BACKGROUND/AIMS
Highly extended liver surgery for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with tumor thrombi in the portal vein was reconfirmed from the viewpoint of the risk of operation, actual effect on prolongation of the life time, and the beneficial effects.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Sixty-two hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with tumor thrombi in the trunk or first branch of the portal vein (PV thrombi) were surgically treated by hepatic resection with removal of the PV thrombi and by postoperative transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE), while 38 HCC patients with PV thrombi were conservatively treated due to deleterious liver function and/or extensive spread of carcinoma.

RESULTS
The mean and median survival time of 44 patients who were surgically treated and survived more than 60 POD were 900.5 and 305 days, respectively. By contrast, these values in 38 conservatively treated patients were 199.6 and 90 days, respectively. The extended surgical operation had few serious adverse effects on biochemical functions of the liver and beneficial effects on portal hypertension and related hypersplenism.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the most critical problems were postoperative liver failure and early recurrence, extended surgical treatment should be encouraged for the prolongation of life span and quality of life, when HCC are relatively small and the remnant liver is normal or only fibrotic.


The objective of this paper is to characterize the exposure of Kenyan's income to international income, monetary and price shocks. The results suggest that the partners' diversification permits them to resist to international shocks. In fact, Chinese conjuncture tends to be less exposed to OECD countries' income and inflation shocks. Also, income in this country more depends on domestic investment and household consumption, in comparison to the exposure to OECD country shocks. In this context, we observe that the exposure of Kenyan income to OECD shocks regresses when the dependence to Chinese conjuncture progresses.


Layered molecular materials and especially MoS2 are already accepted as promising candidates for nanoelectronics. In contrast to the bulk material, the observed electron mobility in single-layer MoS2 is unexpectedly low. Here we reveal the occurrence of intrinsic defects in MoS2 layers, known as inversion domains, where the layer changes its direction through a line defect. The line defects are observed experimentally by atomic resolution TEM. The structures were modeled and the stability and electronic properties of the defects were calculated using quantum-mechanical calculations based on the Density-Functional Tight-Binding method. The results of these calculations indicate the occurrence of new states within the band gap of the semiconducting MoS2. The most stable nonstoichiometric defect structures are observed experimentally, one of which contains metallic Mo–Mo bonds and another one bridging S atoms.


A least mean-square (LMS) adaptive filtering approach has been formulated for removing the deleterious effects of additive noise on the speech signal. Unlike the classical LMS adaptive filtering scheme, the proposed method is designed to cancel out the clean speech signal. This method takes advantage of the quasi-periodic nature of the speech signal to form an estimate of the clean speech signal at time t from the value of the signal at time t minus the estimated pitch period. For additive white noise distortion, preliminary tests indicate that the method improves the perceived speech quality and increases the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by 7 dB in a 0 dB environment. The method has also been shown to partially remove the perceived granularity of CVSD coded speech signals and to lead to an improvement in the linear prediction analysis/synthesis of noisy speech.


We use the Clemens-Griffiths method to construct smooth projective threefolds, over any field $k$ admitting a separable quadratic extension, that are $k$-unirational and $\bar{k}$-rational but not $k$-rational. When $k=\mathbb{R}$, we can moreover ensure that their real locus is diffeomorphic to the real locus of a smooth projective $\mathbb{R}$-rational variety and that all their unramified cohomology groups are trivial.


This article seeks, first, to disarm some of the principal criticisms of the best interests principle as having an indeterminate content. It then considers how a best interests principle stands in relation to other principles, in particular according to the child a 'voice' on matters affecting its interests. It seeks to show that there is an important distinction between a 'threshold' and 'weighting' view of a child's capacities, which has significant implications for how we think from a rights perspective both about the child and about the adult. The article contrasts its own approach from that of John Eekelaar's 'dynamic self-determinism', and concludes by suggesting ways in which the case of children can illuminate the broader understanding of adult rights to autonomy and of liberal anti-paternalism.


.................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. vi Dedication ............................................................................................................................... vii Table of Content ................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ x List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... xi List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................... xii Chapter


A recurrent neural network is developed for robust optimal filter design. The purpose is to fill the gap between the real-time computation requirement in practice and the computational complexity of the filter design in the case that the statistical properties of noise are unknown. First, an H/sub /spl infin// requirement and an L/sub 2/ requirement of the filter design problem are formulated as a group of linear matrix inequalities. On this basis, an optimization problem is introduced to solve the robust optimal filter design problem. Then, a recurrent neural network is deliberately developed for solving the optimization problem in real time. The effectiveness and efficiency of the recurrent neural network is shown by use of theoretical and simulation results.


Fluidized bed incineration is an innovative combustion technique in soil environmental remediation. It was specifically and effective for the sewage sludge remediation contaminated by heavy metals. In this paper, the sludge incineration technological process was mainly studied. There were 3 methods of sludge disposal were analysed and compared. It indicated that the process parameters and operation characteristics were thoroughly researched in sludge incineration with fluidized bed. In this article, actual combustion characteristics and parameters such as the proportion of sludge and fuel, combustion temperature, inhibition of NOx were studied. Meanwhile, it demonstrated that fluidized bed incineration technology is the key equipment proving to be a promising application of new sludge disposal technologies by


The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease spreading rapidly and uncontrollably throughout the world. The critical challenge is the rapid detection of Coronavirus infected people. The available techniques being utilized are body-temperature measurement, along with anterior nasal swab analysis. However, taking nasal swabs and lab testing are complex, intrusive, and require many resources. Furthermore, the lack of test kits to meet the exceeding cases is also a major limitation. The current challenge is to develop some technology to non-intrusively detect the suspected Coronavirus patients through Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques such as deep learning (DL). Another challenge to conduct the research on this area is the difficulty of obtaining the dataset due to a limited number of patients giving their consent to participate in the research study. Looking at the efficacy of AI in healthcare systems, it is a great challenge for the researchers to develop an AI algorithm that can help health professionals and government officials automatically identify and isolate people with Coronavirus symptoms. Hence, this paper proposes a novel method CoVIRNet (COVID Inception-ResNet model), which utilizes the chest X-rays to diagnose the COVID-19 patients automatically. The proposed algorithm has different inception residual blocks that cater to information by using different depths feature maps at different scales, with the various layers. The features are concatenated at each proposed classification block, using the average-pooling layer, and concatenated features are passed to the fully connected layer. The efficient proposed deep-learning blocks used different regularization techniques to minimize the overfitting due to the small COVID-19 dataset. The multiscale features are extracted at different levels of the proposed deep-learning model and then embedded into various machine-learning models to validate the combination of deep-learning and machine-learning models. The proposed CoVIR-Net model achieved 95.7% accuracy, and the CoVIR-Net feature extractor with random-forest classifier produced 97.29% accuracy, which is the highest, as compared to existing state-of-the-art deep-learning methods. The proposed model would be an automatic solution for the assessment and classification of COVID-19. We predict that the proposed method will demonstrate an outstanding performance as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques being used currently.


The past half-century has been witness to the largest education expansion drive in human history; as a worldwide education expansion project played itself out.  This expansion has taken up a significant proportion of resources of nations.  In the case of the developing countries education is almost invariably the biggest item on government's expenditure budgets.  In the case of the United States of America (USA) federal funds allocated to education rose tenfold in the thirty year period 1970 to 2000, from US$ 9.2 billion to US$ 90.6 billion. One major motivation for this concentrated employment of resources is the belief that investment in education promotes, or indeed is a sine qua non for economic growth.  Testing this supposed relation, especially in the contemporary era, is therefore timely.  The aim of this article is to investigate the co-variation between  education effort (measured in terms of enrollment ratios) and economic performance (measured by per capita gross domestic product) of the various countries of the world, almost half a century ago; at the outset of the massive education expansion drive which took off during the second half of the twentieth century.


Geraads D., Spassov N., Hristova L., Markov G. N. & Tzankov T. 2011. — Upper Miocene mammals from Strumyani, South-Western Bulgaria. Geodiversitas 33 (3): 451–484. ABSTRACT The localities of Strumyani in the Struma valley (South-Western Bulgaria) yield a rich assemblage of large mammals, including more than 20 species, hipparions and rhinos being especially well represented. Many species are commonly found in the Balkano-Iranian province, but there are also some rarely found taxa, such as Tapirus Brünnich, 1771, Dorcatherium Kaup, 1833, and a cervid that looks different from other contemporaneous finds. The instantaneous nature of the deposition shows that the association of taxa with likely diverse ecological requirements reflects a truly mosaic environment. The close similarity of the faunal association with that of Pikermi implies a similar middle Turolian age, although some differences suggest that Strumyani is earlier than this Greek locality. The issue of the age of Turolian sites of the Balkans is discussed.


During the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s, many expressed fears that children with intrauterine cocaine exposure (IUCE) would grow up to be unusually violent. The present study examines the relationship of caregiver reports of school-age children's aggressive behavior with IUCE and postnatal exposure to violence. Respondents were 140 low-income, primarily African American children, ages 8-11, and each child's current primary caregiver from a longitudinal study evaluating potential long term sequelae of IUCE. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate the independent and interactive effects of level of IUCE (None (n = 69), Lighter (n = 47), Heavier (n =  24)) and exposure to violence (Violence Exposure Scale for Children-Revised) on aggressive behavior (Child Behavior Checklist), while also controlling for other intrauterine substance exposures and additional contextual factors. Children's self-reported exposure to violence was significantly positively associated with caregivers' reports of aggressive behavior (β = 2.17, P = .05), as was concurrent caregiver's psychiatric distress (β = .15, P = .003). However, neither IUCE nor its interaction with exposure to violence showed a significant association with aggressive behavior. Findings suggest the importance of postnatal social environment rather than IUCE in predicting aggressive behavior in childhood.


