PURPOSE
To investigate the therapeutic effects of the aqueous extract of Petroselinum Sativum aerial parts and roots on kidney calculi.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thirty-six male Wistar rats were randomly assigned into 6 groups and treated for 30 days. Group A served as normal control and group B received 1% ethylene glycol in drinking water. Groups C, D, E, and F received 1% ethylene glycol from day 0 and were used as the treatment subjects. Rats in groups C and D received 200 and 600 mg/kg body weight of aerial parts aqueous extract, respectively, and those in groups E and F received 200 and 600 mg/kg body weight of root aqueous extract in drinking water, respectively, from the 14th day of the experiment.

RESULTS
On the 14th and 30th days of the experiment, serum level of magnesium (1.71 ± 0.12 and 3.81 ± 0.25, respectively) decreased significantly while serum level of calcium (10.45 ± 0.26 and 11.33 ± 0.18, respectively) increased significantly in group B compared with the control group (14th day: magnesium = 2.87 ± 0.17 and calcium = 8.80 ± 0.00 and 30th day: magnesium = 6.01 ± 0.00 and calcium = 8.30 ± 0.22; P < .001). In the treatment groups of C, D, E, and F, the number of deposits decreased significantly compared with group B on the 30th day (P < .001). The weight of the kidneys increased significantly in group B (2.01 ± 0.17) compared with the control group (1.52 ± 0.07) and decreased significantly in treatment groups (P < .05).

CONCLUSION
Petroselinum Sativum has a therapeutic effect on calcium oxalate stones in rats with nephrolithiasis and reduces the number of calcium oxalate deposits.


Three basically different principles for density measurement of aerosol particles, based on 1) separate measurements of mass concentration and size distribution, 2) simultaneous measurements of gravitational settling velocity and electrical mobility and 3) balance of gravitational and Coulomb''s force, have been tested. Modifications by combining classification of particles by electric differential mobility analyser to each of the above three methods have also been tested. The easiest and most accurate method has been found to be that based on 3) above, which is similar to Millikan''s experiment for the evaluation of elementary charge, when particles are larger than 0.5 μm. For smaller particles the method based on 1) above is applicable, but there is a problem in accuracy and there is a disadvantage in that the method requires stability in aerosol concentration and size during density measurement.


A novel Yb3+-doped four-wavelength double clad fibre laser based on a Fabry-Perot filter, and pumped by a 976 nm laser diode is presented. Its output laser wavelengths are 1085, 1090, 1095 and 1010 nm, respectively. The laser exhibits 0.32 nm line-width, 1.5 W laser output power, 40 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 66% slope efficiency.


The Driekop dunite pipe crosscuts part of the noritic layered sequence of the upper critical zone in the eastern Bushveld Complex. The central orebody of the pipe contains platinum-group minerals, base metal sulfides, magnetite, and iron-rich olivine. The country rock forms a collapse structure around the pipe, with the layered sequence becoming almost vertical near the contact with the pipe.It is proposed that a high-temperature chloride solution flowed through irregular channel-ways along a structural weakness near the axis of the pipe and reacted with the noritic host rocks, leading ultimately to the formation of dunite. Reaction fronts advanced at different rates outward from the channelways and produced a sequence of metasomatic zones. Characteristics of infiltration metasomatism that are evident in the pipe include the movement of material over large distances in predominantly one direction, the formation of a monomineralic rock, the occurrence of a marginal zone that is enriched by displaced components, and plateaus in the compositions of mineral solid solutions.The reactions responsible for the major changes in the bulk composition of the host rocks were desilication of orthopyroxene to produce olivine, and dissolution of plagioclase. The 67 percent volume loss accompanying these reactions can account for the structural collapse of the critical zone around the pipe. Some olivine in the pipe is too fayalitic to have been produced by simple desilication of host-rock orthopyroxene. The enrichment of olivine in iron can take place byMg 2 SiO 4 + 2FeCl (sub 2 (sub (aq)) ) Fe 2 SiO 4 + 2MgCl (sub 2 (sub (aq)) ) (forsterite) (fayalite)Aqueous chloride complexes are also believed to have played an important role in the transport and precipitation of the platinum-group elements, the base metals, and other cations. Interdependent chemical reactions involving a chloride solution, olivine, magnetite, and the platinum-group elements can account for the preferential association of the ore with iron-rich olivine. Infiltration metasomatism by a high-temperature chloride solution may have an important bearing on the interpretation of other features of the Bushveld Complex.


This paper propose color assessment method using HSI model to evaluate quantitative quality of mosaic images by aerial digital frame camera. Firstly, we convert RGB color into HSI model and we extract six pixel information of S and I corresponding to H from adjacency image by using HSI model. Secondly, a method to measure similarity and contrast is proposed and performed for assesment of observation regarding adjacency images. Through these procedure, we could generate four parameters. We could observe that both of the evaluation results by proposed method and the evaluation results by visual were almost similar. This facts support that our method based on several formula can be an objective method to evaluate a quality of mosaic images itself.


The goal of this study was to determine the utilization level of anchovy resources in Perairan Karang Jeruk after being designated as a fisheries reserve conservation area. The CYP algorithm approach was used as a bioeconomic analysis. This study was conducted in November 2019 – January 2020. The results showed that the intrinsic growth rate of anchovies (r) was 1.803 tons/year, the capture coefficients (q) was 0.000506 tons/trip, and the environment supporting capacity (K) amounting to 1501.67 tons/year, cost (c) of 0.27 million/trip and price (p) of 8.73 million/ton. MSY efforts (EMSY) amounted to 1780.42 with maximum production (hMSY) of 676.80 tons/year. MEY (EMEY) efforts amounted to 1694.14 with maximum production (hMEY) of 675.21 tons/year. The utilization of fisheries resources activities shows more capture, both biologically and economically. Policy recommendations that can be applied from the results of the study are that business/effort limitations need to be made to 2416 – 2539 trip/year for payang fishing gear and 1489 – 1565 for Mini Purse Seine fishing gear. The implementation of the quota system on the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) basis for payang fishing gear is 65.52 tons/year, while the mini purse seine fishing gear is 475.92 tons/year.


Abstract Most of the cities in Iran have experienced very rapid development. The urban population in the last decade has been increased by migration, and cities in Iran are faced with many problems. Housing is becoming one of the major problems, and standard housing indices have taken an important place in urban planning to provide good conditions for better urban planning. Region 6 of Tehran municipality is home to a large portion of upper-middle social class people for whom owning a house is more than merely a place to live. The aim of the research was to analyze qualitative and quantitative indices for Region 6 of Tehran municipality. The study is based on analytical and descriptive methods. The secondary data collected from the latest Iran census report in 2016 and composite methods used to measure the special effects of changes in population size, growth rate, and indices of quantitative and qualitative assessment are wide-ranging housing which was analyzed based on the t-test, correlation test and regression with SPSS and GIS software. GIS software is used as an effective tool for generating maps to better understanding the behaviors of residents in a neighborhood. The result shows that Region 6 of Tehran is among the areas of serious urban decline and neighborhoods in the neighboring regions are influenced by the activities of other bordering neighborhoods.


Traditional clinical named entity recognition methods fail to balance the effectiveness of feature extraction of unstructured text and the complexity of neural network models. We propose a model based on ALBERT and a multihead attention (MHA) mechanism to solve this problem. Structurally, the model first obtains character-level word embeddings through the ALBERT pretraining language model, then inputs the word embeddings into the iterated dilated convolutional neural network model to quickly extract global semantic information, and decodes the predicted labels through conditional random fields to obtain the optimal label sequence. Also, we apply the MHA mechanism to capture intercharacter dependencies from multiple aspects. Furthermore, we use the RAdam optimizer to boost the convergence speed and improve the generalization ability of our model. Experimental results show that our model achieves an F1 score of 85.63% on the CCKS-2019 dataset—an increase of 4.36% compared to the baseline model.


Late Stenian to Tonian stratum of the Xihe and Jinxian groups, the Sangwon system, the Penglai Group, the Tumen Group, and the Huaibei and Langan groups located at the eastern margin of the North China Craton provide an excellent record of changes in sediment provenance related to the amalgamation and dispersal of Rodinia and therefore the paleogeographic position of the craton. To decipher their protosource changes over time, we evaluated 7510 U-Pb and 963 Lu-Hf analyses from 92 samples across the entire eastern North China Craton, of which 1746 U-Pb and 415 Lu-Hf analyses from 18 samples are newly reported here. The detrital zircon results indicate two stratigraphic intervals with internally consistent lithostratigraphy, event stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, depositional age, and detrital zircon age patterns: the late Stenian to early Tonian strata and the late Tonian strata, of which the former mainly consists of the Mesoproterozoic detrital zircons with juvenile Hf isotopic features and the latter's detritus chiefly derived from the Neoarchean to late Paleoproterozoic basement of the North China Craton. In consideration of the paleomagnetic and geochronological data from the coeval strata in other cratons, the Mesoproterozoic detrital zircons of the late Stenian to early Tonian strata are interpreted to be derived from the Musgrave Province in central Australia during the Rodinia amalgamation, and the transition to the autochthonic protosources in the late Tonian possibly indicated the breakup of the North China Craton and North Australian Craton connection.


The excited-state dynamics of 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene is investigated to determine the role of excimer and aggregate formation in singlet fission in high-concentration solutions. Photoluminescence spectra were measured by excitation with the evanescent wave in total internal reflection, in order to avoid reabsorption effects. The spectra over nearly two magnitudes of concentration were nearly identical, with no evidence for excimer emission. Time-correlated single-photon counting measurements confirm that the fluorescence lifetime shortens with concentration. The observed rate constant grows at high concentrations, and this effect is modeled in terms of the hard-sphere radial distribution function. NMR measurements confirm that aggregation takes place with a binding constant of between 0.14 and 0.43 M-1. Transient absorption measurements are consistent with a diffusive encounter mechanism for singlet fission, with hints of more rapid singlet fission in aggregates at the highest concentration measured. These data show that excimers do not play the role of an emissive intermediate in exothermic singlet fission in solution and that, while aggregation occurs at higher concentrations, the mechanism of singlet fission remains dominated by diffusive encounters.


