The pharmacokinetics of aztreonam were studied in 12 healthy male volunteers aged 65 to 75 years who received 1 g of the antibiotic intravenously. Data were fitted to a two-compartment open model to yield the following parameters: t 1/2, lambda 1, 0.15 h; t 1/2,z, 2.06 h; area under the 24-h serum concentration-time curve, 231.8 micrograms ml-1 h; Cmax, 120.1 micrograms/ml; V1 area, 0.16 l/kg; and serum clearance, 0.94 ml min-1 kg. Twenty-four hour urinary elimination reached 63.1% of dose as aztreonam and 3.1% as the open ring metabolite SQ 26,992. These data were similar to those obtained for healthy males aged 18 to 35 years. Thus, age per se is not a major therapeutic consideration in treating elderly patients, and other factors, primarily the parameters of renal function, should serve as the basis for any dose reduction.


There is a well-established connection between marriage and various measures of health. Rising rates of obesity among both adults and children in the U.S. have prompted a close look at the determinants of obesity. At the same time, marriage rates have fallen, particularly among low-income adults. In this paper, we aim to identify systematic and predictable changes in the Body Mass Index (BMI) that are associated with changes in union status. We examine five different union possibilities: Never and not Cohabiting, Never Married and Cohabiting, Married, Divorced and Not Cohabiting, and Divorced Cohabiting. Our work is prompted by policy objectives aimed encouraging marriage. Using longitudinal U.S. data and fixed effects models to net out time invariant individual heterogeneity, we examine three hypotheses: the Marriage Selection Hypothesis which states that healthy people are selected into marriage and unhealthy selected out, the Marriage Protection Hypothesis which states that married people are healthier because their spouse will take care of them when ill and discourage risky behavior and the Marriage Stability Hypothesis which states that married people are less healthy as they are no longer in the marriage market and reduce their investment in physical fitness or that married people have additional obligations that may keep them from investing in their health. Our results indicate BMI increases for both men and women during marriage. This finding is consistent with the stability hypothesis and may be a result of family responsibility over personal health or of personal complacency. For each year a woman is married there is significant weight loss, which may be an indication of the marriage protection hypothesis. We find similarities between marriage and cohabitation in that weight gain also occurs in cohabiting relationship for women but it increases with the duration of the relationship. Union dissolution has the opposite effect. Our results suggest a significant weight loss for men. This loss is largest in the year of divorce but the weight is regained over time. We also estimated our models separately by education status and by race, and find some significant differences.


BACKGROUND Controversy exists about the preferred initial treatment of appendicitis. We sought to compare the two treatments for initial management of simple appendicitis. METHODS In this post hoc analysis of the Multicenter Study for the Treatment of Appendicitis in America: Acute, Perforated, and Gangrenous database, subjects were divided into appendectomy or nonoperative management (NOM; antibiotics only or percutaneous drainage) cohorts. A novel topic-specific hierarchical ordinal scale was created with eight mutually exclusive categories: mortality, reoperation, other secondary interventions, readmission, emergency department visit, wound complication, surgical site infection, and no complication. Pairwise comparisons of American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Imaging Severity Grade 1 (simple appendicitis) patients were compared using win-lose-tie scoring and the sums of appendectomy/NOM groups were compared. RESULTS A total 3,591 subjects were included: 3,262 appendectomy and 329 NOM, with significant differences in baseline characteristics between groups. Across 28 sites, the rate of NOM ranged from 0% to 48%, and the loss to follow-up rate was significantly higher for NOM compared with appendectomy (16.5% vs. 8.7%, p = 0.024). In the simple appendicitis hierarchical ordinal scale analysis, 2,319 subjects resulted in 8,714,304 pairwise comparisons; 75% of comparisons resulted in ties. The median (interquartile range) sums for the two groups are as follows: surgical, 400 (400–400), and NOM, 400 (−2,427 to 400) (p < 0.001). A larger proportion of appendectomy subjects (88.1%) had an outcome that was equivalent (or better) than at least half of the subjects compared with NOM subjects (NOM, 70.5%; OR [95% confidence interval], 0.3 [0.2–0.4]). CONCLUSION In contemporary American practice, appendectomy (compared with NOM) for simple appendicitis is associated with lower odds of developing clinically important unfavorable outcomes in the first year after illness. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic/Care Management; Level III.


The introduction of laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair (LIHR) has been controversial. A questionnaire was sent to all general surgeons in New Zealand to document the early experience with LIHR and attitudes towards it. Of the 118 replies (response rate 55%), 74 were from laparoscopic surgeons, 26 of whom had performed 564 (201 public, 363 private) LIHR (23 bilateral) until January 1994. Only nine (35%) of these surgeons had assisted an experienced surgeon before performing an LIHR, and only four (15%) were supervised by an experienced surgeon during their first case. The transabdominal preperitoneal technique of LIHR was used by 14 (54%) surgeons, the extraperitoneal technique by eight (31%), and the transabdominal onlay technique by four (15%). There were 29 (5%) recurrences, 17 (3%) neuropathies, seven (1.2%) conversions, four (0.7%) major perforations, and one (0.17%) death. Of the 26 surgeons who performed LIHR, 20 (77%) were concerned about the absence of long-term results, 14 (54%) considered that the optimal technique had not been established, 13 (50%) were concerned about the unique complications associated with LIHR, 11 (42%) were less enthusiastic about performing LIHR than previously, 10 (38%) were doubtful about its advantages, and six (23%) were uncertain about its future and considered that it should only be performed within the context of a controlled trial. This study highlights a number of issues that need to be addressed before the role of LIHR can be determined.


OBJECTIVE
This study was designed to clinically evaluate the efficacy of a bacteria- and-fungi-binding mesh (BFBM) dressing to modify the bacterial load of pressure ulcers (PUs) of categories 3 and 4, when used as a wound contact layer (WCL) during negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT).

METHODS
This was an observational single-centre study in patients with PUs of categories 3 or 4, who were treated with NPWT. Patients were observed for 7 days and received NPWT at -80 mm Hg with the BFBM dressing as the WCL. Wound biopsies were performed at inclusion (B0), at 48 hours (B1), and at day 7 (B7). Bacteria- and fungi-binding mesh dressings were examined for bacterial load at 48 hours (D1) and at 7 days (D7). The primary endpoint was the changes in bacterial loads.

RESULTS
Fifty patients were enrolled; 43 (86%) of their PUs were on the sacrum. At B0, 3 groups of wounds were identified by the bioburden level: group A had negative results (28%) to bacterial loads from 102 to 5 x 103 colony forming units (CFU) CFU/mL (18%); group B had 104 to 105 CFU/mL (18%); and group C with ≥ 106 CFU/mL (36%). The authors did not find any significant difference in bacterial loads in group A, but significant differences were found in group B at B1 and B7 (P = 0.04 and P = 0.0067) and in group C at B1 and B7 (P < 0.00001). There was no significant difference on the bacterial loads of the dressing at D1 and D7 (P = 0.823). No device-related adverse events were reported.

CONCLUSION
The BFBM dressing seems to be at the origin of a statistically significant reduction of bacterial burden in wounds with moderate or high levels of colonization. The authors' findings suggest BFBM dressings may be a WCL of choice during the treatment of chronic wounds with NPWT.


FOREWORD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1. Lorentzian Geometry 2. Special Relativity 3. General Relativity and the Einstein Equations 4. Schwarzschild Space-time and Black Holes 5. Cosmology 6. Local Cauchy Problem 7. Constraints 8. Other Hyperbolic-Elliptic systems 9. Relativistic Fluids 10. Kinetic Theory 11. Progressive Waves 12. Global Hyperbolicity and Causality 13. Singularities 14. Stationary Space-times and Black Holes 15. Global Existence Theorems, Asymptotically Euclidean Data 16. Global existence theorems, cosmological case APPENDICES I. Sobolev Spaces II. Elliptic Systems III. Second Order Quasidiagonal Systems IV. General Hyperbolic Systems V. Cauchy Kovalevski and Fuchs theorems VI. Conformal Methods VII. Kaluza Klein Formulas


A fast obstacle avoidance algorithm is a necessary condition to enable safe flights of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) eventually at high-speed. Large UAVs usually have a lot of sensors and available computational resources which allow complex algorithms to run fast enough to navigate safely. On the contrary, small UAVs gather many difficulties, like computation and sensors limitations, forcing algorithms to retain only a few keys points of their environment. This paper proposes an obstacle avoidance algorithm for quadrotor using a single depth camera. Taking advantage of the possibilities offered by embedded GPUs, a cubic world representation centered on the robot-called Egocubemap-is used while the whole obstacle detection and avoidance algorithm is light enough to run at 10 Hz on-board. Numerical and experimental validations are provided.


Objective—To assess the effects of exercise training on ventilatory function in chronic heart failure. Design—Observer blinded random allocation crossover training and detraining trial. Setting—Assessment in hospital based clinical laboratory; training home based. Patients—22 patients with chronic heart failure (New York Heart Association (NYHA) class II or III) recruited from a tertiary referral centre. All finished the study. Intervention—Bicycle ergometer exercise for 20 minutes a day, five days a week for eight weeks at 70%–80% of maximum heart rate. Main outcome measures—Exercise capacity on graded incremental exercise test, minute ventilation, oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide output. Results—Peak work load increased from 96 W to 112 W and peak oxygen consumption from 14·1 ml`/kg/min to 15·4 ml/kg/min (p < 0·01). At submaximal workloads carbon dioxide excretion (Vco2) and minute ventilation (Vi) decreased significantly (p < 0·05) though oxygen consumption was unchanged. The relation between Vi and carbon dioxide excretion changed: the slope of the Vi to Vco2 plot decreased from 38·6 to 35·3, indicating an improvement in overall ventilary efficiency. The instantaneous carbon dioxide ventilatory equivalent (Vi/Vco2) decreased at submaximal workloads, and reached a lower mimimum value after training, indicating that optimum ventilatory performance improved. The exercise capacity of patients was related to the optimum ventilatory performance. It is suggested that this may in part be mediated through changes in skeletal muscles. Conclusion—Exercise training reduces the ventilatory abnormalities in chronic heart failure; thus some of these changes may be due to physical deconditioning.