Abstract During the last three decades, social capital has gained prominence throughout the social sciences. The concepts has been analysed in various manners (from perspectives of economics, political sciences, sociology, anthropology etc.) providing wide range of theoretical conceptualizations. The aim of paper is to analyse the relation of social capital and possibility to improve the well-being of the municipality's citizens using co-responsibility approach. In order to achieve the aim, the tasks are formulated as follows: 1) to review theoretical background for concept of social capital and subjective well-being, 2) to analyse the factors of social capital at local level, and 3) to use the results of conducted empirical research at Salaspils municipality in analysing the correlation of level of social capital and possibility to improve well-being implementing inclusive local management. Research methods used: Scientific literature studies, several stages of focus group discussions, statistical data analysis, SPIRAL methodology, scenario method. The main findings of the paper - there are evidences on relation of social capital and possibility to improve the well-being of the municipality's citizens. In municipalities with sufficient level of social capital are good opportunities to use participatory techniques for achieving higher level of overall well-being. The paper consists of practical value how to mobilise the social capital of the municipality in order to ensure the inclusive management of the territory.


This paper demonstrates the maintenance of self-sustaining turbulence in a restricted nonlinear (RNL) model of plane Couette flow. The RNL system is derived directly from the Navier-Stokes equations and permits higher resolution studies of the dynamical system associated with the stochastic structural stability theory (S3T) model, which is a second order approximation of the statistical state dynamics of the flow. The RNL model shares the dynamical restrictions of the S3T model but can be easily implemented by reducing a DNS code so that it retains only the RNL dynamics. Comparisons of turbulence arising from DNS and RNL simulations demonstrate that the RNL system supports self-sustaining turbulence with a mean flow as well as structural and dynamical features that are consistent with DNS. These results demonstrate that the simplified RNL system captures fundamental aspects of fully developed turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows and motivate use of the RNL/S3T framework for further study of wall-turbulence.


Whether the cortical processing of nociceptive input relies on the activity of nociceptive-specific neurons or whether it relies on the activity of non-specific neuronal populations remains a matter of intense debate. Here, we address this question using EEG "frequency-tagging" of steady-state evoked potentials (SS-EPs) combined with an intermodal selective attention paradigm to test whether the cortical processing of nociceptive input relies on nociceptive-specific neuronal populations which can be selectively modulated by top-down attention. Specifically, we hypothesized that if the cortical processing of nociceptive and non-nociceptive sensory inputs involves distinct neuronal populations, selective attention would selectively enhance the SS-EPs elicited by the attended stream of sensory input. Conversely, if the cortical processing of the two sensory inputs involves the same neuronal populations, selective attention would indistinctly enhance the responses elicited by the attended and unattended streams of sensory input. Trains of nociceptive and vibrotactile stimuli (experiment 1) and trains of nociceptive and visual stimuli (experiment 2) were applied concomitantly to the same hand. A target detection task ensured that participants focused their attention on one of the two sensory modalities. We found that selectively attending to nociceptive or vibrotactile somatosensory input indistinctly enhanced nociceptive and vibrotactile somatosensory SS-EPs, whereas selectively attending to nociceptive or visual input independently enhanced the SS-EP elicited by the attended stream of sensory input. These results indicate that the processing of nociceptive input relies on neuronal populations that are also involved in processing tactile input, but distinct from the neuronal populations involved in processing visual input.


Progress in diagnosis, treatment, and epidemiology of human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) depends on the existence of specific and sensitive diagnostic tools. Inherent shortcomings of serologic and parasitologic diagnostic methods can be overcome by molecular techniques. Therefore, we have developed a new polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test using primers derived from the recently identified sequence of the Trypanosoma brucei gambiense-specific glycoprotein (TgsGP). The specificity of the TgsGP-PCR was evaluated on DNA extracted from 73 different trypanosome populations belonging to diverse taxonomic groups that were isolated from various host species, and from different geographic origins. The TgsG-PCR was shown to be specific for T. b. gambiense and was suitable for detection of trypanosome DNA in blood samples of patients with confirmed sleeping sickness.


The effective magnetic permeability of composite materials containing fine iron particles of 1–2 μm size is investigated theoretically and experimentally. This permeability is considered due to both the ferromagnetic properties of iron and the generation of eddy currents by an alternating magnetic field. An analytical result shows that as the percolation threshold is approached, the skin effect in large conducting clusters dominates, suppressing the ferromagnetic behavior for any value of frequency. As a result of this, the effective permeability tends to become zero near the percolation threshold, having a ''ν'' form anomaly. The experimental data for frequencies of 6–10 GHz where the skin depth is of the order of a particle size, clearly exhibit a sharp decrease near the percolation threshold in the real part of the effective magnetic permeability. We believe this is the first observation of a possible magnetic anomaly in a percolating system.


The purpose of the present study was to investigate the educational position of physical education Curriculum among other subjects in managers, teachers, parents, and students' views. The statistical population were of all managers and both male and female teachers (96 managers &1514 teachers), and all boys and girls students of Rasht (23686 students). The sample consists all the managers, 310 teachers, 400 students (197 boys and 203 girls) and their parents (n=400). The instrument was the researcher-made questionnaire, included 25 educational variables that compared educational position of physical education to other school subjects of first to third grades.Content and face validity have been approved by 12 intellectual academic professors and 20 heads of subject departments and experienced teachers, and reliability has also been approved by Cronbach Alpha method (r=0.79 to r=0.82). Friedman Test, Wilcoxon Test, Yeoman Witney Test, and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to test the research hypotheses (p≤0.05). The results showed significant difference between the position of physical education subject with other school subjects on students, parents, managers, and teacher' point of views (p=0.001).The top priority of subjects was mathematics, sciences, foreign language and physical education from point of views of students and their parents. Also, teachers ranked first, and school principals ranked second the physical education subject among mathematics and foreign language subjects. The top priority of boys than girls toward physical education subject were considered (p=0.001).


This essay analyzes some concepts about 'solidarity economics' based on two principal movements: the transmutation of exchange value into solidarity and the transformation of solidarity into a commodity. The first point relates to the fact that 'solidarity economics' sees the use of capital as an individual choice, promoting a mystifying vision of the current phase of capitalism. From this perspective, individual will is treated as independent of the determinations of capital. Appeals are made to individuals to use their private capital in a solidarity manner and thus expand the project in question. Based on a critical reading of the thesis that these organizations have authentic subjective qualities that represent competitive advantages in relation to capitalist companies, the mystification of the use of solidarity as a competitive distinction is indicated. These positions are considered to be ideological and misleading forms


To the Editor: We haven a few questions in regard to Liew's recent letter to the editor of TRANSFUSION regarding the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) in the autoadsorption of serum for the detection of underlying alloantibodies.' First, was the PEG a commercially available reagent or was it made in-house? Second, were the autologous cells treated with an enzyme solution prior to the adsorption when PEG was not used? Third, how many drops of the adsorbed serum and PEG mixture were used in testing for underlying alloantibodies? Fourth, was this PEG adsorption procedure performed on samples containing already identified underlying alloantibodies, and, if SO, were the alloantibodies still detectable? Fifth, were the five samples in which alloantibodies were not detected in this study when PEG was used in the autoadsorption known not to contain underlying alloantibodies? Sixth, were adsorptions with allogeneic cells performed by using PEG? In our laboratory, adsorption techniques were performed on a sample containing a warm-reactive autoantibody with two underlying alloantibodies, anti-E and anti-KI. One aliquot of autologous cells was treated with an enzyme solution (ficin) prior to the autoadsorption (PEG was not added),' while a second aliquot of untreated autologous cells was mixed with acornmercidly available PEG. The serum that was adsorbed once with ficin-treated cells demonstrated an underlying alloanti-E that reacted 2+ and an alloanti-Kl that reacted weakly in the indirect antiglobulin test (IAT) using a low-ionic-strength solution as the enhancement medium. The serum adsorbed with cells plus PEG did not react with E+ and K: 1 cells in IAT when two drops of the mixture were used in testing. When four drops of the mixture were used, a very weakly reactive alloanti-E was detected in IAT, while alloanti-K 1 still went undetected. We also performed adsorptions with allogeneic cells using the same two techniques described previously; we obtained similar results. In summary, we suggest that adsorptions using PEG may be effective in removing a warm-reactive antibody, but underlying alloantibodies might not be detected or might be only weakly reactive when this technique is used.


The mechanical response of snow depends on its microstructural geometry. Parameters such as porosity and orientation (degree of anisotropy) are examples of microstructural parameters that can affect snow mechanical properties. Numerical simulations of snow microstructure obtained from X-ray computer tomography have aided researchers in investigating the elastic response and strength of snow. However, we lack insight into the post-peak and plastic response of snow, which in most previous studies have been oversimplified assuming (quasi-)brittle behavior. We propose studying both the elastic and post-peak behavior using the material point method (MPM), a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian continuum numerical method. A major advantage of MPM compared to the (classical) finite element method (FEM) is its ability to handle large deformation processes. Moreover, as a continuum method, it is significantly less computational expensive than the discrete element method (DEM). We independently study the influence of the microstructural parameters on macroscopic quantities, such as elastic modulus, strength, energy release rate and plasticity index, in mixed-mode shear-compression loading simulations. This is accomplished by using the leveled gaussian random field (GRF) approach to generate snow samples with desired microstructural properties. The ice matrix of the microstructure is modeled in the elastoplastic framework with a strain-softening Drucker-Prager failure criterion. Based on the relationships discovered through these numerical experiments, we aim to develop a microstructure-based homogenized constitutive snow model. This study will contribute to improve large-scale snow mechanical models with applications in the simulation of e.g. snow slab avalanche release, avalanche dynamics and snow-tire interaction.


