The life cycle of the apicomplexan protozoon Hepatozoon canis in its natural hosts Rhipicephalus sanguineus (tick) and Canis familiaris (domestic dog) was studied in an experimental infection. Tick nymphs were fed on a naturally infected dog, or they were infected by percutaneous injection of blood. Dogs were inoculated by ingestion of adult ticks containing mature oocysts. Gamonts were in syzygy 24 hr after percutaneous injection of ticks. Early oocysts were detected 96 hr after nymph repletion, and mature oocysts in adult ticks were infective to dogs 40 days postmolt. Merogony was detected in dog bone marrow from 13 days postinoculation (PI) and included meronts containing 20–30 micromerozoites, and a second type with 2–4 macromerozoites. Monozoic cysts were observed in the spleen in conjunction with merogony. Gamontogony with infection of leukocytes by micromerozoites occurred from 26 days PI, and gamont parasitemia, which completed the life cycle, was detected 28 days PI. The length of the life cycle from nymphal attachment to parasitemia in dogs was 81 days. Increased body temperatures were evident from 16 to 27 days PI and paralleled the time of intensive bone marrow merogony. Skeletal pain and recumbency were manifested in 2 dogs. This study further elucidates the life cycle of H. canis and provides a sequential morphologic description of H. canis merogony, gamontogony, and sporogony.


The thickness distribution of grain-boundary films during the superplastic deformation of fine-grained β–silicon nitride was investigated by high-resolution electron microscopy. In particular, grain-boundary thickness was considered with respect to the stress axis in two orientations; namely, parallel and perpendicular to the direction of applied stress. The results showed that the thickness distribution in boundaries perpendicular to the direction of applied stress was unimodal, whereas in parallel boundaries it was bimodal. Moreover, it was found that the majority of film-free boundaries were parallel to the direction of applied stress in the extremely deformed sample. The variation in spacing reflects distribution of stresses within the material due to irregular shape of the grains and the existence of percolating load-bearing paths through the microstructure.


We have used a plane-wave-expansion model to study the out-of-plane propagation of elastic waves in a two-dimensional phononic band-gap material. The case of quartz rods embedded in an epoxy matrix has been computed. Band gaps for nonzero values of the wave-vector component parallel to the rods are shown to exist and are investigated. For wavelengths smaller than the period of the structure, modes are found that are localized in the epoxy intersites, and propagate perpendicularly to the plane of the structure.


In the light of recent advances in 2D turbulence, we investigate the long range predictability problem of atmospheric flows. Using 2D Euler equations, we show that the full nonlinearity acting on a large number of degrees of freedom can, paradoxically, improve the predictability of the large scale motion, giving a picture opposite to the one largely popularized by Lorenz: a small local perturbation of the atmosphere will progressively gain larger and larger scales by nonlinear interaction and will finally cause large scale change in the atmospheric flow.


Coalitions exemplify the fundamental challenge of inducing coherent group behavior from individualistic agent structures. The Collective-Agents (CA) framework rejects the distinction between individual and group deliberation, on a functional basis. Acknowledging that a group does not think using a brain, and an individual brain is not divisible into multiple minds, the CA framework nevertheless seeks an analogous correspondence between the intentional attitudes of individuals and groups alike. Resulting agents are extremely elegant, allowing hierarchical decomposition of coalitions into sub-groups and providing savings in communication costs. More importantly, such principles allow the use of abstract software wrappers for transferring advances in individual planning, control, and scheduling directly to a group setting. After formalizing the framework, we will demonstrate such claims in principle and in an implemented system.


Summary
1.Semi-natural perennial grasslands are of increasing importance as components of multifunctional agroecosystems, combining biomass production with provision of other ecosystem services. Soil legacies from previous land use or exotic species can hinder their establishment, but might be overcome through a multi-stage successional strategy, whereby certain species are used to facilitate native grassland species establishment. We tested this strategy via a feedback experiment examining soil conditioning effects on interference interactions between native and exotic species.

2.Soils in a former maize–soybean production field in Minnesota, USA, were conditioned for three years with native or invasive exotic perennials or a maize–soybean crop rotation. Nitrogen (N) fertilisation was an additional treatment in field plots. In a greenhouse, native and invasive exotic perennial grassland seedlings were grown on these soils, in monoculture and in native–exotic species pairs, with and without N fertilisation. The impact of soil conditioning and field and greenhouse N fertilisation on interactions between native and exotic seedlings in mixture was determined.

3.Neighbouring plants suppressed biomass production in all native and exotic species. The maize–soybean rotation left a soil legacy that enhanced suppression of native species when grown with exotic species, while exotic species suffered no such disadvantage.

4.The strong and specific disadvantage to native species of maize–soybean soils decreased with greenhouse N fertilisation, but remained significant, while field N addition did not alter this effect.

5.Synthesis and applications. We found that the negative soil legacy of the maize–soybean rotation for native plant performance in interaction with exotics was greatly diminished in soils conditioned by native or exotic perennial species, irrespective of nitrogen addition. This highlights the potential value of perennial species in conversion from row-crop agriculture to grasslands, because all perennial species alleviated the enhanced suppression of natives observed on maize–soybean soils. We did not find strong evidence that these perennial species were capable of specifically facilitating native species over exotics, but a broader range of species should be evaluated.

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Utilizing a nationally representative survey of Americans from December 2020, we consider the degree to which COVID-19 risk perceptions are related to political factors. We examine the likelihood that one believes they will be infected with COVID-19, the likelihood that a peer will be infected, and the difference between the individual and peer perceived risks, known as optimism bias, and compare these perceptions across partisan characteristics. Results show that Trump voting category is the most important contributor to perceived COVID-19 risks. We find similar partisan differences as prior research, note that these differences persisted through the end of 2020, despite the post-Thanksgiving surge with high and growing rates of COVID in all regions of the United States. Contrary to prior expectations, partisanship does not strongly predict the level of optimism bias, as both assessed personal and general health risks track closely with one another by both political party and ideology.


Micelle system with reverse phase (water/CTAB/n-hexyl alcohol/n-heptane) is a weenie liquid-globelet of surface active agent molecule which can be stably and uniformly dispersed in continuous oil medium. The micelle system with reverse phase can work as a "micro-reactor" to synthesize CdS nano-particle with excellent performance. In the present article considering the effects of W value (W= [water]/[surface agent]) of the micelle system with reverse phase, we observed that the ratio of [Cd2+] and [S2-] ions to the original concentrations of the Cd2+ and S2- ions can affect the luminescent properties of CdS nano-particle. Using regurgitant treatment process the surface of CdS nano-particle can be modified, and as a result the defect emission was reduced and even disappeared, but exciton emissions markedly increased. On the other hand, a red-shift of the exciton emission peak with the increase in the particle size was observed, indicating considerable quantum confinement effect. A maximum quantum efficiency of 11% for the synthesized CdS nano-material was achieved.


The advance and popularization of the Internet have introduced significant changes to the traditional methods and styles of teaching, learning and studying. Through the use of computer-mediated communication tools, virtual learning environments and online social networks are increasingly present in everyday life, showing great potential in education. This paper presents a context-sensitive Moodle plugin which allows semantic recovery of tweets and resources from external repositories. The result of the information retrieval process is a list of resources ordered by degree of relevance to the query and to the user's interest. Context definition is undertaken by identifying the Moodle discipline in which the user is interacting, along with a discipline associated ontology.


This article describes the approach, implementation and evaluation of a pilot mental health and psychosocial support case management programme that was developed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Syria. The aim was to provide a description of the programme approach, its implementation and outputs. The programme integrates different forms of case management approaches based on a multi-layered, stepped care model. Earlier results of mixed method monitoring and evaluation revealed improvement in wellbeing among programme participants. The step-wise approach indicates, in addition to the positive mental health outcome results, a functional case management system.


As eXtreme programming (XP) has grown in popularity in both academia and industry, pair programming, two programmers collaborating on design, coding and testing, has become a controversial focus of interest. Many researchers and practitioners remain skeptical of claims for the productivity of pair programming. Three controlled experiments, by Nosek, William, and Nawrocki, all reported statistical productivity measurements, but the results were inconsistent and the differences among the results could not be explained because there exists no theoretical framework to articulate pair programming. This paper proposes a cognitive model that describes the programming mechanism and this in turn can be used to explain why and when a pair may outperform two individuals. The model helps explain discrepancies in the results of the above-mentioned experiments. To show how the proposed model can be applied, a psychological experiment was conducted in which twenty-two programmers who were informed only of the experiment and the results of Nosek, and of the descriptions of Williams and Nawrocki, were able to use our model to predict the possible outcomes of the experiments of Williams and Nawrocki.


UNLABELLED
This preliminary treatment trial was performed to evaluate the safety and clinical efficacy of intracavitary therapy with (186)Re-colloid in patients with recurrent otitis media and paranasal sinusitis, resistant to pharmacotherapy and surgical treatment.

METHODS
Thirty-nine applications of 5-35 MBq (186)Re-colloid into the tympanon and the paranasal sinuses were performed in 6 patients. Biodistribution and biokinetics were studied by gamma-camera imaging. Clinical success was documented 6-20 mo after therapy by each patient's self-evaluation and by rhinootologic follow-up, using a 4-step score.

RESULTS
No harmful side effects were seen. There was good-to-excellent clinical improvement with a score of +1.44 +/- 0.5 by each patient's self-evaluation and by physicians scoring of +0.81 +/- 0.9 with only negligible extracranial tracer deposition.

CONCLUSION
This novel treatment option using intracavitary application of (186)Re-colloid in chronic otitis media and sinusitis is safe and effective. The term "radio-tympano-sinu-orthesis" might be proposed analogously to the well-known radiosynoviorthesis.