The mechanisms involved in the nutritional regulation of genes encoding lipogenic (lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and fatty acid synthase (FAS)) and lipolytic (hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL)) enzymes were investigated by comparing the levels of the corresponding mRNAs in the adipose tissue (AT) of underfed or underfed-refed ewes and cows. Refeeding sharply increased LPL and FAS activities (19-25- and 6-8-fold, respectively) and moderately increased (2-4 fold) the activities of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH), malic enzyme (ME) and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3PDH). Northern blot analysis revealed three LPL transcripts and a single FAS transcript in cow and ewe AT. A single HSL mRNA was detected in cow AT and two transcripts in ewe AT. Refeeding sharply increased LPL and FAS mRNA levels, while restriction slightly increased (cows) or had no effect (ewes) on the HSL mRNA levels. This suggests that nutritional factors regulate sharply the expression of LPL and FAS genes by pretranslational mechanisms, but less clearly that of HSL gene.


In recent years, the advance growth of cybercrime has become an urgent issue to the security authorities. With the improvement of web technologies enable attackers to launch the web-based attacks and other malicious code easily without having prior expert knowledge. Recently, JavaScript has become the most common attack construction language as it is the primary browser scripting language which allow developer to develop sophisticated client-side interfaces for web application. This lead to the growth of malicious websites and as main platform for distributing malware or malicious script to the user's computer when the user access to these webpages. Initial act and detection on such threats early in a timely manner is vital in order to reduce the damages which have caused billions of dollars lost every year. A number of approaches have been proposed to detect malicious web pages. However, the efficient detection of malicious web pages previously has generated many false alarm by the use of sophisticated obfuscation techniques in benign JavaScript code in web pages. Therefore, in this paper, a thoroughly survey and detailed understanding of malicious JavaScript code features will be provided, which have been collected from the web content. We conduct a thorough analysis and studies on the usage of different JavaScript features and JavaScript detection technique systematically and present the most important features of malicious threats in web pages. Then the analysis will be presented along with different dimensions (features representation, detection techniques analysis, and sample of malicious script).


: In this work, we present a novel artificial photosynthetic paradigm with square meter (m 2 ) level scalable production by integrating photovoltaic electrolytic water splitting device and solar heating CO 2 hydrogenation device, successfully achieving the synergy of 1 sun driven 19.4% solar to chemical energy efficiency (STC) for CO production (2.7 times higher than state of the art of large-sized artificial photosynthetic systems) with a low cost (equivalent to 1/7 of reported artificial photosynthetic systems). Furthermore, the outdoor artificial photosynthetic demonstration with 1.268 m 2 of scale exhibits the CO generation amount of 258.4 L per day, the STC of ~15.5% for CO production in winter, which could recover the cost within 833 sunny days of operation by selling CO.


Surface replication is a nondestructive evaluation technique applied in examining surfaces' cracks/wear. This is quite valuable when the surface of interest cannot be further manipulated by cutting or polishing to fit directly under a microscope. Replication by acetate sheets is one of the techniques applied in industrial, metallographic and anthropological wear/examination. Enamel is the outermost protective layer of human teeth and is subjected to mechanical stresses due to the masticatory function; thus, wear is inevitable in human teeth. This relatively inert hard tissue has been reported to possess some properties of both metals and glasses due to its unique delicate microstructure. This study investigated the applicability of replication sheets in registering wear induced features on human enamel surfaces. The sheets replicated wear features successfully with compatibility to use with multiple microscopes. Acetate sheets have a potential in enamel wear replication.


This paper presents a modified March (8n) test algorithm to the Built-In Self-Test (BIST) for Single Port Memory. In this algorithm, test patterns are complemented to generate state-transitions that are needed for the detection of frequently occurring as well as newer occurring faults with the shrinking of channel length. The test pattern will be generated for the single port memory. The use of 8n pattern to generate state transition allow to reducing both of time and energy for detection of faults. As a result, the number of test patterns required is very less than of the traditional method, while the extra hardware is negligible. Keywords—March Algorithm, BIST (Built-In-Self-Test), Channel Length, Faults, Test-Pattern.


The relationship between retained fluid and survival has previously been reported from our burn unit. Two hundred thirty cc/kg lean body mass accurately delineated survivors from nonsurvivors. Our previous study did not account for fluid lost through the burn wound. This study was undertaken to evaluate fluid retention per square meter of body surface area which has been corrected for fluid loss from the burn wound using a formula suggested by Mason et al. Data collected from 95 adult patients with burns greater than or equal to 20% body surface area burn (mean age, 42.4 years; mean burn size, 37.7%), who were admitted to our burn unit between January 1978 and September 1985, were evaluated. All patients included in the study were adequately resuscitated and survived the initial 48 hours. A calculation of the total fluid retained during the first 48 hours postburn and estimation of fluid loss from the burn wound were made. A comparison was made between lean body retained fluid and surface area retained fluid. A positive correlation (r = 0.921; p less than 0.001) was demonstrated between these two methods of assessing fluid retention. Fluid retention determined by either method resulted in a higher correlation with survival than any single predictor (age, per cent body surface area burned) of burn survival. Surface area fluid is as accurate as lean body fluid in predicting survival. Additionally, we determined that for the first 48 hours postburn, 4,425 cc fluid retained per meter square body surface area accurately differentiated survivors from nonsurvivors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


A Tabu Search (TS) algorithm, to our knowledge, for the first time, is introduced into the optimized design of Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). By combining the Transfer Matrix Method (TMM) for calculating the reflection spectrum and the TS algorithm, we obtained a new method for synthesis the FBGs with advanced characteristics. A new appodization profile is proposed as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method that is general to be useful for inverse problems in FBGs application.


BACKGROUND
Drug-eluting stents may offer benefits in terms of repeat revascularization that may be counterbalanced by a potential higher risk of stent thrombosis, especially among ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients. No data have been reported so far on the long-term benefits and safety of drug-eluting stents in STEMI. Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the short- and long-term benefits of sirolimus-eluting stents (SES) and paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) compared with bare metal stents (BMS) in patients undergoing primary angioplasty.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Consecutive STEMI patients admitted within 12 hours of symptom onset and undergoing primary angioplasty and stent implantation at a tertiary center with 24-hour primary percutaneous coronary intervention capability were randomly assigned to BMS, PES, or SES. All patients received upstream glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors. The primary end point was target lesion revascularization at the 1-year follow-up. Secondary end points were death and/or reinfarction, in-stent thrombosis, and major adverse cardiac events (combined death and/or reinfarction and/or target lesion revascularization) at long-term follow-up (up to 4 to 6 years). Cumulative incidence of end points was investigated. No patient was lost to follow-up. From October 1, 2003, to December 31, 2005, 270 patients with STEMI were randomized to BMS (n=90), PES (n=90), or SES (n=90). Procedural success was obtained in 93% to 95% of patients. Follow-up data were available for all patients. Compared with BMS (14.4%), both PES (4.4%; hazard ratio, 0.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.095 to 0.89; P=0.023) and SES (3.3%; hazard ratio, 0.21; 95% confidence interval, 0.06 to 0.75; P=0.016) were associated with a significant reduction in target lesion revascularization at the 1-year follow-up (primary study end point). At the long-term follow-up (4.3 years; 25th to 75th percentile, 3.7 to 5 years), no difference was observed in terms of death, reinfarction, and combined death and/or reinfarction, but compared with BMS (22.2%), both PES (6.7%; hazard ratio, 0.27; 95% confidence interval, 0.11 to 0.68; P=0.005) and SES (5.6%; hazard ratio, 0.22; 95% confidence interval, 0.083 to 0.59; P=0.003) were associated with a significant reduction in target lesion revascularization.

CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that among STEMI patients undergoing primary angioplasty, both SES and PES are associated with significant benefits in terms of target lesion revascularization at the long-term follow-up compared with BMS with no excess risk of thrombotic complications. Thus, until the results of further large randomized trials with long-term follow-up become available, drug-eluting stents may be considered among STEMI patients undergoing primary angioplasty.


Pressure reducing valve (PRV) located before the start-up vessel (SUV) is an essential component that decreases the pressure and temperature of the supercritical state steam by using spray water before it flows into the SUV. The PRV is kept closed during normal operation but opened during start-up and shutdown events, which could initiate thermal fatigue defects due to significant temperature changes. In addition to the thermal shock and internal pressure, system bending and torsional moments may be imparted on the PRV, threatening its integrity. To reinforce these concerns, cracks on the inside surfaces of the PRV have often been reported during planned maintenance activities in nuclear power plants. This research aims at analysing cyclic plasticity of the PRV subjected to cyclic moments, thermal and pressure loadings by means of an advanced direct numerical technique known as the Linear Matching Method (LMM). The cyclic moments are comprised of in-plane and out-of-plane bending, and torsion which are applied to an inlet branch pipe of the PRV. The cyclic thermal load is obtained from the transient heat transfer analysis using real operational data. Two different pressures, which are high and low pressures, are applied to internal surfaces of the PRV body and outlet pipe respectively. The analysed results construct a structural response boundary such as a shakedown limit boundary. The obtained structural response boundary is validated by full cyclic incremental analysis referred to as the step-by-step analysis. The analysed results have demonstrated that the plastic collapse limit is identical to the shakedown limit. Moreover, the results provide engineers with a safe load bearing capacity domain which otherwise requires evaluating structural integrity of the PRV subjected to the complicated cyclic loading condition using detailed assessments and analyses.