Recovery from pneumococcal pneumonia remodels the pool of alveolar macrophages so that they exhibit new surface marker profiles, transcriptomes, metabolomes, and responses to infection. Mechanisms mediating alveolar macrophage phenotypes after pneumococcal pneumonia have not been delineated. IFN-γ and its receptor on alveolar macrophages were essential for certain, but not all, aspects of the remodeled alveolar macrophage phenotype. IFN-γ was produced by CD4+ T cells plus other cells, and CD4+ cell depletion did not prevent alveolar macrophage remodeling. In mice infected or recovering from pneumococcus, monocytes were recruited to the lungs, and the monocyte-derived macrophages developed characteristics of alveolar macrophages. CCR2 mediated the early monocyte recruitment but was not essential to the development of the remodeled alveolar macrophage phenotype. Lineage tracing demonstrated that recovery from pneumococcal pneumonias converted the pool of alveolar macrophages from being primarily of embryonic origin to being primarily of adult hematopoietic stem cell origin. Alveolar macrophages of either origin demonstrated similar remodeled phenotypes, suggesting that ontogeny did not dictate phenotype. Our data reveal that the remodeled alveolar macrophage phenotype in lungs recovered from pneumococcal pneumonia results from a combination of new recruitment plus training of both the original cells and the new recruits.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are hypothesized to play a key role in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury after cardiopulmonary bypass in children. Clinical studies in adults and several animal models suggest that myocardial IR injury involves cardiomyocyte apoptosis and necrosis. This study investigated a potential relationship between IR-induced ROS production and neonatal cardiomyocyte apoptosis using both in vitro and ex vivo techniques. For in vitro experiments, embryonic rat cardiomyocytes (H9c2 cells) exposed to hypoxia-reoxygenation (HR) showed a time-dependent increase in gp91phox (a marker for ROS production by NADPH oxidases), caspase-3 (a key mediator of apoptosis) expression, and a decrease in the glutathione redox ratio. N-acetylcysteine (NAC; 0.25–2 mM), a potent antioxidant, decreased gp91phox and caspase-3 expression, inhibited apoptosis and restored the glutathione redox ratio. For ex vivo study, IR injury significantly reduced left ventricular (LV) function and increased the expression of gp91phox and caspase-3 in Langendorff-perfused neonatal (7–14 d) rabbit hearts. NAC (0.4 mM) treatment completely attenuated LV dysfunction after IR. In summary, neonatal myocardial IR injury is associated with an increase in cardiomyocyte oxidative stress and apoptosis. NAC attenuates apoptosis in an in vitro embryonic rat cardiomyocyte model of HR, and myocardial dysfunction in an ex vivo neonatal rabbit model of myocardial IR injury.


Objective. Evaluate antimicrobial stewardship interventions targeted to reduce highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)– or opportunistic infection (Ol)–related medication errors and increase error resolution. Design. Retrospective before-after study. Setting. Academic medical center. Patients. Inpatients who were prescribed antiretroviral therapy before the intervention (January 1, 2011, to October 31, 2011) and after the intervention (July 1, 2012, to December 31, 2012). Patients treated with lamivudine or tenofovir monotherapy for hepatitis B were excluded. Methods. Antimicrobial stewardship interventions included education, modification of electronic medication records, collaboration with the infectious diseases (ID) department, and prospective audit and review of HAART and OI regimens by an ID clinical pharmacist. Results. Data for 162 admissions from the preintervention period and 110 admissions from the postintervention period were included. The number of admissions with a medication error was significantly reduced after the intervention (81 [50%] of 162 admissions vs 37 (34%) of 110 admissions; P < .00)1. A total of 124 errors occurred in the preintervention group (mean no. of errors, 1.5 per admission), and 43 errors occurred in the postintervention group (mean no. of errors, 1.2 per admission). The most common error types were major drug interactions and dosing in the preintervention group and renal adjustment and OI-related errors in the postintervention group. A significantly higher error resolution rate was observed in the postintervention group (36% vs 74%; P < .001). After adjustment for potential confounders with logistic regression, admission in the postintervention group was independently associated with fewer medication errors (odds ratio, 0.4 [95% confidence interval, 0.24-0.77]; P = .005). Overall, presence of an ID consultant demonstrated a higher error resolution rate (32% without a consultation vs 68% with a consultation; P = .002). Conclusions. Multifaceted, multidisciplinary stewardship efforts reduced the rate and increased the overall resolution of HAART-related medication errors.


LBIST (Logic Built-In Self Test) is a structural test method that tests a circuit by running test patterns generated on the die as opposed to ATPG (Automatic Test Pattern Generation) method in which the test patterns are pre-generated to test specific fault types. LBIST has emerged as an alternative scan based test methodology due to its attractive benefits such as reduced pattern size and field testability. LBIST uses pseudo random patterns enabling it to generate patterns on the die saving tester memory to a large extent. At the same time it poses challenges to enable fail data collection for later debug as the LBIST test iterations are usually large (typically 100000). Tester time is not a big concern for a LBIST based method if the objective is to know if the unit passed or failed, but memory usage is a concern due to the need to compare intermediate scan responses to determine and collect failing responses for diagnosis and debug purposes. This motivated us to come up with a methodology for fail data collection that optimizes tester time and memory and collects enough fail data to provide acceptable diagnosis quality. In this paper we have presented a methodology for fail data collection and discussed the tester overheads for LBIST logic diagnosis.


The first part is devoted to the study of a combinatorial conjecture whose validity entails the existence of infinite classes of Boolean functions with good cryptographic properties. Although the conjecture seems quite innocuous, its validity remains an open question. Nonetheless, the author sincerely hopes that the theoretical and experimental results presented here will give the reader a good insight into the conjecture. In the second part, some connections between (hyper-)bent functions -- a subclass of Boolean functions --, exponential sums and point counting on (hyper)elliptic curves are presented. Bent functions and hyper-bent functions are known to be difficult to classify and to build explicitly. However, exploring the links between these different worlds makes possible to give beautiful answers to theoretical questions and to design efficient algorithms addressing practical problems. The third and last part investigates the theory of (hyper)elliptic curves in a different direction. Several constructions in cryptography indeed rely on the use of highly specific classes of such curves which can not be constructed by classical means. Nevertheless, the so-called "complex multiplication" method solves some of these problems. Class polynomials are fundamental objects for that method, but their construction is usually considered only for maximal orders. The modest contribution of the author is to clarify how a specific flavor of their construction -- the complex analytic method -- extends to non-maximal orders.


Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ODPKD) is characterized by presence of multiple cysts in kidneys and other organs, and it is the most common hereditary kidney disor - der. Approximately 8-10% of all cases progress to end stage renal failure. There may be multiple cysts in different sizes, widespread in the cortex and medulla of both kidneys filling the whole parencyhma. The cysts may also be seen in liver, spleen, pancreas and other organs. Although cases with unilateral ODPKD have been reported in literature, only a few adult cases have been reported with ODPKD accompanied by unilateral renal agenesis. Our case is a 62-year-old male patient who has ODPKD accompanied by unilateral renal agenesis and late-onset ulcerative colitis and who is presented with a review of the literature.


The purpose of this analysis is to present a method to determine the value of diagnostic tests for evidence of bacterial activity related to periodontal disease. Five population studies are discussed: 1) screening the general population; 2) screening the patients of a general practice; 3) diagnosing initial patients referred to a periodontist; 4) monitoring periodontal maintenance patients; and 5) monitoring postsurgical refractory patients. A decision tree is constructed in which the primary decision branches are test and no test. Chance branches after the test branch were test positive and test negative. The treatment alternatives in the treatment branches were prophylaxis and oral hygiene, scaling and root planing, and advanced periodontal therapy (including surgical intervention and/or antibiotics or chemotherapies). Probabilities for the prevalence of disease in each population were obtained from epidemiological surveys. Disease activity and outcome states were estimated from clinical studies of periodontal treatment. For initial periodontal patients, using a sensitivity of .87 and a specificity of .84 the value of the test branch is .851 versus .566 for the no test branch. Assumptions on the diagnostic test's sensitivity and specificity and the utility of outcomes were tested with the decision analysis techniques of sensitivity and 2-way threshold analyses. These analyses show that using a test had a greater value than no test for older patients in the general practitioner's office, and for the 3 types of periodontal treatment patients. In contrast, using the test had a lower value than not using the test in younger dental patients in the general practitioner's office and for screening the general population. The diagnostic and treatment schemes proposed here are amendable to rigorous testing to evaluate their reliability and usefulness.


Surface warming and steric sea level rise over the global ocean nearly linearly increase with cumulative carbon emissions for an atmosphere‐ocean equilibrium, reached many centuries after emissions cease. Surface warming increases with cumulative emissions with a proportionality factor, ln 2), ranging from 0.8 to 1.9 K (1000 PgC)−1 for surface air temperature, depending on the climate sensitivity and the buffered carbon inventory IB. Steric sea level rise similarly increases with cumulative emissions and depends on the climate sensitivity of the bulk ocean, ranging from 0.4 K to 2.7 K; a factor 0.4 ± 0.2 smaller than that for surface temperature based on diagnostics of two Earth System models. The implied steric sea level rise ranges from 0.7 m to 5 m for a cumulative emission of 5000 PgC, approached perhaps 500 years or more after emissions cease.