Abstract : A number of genetic mutations that predispose individuals to cancer are known. For example, over 25 insertion mutations have been identified in BRCA1 and p53 transcripts that have been linked to breast cancer susceptibility. Each mutation impairs the functionality of the resultant tumor suppressor protein. Developing technology to specifically excise these mutations, thus restoring tumor suppressor activity, would be of considerable importance for the development of new molecular-based therapeutics. To this end, we have developed a novel biomolecule (a ribozyme) that can specifically excise regions from RNA transcripts. In this work, we designed a ribozyme that excises an insertion mutation that is linked to breast cancer predisposition from a short mimic of the p53 transcript in a cell-free system. We have analyzed the molecular recognition properties of this ribozyme binding substrate, which has aided our design of more effective ribozymes. Furthermore, we developed a Green Fluorescent Protein system to demonstrate that such ribozyme can excise designated insertion mutations from transcripts within bacterial cells. This ribozyme is not toxic to the cell, and appears to work with a reasonable degree of specificity. The successes in this study represent the foundation for a completely novel, yet simple molecular-based therapeutic strategy: repair disease-causing RNA transcripts by removing their insertion mutations, thereby restoring the proper function of the resultant biological products.


The aim of this thesis is to investigate how students in higher education use talking books. This has been inves-tigated through qualitative interviews with nine students. The intention has been to find out how they use talk-ing books and why they have chosen to do it in the way they have, looking specifically on whether there are strategies shared by most of the interviewees.As a theoretical basis of the thesis I have chosen a study, described by Sigrid Hongset, where dyslectic pu-pils tried using printed text and text on tape, as well as both simultaneously. George Kingsley Zipfs "Principle of least effort" will act as a supplemental theory.The interviews show that the students use talking books in different ways. Most read them via a computer, either using a program specifically made for talking book reading or a general purpose audio program. Some used portable players, such as mp3-players. None of them used a talking book player at the time and only a few used several of the special functions that the digital DAISY format offers. All the interviewees used printed books alongside the talking books. Some used them concurrently, while others did not.One thing they had in common was that they had, mostly purposefully, made strategies for how to study with the talking books, but these strategies were vastly different between them. It was obvious that different factors were important regarding their choices of technique. They were working towards as hassle free a use as possible. In this aspect there was a noticeable clash between different kinds of effort. The need not to carry around cumbersome equipment might for example be greater than the need to have all the functions of the DAISY format available.Several of them did not have full knowledge of the functions available in the DAISY format, but they did not appear to view that as a problem. Meanwhile there was a certain amount of frustration aimed towards insuf-ficiencies inherit in the talking book format.


Achilles tendon rupture is a common sports-related injury, with the incidence of acute ruptures continuing to increase. Achilles ruptures can be missed, or presentation may be delayed. Clinical tests assist diagnosis, with the Thompson and Matles tests being the most sensitive and specific. Ultrasound provides a valuable adjunct for diagnosing acute Achilles tendon ruptures. Traditionally, operative management has led to lower re-rupture rates than conservative treatment, but surgery increases the risk of complications such as adhesions and wound infection. More recently, however, non-operative treatment consisting of early mobilisation and rehabilitation, produces comparable re-rupture rates and functional outcomes to surgery. Percutaneous surgery may reduce the risk of operative complications, but needs to be more widely practised. In the present review we discuss the anatomy, aetiology, mechanism of injury, clinical assessment and investigations for diagnosing acute Achilles tendon ruptures. The debate regarding operative versus non-operative management is also considered.


In recent years, the bio-sorption processes have been studied extensively using microbial biomass as biosorbent for heavy metal ions removal. In order to further study their biosorption potential, two algae Chlorococcum humicolum and Phormidium foveolarum have been studied under different initial metal concentrations. An experiment was conducted to study the rate of Cu accumulation in Chlorococcum humicolum and Phormidium foveolarum under laboratory condition. Algae isolated from sewage water treatment plant able to grow in copper concentration ranges from 0.1mgl to 10mgl. Metal tolerant strain was obtained by repeated sub culturing. Tolerance of Chlorococcum humicolum to copper 1.5mgl to 7 and Phormidium foveolarum 1.8 to 10mgl


The β1-adrenergic receptor (β1AR) is the predominant βAR in the heart and is the main target for β-adrenergic antagonists, widely used in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Previously, we have shown that the human (h) β1AR is cleaved in its N terminus by a metalloproteinase, both constitutively and in a receptor activation–dependent manner. In this study, we investigated the specific events involved in β1AR regulation, focusing on the effects of long-term treatment with β-adrenergic ligands on receptor processing in stably transfected human embryonic kidney 293i cells. The key findings were verified using the transiently transfected hβ1AR and the endogenously expressed receptor in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. By using flow cytometry and Western blotting, we demonstrated that isoproterenol, S-propranolol, CGP-12177 [4-[3-[(1,1-dimethylethyl)amino]2-hydroxypropoxy]-1,3-dihydro-2H-benzimidazol-2-one], pindolol, and timolol, which displayed agonistic properties toward the β1AR in either the adenylyl cyclase or the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathways, induced cleavage of the mature cell-surface receptor. In contrast, metoprolol, bisoprolol, and CGP-20712 [1-[2-((3-carbamoyl-4-hydroxy)phenoxy)ethylamino]-3-[4-(1-methyl-4-trifluoromethyl-2-imidazolyl)phenoxy]-2-propanol], which showed no agonistic activity, had only a marginal or no effect. Importantly, the agonists also stabilized intracellular receptor precursors, possibly via their pharmacological chaperone action, and they stabilized the receptor in vitro. The opposing effects on the two receptor forms thus led to an increase in the amount of cleaved receptor fragments at the plasma membrane. The results underscore the pluridimensionality of β-adrenergic ligands and extend this property from receptor activation and signaling to the regulation of β1AR levels. This phenomenon may contribute to the exceptional resistance of β1ARs to downregulation and tendency toward upregulation following long-term ligand treatments.


The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of the hypervitaminosis by supplementation of vitamin A in balanced ration, on the performance of Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) during sex reversal phase. The experiment was carried out during 30 days in a randomized experimental design with six treatments and five repetitions. Was considered an experimental unit an aquarium of 50L contends 70 post larvae. The first treatment was consisted by a ration where was added only commercial premix how a vitamin A (30 KUI) source. The others had been supplemented with 1.030, 2.030, 3.030, 4.030 e 5.030 KUI of vitamin A. At the end, the final average weight (FAW), the standard (SL) and total length (TL), the weight gain (WG), the biomass gain (BG), the apparent feed conversion (FA), the condition factor (CF) and the survival (SU) were assessed. The results of FAW, SL, WG and BG showed a negative linear effect (P<0,05) by the increase of the vitamin A in the ration. The hipervitaminosis of vitamin A above of 30 KUI damaged the post larvae Nile tilapia growth.


Anopheline mosquitoes are the sole vectors of malaria and rely on olfactory cues for host seeking in which ammonia derived from human sweat plays an essential role. To investigate the function of the Anopheles coluzzii ammonium transporter (AcAmt) in the mosquito olfactory system, we generated an AcAmt null mutant line using CRISPR/Cas9. AcAmt-/- mutants displayed a series of novel phenotypes compared with wild-type mosquitoes including significantly lower insemination rates during mating and increased mortality during eclosion. Furthermore, AcAmt-/- males showed significantly lower sugar consumption while AcAmt-/- females and pupae displayed significantly higher ammonia levels than their wild-type counterparts. Surprisingly, in contrast to previous studies in Drosophila that revealed that the mutation of the ammonium transporter (DmAmt) induces a dramatic reduction of ammonia responses in antennal coeloconic sensilla, no significant differences were observed across a range of peripheral sensory neuron responses to ammonia and other odorants between wild-type and AcAmt-/- females. Taken together, these data support the existence of a unique ammonia-sensing mechanism in mosquitoes and that the ammonium transporter may be an important molecular target for vector control. Key Messages Mutagenesis of An. coluzzii ammonium transporter AcAmt followed by comprehensive electrophysiological investigation suggest a novel ammonia-sensing pathway in Anopheles mosquitoes. AcAmt-/- mutants displayed significant deficiencies in reproduction and eclosion, which are likely due to elevated ammonia levels and reduced ability of sugar feeding. An. coluzzii coeloconic sensilla primarily detect amines and acids.


How to use this guide, an overview of the research process, and basic information to help you access library resources.


We show that non-degenerate differential Nash equilibria are generic among local Nash equilibria in games with smooth costs and continuous strategy spaces, and demonstrate that such equilibria are structurally stable with respect to smooth perturbations in player costs. This implies that second-order conditions suffice to characterize local Nash equilibria in an open-dense set of games where player costs are smooth functions. Furthermore, equilibria that are computable using decoupled myopic approximate best-response persist under perturbations to the cost functions of individual players.


The properties of dark matter are one of the most intriguing puzzles of high energy physics. In this work we discuss a promising signature for dark matter annihilations in the gamma-ray sky and comment on the complementarity of direct and indirect searches. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the spin-dependent of XENON100 should not be neglected. Finally, we analyse the impact of LHC searches on dark matter.