Poliomyelitis is a very old disease of humans, caused by poliovirus. With appearance of the epidemics in the 20th century, poliomyelitis became a global public health issue. In 1988, the World Health Organization started a campaign for global eradication of poliomyelitis and till now poliomyelitis cases have been reduced by more than 99%. In Croatia, the introduction of vaccination in 1961 resulted in dramatic reduction of paralytic disease. The European region, including Croatia was certified polio free in 2002. However, the final goal of the "polio-free world" has not yet been reached. To reinforce the campaign, the global polio eradication initiative has come up with the Polio Eradication & Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018 with detailed program how to resolve the main challenges: (a) continued transmission of wild polioviruses in endemic reservoirs; (b) reinfection of polio-free areas; and (c) outbreaks due to the circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV). Global oral polio vaccine cessation will follow, with the introduction of universal use of inactivated polio vaccine.


Emphasis has recently been directed upon the clinical importance of "cold growing" (psychrophilic) as well as "gwarm growing" (mesophilic) bacteria as a source of contamination in banked blood (Stevens et al., 1953; Pittman, 1953; Wetterlow et al, 1954). These authors stressed that certain psychrophilic organisms are killed at an incubation temperature of 37 C and that it is therefore important in bacteriological studies on stored blood that a temperature range be selected to insure detection of such organisms. The present authors are not aware of any published results of the use of the newly recommended temperature conditions for routine sterility tests carried on in the course of a normal blood bank operation. This report is a brief summary of the results of bacteriological studies on 213 unselected outdated bloods; the techniques for culturing were designed to detect both mesophilic and psychrophilic organisms. Similar studies on the residual contents in 155 blood bottles returned from the hospital wards following transfusion are ineluded.


A mathematical model is considered to determine the effectiveness of disinfectant solution for surface decontamination. The decontamination process involved the diffusion of bacteria into disinfectant solution and the reaction of the disinfectant killing effect. The mathematical model is a reaction-diffusion type. Finite difference method and method of lines with fourth-order Runge-Kutta method are utilized to solve the model numerically. To obtain stable solutions, von Neumann stability analysis is employed to evaluate the stability of finite difference method. For stiff problem, Dormand-Prince method is applied as the estimated error of fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. MATLAB programming is selected for the computation of numerical solutions. From the results obtained, fourth-order Runge-Kutta method has a larger stability region and better accuracy of solutions compared to finite difference method when solving the disinfectant solution model. Moreover, a numerical simulation is carried out to investigate the effect of different thickness of disinfectant solution on bacteria reduction. Results show that thick disinfectant solution is able to reduce the dimensionless bacteria concentration more effectively


Suspensions of single-walled, double-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were generated in the same solvent at similar concentrations. Films were fabricated from these suspensions and used in carbon nanotube/silicon heterojunction solar cells and their properties were compared with reference to the number of walls in the nanotube samples. It was found that single-walled nanotubes generally produced more favorable results; however, the double and multi-walled nanotube films used in this study yielded cells with higher open circuit voltages. It was also determined that post fabrication treatments applied to the nanotube films have a lesser effect on multi-walled nanotubes than on the other two types.


Fecal examination of 769 goats taken in 1981 from 48 farms in 30 municipalities located throughout Puerto Rico, showed 10 helminths to be common in these goats. The study showed 1.43 percent of these to be positive with Fasciola hepatica eggs. The other helminth eggs found and percent rates of infection were as follows: Oesophagostomum columbianum 65.67, Haemonchus contortus 56.31, Bunostomum trigonocephalum 46.94, Chabertia ovina 24.57, Trichostrongylus capricola 15.60, Ostertagia circumcincta 14.43, Trichuris ovis 10.14, Moniezia expansa 6.39, and Cooperia curticei with 2.21 percent. The intensity ranged from 5 eggs per gram of stool sample as in the case of F. hepatica to 1,500 eggs per gram in T. capricola samples. Moreover, 68.7% of the goats sampled showed concurrent infections of two to eight different parasite species per goat.


Phenotypic identification of cats at risk of developing diabetes has yet to be defined. Burmese cats are reported to have a dyslipidemia and are 3 to 4 times more likely to develop diabetes than other breeds.

To identify plasma metabolite differences between healthy senior Burmese and matched non-Burmese cats ranging from lean to obese, and to determine if significant correlations exist between these metabolites and measures of glucose metabolism, hormonal and biochemical related to diabetes.

Of the 69 cats tested, 49 non-Burmese; 20 lean (BCS 4-5/9), 12 overweight (BCS 6-7/9) and 17 obese (BCS 8-9/9) and 20 were Burmese (6 lean, 12 overweight and 2 obese).

Food was withheld 18 - 24 hours, and a cephalic vein catheter implanted. A venous blood sample was collected and the serum and plasma separated and frozen at _80°C. A glucose tolerance test (glucose 0.5 g/kg) was performed. Biochemical (screening, fasting and 2-hr blood glucose in the glucose tolerance test, triglyceride), hormonal (leptin, adiponectin, leptin:adiponectin ratio, insulin, glucose:insulin ratio) and enzymatic (fPLI, MCP-1) analyses were performed on plasma and serum samples. After extraction, analyses using GC-MS was performed. Linear modeling was used to identify statistically significant (adjusted P-value<0.05) metabolites associated with obesity and whether these responses were affected by sex and age. Pearson correlations were used to identify relationships between metabolites and other parameters.

GC-MS analyses identified 25 metabolites significantly (P < 0.05) different between Burmese and non-Burmese cats. In Burmese cats, metabolites that are involved in amino acid metabolism were either increased (phenylalanine, tyrosine, valine, serine, threonine, cysteine, proline and arginine) or decreased (cysteine, alanine and b-alanine) compared to non-Burmese cats. Some metabolites in carbohydrate metabolism were decreased (glucose, fructose, lactic acid), as were some involved in lipid metabolism (glucose 3 phosphate, phosphoric acid, stearic acid, cholesterol). When these metabolites were correlated with known measures of glucose metabolism, numerous amino acids were positively correlated with insulin and triglyceride (tyrosine, phenylalanine cysteine, proline, glutamine and arginine were all positively correlated with insulin, and tyrosine and phenylalanine were also correlated with triglyceride). These results agreed with human studies where future risk of developing diabetes was found to be associated with these changes in metabolites. The amino acid metabolites alanine, threonine and tyrosine were negatively correlated with adiponectin and glucose and fructose were positively associated with 2-hr blood glucose following a glucose tolerance test. However, some metabolites considered discriminators of impaired fasting glucose and increased in humans at risk of diabetes (phosphoric acid, alanine and stearic acid) were decreased in Burmese cats, as were metabolites of glycerolipid metabolism (glycerate, glycerol 3 phosphate, glucose and fructose).

This study is the first to report metabolite differences between healthy non-Burmese and Burmese cats and identifies some biomarkers involved in amino acid, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism that are altered in Burmese cats in a similar pattern to those identified in humans at risk of diabetes. Further research is required to determine if these are useful as markers of metabolic dysfunction in cats at risk of developing diabetes.


When I developed pains around my rib area recently following a bout of flu, I was convinced I had cracked a rib as this had happened before. I went to a GP who agreed I had either done it again or strained some muscles. So instead of investigating my symptoms I was sent off with painkillers.


The dielectric breakdown model is generalized and adapted to describe electric discharge propagation in inhomogeneous insulators. The influences of the injected space charge, inclusions and barriers with different dielectric permittivities and conductivities are investigated. The growth of bush, dendrite and skeleton types of discharge structure as well as transformations from one type to another are simulated.


Content-based image retrieval has been suggested as an aid to medical diagnosis. Techniques based on standard feature descriptors, however, might not represent optimally the pathological characteristics in medical images. In this paper, we propose a new approach for medical image retrieval based on pathology-centric feature extraction and representation; and patch-based local feature extraction and hierarchical contextual spatial descriptor are designed. The proposed method is evaluated on positron emission tomography - computed tomography (PET-CT) images from subjects with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), showing promising performance improvements over the other benchmarked techniques.


The process of interaction between parents and children includes activities such as educating, maintaining, protecting and directing children's behavior. During development, children learn from their parents. Parents teach various things to their children ranging from talking, walking and so forth. This article aims to describe parenting patterns in motivating children's learning. The method used in this paper is the library research method. The results of this study indicate that the motivation of children will be good if the parenting is done by good parents. The better parenting that parents do, the better the child's motivation to learn. Authoritative parenting (parenting that really gives attention to their children) becomes one of good parenting in fostering children's learning motivation than other parenting.


Plate osteosynthesis is one of the methods that can be used by surgeons to treat patients with bone fractures and irregularities. There are various osteosynthesis plates available commercially, but the most suitable implant with optimum screw configurations is highly subjective and remained a topic of debate. The aim of the study is to determine the optimum implant-screws configuration and implant designs which could maintain stability of the construct during bone healing. The tibia bone was chosen for the analyses, and has been divided into three stages – the proximal, diaphyseal and distal part of the bone. Three-dimensional (3D) bone model was reconstructed from computed-tomography (CT) datasets, and the implant models were designed using computer-aided design software. Tibial fractures and deformities were simulated with reference to the orthopaedic literatures. Finite element analysis (FEA) was used with a common loading applied at the proximal tibia. Results showed that the use of Locking Compression Plate (LCP) for fracture fixation provides better stability to the construct despite having a large stress magnitude of 45.5 MPa (p-value<0.001). In terms of screws configurations, placement near the fractured site provides a more rigid fixation. In contrast, placing the screws further away from the fractured site gives flexibility to the fracture construct which may result in callus formation. For the pylon fracture, the Medial Distal Tibial (MDT) plate significantly reduced the displacement and stress magnitudes as compared to the Anterolateral (ATL) plate (p-value<0.001).


