oriented to a step programme, which is adapted to the centrally published references to the development of a comprehensive system of the renal dispensary. It takes into consideration the possibilities of the diagnostics of the specialist for general medicine up to the subspecialist in a county hospital. As to the invasive diagnostics, particularly the renal biopsy, one must be reversed. This is indicated then, when from the result consequences would arise concerning the therapy to be performed or the choice calling etc.


A successful implant must meet two important criteria: (1) the ability to function in a living organism and (2) biocompatibility. If an implant has a tendency to degrade, both of these characteristics can be altered, leading to a failure of the implant and possible harm to the patient. This paper will deal with a brief discussion of the subject of toxicology, followed by selected examples of problems which have occurred in the use of a plastic for a biomedical application, and, finally. suggestions will be made as to in-vivo and in-vitro tests which may be appropriate for ascertaining whether a new plastic will degrade, releasing biologically active constituents.


This qualitative research aims to identify advances and challenges of teaching-service integration in nursing and medical education between the Marilia Medical School and Marilia Municipal Health Secretary. Data were collected from accounts given by teachers, students and health professionals. The analysis was based on the hermeneutic-dialectic method. The results showed that teaching-service integration allows early integration of the student in the workplace, guides the construction of knowledge in professional practice, supports the exchange of information and increases the quantity and quality of health actions aimed at the community. The identified challenges were a lack of recognition of the student's role by health team members, a lack of management support for the development of Family Health Strategy principles and a lack of definition of academia and service roles in partnership contracts. Suggestions for the improvement of the integration included expanding the insertion of the collaborating teacher in academic activities, improving the management of Primary Health Care and reviewing the partnership agreement. These advances are needed to enhance co-responsibility in the process of in-service learning.


This paper reports the optimum chemical compositions for submerged arc (SA) weld metal of modified 2.25Cr-1Mo steel by investigating the influence of carbon, manganese, nitrogen and oxygen on the mechanical properties of the weld metal. Submerged arc welding was conducted at a welding heat input of 3 kJ/mm (76.2 kJ/in.), and weld metal tests were performed to determine tensile strength, creep strength, toughness and hydrogen embrittlement characteristics. Metallographic investigations by optical microscopy, TEM and x-ray diffraction were also conducted. A decrease of gas elements such as oxygen and nitrogen improves toughness. A decrease of nitrogen also improves the resistance to hydrogen embrittlement susceptibility through an increase of effective vanadium precipitates, which leads to a reduction in diffusible hydrogen. A decrease in the manganese content is beneficial for the creep strength because more coarsened grains facilitate grain boundary sliding, and, to a lesser extent, microvoid nucleation at grain boundaries. However, a reduction of manganese lowered tensile strengths at room and high temperatures, as well as toughness at low temperatures due to coarsened grains. In conclusion, the optimum composition for weld metal is a low-carbon, low-manganese, low-oxygen, low-nitrogen type with microalloyed vanadium and niobium.


In both lensless Fourier transform holography (FTH) and coherent diffraction imaging (CDI), a beamstop is used to block strong intensities which exceed the limited dynamic range of the sensor, causing a loss in low-frequency information, making high quality reconstructions difficult or even impossible. In this paper, we show that an image can be recovered from high-frequencies alone, thereby overcoming the beamstop problem in both FTH and CDI. The only requirement is that the object is sparse in a known basis, a common property of most natural and manmade signals. The reconstruction method relies on compressed sensing (CS) techniques, which ensure signal recovery from incomplete measurements. Specifically, in FTH, we perform compressed sensing (CS) reconstruction of captured holograms and show that this method is applicable not only to standard FTH, but also multiple or extended reference FTH. For CDI, we propose a new phase retrieval procedure, which combines Fienup's hybrid input-output (HIO) method and CS. Both numerical simulations and proof-of-principle experiments are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed CS-based reconstructions in dealing with missing data in both FTH and CDI.


This study examined the phonetic realization of voiced stops in the Cretan and Thessalonikan dialects of Modern Greek. Six males and six females of each dialect were recorded in a sentence-reading task. Duration and amplitude were measured to compare the degree of nasality of voiced stops to that of nasals in different phonetic contexts. Results showed that amplitude changes during the voicing bar of the voiced stops varied both within and across speakers. In some instances, there was consistently low amplitude throughout the voicing bar (characteristic of voiced stops), whereas in other instances, there was high amplitude at the closure onset followed by decreasing amplitude toward the burst (characteristic of prenasalization). By contrast, nasals had consistently high amplitude throughout the murmur. The mixed-effects models suggest that there were complex and interactive influences of dialect, gender, prosodic position, and stress in realizing prenasality in the voiced stops. In particular, Cretan male speakers showed the least clear tendency of prenasalization consistent with earlier impressionistic studies. Furthermore, productions of Cretan males showed less prenasalization than those of females in both prosodic positions. The procedures in this study can be used to describe prenasalization in other dialects or languages where prenasalization has been observed.


Incremental consumption of electrical energy, reduction of fossil fuel resources and environmental pollution problems caused by them are the main reasons, which tend the managers and officials in countries energy sector to develop use of renewable systems. In the not-too-distant future the use of renewable energy such as wind and solar will be very important and will play predominant role in economic indices of power systems. In recent years, technological advances in renewable energy and increasing price of petroleum products promote system managers to use low-cost and low-emission energy resources in form of hybrid systems and widespread propagation of electricity generation have been developed in remote areas. In Hybrid systems two or more sources of renewable energy is typically adopted, which increases the reliability of these systems. In this paper, the technical and economical consideration of a wind and solar hybrid system to supply electrical energy for a number of remote users (aid and medical emergency Shelter in Yazd) is provided. In order to investigate optimization and economic analysis of the proposed hybrid system, the HOMER software is used.  The results of Simulation in HOMER software show that Solar cells and wind systems with average generation power of 896 kWh/yr. and 343 kWh/yr., consist proportion of 72 and 28 percent of the total generated energy respectively, which are dedicated to satisfy the loads Full Text: PDF DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijpeds.v7.i1.pp134-143


The world of education cannot ber separated from the curriculum. The curriculum is one of the most important components of education. The curriculum can cover a broad scope and a narrow scope. A curriculum must have compatibility or relevance with the needs and demands that exist in society. The curriculum must also be able adjust the components in it. In its implementation in a educational institution, the curriculum needs to be developed, in developing a curriculum it certainly cannot be done just like that without reference or guidance. One of the curriculum that is developed must pay attentiom to the organization and design of curriculum development. The organization and design of the curriculum is one aspect that needs to be considered so that in curriculum sevelopment it can meet all the needs and demand of students, educators, and also the community. This study uses the library research method by examining several data sources from books relating to the organization and curriculum development design. The conclusion of this study is that in the process of developing the organizational curriculum it acts as a method for determining the selection and integration of learning experiences held by educational institutions. An organization is very necessary for the management process, namely planning organizations, organizations in the framework or curriculum implementation, and organizations in the framework of curriculum evaluation. In developing curriculum, curriculum design is also needed. Curriculum design is the organization of goals, content, and processes that students will undergo in an educational institution. There are various designs that have been compiled and each design has certain strengths and weaknesses. This study can be a reference for institutions that want to develop a curriculum to understand what organizations and design developments fit their needs. Future research is expected to be able to deal more deeply with the organization and design or curriculum development.


An outline of the capacity of colposcopy in detection of early neoplastic changes at the ectocervix and the cervical os is given. Figures are presented of results reached by combined use of colposcopy and cytology in 6,536 women (divided into age groups of over and under 30 years) including histological findings. The results emphasize the need to use colposcopy as an additional method in cervical cancer detection.


Oxygen saturation determined by pulse oximetry was monitored in 152 pediatric surgical patients divided into two groups. In one group, the oximeter data and alarms were available (N = 76) to the anesthesia team, and, in the other group, these data were unavailable (N = 76). A trained observer recorded all intraoperative hypoxic episodes and informed the anesthesia team of all major events (i.e., oxygen saturation less than or equal to 85% for greater than or equal to 30 s) (PaO2 approximately 52 mmHg). Thirty-five major events occurred: 24 in the unavailable group, and 11 in the available group (P = 0.021). A greater number of major events occurred in children less than or equal to 2 yr of age (P = 0.013). Hypoxic events diagnosed by the oximeter, but not by the anesthesiologist, were more frequent in the unavailable group (13) than in the available group (5) (P = 0.0495). ASA Physical Status 3 and 4 patients were more likely to suffer a major event (P = 0.009 available, 0.006 unavailable). The pulse oximeter diagnosed hypoxemia before the signs and symptoms of hypoxemia were apparent (i.e., prior to observed cyanosis or bradycardia). Major hypoxic events were unrelated to duration of anesthesia. Major events were evenly distributed among induction, maintenance, and awakening from anesthesia; a greater number of hypoxic events occurred during induction in the unavailable group (P = 0.031). No morbidity was documented in any patient who suffered an hypoxic event.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Over the past three decades, an increasing number of publications have reported the association between interstitial lung disease (ILD) and anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) or ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV). With this increased awareness, we have reviewed the literature to date and provide an update in this narrative review. The vast majority of cases of ILD have been shown to be in the setting of positive anti-myeloperoxidase antibody and can be present in up to 45% of patients of microscopic polyangiitis, though cases of ILD associated with proteinase 3 ANCA have rarely been reported. Pulmonary fibrosis and ANCA positivity can occur with or without systemic involvement. The pathogenetic mechanisms establishing the relationship between ANCA and the development of pulmonary fibrosis remain unclear. Histologic and radiographic features of ANCA-ILD most commonly reveal usual interstitial pneumonia or non-specific interstitial pneumonia patterns, though other atypical features such as bronchiolitis have been described. ILD in the setting of AAV has been associated with worse outcomes, and thus early identification and treatment in these patients is appropriate. We advocate that ANCA antibody testing be performed as a baseline evaluation in patients presenting with idiopathic interstitial pneumonia. Suggested treatment of ANCA-ILD includes immunosuppression and/or antifibrotic agents, though supporting data and clinical trials to substantiate use of these therapies are needed. Over the last three decades, an increasing number of publications have reported the association between interstitial lung disease and anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) or ANCA-associated vasculitis. With this increased awareness, we have reviewed the literature to date and provide an update in this narrative review. https://bit.ly/3A8SGHZ