Context. Glycine, the simplest of aminoacids, has been found in several carbonaceous meteorites. It remains unclear, however, wether glycine is formed in the interstellar medium (ISM) and therefore available everywhere in the Universe. For this reason, radioastronomers have searched for many years unsuccessfully to detect glycine in the ISM. Aims. We provide possible guidelines to optimize the return of these searches. Since, for most of the species observed so far in the ISM, the most abundant isomer of a given generic chemical formula is the most stable one (minimum energy principle (MEP)), we assess whether neutral glycine is the best molecule to search for or whether one of its isomers/conformers or ionic, protonated, or zwitterionic derivatives would have a higher probability of being detected. Methods. The question of the relative stability of these different species is addressed by means of quantum density functional theory (DFT) simulations within the hybrid B3LYP formalism. Each fully optimized structure is verified as a stationary point by means of a vibrational analysis. A comprehensive screening of 32 isomers/conformers of the C2H5O2N chemical formula (neutral, negative, and positive ions together with the corresponding protonated species and the possible zwitterionic structures) is carried out. In the sensitive case of the neutral compounds, more accurate relative energies were obtained by means of high level post Hartree-Fock coupled cluster calculations with large basis sets (CCSD(T)/cc-pVQZ). Results. We find that neutral glycine is not the most stable isomer and, therefore, probably not the most abundant one, which might explain why it has escaped detection so far. We find instead that N-methyl carbamic acid and methyl carbamate are the two most stable isomers and, therefore, probably the two most abundant ones. Among the non-neutral forms, we found that glycine is the most stable isomer only if protonated or zwitterionic if present in interstellar ices. Conclusions. Assuming that MEP can be applied to optimize our search for glycine, our conclusion is that this search will remain extremely difficult with the present instruments and we propose searching instead for other examples among the most stable isomers.


The reaction between L-ascorbic acid (AAH2) and OH radical has been investigated theoretically. The addition site on AAH2 and AAH– is found to be the olefinic carbon adjacent to the carbonyl group, with much more distinct selectivity for AAH–. Dehydration is found to occur readily not from the neutral ˙OH adduct AAH2OH˙, but from the anion adduct, AAHOH˙–, which leads to formation of the most probable key intermediate radical 17(ascorbate anion radical). The parent molecule of AAH2, triose reductone TRH2(2,3-dihydroxprop-2-enal), undergoes ˙OH addition and dehydration in a similar manner to AAH2. The addition site has been confirmed by comparison of MO energies for four possible transition states of the TRH2(ab initio and MNDO) and AAH2(MNDO) systems. The importance of the conjugate bases, AAH– and TRH–, for yielding the key radicals is suggested.


Objective To investigate the role of DSA and CT perfusion (CTP) scanning in monkey middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) model, which were established by various doses of fibrin embolus injected into the middle cerebral artery(MCA). Materials and Methods 20 monkeys were randomly assigned to 5 groups including control, mild ischemia, moderate ischemia, serious and very serious ischemia groups.The various doses of embolus lodge were injected from the segment M1 of MCA in monkey and characterized their effects on cerebral blood flow by DSA and neurological deficit was observed in 14 days.CT perfusion was performed at 30 mins and 120 mins after operation to measure MTT values. Results The MTT values were significantly higher in operation groups than that in control group at 30 mins after operation, there was no significant difference between mild ischemia and control group, there was significant difference between moderate, serious, very serious and control group, MTT values in serious, very serious groups were higher than that in other groups, MTT values in very serious group were higher than that in serious group. Neurological deficit was observed in mild, moderate and serious ischemia groups. Conclusion Establishment of an embolic monkey model of stroke is important to study cerebral ischemia disease, DSA and CTP are helpful for early diagnosis and prognosis of cerebral ischemia disease.


The webcast advertising market exhibits two unique features: the webcast platform and the anchor jointly provide webcast advertising; and the webcast platform determines the share of advertising revenue, the anchor decides whether to publish ads. We develop a two-sided market model including webcast platform, anchor, fan users and advertisers to analyze the role of these two unique features in determining the webcast platform's optimal advertising revenue-sharing decision. The research results reveal an interesting inverted-V-shaped dynamic structure, that is, the optimal advertising revenue sharing strategy of the webcast platform changes with the overall advertisers' valuation of the webcast ads. When the valuation of advertising is at a medium level, the webcast platform is motivated to give up more revenue share to subsidize the anchor via the advertising channel, leading to greater profits for both of them. In all regions, the optimal profits of the webcast platform and the anchor increase as the switching cost of fan increases. The anchor can increase fan stickiness by providing high-quality content, thereby increasing fan loyalty and expanding the fan user base.


Cucurbita maxima belong to the genus Cucurbita and are of nutritional and economic importance. Physiological activity, transcriptome, and metabolome analyses of leaf samples from the C. maxima inbreding line IL7 treated at 5 °C and 25 °C were performed. Cold stress resulted in a significant increase in the malondialdehyde content, relative electrical conductivity, soluble protein, sugar content, and catalase activity. A total of 5,553 differentially expressed genes were identified, of which 2,871 were up-regulated and 2,682 down-regulated. In addition, the transcription of differentially expressed genes in the plant hormone signal transduction pathway and transcription factor families of AP2/ERF, bHLH, WRKY, MYB, and HSF was activated. Moreover, 114 differentially expressed metabolites were identified by gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry, particularly through the analysis of carboxylic acids and derivatives, and organooxygen compounds. The demonstration of a series of potential metabolites and corresponding genes highlighted a comprehensive regulatory mechanism. These findings will provide novel insights into the molecular mechanisms associated with the response to cold stress in C. maxima.


Ever since the very first cloud service introduced by Amazon Web Services in 2006 the term 'Cloud computing' became buzzing all over the field of Information Technology. Not only in IT field but in all technology related fields and even in business and marketing field began to utilize the Cloud Computing Technology. This technology is so versatile and powerful that apart from running softwares in cloud platform and storing data a whole Operating system can be run. In day-today life we are using more cloud based applications involving healthcare, banking, marketing, education and web search engines, etc. In this paper we are specific on healthcare services because it plays a major role in daily operations such as medication, regular health check-up and emergency based services. Especially cutting edge technology can be very useful in emergency situations.


Purpose of review Hypertension, dyslipidemia, and diabetes are very common problems following heart transplantation and may contribute to the development and progression of graft coronary artery disease. This article reviews current data on clinical use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and calcium channel blockers in patients who have had heart transplants. Recent findings Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and calcium channel blockers are established therapy for patients with cardiovascular disease. Use of these medications correlates with decreasing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Summary After heart transplantation, hypertension associated with calcineurin inhibitors can be managed effectively with antihypertensive therapy, but it may require use of more than one antihypertensive agent. Calcium channel blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors have been associated with improved outcome measures in graft coronary artery disease.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation III (APACHE III) scoring system in the context of general adult ICUs in the United Kingdom.

DESIGN
Prospective, noninterventional, cohort study.

SETTING
Seventeen general adult ICUs in a discrete area of southwest England.

PATIENTS
12,793 patients admitted between April 1, 1993 and December 31, 1995.

MEASUREMENTS
Sociodemographic and severity-of-illness data were collected for all patients admitted to the study units. Formal goodness-of-fit tests were applied and observed mortality was compared with that predicted by using the APACHE III system.

RESULTS
For the group of ICUs as a whole, the risk-adjusted standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was 1.23 (95% confidence intervals, 1.12-1.25). For 11 out of 17 ICUs, the SMR was significantly greater than unity (p < 0.05). Calibration, as tested by Hosmer-Lemeshow statistics, was poor (H2 = 312.54; C2 = 332.85; df = 8; p < 0.01); however, model discrimination was good with a total correct classification rate of 82.9% and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.89.

CONCLUSIONS
The excess mortality observed after case-mix adjustment using the APACHE III system in this study may be the result of either poor intensive care performance as compared with the United States or a failure of the APACHE III equation to fit the UK data.


Enormous post-harvest losses (35 - 60%) associated with banana and plantain products in Nigeria and other producing countries in the tropics culminate in great losses for farmers. In Nigeria, unripe plantain is normally processed into flour with limited consumption only as reconstituted dough in local food systems. Previous studies established that Nigerians have acquired taste for noodles and it is widely consumed across all strata of the economic divide. Information regarding the production of instant noodles from Musa spp. is rarely found in literature; hence in this study the quality characteristics of instant noodles produced from Musa spp – wheat composite flours was investigated. Musa spp – wheat composite flours in the ratios 0:100; 5:95; 10:90; 15:85; 20:80 and 25:75 were processed into instant noodles. The proximate composition, sensory, textural and cooking quality of the instant noodles were determined following standard procedures. The results showed a corresponding increase in the crude fat, ash and fibre contents of instant noodles as the percentage substitution with Musa spp flour in the instant noodle formulation increased. Significant differences (p<0.05) were observed in the taste, colour, flavor, texture and overall acceptability of the products. It was observed that cooking time and cooking loss decreased from 4.38 – 3.40 min and 7.61 – 5.51% as percentage substitution increased, respectively; whereas cooking gain, moisture and fat uptake increased as substitution level increased. The force–deformation curve of Musa spp - wheat instant noodle obeyed the Hooke's law showing a decrease in the strength characteristics of noodles as percentage substitution with Musa spp flour increased. The production of instant noodles from banana and plantain offers means of promoting and extending its utilization, thereby boosting the income obtainable from its production.


In the realm of component-based software systems, pursuers of the holy grail of automated application composition face many significant challenges. In this paper we argue that, while the general problem of automated composition in response to high-level goal statements is indeed very difficult to solve, we can realize composition in a restricted context, supporting varying degrees of manual to automated assembly for specific types of applications. We propose a novel paradigm for composition in flow-based information processing systems, where application design and component development are facilitated by the pervasive use of faceted, tag-based descriptions of processing goals, of component capabilities, and of structural patterns of families of application. The facets and tags represent different dimensions of both data and processing, where each facet is modeled as a finite set of tags that are defined in a controlled folksonomy. All data flowing through the system, as well as the functional capabilities of components are described using tags. A customized AI planner is used to automatically build an application, in the form of a flow of components, given a high-level goal specification in the form of a set of tags. End-users use an automatically populated faceted search and navigation mechanism to construct these high-level goals. We also propose a novel software engineering methodology to design and develop a set of reusable, well-described components that can be assembled into a variety of applications. With examples from a case study in the Financial Services domain, we demonstrate that composition using a faceted, tag-based application design is not only possible, but also extremely useful in helping end-users create situational applications from a wide variety of available components.