The notion of competence is the central issue in language learning, especially in the light of error analysis. Learning theorists and language teachers want to know the answers to certain questions. What does the learner know? How did he learn what he knows? Can we measure or define this knowledge? In some respect, error analysis can answer these  questions. A person exposed to a foreign/second language makes errors. Anything he speaks before he attains proficiency is called interlanguage, that is, the intermediate stages between the native and target language observable in learners' language. The Igbo speaker of English   interlanguage is characterized by errors. The sources of second language learners' errors were identified to be related to material presentation, factors within the language itself and the psychology of the learner. This paper did not only characterize learners' interlanguage; but also suggested methods the teacher should adopt in handling them for learners to achieve proficiency in the target language.


We show how the LIPSOL library (Linear programming Interior-Point SOLvers) can be used in Scilab. To do this, fast Scilab-Fortran interfaces for sparse Cholesky decomposition have been developed. All other calculations are made using Scilab functions, which take into account sparsity for storing and factorizing the matrices. We make use of structural matrices algorithms from Metanet (Scilab toolbox for graphs and networks computations), in particular the Dulmage Mendelsohn algorithm.


As an important component of universal sign language and the basis of other sign language learning, finger sign language is of great significance. This paper proposed a novel fingerspelling identification method for Chinese Sign Language via AlexNet-based transfer learning and Adam optimizer, which tested four different configurations of transfer learning. Besides, in the experiment, Adam algorithm was compared with stochastic gradient descent with momentum (SGDM) and root mean square propagation (RMSProp) algorithms, and comparison of using data augmentation (DA) against not using DA was executed to pursue higher performance. Finally, the best accuracy of 91.48% and average accuracy of 89.48 ± 1.16% were yielded by configuration M1 (replacing the last FCL8) with Adam algorithm and using 181x DA, which indicates that our method can identify Chinese finger sign language effectively and stably. Meanwhile, the proposed method is superior to other five state-of-the-art approaches.


One of the primary goals of the STAR spin program is to determine the contribution of the gluon spin ($\Delta G$) to that of the proton. Recent measurements of the longitudinal double-helicity asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, from inclusive jets place strong constraints on the spin-dependent gluon distribution $\Delta g(x)$ and, for the first time, find evidence for non-zero gluon polarization values for partonic momentum fraction $x$ greater than 0.05. In contrast to inclusive jets, di-jet correlation measurements provide access to partonic kinematics, at leading order, and thus give tighter constraints on the behavior of $\Delta g$ as a function of gluon momentum fraction. Furthermore, di-jet measurements at forward rapidity probe the lower $x$ values where $\Delta g(x)$ is poorly constrained. Preliminary $A_{LL}$ results for di-jets with $-0.8 < \eta_1 < 0.8$ and $0.8 < \eta_2 < 1.8$, from polarized $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV, are presented.


PURPOSE
To identify the epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic aspects of hip-joint disorders in children with sickle cell disease, to point out the diagnostic problems, and to stress the necessity of early diagnosis for optimal outcome.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
This retrospective study, conducted from January 1987 through December 2006, included children with at least one haemoglobin S gene and hospitalised for osteonecrosis of the femoral head. Ficat staging was used.

RESULTS
The study included 14 children (12 boys and 2 girls) with a mean age of 14 years, all hospitalised and treated for osteonecrosis of the femoral head during the study period 8 SS and 6 SC. Osteonecrosis of the femoral head was diagnosed at Ficat stage 3 in 8 cases and at stage 4 in 6. Ten children (8 at stage 3 and 2 at stage 4) had orthopaedic treatment (continuous traction for 30 days and then a Thomas's splint for a mean 14 months). Outcome was good for 6 of the stage-3 cases (mean follow-up period 9 years) and poor for the other patients with purely orthopaedic treatment (mean follow-up period 11 years). Four children at stage 4 underwent surgery (varus osteotomy, immobilization in a cast for 8 weeks, and then Thomas's splint for a mean 12 months) with good results (mean follow-up period 10 years).

CONCLUSION
Early diagnosis, assisted by computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging or scintigraphy, makes it possible to provide better treatment and preserve hip function.


The assembly of materials from building blocks has been in the core of a wide range of applications from catalysis to photonics and electronics. External electric fields enable the interactions between building blocks to be controlled via induced dipoles. Dipolar interactions were used so far to obtain one-dimensional chains or three-dimensional non-close-packed lattices. However, complex colloidal assemblies and clusters of simple spherical particles are rare. Here we demonstrate a novel self-assembly approach enabling the formation of regular axially symmetric clusters, an array of colloidal assemblies as per design of posts, and hierarchical complex assemblies by using posts and dipolar interactions or combining them. Regulating the polarization of the particles from positive to negative allows us to control the interparticle interactions from attractive to repulsive at the poles or equator of the particles. Therefore, such particle-particle interactions enable switching between Saturn ring-like and candle-flame-like axially symmetric assemblies, which could potentially be exploited for display applications.


Power processes are a challenge for 8-inch production especially in thermal processing. The temperatures exceed those used in DRAM and LOGIC by far and make a detailed knowledge of the critical process limits and maximum temperatures mandatory. We describe the experimental evaluation of these limits and compare the results to theoretical models, for both horizontal and vertical furnace equipment. Bulk micro defects are shown to be a key factor for any thermal process. We investigate in detail the key parameters for the different process regimes of boat push/pull, ramping as well as the impact of different boat and furnace equipment.


Typical bacterial strain differentiation methods are often challenged by high genetic similarity between strains. To address this problem, we introduce a novel in silico peptide fingerprinting method based on conventional wet-lab protocols that enables the identification of potential strain-specific peptides. These can be further investigated using in vitro approaches, laying a foundation for the development of biomarker detection and application-specific methods. This novel method aims at reducing large amounts of comparative peptide data to binary matrices while maintaining a high phylogenetic resolution. The underlying case study concerns the Bacillus cereus group, namely the differentiation of Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus cereus strains. Results show that trees based on cytoplasmic and extracellular peptidomes are only marginally in conflict with those based on whole proteomes, as inferred by the established Genome-BLAST Distance Phylogeny (GBDP) method. Hence, these results indicate that the two approaches can most likely be used complementarily even in other organismal groups. The obtained results confirm previous reports about the misclassification of many strains within the B. cereus group. Moreover, our method was able to separate the B. anthracis strains with high resolution, similarly to the GBDP results as benchmarked via Bayesian inference and both Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony. In addition to the presented phylogenomic applications, whole-peptide fingerprinting might also become a valuable complementary technique to digital DNA-DNA hybridization, notably for bacterial classification at the species and subspecies level in the future.


Multi-modal imaging based on multifunctional nanoparticles provides deep, non-invasive and highly sensitive imaging and is a promising alternative approach that can improve the sensitivity of early cancer diagnosis. In this study, two nanoparticles, TbPO4:Ce(3+) and TbPO4:Ce(3+)@TbPO4:Gd(3+), were synthesized via the citric-acid-mediated hydrothermal route, and then systematically characterized by means of microstructure, photoluminescence, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), biocompatibility, and bioimaging. The results of energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) line scans indicated that TbPO4:Gd(3+) nanoshells about 5 nm in thickness were successfully coated on the TbPO4:Ce(3+) nanocores. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transforms of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images indicated that the core-shell nanocomposites had a single crystal structure. The photoluminescence of the TbPO4:Ce(3+)@TbPO4:Gd(3+) and TbPO4:Ce(3+) nanoparticles was greatly intensified by 200 times and 100 times, respectively, compared with pure TbPO4 nanoparticles. In vitro cytotoxicity tests based on the methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay demonstrated that the monodispersed nanoparticles of TbPO4:Ce(3+)@TbPO4:Gd(3+) had low toxicity. The intracellular luminescence of the nanoparticles after being internalized by HeLa cells was also observed using confocal fluorescence microscopes. MRI showed that the nanoshells of Gd-doped TbPO4 possessed a longitudinal relaxivity of 4.067 s(-1) mM(-1), which is comparable to that of the commercial MRI contrast Gd-TDPA. As a result, the core-shell structured TbPO4:Ce(3+)@TbPO4:Gd(3+) nanoparticles can potentially serve as multifunctional nanoprobes for both optical biolabels and MRI contrast agents.


Community Acquired – Methicilin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Neck Abscess with Bacteremia and Multiple Lung Abscesses
A 17-year-old boy with no history of respiratory problems was admitted in our department because of cervical abscess with severe sepsis. Chest radiograph and computed tomography scan showed multiple lung abscesses and ground-glass opacities. Cervical abscess was drained immediately, and cultures of the drainage material showed methicilin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The evolution was favorable after 10 days of mechanical ventilation and intravenous antibiotherapy (vancomycin). Radiological controls showed an evident favorable evolution with residual pneumatoceles. After a psychiatric evaluation the patient had a borderline personality with poor health conditions explaining probably the origin of the infection.


The different types of messages used by a parallel application program executing in a distributed computing system can each have unique characteristics so that no single communication network can produce the lowest latency for all messages. For instance, short control messages may be sent with the lowest overhead on one type of network, such as Ethernet, while bulk data transfers may be better suited to a different type of network, such as Fibre Channel or HIPPI. This work investigates how to exploit multiple heterogeneous communication networks that interconnect the same set of processing nodes using a set of techniques we call performance-based path determination (PBPD). The performance-based path selection (PBPS) technique selects the best (lowest latency) network among several for each individual message to reduce the communication overhead of parallel programs. The performance-based path aggregation (PBPA) technique, on the other hand, aggregates multiple networks into a single virtual network to increase the available bandwidth. We test the PBPD techniques on a cluster of SGI multiprocessors interconnected with Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and HiPPI networks using a custom communication library built on top of the TCP/IP protocol layers. We find that PBPS can reduce communication overhead in applications compared to using either network alone, while aggregating networks into a single virtual network can reduce communication latency for bandwidth-limited applications. The performance of the PBPD techniques depends on the mix of message sizes in the application program and the relative overheads of the networks, as demonstrated in our analytical models.