The genera Micropteropus Matschie, 1899, Epomops Gray, 1870, Hypsignathus H. Allen, 1861, Nanonycteris Matschie, 1899 and Plerotes Andersen, 1910 and the species assigned to them are reviewed. All the currently recognized taxa are maintained except subspecific partitions in Epomops franqueti (Tomes, 1860). The known characters are reviewed and discussed, and new characters presented, and their possible taxonomical implications mentioned. Of the skull characters traditionally used to distinguish Micropteropus from Epomophorus Bennett, 1836 relative rostrum length, relative zygomatic width and the form of the postdental palate are found to be rather in line with the tendencies in that genus. The palatal ridges in both species of Micropteropus are less different from those in Epomophorus than has generally been claimed but at the same time distinguish those species, as seem to do chromosome morphology (only known for M. pusillus (Peters, 1867)) and, probably, the anatomy of the vocalization organs. The original type specimen and locality of M. pusillus, disregarded since Andersen (1912) rejected them, are recognized. Within Epomops, a typical section is distinguished containing the forest species franqueti and buettikoferi (Matschie, 1899), while the woodland species dobsonii (Bocage, 1889) is considered atypical and possibly not congeneric. For the latter species a neotype is designated. In addition to earlier observed differences, the typical section of Epomops differs from Epomophorus in the morphology of its pterygoid wings. Epomops franqueti strepitans Andersen, 1910 is synonymized with the nominal subspecies as no satisfactory delimitation or transitional zone can be conceived. E. buettikoferi is maintained as a species on the basis of several sympatric occurrences with E. franqueti but the need for further research is recognized. Pterygoid wing morphology in Epomops dobsonii is as in Epomophorus, and its postdental palate exhibits transitional characters from typical Epomops toward Epomophorus; its palatal ridges are atypical and possibly derived from a pattern as in Epomophorus. Hypsignathus monstrosus H. Allen, 1861 resembles typical Epomops in its pterygoid wing morphology and palatal ridge pattern, and is less related to E. dobsonii than has been suggested. Some of the generic characters of Nanonycteris are rejected as neotenic traits. Several characters of Nanonycteris veldkampii (Jentink, 1888) suggest that Epomops dobsonii may be its nearest living relative rather than typical Epomops. In this small species females are (on average) larger than males in all measurements, which is the reverse of the situation in all larger epomophorines. Yet, males have relatively longer rostrums and larger zygomatic widths. Plerotes is confirmed as a genus combining primitive and specialized traits, but certain wing characters claimed to distinguish it are rejected and the need for wet preservation of future specimens is emphasized. P. anchietae (de Seabra, 1900) is known from nine specimens, most of which immature. A neotype is designated to replace the lost holotype. New cranial and fur characters are described.


The white-rot basidiomycete Phanerochaete chrysosporium metabolized 3-(4′-ethoxy-3′-methoxyphenyl)-2-(4″-methoxyphenyl)propionic acid (V) in low-nitrogen, stationary cultures, conditions under which ligninolytic activity is expressed. The ability of several fungal mutant strains to degrade V reflected their ability to degrade [14C]lignin to 14CO2. 1-(4′-Ethoxy-3′-methoxyphenyl)-2-(4″-methoxyphenyl)-2- hydroxyethane (VII), anisyl alcohol, and 4-ethoxy-3-methoxybenzyl alcohol were isolated as metabolic products, indicating an initial oxidative decarboxylation of V, followed by α, β cleavage of the intermediate (VII). Exogenously added VII was rapidly converted to anisyl alcohol and 4-ethoxy-3-methoxybenzyl alcohol. When the degradation of V was carried out under 18O2, 18O was incorporated into the β position of the diarylethane product (VII), indicating that the reaction is oxygenative.


In order to obtain more accurate solutions of polynomial systems with numerical continuation methods we use multiprecision arithmetic. Our goal is to offset the overhead of double double arithmetic accelerating the path trackers and in particular Newton's method with a general purpose graphics processing unit. In this paper we describe algorithms for the massively parallel evaluation and differentiation of sparse polynomials in several variables. We report on our implementation of the algorithmic differentiation of products of variables on the NVIDIA Tesla C2050 Computing Processor using the NVIDIA CUDA compiler tools.


: The rapidly advancing mobile communication technology and the decrease in costs make it possible to incorporate mobile technology into Smart Home systems. We propose a mobile and internet based Smart Home system that consists of a mobile phone with android capabilities, an internet based application, and a home server. The home appliances are controlled by the Arduino which receives commands from the server computer, which operates according to the commands received from the mobile application via the wireless network or the internet. In our proposed system the home server is built upon a Wi-Fi technology which receives commands from the client and the command is processed via Arduino, which allows a user to control and monitor any parameters related to the home by using any Andriod capable smart phone or via the internet. This paper presents an innovative low cost design and implementation of automated control based on weather conditions, appliance control, and, home security together with the design of android application to enable the smart phone to send commands and receive alerts through the server based system.


The experiment was designed to investigate the effects of feed supplementation with selenite or selenized yeast on eggs quality of laying hens. Hens of laying breed Isabrown were randomly divided at the day of hatching into 4 groups (n=12) and fed ad libitum for 9 months on diets which differed only in amounts or forms of selenium supplemented. Hens were fed from 1 st day by standard feed mixture. Control group get only native dose of selenium (0.1 mg/kg) naturally presented in feed mixtures. First experimental group get selenium addition 0.4 mg/kg in a form of sodium selenite, second one the same dose of 0.4 mg/kg but in organic form of Se-yeast. The diet for the fourth group was supplemented with Se-yeast at Se dose 0.9 mg/kg DM. The both doses of organic selenium had significantly (P 0.05) by the supplementation of Se into the feed mixture for laying hens.


This study presents the possible contribution that self psychology might make to understanding, and guiding the treatment of; childhood functional faecal retention. A discussion of self psychology's theoretical perspective on childhood development is provided, including specific reference to the central theoretical issues 0 f optimal responsiveness and mutualand self-regulation and how these manifest within the psychotherapeutic process. A case study provides the vehicle for the discussion ofthe applicability and relevance of the central self psychological tenets to the psychotherapeutic treatment of functional faecal retention in childhood. It tentatively concludes that self psychological theory may be useful in informing and structuring the treatment of children with retentive encopresis, and may be especially useful in conjunction with potentially invasive medically and surgically based interventions.


Introduction In orbital reconstruction, the optimal location of a predefined implant can be planned preoperatively. Surgical results can be assessed intraoperatively or postoperatively. A novel method for quantifying orbital implant position is introduced. The method measures predictability of implant placement: transformation parameters between planned and resulting implant position are quantified. Methods The method was tested on 3 human specimen heads. Computed Tomography scans were acquired at baseline with intact orbits (t0), after creation of the defect (t1) and postoperatively after reconstruction of the defect using a preformed implant (t2). Prior to reconstruction, the optimal implant position was planned on the t0 and t1 scans. Postoperatively, the planned and realized implant position were compared. The t0 and t2 scans were fused using iPlan software and the resulting implant was segmented in the fused t2 scan. An implant reference frame was created (Orbital Implant Positioning Frame); the planned implant was transformed to the reference position using an Iterative Closest Point approach. The segmentation of the resulting implant was also registered on the reference position, yielding rotational (pitch, yaw, roll) as well as translational parameters of implant position. Results Measurement with the Orbital Implant Positioning Frame proved feasible on all three specimen. The positional outcome provided more thorough and accurate insight in resulting implant position than could be gathered from distance measurements alone. Observer-related errors were abolished from the process, since the method is largely automatic. Conclusion A novel method of quantifying surgical outcome in orbital reconstructive surgery was presented. The presented Orbital Implant Positioning Frame assessed all parameters involved in implant displacement. The method proved to be viable on three human specimen heads. Clinically, the method could provide direct feedback intraoperatively and could improve postoperative evaluation of orbital reconstructive surgery.


We report a case of Pasteurella multocida pneumonia and empyema in an otherwise healthy patient. The most frequently observed human complication with this microorganism is a local wound infection. Only a few cases of pneumonia have been described, and most of the patients were immunodeficient.