The present article describes novel massive materials (in the solid phase) based on TEGylated phenothiazine and chitosan that possess great capability to recover mercury ions from constituent aqueous solutions. These were produced by chitosan hydrogelation accompanied by formyl subsidiary item of TEGylated phenothiazine, attended by lyophilization. The delineation and structure description of the obtained material or supramolecular assembly were realized by FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and POM (Polarized Light Optical Microscopy). The morphology of their texture was kept under observation by SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy). The obtained SEM images were evaluated by fractal analysis. The fractal parameters of interest were calculated, including the fractal dimension and lacunarity.


We investigated the effect of high-pressure treatment on the properties of cytoplasmic 5′-nucleotidase (NT), which converts inosine monophosphate (IMP) into inosine. After pressure treatment at 400 MPa, the activity of purified IMP-NT remained at almost 100%, but the activity of partially purified adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-NT decreased to about 40%. These data suggest that there is a difference in the pressure stability between the enzymes. In situ fluorescence spectroscopy of IMP-NT under pressure showed that its pressure-induced denaturation was reversible. When the pressure was reduced from the highest pressure to ambient pressure, hysteresis was observed. This suggests that high pressure treatment may lead to a partial change in the affinity of the subunits for each other once they have dissociated. The activities of IMP-NT and AMP-NT extracted from pressure-treated muscles decreased remarkably between 250 and 450 MPa, but IMP-NT was more stable than AMP-NT.


Development of primary graft dysfunction (PGD) is associated with poor outcomes after transplantation. We hypothesized that Receptor for Advanced Glycation End‐products (RAGE) levels in donor lungs is associated with the development of PGD. Furthermore, we hypothesized that RAGE levels would be increased with PGD in recipients after transplantation. We measured RAGE in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALf) from 25 donors and 34 recipients. RAGE was also detected in biopsies (transbronchial biopsy) from recipients with and without PGD. RAGE levels were significantly higher in donor lungs that subsequently developed sustained PGD versus transplanted lungs that did not display PGD. Donor RAGE level was a predictor of recipient PGD (odds ratio = 1.768 per 0.25 ng/mL increase in donor RAGE level). In addition, RAGE levels remained high for 14 days in those recipients that developed severe graft dysfunction. Recipients may be at higher risk for developing PGD if they receive transplanted organs that have higher levels of soluble RAGE prior to explantation. Moreover, the clinical and pathologic abnormalities associated with PGD posttransplantation are associated with increased RAGE expression. These findings also raise the possibility that targeting the RAGE signaling pathway could be a novel strategy for treatment and/or prevention of PGD.


Background
 Recruiting and retaining qualified and competent staff is one of the biggest challenges facing many hospices. There is a relatively untapped pool of highly qualified graduates who want to work in the charity sector however hospices are not on the radar for many. They may assume hospices are NHS organisations; that all jobs are clinical; or that working in death and dying is depressing. As local charities, hospices do not have the resources to run their own graduate schemes to challenge these perceptions. Aims To attract highly qualified and competent staff To meet an identified skills gap To see an immediate return on our investment. Methods We assessed our skills gap and developed a role description. We approached Charityworks, the leading UK non-profit graduate programme, to source us a graduate who met the criteria. The programme offers a nationwide recruitment campaign, a rigorous selection process, and ongoing development for the graduate over their 12 month placement. In 2014 we became the first hospice to host a Charityworks graduate trainee. Results We have now hosted two graduates, one in a project management role and another in a communications role. Both graduates: have first class honours degrees (in Civil Engineering and in Law) from leading universities came with relevant skills and experience, in project and data management and in media management respectively had a swift and positive impact. Our first graduate's environmental sustainability project became organisational policy. Within 6 months, our second graduate contributed significantly towards our communications objectives, increasing Facebook likes by 30% and Instagram followers by 115%.
Conclusions
 Charityworks gave us access to a higher level of talent than we could have attracted individually, at a fraction of the cost of running a comparable scheme ourselves. We would encourage all hospices to tap into the pool of talented graduates available to them through the Charityworks scheme.


Venous thromboembolism occurs in up to one-third of patients with primary brain tumors. Spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) is also a frequent occurrence in these patients, but there is limited data on the safety of therapeutic anticoagulation. To determine the rate of ICH in patients treated with enoxaparin, we performed a matched, retrospective cohort study with blinded radiology review for 133 patients with high-grade glioma. After diagnosis of glioma, the cohort that received enoxaparin was 3 times more likely to develop a major ICH than those not treated with anticoagulation (14.7% vs 2.5%; P = .036; hazard ratio [HR], 3.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02-11.14). When enoxaparin was analyzed as a time-varying covariate, anticoagulation was associated with a >13-fold increased risk of hemorrhage (HR, 13.26; 95% CI, 3.33-52.85; P < .0001). Overall survival was significantly shorter for patients who suffered a major ICH on enoxaparin compared with patients not receiving anticoagulation (3.3 vs 10.2 months; log-rank P = .012). We applied a validated ICH prediction risk score PANWARDS (platelets, albumin, no congestive heart failure, warfarin, age, race, diastolic blood pressure, stroke), and observed that all major ICHs on enoxaparin occurred in the setting of a PANWARDS score ≥25, corresponding with a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI, 63% to 100%) and a specificity of 40% (95% CI, 25% to 56%). We conclude that caution is warranted when considering therapeutic anticoagulation in patients with high-grade gliomas given the increased risk of ICH and poor prognosis after a major hemorrhage on anticoagulation. The PANWARDS score may assist clinicians in identifying the patients at greatest risk of suffering a major intracranial hemorrhage with anticoagulation.


This study examined the effects of aging on the hemispheric asymmetry of event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by morphosyntactic anomalies in a competing speech paradigm. The experimental groups consisted of children, young adults, and elderly persons. The ERPs were recorded from 32 scalp sites while participants listened to a continuous narrative presented quasidichotically via loudspeakers. Participants responded when they heard an anomalous word embedded within a popular fairy tale. Anomalous words evoked a robust positivity in the 700- to 900-msec latency range in all participants. Comparison of area measures from waveforms at the lateral frontal, frontotemporal, temporal, temporoparietal, and parietal electrode sites revealed asymmetry in hemispheric positivity. In children and young adults, asymmetry peaked in the 600- to 800-msec range and favored the left hemisphere in both target-right and target-left conditions. In seniors, however, asymmetry peaked at 1100 msec, favored the left hemisphere in the target-right condition, and favored the right hemisphere in the target-left condition. These results support the concept that aging affects hemispheric asymmetry during linguistic processing.


The technique of liver transplantation has become relatively standardized. Although not commonly practiced, arterial reperfusion has been shown in both animal and human trials to offer hemodynamic and functional benefits to liver allograft recipients. Whether this is the result of shortening the time to re‐establishing arterial perfusion or an effect of the sequence which the liver is revascularized remains unknown. Further randomized clinical trials are needed to answer this question and support our practice of arterial reperfusion.


PURPOSE
It has been reported that G-CSF administration improves cardiac function by reducing the area of the infarct in a myocardial infarction model rat. In the present study, myocardial infarction model rats, produced by ligation of the left anterior coronary artery, were prepared. The G-CSF effect for treating cardiac muscle cell disorders by ischemia reperfusion was studied.

METHODS
Myocardial infarction model rats were produced by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery in 12-week-old Wistar rats. G-CSF was administered subcutaneously daily at a dose of 100 microg/kg/day for 5 days to rats with a complete ligation (MI-G group, n=6) and rats in which the ligated coronary artery was reperfused 30 minutes after the ligation (R-G group, n=6). Physiological saline was subcutaneously administered to rats with a complete ligation and reperfusion (MI-C and R-C groups, respectively, n=6 each), as controls. After 4 weeks, the infarct area ratio (%), cardiac function on echocardiography (left ventricular ejection fraction), and a myocardial histopathological diagnosis were carried out and the results compared among the groups.

RESULTS
No significant differences were found in the proportion of the residual heart muscle in the infarct lesion, myocardial wall thickness, or left ventricular ejection fraction between the MI-G and MI-C groups. In contrast, the infarct area, myocardial wall thickness, and left ventricular ejection fraction were significantly improved in the R-G group compared to the R-C group (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Any inhibitory effect of G-CSF on the infarct lesion was found in the myocardial infarction reperfusion model rat, but only a small effect was found in rats with a complete ligation-induced myocardial infarction. The findings in the present study, therefore, suggest that G-CSF is effective for treating cardiac muscle cell disorders by ischemia reperfusion.


It is investigated the effect of Mn substitution with Cu on the structure, magnetic and transport properties of La 1-x Ca x Mn 0.9 Cu 0.1 O 3 manganites obtained by standard ceramic technology. The phase composition of the samples was monitorized by X-ray diffraction. The cell parameters, Mn-O distances, Mn-O-Mn angles, position of the atoms in the unit cell and the microstructure were determined and refined by means of CELLREF and FULLPROF programs. The increase of the La concentration leads to a decrease of the Mn 4+ concentration, an increase of the unit cell volume and of the average radii of A and B places. Specific magnetization strongly depends on the thermal treatment and chemical composition. The Cu substitution produces very important change of the magnetic and transport properties, indicating very high values of magnetoresistance at temperatures higher than room temperature.