Ultrasonic guided waves have the advantage of propagating over very long distances due to their natural ability of following differently shaped wave guides. This advantage makes guided waves a good candidate for long range non-destructive evaluation (NDE). The recently developed guided wave focusing techniques in pipes employ a circumferentially distributed phased array. By applying different amplitude and time-delay inputs to the phased array, guided wave energy can be successfully focused at any predetermined locations in pipes. Guided wave focusing techniques improve penetration power and circumferential resolution. As a result, excellent defect detection and accurate axial and circumferential location have been achieved. In addition, defect circumferential sizing in pipes is realized by doing circumferential scans at defect distances. A circumferential scan is accomplished by focusing at 44 angles around the circumference of a pipe at a specific axial distance. In a circumferential scan, the maximum amplitude of the defect echo was recorded and then plotted with respect to each focal angle. This produces an experimental angular profile of the reflected wave. The theoretical angular profiles of the reflected wave is obtained by calculating the focused guided wave energy impinged onto defects with different cross sectional areas (CSA). By comparing the theoretical and experimental profiles, the circumferential extent of the defect can be effectively measured.


In this work we consider numerical positive solutions of the equation −Δu = λf (u) with Dirichlet boundary condition in a bounded domain Ω, where λ> 0 and f (u) is a superlinear function of u. We study the behavior of the branches of numerical positive solutions for varying λ. Mathematics Subject Classification: 35J60, 35B30, 65N99


Few detailed epidemiologic data exist regarding the impact of HIV infection on the workplace in the developing world. In addition, most HIV surveys examine only prevalence, without data on incidence or disease severity. In June 2003, we conducted a voluntary anonymous HIV serosurvey among employees of the Debswana Mining Company, the largest nongovernmental employer in Botswana. Among the 3558 participants, annual HIV incidence was estimated to be 3.4%, and HIV prevalence was 23.8%. HIV-infected participants had a median CD4(+) lymphocyte count of 427 cells/mm(3) (interquartile range 269-642), with 13.3% of samples <200 cells/mm(3). The high incidence and prevalence of HIV, and the proportion of workers with <200 CD4(+) lymphocytes/mm(3), demonstrate the impact of HIV infection in this workplace and the potential negative impact on productivity. These results highlight the need for routine HIV testing and access to antiretro-viral treatment for workers in countries such as Botswana.


Abstract The Amplicor™ HBV Monitor Test for quantitative detection of serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA has recently been introduced. This assay is based on PCR and a non-radioactive hybridization and detection system on microwell plates. Evaluation in a routine diagnostic laboratory showed excellent sensitivity and adequate reproducibility; however, a more automated format would be desirable. The Amplicor™ HBV Monitor Test is useful for recognizing those patients who might benefit from antiviral treatment and for evaluation of the efficacy of anti-hepatitis B virus treatment.


This article describes an approach to test scoring, referred to as delta scoring (D-scoring), for tests with dichotomously scored items. The D-scoring uses information from item response theory (IRT) calibration to facilitate computations and interpretations in the context of large-scale assessments. The D-score is computed from the examinee's response vector, which is weighted by the expected difficulties (not "easiness") of the test items. The expected difficulty of each item is obtained as an analytic function of its IRT parameters. The D-scores are independent of the sample of test-takers as they are based on expected item difficulties. It is shown that the D-scale performs a good bit better than the IRT logit scale by criteria of scale intervalness. To equate D-scales, it is sufficient to rescale the item parameters, thus avoiding tedious and error-prone procedures of mapping test characteristic curves under the method of IRT true score equating, which is often used in the practice of large-scale testing. The proposed D-scaling proved promising under its current piloting with large-scale assessments and the hope is that it can efficiently complement IRT procedures in the practice of large-scale testing in the field of education and psychology.


The development of a Pulse-Driven Loop Reactor (PDLR), a Pulsed Anaerobic Filter (PAF) and a Pulsed Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (PABR) is described. In a PDLR internal circulation is achieved by a specially designed pulse-nozzle together with a concentric draft tube. In a PAF and PABR an oscillation is superimposed onto the biosuspension by means of a pulsator unit. Pulsed digesters enhance mass transfer processes. Consequently they facilitate degassing and prevent a build-up of acid spots in sludge beds. Laboratory- and pilot-scale evaluation using highly polluted distillery slops (pear, cherry, raspberry) as industrial wastewater show a COD removal efficiency of 70 -80 % at loading rates of 10 - 5 kg/m3*d. Contamination, both by sulfate (2 g/L) and copper (0.2 g/L), has a most adverse effect on anaerobic treatment of cherry-mashes, giving rise to a build-up of volatile fatty acids. Consequences for distillery plant operation are discussed.


With this book, Hardisty and In-gram make a notable contribution to the literature of blood coagulation. By concisely relating theory to diagnosis and practical management, they provide a desirable addition to the libraries of those who deal with hemorrhagic disorders. The authors begin by defining suitable diagnostic approaches to patients with hemorrhagic tendencies. Then follows a discussion of the life-long bleeding disorders in which genetic counseling is considered in managing the hereditary aspects of these syndromes. The authors also include valuable reminders concerning the dental, orthopedic, socioeconomic, and educational needs of the affected members of blighted kindreds. Although animal plasma fractions are not now available for use in this country, the discussion of the pros and cons of this type of replacement therapy for inherited clotting disorders deserves attention. Such timely subjects as hemorrhagic complications of extracorporeal circulation and of transfusion are included in a section on acquired bleeding disorders.


Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a debilitating progressive disease which eventually leads to right heart failure and death. Although observational studies indicate that early treatment initiation might be advantageous, previous clinical trials only looked at the use of bosentan (dual endothelin receptor antagonist) in patients with advanced symptomatic states (WHO functional class III and IV).

The EARLY trial …


An efficient algorithm to characterize experimental stress-strain data is preacated. The algorithm segments the curve into regions by locating regions with a maximum correlation coefficient. Thus the algorithm determines the initial region of the curve to be considered in determining the initial slope or, in the case of a stress versus strain curve, the initial modulus. The algorithm is of particular use in analyzing the elastic behavior of composites where nonlinear stress-strain, knees, damage, and other abnormalities may occur. The results of the algorithm are compared to linear regions determined from calculations of correlation coefficients involving all possible regions within a data file. In general, the algorithm provides the same linear regions as are determiend from the complete calulation of correlation coefficients and is at least one order of magnitude faster.


Imitative learning and learning by observation are social mechanisms that allow a robot to acquire knowledge from a human or another robot. However to be able to obtain skills in this way the robot faces many complex issues, one of which is that of finding solutions to the correspondence problem. Evolutionary predecessors to observational imitation may have been self-imitation where an agent avoids the complexities of the correspondence problem by learning and replicating actions it has experienced through the manipulation of its body. We investigate how a robotic control and teaching system using self-imitation can be constructed with reference to psychological models of motor control and ideas from social scaffolding seen in animals. Within these scaffolded environments sets of competencies can be built by constructing hierarchical state/action memory maps of the robot's interaction within that environment. The scaffolding process provides a mechanism to enable learning to be scaled up. The resulting system allows a human trainer to teach a robot new skills and modify skills that the robot may possess. Additionally the system allows the robot to notify the trainer when it is being taught skills it already has in its repertoire and to direct and focus its attention and sensor resources to relevant parts of the skill being executed. We argue that these mechanisms may be a first step towards the transformation from self-imitation to observational imitation. The system is validated on a physical pioneer robot that is taught using self-imitation to track, follow and point to a patterned object.


A digital double relaxation oscillation (DROS) superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) has the potential for a very large dynamic range and a slew rate that is orders of magnitude larger than that of conventional SQUID systems. This is, for example, advantageous when using the SQUID in an unshielded environment. An important characteristic of the digital DROS is that the feedback flux is quantized since this flux is supplied by a superconducting up-down counter. Together with the clock frequency, the quantization unit of the feedback flux determines the maximum slew rate. In an optimized design, the quantization unit is adapted to the broadband flux noise of the DROS, so that the slew rate is maximized without compromising the sensitivity. Simulations on our optimized digital DROS showed proper operation for slew rates up to 5×106 Φ0 s-1. The relaxation oscillations generated at a frequency of 100 MHz deliver an on-chip clock signal, so that no external clock is required. Slew rates up to 108 Φ0 s-1 can be achieved by increasing the relaxation oscillation frequency to a few GHz. This means that sub-µm2 Josephson junctions with high critical current densities are required. The first experiments using low-Tc ramp-type Josephson junctions are presented in this paper.


The relationship between plasma membrane receptor organization and cell susceptibility in vitro was investigated in mammalian, avian, fish, and arthropod cell lines infected with fixed rabies virus. IMR32, HeLa, CER, and EPC cells were widely susceptible to infection with CVS virus, whereas a lower level of specific viral antigens was detectable in A. albopictus cells. In spite of these differences, the amount of infectious virus particles bound to the various cell surfaces was similar. Competition experiments carried out with plasma membranes extracted from ability of these components to bind the virus and to prevent infection. The different cellular permissiveness to rabies infection described here did not correlate with significant differences in number or in chemical structure of the receptor binding sites, but more likely with events following virus adsorption.