Abstract Aims Establishing the minimum clinically important difference (MCID) in functioning and cognition is essential to the interpretation of the research and clinical work conducted in bipolar disorders (BD). The present study aimed to estimate the MCID for the Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) and a battery of neuropsychological tests in BD. Methods Anchor-based and distributive methods were used to estimate the MCID for the FAST and cognition using data from a large, multicentre, observational cohort of individuals with BD. The FAST and cognition were linked with the Clinical Global Impressions Scale-Severity (CGI-S) and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) using an equipercentile method. The magnitude of the standard error measurement (s.e.m.) provided another estimate of the MCID. Results In total, 570 participants were followed for 2 years. Cross-sectional CGI-S and GAF scores were linked to a threshold ⩽7 on the FAST for functional remission. The MCID for the FAST equalled 8- or 9-points change from baseline using the CGI-S and GAF. One s.e.m. on the FAST corresponded to 7.6-points change from baseline. Cognitive variables insufficiently correlated with anchor variables (all ρ <0.3). One s.e.m. for cognitive variables corresponded to a range of 0.45 to 0.93-s.d. change from baseline. Conclusions These findings support the value of the estimated MCID for the FAST and cognition and may be a useful tool to evaluate cognitive and functional remediation effects and improve patient functional outcomes in BD. The CGI-S and GAF were inappropriate anchors for cognition. Further studies may use performance-based measures of functioning instead.


In the print version of the article listed above, Table 1 is missing the n values in row 1 for four categories: "Overweight Nondiabetic" should read "687"; "Overweight Diabetic" should read "135"; "Obese Nondiabetic" should read "489"; and "Obese Diabetic" should read "227." In addition, the following acknowledgments were missing from the Acknowledgments section: "S.D. is supported by a grant from the American Diabetes Association (10-JF-13) and has received speaker's honoraria from Solvay Pharmaceuticals. C.L.M. and M.G.M. are employees of Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc." The online version reflects these changes.


Who is the "Magic Man" (https://youtu.be/5EgNF6X2MJs?t=78)? In 2017, Pavel Datsyuk was named as one of the 100 greatest National Hockey League players in ice hockey history. His Detroit Red Wings teammate Niklas Kronwall quipped, "Pav is the Magic Man for a reason. He does things out there with the puck that no one else can do." This statement begs the questions: When, where, and how did Pavel learn those creative skills? To gain insight into how the "Magic Man," Pavel Datsyuk, acquired such sophisticated yet unorthodox skills, we endeavored to investigate the preprofessional years of Pavel's development. Utilizing a case study methodology and leaning on the theoretical framework of ecological dynamics, we sought to examine the ecological niche that helped shape Pavel's learning in development. Our case study highlights the ecological nature of the development of expertise and the nonlinear impact ecological constraints had on the development of Pavel's expertise.


The complex analysis of screwed spent fuel cask lid structures under extreme thermal and mechanical loads is very important for the evaluation of cask integrity and leak tightness under such conditions. The interest of such problems has been increasing since the terrorist attacks from September 11, 2001. Due to extension experiences of BAM in calculation and experimental testing of transport and storage casks for radioactive materials, BAM in this context has developed new methods to estimate the safety margins of transport and storage spent fuel and high-level waste casks under extreme thermal and mechanical loads resulting from aircraft crashes. In case of thermal loads, a thermal heat transfer analysis has to be made, which gives the time-dependent temperature distribution of the casks. But this is not enough, while the extreme kerosene fire scenario creates a strong transient heating of the cask body and its lid system. This causes elastic and plastic deformation of the cask body, the decrease of screw forces and especially great relative displacements between the seals and its contacting flanges. This results in an elevated leak rate. To cover this case so-called thermo-mechanical analyses had been carried out. One of the most critical mechanical loads on the cask is a central impact onto the lid-seal-system. This can be caused by direct aircraft crash or its engine as well as by a following impact of building structures of a nuclear facility like a storage hall. In this situation dynamical analyses had been carried out. Although it is currently not possible to calculate the leakage rates from deformation analysis directly, for the present it is possible to estimate the behaviour of the seal based on the calculated relative displacements at its place and the behaviour of the lid bolts under the thermal and mechanical impact loads respectively, in combination with experiments where the leakage rate of the seals had been measured after radial and axial shifting of the flanges. Except of the lid bolts, the geometry of the cask and the thermal/mechanical loads are axial-symmetric, which simplified the analysis considerably by using two dimensional finite element models and parameter studies are possible. The lid bolts had been "smeared" with a special technique as two-dimensional plane-stress bolt model, which has been verified with three dimensional bolt calculations. Experiments and calculation studies show that the German transport and storage casks for radioactive material have sufficient safety margins even by extreme thermal/mechanical loads. This paper will present the methodologies developed for the studies. Some of the calculation results will be presented.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


This is a report of studies on the pyrogenic action of a series of steroid metabolites in man. The chemical prototype for this form of biological activity is the hormonal derivative, 3α-hydroxyetiocholane-17-one. This compound, whose capacity to provoke fever in humans was first reported in 1956, 1-3 represents the first pure substance of known chemical structure and of physiologic origin having consistent pyrogenic action in man. The present studies indicate that this thermogenic activity extends to a number of steroid metabolites derived from adrenocortical and gonadal hormones. Certain aspects of the structural basis of this action are described and the effects of in vivo metabolic transformations on the fever-producing activity of these hormone derivatives are noted. Methods The following steroids were tested for pyrogenic activity in man: 3α-hydroxyetiocholane-17-one; etiocholane - 3,17 - dione; 3α - acetoxyetiocholane -17-one; 3α,11β-dihydroxyetiocholane-17-one; 3α-hy-droxypregnane-20-one; 3α-acetoxypregnane-20-one; pregnane-3,20-dione; pregnane-3a,20a-diol; 21-hy-droxypregnane-3,20-dione; 3α-hydroxypregnane-11, 20-dione; 3α,17α-dihydroxypregnane-20-one; and 3α, 17α,21 -trihydroxypregnane-11,20-dione. Steroids


A field experiment was conducted during Rabi season 2016 at Bacha Khan Agriculture Research Farm (BARF), Bacha Khan University Charsadda, using wheat variety Pir Sabak 2013. The experiment was laid out in RCB design having two factors i.e. tillage practices (cultivator using 1 time, 3 times, and 5 times) and mulching (M0-control, M1-wheat straw, and M2-sugarcane bagasse,). Tillage practices were applied to the main plots while mulching to the sub plots having 3 replications with a net plot size of 1.8m x 5m (9m) and row to row distance of 30 cm. Data were recorded for days to emergence, plant height, spike length, 1000-grain weight and grain yield. Results of the experiment showed that both tillage practice and mulching has significant effect on almost all the parameters. Tillage showed significant variation for all of the parameters recorded during the course of study except days to emergence. Maximum emergence (199 seedlings m), were attained by 1 time tillage application where maximum plant height (108 cm), maximum spike length (12 cm), maximum 1000-grain weight (45 g) and maximum grain yield (4717) were observed for 5 time tillage application. Similarly mulching application significantly affected all the parameters recorded during the course of experiment except days to emergence. Maximum plant height(110 cm), spike length (13 cm),1000-grain weight (44 g) and grain yield (5122 kg ha) were recorded for M1during the experiment. Overall, the combination of five times tillage and wheat mulching (M1) provide its superiority in term of yield i.e. 4717 kg ha and 5122 kg ha, respectively.


Japanese linguistic politeness is a commonly observed phenomenon and the speaker's being linguistically polite is an expected social behavior in the Japanese society. Most previous studies of Japanese politeness describe such a polite social behavioral pattern at a superficial or observational level without exploring the linguistic nature of such a polite behavior or the speaker's motivations for performing a polite speech act in a particular speech context. From some linguistic, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and sociological perspectives, this study defines "politeness" as the speaker's rational choices and a social strategy in the Japanese culture beyond surface language forms themselves. This paper claims that so-called "polite" or "honorific" language forms as commonly employed by the speaker in various social interactions do not necessarily always indicate that such a speaker must be a polite person. The so-called "polite" language is "linguistic" in nature and is thus more about a particular language form itself than about the speaker himself/herself. This paper further claims that the speaker makes rational choices of particular polite language forms to realize his/her communicative intention with the outcomes as perceived. Thus, this study explores the relationship between polite language forms and their social, cultural, and pragmatic functions. It concludes that speakers in the same speech community are conscious of linguistic choices which conform to their normative views for the interaction types; there is no simple equation between polite forms and polite speakers, and speakers are rational actors in making linguistic choices.


The maximum correlation coefficient between partial sums of independent and identically distributed random variables with finite second moment equals the classical (Pearson) correlation coefficient between the sums, and thus does not depend on the distribution of the random variables. This result is proved, and relations between the linearity of regression of each of two random variables on the other and the maximum correlation coefficient are discussed.