Objectives: The study aims to identify the nurses knowledge toward skin care for patients undergo radiotherapy breast cancer
Methodology: Seventy nurses were selected to achieve the objectives of the study. The study was conducted during Feb./2014 at Al –Amal National Hospital for Cancer Management in Baghdad City. The questionnaire consists of two parts first part: included demographic characteristics of the nurses and the second part: included clauses relating to the knowledge of nurses about skin care to patients undergoing radiation therapy consisted of (20) items .Data were analyzed by using Frequency, percentage and chi-squared test.
Results: The study results showed that most of nurses Knowledge was range between low (40٪) and moderate (45.7٪) and there were significant differences between nurse's knowledge and nurse's variables age, level of education, years of experience in radiotherapy unit and number of training sessions at (p <0.05)
Conclusion: The researcher concluded that the nurse's knowledge is insufficient about skin care for patients undergoing radiotherapy of breast cancer.
Recommendation: It is recommended increase the researcher to focus on the nurses knowledge about skin care for patients undergoing radiotherapy of breast cancer and to identify the symptoms of the side effects of radiation therapy and prevention.


Ensuring reliable operation of large power systems subjected to multiple outages is a challenging task because of the combinatorial nature of the problem. Traditional approaches for security assessment are often limited by their scope and/or speed, resulting in missing of critical contingencies that could lead to cascading failures. This paper proposes a two-component methodology to enhance power system security. The first component combines an efficient algorithm to detect cut-set saturation (called the feasibility test (FT) algorithm) with real-time contingency analysis (RTCA) to create an integrated corrective action (iCA), whose goal is to secure the system against cut-set saturation as well as critical branch overloads. The second component only employs the results of the FT to create a relaxed corrective action (rCA) to secure the system against post-contingency cut-set saturation. The first component is more comprehensive, but the latter is computationally more efficient. The effectiveness of the two components is evaluated based upon the number of cascade triggering contingencies alleviated, and the computation time. The results obtained by analyzing different case-studies on the IEEE 118-bus and 2000-bus synthetic Texas systems indicate that the proposed two-component methodology successfully enhances the scope and speed of power system security assessment during multiple outages.


In this paper we analyze of the A 50 air defense system. Attention we paid to shielding the radar signals of the " Шмель " system. We present the individual stages of the construction of the system, its purpose and basic technical data. At the beginning of 2011, the Russian aircraft detection and guidance systems entered a new era thanks to the commissioning of the long-awaited modernized A50U OKB Beriev aircraft. By mid-2013, two A-50Us were in operation, the third was expected by the end of the year and the fourth is planned to be commissioned in 2014. The modernization of the A-50 can be seen as a huge leap forward for the Air Force, which finally put computers into operation 21st century display systems paired with powerful radar.


Many unsupervised algorithms for nonlinear dimensionality reduction, such as locally linear embedding (LLE) and Laplacian eigenmaps, are derived from the spectral decompositions of sparse matrices. While these algorithms aim to preserve certain proximity relations on average, their embeddings are not explicitly designed to preserve local features such as distances or angles. In this paper, we show how to construct a low dimensional embedding that maximally preserves angles between nearby data points. The embedding is derived from the bottom eigenvectors of LLE and/or Laplacian eigenmaps by solving an additional (but small) problem in semidefinite programming, whose size is independent of the number of data points. The solution obtained by semidefinite programming also yields an estimate of the data's intrinsic dimensionality. Experimental results on several data sets demonstrate the merits of our approach.


Background: In our recent study in 2015, we showed a significant relationship between increased rate of clinical neonatal conjunctivitis (CNC) and performance of eye red reflex examination. Our study aim was to assess whether improved accessibility of staff to disinfectant gel (via attaching the gel bottle to infant's cradle) will increase the caring staff compliance with hand hygiene and decrease the rate of CNC. Methods: Our intervention included attaching bottles of alcohol-based gel to newborns' cradles to ensure full availability and accessibility of hand-wash disinfectant. We included all newborn infants who were born beyond 35 weeks' gestation and stayed in the well-baby nursery. We compared 2 periods: pre-intervention period (n = 9380) versus an intervention period (n = 8087). Three variables were recorded: (1) rate of CNC: number of conjunctival swabs sampled per 1000 newborns whenever an eye discharge was noted, (2) rate of bacterial conjunctivitis: number of positive swabs per 1000 newborns and (3) percentage of positive swabs out of all sampled swabs. Results: Compared with pre-intervention period, the rate of CNC dropped significantly during the intervention period: 28.6/1000 versus 21.3/1000, respectively, P < 0.01. However, the number of positive bacterial swabs per 1000 newborns (3.2 vs. 2.5) and the percentage of positive bacterial swabs of all sent samples (11.6% vs. 10.8%) were not different between the 2 periods. The majority of pathogens in swabs were Gram-negative sp. without difference between study periods (77.4% vs. 80%), respectively. Univariate analysis showed significant association between rate of CNC and longer length of stay >5 days (P < 0.001) and vaginal delivery. Logistic stepwise regression analysis showed that 4 variables were significantly and independently associated with higher rate of clinical conjunctivitis. These include birth during pre-intervention period [P = 0.018, odds ratio (OR) = 1.27, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04–1.54], length of stay 4–5 days (P < 0.001, OR = 2.23, CI: 1.63–3.06), length of stay >7 days (P < 0.001, OR = 6.51, CI: 4.24–10.02), vaginal delivery (P = 0.004, OR = 1.6, CI: 1.17–2.2) and male gender (P = 0.006, OR = 1.31, CI: 1.08–1.59). Conclusions: Accessibility of a disinfectant gel within each newborn's cradle raised hygiene awareness among the caring staff and contributed to the reduction of CNC rate in the newborn nursery.


This paper is a response to Joseph Ushie's argument for Neo-colonialism rather than Postcolonialism as the most appropriate theory for the criticism of what he calls Current African Literature. His proposition is based on the premise that Postcolonialism as a theory runs counter to the neo-colonial situation of Africa since the attainment of flag independence by different African nations. Hence, neo - colonialism answers directly to the socio-political and economic condition of most African countries and should be utilised in the appreciation of most literatures from the continent. In this meta-criticism we proceed by making bare the crux of Ushie's argument, then identify obvious contradictions in his logic and critically present the merit of Postcolonialism as a cultural theory fit enough for the critical engagement of Current African Literature. Keywords : Neo-colonialism, Postcolonialism, African Literature, Critical Theory, Meta-criticism, Joseph Ushie


Naturally occurring regulatory T (Treg) cells, which express the transcription factor Foxp3, are indispensable for immunological self-tolerance and immune homeostasis. They also hinder effective tumor immunity and can therefore be targeted to evoke anti-tumor immune responses by reducing them or attenuating their suppressive activity (1). Human Foxp3+ T cells are heterogenous in function and phenotype, including suppressive and non-suppressive populations (2, 3). Efforts to delineate these populations have shown that Foxp3+ cells in the peripheral blood can be separated into at least three functionally distinct subpopulations, including (i) highly proliferative and differentiated Foxp3-high population (designated effector Treg cells) with stable Treg-specific epigenome alterations, the majority of which will die by apoptosis after suppression, (ii) naive Foxp3-low population (naive Treg cells), which is in a resting state and upon TCR stimulation differentiates into effector Treg cells, and (iii) Foxp3-low non-suppressive population unstable in Treg-specific epigenome changes and capable of secreting pro-inflammatory cytokines. The three Foxp3+ T-cell subpopulations in the peripheral blood can be distinguished by a combination of expression levels of cell surface molecules such as CD45RA and CD15s (sialyl Lewis X); for example, effector Tregs are CD45RA−CD15s+; naive Tregs CD45RA+CD15s−; non-Treg cells CD45RA−CD15s−. Each population exhibits distinct behavior in different disease states (2, 3). There is accumulating evidence that abundant Treg cell infiltration into tumors is associated with poor clinical outcomes in various types of cancers. However, the role of Treg cells is controversial in colorectal cancers (CRCs), in which FOXP3+ T cell infiltration indicates better prognosis in some studies. We have recently shown that CRCs, which are commonly infiltrated by terminally differentiated and suppression-competent FOXP3hi Treg cells, can be classified into two types by the degree of additional infiltration of FOXP3lo nonsuppressive T cells capable of secreting inflammatory cytokines (4). Interestingly, CRCs with abundant infiltration of the latter show significantly better prognosis than those with predominant FOXP3hi Treg cell infiltration. Development of such inflammatory FOXP3lo non-Treg cells appears to depend on secretion of IL-12 and TGF-β by tumor tissues and to be correlated with tumor invasion by intestinal bacteria, especially Fusobacterium nucleatum. Thus, functionally distinct subpopulations of tumor-infiltrating FOXP3+ T cells contribute in opposing ways to determining CRC prognosis. These results also indicate indicate that depletion of suppression-competent FOXP3hi effector Treg cells from tumor tissues is an effective treatment strategy for various cancers including CRC. Indeed, depletion of FOXP3hi effector Treg cells alone by administration of cell-depleting anti-CCR4 mAb is able to evoke effective tumor immunity without serious autoimmunity (5). Similarly, Imatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia, is able to evoke tumor immunity via specifically depleting effector Treg cells as an off target effect (unpublished). Taken together, Treg depletion by biologicals or small molecules, together with other treatments to activate effector T cells (e.g., tumor antigen vaccination or immune checkpoint blockade) can be an effective way of cancer immunotherapy. References 1. Nishikawa H, Sakaguchi S. Regulatory T cells in cancer immunotherapy. Curr Opin Immunol 2014;27:1-7.2. Miyara, M, et al. Functional delineation and differentiation dynamics of human CD4+ T cells expressing the FoxP3 transcription factor. Immunity 2009;30:899-911. 3. Miyara M, et al. Sialyl Lewis x (CD15s) identifies highly differentiated and most suppressive FOXP3high regulatory T cells in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2015;112:7225-7230. 4. Saito T, et al. Two FOXP3+CD4+ T-cell subpopulations distinctly control the prognosis of colorectal cancers. Nature Med 2016;22:679-684. 5. Sugiyama D, et al. Anti-CCR4 mAb selectively depletes effector-type FoxP3+CD4+ regulatory T cells, evoking antitumor immune responses in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2013;110:17945-17950. Citation Format: Shimon Sakaguchi. Targeting regulatory T cells for cancer immunotherapy [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr IA12.