Summary form only given as follows. During power restoration, the energization of a no load transformer can lead to high overvoltages, the amplitude being sensible to initial conditions. This document describes an approach based on the AUTO program, which is a complementary tool to EMTP, and may help the understanding of the behaviour of the electrical circuit. The case of a progressive energization of a transformer is described, with a progressive energization from the hydraulic power plant of Pied de Borne towards the thermal power plant of Tricastin. Tests have been performed by the Exploitation Department, with a progressive voltage rise, the network having a resonant frequency at 164 Hz, with a distortion of the voltage above 0.6 Un, and the presence of the third harmonic, the maximum being obtained after ten seconds. A single phase of the network has been used and equations of this network have been solved with the AUTO program, showing that the network can generate the third harmonic, depending also on the value of the flux in the network, the third harmonic being reached for a value of 0.65 kWh; it has also been validated by EMTP calculations. A time domain approach, with programs like EMTP is however necessary to calculate the maximum overvoltage in a three phase network, especially when the phase to phase insulation of the equipment is concerned. In the case of high overvoltages, palliative solutions can be suggested like synchronizing devices in circuit-breakers, circuit-breakers with resistances and zinc-oxide arresters.


Tribolium confusum and Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) are two very confusing pest species while identification is done on the basis of morphology only. Such pests are discovered in stored grain as immature stages, which further complicates the identification process. Accurate identification of these pests is urgently required for integrated pest management. In this research, DNA barcoding was used to identify these pests accurately at any life stage. A 658 bp fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene was analyzed. DNA barcode dataset of T. confusum (GeneBank Acc. no. MK120453.1) and T. castaneum (Acc. no. MK411585.1) were constructed. The nucleotide composition reveals that average AT contents (59.9%) were higher than the GC contents (38.6%). Phylogenetic analysis by maximum likelihood method showed that both the species were originated from a common major clade. About 17.13% nucleotide differences were noted between the CO1 sequences by multiple sequence alignment. The interspecies nucleotide genetic distance (0.200) was calculated using Kimura 2 parameter. Haplotype analysis showed high genetic diversity (112 mutaional steps) among them.
Bangladesh J. Zool. 47(2): 333-342, 2019


Bacillus species are valuable producers of industrial enzymes and biopharmaceuticals, because they can secrete large quantities of high‐quality proteins directly into the growth medium. This requires the concerted action of quality control factors, such as folding catalysts and 'cleaning proteases'. The expression of two important cleaning proteases, HtrA and HtrB, of Bacillus subtilis is controlled by the CssRS two‐component regulatory system. The induced CssRS‐dependent expression of htrA and htrB has been defined as a protein secretion stress response, because it can be triggered by high‐level production of secreted α‐amylases. It was not known whether translocation of these α‐amylases across the membrane is required to trigger a secretion stress response or whether other secretory proteins can also activate this response. These studies show for the first time that the CssRS‐dependent response is a general secretion stress response which can be triggered by both homologous and heterologous secretory proteins. As demonstrated by high‐level production of a nontranslocated variant of the α‐amylase, AmyQ, membrane translocation of secretory proteins is required to elicit this general protein secretion stress response. Studies with two other secretory reporter proteins, lipase A of B. subtilis and human interleukin‐3, show that the intensity of the protein secretion stress response only partly reflects the production levels of the respective proteins. Importantly, degradation of human interleukin‐3 by extracellular proteases has a major impact on the production level, but only a minor effect on the intensity of the secretion stress response.


A series of human lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) called Mex- were defined by Sklar and Strauss on the basis of their inability to remove O6-methylguanine from DNA. Instability of Mex- has previously been shown as a population phenotype of LCLs. We examined whether Mex- as a cellular phenotype is spontaneously convertible or not. At the population doubling number (PDN) 23 after recloning, two out of 15 independent subcultures derived from a Mex- LCL, AT1-1, were found to contain a small fraction of Mex+ cells after treatment with 1-(4-amino-2-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)methyl-3-(2-chloroethyl)-3-nitrosourea (ACNU). Three Mex+ subclones were identified without exposure to ACNU among 486 subclones from replica plating of an expanded Mex- clone (PDN30). The rate of spontaneous conversion was estimated to be in the range of 10(-8)-10(-7) per cell per generation by the fluctuation analyses on two Mex- subclones. These results strongly support the hypothesis that Mex- as a cellular phenotype is spontaneously convertible to Mex+.


Omega-3 is a polyunsaturated fatty acid known to have immunomodulatory functions. In the present study, ameliorative potential of omega-3 in experimental carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) toxicity was investigated. Total of 40 adult male Wistar albino rats were allocated into five groups and were subcutaneously given once every two days for 6 weeks the followings: Group 1 (Control): 0.5 ml/kg serum physiologic, Group 2 (Omega): 0.5 g/kg omega-3, Group 3 (Vehicle): 0.5 ml/kg pure olive oil, Group 4 (CCl4): 0.5 ml/kg CCl4, Group 5 (CCl4 + Omega): 0.5 ml/kg CCl4 plus 0.5 g/kg omega-3. At the end of the treatments, blood samples were collected and necropsy was performed for collection of liver tissues. Serum AST, AlT, GGT, TAC, TOC, triglyceride, and visfatin levels were detected. liver morphology and immunoreactivities against TGF-α, TGF-β, PPAR-α, and PPAR-γ were assessed. Serum AST, AlT, GGT, and TOC levels significantly increased while TAC level decreased in CCl4 given animals as compared to the control group. No significant changes were observed in triglyceride and visfatin levels. Immunohistochemical staining revealed increased TGF-α and TGF-β expressions and decreased PPAR-α and PPAR-γ expressions in liver of CCl4 given animals. Omega-3 supplementation has prominent effects in correcting the biochemical and immunohistochemical parameters studied as well as the tissue morphology. The results of the investigation indicated that omega-3 has ameliorative effects on the oxidative tissue degeneration and inflammatory processes induced by CCl4 treatment in rats.


The detection of nodavirus using RT-PCR and histopathological assay was carried out in Malaysian Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Nodaviruses, which were originally isolated from insects, are small non enveloped riboviruses with two single-stranded RNA genomes, RNA1 and RNA2. The 3.1 kb RNA1 gene encodes the RNAdependent RNA polymerase and the 1.4 kb RNA2 gene encodes the coat protein. The giant fresh water prawn, M. rosenbergii, locally known in Malaysia as 'Udang Galah' is widely distributed in most of the tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. The popularity of this prawn has grown rapidly and its demand as food is getting progressively greater. However, wild stocks of M. rosenbergii have seen declines in recent years as they are threatened by over fishing and diseases. Serious outbreaks of diseases in udang galah farms in Malaysia have resulted in high mortality rates. One of the new viral diseases in M. rosenbergii is white tail disease (WTD). Two viruses, M. rosenbergii nodavirus (MrNV) and extra small virus (XSV) have been found to be responsible for this disease. The RT-PCR method was used to detect the 650 bp and the 1114 bp fragments of the RNA2 of MrNV in infected samples. However, the presence of the XSV RNA was detected in two samples of the MrNV- positive samples. Partial nucleotide sequence analysis of the Malaysian isolates showed 98% nucleotide identity with the reported sequence of MrNV isolate from China (AY231437.2). The pathology of the disease was also investigated where progressive myofiber degeneration of the tail muscles, liquifactive myopathy, muscle fiber, fragmentation, granulation, and hemocyte infiltration were observed in the RT-PCRpositive samples for MrNV.


Abstract A novel series of 2-substituted mercapto-3-(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzyl)-4(3H)-quinazolinones 1–20 was synthesised and evaluated for in vitro antitumour activity. N-(4-Chlorophenyl)-2-[(3-(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzyl)-4(3H)-quinazolinon-2-yl)thio)acetamide (7) and N-(3,4,5 trimethoxybenzyl)-2-[(3-(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzyl)-4(3H)-quinazolinon-2-yl)thio]propanamide (19) exhibited excellent antitumour properties, with mean growth inhibitory concentration (GI50) of 17.90 and 6.33 µΜ, respectively, compared with those of 5-fluorouracil 5-FU, gefitinib, and erlotinib (mean GI50: 18.60, 3.24, and 7.29 µΜ, respectively). Comparison of the GI50 (µM) values of compounds 7 and 19 versus those of 5-FU, gefitinib, and erlotinib against an in vitro subpanel of tumour cells lines showed that compounds 7 and 19 have activities almost equal to or higher than that of those standard drugs, especially against lung, CNS, and breast cancer cells. However, compounds 5, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 20 exhibited effective antitumour activity against the different cell lines tested, with growth inhibition percentage (MGI%) of 19, 24, 19, 17, 16, 15, and 16, respectively. A modelling study was performed for compounds 7 and 19 by docking them into the EGFR kinase enzyme to study their mode of binding with the putative binding site.


Cognitive disorders in elderly subjects with cerebral atherosclerosis confirmed by paraclinical methods and psychological tests are accompanied by sympathicotonia and rhythm desynchronization of RR-intervals in ECG. Biocontrolled IR laser therapy in the projection of frontal and temporal lobes of both hemispheres, internal carotid and vertebral arteries, and superior cervical node reduces sympaticotonia, restores circumhoralian and circadian rhythms of RR-intervals, improved cognitive functions and quality of sleep.