Lyα emitting (LAE) galaxies are thought to be progenitors of present-day L* galaxies. Clustering analyses have suggested that LAEs at z ∼ 3 might evolve into LAEs at z ∼ 2, but it is unclear whether the physical nature of these galaxies is compatible with this hypothesis. Several groups have investigated the properties of LAEs using spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting, but direct comparison of their results is complicated by inconsistencies in the treatment of the data and in the assumptions made in modeling the stellar populations, which are degenerate with the effects of galaxy evolution. By using the same data analysis pipeline and SED fitting software on two stacked samples of LAEs at z = 3.1 and z = 2.1, and by eliminating several systematic uncertainties that might cause a discrepancy, we determine that the physical properties of these two samples of galaxies are dramatically different. LAEs at z = 3.1 are found to be old (age ∼1 Gyr) and metal-poor (Z < 0.2 Z☉), while LAEs at z = 2.1 appear to be young (age ∼50 Myr) and metal-rich (Z > Z☉). The difference in the observed stellar ages makes it very unlikely that z = 3.1 LAEs evolve directly into z = 2.1 LAEs. Larger samples of galaxies, studies of individual objects, and spectroscopic measurements of metallicity at these redshifts are needed to confirm this picture, which is difficult to reconcile with the effects of 1 Gyr of cosmological evolution.


The seminar took place at Dagstuhl from 27 A¢â'¬â€œ 30 April 2008. It was organized by
Roland Kaschek, Lois Delcambre and Heinrich C. Mayr. The seminarA¢â'¬â"¢s purpose was
looking into conceptual modeling from different perspectives, and along different
dimensions: we wanted to achieve a better understanding of conceptual
modeling issues in various domains of discourse, from a historical perspective and
from a view beyond individual (modeling) projects. Consequently we did not focus
on a particular application area or development project.


The superb 1992 cleaning of Mantegna's small painting of Saint Mark ca. 1450 in the Stadelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt removed any doubts as to its authenticity. The painting, transferred from canvas to wood panel at an unknown point in its history, is examined here as an evocative close-up portrait of Mark, rooted in the icon tradition of Venice, intended to convey a message of particular Venetian import. The four-line penned inscription at the bottom of the painting - now almost fully legible - provides an important due to the message. The inscription incorporates the "Pax 1ibi Marce" phrase of the praedestinatio legend: Christ's promise to Mark, while he was still alive, that Venice would be his ultimate resting place, that he and the city would grow great together. The intimate format and the merging of long-established artistic modes and up-to-date artistic ideas circulating in northern Italy - all of it working in the service of a political message - speak of private patronage in high Venetian political/humanist circles.


Thymocytes expressing the NKT cell semi-invariant αβ TCR are thought to undergo agonist interactions with CD1d ligands prior to expressing promyelocytic leukemia zinc finger (PLZF), a broad complex, tramtrack, bric-a-brac, poxvirus, and zinc finger transcription factor that directs acquisition of the effector program of these innate-like T cells. Whether PLZF can mediate this effector conversion independently of agonist signaling has not been investigated. We demonstrated that transgenic (Tg) expression of PLZF under the CD4 promoter induced the innate effector program in two different MHC class II-restricted TCR-Tg Rag1−/− models examined. In CD4 thymocytes expressing a fixed Tg TCR β-chain, the associated TCRα sequences in wild-type and PLZF-Tg mice overlapped extensively, further demonstrating that PLZF could induce the effector program in most CD4 T cells that would normally be selected as naive cells. In contrast, PLZF altered the negative selection of thymocytes expressing TCR β-chains reactive against several retroviral superantigens. Thus, PLZF is remarkable in that it is a transcription factor capable of inducing an effector program in the absence of T cell agonist interactions or cell division. Its expression may also enhance the survival of agonist-signaled thymocytes.


Background The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare activity across a broad range of clinical services. The NHS stopped non-urgent work in March 2020, later recommending services be restored to near-normal levels before winter where possible. Aims Using routinely collected data, our aim was to describe changes in the volume and variation of coded clinical activity in general practice in: (i) cardiovascular disease, (ii) diabetes, (iii) mental health, (iv) female and reproductive health, (v) screening, and (vi) processes related to medication. Design and setting With the approval of NHS England, we conducted a cohort study of 23.8 million patient records in general practice, in-situ using OpenSAFELY. Methods We selected common primary care activity using CTV3 codes and keyword searches from January 2019 - December 2020, presenting median and deciles of code usage across practices per month. Results We identified substantial and widespread changes in clinical activity in primary care since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with generally good recovery by December 2020. A few exceptions showed poor recovery and warrant further investigation, such as mental health, e.g. "Depression interim review" (median across practices in December 2020 -41.6% compared to December 2019). Conclusions Granular NHS GP data at population-scale can be used to monitor disruptions to healthcare services and guide the development of mitigation strategies. The authors are now developing real-time monitoring dashboards for key measures identified here as well as further studies, using primary care data to monitor and mitigate the indirect health impacts of Covid-19 on the NHS.


The maternal foetal prognosis was studied on the basis of data which had been recorded from 56 pregnancies or deliveries of 46 women with congenital cardiac defects. Functional changes of circulation, such as hypoxia, pressure and volume overload, and conduction disorders, were assessed, with reference being made to the classification of the American Heart Association (AHA). In that context, the patients were repeatedly examined during pregnancy and followed up further through two years after delivery. --Maternal prognosis in pregnancy and, consequently, oxidation were found to depend on the kind of congenital heart disease. Reference is made to the favourable role played by cardiac surgery in preventing cardiac complications. Premature birth and retarded foetal development have occurred repeatedly, depending on severity of a congenital heart disease. Enzymological-histological tests are likely to suggest that such consequences were primarily attributable to strongly impaired placental energy production on account of inadequate haemodynamic conditions of the mother. --Proper prognostication of pregnancy will depend for high standards on adequate supervision of delivery, prophylactic use of caesarean section, individual assessment of any single case, and efficient teamwork of obstetricians and cardiologists.


Dynamic ray theory is used to compute the reflection response from a curved surface when the source and receiver are located at the same point. This response has also been computed by Cohen and Bleistein from the Helmholtz formula using the Kirchhoff approximation and the method of multidimensional stationary phase. The same approximation has been derived by Hilterman, and it may also be computed from a simple formula given by Hubral. Ray methods may be applied to the approximate computation of the reflection response from inhomogeneous media with complicated structure. This is not so easily done with methods based on the Kirchhoff approximation of the Helmholtz integral.


The relation modeling between actors and scene context advances video action detection where the correlation of multiple actors makes their action recognition challenging. Existing studies model each actor and scene relation to improve action recognition. However, the scene variations and background interference limit the effectiveness of this relation modeling. In this paper, we propose to select actor-related scene context, rather than directly leverage raw video scenario, to improve relation modeling. We develop a Cycle Actor-Context Relation network (CycleACR) where there is a symmetric graph that models the actor and context relations in a bidirectional form. Our CycleACR consists of the Actor-to-Context Reorganization (A2C-R) that collects actor features for context feature reorganizations, and the Context-to-Actor Enhancement (C2A-E) that dynamically utilizes reorganized context features for actor feature enhancement. Compared to existing designs that focus on C2A-E, our CycleACR introduces A2C-R for a more effective relation modeling. This modeling advances our CycleACR to achieve state-of-the-art performance on two popular action detection datasets (i.e., AVA and UCF101-24). We also provide ablation studies and visualizations as well to show how our cycle actor-context relation modeling improves video action detection. Code is available at https://github.com/MCG-NJU/CycleACR.


Desmutagenicity of various types of commercial ripened cheese against the mutagenicity of an amino acid pyrolysate, Trp-P 1, using the streptomycin-dependent strain (SD510) of Salmonella typhimurium TA 98, was studied. All kinds of cheese showed high desmutagenicity and were dose-dependent. The desmutagenicity of Camembert, Blue, Emmental, Gruyere and Pont-1' Eveque cheeses using secondary starter were higher than those of Cheddar, Gouda, Edam and Parmesan cheeses using only lactic acid bacteria as starter. Especially among the cheeses tested, the desmutagenicity of Camembert and Blue cheeses showed a rapid increase with increase in the amount of cheese suspensions, and reached a maximum of 100% at 150 and 250μl of cheese suspensions, respectively.


Prolactin (PRL) has been shown to be involved in the differentiation and proliferation of numerous tissues, including the prostate gland. Moreover, variations in [Ca2+]ER (calcium concentration within the endoplasmic reticulum) may play a role in cell growth. However, few studies have focused on the regulation of calcium homoeostasis by prolactin. The present study evaluates the regulation of calcium pools as well as the possible role of [Ca2+]ER variations as a signal for growth modulation by PRL. We show that PRL stimulates the proliferation of normal SV40 immortalized epithelial prostate (PNT1A) cells with a maximum effect at a dose of 100 ng/ml. We also show that 100 ng/ml PRL increases the [Ca2+]ER when measured either by indirect quantification with Fura-2AM after application of 1 mM thapsigargin or by direct quantification with Mag-Fura-2AM within the endoplas-mic reticulum. Western blot analysis shows that the SERCA 2b (sarcoendoplasmic calcium ATPase 2b) is over-expressed in PNT1A cells treated with 100 ng/ml PRL for 24 h. A small inter-fering RNA SERCA 2a/b, used to down-regulate endogenous SERCA 2b expression, reduced both PNT1A cell proliferation and [Ca2+]ER. We thus identify [Ca2+]ER and SERCA 2b as protagonists in PRL-induced proliferation.