Offshore floating wind turbines (FWTs) in deep water experience cyclic loadings from both environment and mechanical operations. For FWTs, the upper turbine and tower are mainly subjected to wind loading; and the floater is subjected to wave forces. It has been widely accepted that there is a strong coupling between the floater motions and the turbine forces. As the tower is placed between the upper wind turbine and the floater, both wind and wave loadings affect the cyclic forces on the tower. The construction of towers makes use of prefabricated segments. These prefabricated segments are bolted together with flanges at either end. The paper aims to investigate the axial hotspot stress on FWT's tower base and analyze its induced fatigue damage at the welding joints around the flanges. A coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic analysis is conducted to simulate the motion of FWTs. Then, the local welding joint along the reverse-balanced flange connection is modeled to consider the influence of local geometry. At last, the hourly fatigue damages at four locations over the tower base section are compared.


Domestic service robots that support daily tasks are a promising solution for elderly or disabled people. It is crucial for domestic service robots to explain the collision risk before they perform actions. In this paper, our aim is to generate a caption about a future event. We propose the Relational Future Captioning Model (RFCM), a crossmodal language generation model for the future captioning task. The RFCM has the Relational Self-Attention Encoder to extract the relationships between events more effectively than the conventional self-attention in transformers. We conducted comparison experiments, and the results show the RFCM outperforms a baseline method on two datasets.


Intracellular differentiation events that determine which cells develop into memory CD8 T cells are currently incompletely understood. Methyl-CpG-binding domain protein 2 (MBD2) is a transcriptional repressor that binds to methylated DNA and mediates the biological consequences of epigenetic gene methylation. The role of MBD2 during the differentiation of naive CD8 T cells into effector and memory cells was determined following acute infection of MBD2-deficient mice with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. Despite rapid viral clearance and an efficient primary effector CD8 T cell response, reduced numbers of Ag-specific memory CD8 T cells were observed. Importantly, the appearance of precursor memory cells (IL-7Rαhigh) was delayed. The remaining MBD2−/− memory cells were not fully protective during rechallenge, and memory cell characteristics were altered with regard to surface markers (IL-7Rα, KLRG-1, CD27, and others) and cytokine production. The defect was CD8 T cell intrinsic, because memory cell development was also delayed when MBD2−/− CD8 T cells were adoptively transferred into SCID mice. These data demonstrate that MBD2 is a previously unrecognized intracellular factor required for the efficient generation of protective memory CD8 T cells.


Background: Acinetobacter baumannii plays an important role in some types of nosocomial infections as an opportunist microorganism which increases levels of resistance to antibacterial drugs and disinfectants. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the resistance and sensitivity of A. baumannii to different antibiotics and evaluate the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) for Ciprofloxacin and Tetracycline; in addition to Surfanios, Citron and Aniosyme DD1 disinfectants, and also to detect the presence of gyrA, parC and tetB gene bands in the isolates. Materials and Methods: In this study, 65 A. baumannii isolates were collected from the hospitalized patients in NIOC hospital (National Iranian Oil Company hospital) of Tehran, Iran during 2010-2011. The pattern of sensitivity to antibiotics was determined using CSLI disk diffusion and MIC methods. Furthermore, resistance of isolates to the common disinfectants (Surfanios Citron and Aniosyme DD1) was determined in different hospital wards. Presence of gyrA, parC and tetB gene bands was also detected by PCR method. Results: Frequency of Acinetobacter resistance to Amikacin, Ciprofloxacin, co-Trimoxazole, Ceftazidime and Ceftriaxone was 100% in the isolates reviewed in this study. The frequency of resistance to Gentamicin and Tetracycline were 86.1% in the isolates. The MIC of Ciprofloxacin in all (100%) of isolates was 32-64 μg/mL which showed the resistance to Ciprofloxacin In 86.1% of cases the Gentamicin and Tetracycline MIC were ≥ 16 μg/mL and in 13.9% of isolates the Gentamicin and Tetracycline MIC were 4 μg/mL, these results showed the resistance and sensitivity to the Gentamicin and Tetracycline, respectively. Additionally, all (100%) of the A. baumannii isolates were resistant to disinfectant concentrations, which were used with the methods recommended by manufacturers (0.5%). In 100% of the isolates parC and gyrA genes bands were detected, and tetB gene was also detected in 86.1% of Tetracycline resistant isolates. Conclusions: Due to the high resistance of A. baumannii isolates to most antibiotics in our study and also its high resistance to the common disinfectants usually used in hospitals, it seems that more attentions should be paid for applying disinfectants. Since most of the isolates were collected from tracheal and sputum samples (46%), it seems that respiratory tract is the most t prevalent site of infection among Acinetobacter infections. Therefore, disinfecting the respiratory tract related equipment and instruments by using proper disinfectants seems to be an appropriate way to prevent these infections.


Adsorption of circular DNA onto bare highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surfaces by the addition of Mg²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Cu²⁺ has been investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM results revealed that the topography and height of DNA on HOPG surface by the addition of different metal ions are quite different. After the addition of Mg²⁺ for incubation, DNA molecules tend to form many loops on HOPG surfaces, which are derived from the crossover of intramolecular and intermolecular chains. After the addition of Ni²⁺, DNA molecules can form network on HOPG surfaces, and the density of DNA network was significantly increased with increasing DNA concentration. Consequently, dense DNA network can be obtained by using relatively low concentration of DNA and Ni²⁺. As for the addition of Cu²⁺, angular DNA loops composed of flat chains were observed. The observed flat DNA chains with an average height of 0.52 nm can be ascribed to Cu²⁺ insert into the site between bases and phosphate group of DNA inducing denaturation of DNA molecules. This study is very helpful for understanding the interactions of metal ions and DNA molecules, and for constructing various DNA structures on the carbonaceous surfaces.


The authors propose a partially reliable-concurrent multipath transfer (PR-CMT) protocol for multimedia streaming. The novelty of PR-CMT is to combine techniques of CMT's concurrent multipath transfer, PR-SCTP's partially reliable transmission and prioritised stream transmission. Moving picture experts group (MPEG) frames are with varying priorities and lifetime. PR-CMT can transmit important frames before other frames but does not transmit lifetime expired frames. The combination of the aforementioned techniques, however, causes imprecise congestion window and receiver buffer blocking problems without suitable control. Consequently, the throughput and video quality degrade. PR-CMT adopts the concept of delay abandoning data to resolve the imprecise cwnd and the receiver buffer blocking problems. The simulation results show that PR-CMT can precisely infer cwnd. Most importantly, PR-CMT can prevent large gaps between two playable frames to have good video quality.


Drug predictive cues and contexts exert powerful control over behavior and can incite drug seeking and taking. This association and the behavioral output are encoded within striatal circuits, and regulation of these circuits by G-protein coupled receptors affects cocaine-related behaviors. Here, we investigated how opioid peptides and G-protein coupled opioid receptors expressed in striatal medium spiny neurons (MSNs) regulate conditioned cocaine seeking. Augmenting levels of the opioid peptide enkephalin in the striatum facilitates acquisition of cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP). In contrast, opioid receptor antagonists attenuate cocaine CPP and facilitate extinction of alcohol CPP. However, whether striatal enkephalin is necessary for acquisition of cocaine CPP and maintenance during extinction remains unknown. We generated mice with a targeted deletion of enkephalin from dopamine D2-receptor expressing MSNs (D2-PenkKO) and tested them for cocaine CPP. Low striatal enkephalin levels did not attenuate acquisition or expression of CPP; however, D2-PenkKOs showed faster extinction of cocaine CPP. Single administration of the non-selective opioid receptor antagonist naloxone prior to preference testing blocked expression of CPP selectively in females, but equally between genotypes. Repeated administration of naloxone during extinction did not facilitate extinction of cocaine CPP for either genotype, but rather prevented extinction in D2-PenkKO mice. We conclude that while striatal enkephalin is not necessary for acquisition of cocaine reward, it maintains the learned association between cocaine and its predictive cues during extinction learning. Further, sex and pre-existing low striatal enkephalin levels may be important considerations for use of naloxone in treating cocaine use disorder.


In this general article it is presented the situation of foot-and-mouth disease in South America from the first outbreak occurred in 1870 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The control of this disease is discussed in relation to the strategic criteria of the South American Commission for the Control of Foot–and–mouth disease, with special emphasis on support and concern at governmental levels. Palabras claves:  fiebre aftosa, virus aftoso, bovinos
 Key words:  foot-and-mouth disease.


Laser altimetry provides a high-resolution, high-accuracy method for measurement of the elevation and horizontal variability of Earth-surface topography. The basis of the measurement is the timing of the round-trip propagation of short-duration pulses of laser radiation between a spacecraft and the Earth's surface. Vertical resolution of the altimetry measurement is determined primarily by laser pulsewidth, surface-induced spreading in time of the reflected pulse, and the timing precision of the altimeter electronics. With conventional gain-switched pulses from solid-state lasers and sub-nsec resolution electronics, sub-meter vertical range resolution is possible from orbital attitudes of several hundred kilometers. Horizontal resolution is a function of laser beam footprint size at the surface and the spacing between successive laser pulses. Laser divergence angle and altimeter platform height above the surface determine the laser footprint size at the surface, while laser pulse repetition-rate, laser transmitter beam configuration, and altimeter platform velocity determine the space between successive laser pulses. Multiple laser transitters in a singlaltimeter instrument provide across-track and along-track coverage that can be used to construct a range image of the Earth's surface. Other aspects of the multi-beam laser altimeter are discussed.