This is the second part of the work on how economic policy of a developing country should change as it approaches the level of developed economies in terms of welfare (GDP per capita) and the quality of institutions. We focus on the impact of several policies to promote the catch up development: the speed of foreign exchange reserves accumulation ("exchange rate protectionism"); import tariffs; measures to attract foreign direct investment; import of technology versus indigenous RD regulation of migration and measures to support large versus small enterprises. The econometric analysis of the data on over 200 countries in 1975—1999 shows that the impact of these policies may be positive or negative depending on a stage of development; in each case we find threshold levels or critical combinations of GDP per capita and/or an institutional quality indicator. Thus, there is additional evidence to support the conclusions made in the first part of the article and based on the analysis of the evolution of economic policies in the Western countries and in the countries of successful catch up development ("economic miracles").


Safe and energy-efficient driving of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) must be influenced by human-driven vehicles. Thus, to properly evaluate the energy impacts of CAVs in a simulation framework, a human driver model must capture a wide range of real-world driving behaviors corresponding to the surrounding environment. This paper formulates longitudinal human driving as an optimal control problem with a state constraint imposed by the vehicle in front. Deriving analytically optimal solutions by employing optimal control theory can capture longitudinal human driving behaviors with low computational burden, and adding the state constraint can assist with describing car-following features while anticipating behaviors of the vehicle in front. We also use on-road testing data collected by an instrumented vehicle to validate the proposed human driver model for stop scenarios at intersections. Results show that vehicle stopping trajectories of the proposed model are well matched with those of experimental data.


Pareto efficiency is not as compelling when people hold different beliefs as it is under common beliefs or certainty. In the present paper we propose to restrict the standard Pareto relation by imposing the following constraint: in order for one allocation to dominate another, all agents must prefer the former to the latter according to each agent's belief. In contrast to this unanimity Pareto criterion, the no-betting Pareto concept suggested elsewhere by Gilboa, Samuelson, and Schmeidler supplements the standard Pareto relation with the requirement that there should exist a single hypothetical belief under which all agents prefer the former to the latter. This paper analyzes and compares these and other definitions.


3 Seconds Divorce is an Interactive Documentary (I-doc) that explores the effect of the prevailing practice of Triple Talaq, or Oral Divorce, on the lives of Indian Muslim women. This I-doc also highlights the grassroots movement that has been campaigning to ban this method of divorce, while examining the opposition faced by women activists from institutionalized patriarchy within the community. In creating a digital space for the local Muslim feminists and victims of this law to share and amplify their voices, 3 Seconds Divorce seeks to construct a model of the Interactive Documentary as a tool of empowerment for those subaltern feminist voices that may otherwise go un(der)-represented in mainstream feminist discourse.


The aim of the present study was to compare thalidomide-dexamethasone (Thal-Dex) and vincristine-doxorubicin-dexamethasone (VAD) as primary therapy in preparation for autologous peripheral blood stem-cell (PBSC) transplantation for multiple myeloma (MM). For this purpose, we performed a retrospective matched case-control analysis of 200 patients who entered 2 consecutive studies from 1996 to 2004 and received Thal-Dex (n = 100) or VAD (n = 100) administered for 4 months before collection of PBSCs and autologous transplantation. Matching criteria included age, clinical stage, and serum beta2-microglobulin levels. In comparison with VAD, Thal-Dex resulted in a significantly higher response rate (52% versus 76%, respectively; P < .001) and effected more profound reduction in myeloma cell mass of both immunoglobulin G (IgG; P = .02) and IgA (P = .03) type. More frequent toxicities included nonfatal deep vein thrombosis with Thal-Dex (15%) and granulocytopenia with VAD (12%). In each of the 2 treatment groups, 91% of patients proceeded to PBSC mobilization. The median number of collected CD34+ cells was 7.85 x 10(6)/kg in the Thal-Dex group and 10.5 x 10(6)/kg in the control group. Thal-Dex may be considered an effective and relatively well-tolerated oral alternative to the more complex VAD regimen as front-line therapy for MM patients who are candidates for subsequent autologous transplantation.


The range of diseases affecting the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is many and varied. Congenital forms due to single gene defects affecting various components of the NMJ include slow channel myasthenic syndrome, choline acetyltransferase deficiency and the recently described DOK-7 mutation.1 Of the acquired disorders, the archetypal example is autoimmune myasthenia gravis caused by antibodies to the acetylcholine receptor on the muscle membrane.2 Drugs (eg, magnesium and penicillamine) and toxins (eg, botulinum toxin) can also cause NMJ dysfunction.

Patients often complain of non-specific symptoms such as tiredness and fatigue, and there may be little to find on clinical examination. Many of the available treatments have significant side effects, and it would be a brave physician indeed who instigated potentially lifelong therapy without confirmatory tests.

For many NMJ diseases, there are tests of very high specificity. Examples include antiacetylcholine receptor antibody testing in myasthenia gravis, botulinum toxin assays for botulism and genetic testing for several forms of congenital myasthenic syndrome. These are the respective 'gold standard' tests. However, it often takes a long time for these results to become available, they can be expensive and although specific they may not be particularly sensitive. Furthermore, for some forms of congenital myasthenic syndrome, the responsible genetic defect has not yet been identified. Hence, there is a need for rapidly available functional tests to screen for the presence of NMJ dysfunction, to aid in the patient's immediate management and to guide further investigation.

Although there are many bedside tests of NMJ function, these are not without problems. The rest test3 and the ice test4 (see Reddy and Backhouse5) each show reasonable sensitivity and specificity in ocular myasthenia, although sometimes with false negative responses.6 The Tensilon test also shows good sensitivity and specificity,7 8 but is associated with a …


. The key concern of CSCW research is that of understanding computing technologies in the social context of their use, that is, as integral features of our practices and our lives, and to think of their design and implementation under that perspective. However, the question of the nature of that which is actually integrated in our practices is often discussed in confusing ways, if at all. The article aims to try to clarify the issue and in doing so revisits and reconsiders the notion of 'computational artifact'.


Aims The role of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) in the development of atherosclerosis is under debate. We studied the association of four polymorphisms (Taq1B, I405V, R451Q and A373P) in the CETP gene with lipid profile and coronary artery disease. Methods Four CETP polymorphisms were studied in 316 Tunisian patients undergoing coronary angiography. Patients were clinically examined and their lipid profiles were estimated. Genotyping was performed using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Results The 451Q allele, associated with lower high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) and higher total cholesterol and apolipoprotein B (ApoB) concentrations, was also significantly associated with an increased risk of significant stenosis [odds ratio (OR) = 1.74, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.15–2.61, P = 0.007]. The B2 allele of Taq1B polymorphism had an increase in HDL-C concentration and was associated with a decreased risk of coronary stenosis, as described earlier. It was also associated with low risk of hypoHDLaemia [OR = 0.615, 95% CI 0.377–1.002, P = 0.035]. No significant effect of different A373P and I405V alleles was found on the lipid profile and on coronary stenosis. When CETP polymorphisms were combined in haplotypes possessing R451Q, A373P, I405V, Taq1B polymorphisms, the 1112 haplotype (where 1 is the wild genotype and 2 represents carriers of the variant allele) seems to be the most protective against significant stenosis (OR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.188–0.983; P = 0.014), whereas 2111 was probably the most atherogenic, with an OR = 2.17, 95% CI 1.06–5.88; P = 0.039. Conclusion The Q allele of the R451Q polymorphism was associated with decreased HDL-C, increased ApoB concentrations and increased risk of coronary stenosis. In haplotype analysis, we found that 1112 seems to be a protective haplotype, whereas 2111 has an atherogenic effect in a coronary Tunisian population.


Erythropoietin (EPO) is a 30.4 kDa growth factor and cytokine that governs cell proliferation, immune modulation, metabolic homeostasis, vascular function, and cytoprotection. EPO is under investigation for the treatment of variety of diseases, but appears especially suited for the treatment of disorders of metabolism that include diabetes mellitus (DM). DM and the complications of this disease impact a significant portion of the global population leading to disability and death with currently limited therapeutic options. In addition to its utility for the treatment of anemia, EPO can improve cardiac function, reduce fatigue, and improve cognition in patients with DM as well as regulate cellular energy metabolism, obesity, tissue repair and regeneration, apoptosis, and autophagy in experimental models of DM. Yet, EPO can have adverse effects that involve the vasculature system and unchecked cellular proliferation. Critical to the cytoprotective capacity and the potential for a positive clinical outcome with EPO are the control of signal transduction pathways that include protein kinase B, the mechanistic target of rapamycin, Wnt signaling, mammalian forkhead transcription factors of the O class, silent mating type information regulation 2 homolog 1 (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), and AMP activated protein kinase. Therapeutic strategies that can specifically target and control EPO and its signaling pathways hold great promise for the development of new and effective clinical treatments for DM and the complications of this disorder.


The prominent historian Karl Bosl, who during World War II had been a high school teacher in Ansbach, Franconia, intimated that he had been critical of the Nazis and asserted that he had belonged to a small group that engaged in active resistance; one of its members, Robert Limpert, was apprehended by the Nazis and brutally put to death just hours before the Americans arrived. The present study, based on a large number of unpublished official and private documents, records Bosl's manifold links to the Nazi regime and reveals that as late as December 1944 he delivered a stirring lecture before Ansbach's Nazi leadership in which he extolled the struggle for the preservation of Hitler's Greater German Reich; yet as early as September 1945 he vigorously condemned Nazism at a ceremony at Limpert's grave. The documents attest also to how Bosl succeeded in persuading Ansbach's Denazification Tribunal that he had risked his life opposing the Nazis. An unpublished account allows for a detailed reconstruction of the daring, little-known activities of young Limpert and his three classmates. In an excellent piece of detective work, Benjamin Kedar and Peter Herde provide a fascinating and forensic demolition of the story which Karl Bosl, one of Bavaria's most prominent historians of the post-war era, created for himself to establish his anti-Nazi credentials.