The improvement of women's educational outcomes throughout the latter part of the twentieth century was a cause for celebration as women closed the gap in achievement on all levels, but particularly in attending and graduating from college. As the gap closed in the mid-1970s, however, women's rates of college attainment continued to rise at a higher pace than men's, to the point where now, women account for 55% of the student body in U.S. colleges and universities. While this trend represents tremendous success on the part of women, the stagnancy of men's college attainment has only begun to be recognized. This stagnancy will soon take on a new urgency due to the reduction of manufacturing jobs in the United States in the last decade and the resultant decline in career prospects for non-college educated men. This thesis draws upon and tests previous theories of the college attainment gender gap, applying several statistical models to a dataset, the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which has not been previously used to address this issue. The study finds that controlling for race/ethnicity and family background characteristics among high school graduates, women enter college at a rate iii approximately ten percentage points higher than men. The gap is largest for black students, and smallest for non-black, non-Hispanic students. When controlling for high school academic performance in addition to the above factors, the gender gap is reduced to approximately six percentage points. Additionally, when adding controls for a set of variables indicating non-cognitive skills, the gap is further reduced to near three percentage points. The study also finds that the gap in college attainment is attenuated as time goes on. The gender gap is considerably higher when measuring college attainment by age nineteen than it is when measuring attainment by age twenty-three. This narrowing could be attributable to several explanations: boys being more likely to be held back a year in school; boys starting school at a later age; or young men being more likely to wait at least a year between high school graduation and college enrollment. This thesis adds to the literature on college attainment by gender, and it provides an early example of the potential to examine these questions with the NLSY97 dataset. The findings of this study support several theories proffered by previous researchers and provide several avenues for further study of this important policy question.


We have read the original article by Gibis et al. with interest. For the subject areas "compatibility of work and family life" and "career aspirations," this nationwide survey showed similar results to a survey conducted by our working group from the Baden-Wurttemberg General Practice Competence Center (1– 3). This survey was conducted among medical students in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg (n=12 062, response rate 11%) with a validated questionnaire (1). In contrast to the study reported by Gibis et al, this questionnaire provides only a single-choice answer to the question of which specialty the respondent wants to embark on. The six most popular specialties were internal medicine (11.7%), gynecology (9.8%), pediatrics (9.6%), surgery (8.9%), anesthesiology (7.8%, and general practice (6.8%).

A comparison of the surveys shows a clear overlap of the top positions, with our data showing notably more students with an interest in gynecology and fewer for general practice. On the other hand, the comparison with the results of our study also entails a possibility of misinterpretation of the study data reported by Gibis et al., which results from the study method (multiple responses allowed for the specialty of choice). Altogether, as the presented data suggest, we can certainly expect far fewer interested students for the different specialties. The proportions for the specialty of choice in our data were all below 11%—not enough to meet demand in the main specialties.

All specialties should work in equal measures to present their discipline as attractive at the universities and to entice future generations of doctors into posts accordingly. Especially for general practice this is a competition with a handicap if one remembers that to date, only half of all medical faculties in Germany actually hold a chair for general practice.


Today, substantial amounts of pelagic Sargassum algae beach along the Caribbean basin. The objective of this research is the exploration of the two main species of Sargasum present in Guadeloupe (Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans) as a source of natural products, and innovative biomaterials.
The first part of this work was focused on the methodological study of extractive treatment of both species of Sargassum. Several successive extractions were explored, working with three organic solvents hexane, dichloromethane and methanol, two different extractive times (24 and 48 hours), and at two temperatures (room temperature and solvent reflux temperature). The analysis of the relevance of each parameter was analyzed.
A metabolomic study, on targeted analyses of the polyphenolic content was developed in collaboration with the team of Professor David Wishard (TMIC laboratory, University of Alberta, Canada), identifying the presence of several natural polyhenols in both species. The study of the antioxidant is in progress in collaboration with the team of Professor Remi Neviere (Cardiopulmonary Functional Explorations) at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire from Martinique.
In parallel, the extraction of alginates from the extractive residues was achieved, obtaining these natural polymers with an overall good yield.
Finally the algae residues post extraction was explored to developed innovative potential applications, as for example the production of active charcoal or mineral additives for geopolymeric materials.


A perceived conflict of interest in going private transactions can occur when a company transfers ownership and control to affiliated parties and terminates its public status. For example, conflict can occur if acquiring owners and selling owners have dissimilar information and competing incentives. These deals are subject to mandatory disclosure requirements to inform shareholders before the transaction is put to a general vote. However, the expected incremental role of these disclosures is uncertain. We demonstrate that disclosure volume is positively associated with the likelihood of closing a deal. However, we also find that disclosure volume is positively associated with two proxies for the intensity of shareholders' negotiations: upward price revisions and litigation. Our findings offer insights into the incremental benefits and costs of disclosure in this setting. Specifically, increased disclosure can facilitate the completion of going private deals and exiting shareholders can use it to negotiate better terms.


Analysis of the state of affairs and causes behind the refurbishing and rehabilitation project of the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid between 2006 and 2014. Exposition of the procedures accomplished, and presentation of the interventions carried on by the Museum during the refurbishing period.


Rats fed low-protein rations increased food intake, weight gain and gain in lean body mass when forced to expend energy by low environmental temperature or exercise (swimming). Rats fed low-protein rations with a higher proportion of fat in their weight gain had a greater food intake and gain in lean body mass. Therefore, gain in lean body mass was improved not only by stimulating energy loss by cold environment or exercise but by an innate ability to deposit more fat in the weight gain, because of an increased food intake, and hence protein intake.


A very simple method based on electrical conductivity and pH measurements was proposed for assessing reactivity of pozzolans. Calcium hydroxide:pozzolan water suspensions were monitored by means of measurements of electrical conductivity and pH values. In these suspensions, Ca(OH)2 in solid state was initially present, being them, thus, saturated in this reagent. Three testing temperatures were selected (40, 50 and 60 °C). In the experiments carried out, calcium hydroxide was suspended in deionized water for yielding a lime saturated suspension. The addition of siliceous pozzolan (two types of rice husk ash RHA and two types of densified silica fume DSF were tested) to the saturated lime suspension can produce the unsaturation of the system, depending on the testing time, testing temperature and reactivity of pozzolan. When unsaturation was reached, the loss of electrical conductivity was higher than 30% and the variation of pH was higher than 0.15 units. These threshold values were selected for characterizing the reactivity of pozzolans by means of a proposed template, classifying the pozzolan in three different reactivity levels.


We report here atomic force microscopy experiments designed to uncover the nature of failure mechanisms occuring within the process zone at the tip of a crack propagating into a silica glass specimen under stress corrosion. The crack propagates through the growth and coalescence of nanoscale damage spots. This cavitation process is shown to be the key mechanism responsible for damage spreading within the process zone. The possible origin of the nucleation of cavities, as well as the implications on the selection of both the cavity size at coalescence and the process zone extension are finally discussed.


ABSTRACT Kim, S,-K.; Kim, J.-C., and Choi, J.-Y., 2020. The effect of laver-farming on the distribution of copepod community in the west coast of Korea. In: Jung, H.-S.; Lee, S.; Ryu, J.-H., and Cui, T. (eds.), Advances in Geospatial Research of Coastal Environments. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 102, pp. 63-68. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. To understand the effect of farms on copepod communities in the coastal marine environment, this study investigated the environmental variables and copepod communities in June 2016 in the coastal region adjacent to the Geum River estuary. Copepod communities were more abundant in laver farms than in areas not covered by laver farms, due to the availability of various food sources and low predation risks. Although laver farms had low abundance (cells/mL) of phytoplankton, they were observed to have high species diversity. This provides an environment in which a variety of food items is available for copepod communities. Moreover, fishes were more abundant in the areas not occupied by farms than in laver farms. the complex habitat structure created by abundant laver, as well as frequent human interference in laver farms, has a negative impact on the distribution of fish communities. However, the abundance of copepod communities in laver farms is important for a continuous supplement to the diet of fishes in the marine environment, where food sources are likely to be depleted. Thus, the positive effects of laver farms on copepod communities can greatly contribute to the population growth of fishes and to the sustainability of copepod communities in the coastal marine environment. However, the artificial disturbances that frequently occur in laver farms are likely to lead to eutrophication and various types of water pollution in the coastal marine environment, so proper control and management of human activity are required.


Summary Objectives: The goal of this article is to examine whether W3C XML Schema provides a practicable solution for the semantic validation of standard-based electronic health record (EHR) documents. With semantic validation we mean that the EHR documents are checked for conformance with the underlying archetypes and reference model. Methods: We describe an approach that allows XML Schemas to be derived from archetypes based on a specific naming convention. The archetype constraints are augmented with additional components of the reference model within the XML Schema representation. A copy of the EHR document that is transformed according to the before-mentioned naming convention is used for the actual validation against the XML Schema. Results: We tested our approach by semantically validating EHR documents conformant to three different ISO/EN 13606 archetypes respective to three sections of the CDA implementation guide "Continuity of Care Document (CCD)" and an implementation guide for diabetes therapy data. We further developed a tool to automate the different steps of our semantic validation approach. Conclusions: For two particular kinds of archetype prescriptions, individual transformations are required for the corresponding EHR documents. Otherwise, a fully generic validation is possible. In general, we consider W3C XML Schema as a practicable solution for the semantic validation of standard-based EHR documents.