Subsequent to the validation of a Canadian Curriculum blueprint for Obstetric Medicine (OM), the Canadian Consensus for a Curriculum in Obstetric Medicine (CanCOM) research group was approached to develop 20 cases to address gaps in clinical exposure during clinical rotations in OM. Forty-nine Obstetric Internists were identified and 43 confirmed their affiliation to the group. Participants (N = 22) reviewed the content of the CanCOM blueprint and identified curriculum content that they considered essential for a rotation for senior General Internal Medicine residents. This survey led to the creation of the CanCOM II essential content blueprint for General Internal Medicine. Following this step, a second subgroup of participants (N = 21) participated in a Delphi survey to identify the content that should be addressed by a teaching case for senior General Internal Medicine residents. A high-level of consensus was obtained for 13 topics and a moderate level for the 7 subsequent topics resulting in the creation of the CanCOM II clinical cases available at http://gemoq.ca/cancom-ii-clinical-case-databank/


A widespread network of respiratory-related neurons within the brainstem controls the regular respiratory cycle, which is dependent upon unspecific and specific drives like hypoxia or hypercapnia. This respiratory network and its respiratory drives are subjects to typical changes during the transition from wakefulness to sleep and within the various sleep states, which favor a destabilization of breathing during sleep. There is also a respiratory-related innervation of the dilating and stiffening pharyngeal muscles as well as a local reflex control of the basic tone of upper airway muscles, both of which are influenced by the different states of wakefulness and sleep. These sleep-related changes cause an increase in upper airway resistance during sleep. In healthy subjects, however, these features during sleep are almost completely compensated and the gas exchange is hardly hindered. However, in the case of illness, severe disordered breathing, disturbed gas exchange and interrupted sleep may occur. The central hypoventilation syndrome, central apnea-hypopnea syndromes, as well as the obstructive sleep apnea syndrome belong to these diseases. Because of the intense research, we have a detailed picture of the pathophysiological mechanisms of the origin and the maintenance of sleep-related breathing disorders.


I appreciate the comments made by Dr Schmida on my discussion of rabies in pediatrics. 1 His concern about the status of bat species in this country is well-founded; currently many states have laws concerning removal and relocation of bat colonies without destruction of the animals. It is important to point out, however, the constant low-level rabies infection in endemic populations of bats in this country. Indeed, of the six cases of rabies in humans reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 1994, four were a bat strain of rabies identified by viral RNA sequence analysis. 2-4 Bat bites and scratches may go unnoticed and untreated. The recommendations regarding contact with bats made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are that rabies postexposure prophylaxis be considered for any contact with a bat when bite or mucous membrane contact cannot be excluded, and the bat


Model based speech coders such as the mixed–excitation linear prediction (MELP) coder encode parameters of the autoregressive model for short-duration frames of the speech signal. Typically, parameters extracted from successive frames by the MELP coder exhibit strong correlation. Reduction in the transmitted data-rates can be achieved if the encoders for these parameters effectively exploit this inter-frame correlation. In this paper, we apply a procedure, called dynamic codebook re-ordering (DCR) to reduce the entropy in the distribution of the symbols generated by the vector quantization encoders used in coding the MELP parameters. The entropy reduction is achieved by exploiting the correlation between the vectors of MELP parameters derived from successive speech frames. The advantages of the DCR procedure over other techniques that exploit inter-frame correlation stem from the fact that it significantly reduces the data-rates without introducing any additional coding delays or increasing the distortion and it is simple and elegant.


When growth is stimulated in the normally quiescent adult rat liver by partial hepatectomy, steady state levels of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) for c-fos, c-myc, and p53 increase sequentially during the prereplicative phase which precedes DNA synthesis. Levels of c-fos mRNA are elevated at least 4-fold within 15 min after partial hepatectomy and decrease rapidly by 2 h; c-myc mRNA reaches maximal levels (5-fold over normal) between 30 min and 2 h after the operation. A second, transient phase of expression for both c-fos and c-myc occurs around 8 h after partial hepatectomy. p53 mRNA levels increase between 8 and 12 h after the operation (5-fold over normal) and are reflected in an elevation of steady state levels of p53 protein between 12 and 15 h after partial hepatectomy. The levels of ras p21 protein increase much later at a time of active DNA replication and cell division. Actinomycin D injected at the time of partial hepatectomy blocks the increase in c-myc at 2 h but has no effect on c-fos mRNA levels. Actinomycin D injected at 6 h only partially blocks the increase in c-myc and p53 mRNA at 8 h but does not affect c-fos mRNA. Our results suggest that the transient and sequential expression of protooncogenes during the prereplicative stage of liver regeneration is likely to reflect events associated with entry and progression of hepatocytes into the cell cycle and can serve as markers for identifying specific humoral factors involved in liver regeneration.


In this paper, the in-plane free vibration analysis of the functionally graded rotating disks with variable thickness is presented utilizing DQM. It is assumed that the rotational velocity of the disk is constant and the thickness and material properties including modulus of elasticity and density vary along the radial coordinate. The distribution of the forward and backward traveling waves versus the angular velocity is demonstrated for several modal circles and nodal diameters with respect to the fixed and rotating coordinate systems. After presenting the accuracy and convergence of the numerical method, the derived formulation and the solution method are validated by comparing the results with those obtained in the literature for simple rotating disks. Furthermore, the critical speed of the rotating disk is introduced and obtained for different modes. Finally, the effects of the functionally graded index (describes the distribution of material properties) and geometric shape of the disks (thickness profile and radius ratio) on the natural frequencies and critical speed of the disk are presented. It is observed that as the number of nodal diameter increases, the critical speed of the disk consequently decreases and reaches to an asymptotic value. This value is independent of the geometric characteristics of the disk.


Hemiparesis following Stroke is the most frequent cause of adult disability. Falls in Stroke survivors are a consequence of Stroke related locomotor deficits or balance deficits or gait disturbances. Falls are common following Stroke but knowledge about predicting future fallers is lacking. The purpose of this study was to compare Timed Up and Go test (TUG) scores and Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment (POMA) scores for predicting falls in Hemiparetic patients with Stroke. Hemiparetic Patients with Stroke of duration of 3 months or more prior to the study enrollment were conveniently selected. TUG test was conducted first where the patient was asked to walk for a total distance of 3 meter. After performing this test, POMA was performed by each subject. Time allotted for completing the two tests was 30 minutes for each subject with adequate rest time. After recording the scores for each test, a follow up was done for six months. A log book was given to each subject for reporting the number of falls for each month. The number of falls for each subject was correlated with TUG test and POMA separately. To conclude, we can say that there is significant difference between the Timed Up and Go test and Tinetti's Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment score on prediction of fall in Hemiparetic Stroke patients and that TUG is much better predictor than POMA


Abstract We aimed to investigate the association between baseline levels of total serum glutathione (tGSH) and rate of chronic disease accumulation over time. The study population (n = 2,596) was derived from a population-based longitudinal study on ≥60-year-olds living in Stockholm. Participants were clinically assessed at baseline, 3- and 6-year follow-ups. Multimorbidity was measured as the number of chronic conditions from a previously built list of 60 diseases. Linear mixed models were applied to analyze the association between baseline tGSH levels and the rate of multimorbidity development over 6 years. We found that at baseline, participants with ≥4 diseases had lower tGSH levels than participants with no chronic conditions (3.3 vs 3.6 µmol/L; p < .001). At follow-up, baseline levels of tGSH were inversely associated with the rate of multimorbidity development (β * time: −0.044, p < .001) after adjusting for age, sex, education, levels of serum creatinine, C-reactive protein, albumin, body mass index, smoking, and time of dropout or death. In conclusion, serum levels of tGSH are inversely associated with multimorbidity development; the association exists above and beyond the link between tGSH and specific chronic conditions. Our findings support the hypothesis that tGSH is a biomarker of multisystem dysregulation that eventually leads to multimorbidity.


Background

Sarcopenia can be prevented and treated with exercise, particularly resistance training. Our aim was to explore the prevalence of sarcopenia and associations of its components with self-reported function and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in older adults training at conventional or Helsinki University Research [HUR] gyms owned and operated by an aged care provider, Uniting AgeWell in Melbourne.
Methods

Eighty community-dwelling older adults (mean ± SD 76.5\(\pm\)6.5 years) already undergoing resistance training were assessed for muscle strength (hand grip strength and chair stands), appendicular lean mass, and physical performance (gait speed [GS], short physical performance battery [SPPB], timed up and go [TUG] and 400-metre walk [400mW]). Pearson correlations examined associations of sarcopenia components with self-reported function (via SARC-F) and HRQoL (via AQoL-4D) in which higher scores mean worse function and better quality, respectively.
Results

Sarcopenia prevalence ranged from 1.3–10.3% depending on the definition applied, with no significant differences between gym types. In the HUR group, GS (r=-0.593) and SPPB (r=-0.626) were negatively associated (p < 0.001) with function, while TUG (r = 0.683; p < 0.01) was positively associated with function. Similar associations were observed with the HRQoL independent living component. Equivalent associations for conventional gym participants were observed for SPPB and TUG (function) and GS and TUG (HRQoL). Additionally, 400 mW time (r = 0.537) and appendicular lean mass (r = 0.586) were positively associated with function in the conventional gym users (p < 0.01). Similar, but negative, associations of 400 mW (r=-0.553; p < 0.01) were also observed with HRQoL, suggesting better function was linked to independent living and better mental health. Hand grip strength was not associated with function or HRQoL in either group.
Conclusion

Sarcopenia prevalence in community-dwelling older adults participating in supervised exercise programs was low and did not differ based on gym type. Mobility-related measures, fitness and lean mass measures in conventional gym users only were associated with function and HRQoL. However, muscle strength was not associated with these outcomes.


Literature shows a growing interest in the role played by brands in the everyday life of consumers. And identity construction is often underlined since brands are recognized to be linked to consumers' own identity. Yet, even if this link occurs at an early age, few studies deal with children. That is why this paper aims at identifying the role played by brands in the identification process of 10-11 years children. Thanks to a qualitative research led in schools, this article suggests that brands intervene in the sexual identification, the identification of an age group, of a peer group, of the family and of a whole community.