In 3D medical image segmentation, small targets segmentation is crucial for diagnosis but still faces challenges. In this paper, we propose the Axis Projection Attention UNet, named APAUNet, for 3D medical image segmentation, especially for small targets. Considering the large proportion of the background in the 3D feature space, we introduce a projection strategy to project the 3D features into three orthogonal 2D planes to capture the contextual attention from different views. In this way, we can filter out the redundant feature information and mitigate the loss of critical information for small lesions in 3D scans. Then we utilize a dimension hybridization strategy to fuse the 3D features with attention from different axes and merge them by a weighted summation to adaptively learn the importance of different perspectives. Finally, in the APA Decoder, we concatenate both high and low resolution features in the 2D projection process, thereby obtaining more precise multi-scale information, which is vital for small lesion segmentation. Quantitative and qualitative experimental results on two public datasets (BTCV and MSD) demonstrate that our proposed APAUNet outperforms the other methods. Concretely, our APAUNet achieves an average dice score of 87.84 on BTCV, 84.48 on MSD-Liver and 69.13 on MSD-Pancreas, and significantly surpass the previous SOTA methods on small targets.


Using a normalized CES function with factor-augmenting technical progress, we estimate a supply-side system of the US economy from 1953 to 1998. Avoiding potential estimation biases that have occurred in earlier studies and putting a high emphasis on the consistency of the data set, required by the estimated system, we obtain robust results not only for the aggregate elasticity of substitution but also for the parameters of labor and capital augmenting technical change. We find that the elasticity of substitution is significantly below unity and that the growth rates of technical progress show an asymmetrical pattern where the growth of labor-augmenting technical progress is exponential, while that of capital is hyperbolic or logarithmic.


Tax risk management requires an adequate assessment of the risk based on previously identified determinants. The main objective of this article is to design a tax risk prediction tool. To achieve this objective, data were collected from about sixty big companies in Togo. The scoring method first identified tax risks determinants and then assessed and predicted that risk. The results show that in Togo, company size, transfer price, the leverage effect, the sector of activity, and the reputation of the accounting auditing firm negatively affect big companies' tax compliance. In contrast, total indebtedness, foreign shareholders' presence and tax incentives have a positive impact on their tax behaviour. With a predictive power of 75 per cent, this research empirically verifies that modern risk assessment methods improve the performance of the tax administration control system. Consequently, the Togolese Revenue Authority should focus on strengthening its control mechanism for big companies, particularly those involved in the financial sector. It should further prioritise the use of statistical and econometric methods to assess tax risk. However, an error margin of 25 per cent suggests the existence of other factors which could likely improve the appropriateness of the results.


Flemish care policy is headed towards more community care, meaning that care should be given not only in, but also by the community. Therefore carers are given a central role in the organisation of care. Most of them have positive experiences with giving care, but some are feeling burdened as well. In this article we study experienced burden and look at multiple individual and contextual factors that may add to the risk of over-burdening the informal carer or protecting him/her from it. We use data from the survey 'Duurzame Mantelzorg in Vlaanderen', conducted with 2.148 informal carers. We find three dimensions in experienced burden measured by the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) with 12 items: personal strain, negative emotions and guilt. Using path analysis (structural equation modeling) we study which variables explain those dimensions. We looked at the impact of the individual carer characteristics, the care situation and of mediating support variables. The results confirm the importance of a supportive social environment. The quality of the relationship between the carer and the person in need, emotional support and the use of professional services all have a significant impact. Background characteristics of the carer are less influential than stressors from the care situation. The largest total effects stem from effects of behavioral problems of the person in need. Intensive carers report more personal strain and negative emotions, but at the same time experience less guilt. People caring for closer relationships experience more burden. Both background characteristics and stressors in the care situation influence burden indirectly via mediating support variables. This study points to important issues and possible instruments that policy makers and care professionals can use in their effort to strengthen informal care.


A new, approximate model for determining the one-dimensional charge control characteristics of quasi-square quantum well channel heterojunction field-effect transistors is presented. The model involves solving self-consistently the one-dimensional forms of Poisson's equation and the single-particle Schrodinger equation in which the potential variation inside the quantum well is approximated by a ramp potential. It is shown that this approximation models more closely the effect of including an explicit exchange and correlation potential than the Hartree potential alone. Finally the effect of including quantum confinement effects in calculating the charge control characteristics is discussed.


This paper presents a method for the regionalization of turbulent fluxes by combining airborne flux measurements and footprint analysis. Eddy covariance measurements were performed with a small environmental research aircraft in May 2008 over the "Munsterland" region in northwest Germany. This region is dominated by agricultural patches that are typically a few hectares in size. An analytic footprint model was tested and applied to relate the fluxes, as measured on the aircraft during day time conditions, to different vegetation types on the ground. The geo referenced footprint areas were merged with high resolution land use data (30×30 m), resulting in a quantification of different land use types inside the respective footprints. The fluxes of the sampled area in the Munsterland of 1510 km 2 were scaled up to the area of the "Westfalische Bucht" (6054 km 2 ), since the land use composition are comparable to a large extent. The mean fluxes calculated of 99 flight segments and used for the regionalization were found −0.69 mg m −2 s −1 for carbon dioxide and +0.17 g m −2 s −1 for water vapor.


Background: Diabetes mellitus is one of the most widespread endocrine disorders in female and its complications are increasing all over the world, leading to life threatening medical problems like cardiovascular diseases, stroke and end stage renal diseases. A correlation between hyperlipidemia and type 2 diabetes mellitus has been identified. The study was carried out to observe the correlation of serum low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level with type 2 diabetes mellitus in adult female subjects.Method: This cross sectional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, Dhaka Medical College, Dhaka, during the period of January 2011 to December 2011. Total sixty female subjects were selected with age ranging from 30 to 50 years. Among them 30 female subjects with diabetes mellitus were included from out-patient department of Endocrinology, Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka as study group (B) and 30 apparently healthy females were taken as control group (A) for comparison. Estimation of serum fasting serum LDL-C and HDL-C levels was done by enzymatic method in the department of Physiology, Dhaka Medical College Dhaka in both groups. Fasting serum insulin level was measured by ELISA method in the laboratory of National Institute of ENT, Dhaka and fasting blood glucose was estimated by glucose oxidase method in the department of Physiology, Dhaka Medical College in both groups. Data were analyzed by Unpaired Student's- test and Pearson's correlation co-efficient (r) test as applicable.Results: The value of fasting serum LDL-C level was significantly higher in study subjects than those of control. Again, fasting serum HDL-C level was significantly lower in study subjects in comparison to controls. In study subjects fasting serum LDL showed positive correlation and fasting serum HDL-C levels showed negative correlation with fasting blood glucose and serum insulin level.Conclusion: Present study reveals that serum insulin and blood glucose level have positive relationship with low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and negative relationship with high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels.J Dhaka Medical College, Vol. 26, No.2, October, 2017, Page 140-147


Successful joint inversion of seismic and electromagnetic survey data to estimate parameters and improve the characterization of the earth's subsurface relies on the understanding of the cross-property relations between the elastic and electrical properties. Pressure-dependent cross-property relationships of rocks with varying degrees of fluid saturation remain poorly understood even though such conditions are encountered frequently. We investigate this problem by designing and undertaking dedicated laboratory experiments to simultaneously measure the elastic velocity and electrical resistivity in two Berea sandstone samples subject to varying confining pressure and water saturation, using a state-of-the-art joint elastic-electrical measurement system. P- and S-wave velocities are found to increase exponentially with increasing confining pressure at each water saturation, whereas electrical conductivity can either increase or decrease with confining pressure depending on the degree of water saturation. More interestingly, the elastic and electrical properties of the two samples are shown to be systematically correlated as functions of water saturation and the applied confining pressure. The correlations reveal the natural link between the elastic and electrical properties in the two porous sandstones with partial water saturation, and they help to better indicate the fluid flow within compliant pores in addition to the known flow between stiff and compliant pores. The results will form the theoretical basis for the successful joint interpretation of seismic and electromagnetic survey data acquired from partially saturated porous rocks in the subsurface of the earth.


The leukocyte diversity of early maternal-fetal interface has been recently described, however, characterization of decidua at term is still pending. We, therefore, profiled the CD45+ compartment within human term decidua collected via cesarean section. Relative to the first trimester, our analyses revealed a shift from NK cells and macrophages to T-cells and enhanced activation of all immune cells. T-cells in the decidua were phenotypically distinct from their blood counterparts and demonstrated significant clonotype sharing. Using pseudo-temporal analyses of macrophages, we characterize previously undescribed diversity of bonafide tissue resident decidual macrophages. The frequency of this population correlated with high pregravid maternal body mass index but responded poorly to bacteria ligands. Collectively, these findings provide evidence of skewing of decidual myeloid cells towards immunoregulation representing a possible mechanism to safeguard the fetus. This immune cell atlas of term decidua is an asset for future studies investigating pathological conditions that compromise reproductive success. One sentence summary Human immune cell atlas of term decidua and observed alterations with pre-gravid obesity.


Extensive data on relationships of neural network oscillations to behavior and organization of neuronal discharge across brain regions call for new tools to selectively manipulate brain rhythms. Here we describe an approach combining projection-specific optogenetics with extracellular electrophysiology for high-fidelity control of hippocampal theta oscillations (5-10 Hz) in behaving mice. The specificity of the optogenetic entrainment is achieved by targeting channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) to the GABAergic population of medial septal cells, crucially involved in the generation of hippocampal theta oscillations, and a local synchronized activation of a subset of inhibitory septal afferents in the hippocampus. The efficacy of the optogenetic rhythm control is verified by a simultaneous monitoring of the local field potential (LFP) across lamina of the CA1 area and/or of neuronal discharge. Using this readily implementable preparation we show efficacy of various optogenetic stimulation protocols for induction of theta oscillations and for the manipulation of their frequency and regularity. Finally, a combination of the theta rhythm control with projection-specific inhibition addresses the readout of particular aspects of the hippocampal synchronization by efferent regions.