Recently, many mathematical models have been studied to better understand the coronavirus infection. Most of these
models are based on classical integer-order derivatives which cannot capture the fading memory and crossover behavior found in
many biological phenomena. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to establish the existence and uniqueness of solutions to novel
coronavirus (COVID-19) model including Caputo-Fabrizio (CF)-fractional derivative. We derive existence and uniqueness results with
the help of properties of CF-fractional calculus, fixed-point theorem and iterative method. Finally, the model is proved to have a
disease-free and an endemic equilibrium point.


INTRODUCTION: Objective assessment of motor skills has become an important challenge in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) training.Currently, there is no gold standard defining and determining the residents' surgical competence.To aid in the decision process, we analyze the validity of a supervised classifier to determine the degree of MIS competence based on assessment of psychomotor skills METHODOLOGY: The ANFIS is trained to classify performance in a box trainer peg transfer task performed by two groups (expert/non expert). There were 42 participants included in the study: the non-expert group consisted of 16 medical students and 8 residents ( 10 MIS procedures performed) and 4 experienced surgeons. Instrument movements were captured by means of the Endoscopic Video Analysis (EVA) tracking system. Nine motion analysis parameters (MAPs) were analyzed, including time, path length, depth, average speed, average acceleration, economy of area, economy of volume, idle time and motion smoothness. Data reduction was performed by means of principal component analysis, and then used to train the ANFIS net. Performance was measured by leave one out cross validation. RESULTS: The ANFIS presented an accuracy of 80.95%, where 13 experts and 21 non-experts were correctly classified. Total root mean square error was 0.88, while the area under the classifiers' ROC curve (AUC) was measured at 0.81. DISCUSSION: We have shown the usefulness of ANFIS for classification of MIS competence in a simple box trainer exercise. The main advantage of using ANFIS resides in its continuous output, which allows fine discrimination of surgical competence. There are, however, challenges that must be taken into account when considering use of ANFIS (e.g. training time, architecture modeling). Despite this, we have shown discriminative power of ANFIS for a low-difficulty box trainer task, regardless of the individual significances between MAPs. Future studies are required to confirm the findings, inclusion of new tasks, conditions and sample population.


Socioeconomic and health consequences of aging in India are analyzed. By the year 2000 India will have the second largest elderly population in the world according to official projections. The growth rate sex ratio and marital labor and literacy status of the elderly are predicted to result in a higher dependency ratio by the 2001. Socioeconomic aspects of this aging population will affect government policy and also the family unit which has traditionally provided care for the elderly. (ANNOTATION)


In this article, we celebrate the first 50 years of the European Review of Agricultural Economics. We intend to convey some understanding of how the interests of European Review of Agricultural Economics (ERAE) readers change over time as a reflection of how shifting interests show up in our research. To document how the issues, methods, and content of the ERAE evolve over time, we summarise the content of the top-cited articles by decade. We conclude with a summary, and our thoughts as to where applied economics research in the Review may go over the next 50 years.


Abstract Aim: To determine whether fetal pancreatic echogenicity assessment is associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted in a cohort of 160 pregnant women with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies. Fetal ultrasonography was performed between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation for conventional fetal biometry. Based on their pancreatic sonogram results, subjects were divided into two groups, that is, hyperechogenic pancreas group and iso-moderate echogenic pancreas group. Birth characteristics (mode of delivery) and fetal outcomes (gestational age at birth, fetal gender, birth length and weight, Apgar for 1. Versus 5. Minutes) were recorded and the relationship between pancreatic hyperechogenicity and the presence of GDM was assessed. Results: Sixty-six cases with hyperechogenic pancreas (group 1) and 70 cases with iso-moderate echogenic pancreas (group 2) were included to the study. There were no significant differences in maternal demographic and obstetric features between the groups. Fetal birth weight and length were significantly higher in the hyperechogenic pancreas group (p < .0001, p = .013; respectively). Hyperechogenic pancreas was significantly and positively associated with GDM risk. Hyperechogenic pancreas was significantly and positively associated with an increased GDM risk by 29.8 times compared to grade 1 isoechogenic group (p < .0001). Conclusion: An accurate prediction model for GDM among pregnant women via hyperechogenic pancreas may be created. Fetal hyperechogenic pancreas may be used as a complementary biomarker for the detection of pregnant women suspected of GDM.


Background
Development of corneal tissue engineering creates a new therapeutic method for severe corneal diseases. However, ideal seed cells and scaffold for corneal surface reconstruction have not yet been investigated well. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are varified to have a self-renewal ability and epithelioid features, and temperature-responsive scaffolds (TRSs) can offer technical support for stem cell sheet.

Objective
This study was to investigate the characteristics of ADSCs cultured on TRSs and compare these features to typical oral mucosal epithelial cells (OMECs), and therefore to explore the feasibility of reconstruction of ocular surface with ADSCs as seed cells.

Methods
Self-made TRSs were prepared by adding isopropyl alcohol dissolved poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAAm) to each polystyrene tissue culture dish and then irradiating using an election beam. Subcutaneious fatty tissue of rabbit neck was obtained to culture ADSCs, and 4 pieces of oral cavity mucosal tissue were digested and cultured to obtain OMECs. Then the ADSCs and OMECs were incubated on TRSs, and cell morphology, growth rate, detached duration and survival counts were compared between ADSCs and OMECs. The ADSCs sheet and OMECs sheet were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for morphological examination. Immunochemistry was used to observe the expressions of stem-cell biomakers and epithelioid-cell biomakers in the cells. The ultrastructure of cell surface was observed under the scanning electron microscope.

Results
Self-made TRSs were similar to ordinary culture dish in the transparancy and smoothness. The water contact angle of 4 in 5 samples were >10° with the effective rate upto 80%. ADSCs showed the elongated fusiform in shape, while OMECs showed a cobblestone appearance. The growth cycle, detached duration and cell number of ADSCs were 12-14 days, (46. 0±9. 6) minutes and (7. 9±1. 1)×105/sheet, and those of OMECs were 14-16 days, (91. 9±10. 9) minutes and (45. 8±26. 5)×105/sheet, respectively, showing statistically significant differences in the detached duration and cell counts between ADSCs and OMECs (P=0. 002, 0. 028). Hematoxylin and eosin staining showed that ADSCs sheet comprised only 1-3 layer cells, while OMECs showed 4-5 layer cells. ATP-binding cassette superfamily G member 2(ABCG2), p63 and cytokeratin 12(CK12) were positively expressed in both ADSCs sheet and OMECs sheet. Closely packed cells and typical eithelial microvilli in the cell surface were exhibited in both ADSCs sheet and OMECs sheet under the scanning electron microscope.

Conclusions
Self-made TRSs can be used as scaffold of ADSCs. The ADSCs sheet on the TRSs appears to have a good cell vitality and therefore is a new seed source of ocular surface reconstruction.

Key words:
Tissue engineering, corneal; Cells, cultured; Adipose tissue-derived stem cells/cytology; Mouth mucosa/cytology; Biological markers/metabolism; Cell sheet technology; Ocular surface reconstruction; Rabbits


A method and associated algorithm are presented which allow a simple and accurate determination to be made of the location of small symmetric areas presented in roentgenological images. The method utilizes an operator to visually spot object positions but eliminates the need for critical positoning accuracy on the operator's part. The rapidity of measurement allows results to be evaluated on-line. Parameters associated with the algorithm have been analyzed, and methods to facilitate an optimum choice for any particular experimental setup are presented.


Purpose The objective of this study was to assess the fractal dimension, lacunarity, trabecular microarchitecture parameters, and cortical linear measurements in the mandibles of male and female individuals to identify differences between them. Materials and Methods In total, 116 cone-beam computed tomography scans of healthy individuals of different ages (57 men and 59 women, aged between 20 and 60 years) were selected. The following bone parameters were measured: 1) buccal, lingual, and basal cortical bone thickness in 5 standard parasagittal sections (the midline, the left and right sides of the lower lateral incisors, and the left and right sides of the lower canines); 2) the bone volume fraction of 10 sequential axial sections from each patient by creating a volume of interest in the area between the lower canines; and 3) fractal dimension and lacunarity using grayscale images of the same region of the volume of interest in the anterior mandible. Spearman correlation coefficients and the Mann-Whitney test were used. Results A significant and positive correlation was found between age and cortical thickness, especially in the region of the central incisors. Significant differences between sexes in terms of fractal dimension, lacunarity, and bone volume were found. Women revealed lower fractal dimension values and higher lacunarity and bone volume ratio values than men. Conclusion Fractal dimension, lacunarity, trabecular bone volume, and cortical thickness were different between men and women of different ages.


This study aimed to determine valid waist circumference (WC) thresholds using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for pediatric metabolic syndrome (MS) prediction and to compare validities between the thresholds derived from ROC curves and the WC cut-offs defined by International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Four hundred and sixty four males and 415 females, 10-18 years, who participated in the KNHNES 2005 were included. Subjects were classified as having pediatric MS when a high WC and > or = 2 of the risk factors defined by IDF were present. High WC was defined using either IDF criterion (> or =90th percentile for age and sex-specific WC based on Korean reference in adolescents 10-15 years of age, > or =90cm in males and > or =80cm in females 16-18 years of age) or age-adjusted WC thresholds derived from the ROC curves predicting > or = 2 abnormal risk factors. The AUCs were 0.71-0.81 (sensitivity 74-100%, specificity 52-65%) among males and 0.63-0.76 (sensitivity 71-90%, specificity 37-87%) among females for WC thresholds (55th and 32th percentile for males and females 10-15 years of age, 73cm and 76cm for males and females 16-18 years of age), while the AUCs were 0.65-0.66 (sensitivity 39-45%, specificity 84-93%) among males and 0.53-0.76 (sensitivity 20-57%, specificity 86-96%) among females for IDF-defined WC cut-offs. The prevalence of MS using IDF definition for WC was 4% in males and 2% in females, while those using WC thresholds were 8% and 5%, respectively. The IDF's definition of abdominal obesity may be less sensitive in screening adolescents with pediatric MS compared to WC thresholds.