The twin‐arginine translocation (Tat) system targets cofactor‐containing proteins across the Escherichia coli cytoplasmic membrane via distinct signal peptides bearing a twin‐arginine motif. In this study, we have analysed the mechanism and capabilities of the E. coli Tat system using green fluorescent protein (GFP) fused to the twin‐arginine signal peptide of TMAO reductase (TorA). Fractionation studies and fluorescence measurements demonstrate that GFP is exported to the periplasm where it is fully active. Export is almost totally blocked in tat deletion mutants, indicating that the observed export in wild‐type cells occurs predominantly, if not exclusively, by the Tat pathway. Imaging studies reveal a halo of fluorescence in wild‐type cells corresponding to the exported periplasmic form; the GFP is distributed uniformly throughout the cytoplasm in a tat mutant. Because previous work has shown GFP to be incapable of folding in the periplasm, we propose that GFP is exported in a fully folded, active state. These data also show for the first time that heterologous proteins can be exported in an active form by the Tat pathway.


Worldwide, the current year has been quite challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its dramatic effects. All of us have had to suddenly change our lives and habits to face such an unexpected global emergency for which we were not prepared. From one day to the next, the luckiest ones, that is, those of us who have not lost our jobs, have had to switch from working on site to smart working. In many cases, smart working has increased the overall productivity of people and teams. For instance, the number of scientific manuscripts submitted to journals during the lockdown has been higher than in normal times. One reason could be that many authors saved time by attending meetings remotely instead of in person, aided by powerful and reliable software platforms, thus saving time that otherwise would be spent in daily commuting to their workplace or abroad.


This paper comprehensively investigates the performance of the D2D underlaying cellular networks where D2D communications are operated concurrently with cellular networks provided that the aggregate interference measured on licensed users is strictly guaranteed. In particular, we derive the outage probability (OP), the average rate, and the amount of fading (AoF) of the D2D networks in closed-form expressions under three distinct power allocation schemes, i.e., the path-loss-based, equal, and random allocation schemes. It is noted that the considered networks take into consideration the impact of the intra-D2D networks, the inter-interference from the cellular networks and background noise, thus involving many random variables and leading to a complicated mathematical framework. Moreover, we also reveal the behavior of the OP with respect to the transmit power based on the rigorous mathematical frameworks rather than the computer-based simulation results. The derived framework shows that increasing the transmit power is beneficial for the OP of the D2D users. Regarding the cellular networks, the coverage probability (Pcov) of the cellular users is computed in closed-form expression too. Monte Carlo simulations are given to verify the accuracy of the proposed mathematical frameworks. Our findings illustrate that the power allocation method based on prior path-loss information outperforms the other methods in the average sum rate.


Sap flow dynamics of saplings, herbaceous species and plant parts with small dimensions has become an increasing point of interest in plant ecophysiological studies. At present, the most widely used sap flow sensors for these applications are the stem heat balance, the mini-HRM (heat ratio method) and the mini-HFD (heat field deformation). Each sensor has its own advantages and drawbacks, but when a high temporal resolution is needed in addition to measurements of positive and negative sap flow, only the mini-HFD suffices as the original heat balance method cannot distinguish between positive and negative sap flow, while the mini-HRM uses heat pulses rather than continuous heating partly sacrificing its temporal resolution. As such, the non-invasive mini-HFD is promising for studying hydraulic redistribution in saplings. However, when calibrating the mini-HFD by forcing water through cut branches problems arose during higher negative flows. The ratio used in the commercially available HFD was not optimal for the mini version. To resolve this shortcoming a new calculation method has been developed based on three temperature differences measured with the mini-HFD sensor. In this paper, the miniHFD has been calibrated for flow rates ranging from -20 to 20 g.h-1, whereby sensors were installed on beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) saplings. First results are promising and indicate a better calculation method for sap flow dynamics measured with the miniHFD sensor.


The article generally discusses today's meaning of an access paradigm in innovation law. Starting from concrete examples of access problems, it examines future research perspectives and the respective role of an access paradigm in innovation law. This concerns inter alia the possibility of common principles for public interest exceptions, in particular exceptions in the interest of free competition, throughout the different IP rights, as well as a closer look at the possibility of IP-external, sector-specific access regulation and the principles which should guide such approaches in research and policy.


Purpose: This study aimed at examining the adoption factors of broadband internet and exploring the factors which make difference between service providers.
Approach/Methodology/Design: Purposive sampling was employed to select the sample. To collect data from social media users, a close-ended Google Form questionnaire was administered through social networking sites and 376 responses were obtained. The data was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM, 3.1). Model estimation was performed with r2, Q2, and the effect size f2 that describes the path effect from exogenous construct to endogenous construct.
Findings: This study revealed that the participants, despite having the barriers, were reasonably satisfied at different levels and it was a major motivation in the use of broadband. The use of broadband internet has not yet been improved substantially in Bangladesh due to the minimal internet speed, lack of decent standard of quality, and high maintenance cost. However, the study revealed that customer or user satisfaction created a huge positive impact on value creation. It was also statistically significant supporting the hypothesis of the study.
Practical Implications: The results of the study provide the broadband companies with an idea about broadband preference, assisting them in analyzing the variables closely to get more loyal customers.
Originality/value:
The study revealed that the degree of total frustration is below ten per cent, even though the severe challenge is considered very small. The study also showed that most of the participants were reasonably satisfied at different levels and it was a major motivation in the use of broadband.


A major consideration in the design of cellular mobile radio systems is cochannel interference. The author reports the results of an extensive computer simulation study of the cochannel interference caused by imprecise antenna locations. Using the tenth percentile of the S/I (signal-to-interference) distribution of the mature system as a criterion, interference problems are investigated for various percentage tolerances (which determine tolerance circles around ideal locations) and spatial distributions (which determine actual antenna location inside the tolerance circles). It is shown that system performance is highly sensitive to large percentage tolerances in later stages of cell splitting.<<ETX>>


Sex differences exist with regards to ligament and tendon injuries. Lower collagen synthesis has been observed in exercising women vs. men, and in users of oral contraceptives (OC) vs. nonusers, but it is unknown if OC will influence tendon biomechanics of women undergoing regular training. Thirty female athletes (handball players, 18-30 yr) were recruited: 15 long-term users of OC (7.0 ± 0.6 yr) and 15 nonusers (>5 yr). Synchronized values of patellar tendon elongation (obtained by ultrasonography) and tendon force were sampled during ramped isometric knee extensor maximum voluntary contraction to estimate mechanical tendon properties. Furthermore, tendon cross-sectional area and length were measured from MRI images, and tendon biopsies were obtained for analysis of tendon fibril characteristics and collagen cross-linking. Overall, no difference in tendon biomechanical properties, tendon fibril characteristics, or collagen cross-linking was observed between the OC users and nonusers, or between the different phases of the menstrual cycle. In athletes, tendon cross-sectional area in the preferred jumping leg tended to be larger than that in the contralateral leg (P = 0.09), and a greater absolute (P = 0.01) and normalized tendon stiffness (P = 0.02), as well as a lower strain (P = 0.04), were observed in the jumping leg compared with the contralateral leg. The results indicate that long-term OC use or menstrual phases does not influence structure or mechanical properties of the patellar tendon in female team handball athletes.


"One strength of Carrier's book is the way he charts these debates, showing how they were symptomatic of a wider struggle over national memory. Another great strength of this book is its thorough and informative knowledge of theoretical literature on memory and memorials, a knowledge which Carrier - to his enormous credit - does not simply parade before us but actually applies to the objects of his study...a superb book."- European History Quarterly "[Carrier] argues convincingly that what really matters about these memorials is not so much the finished product as the social and political context in which they were mooted, conceived and built - and the empirical context in which they are subsequently interpreted...Another great strength of this book is its thorough and informative knowledge of theoretical literature on memory and memorials. - European History "Carrier's analysis of the form and the multidimensional meaning of the monuments is insightful. One of the most important contributions of this book is its argument that sites of memory produce not only social consensus but also dialogue and competition between the victims." - German History Since 1989, two sites of memory with respect to the deportation and persecution of Jews in France and Germany during the Second World War have received intense public attention: the Velo d'Hiver (Winter Velodrome) in Paris and the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe or Holocaust Monument in Berlin. Why is this so? Both monuments, the author argues, are unique in the history of memorial projects. Although they are genuine "sites of memory", neither monument celebrates history, but rather serve as platforms for the deliberation, negotiation and promotion of social consensus over the memorial status of war crimes in France and Germany. The debates over these monuments indicate that it is the communication among members of the public via the mass media, rather than qualities inherent in the sites themselves, which transformed these sites into symbols beyond traditional conceptions of heritage and patriotism.


Stress-induced leakage current and time-dependent dielectric breakdown were investigated to examine the reliability of gate oxides grown on hydrogen- and deuterium-implanted silicon substrates. An order of magnitude improvement in charge-to-breakdown was observed for the deuterium-implanted devices as compared with the hydrogen-implanted ones. Such reliability improvement may be explained by the reduction of defects in the SiO2 and Si/SiO2 interface, such as Si dangling bonds, weak Si-Si bonds, and strained Si-O bonds due to the retention of implanted deuterium at the interface and in the bulk oxide as confirmed by secondary ion mass spectroscopy


This article discusses the integration of a diagnostic lens in qualitative or mixed methods evaluations, arguing that this will improve quality: in particular, it will improve transparency, credibility and reliability of evaluation findings.We start by unpacking the notion of evaluation quality and pointing out the typical weaknesses of qualitative methods. We then introduce the basic notions of diagnostic approaches and how they relate to theory-based evaluation, process tracing, and Bayesian updating, arguing for the merits of taking a formal Bayesian approach, founded on the confusion matrix, which amongst else reduces confirmation bias and conservatism. This article draws parallels between the process tracing tests and elements of the confusion matrix.