Purpose of reviewOutcome prediction models measuring severity of illness of patients admitted to the intensive care unit should predict hospital mortality. This review describes the state-of-the-art of Simplified Acute Physiology Score models from the clinical and managerial perspectives. Methodological issues concerning the effects of differences between new samples and original databases in which the models were developed are considered. Recent findingsThe progressive lack of fit of the Simplified Acute Physiology Score II in independent intensive care unit populations induced investigators to propose customizations and expansions as potential evolutions for Simplified Acute Physiology Score II. We do not know whether those solutions did solve the issue because there are no demonstrations of consistent good fit in new databases. The recently developed Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 Admission Score with customization for geographical areas is discussed. The points shared by the Simplified Acute Physiology Score models and the pros and cons for each of them are introduced. SummaryComparisons of intensive care unit performance should take into account not only the patient severity of illness, but also the effect of the 'intensive care unit variable', that is, differences in human resources, structure, equipment, management and organization of the intensive care unit. In the future, moving from patient and geographical area adjustment to resource use could allow the user to adjust for differences in healthcare provision.


As offshore oil and gas fields mature on the Grand Banks, offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, marginal field subsea tie-backs are necessary to maintain production levels. Existing untrenched flowline lengths have been limited by the assumption that iceberg contact equates to flowline failure. However, extended tie-backs will be necessary to develop stranded resources. To potentially reduce the number of failure cases, we can consider a better definition of failure that accounts for the pipeline response due to iceberg-soil-pipeline interaction events. Reducing the failure rate from free-floating iceberg contacts alone can significantly increase safe tie-back lengths.
 This paper examines the flowline response from impacts with free-floating icebergs using large deformation finite element analysis. The plane strain pipe-soil interaction response is first simulated for pure vertical loading and compared against analytical bearing capacity theory. The influence of non-associativity in the soil constitutive model is demonstrated with respect to predicting the pipe drained penetration resistance in dense sands. Oblique vertical-horizontal plane strain pipe-soil interaction is also investigated, and it is shown that the vertical penetration resistance is reduced when the pipe trajectory deviates from pure vertical, consistent with published interaction diagrams. Lastly, the fully coupled interaction scenario of free-floating iceberg-pipe-soil interaction is simulated, showing the effects of the pipe wall thickness and soil strength. The numerical modelling procedures are described and the soil constitutive model that incorporates dense sand behavior is detailed.


Using a mixed methods approach, this article analyses the nexus between migration and social positions drawing on recent survey data on migrants who have arrived in Germany after 1994 from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), as well as qualitative interviews with 26 respondents to the survey. Drawing on a Bourdieusian forms of capital approach (Bourdieu, 1986) and applying the method of Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to the SOEP survey data, we highlight two dimensions structuring the nexus between migration and social positions in Germany: (1) capital related to legal status and multiple migration and (2) (trans)national cultural capital. Through a cluster analysis based on the MCA results, we then identify and describe four profiles of migrants characterised by distinct configurations of cultural capital (social class background, education and linguistic skills before and after settlement), legal status (citizenship and status at migration), experiences of multiple cross-border movements and social positions: the 'foreign working-class,' the 'foreign middle class,' the 'adapted German migrants,' and the 'young highly educated urbans.' The complementary analysis of the qualitative data allows us to go further in understanding some of the factors that may play a role in shaping migrants' social position(ing) in the four clusters. In particular, we show that resources such as determination and perseverance can be crucial for some migrants to counter structural constraints related to their legal status in transferring or accessing cultural capital, and that linguistic skills are also used by some migrants as a marker of social distinction.


Beliefs have been conceived as a hidden variable in mathematics education. It is important to know teachers' beliefs as they can inform the way that teachers teach mathematics, make decisions in the classroom, and form opinions about the abilities of students. In Costa Rica, studies about beliefs have been conducted with in-service teachers, but there is no research on pre-service teachers and the beliefs they bring to the classroom from their teacher education programs (TEPs). This research aims to describe the beliefs held by 76 pre-service teachers and 19 teacher educators from four Costa Rican public universities, using the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M) questionnaire. The results suggest that both pre-service teachers and teacher educators believe in a constructivist orientation focused on the learner. Both groups support the view of mathematics as a process of inquiry and active learning and agree that mathematical skills are not fixed or associated with gender or culture. In the literature, the beliefs manifested by the participants are associated with positive results regarding student outcomes and teaching practices. Therefore, policymakers should be concerned with providing environments that allow and encourage teachers to continue with these belief orientations when they start teaching.


Despite their common occurrence and benign character, choroidal naevi show a number of interesting features. Hyper- and hypopigmentation, drusen, pigment-epithelial detachment, retinal deposits and capillary circulatory disturbances are described. Colour and red-light photography appear to be the most appropriate techniques for documentation.


Objectives: Fibrosis, related to several causes, can be diagnosed in children and adolescents' liver grafts that are >1 year old. At present, liver biopsy is the gold standard for assessing liver damage in the posttransplant setting. We aimed to evaluate the accuracy of noninvasive biomarkers of fibrosis, namely, acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI), aspartate-to-platelet ratio index, and aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase (AST/ALT) ratio index, either alone or in combination, for predicting fibrosis in pediatric patients submitted to liver transplantation. Methods: We prospectively assessed liver fibrosis in 30 children/adolescents with liver transplant through biopsy (liver transplant follow-up during 12 months). ARFI with Virtual Touch Software (Acuson 2000) was performed, and blood samples were taken to determine liver function and platelet count. Two groups were analyzed according to the histopathologic stage of fibrosis, namely, none/mild (F0–F1) versus significant fibrosis (F2-4). Results: The mean age of the 30 patients was 11 years (3–18 years), with a mean posttransplant period of assessment of 6.5 years. Twenty-four patients (80%) presented stage F0–F1 fibrosis and 6 patients (20%) presented stage F2-4. The area under the curve using receiver operating characteristic analysis for ARFI, aspartate-to-platelet ratio index, and AST/ALT ratio index for significant fibrosis was 0.76 (P = 0.052), 0.74 (P = 0.066), and 0.69 (P = 0.162), respectively. Through multivariate logistic regression analysis, the only independent predictor of significant fibrosis was ARFI (odds ratio 10.7, 95% confidence interval 1.2–95.7; P = 0.045). The combination of ARFI and AST/ALT ratio index presented a good diagnostic accuracy of fibrosis (area under the curve of 0.83; P = 0.013). Conclusions: ARFI may serve as a potential method for assessing significant fibrosis in pediatric patients with liver transplant, particularly in combination with AST/ALT ratio index.


Background and objective: Internal fixation is recommended when the need is urgent for preserving the hip joint rather than replacing it. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of complying with an educational intervention (booklet) and the discharge instructions on the outcomes of patients with internal fixation for hip fracture. Methods: Research hypothesis: Strength, hip range of motion, walking ability, managing stairs, and total indoor and outdoor activities will be better among the educational intervention group than the control group. Quasi-experimental (study/control) design was utilized to conduct this research, the intervention included training patients on postoperative exercises, showing them videos on these exercises and providing them with a written simplified, photo illustrated Arabic booklet containing the discharge instructions. Setting: The study was conducted in the orthopedic department and orthopedic outpatient clinic. Sample: Consisted of 60 adult male (63.3%) and female (36.7%) patients who underwent internal fixation for hip fracture who were randomly included as an intervention (n = 30) or control group (n = 30). Tools: A Structured patient interview questionnaire sheet was utilized for data collection with the following three parts (biosociodemographic data, compliance behavior index and functional capability index). Results: Of the intervention group participants (83.3%) were compliant while nearly all of the control group subjects were non-compliant (96.7%) at 3 months and a highly statistically significant difference was found between compliance behavior and patient's functional capability. Conclusion: Providing structured discharge guidelines for patients who underwent internal fixation for hip fracture was effective in improving outcomes of patients than the standard hospital instructions. Recommendations: Publication of the booklet and dissemination among patients with internal fixation for hip fracture on a larger probability sample is recommended.


Watershed characterization and management aims at the optimum utilization of land and water resources on a sustained basis. For a precise inventory of a watershed, components like drainage density and pattern, slope percentage and direction, physiography, soils, land use and land cover, were visually interpreted using the geocoded false colour composites (FCCs) of IRS-1B LISS II and IRS-1C LISS III at 1:50 000 scale. The land use and land cover study indicates that the major land utilization types are single crop (28.8%); double crop (14.3%); scrub land (43.1%); degraded notified/open forest (7.2%); rock outcrop (3.8%) and water bodies (2.8%). The dominant soils are loamy-skeletal, Lithic Ustorthents; loamy-skeletal, Lithic Ustochrepts; fine calcareous, Typic Ustochrepts; fine, Vertic Ustochrepts, and very fine, Typic Haplusterts. The soils are grouped into IIIs, IIIes, IVes and VIes land capability classes; N1, N2, S1, S2 and S3 soil site suitability classes and Wt 1.2, Wt 1.3, Wt 2.5, Wt 3.4 and Wt 3.5 soil degradation classes. Based on soil types, percentage slope, drainage density, bifurcation ratio and constant channel maintenance ratio, the soil conservation modules like field bunding, contour bunding, Nala lining and Nala plug/cement check dams were erected. Soil conservation modules, particularly field bunding/ contour bunding improved the moisture status in soils of subdued plateau and upper pediment and resulted in a better harvest of crops under monocropping. Grading and terracing of lower pediments helped to harvest run-off into farm ponds for further recycling of water for agro-horticultural crops. Nala lining and Nala plug/cement check dams in the valley regions have helped in improving the irrigation potential for crops under double cropping system and agroforestry on the plateau top by further reducing the denudation process.


There has recently been a significant increase in research on the potential health benefi ts associated with probiotics and prebiotics. Some effects attributed to selected probiotics or prebiotics have been proved by clinical trials, while others have been acquired on the basis of in vitro tests which need to be replicated in vivo in order to be validated. Clinical reports in the literature for the application of probiotics have been done for the treatment of infectious diseases including viral, bacterial or antibiotic associated diarrhea, lowering of serum cholesterol, decreased risk of colon cancer, improved lactose digestion, and altered intestinal microbiota. However, information on probiotic species, a specific strain-therapeutic application, and adequate dosages, is not yet sufficient to allow rational consumption. Moreover, prebiotic oligosaccharides are poorly understood in regard to their fermentation profi les and dosages required for health effects. The present review summarizes some of the literature in regard to clinical or therapeutic trials of probiotics and prebiotics.