The classical theory of single-electron dynamics in focused laser pulses is the foundation of both the relativistic ponderomotive force (RPF), which in turn underlies models of laser-collective-plasma dynamics, and the discovery of novel strong-field radiation dynamics. Despite this bedrock importance, consensus eludes the community as to whether acceleration of single electrons in vacuum has been observed in experiment. We analyze the experiment of Malka et al. (1998) with respect to several features that were neglected in modeling and that can restore consistency between theory predictions and experimental data. The right or wrong pulse profile function, laser parameters, or initial electron distribution each can make or break the agreement between predictions and data. The laser phase at which the electron's interaction with the pulse begins has a large effect, explaining why much larger energies are achieved by electrons liberated in the focal region by photoionization from high-Z atoms and by electrons ejected from a plasma mirror. Finally we estimate the error in a typical electron spectrum arising from fluctuating focal spot size in state-of-the-art ultra-relativistic laser facilities. Our results emphasize the importance of thoroughly characterizing laser parameters in order to achieve quantitatively accurate predictions and the precision required for discovery science.


The present study aims to present the difficulties of transitional justice in Hungary following the change of systems. Following the regime change, it was a legitimate need in a substantial part of society in Hungary to punish the main perpetrators of the previous communist dictatorship for the crimes committed by them, either symbolically or actually. This type of 'punishment' may take place in a democratic society in two ways: either because of a political decision, or in the form of prosecution by a court. From the 1990s onwards, Hungarian decision-makers were characterized by the absence of ability to cope with the question. In my study relating to the statute of limitation, in addition to the description of the concept of limitation and the applicable Hungarian regulation in force, on the one hand I introduce those crimes which are not subject to the statute of limitation under international law, on the other hand I present the different approaches of the question of suspension of the limitation period in some successor states in order to determine and provide a solution to whether the statute of limitation could have been a real obstacle to criminal accountability. In this context, my study addresses, among several other issues, the breakthrough of the prohibition of retroactive effect, the issue of limitation and the question whether there is a need for transitional justice at all. The problem of limitation in connection with the historical justice arises in the fact that, although the current Hungarian legislation in force is aware of the concept of crimes which were not subject to the statute of limitation, however, during the darkest period of the communist dictatorship, such a concept did not yet exist in Hungarian law. The Hungarian laws in force in the 1950s did not yet recognize the category non-obsolete crimes, Thus, for example under Article 25 of the Compilation of Substantive Criminal Law (Act II of 1950) in force in 1956, the limitation period for acts threatened with death or life imprisonment was only 15 years, which, however, ceased to be punishable. In my opinion, which can be considered as one of the results of my research, in the absence of a mandatory legal background similar to German or Czech, it is a special legal reasoning that can justify the lack of limitation, the rules of which are presented in detail in my study. This is the legal reasoning on the basis of which the accountability of former party leaders could have been established under both domestic and international law. That is the legislative reasoning based on which – contrary to the decision of the Constitutional Court – in my opinion, legal liability would (would have been) take place, regardless of the fact, whether it was a plea or in the context of a traditional criminal proceedings.


Bioremediation is a process used to treat contaminated media, including water, soil and subsurface material, by altering environmental conditions to stimulate growth of microorganisms and degrade the target pollutants. In many cases, bioremediation is less expensive and more sustainable than other alternatives. Biological treatment is a similar approach used to treat wastes including wastewater, industrial waste and solid waste. Most bioremediation processes involve oxidation-reduction reactions where either an electron acceptor (commonly oxygen)

is added to stimulate oxidation of a reduced pollutant (e.g. hydrocarbons) or an electron donor (commonly an organic substrate) is added to reduce oxidized pollutants (nitrate, ,

oxidized metals, chlorinated solvents, explosives and propellants).


Patients with cancer are at risk for post influenza complications due to their underlying disease as well as their (immunosuppressive) treatment; therefore influenza vaccination is recommended to prevent influenza infections. Adherence to vaccination recommendations is however low, most likely explained by the lack of evidence regarding efficacy/effectiveness and optimal timing of vaccination in this particular patient group. This thesis addresses the burden of influenza in adult patients with either haematological cancers or solid tumours and response to influenza virus vaccination as well as optimal timing of vaccination during the chemotherapy cycle in patients with malignancies treated with chemotherapy. To assess the burden of influenza, incidence of influenza and other respiratory virus infections in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was studied as well as excess mortality in cancer patients during the seasonal influenza period in the Netherlands. Forty-four percent of patients with AML presenting with fever and/or upper respiratory tract complaints tested positive for an influenza virus or other respiratory viruses, influenza viruses (A and B) accounted for most of the infections. Regarding excess mortality, a trend for higher number of cancer deaths was observed during influenza season in the Netherlands. Moreover, a trend was found for a positive association between influenza incidence and number of cancer deaths. The second part of this thesis addresses efficacy of vaccination; antibody responses and the broadness of the antibody response to influenza vaccination were studied in breast cancer and colorectal cancer patients. As a surrogate end-point of vaccine efficacy, the acquired antibody levels after vaccination are considered to be above threshold of protection (seroprotection) and increase in antibody titres (seroconversion) were presented. In breast cancer patients overall antibody responses were adequate. Statistically significant higher responses were observed in patients who received early vaccination (day 5 after chemotherapy) when compared to late vaccination (day 16). In colorectal cancer patients overall serologic responses were adequate with no statistically difference found between early and late vaccination. In addition to the determination of vaccine virus specific antibody titres in breast cancer patients, the broadness of the response was assessed by using a protein microarray consisting of 11 different influenza strains. A wide range in serum antibody response after vaccination was found, overall the response was broad because of the significant increase of antibodies against strains not represented in the vaccine. Higher age and previous influenza vaccination had a significant negative influence on the antibody response to the vaccine. Apart from vaccine efficacy, influenza vaccination coverage in the Netherlands was analyzed in breast cancer patients and colorectal cancer patients treated with chemotherapy. Fifty- nine percent of our study population were vaccinated against influenza. In case of non-adherence to the recommendations, lack of awareness, lack of optimal timing of the vaccination during the chemotherapy cycle, and concerns on efficacy of vaccination were given as reasons for not vaccinating. According to 48% of the general practitioners, the treating medical oncologist has the primary responsibility for vaccination. Better guidelines may increase the vaccination coverage of cancer patients.


Objective: To evaluate the outcome of Immediate Post Partum Intrauterine Contraceptive device (PPIUCD) insertion among married women of reproductive age at a tertiary care Creek General Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan. Study Design: Prospective Interventional study. Methodology: The clinical study was conducted in department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Creek General hospital Karachi from August 2015 to July 2016. One hundred and twenty five women were selected for immediate PPIUCD insertion, however the result was analysed for hundred women as twenty five were lost to follow-up. PPIUCD was inserted within 10 minutes of delivery of placenta. Follow up was done at 6 weeks, the primary outcome measures were the clinical outcomes in terms of safety (irregular vaginal bleeding, abnormal vaginal discharge, infection and perforation) and efficacy (un-descended IUCD strings, expulsion, discontinuation and pregnancy). The results were analyzed by SPSS data analysis software (IOBM). Results: Among hundred women in whom PPIUCD was inserted and returned for follow-up, majority (44%) were in age group 26-30 years; around 52% had primary or less education, and considerably high (84%) belonged to the low socio economic status. Moreover, majority (46 %) had 3 or more alive children. Importantly, 73% women had IUCD inserted after vaginal delivery. As safety was evaluated, irregular vaginal bleeding was observed in 15%, abnormal vaginal discharge (20%), infection (11%), abdominal pain (4%) and perforation in only 1% of cases. Finally, in terms of efficacy the undescended IUCD strings were observed in 7%, expulsion incidence (6%), discontinuation requested by (5%) and none of the case ended up in pregnancy. Conclusion: Post partum IUCD insertion immediately following delivery is an effective, safe, and acceptable long-term reversible method available for postpartum contraception.


In this paper we investigate the e ect of the absence of a secret ballot on electoral outcomes and resource allocation. Once voting behavior is observable, votes can be bought and sold in a `market for votes'. We distinguish between direct vote buying, where individuals sell their own votes to political parties, and indirect vote buying, where people also sell the votes of others and we characterized the circumstances in which vote buying changes the electoral outcome. We then provide a microfoundation for indirect vote buying, which usually takes the form of employers selling the votes of their employees. This can occur when the employment relationship involves rents since employers can use the threat of withdrawal of these rents to control the political behavior of their workers. This increases the demand for labor and generates an added incentive to own land, increasing the price of land. We test the predictions of the model by examining in detail the e ects of the introduction of the secret ballot in Chile in 1958. We show that this change in political institutions had implications for voting behavior and land prices which are consistent with the predictions of our model. JEL Classi cation Number: D72, O54, Q15.