Angiogenesis depends on growth factors and vascular cell adhesion events. Integrins and growth factors are capable of activating the ras/MAP kinase pathway in vitro, yet how these signals influence endothelial cells during angiogenesis is unknown. Upon initiation of angiogenesis with basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM), endothelial cell mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase (ERK) activity was detected as early as 5 min yet was sustained for at least 20 h. The initial wave of ERK activity (5–120 min) was refractory to integrin antagonists, whereas the sustained activity (4–20 h) depended on integrin αvβ3, but not β1 integrins. Inhibition of MAP kinase kinase (MEK) during this sustained αvβ3-dependent ERK signal blocked the formation of new blood vessels while not influencing preexisting blood vessels on the CAM. Inhibition of MEK also blocked growth factor induced migration but not adhesion of endothelial cells in vitro. Therefore, angiogenesis depends on sustained ERK activity regulated by the ligation state of both a growth factor receptor and integrin αvβ3.


Variant muscle slips arising from the pectoralis major or the latissimus dorsi muscle have been described before. Here in these report, we present a rare case of aberrant muscular slip originating from the pectoralis major called as the "thoracoepicondylaris" and an unusual slip from the latissimus dorsi called as "axillary arch of Langer" to have a common insertion after arching superficial to the axillary neurovascular bundle into the fascia covering the biceps brachii. Clinical consideration of such a variation is discussed since the knowledge of the muscle is important for differential diagnosis.


Passive oxide layers on metal substrates impose remarkable interfacial resistance for electron and phonon transport. Here, a scalable surface activation process is presented for the breakdown of the passive oxide layer and the formation of nanowire/nanopyramid structured surfaces on metal substrates, which enables high-efficiency catalysis of high-crystallinity carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and the direct integration of the CNT-metal hierarchical architectures with flexible free-form configurations. The CNT-metal hierarchical architecture facilitates a dielectric free-energy-carrier transport pathway and blocks the reformation of passive oxide layer, and thus demonstrates a 5-fold decrease in interfacial electrical resistance with 66% increase in specific surface area compared with those without surface activation. Moreover, the CNT-metal hierarchical architectures demonstrate omnidirectional blackbody photoabsorption with the reflectance of 1 × 10-5 over the range from ultraviolet to terahertz region, which is 1 order of magnitude lower than that of any previously reported broadband absorber material. The synergistically incorporated CNT-metal hierarchical architectures offer record-high broadband optical absorption with excellent electrical and structural properties as well as industrial-scale producibility.


This paper describes a new system to detect defects on the cam shafts of automobiles. The theory, based on laser scattering, is studied first, and then its feasibility is confirmed through basic experiments and simulations. Next, an inspection system is designed and built to verify the effectiveness of the method. The line laser, employed as a light source, illuminates the cam surface and its grey-scale image appears on a CCD as a white line, on which the missing part can be detected when there is a defect. The experimental results show that there is a big correlation between the size of the defect and the missing width. By scanning the laser over the entire surface of the cam shaft, the size and the shape of the defect was measured.


ABSTRACT Degree of franchisor intrusiveness, the nature of the franchise agreement, and financial arrangements with the franchisor are three areas of concern for aspiring entrepreneurs considering business format franchising as a vehicle for their initial venture. The authors argue that the setting or environment, in which the franchise is to be launched will affect perceptions about the three areas of concern regarding franchisor power. The article reviews the current literature on franchisee/franchisor relationships and develops the concept of environmental setting for franchised units. Survey data from groups of aspiring entrepreneurs in Taiwan and the United States are used to test the authors' thesis. INTRODUCTION Aspiring entrepreneurs (AEs) must select a business vehicle to launch their ideas. The basic choice is starting, or acquiring, a business. An acquisition may be an independent business or one that is part of a more formal business system. Businesses may be organized at any point on a continuum from totally independent and autonomous (mom and pop restaurant) to highly structured and formalized (franchisee in large restaurant chain). One of the key variables affecting the AEs choice of business form is his/her perception of the degree of power in the chosen channel system. It is probable that the AE accepts an initial subordinate position within the channel power structure, realizing that new entries cannot immediately be the locus of significant power or influence. But, the AE will be concerned with the nature of power within the system he/she is joining. Concerns over how strong power may be, how it is administered, and how secure the key power source is, should be on the mind of any new entrepreneur. Past research points to two possible opinions about distribution channel power. In the classic model, channel power was possessed by the manufacturer, who chose channel members who would cooperate by profitably selling to end users. Porter (1980) and economists generally have emphasized power as a controlling device within distribution channels. Power was based on size of the seller, or market dominance, and access to resources (Brill, 1994; Finley, 1984; Wilkinson, 1996). This school of thought presents power as threatening to the powerless and carries negative connotations for the AE. More recendy, a second school of thought has emerged that casts channel power in a more positive light. The newer definition uses concepts of 'partnering' and 'strategic alliances' to describe the relationship between the powerful and the powerless. Linking up with a powerful channel member is positive, something that AEs should strive for. Working with a dominant channel member will ensure security, longevity for the entire system, and a profitable partnership for all involved (Drucker, 1997; Wilkinson, 1996; Zietlow, 1995). FRANCHISING SYSTEMS The business format franchising system is a lucid example of channel power. Business format franchising occurs when a franchisee replicates the entire business concept of a franchisor, including business plans, marketing strategy, operating methods, and standards of quality control. This type of franchising is distinguished from situations where the franchisee merely acts as a distributor for a franchisor's product. It is often argued (Storholm & Scheuing, 1994) that because the franchise agreement originates with the franchisor, power is skewed toward the franchisor. Conventional indicators of channel power in franchising systems usually point to the franchisor. Such things as corporate size, degree of vertical integration, number of company stores versus franchised stores, and dominance of brand recognition, usually point to more power for the franchisor over the franchisee. The principal thesis of the research reported here is that an AEs attraction to franchising is a function of his/her perception of franchisor power. …


AbstractAlthough dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) is a well-defined tool for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD), false-negative and false-positive results still occur. This study investigated the diagnostic role of layer-specific analysis using 2-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) during DSE.A total of 121 patients who underwent DSE and showed normal wall motion and ejection fraction during baseline echocardiography were enrolled. All patients underwent coronary angiography after DSE within 2 weeks. The patients were divided into the following 4 groups according to DSE results and CAD status: negative DSE with no significant CAD (n = 73), positive DSE with significant CAD (n = 16), negative DSE with significant CAD (n = 17), and positive DSE with no significant CAD (n = 15). Layer-specific global longitudinal strain (GLS) was assessed in the endocardium, mid-myocardium, and epicardium by STE techniques.Patients with significant CAD were older, more male and showed higher glucose level compared to patients without CAD. But coronary risk factors and previous medications were not different between patients with and without CAD. There were no significant differences in whole myocardium or layer-specific GLS found in the baseline echocardiography. During recovery echocardiography, endocardial GLS was significantly different between patients with and without CAD, regardless of the DSE results. A receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis showed that endocardial GLS (>−16%) was superior for identifying significant CAD during the DSE recovery stage. Diagnostic accuracy was improved by applying the results of endocardial GLS compared with visual estimation of DSE.The assessment of layer-specific strain by STE during DSE was feasible, and the evaluation of poststress endocardial function is a more sensitive tool for the detection of CAD.


The objective of this research work is to carry out the phytochemical screening and evaluate the antibacterial, antitubercular activities of Peganum harmala Linn., seeds. Due to the development of resistance in the microorganisms against available drugs there is a need to develop new, potent, fast-acting antibacterial and antitubercular drugs with low toxicity. In this study different extracts of Peganum harmala (Linn) seeds were evaluated for antibacterial and antitubercular activities against different gram-positive, gram-negative bacterial strains and Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain H37Rv using ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and pyrazinamide as standard drugs respectively. Ethyl acetate extract showed significant activity against Streptococuus faecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, M. tuberculosis strain H37Rv and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, while this extract was found to show moderate activity against Escherichia coli. Alcoholic extract has showed significant activity against M. tuberculosis strain H37Rv, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, while this extract has shown moderate activity against Bacillus subtilis and Streptococuus faecalis. The ethyl acetate and alcoholic extracts can be considered as a potential candidates for antibacterial and antitubercular activities. The presence of alkaloids, flavonoids in alcoholic extract and alkaloids, steroids, flavonoids in ethyl acetate extract of Peganum harmala (Linn) seeds could be attributed for the antibacterial and antitubercular activities.


In the past couple of years, efforts have lead toward the convergence of two established software packages: Neper, developed primarily at CNRS and Mines Saint-Étienne, and FEPX, developed historically at the Deformation Process laboratory at Cornell University and (since 2020) at the Advanced Computational Materials Engineering Laboratory at the University of Alabama. The objective was to create an extensive and homogeneous ensemble for polycrystal plasticity studies that includes polycrystal generation and meshing, parallel finite-element crystal-plasticity simulation, post-processing and visualization. The two programs were upgraded to common standards, both in terms of usage and resources. Collectively, the project is under active development and distributed under free / open-source license (see both: https://neper.info, https://fepx.info).