ABSTRACT: More than one third of the U.S. population is obese whereas 17% of youth ages 2 to 19 are obese. This paper describes the partnership between a predominantly African American church in central Texas with a state university nursing school to reduce obesity through a health-promotion program. Based upon the success of the partnership and impact of the program, this partnership could serve as an exemplar for other churches and universities in developing health programs.


Abstract cDNA encoding α2-HS glycoprotein was amplified from guinea pig liver mRNA by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends, cloned and sequenced. By RTPCR and nested PCR, α2-HS glycoprotein mRNA was detected not only in liver tissue but also in pancreas, stomach, small intestine, colon, spleen, kidney, testis, skeletal muscle, brain, heart and leukocytes, but not in the lung. The α2-HS glycoprotein mRNA levels in the liver were reduced to half at 48 h after subcutaneous injection of turpentine oil.


Significant research has been conducted into the utilization of geothermal resources as a green energy source. However, minimal research has been conducted into geothermal resource utilization and depletion impacts on thermophile biodiversity. Thermophiles are organisms which have adapted over millions of year to extreme temperature and chemical compositions and exist in hot springs and other geothermal resources. Their ability to withstand high temperatures makes them invaluable to scientific and medical research. Current federal and California case law classify geothermal resources as a mineral, not a water resource. Acquisition of rights to develop a geothermal resource owned or reserved by the federal government is authorized by the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970 which was designed to promote utilization of geothermal resources. Similarly, current California law promotes the utilization of geothermal resources. While NEPA and CEQA apply in federal and state geothermal resource development respectively, thermophile biodiversity is significantly threatened due to a lack of knowledge and classification of thermophile species. California law under the Public Resources Code provides for the prevention of damage to geothermal deposits, reservoirs and water, but not for the species that live in them. This article will show that current federal and state law applicable to California promotes the over utilization of geothermal resources which threatens thermophile biodiversity.


Dental disease can have negative and lasting effects on overall health and quality of life. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences reported last year that close to 5 million children in the United States did not receive needed care in 2008 because of costs. Increasing use of dental care has been selected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as one of a small number of national leading health indicators, designating it as a national priority. Innovative initiatives have been undertaken in North Carolina to promote oral health, and there have been improvements in the state. For example, both the use of dental services among children and their oral health status are improving. Yet persistent and difficult challenges remain, such as ensuring an adequate workforce for the future, improving oral health literacy, maintaining existing programs, and resolving disparities in oral health and lifetime access to preventive and treatment services for all North Carolinians. This issue brief reviews some oral health initiatives and their outcomes--with a focus on youth. Commentaries in the policy forum also focus on access to oral health care; assessing, educating, and building the dental workforce; new practice models and trends; insurance innovation; and patients with special needs.


CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2008 Abstracts

Abstract #5044

Background: Malignant pleural effusion is a debilitating complication of metastatic breast cancer (MBC), including inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). The cellular components in pleural effusion are important indicators of pathologic process. Although pleural fluids from patients with IBC contain tumor cells and immune cells, little is known about the phenotype and function of the immune cell infiltrate. The objective of the study was to determine the immunophenotype and function of the cellular immune cells in pleural effusion of patients with pleural metastases. Methods and Patients: Pleural effusions from 9 women with MBC, 6 with IBC, median age 56 years (range 44-75 yrs), were submitted for pathological review. Mononuclear cells (MNC) were reacted with a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies to detect surface antigens by 8-parameter flow cytometry. In addition, MNC were activated through the T-cell receptor (TCR) with immobilized anti-CD3 and soluble anti-CD28 to assess intracytoplasmic syntheses of pro-inflammatory [interleukin (IL)-2, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ)] and anti-inflammatory (IL-10) cytokines by TCR-activated CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Data are presented as the mean (±SEM) of TCR-activated CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells that synthesized inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Results: Upon pathological review, the mean (±SEM) number of tumor cells, MNC, and neutrophils were 20.2% ± 7.4% (range, 2%-72%), 62.4% ± 7.7% (range, 25%-96%), and 17.3% ± 5.9% (range, 0%-50.0%), respectively. The MNC consisted of 83.1% ± 8.2% CD3+ pan-T, 58.2% ± 7.0% CD4+ T, 24.2% ± 5.2% CD8+ T, 2.8% ± 0.9% CD19+ B, 4.0% ± 0.7% natural killer (NK), 3.4% ± 1.8% NKT, and 0.9% ± 0.2% dendritic cells, respectively. The CD4/CD8 T-cell ratio was 3.62 ± 0.78. The percentages of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells that synthesized inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines following activation through the TCR-activated are listed in Table 1. ![][1] Conclusion: There were no statistically significant differences between pleural fluids of IBC and non-IBC subjects with respect to tumor cell involvement, MNC phenotype, or T-cell function. Moreover, the function of pleural fluid T cells of MBC patients were similar to that of normal peripheral blood T cells (historical data, not shown). These data suggest that T-cells in the pleural fluids of patients with MBC are immune competent and can be activated through the TCR to synthesize pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2009;69(2 Suppl):Abstract nr 5044.

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Introduction: Myrmecodia pendans, or traditionally known as ant nest fruit, is one of popular traditional medicines in Indonesia with a wide range of effects such as antidiabetic, anticancer, and free-radical scavenging agents. Despite of the extensive research, reports regarding its toxicity are scarce. Gentamicin is also one of popular and widely used anti-biotic but it is associated with a wide range of toxicity, especially if administered at high dose. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of Myrmecodia pendans extract in the mice what received toxic dose of gentamicin. Method: 24 male white rats were used and randomly divided into 4 groups: P0 (negative control), P1 (100 mg/kgBW intraperitoneal gentamicin), P2 (gentamicyn + 250 mg/kgBW myrmercodia extract), P3 (250 mg/kgBW myrmercodia extract which administered for 7 days and followed by gentamicin). The treatment was given for 10 days and all mice were sacrificed at the end of the study. The stomach was taken from each mouse and examined pathologically using Hematoxylin-Eosin (HE) staining. Results: The necrosis was found in all groups that received gentamicin (P1-P3) with P2 had the most severe necrosis. Hemorrhage was only found in group that received Myrmecodia extract (P2 and P3) and, again, P2 had higher score of hemorrhage compared to P3. Conclusion: The administration of Myrmecodia extract at 250 mg/ kgBW together with toxic dose of gentamicin exacerbate the gastric tissue damage in Wistar rats.


A combination of electric force microscopy (EFM) and noncontact atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study microscratching-induced dislocations in sphaleritic ZnS single crystals. Dislocation bands predominantly consisting of either anion-type (S) or cation-type (Zn) dislocations were induced by scratching along either [111] or [111] on a (110) surface. A significant difference of local distortions in electrical potential between the S(g) and Zn(g) dislocation bands was observed from the EFM images. Electric charges of these dislocations were determined quantitatively and the results were compared with theoretical models.


Aim. An illustration of a case of diminutive sessile serrated adenoma (SSA) as a variant of the development of the normal colon mucosa. Materials and methods. In 2017 a diminutive SSA was identified in the case of a 77 year-old patient. During endoscopic examination, which included white light endoscopy examination, narrow band imaging (NBI) and near focus, the main endoscopic signs of SSA were determined. Endoscopic removal of the lesion with subsequent confirmation of its histological structure was performed. Results. The colonoscopy revealed a diminutive SSA of up to 3mm in size with typical endoscopic signs: a flat-elevated type 0-IIA, a "mucinous cap", the same color to the surrounding mucosa, pit pattern type II-О, absence of meshed capillary vessels, but with isolated dilated capillaries. Histological examination revealed the crypts to have a cytoplasmic-type serration, drop-like expansion and horizontal growth of the basal parts, without epithelial dysplasia. Conclusion. The presented clinical case shows a rare observation of a diminutive SSA, and the complexity of endoscopic diagnosis due to its small size. The above observation demonstrates one of the pathways — developing directly from the normal mucosa, bypassing the stage of hyperplastic polyp. Thus indicating the need for further study of serrated polyps, morphogenesis mechanisms and precancerous potential.


Abstract The present study was designed to assess the effect of chlordecone on the stimulation of oxidative stress in gill, liver and brain tissues of the cichlid fish, Pseudetroplus maculatus. Fishes were exposed to chlordecone at two sublethal concentrations, 3.5 and 7 μg/L, for 24, 72 and 96 h, maintaining ten animals in each group. Chlordecone treatment did not alter the body weight of the animal. However, significant increase in the secretion of mucous and decrease in the weights of gill, brain and hepatosomatic index were observed at 7 μg/L of chlordecone treatment only after 96 h. Gill tissue showed significant increase in the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione reductase along with elevated levels of hydrogen peroxide and lipid peroxidation in concentration and timedependent manner. This could be the defensive mechanism of gill tissue to escape the toxic effects of chlordecone. In the liver tissue, superoxide dismutase activity was increased by 39% at 3.5 μg/L and by 73% at 7 μg/L of chlordecone treatment. Activities of catalase and glutathione reductase were decreased 3 to 9 times at 3.5 and 7 μg/L concentrations, respectively, with concomitant increase in hydrogen peroxide generation (17 to 28 times) and lipid peroxidation (3 to 7 times) at the end of 96 h, which reveals the failure of hepatic antioxidant system to prevent free radical generation owing to chlordecone exposure. Activities of all antioxidant enzymes in the brain were inhibited by 29 to 80% along with the induction of hydrogen peroxide (13 to 20 times) and lipid peroxidation (6 to 11 times), thereby indicating imbalance in the antioxidant status. Activities of gill and liver marker enzyme - alkaline phosphatase - and acetylcholinesterase in brain were decreased. Therefore, imbalance in the antioxidant defence system as a result of chlordecone toxicity could lead to susceptible oxidative stress in various tissues of the fish.