ABSTRACT The New York Medicalfournal, January, 1874, published "Forty Cases of Diphtheria Treated by Local Application of Sulphate of Iron." The present writer in that paper says: "About 1865 I became confident that some local treatment would best cure the disease, and often wondered what chemical re-agent would destroy and counteract the source of fever, the putrid mucus, pseudomembrane, continuously exuding, and at the same time not cauterize and irritate the still living, although infiltrated, membrane of the throat..... Creosote suggested itself to be considered (this was just before the carbolic acid discovery or invention), but it was not tested. Another agent, the subsulphate of iron, Monsel's styptic, in some now forgotten way was brought to notice. My first application to the throat in diphtheria determined with me its efficiency, etc. . . ."You will sometimes induce a little vomiting at first, an effect not injurious—on the contrary, possibly beneficial


Landslides are widespread natural hazards that generate considerable damage and economic losses worldwide. Detecting terrain movements caused by these phenomena and characterizing affected urban areas is critical to reduce their impact. Here we present a fast and simple methodology to create maps of vulnerable buildings affected by slow-moving landslides, based on two parameters: (1) the deformation rate associated to each building, measured from Sentinel-1 SAR data, and (2) the building damage generated by the landslide movement and recorded during a field campaign. We apply this method to Arcos de la Frontera, a monumental town in South Spain affected by a slow-moving landslide that has caused severe damage to buildings, forcing the evacuation of some of them. Our results show that maximum deformation rates of 4 cm/year in the line-of-sight (LOS) of the satellite, affects La Verbena, a newly-developed area, and displacements are mostly horizontal, as expected for a planar-landslide. Our building damage assessment reveals that most of the building blocks in La Verbena present moderate to severe damages. According to our vulnerability scale, 93% of the building blocks analysed present high vulnerability and, thus, should be the focus of more in-depth local studies to evaluate the serviceability of buildings, prior to adopting the necessary mitigation measures to reduce or cope with the negative consequences of this landslide. This methodology can be applied to slow-moving landslides worldwide thanks to the global availability of Sentinel-1 SAR data.


A morphological dataset based on 14 standard counts and indices was constructed for 68 specimens comprising 12 species of octopuses. This was used to construct distance matrices based on morphological characters. These matrices were compared with genetic distance matrices compiled during molecular phylogenetic analyses of the same 12 species using four mitochondrial and two nuclear genes. Mantel tests showed that there was significant congruence between the phenetic and genetic matrices, suggesting that the genetic signal is reflected in the morphological data set. Matrices of geographical distance were constructed for the 12 species based on the latitude, longitude, and depth of capture of 1726 individuals. These matrices never showed significant congruence with genetic data or with morphological data. Multivariate analysis of the morphological dataset suggests that these counts and indices, traditionally used for discriminating between species in cephalopods, do not show great discrimination at species level, but provide excellent discrimination at the generic level, and, as such, might be useful for resolving the generic placement of some problematic taxa.


We have previously demonstrated that pretreatment of several cell lines with cis-unsaturated fatty acids, like oleic acid, blocks epidermal growth factor (EGF)-induced early ionic signals, and in particular the [Ca2+]i rise. In the present work we show that this blockade does not alter EGF-stimulated cellular proliferation evaluated by direct cell counting, but induces a powerful enhancement in the pulsed thymidine incorporation assay. The lack of effect of oleic acid on EGF-stimulated cellular proliferation was confirmed by repeated cell counts, cumulative thymidine incorporation, and protein synthesis, but a clear synergistic effect between oleic acid and EGF was again obtained by means of time course experiments with pulsed thymidine. Combined flow cytometry analysis and cell counts at earlier times in EGF-stimulated cells showed that oleic acids accelerates the entrance of cells into the replicative cycle leading to an earlier cell division. Afterward, these oleic acid-pretreated cells became delayed by an unknown compensatory mechanism in such a way that at 48 h post-EGF, the cell count in control and oleic acid-pretreated cells was equal. In conclusion (a) oleic acid accelerates or enhances the EGF mitogenic action and (b) in the long term cells compensate the initial perturbation with respect to untreated cells. As a side observation, the widely employed pulsed thymidine incorporation method as a measure of cell division could be extremely misleading unless experimental conditions are well controlled.


The rule against double jeopardy entails that, generally, a person cannot be charged more than once for the same, or substantially the same, offence or misconduct in respect of which he or she has been convicted or acquitted. Under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, this rule is part of an accused's right to a fair trial. This article shows that every employer prosecuted for allegedly not complying with either employees' tax obligations in the Fourth Schedule of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962, or for an offence at common law, is entitled to raise the procedural defence of double jeopardy. This article argues that the recent judgment in Grayston Technology Investment (Pty) Ltd v S is authority for the proposition that, in any such prosecution, an accused employer may invoke double jeopardy, even if the prior punishment or acquittal stems from non-criminal proceedings under the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 before the Tax Court or the Tax Board. A key hypothesis of this article is the argument that double jeopardy ought not to be applied as an inflexible procedural rule in every instance. This is because such an approach would lead to the undesirable result of undermining the Legislature's objective in catering for criminal and civil sanctions in respect of certain violations of fiscal legislation. No hard-and-fast rules can be laid down in advance as to when double jeopardy may be successfully invoked. Each case needs to be decided on its own facts. It is contended that when a court decides whether to uphold a double-jeopardy defence, it must strike an equitable balance between, on the one hand, the accused employer's fundamental right to a fair trial and, on the other, society's legitimate interest in ensuring that taxpayers comply with their tax obligations on pain of adequate punishment for non-compliance.


A case of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is presented in which a gingival swelling was the initial manifestation of the disease. The non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are reviewed, and the management of patients with gingival disease is discussed.


Abstract The learning with errors (LWE) problem has become a central building block of modern cryptographic constructions. This work collects and presents hardness results for concrete instances of LWE. In particular, we discuss algorithms proposed in the literature and give the expected resources required to run them. We consider both generic instances of LWE as well as small secret variants. Since for several methods of solving LWE we require a lattice reduction step, we also review lattice reduction algorithms and use a refined model for estimating their running times. We also give concrete estimates for various families of LWE instances, provide a Sage module for computing these estimates and highlight gaps in the knowledge about algorithms for solving the LWE problem.


An algorithm for finding a shortest path between each pair of nodes of a positive arc weighted graph on a shared memory model of a single instruction-stream multiple data-stream computer is proposed. The time complexity of the algorithm is of O(log d . log n), where d and n denote the diameter and the number of nodes of the graph, respectively. At most, O(n3) processors are required to achieve this time bound.


After an overview of the developmental goals of early, middle, and late adolescence, the authors discuss the demographics and patterns of comorbidity. The high incidence both of psychiatric symptoms in the substance-abusing population and of drug abuse in the psychiatric population complicates diagnosis and treatment of both disorders, especially when treatment services are separate, as in the public sector. The adolescent medicine physician can perform a valuable role in bridging the gap.


This work was carried out aiming to evaluate the nutritional value of tillers and the morphological components on deferred and nitrogen-fertilized pastures of Brachiaria decumbens cv. Basilisk. Two experiments were performed in randomized block designs with three repetitions and subdivided plot scheme. In the first experiment, combinations among nitrogen doses (0, 40, 80 and 120 kg/ha) were performed either with the morphological components (green leaves, green stem, dead leaves and dead stem) or with tiller categories (vegetative and reproductive) of the pasture. In the second experiment, the combinations of the deferring periods (73, 95 and 116 days) with the tiller categories (vegetative and reproductive) were studied. N-fertilization increased neutral detergent fiber (NDF) percentage in the green stem and the content of crude protein (CP) in green leaves, dead leaves, and green stem. N-fertilization also increased CP percentages in the vegetative and reproductive tillers, as well as the NDF content in vegetative tillers. A higher deferring period resulted in an increment of the NDF percentage and a reduction of crude protein percentage in the vegetative and reproductive tillers. Nitrogen dose and the deferring period alter the nutritional value of the morphological components and the tillers of the pastures of B. decumbens cv. Basilisk. For deferring of pastures, management actions that result in higher percentages of green foliar blade and vegetative tiller in the pasture contribute to improve the nutritional value of the deferred forage.


At IBM and elsewhere, researchers are developing the components and feedback loops necessary for computer systems to run themselves. The hope is that the constant and costly intervention of database and network administrators trying to figure out what must be done will soon be a thing of the past. Among the first of these projects are some that enable computer systems to optimize computing resources and data storage on their own.


Cortisone Therapy: Mainly Applied to the Rheumatic Diseases. By J. H. Glyn, M.A.(Cantab.), M.D., M.R.C.P., D.Phys.Med. Foreword by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, M.D., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.A.C.P. (Pp. 162+x. 21s.) London: William Heinemann Medical Books Ltd. 1957. The adrenocortical steroids and their synthetic analogues are potent remedies which can be of great value, but their indiscriminate use can also cause serious and even dangerous side-effects. The indications for their employment in rheumatoid arthritis and other related diseases are not likely to be fully worked out for some years, but these preparations are nevertheless being widely used. This book gives a concise account of the various steroids at present available and of their effects both desirable and undesirable, together with detailed advice on how they should be administered. Some indications and contraindications are discussed in the light of the author's personal experience and the results of the reported studies and controlled therapeutic trials. Though not everyone would agree with the wide indications for longterm steroid therapy set out by the author, this volume should nevertheless prove an invaluable guide to practitioners and physicians responsible for the care of patients receiving such treatment. J. H. KELLGREN.


Time-varying networks play an important role in the investigation of the stochastic processes that occur on complex networks. The ability to formulate the development of the network topology on the same time scale as the evolution of the random process is important for a variety of applications, including the spreading of diseases. Past contributions have investigated random processes on time-varying networks with a purely random attachment mechanism. The possibility of extending these findings towards a time-varying network that is driven by mutual attractiveness is explored in this paper. Mutual attractiveness models are characterized by a linking function that describes the probability of the existence of an edge, which depends mutually on the attractiveness of the nodes on both ends of that edge. This class of attachment mechanisms has been considered before in the fitness-based complex networks literature but not on time-varying networks. Also, the impact of mutual selection is investigated alongside opinion formation and epidemic outbreaks. We find closed-form solutions for the quantities of interest using a factorizable linking function. The voter model exhibits an unanticipated behavior as the network never reaches consensus in the case of mutual selection but stays forever in its initial macroscopic configuration, which is a further piece of evidence that time-varying networks differ markedly from their static counterpart with respect to random processes that take place on them. We also find that epidemic outbreaks are accelerated by uncorrelated mutual selection compared to previously considered random attachment.