Recent legal scholarship has grappled with how states and communities can best balance risk management and liberty in their responses to catastrophic events such as pandemics, bioterrorist attacks, and other public health emergencies. However, this scholarship lacks a historical perspective. This Article helps to fill that gap by examining the worst epidemic in American history - the 1918 influenza outbreak. The Article introduces a framework that links local responses to the catastrophe with corresponding public health and political theories. This historical analysis suggests that public health officials are best situated to assess in the first instance the risks of a disease or health emergency; however, as citizens have more time to consider the crisis and its consequences, they may prove to have the best vantage point from which to deliberate and balance between their health and their freedoms. Methodologically, the Article draws from a range of disciplines, including social history, legal history, political theory, and cognitive psychology.


Background: Many noninvasive models based on serum markers composition are used for the assessment of liver fibrosis, reducing the need for liver biopsy. However, most of the models have rarely been validated in Chinese hepatitis B patients. We aim to evaluate and validate chronic hepatitis B(CHB) patients with normal ALT, mildly and significantly elevated ALT levels.Methods: This single-center retrospective study enrolled 285 patients with CHB who underwent liver biopsy. There were 156 patients in normal ALT group, 85 patients in mildly elevated ALT group, and 44 patients in significantly elevated ALT group. The diagnostic accuracy of APRI and FIB-4 was evaluated by areas under the characteristic curves (AUROC) using the histological assessment of the fibrosis stages of the biopsy specimens as the standards.Results: Among 285 patients with CHB, 156 patients had normal ALT level, of which 65 (41.7%) had significant fibrosis(S2-4). The evaluation of significant fibrosis, AUROC in APRI and FIB-4 were 0.608, 0.634, 0.708 and 0.638, 0.679, 0.734 in normal ALT, mildly and significantly elevated ALT, respectively. The assessment of advanced fibrosis, AUROC in APRI and FIB-4 were 0.636, 0.751, 0.708 and 0.652, 0.763, 0.734 in normal ALT, mildly and significantly elevated ALT groups, respectively. Conclusions: APRI and FIB-4 may not be ideal noninvasive markers for evaluating liver fibrosis in Chinese HBV-infected patients with normal ALT levels. Compared with HBV-infected patients with normal ALT, APRI and FIB-4 had high accuracies in diagnosing liver fibrosis in patients with mildly and significantly elevated ALT.


In this digital age of news consumption, a news reader has the ability to react, express and share opinions with others in a highly interactive and fast manner. As a consequence, fake news has made its way into our daily life because of very limited capacity to verify news on the Internet by large companies as well as individuals. In this paper, we focus on solving two problems which are part of the fact-checking ecosystem that can help to automate fact-checking of claims in an ever increasing stream of content on social media. For the first problem, claim check-worthiness prediction, we explore the fusion of syntactic features and deep transformer Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) embeddings, to classify check-worthiness of a tweet, i.e. whether it includes a claim or not. We conduct a detailed feature analysis and present our best performing models for English and Arabic tweets. For the second problem, claim retrieval, we explore the pre-trained embeddings from a Siamese network transformer model (sentence-transformers) specifically trained for semantic textual similarity, and perform KD-search to retrieve verified claims with respect to a query tweet.


The article develops a new understanding of neoliberal security provision on the basis of available accounts of three different "states"; the penal state, the regulatory state, and the activating welfare state. I argue that these forms of state intervention provide individuals with security in the sense that anxiety is temporarily alleviated, while stabilizing the conflictual dynamic of global power structures. Marketization and organizational control account for the specifically neoliberal character. Such an understanding matters because it directs attention to the dynamic between state practices and individual experience, and the multitude of mechanisms, which not only promise but also provide security, however temporary and partial.


To evaluate the impact of BRCA1/2 testing and disclosure of a positive test result on women affected and unaffected with cancer. Longitudinal cohort study including women affected and unaffected with breast or ovarian cancer testing for a BRCA1/2 mutation. Data on well‐being (anxiety, depression, cancer related distress, general health), treatment choice, and decision making about cancer prevention were collected at baseline (1 week after blood sampling; affected n = 192, unaffected n = 176) and at follow‐up (2 weeks after disclosure of a positive test result; affected n = 23, unaffected n = 66). Women affected and unaffected with breast or ovarian cancer were compared using univariate statistics. Change over time was examined using repeated measures analysis of variance. With respect to well‐being, affected women scored worse at baseline. At follow‐up, both affected and unaffected women experienced a decline in well‐being, which tended to be stronger in affected women. Women diagnosed with cancer less than 1 year previously tended to report a worse well‐being than those diagnosed longer ago. With respect to treatment choice, more affected women intended to obtain prophylactic surgery and valued it higher at both time points. With respect to decision making, affected women had a lower preference for participation in decision making at baseline; no differences were found at follow‐up. At follow‐up, both affected and unaffected women showed an increase in strength of treatment preference and a decrease in decision uncertainty. Disclosure of a positive test result had a negative impact on well‐being. Affected women, especially those who have been recently diagnosed with cancer, experienced the worst well‐being and could benefit from psychosocial support. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Breathing patterns early and late in the night, at the same sleep stage, were compared in six healthy subjects and 15 adults with nocturnal asthma, to try to identify changes of overnight bronchoconstriction, and breathing patterns at different sleep stages, to see whether there were changes related to sleep stages that were indicative of bronchoconstriction. Despite an average 31% fall in FEV1 overnight in the patients with asthma, neither breathing frequency nor expiratory time, which might be expected to change during bronchoconstriction, was different early in the night from late in the night, nor did they differ between sleep stages. There was no evidence of asynchronous movement of the chest and abdomen in any patient. This study did not identify any abnormality of breathing pattern that would indicate the development of nocturnal asthma without the need to awaken the patient.


Jealousy is an adaptive emotional reaction that signals threat to the current romantic relationship and motivates the person to protect that relationship. Given that jealousy is a mechanism of sensitivity to signals of relational threat, it was predicted that neurobiological systems of fight-flight- -freeze (FFFS) and behavioral inhibition (BIS) would be positively correlated with emotional jealousy. It was also predicted that these associations would be stronger in individuals highly committed to their relationships. We examined the mediatory role of approach-avoidance social goals in relations between BIS, FFFS, behavioral activation system (BAS), and the experience of jealousy. The present study was conducted on a group of 217 participants aged between 17 and 36 years, involved in romantic relationships. The results showed that the sensitivity of BIS and the freeze system (FFFS) was correlated positively with the intensity of jealousy. Commitment appeared to moderate the relations between FFFS and the intensity of jealousy. Avoidance social goals mediated the relation between BIS and the intensity of jealousy.


Background Prostate cancer screening is controversial; treatment of early stage cancer has uncertain benefits, and complications are likely. Physician-patient discussions about PSA testing may be brief or absent. We investigated men's familiarity and experiences with PSA testing, and perceived benefits and barriers. Methods In the context of the multi-site CRN study "Health Literacy and Cancer Prevention" men aged 40–70 were interviewed about knowledge, attitudes and experiences related to PSA testing. Results: Of 437 men queried, 69% had heard of a PSA test, and 51% knew what type of cancer it tested for. 246 men had/intended PSA screening (PSA-accepters). The most common reasons cited for screening were physician recommendation (62%), age appropriateness (49%), and prostate-related symptoms (12%). 21 men had not been/did not intend to be tested (PSA-decliners); reasons included no physician recommendation (33%), age (19%), and no prostate issues (10%). Most men (83%) would find a normal result reassuring, and most (80%) believed a PSA test would reduce their chances of dying from prostate cancer; accepters held stronger beliefs about these benefits than decliners (p<.10). Overall, 24% would be nervous about what a PSA test might find and 13% agreed having a PSA test is unpleasant. The latter belief (but not the former) was stronger in PSA-decliners than accepters (p<.05). There were no statistically significant differences between PSA-accepters and decliners on health literacy test scores, however those who did not know what sort of cancer a PSA test screened for scored lower than those who did (p<.05). Overall, 35% of men had read or been given conflicting information about PSA testing; these men were more likely to report mixed feelings about PSA testing, would be less likely to find a normal result reassuring, and were less likely to believe that PSA testing reduces chances of dying from prostate cancer (p<.05). Conclusions Many men in this study were unfamiliar with PSA testing. Most believed that PSA testing would reduce their chances of dying from prostate cancer, and were not aware of conflicting information about PSA testing. Patient education about PSA testing is needed.


This paper describes the implementation and performance evaluation of three noise estimation algorithms using two different signal decomposition methods: a second-generation wavelet transform and a perceptual wavelet packet transform. These algorithms, which do not require the use of a speech activity detector or signal statistics learning histograms, are: a smoothing-based adaptive technique, a minimum variance tracking-based technique and a quantile-based technique. The paper also proposes a new and robust noise estimation technique, which utilises a combination of the quantile-based and smoothing-based algorithms. The performance of the latter technique is then evaluated and compared to those of the above three noise estimation methods under various noise conditions. Reported results demonstrate that all four algorithms are capable of tracking both stationary and nonstationary noise adequately but with varying degree of accuracy.