The intrinsic complexity of the human head and brain lies within the non-uniformity of their constitutive components in terms of shape, material, function, and tolerance. Due to this complexity, the directionality of impact, when the head is exposed to an assault, is a major concern as different responses are anticipated based on the location of impact. The main objective of the study was to show that while most studies propose the injury criteria as based on the kinematical parameters, the tissue-level brain features are more substantiated injury indicators. Accordingly, a finite element (FE) approach was employed to elucidate the injury-related behavior of the head for front, back, and side impacts against a rigid wall. To this end, a 50th percentile FE head-neck model, including most anatomical features, was used. The kinematics of the head in terms of the linear acceleration, as well as the biomechanical response of the brain at the tissue level in terms of intracranial pressure (ICP) and maximum local shear stress, were evaluated as the main injury criteria. Ls-Dyna, a transient, nonlinear, and explicit FE code, was employed to carry out all the simulations. To verify the influence of impact directionality, identical boundary conditions were enforced in all impact scenarios. While brain responses showed similar patterns in all three directions, different peak values were predicted. The highest peak values for the local shear stress, ICP gradient, and the center mass linear acceleration of brain were observed for the frontal impact. These threshold values are of great significance in predicting injuries such as diffuse axonal injury (DAI) resulting from the shear deformation of brain axons. It is believed that directionality considerations could greatly help to improve the design of protective headgears which are considered to be the most effective tools in mitigating a TBI.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


ABSTRACT Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease characterized by progressive and irreversible fibrosis of lung parenchyma that reduces lung function. This rare, incurable disease often is mistaken for an inflammatory condition. IPF typically manifests in older men and is associated with a history of smoking. Disease progression is rapid, with a 5-year survival rate of 20%. Treatment options include lung transplantation and medical therapies to reduce the steady decline in lung function. This article reviews the epidemiology, pathophysiology, presentation, diagnosis, and management of IPF.


Objective: Although augmentation index (AIx), which measures the arterial stiffness, has been shown to be greater in women than men, height may influence AIx, and women is usually shorter than men. This study aimed to investigate the gender difference of AIx before and after treadmill exercise. Design and Method: Forty-six subjects (22 women and 24 men), who underwent treadmill exercise test for the evaluation of chest pain, were enrolled in this study. The waveform of central aortic pressure was recorded before and after treadmill exercise using SphygmoCor®, and pulse rate-adjusted AIx (AIx@75) was measured. Results: Age (W; 52.6 ± 16.1 vs. M; 51.8 ± 14.8 years), prevalence of hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes or hyperlipidemia, and medications were not different, but height was shorter in women (156.5 ± 6.3 vs. 168.4 ± 7.0 cm, p < 0.001). Baseline AIx@75 was greater in women (25.7 ± 13.0 vs. 18.0 ± 11.1%, p = 0.036). Total duration of exercise and maximal MET's during treadmill test were not different. After exercise, AIx@75 was also greater in women (29.5 ± 10.7 vs. 19.2 ± 7.9%, p = 0.001), but changes of AIx@75 were not different between genders (W; 3.7 ± 9.5 vs. M; 1.2 ± 8.5%). AIx@75 was significantly correlated with height (baseline; r = −0.540, p < 0.001, after exercise; r = −0.550, p < 0.001). On multivariate logistic regression analysis including height, AIx@75 at baseline or after exercise was not significantly different between genders. Conclusions: Gender difference of AIx before and after treadmill exercise was not observed. Height was the major determining factor of AIx.


It is shown by numerical simulations that the nonlinear refraction coefficient of a loop phase-conjugate (PC) mirror based on a BaTiO3 photorefractive crystal achieves under optimal conditions the maximum value 0.80–0.90 at the maximum overlap integral equal to 0.90–0.95. The conjugate wave is generated in such a mirror due to scattering from a dynamic hologram produced in the self-intersection region of the forward and backward beams. As a result, the scenario of passing to unstable generation regimes in this case substantially differs from that described earlier for a single-crystal double PC mirror.


The herpesvirus Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) leads to a life-long persistent infection and greater than 90% of the adult population of the world are seropositive. EBV is the causative agent of infectious mononucleosis, but in addition, the virus is associated with certain tumours of B-cell and epithelia cell origin (as well as some rare T-cell tumours). EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) is an essential viral protein, required for the maintenance, replication and mitotic segregation of viral genome episomes. EBNA1 is a DNA binding protein and also interacts with several cellular proteins, thereby affecting host cell-signalling pathways and in so doing may contribute to cell survival and proliferation. EBNA1 is the only latent protein that is expressed in all EBV-associated malignancies and is thought to play a significant role in viral tumourigenesis.
In order to explore the oncogenic mechanism of EBNA1, B-cell lymphoma samples from transgenic mice expressing EBNA1 (EµEBNA1 mice) and/or c-Myc (Eµc-Myc mice) were analysed by immunoblotting. Several candidate cellular proteins likely involved in the tumourigenic process were examined, including C-myc, Mdm2, p53, PTEN, Akt and others.
Overexpression of specific MDM2 isoforms were detected in all EBNA1 tumour samples, not detected in c-Myc tumour samples, or in pre-tumour or transgene negative samples. Thus there is a specific correlation of the overexpression of Mdm2, with EBNA1-induced tumourigenesis, likely reflecting the underlying mechanism. In addition, C-Myc was overexpressed in EBNA1 tumours, supporting our previous observations regarding the cooperation of these two proteins in tumourigenesis.


The South American fur seal, Arctocephalus australis, was one of the earliest otariid seals to be exploited by humans: at least 6000 years ago on the Atlantic coast and 4000 on the Pacific coast of South America. More than 750,000 fur seals were killed in Uruguay until 1991. However, a climatological phenomenon—the severe 1997–1998 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)—was responsible for the decline of 72% of the Peruvian fur seal population due to starvation as a consequence of warming of sea-surface temperatures and primary productivity reduction. Currently, there is no precise information on global population size or on the species' conservation status. The present study includes the first bottleneck test for the Pacific and Atlantic populations of A. australis based on the analysis of seven microsatellite loci. Genetic bottleneck compromises the evolutionary potential of a population to respond to environmental changes. The perspective becomes even more alarming due to current global warming models that predict stronger and more frequent ENSO events in the future. Our analysis found moderate support for deviation from neutrality–equilibrium for the Pacific population of fur seals and none for the Atlantic population. This difference among population reflects different demographic histories, and is consistent with a greater reduction in population size in the Pacific. Such an event could be a result of the synergic effects of recurrent ENSO events and the anthropogenic impact (sealing and prey overfishing) on this population.


The purposes of this study are, firstly, to investigate the relationship between the online and mobile game players' psychological aspects (reference group, government regulation, game contents) and their game experience and overindulgence in games and, secondly, to suggest possible ways to reduce overindulgence in games. The implications of this research are as follows; Firstly, families and school authorities should strive to make sports and other pastime activities popular among peer groups rather than allowing online and video games to become only source of popularity among peer groups. Secondly, it is better for families members to establish a set of rules for controlling their children's time spent on online and mobile games rather than entirely forbidding the games. Family members should also strive to have more family conversations and to find a common source of interests. Thirdly, government should strive to develop policy responses to the overindulgence in games based on practical research and analysis. Fourthly, game makers should pay more attention to the components and expressions used in their games so as to draw game players' interests to the story and design of the games. Game makers also need to consider elements in their games that may potentially cause overindulgence in the development stage. Lastly, game players should strive to find new leisure activities besides online and mobile games that they can enjoy and have good experience with.


Directive 2009/128 / EC with effect from January 1st 2014 the European Union introduced the Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The aim of this article was to examine of berry producers in the area of knowledge of integrated pest management and the consequences of its implementation in theirs farms after a year of its validity. The study was conducted on the end of 2014 years, and the study group consisted of 60 farmers engaged in the farm in Lubelskie (district Pulawski). The results show that about 78% of the farmers declare that knows the principles of integrated pest management. However, only about 40% of them can replace these principles, though 68% said they introduced the principles of integrated pest management in their farms.


Abstract The paper looks at how Japan, one of the major donors of African countries, has been redefining its positions on the African continent in terms of bilateral aid and business opportunities, triangular collaboration and multilateral development projects in an increasingly 'interpolar' world of international relations. The discussion includes China's expanding presence all over Africa as an important 'reference point' for the Japanese public at large and how that may influence Japanese pragmatic foreign policy towards the continent and Japan's involvement in African development. What are Japan's priorities in the wake of hosting the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) early in June 2013 in Yokohama? How does Japan go along with its confident manner of inclusive development and ownership in African societies when at the same time it is challenged by China and other emerging actors? What are the items on Japan's agenda for a re-intensified Africa policy?


WCT (Wet compaction test) is a new fiber evaluation method developed recently by Seo and its test results can be used as a predictor for pulp quality and its paper property Bleached chemical pulps (SwBKP, HwBKP), recycled pulp (OCC), and mechanical pulp (BCTMP) were used for the furnishes to be tested by WCT We compared the WCT results to conventional fiber evaluation tests such as WRV (Water Retention Value), free ness, and fiber length in this study, and found that WCT always gave better regression coefficients in relation to pulp quality (drainage), and paper properties (density, tensile, tear, and burst strength). WCT may be used on-line in papermachine.