The current study investigates how public attitudes and perceptions about the COVID-19 pandemic evolve over time and influence self-reported health behaviors (e. g., social distancing). Specific attention was paid to respondents' exposure to different news media channels (public vs. commercial). We used data from a two-wave panel study with a 3-week interval (W1 at the start and W2 at the peak of the pandemic) and a large sample of the adult population in Flanders, Belgium (n = 870). The results of mixed ANOVAs indicate that besides a time-effect there was also a significant effect of the different types of news media exposure and respondents' support for protective health measures and behaviors. Whereas, perceived vulnerability to disease, feelings of loneliness, and solidarity were mostly determined by respondents' overall frequency of media exposure, support of governmental measures and self-reported health behaviors were mostly determined by the type of news media exposure. Respondents with a predominantly public/quality news media diet had the highest scores on these variables. A stepwise linear regression analysis with individual's change scores demonstrated that (self-)protective behavior was positively determined by respondents' age, solidarity, and the belief that the measures are necessary, but negatively determined by one's cumulative exposure to commercial/tabloid news media. This longitudinal study provides a new perspective on the role of news media in times of a public health crisis. It offers support for (A) the "double bind hypothesis" (i.e., while news media consumption encourages (self-)isolation, it fosters feelings of loneliness); and (B) the "dual effects hypothesis" (i.e., exposure to commercial/tabloid news media generates different outcomes than exposure to public/quality news media). Affective responses and socio-psychological perceptions are influenced by overall news media exposure, whereas support for the government and its handling of the crisis are mainly determined by one's selection of media channels, whereby audiences of public news media evaluate these outcomes more positively than the audiences of commercial news media channels.


ABSTRACT The intricate character of the landscape is one of the main difficulties when reaching an agreement on its values. This information is, however, essential to manage the landscape, a process which relies on methodologies that recognise those values and/or identifies. In this paper, the analytical methodology for an integrated plan of the territory is reviewed, and a method is presented to design cultural routes as a strategy for connecting the archaeological sites to their landscapes by restoring the dynamics of landscape formation in their immediate environments. Using the area surrounding the archaeological site of the Roman city of Italica in Andalusia (Spain) as a case study, actions and processes are identified that can enable projects based on 'cultural routes' to restore the dynamics of landscape formation, highlighting those processes that allow us to recognise the landscape values and to extract some of the landscape's characteristic features.


This study aims to explore the relationship between the doses of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines received and SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection in the real-world setting, so as to preliminarily evaluate the protective effect induced by COVID-19 vaccination. We conducted a test-negative case-control study and recruited the test-positive cases and test-negative controls in the outbreak caused by Omicron BA.2 in April 2022 in Guangzhou, China. All the participants were 3 years and older. The vaccination status between the case group and the control group was compared in the vaccinated and all participants, respectively, to estimate the immune protection of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines. After adjusting for sex and age, compared with a mere single dose, full vaccination of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines (OR = 0.191, 95% CI: 0.050 to 0.727) and booster vaccination (OR = 0.091, 95% CI: 0.011 to 0.727) had a more superior protective effect. Compared with one dose, the second dose was more effective in males (OR = 0.090), as well as two doses (OR = 0.089) and three doses (OR = 0.090) among individuals aged 18–59. Whereas, when compared with the unvaccinated, one dose (OR = 7.715, 95% CI: 1.904 to 31.254) and three doses (OR = 2.055, 95% CI: 1.162 to 3.635) could contribute to the increased risk of Omicron infection after adjusting for sex and age. Meanwhile, by contrast with unvaccinated individuals, the result of increased risk was also manifested in the first dose in males (OR = 12.400) and one dose (OR = 21.500), two doses (OR = 1.890), and a booster dose (OR = 1.945) in people aged 18–59. In conclusion, the protective effect of full and booster vaccination with inactivated COVID-19 vaccines exceeded the incomplete vaccination, of which three doses were more effective. Nevertheless, vaccination may increase the risk of Omicron infection compared with unvaccinated people. This may result from the transmission traits of BA.2, the particularity and stronger protection awareness of the unvaccinated population, as well as the ADE effect induced by the decrease of antibody titers after a long time of vaccination. It is crucial to explore this issue in depth for the formulation of future COVID-19 vaccination strategies.


The elementary "map of the near future" could consist of three basic scenarios: sustainable development; sustainable retreat; or collapse and regeneration. Sustainable development remains the most serious attempt at finding an answer to the question of how to allow all people and nations to develop and improve their quality of life, while preserving functional ecosystems and a healthy environment for humankind. James Lovelock was the first to articulate the idea that it is too late for sustainable development and that we should strive for sustainable retreat. For Lovelock, the deadliest issue is the ongoing climate change, as it is irreversible and only can be mitigated. Sustainable retreat is hard to enforce politically and difficult to absorb mentally. Collapse of a civilization is a decrease in population size or political, economic, and social complexity over a large area for a long time. The collapse of a society does not usually come in the form of a sudden and apocalyptic downfall. Whether a society collapses or not depends on the society´s response to its problems and its capacity to solve them. A collapse is usually followed by rebirth and regeneration. This is a pattern in nature. Human society has followed a similar trend. Regardless how big a crisis is, it always presents an opportunity for catharsis and hope for a new beginning. However, there is no guarantee of the results.


In this paper, with the full field operator ψ̂ expressed in terms of a particle-number-conserving mean-field ansatz, we investigate the dynamical behaviour of Bose–Einstein condensates from microscopic physics. Including the first-order term correction from single-particle excitation and the remaining higher-order term correction from collective excitations simultaneously, we obtain the formulation for a closed local expression of quantum backreaction Q, and discuss the influence on static Bose–Einstein condensates. Even though the quantum backreaction is small, it still has some influence on its dynamics.


An efficient methodology for simulating paths of fractional stable motion is presented. The proposed approach is based on invariance principles for linear processes. A detailed analysis of the error terms involved is given and the performance of the method is assessed through an extensive simulation study.


Metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) dosimetry including the reset of the sensor device for its reuse (reutilization) is described. The method consists in restoring the shifted threshold voltage after irradiation to a predefined value by the injection of a Fowler-Nordheim tunnel current. The amount of interface states per unit area is initially saturated in order to ensure repeatability. The method was tested on 70 nm pMOSFETs exposed to a 60Co source. After successive irradiations and erasures amounting several tens of kGy[SiO2], the devices exhibit a dispersion smaller than 2% in the responses.


This paper deals with a fundamental problem in the theory of recursion on initial segments of the ordinal numbers which was originated by Kripke [4] and Platek [8]. Following Kreisel-Sacks [3], we define a notion of relative recursiveness for this abstract recursion theory which allows us to speak of a function ƒ being weakly recursive in a set A via a partial recursive function g; this makes it reasonable to speak of partial recursive functions as 'reduction procedures'. We say that a reduction procedure g is intrinsically consistent if for any set A there is a partial function ƒ which is weakly recursive in A via g. It is an elementary result of ordinary recursion theory that an arbitrary reduction procedure can be replaced in a uniform manner by an intrinsically consistent reduction procedure without the loss of any function f being reducible to any set A. In §3 we show that for recursion theory on the ordinals less than any infinite cardinal the analogous result is consistent with the axioms of set theory. In §5 we show that for all other cases of abstract recursion theory the analogous result fails in a very strong way to be true.


The practice of Islamic health emerged in the sixth century AD influenced by three health traditions, namely ancient civilization, Bedouin Arabic, and Thibbun Nabawi. There is no much data related to health practice around the sixth century to the seventh century BC, except for nursing conducted by Rufaidah Al-Aslamiyah. She became an important figure in developing Islamic health practice and the involvement of women in the Islamic war. The purpose of this research is to determine the description of medicine/health in the Islamic world in the classical period and the role of Rufaidah Al-Aslamiyah in her involvement nursing field of the Islamic world. The method of this research is the historical research. The research method was carried out through four-stage, they are heuristics, criticism, interpretation, and historiography. Based on the research conducted, it could be stated that the practice of world health has emerged since 7,000 BC. In the sixth to seventh centuries Rufaidah Al-Aslamiyah had an important role in the development of world health practice. She started nursing for the first time in the Islamic world. Some of her important roles include: establishing a nursing school, participating in the war, establishing a field hospital, creating a nurse code of ethics, developing Islamic spiritual services, and being active in social activities in the city of Medina. It has also been proven that the first nursing knowledge was not conceived by Florence Nightingale in the 19th century, however, it has existed since the sixth century by Rufaidah Al-Aslamiyah. Keywords: Health practice, Islamic health practice, nursing.


This is a response to a letter by Anthony P. Moran (1)

We have identified the machinery that replaces an ester- by an amide-linked acyl chain in the lipid A of Campylobacter jejuni and demonstrated that changing the distribution of acyl chain linkages alters the response of the TLR4-MD2 complex as well as the susceptibility to antimicrobial peptides (2). This novel lipid A modification mechanism adds to the large repertoire of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) modification strategies to alter the innate immune response (3). As pointed out by Moran and discussed in our manuscript, C. jejuni has evolved multiple other ways to modify its lipid A and thus the host response (4, 5). Our mass spectrometry, comparing equal amounts of LPS, indicates only minor differences in the distribution of lipid A isoforms between the analyzed strains and no evident changes in the number of phosphate molecules or polar head groups. Similarly, the amount of phosphoethanolamine attached to the lipid A, which influences the resistance to polymyxin B (5), seems unchanged, although this may require more thorough chemical analysis. Although how the altered acyl chain linkages exactly influence the structure-bioactivity relationship remains to be resolved, the large biodiversity of the C. jejuni lipid A indicates that this trait is an important asset of this principal bacterial foodborne pathogen that may contribute to bacterial pathogenesis and/or bacterial survival in different environmental niches.