Recent osteological analyses of archaeological human skeletal remains from the Ust'-Yurt Plateau, Uzbeki stan, provided the opportunity to obtain samples for radiocarbon dating. The results of 18 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates are presented in this paper and provide the first absolute dates for late prehistoric and early historic archaeolog ical sites in Uzbekistan. The AMS dates suggest that most sites are earlier than have been traditionally thought based on relative dating using artifact typologies.


Web services are the element based in SOA (i.e., Service Oriented Architecture) applications that are commonly used in software systems. However the validation problem on quality of web services via testing has to be improved. This paper presents two tools for conformance testing of web services. One tool for unit testing that is implemented by an on-line approach. This tool can be used to test a web service-based and/or an orchestration by simulating its partners. The other focuses on verification of a timed trace with respect to a set of constraints. Specially, we can use this tool to verify on-line or off-line a timed trace. Finally, we show our experiments on a real-life case study, Product Retriever, by combining the two tools.


Unaware behaviors of occupants can affect energy consumption even more than incorrect installations and building envelope inefficiencies, with significant overconsumptions widely documented. Real time data and an effective and frequent billing of actual consumptions are required to reach an adequate awareness of energy consumption. From this point of view, the European Directive 2012/27/EU already imposed the use of metering and sub-metering systems, setting the minimum criteria for billing and related information based on real energy consumption data. To assess the ability of buildings to exploit new information and communication technologies (ICT) and sensitize both landlords and tenants to related savings, the new European Directive 2018/844/EU promotes the use of a smart readiness indicator. At the same time, basic information about indoor thermal comfort should be also gathered, aimed at avoiding that an excessive saving tendency can determine the onset of issues related to excessively low internal temperatures. In this paper, the authors address the problem of gathering, processing, and transmitting energy consumption and basic indoor air temperature data in the framework of an Internet of Things (IoT) integrated tool aimed at increasing residential user awareness through the use of consumption and benchmark indexes. Two case-studies in which thermal and electrical energy monitoring systems have been tested are presented and discussed. Finally, the suitability of the communication of energy consumption in terms of temporal, spatial, and typological aggregation has been evaluated.


Stable isotope proxy records, such as speleothems, plant‐wax biomarker records, and ice cores, are suitable archives for the reconstruction of regional palaeohydrologic conditions. But the interpretation of these records in the tropics, especially in the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) domain, is difficult due to differing moisture and water sources: precipitation from the ISM and Winter Westerlies, as well as snow‐ and glacial meltwater. In this study, we use interannual differences in ISM strength (2011–2012) to understand the stable isotopic composition of surface water in the Arun River catchment in eastern Nepal. We sampled main stem and tributary water (n = 204) for stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope analysis in the postmonsoon phase of two subsequent years with significantly distinct ISM intensities. In addition to the 2011/2012 sampling campaigns, we collected a 12‐month time series of main stem waters (2012/2013, n = 105) in order to better quantify seasonal effects on the variability of surface water δ18O/δD. Furthermore, remotely sensed satellite data of rainfall, snow cover, glacial coverage, and evapotranspiration was evaluated. The comparison of datasets from both years revealed that surface waters of the main stem Arun and its tributaries were D‐enriched by ~15‰ when ISM rainfall decreased by 20%. This strong response emphasizes the importance of the ISM for surface water run‐off in the central Himalaya. However, further spatio‐temporal analysis of remote sensing data in combination with stream water d‐excess revealed that most high‐altitude tributaries and the Tibetan part of the Arun receive high portions of glacial melt water and likely Winter Westerly Disturbances precipitation. We make the following two implications: First, palaeohydrologic archives found in high‐altitude tributaries and on the southern Tibetan Plateau record a mixture of past precipitation δD values and variable amounts of additional water sources. Second, surface water isotope ratios of lower elevated tributaries strongly reflect the isotopic composition of ISM rainfall implying a suitable region for the analysis of potential δD value proxy records.


Due to the collective behaviour of their magnetic excitations, arrays of coupled S = 1/2 spin dimers, exposed to a magnetic field, are of general interest in solid state physics as they can be considered as the source for generating a gas of interacting bosons. We present a new class of coupled spin-dimer systems based on purely organic building blocks. From magnetic susceptibility and magnetization data of various nitronyl-nitroxide biradicals, we extract the influence of the bridging ligands on the intra-dimer coupling constant Jdimer. The target materials show moderate values of Jdimer ranging from 5 to 10 K, and indications for significant inter-dimer couplings. The moderate size of these couplings, together with the high flexibility against chemical modifications, make these materials promising candidates for studying interacting quantum objects under well-controlled conditions.


Background: There is a lack of methodological investigation of the in situ functions of a bacterial species in microecosystems such as the animal gut, although the microbiome has become a focus in the microbiology field worldwide.
Results: We used native mixed phages containing Escherichia phages T1 and T4 as a microbial editing tool for eliminating Escherichia coli MG1655 labeled with green fluorescent protein in the mouse gut. The phages possessed rigorous host specificity at both the genus and species levels, resulting in an 8.8-log10 decrease in the titer of viable bacteria after 12 h of phage treatment in an in vitro test. In vivo, they knocked out strain MG1655 not only at concentrations of 10 6 -10 8 CFU g -1 colonizing the mouse gut but also even in mice fed with feedstuff containing the bacterium. In addition, the impact of phage treatment on the microbial community structure of the mouse gut was not significantly ( p >0.05) based on a 16S rRNA amplicon gene sequencing analysis, although the richness of some bacteria changed significantly.
Conclusions: We provide a feasible microbial editing technique for the animal gut. Native phages with strict host specificity can effectively knock out a target bacterium by single or continuous gastric perfusion, with limited perturbation of microbial diversity, which is beneficial for studies of the function of a specific bacterial species colonizing a complicated microecosystem.


A new discharge computational model is proposed on the basis of the integration of the velocity profile across the flow cross-section in an internally corrugated pipe flowing partially full. The model takes into account the velocity profiles in the pressurised pipe to predict the flow rate under free-surface flow conditions. The model was evaluated through new laboratory experiments as well as a literature datasets. The results show that flow depth and pipe slope may affect the model accuracy; nevertheless, a prediction error smaller than 20% is expected from the model. Experimental results reveal the influence of the pipe slope and flow depth on the friction factor and the stage-discharge curves: the friction factor may increase with pipe slope, while it reduces as flow depth increases. Hence, a notable change of pipe slope may lead to the variation of the stage-discharge curve. A part of this study deals with numerical simulation of the velocity profiles and the stage-discharge curves. Using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, numerical solutions were obtained to simulate four experimental tests, obtaining enough accurate results as to velocity profiles and water depths. The results of the simulated flow velocity were used to estimate the flow discharge, confirming the potential of numerical techniques for the prediction of stage-discharge curves.


Because of small volume, high energy density, relatively high single cell voltage, low self- discharging rate, small resistance, Lead-acid battery has been widely used in hybrid electric vehicle systems, but difference between every unit, defects of sensitive to temperature, sensitive to voltage and current has limited its use. Intelligent management system of lead-acid battery based on TMS320F2812 was designed to solve these problems. Experiment results prove the effectiveness of the design. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.


Over 70% of the domesticated birds in Kenya are indigenous chicken (IC) providing meat and table eggs. They are frequently raised through the free range, backyard production system. Small flock sizes are characteristic of this production system and often, sales are mainly at the farmgate. Although IC production possesses enormous potential at livelihood improvement, marketing systems are undefined and variable. The influence of prices on market engagement has frequently been assumed. A study of 68 farmers conducted in Machakos, Kibwezi, Nzaui and Mwala District in 2008 revealed that 70% of all IC sales were conducted at the farmgate while only 19% of the sales were at the local market. This study also investigates the probability of market participation by employing a binary logistic regression model. The results suggests that while farmers complain of poor farm gate prices for indigenous chicken offered by middlemen, low volumes are an important drawback to market participation.


The analysis of existing priorities in the development of the Arctic natural resources hydrocarbons and marine bioresources has been carried out. The problems and prospects of organizing logistics and transport corridors for trade by goods produced in the North and in the central regions of Russia have been considered; some issues of control over the marine area in the Arctic have been reviewed


ABSTRACT:This article addresses the discursive perspectives of survivor speech as they inform discussions of Chaucer's rape narratives. Responding to Euan Roger and Sebastian Sobecki's discoveries that the Chaumpaigne release did not address an accusation of rape, I argue that they offer Chaucer scholars a chance to transform our approaches to the poet and the subject of sexual violence. No longer burdened with assessing Chaucer's guilt or Chaumpaigne's victimization, we may adopt, instead, a structural approach, examining how Chaucer's rape narratives reproduce harmful myths about women, sex, and consent that perpetuate assault. The article explores the Reeve's Tale as an example of this approach.


For sterilization processes the pharmacopoeias demand a sterility assurance level (SAL) of 10(-6), i.e. a probability of not more than one viable microorganism among one million sterilized products. This SAL concept is based on the assumption that the inactivation of microorganisms by physical or chemical means generally follows first-order kinetics. In this paper it is demonstrated that this is not absolutely true for non-thermal antimicrobial processes. Using Bacillus subtilis spore test preparations the sporicidal efficacy of gamma and ultraviolet irradiation on the one hand as well as the treatment by glutaraldehyde and hydrogen peroxide containing solutions on the other hand was investigated. A range of mean spore contamination between 10(8) and 10(-2) spores per test item could be supported by experimental data. It was demonstrated that the antimicrobial treatment parameters which are sufficient to reduce a high spore burden were not valid for an adequate reduction of the remaining lower spore burden. It is concluded that any extrapolation of such experimental data to the SAL range as usual in the validation of sterilization process parameters may be not permitted. Possible theoretical explanations of the non-homogeneity of the spore inactivation by non-thermal methods as well as consequences for the safety evaluation of sterilization processes are discussed.