Sweet potato virus disease (SPVD) is one of the major constraints of sweet potato production in east and central African. However the problem has not been reported in Ethiopia until recently. Even if the first introduction of the virus was not clearly known, its devastation behavior was observed in 2005-2006 around Hawassa agricultural research center. In order to confirm this speculation a survey was conducted during 2007/08 cropping season in major sweet potato growing areas of southern Ethiopia. This survey was confirmed the presence of sweet potato virus both in farmers field and Research stations. Thus it was conclude that 75% of farmers field and 100% experimental stations were infected by the disease. Apart from virus, other diseases such as Cercospora leaf spot, Alternaria leaf spot, stem blight, leaf blight were also recorded on the crop and considered as minor problem. During the virus disease assessment, vector and non vector insect pests such as Sweet potato butter fly, sweet potato weevil, aphids, and white fly were documented. Among the insect pests aphid and white fly were already known vectors of SPVD. It was also observed that SPVD has affected negatively the number of roots (44.73%) and weight (32.44%) of per plant.


Finding a holistic and integrative – yet applied and manageable – framework for both understanding and reducing disaster risk has been at the forefront of the most challenging disaster risk research for decades. Still, the search for what some consider unachievable involves multiple challenges, from institutional or cultural site-specific obstacles to more structural complications, including social conditions of knowledge-production and competing epistemological framings.
As part of the ongoing REMAKE programme (Seismic Risk in Ecuador: Mitigation, Anticipation and Knowledge of Earthquakes), contributions from the social sciences provide a contextual approach to enlighten the understanding and management of seismic disaster risk, especially in Esmeraldas after the 2016 Pedernales disaster. Analysing experience reports and feedback from REMAKE allows the authors to highlight the contribution of geosciences and social sciences to the field of risk prevention. Such analysis also emphasizes the relevance of interdisciplinary research. Further, looking more deeply at this research experience shows the importance of underlying social conditionings in producing prescriptive knowledge on disaster risk. The search for more integrative research and action frameworks cannot avoid addressing an epistemological debate on approaches and conceptual models of disaster risk. Such a level of reflexivity within the discourse of research programming and risk management is consistent with the Risk Society thesis and the primary challenges that it posits. Lessons learned from REMAKE offer some insights to nurture the very first steps towards interdisciplinary research programmes and integrative disaster prevention policies, so that a significant difference might be made in disaster risk reduction.


Lynching is a form of extrajudicial execution by hanging carried out by mob, which is functioning
independently of local police and law enforcement authorities. Indian also faced Indian WhatsApp lynching,
which are a spate of Mob-related violence and killing following the spread of rumours, primarily relating to
child-abduction and organ harvesting, via the WhatsApp message service. They fall under the category of
organised hate crimes. According to the source from internet, it has been observed a rise in mob lynching cases
related to cow vigilantism by over 10%. It is important to note that India does not have one comprehensive
parliamentary law on mob lynching. Strong provisions of law and speedy convictions in mob lynching cases
will act as deterrence for the society


This study examined the ability of pregnancy-associated growth factor (PAGF), a substance found in crude human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), to induce plaque-forming cells (PFC) in cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL). PAGF, 0.25 to 1 mg/ml, induced maximal PFC at 6 to 7 days as measured by the staphylococcal protein A-coupled SRBC reverse hemolytic plaque assay with a rabbit anti-human Ig antiserum. PAGF-induced PFC/culture ranged from 1800 to 39,000 with a mean of 11,524 in unfractionated PBL (N = 24), as compared to 540 to 77,840 with a mean of 17,303 for pokeweed (PWM) (N = 22). Comparison of PAGF- and PWM-induced PFC showed that both induced specific IgG, IgA, and IgM PFC. In most individuals, PAGF induced more IgM and PWM more IgG PFC. The kappa: lambda ratio was 1.5 for unstimulated PBL, and approximately 3.5 for PAGF and PWM. To see if PAGF was a T-dependent polyclonal activator of B cells, T and non-T populations were obtained by SRBC rosettes and negatively selected T4 and T8 cells by complement-mediated lysis of SRBC+(T) cells. Only the recombined subsets which included T4 cells and non-T cells supported PAGF- and PWM-induced PFC. These data indicate that PAGF, a substance derived from commercial extracts of pregnancy urine, is a T4-dependent polyclonal activator of normal human B cells.


Historically, Otsego Lake has been considered oligo-mesotrophic based on various trophic state indicators. Some of the earlier, comprehensive limnological data collected on Otsego Lake revealed transparencies and algal standing crops indicative of oligotrophic conditions (Godfrey 1977), despite phosphorus loading rates at levels typically associated with a more mesotrophic state (Godfrey 1979). This was attributed to Otsego's large-bodied crustacean zooplankton, which were more abundant than in other New York lakes studied at that time (Godfrey 1977). Alewife, a visually-oriented, efficient plantivore, was first documented in Otsego Lake in 1986 (Foster 1990) and by 1990 it was the dominant forage fish in the lake. The zooplankton community had shifted to dominance by crustaceans, especially Daphnia spp., to rotifers (Foster and Wigens 1990). Rotifers are poor quality food items for fish, and they sequester less nutrients and have substantially lower algal grazing rates than do crustacean plankton (Warner 1999). Depressed abundances and lower mean sizes of crustacean zooplankton have been documented from the onset of alewife dominance through at least 2002; concurrent with this shift, mean summer transparencies, algal standing crops and rates of hypolimnetic oxygen depletion have increased (Harman et al. 2002). This was despite various mitigative efforts designed to reduce nutrient inputs to the lake (i.e., Murray and Leonard 2005; Albright 2005). Thus, the apparent shift toward more eutrophic conditions through the 1990s seemed attributable to cascading trophic changes resulting from the establishment of alewives and the subsequent declines in large crustacean zooplankton. Otsego Lake has been stocked with walleye since 2000 at a targeted rate of 80,000 pond fingerlings each year. The primary intent was to take advantage of the forage base provided by alewives to re-establish this popular sports fish. Concurrent monitoring has attempted to document any changes that might be related to this trophic modification (Cornwell 2005).


The determinants of insulin-like growth factor (IGF) binding to its binding proteins (IGFBPs) are poorly characterized in terms of important residues in the IGFBP molecule. We have previously used tyrosine iodination to implicate Tyr-60 in the IGF-binding site of bovine IGFBP-2 (Hobba, G. D., Forbes, B. E., Parkinson, E. J., Francis, G. L., and Wallace, J. C. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271, 30529–30536). In this report, we show that the mutagenic replacement of Tyr-60 with either Ala or Phe reduced the affinity of bIGFBP-2 for IGF-I (4.0- and 8.4-fold, respectively) and for IGF-II (3.5- and 4.0-fold, respectively). Although adjacent residues Val-59, Thr-61, Pro-62, and Arg-63 are well conserved in IGFBP family members, Ala substitution for these residues did not reduce the IGF affinity of bIGFBP-2. Kinetic analysis of the bIGFBP-2 mutants on IGF biosensor chips in the BIAcore instrument revealed that Tyr-60 → Phe bIGFBP-2 bound to the IGF-I surface 3.0-fold more slowly than bIGFBP-2 and was released 2.6-fold more rapidly than bIGFBP-2. We therefore propose that the hydroxyl group of Tyr-60 participates in a hydrogen bond that is important for the initial complex formation with IGF-I and the stabilization of this complex. In contrast, Tyr-60 → Ala bIGFBP-2 associated with the IGF-I surface 5.0-fold more rapidly than bIGFBP-2 but exhibited an 18.4-fold more rapid release from this surface compared with bIGFBP-2. Thus both the aromatic nature and the hydrogen bonding potential of the tyrosyl side chain of Tyr-60 are important structural determinants of the IGF-binding site of bIGFBP-2.


The study investigates the determinants of mobile Internet banking adoption among Gen-Y in Malaysia. Align the issue of the study and research objectives, and the study underpinned Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the main guideline or a blueprint to analyze the research model. The study applied survey research design and analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) under the PLS-SEM technique with SmartPLS 2.0. A total of 358 mobile internet banking users in Malaysia were random proportional selected as respondents and analyzed. Results from the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) revealed that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, facilitating condition, and personal innovativeness in IT have significantly influenced the attitude of mobile internet banking adoption in Malaysia. Additionally, perceived ease of use and facilitating conditions found to have a significant influence on the perceived usefulness of Mobile Internet Banking. Lastly, facilitating conditions and personal innovativeness in IT are significantly influence the perceived ease of use of mobile internet banking among Gen-Y in Malaysia


ABSTRACT Background: ADHD is a highly prevalent disorder and poses a risk for a variety of mental disorders and functional impairments into adulthood. One of the most striking comorbidities of ADHD is nicotine dependence. Youth diagnosed with ADHD are 2–3 times more likely to smoke than their peers without ADHD, initiate smoking earlier in life and progress more quickly and more frequently to regular use and dependence. Possible explanations for these increased risks are: (a) self-medication of ADHD symptoms with the stimulant nicotine; (b) ADHD symptoms like inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity predispose for smoking initiation and impede smoking cessation; (c) peer pressure; and/or (d) common genetic or environmental determinants for ADHD and smoking. Objective: Identify the most probable causes of the high prevalence of smoking and nicotine dependence in subjects with ADHD. Methods: A systematic literature review was performed and the causality of the observed relations was ranked using the Bradford Hill criteria. Findings: ADHD medication reduces early smoking initiation and alleviates smoking withdrawal. Nicotine patches, bupropion and (probably) varenicline ameliorate ADHD symptoms. Imitation of and interaction with peers and genetic and environmental determinants may contribute to the comorbidity, but seem to contribute less than self-medication. Conclusion: Smoking is probably best explained by a combination of imitation, peer pressure and typical traits of ADHD. In contrast, the positive relation between ADHD and nicotine dependence is currently best explained by the self-medication hypothesis. This hypothesis has a clear pharmacological rationale and is supported by ample evidence, but awaits confirmation from longitudinal naturalistic studies.