In this article, the multi-step differential transform method is implemented to give approximate and analytical solutions of nonlinear fractional order ordinary differential equation systems, such as Chen, Lorenz, Arneodo–Coullet, Genesio, Lui, and Rikitake chaotic systems. The numerical solutions obtained from the proposed method indicate that the approach is easy, simple, and accurate when applied to systems of fractional differential equations. Numerical simulations are given to verify the reliability and effectiveness of this method.


In this paper, we present a simultaneous detection and estimation approach for speech enhancement. A detector for speech presence in the short-time Fourier transform domain is combined with an estimator, which jointly minimizes a cost function that takes into account both detection and estimation errors. Cost parameters control the tradeoff between speech distortion, caused by missed detection of speech components and residual musical noise resulting from false-detection. Furthermore, a modified decision-directed a priori signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation is proposed for transient-noise environments. Experimental results demonstrate the advantage of using the proposed simultaneous detection and estimation approach with the proposed a priori SNR estimator, which facilitate suppression of transient noise with a controlled level of speech distortion.


Alan J Lewis, PhD, joined the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) as President and CEO in January 2009. JDRF is a leader in setting the agenda for diabetes research worldwide, and is the largest charitable funder and advocate of Type 1 research. Prior to joining JDRF, Dr Lewis served as President, CEO and Director of Novocell, Inc., since 2006. Novocell is a stem cell engineering company dedicated to creating, delivering and commercializing cell and drug therapies to treat diabetes and other chronic diseases. Previously, Dr Lewis served as CEO and Director of Signal Pharmaceuticals before its acquisition in 2000 by Celgene, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of small-molecule drugs for cancer and immunological diseases. He then served as President of the Signal Research Division at Celgene. Dr Lewis previously held the position of Vice President of Research at Wyeth-Ayerst, where he spent 15 years leading research efforts in diabetes, CNS, cardiovascular, inflammatory, allergy and bone metabolism diseases. Dr Lewis currently serves as a Director of BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Inc., Cytochroma, Inc., BIOCOM, and the Scottish Stem Cell Network. Dr Lewis received a BSc. in Physiology and Biochemistry from Southampton University, Southampton, Hampshire, UK, a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK and completed his postdoctoral training at Yale University. He is also an Honorary Fellow and Chair of the Life Sciences Department at the University of Wales in Swansea, UK.


This paper aims to examine the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Indian firms listed on the NSE and analyze its impact on various sectors. In addition, a sub-sample analysis based on market capitalization was performed to understand the effect of size during extreme events. The sample consisted of 1,335 firms listed on the NSE India. A standard event study outlined by Brown and Warner (1985) was employed to analyze the price impact on the COVID-19 outbreak. The event windows from -10 days to +10 days were selected. The estimation window is 250 days. The Nifty 50 has been chosen as a proxy for market return. The sample firms witnessed a negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak with a negative CAAR in different event windows. In addition, various sectors are classified according their responsiveness towards the COVID-19 outbreak into three groups: highly negatively affected, moderately negatively affected, and slightly negatively affected. The paper also points out that the pandemic substantially affects the above-median market capitalized firms than the below-median market capitalized firms, which contradicts the size effect phenomenon. The results assist shareholders in managing their portfolios and mitigate the systematic risk of their investments during extreme events such as a pandemic, wars, and others. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on different sectors in India. It is also the first study to investigate the size effect anomalies during extreme events.


The crystal structure of the title compound, C16H24IO3P, is composed of independent molecules, in which one of the phosphonate ethoxy groups is disordered over two positions. The other ethoxy group lies sandwiched between two phenyl rings and, as a result, is ordered. This constrained environment also leads to two C-H...centroid interactions, one intra- and one intermolecular. Examination of the extended structure reveals the presence of chains of molecules held together by I...O interactions.


A wide-tuning-range optical delay line is demonstrated in high (2%) index contrast waveguides. This device integrates 4-stage ring resonator all-pass filters (APFs) with cascaded fixed spiral-type delay waveguides; each fixed delay path varies in length by a factor of 2 from the previous stage. A 2/spl times/2 switch separates each fixed delay and the tunable parts of the delay line. The APFs allow for continuous delay tuning. This device enables coherent switching and continuous tuning ranges greater than 2.56 ns.


Conventional economic analysis of tort reform suggests that caps on non-economic damages reduce the time to settlement and consequently save litigation expenses. What the conventional analysis ignores is the real life fact that many of the caps are struck down by state supreme courts within a few years of enactment. We develop a simple screening and asymmetric information model which accounts for parties' symmetrical expectations for a striking down of the reform. The model predicts that that in states in which the expectation of a strike down is small (we call them states with solid caps) the time to settlement decreases, whereas in states in which that expectation is high (we call them states with non-solid caps) the time to settlement increases. Further, the model predicts that caps on non-economic damages not only tend to increase the fraction of cases that settle (which reduces litigation expenses) but also tend to increase the time required to resolve the conflict (which increases litigation expenses). We show that in states with solid caps the first effect dominates and litigation expenses would decrease, whereas in states with non-solid caps the second effect may dominate, in which case litigation expenses would increase. In addition, the model predicts that while plaintiff's with high claims always receive lower recoveries in states with caps, plaintiffs with low claims may receive lower or higher recoveries. Using almost 200,000 medical malpractice settlement payments between 1991 and 2005 we show that many of our model's predictions are confirmed in practice. Importantly, we show that cases which were subject to solid caps were resolved faster (between .59 to 1.74 years faster). In contrast, cases subject to non solid caps were resolved 1/3 of a year more slowly compared to states with no caps Thus, caps seem to hit plaintiffs either by reducing the recoveries of plaintiffs with large claims, if caps are not struck-down, or by causing plaintiffs to get their damages at a later date, if caps are struck down.


We experimentally demonstrate a miniature highly sensitive wide-range resonant magnetic Lorentz-force micro-sensor. The concept is demonstrated based on the detection of the resonance frequency of an in-plane electrothermally heated straight resonator operated near the buckling point. The frequency shift is measured with optical sensing and the device is operating at atmospheric pressure. The magnetometer demonstrates a sensitivity (S) of 33.9/T, which is very high compared to the state of the art. In addition, the micro-sensor shows a good linearity in wide range and low power consumption around 0.2 mW. The above performances make the proposed micro-sensor promising for various low-cost magnetic applications.


A section of the secondary chemistry curriculum was analyzed to determine the level of cognitive demand of the various aspects of the selected topic. Piagetian levels of thinking of 71 pupils were initially assessed by two group tests, a unit on the mole was taught, and guidelines were used to estimate the level of cognitive operations required by each concept and problem type in the unit. Results of a 23-item test were used to compare the estimated level of cognitive demand of each test item with the Piagetian cognitive level of pupils who were able to answer the item correctly. It was found that pupil cognitive level was positively associated with overall unit test score and with percent success on all test items. Predicted levels of cognitive demand were confirmed for eight items and were within one level for nine additional items.


This paper discusses disputes involving pollution and the questions of compensation and claims involved, particularly with the provisions for resolving maritime disputes under the United Nations Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS) and other conventions. The paper gives a detailed discussion of the provisions of the UNCLOS in respect of the options available to disputants and claimants for adjudication. It also explores the value of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (1992 Fund Convention) as it relates to providing an effective and timely resolution of claims resulting from marine pollution and difficulties often involved in using national judicial options and contending interests of parties involved in the regulation of marine environment. Research results have confirmed that in spite of the many conventions, law and regulations available for regulating the marine environment enforcements compliance remained weak. Finally the paper suggests ways that disputes and claims involving accidental pollution might be better managed with the provisions of the (1992 Fund Convention) and other remedies.


Analysis of the retrieval architecture of the highly influential UNIX file system (\cite{Ritchie}\cite{multicsfs}) provides insight into design methods, constraints, and possible alternatives. The basic architecture can be understood in terms of function composition and recursion by anyone with some mathematical maturity. Expertise in operating system coding or in any specialized "formal method" is not required.


Sequences of events are an important form of data that occurs in many application domains, such as telecommunications, biostatistics, user interface design, etc. We present a simple model for measuring the similarity of event sequences, and show that the resulting measure of distance can be efficiently computed using a form of dynamic programming.


Karalija, E., Trbojević, S., Parić, A.: Somatic embryogenesis and in vitro plantlet regeneration of Lilium martagon L. var. cattaniae Vis.. Biologica Nyssana, 1 (1-2), December 2010: 57-60. In this study organogenic capacity of two different explants type (leaves and whole bulbs) of Lilium martagon L. var. cattaniae Vis. was examined. For induction of in vitro somatic embryogenesis and adventitive regeneration different concentrations of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 6-benzilaminopurine (from 0,25 mg/l to 8,00 mg/l) added to MS basal medium were used. Our results indicate that concentration of 0,5 mg/l 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 4 mg/l 6benzilaminopurine promoted somatic embryogenesis from leaves of Lilium martagon var. cattaniae, while all other concentrations promoted direct shoot regeneration from bulb explants. Root formation was induced on MS basal medium with 0,2 mg/l indole butyric acid. These plantlets were acclimatized well in a greenhouse conditions.