This volume is a supplement of Acta Neurochirurgica, which covers a conference held in Seoul, Korea, in September 2005 under the auspices of the International Society of Reconstructive Neurosurgery and the Neurorehabilitation Committee of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. The first paper discusses clinical neurorehabilitation and describes the organization of a rehabilitation center in Germany. The multidisciplinary nature of such efforts and the progression of rehabilitation efforts from the time of the acute brain insult through discharge are described. There follow 9 papers on involuntary movement disorders focusing mainly on the use of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson disease and dystonia. Much of this section includes repetition, because there is not a large variation in the general approach between the different groups reporting their results; however, the inevitable variability of some aspects of technique is illustrated. Descriptions of investigation of electrophysiology of the subthalamic region with microelectrodes are presented. Of particular interest are the articles that describe treatment of dystonia with deep brain stimulation. Surgical management of this disorder is less well established than Parkinson disease, and the experience with deep brain stimulation for dystonia presented in these articles is valuable. One article describes the use of both deep brain stimulation and motor cortex stimulation for movement disorders occurring after stroke. A study of fluorodeoxyglucose–positron-emission tomography (FDG-PET) performed before and after placement of bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation electrodes reports the effects of such stimulation on regional cerebral metabolism in advanced Parkinson disease. The next section includes 6 articles on pain. This diverse group of articles includes presentations of stimulation of the primary motor cortex, intrathecal baclofen treatment, and stimulation of the cingulate cortex in a rat model. Long-term follow-up results are presented for dorsal root entry zone lesions used for intractable pain after brachial plexus injuries. Another article presents long-term results from percutaneous radio-frequency posterior primary ramus neurotomies performed for low back pain. The 4 articles about epilepsy are also a diverse group. The first article presents chronic deep brain stimulation of the subthalamus and anterior thalamus for refractory partial epilepsy. The second article discusses vagus nerve stimulation for pediatric epilepsy. The third article discusses seizure control after gamma knife radiosurgery for nonhemorrhagic arteriovenous malformations, and the final article in this section discusses surgical resection of cavernous angiomas located in eloquent areas. The next section is designated specifically as spinal cord, though other sections also contain articles that relate to the spine. The first article in this section discusses the effects of spinal cord stimulation on cerebral hemodynamics, and the second article is a case report describing idiopathic syringomyelia. The final section, on cell transplantation, includes several articles describing experiments with stem cells used in animal models. The first of these reports presents migration of bone marrow stem cells in the ischemic brain. The second article describes behavioral effects of human mesenchymal stem cells transplanted into the injured brain in a rat model. The next article reports effects of human mesenchymal stem cell transplantation combined with growth factor infusion for repair of the injured spinal cord. The fourth article on stem cells reviews relations between stem cells and certain cytokines in possible applications for stroke therapy. The final 2 articles are more specifically technologic. The first of these discusses the use of laser technology to control the growth of neurons in a laboratory preparation, and the final article describes a device for making deep brain lesions in animal models for studies of neurodegeneration and neuroregeneration. This volume covers a spectrum of current functional neurosurgery. Some of the described procedures have become well established in recent years, namely, deep brain stimulation for Parkinson disease and vagus nerve stimulation for intractable epilepsy. Other procedures described in these articles, such as intrathecal baclofen treatment and dorsal root entry zone lesions, are somewhat older treatments. The articles on dystonia are particularly useful, and other articles are provocative. Most of the treatments discussed in this volume rely heavily on neuroimaging to localize targets for devices. In that sense, the neuroradiologist may be interested in these reports; however, there is only one article, the one studying FDG-PET, that is mainly based in radiology, and radiologic illustration in the book is quite limited. The best illustrations in the book are in the section describing stem cell research. Although the content of some of the articles is quite valuable, the volume does suffer from the stilted English usually found in the compilation of papers from such an international conference. Although the quality of the articles is uneven, it is probable that anyone with interests in functional neurosurgery will find something of interest from perusing this volume.


Purpose ― This study aims to examine the impact of population aging and fertility rates on economic growth in Malaysia for the sample spanning from 1961 to 2020.Method ― The study uses an Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) model to examine the relationship between economic growth, the aging population, fertility rate, capital stock, and employment rate.Findings ― The main results provide evidence of a long-run relationship between aging, fertility rate, employment, and capital stock on Malaysian economic growth. The results also show that the aging population harms economic growth in the long run, but a decline in the fertility rate has been favorable to long-term economic growth.Implication ― These findings have significant implications for the execution and formulation of national aging and demographic policies and government efforts to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability.Originality ― This study empirically investigated the link between population aging and economic development, reflecting recent demographic trends in Malaysia. This study uses current data and an Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) technique to analyze long-term economic growth and its association with supply-side determinants


Background: Recent years have seen numerous encouraging developments in the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with significant improvement in disease control. However, methotrexate (MTX) remains a cornerstone therapy and first-line drug for majority of patients with RA, commonly associated with prolonged or even lifelong treatment, which takes the risk for decreasing medication adherence over time Therefore, prompt recognition of predictive factors for MTX non-adherence is one of the most important challenges related to treatment of patients with RA. Objectives: The aims of this study were to assess patients' self-reported adherence to MTX, as well as to investigate predictive role of physician-patient interaction satisfaction for MTX adherence. Namely, it could be hypothesized that patients' perceptions of multiple specific components of relationship with their physician are associated with patient trust in their physician, which is strongly related to treatment adherence. Methods: In the period between May 1 and September 15, 2018, 98 consecutive RA patients who were treated in Clinical center of Montenegro and private clinic "Merkur Nera" were enrolled in this multi-centric cross-sectional study. Non-adherence to MTX was defined as ≥1 dose missed against medical advice. Patients field in the questionnaire consisted of MTX-specific queries, including the questions related to therapy-related communication with their physician. Possible interaction of the investigated confounders and their joint effect on the MTX adherence were analyzed using ordered logistic regression analysis. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed including all covariates that appeared to be associated with the endpoint in the univariate models (p<0.1). Odds ratio was used to express the strength of the association between independent predictors and MTX non-adherence as a dependent variable. Results: Study population was predominantly female (87.8%), and the average age was 56.4±12.1 years. The median duration of RA was 8 years (range 0-34 years), while the median duration of MTX treatment was 6 years (range 0-26 years). The median current dose of MTX which responders received was 15 mg per week. The overall prevalence of non-adherence to MTX was 32.7%. According to the results of univariate regression analysis the following factors are significantly associated with adherence to MTX: younger age (OR=0.942; p=0.065), employment (OR=0.956; p=0.095), working capacity (OR=0,342; p=0.057), marital status (OR=0.342; p=0.001) and expressed need for more communication with the doctor regarding RA treatment (OR=1.410; p=0.021). Finally, in the multivariate regression model the following variables remained statistically significant: marital status (OR=0.406; p=0.007) and expressed need for more communication with the doctor related to RA treatment (OR=1.303 p=0.044). Namely, married RA patients were 2.46 times less likely to MTX non-adherence compared to others, while the patients who stated the need for more communication with the doctor regarding RA treatment has 1,30 times greater chances to MTX non-adherence. Conclusion: The results of our study have shown that about one third of RA patients met the criteria for non-adherence to MTX. Identification of the patient's need for more communication related to RA therapy as independent predictor for MTX non-adherence suggests that physician-patient relationship quality is an important point of intervention for efforts to improve patients' medication adherence. Disclosure of Interests: None declared


Introduction Presenteeism is usually defined as attending for work while ill. It is linked with lost productivity and increased sickness absence, and can be costly to organisations. Studies suggest a high prevalence of presenteeism in the healthcare sector. Additionally European statistics suggest that presenteeism is particularly frequent in Malta (EU). A study was therefore conducted to investigate the correlates of presenteeism in a sample of nurses working within a geriatric ward setting in Malta. Methods A cross-sectional survey (n=270) investigated the suggested predictors of presenteeism that had emerged in an earlier qualitative study. Hierarchical binary logistic regression was used to identify the correlates of presenteeism. Data was analysed using SPSS. Result Individuals who had engaged in presenteeism two or more times in the previous 12 months were more likely to have: engaged in sickness absenteeism frequently (OR 2.36, 95% CI: 1.02 to 5.94); felt emotional during their last presenteeism episode (OR 1.21, 95% CI: 1.07 to 1.37); felt that their last sickness absenteeism episode was good for their health (OR 1.72, 95% CI: 1.14 to 2.61); and felt presenteeism was necessary following recent sick leave (OR 1.45, 95% CI: 1.08 to 1.94). They were also less likely to have: reported a fracture (OR 0.06, 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.63) or gastric illness (OR 0.35, 95% CI: 0.15 to 0.82) during their last absenteeism episode; understood the illness that led to their last presenteeism episode (OR 0.80, 95% CI: 0.67 to 0.95); and to feel that they had managerial and peer support (OR 0.45, 95% CI: 0.26 to 0.91). Discussion The study highlights that presenteeism is linked to overall health, however perceptions of individual illnesses can also influence the frequency of this behaviour. The study also supports previous findings that work attitudes and organisational factors also play a role. Interventions that benefit nurses' health and provide support at work may reduce the frequency of presenteeism.


This teaching case describes the effects of privatization on a large industrial organization and sets the context for illustrating the vulnerability of information systems in turbulent environments. Upon privatization, the company put in place a number of business information systems that crippled them with respect to their initial purpose. At the same time, the policy of the company gave users almost complete autonomy and freedom with respect to meeting their own systems and informational needs. Using this freedom, business unit users developed their own small applications, and cannibalized the overarching systems to give themselves a system that worked by adapting it to their needs. The case presents a detailed, factually accurate chronology of the events, raising awareness to the issue of information systems flexibility by detailing the ensuing repercussions on an organization whose information systems were incapable of dealing with a frantic pace of environmental contingencies.