Background: The U.S. FDA has the authority to limit the nicotine content of cigarettes; however, there are concerns that reduced nicotine cigarettes will be smokedmore intensely and, therefore, will increase exposure to toxic chemicals in smoke. This study examined changes in consumer behavior and exposure in response to cigarettes with substantially reduced nicotine content. Methods: Seventy-two adult smokers completed an unblinded trial of reduced nicotine cigarettes. Participants completed a 7-day baseline period during which they smoked their usual cigarette brand, followed by consecutive 7-day periods smoking cigarettes with progressively lower nicotine levels (0.6, 0.3, and 0.05 mg emission Quest cigarettes). Nicotine dependence and withdrawal, smoking behavior, and biomarkers of exposure were assessed for each 7-day period. Results: Significant reductions in nicotine intake were observed between usual brand smoking ( 1.2 mg nicotine) and the 0.3 and 0.05mgnicotine emission cigarettes, but not the 0.6mg cigarette. The findings provide little evidence of compensatory smoking of Quest cigarettes, with no increases in exhaled breath carbon monoxide levels, smoking intensity, or levels of 1-hydroxypyrene across study periods. No significant differences were observed for smoking urges or measures of nicotine dependence. Conclusions: The study adds to the evidence that cigarettes withmarkedly reduced nicotine content are not associated with increased smoking intensity or exposure to smoke toxicants. Impact: The findings add to the evidence base on reduced nicotine content cigarettes and have the potential to inform FDA policy on nicotine levels. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 23(10); 2032–40. 2014 AACR.


The conformations of five doubly neo-confused porphyrin structures and fifty-four neo-confused N-confused porphyrin (neo-C-NCP) tautomers were minimized using DFT-B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p). The relative stabilities of the tautomers for each series were computed using M06-2X and B3LYP-D functionals, and the bond lengths and bond angles were calculated. Nucleus-independent chemical shifts and anisotropy of induced current density plots were used to provide further insights into the diatropic properties of each species. The results demonstrate that porphyrinoid structures with two modified rings of this type are far less stable than porphyrins, N-confused porphyrins, or neo-confused porphyrins, but the fully conjugated tautomers retain highly diatropic characteristics. Nevertheless, the lowest-energy neo-C-NCP tautomers have similar relative energies to known doubly N-confused porphyrins, and the results suggest that these types of porphyrin isomers may be synthetically accessible.


Abstract : Controlled electromagnetic (EM) measurements were conducted with a ship towed electric bipole source and fixed electric and magnetic field sensor units that were deployed on the seafloor in 62 meters of water near Eureka, California. The objective was to determine the electrical properties of the marine sediments to depths greater than 20 meters. The survey site was positioned in a region that had been investigated by numerous shallow geologic and geophysical studies. Data was interpreted for a one-dimensional conductivity structure with an iterative least square scheme. The electrical properties interpreted from the EM measurements have been compared with the available bottom towed EM soundings in the area.


PURPOSE
Investigate the correlation of SSDE with organ dose in a pediatric population.

METHODS
Four anthropomorphic phantoms, representing a range of pediatric body habitus, were scanned with MOSFET dosimeters placed at 23 organ locations to determine absolute organ dosimetry. Phantom organ dosimetry was divided by phantom SSDE to determine correlation between organ dose and SSDE. Correlation factors were then multiplied by patient SSDE to estimate patient organ dose. Patient demographics consisted of 352 chest and 241 abdominopelvic CT examinations, 22 ± 15 kg (range 5-55 kg) mean weight, and 6 ± 5 years (range 4 mon to 23 years) mean age. Patient organ dose estimates were compared to published pediatric Monte Carlo study results.

RESULTS
Phantom effective diameters were matched with patient population effective diameters to within 4 cm. 23 organ correlation factors were determined in the chest and abdominopelvic region across nine pediatric weight subcategories. For organs fully covered by the scan volume, correlation in the chest (average 1.1; range 0.7-1.4) and abdominopelvic (average 0.9; range 0.7-1.3) was near unity. For organs that extended beyond the scan volume (i.e., skin, bone marrow, and bone surface), correlation was determined to be poor (average 0.3; range: 0.1-0.4) for both the chest and abdominopelvic regions, respectively. Pediatric organ dosimetry was compared to published values and was found to agree in the chest to better than an average of 5% (27.6/26.2) and in the abdominopelvic region to better than 2% (73.4/75.0).

CONCLUSION
Average correlation of SSDE and organ dosimetry was found to be better than ± 10% for fully covered organs within the scan volume. This study provides a list of organ dose correlation factors for the chest and abdominopelvic regions, and describes a simple methodology to estimate individual pediatric patient organ dose based on patient SSDE.


The short‐term storage of salmonid semen is a viable method for in vitro fertilisation. Previous studies have found that short‐term storage affects sperm motility, compromising quality and fertilising capacity. However, the functional characteristics of the spermatozoa of O. mykiss during storage time and its relation to the spawning period are little known. This study was designed to evaluate the effects of in vitro short‐term storage on sperm functional parameters in O. mykiss, determined by flow cytometry. Semen samples of the first spawning – undiluted (SSD) and diluted (SD) (Storfish® 1 : 2v/v; IMV AI solutions, France) – were stored at 4 °C for 14 days. Motility, viability (PMI: plasma membrane integrity) and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨM) were assessed. On the fifth day of storage, spermatozoa showed a motility >70% (SSD: 78.3% versus SD 85.0%), PMI (81.5% SSD/87.2% SD) and ΔΨM (72.5% SSD/SD 80.0%) (P < 0.05). However, a significant decline in the percentage of all functional parameters (P < 0.05) was observed after 5 days of storage for all samples of both undiluted (SSD) and diluted semen. In conclusion, the results here provide new data on O. mykiss sperm quality with respect to in vitro short‐term storage evaluated by flow cytometry.


The purpose to reform the then Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) into Malaysian Anti-Corruption
Commission (MACC) is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of its
anti-corruption efforts as well as to improve perception of independence and
transparency of the functions of the Commission (2009 MACC Annual Report).
However despite 4 years of formation of MACC, the Corruption Perception index
(CPI) by Transparency International (TI) shows Malaysia's ranking slipping away
from number 56 in year 2009 to number 60 in year 2011. The Auditor's General
Report 2011 that was just published shows possible corruption in the public sector,
which does not portray MACC in a credible position. Is it true that the new act,
Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 does give the Commission more
autonomy and power so that they can execute their operation independently and in a
more effective manner? Hence, this research, studies the differences of th~
jurisdiction power between Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and Malaysia Anti-Corruption
Commission Act 2009. This research also studies the volume of cases recorded,
investigated and solved during the time of ACA and its successor MACC. The result
shows that there is no autonomy given to MACC. MACC still have the same
reporting line as ACA. MACC still do not have the legislative authorization to
prosecute. This inadequacy, in tum will portray the image of MACC as ineffective
and weak. However certain power to expedite and ease the investigation has been
handed to MACC, which before, need to be authorized by the Public Prosecutor. The
volume of cases recorded, investigated and solved shows a mixed result. Some key
information are not reported in the MACC Annual Report which has been reported in
the ACA Annual Report. However, there is an improvement in terms of cases that is
classified as 'no further action' where the numbers has gone down. Numbers of arrest
in giving gratification has also improved parallel to the ·numbers of arrest in accepting
gratification.


An electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is used widely to detect ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VTA) and to diagnose heart disease. Deep learning models and large ECG data have made the diagnosis of VTA an attractive task to demonstrate the power of artificial intelligence in clinical applications. One of the life-threatening complications of VTA is cardiac arrest (CA). The VTA is divided into two categories: ventricular fibrillation (VF) and ventricular tachycardia (VT). Abnormal electrical activity in the ventricle causes VT, which leads to CA, whereas the chaotic electrical activity in the ventricle leads to VF. To improve the clinical diagnostic system and to help cardiologists, it is essential to identify the risk of VTA at an early stage. The goal of this paper is to develop an end-to-end (E2E) deep learning model that uses a convolution neural network (CNN) and a bidirectional long-short term memory network (BiLSTM) to classify VT and VF arrhythmias from multiple ECG databases. The CNN extracts features from ECG signals, and BiLSTM learns information. The ECG signals are acquired from the MIT-BIH malignant ventricular arrhythmia database (VFDB) and the Creighton University VTA database (CUDB). These ECG signals indicate that heart rate variability is a fast and dynamic event. Before the method's implementation, ECG signals are windowed at a fixed size according to annotation information and then normalized within each window. In terms of accuracy and sensitivity, the proposed CNN-BiLSTM deep learning model outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods. These results made it possible to obtain a relatively higher average accuracy (AC) of 99.37%, precision (PE) of 97.12%, a sensitivity (SE) of 98.15%, and F-score (FS) of 98.43%, and an overall accuracy of 99.07%, respectively.


An analysis is made of real-time pricing policies of reactive power using a modification of the OPF (optimal power flow) model. The theory of real-time pricing of reactive power is presented, followed by a case study illustrating the magnitudes and ranges that real-time prices of reactive power might take on under different circumstances. The efficiency implications of real-time pricing of reactive power are compared with traditional power factor penalties. It is concluded that real-time pricing of reactive power should develop simultaneously with that of active power for maximum economic efficiency and smooth operation of the electricity marketplace. >