We investigate the time evolution of the heteropolymer model introduced by Iori, Marinari and Parisi to describe some of the features of protein folding mechanisms. We analyze the diffusion in the configurational space in the vicinity of the folded configuration and find that in the most relevant time range the mean-square distance (squared) between chain configurations evolves according to a power law, D2 ∼ tν. We discuss the influence of the quenched disorder (represented by the randomness of the coupling constants in the Lennard-Jones potential) on the value of the exponent ν. We find that ν decreases from 2/3 to 1/2 when the strength of the quenched disorder increases. This can explain a dramatic change in correlation times induced by the quenched disorder. An attempt is made to relate the diffusion exponent ν with the integrated spectral density dependent on the local properties of the underlying energy landscape.


We present preliminary experimental data that enable us to suggest that heat transfer in cellular tissue under local strong heating is a more complex phenomenon than a simple heat diffusion. Namely, we demonstrate that under local strong heating of a muscle tissue heat transfer in it exhibits substantial anisotropy unexplained in the context of the standard diffusion model. The observed temperature dynamics is also characterized by nonlinear behavior as well as by a certain repeat reversibility. The latter means that the time variations in the temperature of a cellular tissue undergoing repeated acts of heating go in the same way at least approximately. We explain the observed anomalous properties of heat transfer by suggesting the flow of the interstitial liquid to appear due to nonuniform heating which, in turn, affects the heat transfer. A possible mechanism responsible for this effect is discussed.


In the 1950s, a series of publications from Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Romania locally described a kidney disease called Balkan Endemic Nephropathy (BEN). In Bulgaria, the exposure of populations to ochratoxin A (OTA) was supported by analysis of individual food items demonstrating a higher prevalence and higher levels of OTA in food from the high-incidence areas of BEN. In this work, food consumption from a series of individuals from two villages of the BEN area during 1 month was followed using the duplicate diet method. Meals consumed by volunteers from both villages showed uneven OTA contents, spreading from below the limit of quantification (<0.07 microg/kg) to 2.6 microg/kg. The average weekly intake of OTA varies from 1.86 to 92.7 ng/kg of body weight. Some of these levels approach the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) established by the JECFA at 100 ng/kg of body weight. These results confirm previous studies performed in the same area and demonstrate the high exposure of this population to OTA, thus strengthening the hypothesis of the involvement of this mycotoxin in BEN etiology.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second leading cause of death in North American men, where 80% of PCa mortality is due to bone metastasis. It is imperative to understand the biology of PCa cells in bone, especially as related to the role of the microenvironment in cellular adapation. Our lab recently published data revealing that bone marrow stromal cell (BMSC) paracrine signaling induces apoptosis in co-cultured bone metastatic PCa cells. However, a subpopulation of the bone metastatic PCa cells can avoid apoptotic cell death and undergo neuroendocrine differentiation (NED), a phenotype that contributes to tumor growth and is correlated with poor prognosis. One process that mediates cell survival and differentiation is autophagy, a process of sequestering cytoplasmic components for degradation and recycling to maintain cellular homeostasis. Autophagy provides a long term survival and growth advantage for cancer cells by relieving metabolic stress. Neuronal differentiation with cytoplasmic reduction is one adaptive response that can involve autophagy. Thus, we hypothesize that autophagy is a cytoprotective mechanism for PCa cell survival and NED in the bone microenvironment. To address this, we assessed the paracrine effect of BMSC on bone metastatic PCa cell autophagy and identified interleukin-6 (IL-6) as a BMSC paracrine factor that can induce PCa autophagy. We provide experimental data showing that IL-6 can protect PCa cells from apoptosis and simultaneously induce PCa NED. Current experiments are underway to determine if IL-6-induced autophagy functions upstream of bone metastatic PCa cell survival and NED and to dissect the IL-6 signaling pathway responsible for autophagy induction in PCa cells. These studies will identify IL-6 pathway components as molecular targets to attenuate cytoprotective autophagy in PCa cells in the bone microenvironment, providing new avenues for long term treatment of bone lesions in PCa patients.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3776. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3776


It is often observed that there is a high individual variability in the response to exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD), even when tested in a homogeneous cohort accounting for age, sex, ethnicity and physical activity. The response to EIMD is very complex as several tissues, including skeletal muscle fibres, the extra-cellular matrix (ECM), and tendon, play a potential role in the damage response. Therefore, the overall aim of this PhD thesis was to investigate the physiological and genetic factors underpinning the response to muscle damaging exercise. For that, the following objectives were (i) to comprehensively assess the physiological mechanisms and recovery pattern of neuromuscular fatigue of the hamstring muscle group following an intermittent sprint (IS) intervention; (ii) to investigate inter-individual differences in skeletal muscle repair/recovery after an artificial wounding (scratch) assay using of primary human skeletal muscle cells in vitro; (iii) to ascertain whether multiple genetic variations, which are linked to varying tissues, forming a polygenic profile could distinguish between high and low responders following muscle damage in vivo and in vitro; and (iv) to assess whether a genetic profile is linked with the response to both EIMD and chronic resistance exercise. The methodological and analytical approaches utilised in this thesis identified a number of important, novel and impactful findings. Following IS, the impaired hamstring muscle function and delayed recovery is probably caused primarily by damage to the contractile tissue, and participants with a greater force generating capacity (larger physiological cross-sectional area) of the biceps femoris long head were less susceptible to hamstring strength loss immediately after IS, providing evidence that the structure of the muscle protects it against peripheral fatigue/damage. The in vitro study showed that skeletal muscles with an increased number of stem cells of the connective tissue (fibroblasts) might have a better capacity to reorganise the complex ECM, which results in a faster muscle strength recovery after muscle damaging exercise. However, a larger number of active muscle stem cells (myoblasts) seems to be important for the latter stage of muscle regeneration. Individuals possessing a non-preferential genetic profile demonstrated increased rate of muscle damage biomarkers than individuals with a preferential genetic profile. Lastly, we calculated a second polygenic profile which was linked with both the EIMD and the chronic resistance exercise response. These polygenic profiles may be used to anticipate an individual's response/adaptation to EIMD and to chronic resistance exercise, thus enabling resistance exercise to be prescribed on a personalised level to improve muscle health and function.


Background. Asian Americans suffer from liver and cervical cancers, both vaccine preventable, yet vaccine awareness has not been described. Methods. Cross-sectional survey (6 languages, 380 adult women). Results. Those with limited English proficiency (LEP) were less likely to have accurate knowledge of cervical cancer vaccine (44% vs. 76%, among the 34% aware of any cancer-preventive vaccines) and were more likely to believe vaccines existed for nonvaccine-preventable cancers. Awareness of anti-liver cancer vaccine was low for both LEP and non-LEP women. Conclusion. There is a great need to educate Asian Americans about vaccinepreventable cancers, especially among LEP women.


Deep learning methods for graphs have seen rapid progress in recent years with much focus awarded to generalising Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to graph data. CNNs are typically realised by alternating convolutional and pooling layers where the pooling layers subsample the grid and exchange spatial or temporal resolution for increased feature dimensionality. Whereas the generalised convolution operator for graphs has been studied extensively and proven useful, hierarchical coarsening of graphs is still challenging since nodes in graphs have no spatial locality and no natural order. This paper proposes two main contributions, the first is a differential module calculating structural similarity features based on the adjacency matrix. These structural similarity features may be used with various algorithms however in this paper the focus and the second main contribution is on integrating these features with a revisited pooling layer DiffPool arXiv:1806.08804 to propose a pooling layer referred to as SimPool. This is achieved by linking the concept of network reduction by means of structural similarity in graphs with the concept of hierarchical localised pooling. Experimental results demonstrate that as part of an end-to-end Graph Neural Network architecture SimPool calculates node cluster assignments that functionally resemble more to the locality preserving pooling operations used by CNNs that operate on local receptive fields in the standard grid. Furthermore the experimental results demonstrate that these features are useful in inductive graph classification tasks with no increase to the number of parameters.


Summary

Three patients with unusual forms of gonadal dysgenesis are reported. The first had a 45, XO chromosome constitution and had secondary amenorrhoea after menstruating regularly for more than eight years. She was of short stature but secondary sexual characteristics were well developed. Laparotomy and ovarian biopsy showed streak gonads devoid of follicles. The other two patients were chromosomal mosaics. Both had two cell lines, one of which was 45, XO. The other cell line was 46, XX in one patient and 46, XXq- (long arm deletion of X) in the other. Both these patients had primary amenorrhoea and were of longer stature than is usual in Turner's syndrome. The literature about patients with menstrual bleeding in spite of the presence of a 45, XO chromosome constitution, either in pure or mosaic form, is briefly reviewed.


Most of the previous studies on natural convection were based on the numerical analysis, and some experimental studies considered the classic case of thermal convection. In this study, an adiabatic square body was located at the center of an enclosure between the bottom hot and top cold walls. And the measurement of the detailed temperature fields was conducted by the method of two-color Laser Induced Fluorescence using a Nd:Yag laser. As a result, heat transfer characteristics of natural convection with an adiabatic body was estimated as a function of time over a range of Rayleigh numbers.


Abstract The article considers an adaptive sequential nonparametric estimation of a multivariate regression with assigned mean integrated squared error (MISE) and minimax mean stopping time when the estimator matches performance of an oracle knowing all nuisance parameters and functions. It is known that the problem has no solution if regression belongs to a Sobolev class of differentiable functions. What if an underlying regression is smoother, say, analytic? It is shown that in this case it is possible to match performance of the oracle. Furthermore, similar to the classical Stein solution for a parameter estimation, a two-stage sequential procedure solves the problem. The proposed regression estimator for the first stage, based on a sample with fixed sample size, is of interest on its own, and a thought-provoking environmental example of reducing potent greenhouse gas emission by an anaerobic digestion system is used to discuss a number of important topics for small samples.