Multilingualism and multiculturalism are increasing around the world, and as a result, classrooms are becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse. This dissertation examines how young plurilingual children communicate in one Francophone preschool in British Columbia, Canada. In this province of Canada, French is a minority language with most people speaking English. There are also many other languages present, such as Mandarin, German, Punjabi, and Tagalog. Speakers of these languages are often higher in number than French home language speakers (Statistics Canada, 2016). Therefore, the children at the Francophone preschool are in contact with multiple, diverse languages. The diversity present in this preschool classroom raises questions about how the linguistic resources available to children influence their classroom interactions. The aim of this study was to identify the linguistic resources demonstrated by the children and determine how they utilised these resources to negotiate meaning in classroom interactions – specifically, interactions during child-initiated play.
Research has shown that participation in social interactions is necessary for children to develop language and social skills. In addition, play is an important context in which young children communicate and negotiate meaning. Many studies on classroom interactions have focused on educator-child interactions. In contrast, there are limited studies on peer interactions despite research advocating their benefits in children's development. In a multilingual classroom, children have a choice of language which often depends on the interactants. Despite educators attempting to separate languages, children usually code-switch and draw upon a range of linguistic resources to communicate. These linguistic resources include the use of multimodal language such as gestures, a recent focus of study in the field of second language acquisition. Considering the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of children in preschool classrooms, it is vital to understand how they incorporate multiple linguistic resources in their communications. By understanding children's use of linguistic resources, we can further understandings of their language learning processes in the classroom.
A conceptual framework drawing on sociocultural and interactionist theories was used to explore how young plurilingual children communicate. Within these two theories, language is a social action in which an interaction is co-constructed by the participants. The two concepts of plurilingualism and multimodal language were part of this framework. From this perspective, each child in the study were considered to possess a unique linguistic repertoire consisting of verbal and nonverbal resources.
As a participant-observer, I collected data in one preschool classroom over a 3-month period. The primary data source was video recordings from two cameras – a camcorder and a GoPro camera. In addition, I collected field notes, school-related documents, and a questionnaire completed by the children's parents/guardians. These data contributed background information on the preschool and participants. Interactions occurring during child-initiated play were analysed in order to answer the research questions. I used a computer software program, ATLAS.ti, to assist with the data analysis. The analysed interactions involved 13 children (3- and 4-year-olds), the classroom teacher, the teaching assistant, and me (as the participant-researcher).
The findings of the study showed that the children employed multiple resources in their play interactions. They used French spoken resources, English spoken resources and non-verbal actions, as well as translanguaging (French and English) and non-verbal actions combined with spoken language. The children's choice of linguistic resources related to the interactant, the purpose of the interaction, and their own motivations to exercise agency. Through the use of various linguistic resources, the children practised their interactional and social skills, organised and advanced their own learning through translanguaging and peer teaching, and enacted agency. The children's use of multiple linguistic resources in play interactions demonstrated their emerging plurilingual competencies.
This study has highlighted the importance of educators and researchers considering individual children's linguistic resources in a holistic manner. By adopting a holistic approach, educators can understand how children's use of multiple linguistic resources is beneficial to their learning. Researchers can increase understandings of children and their learning processes by considering how children employ their multiple linguistic resources. The findings of this study demonstrate that young children are resourceful, engaged, creative, and agentive in their use of linguistic resources during play interactions. These skills should be considered as plurilingual assets and educators should provide opportunities for children to practise and develop these skills in the classroom.


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

BACKGROUND: Nestin, a class VI intermediate filament protein, was first described as a neural stem cell/progenitor cell marker expressed during central nervous system development. Recently, nestin was detected in various neoplasms such as glioblastomas, gastrointestinal stromal tumors, prostate cancers, breast cancers, pancreatic cancers and malignant melanomas. An abundance of nestin has been identified in metastatic sites and the dermal parts of nodular melanomas, and the expression level of nestin has relevance to poor prognosis in malignant melanomas. These findings suggest that nestin plays important roles in the invasion of melanoma cells. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that nestin is one of the cancer stem cell markers in melanomas. Therefore, we hypothesized that nestin may be a novel therapeutic target for malignant melanomas. In this study, we used a silencing strategy to clarify the effectiveness of nestin-targeting therapy in malignant melanomas. METHODS: To determine the expression patterns of nestin, we performed immunohistochemical analysis of nestin in human melanoma tissues. Next, we stably knocked down nestin expression in A375 human malignant melanoma cells by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) transfection in vitro. We also transfected sham vectors to A375 cells as negative controls. Cell proliferation, invasion, morphology, and sphere-forming ability were compared with nestin-shRNA-transfected cells (Sh) and sham cells (Sc). RESULTS: Immunohistochemical staining demonstrated that nestin was strongly expressed in melanoma cells in the invasive front of human melanoma tissues. Reduced expression level of nestin mRNA and protein in Sh cells was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR, western blot and immunocytochemical analyses. Sh and Sc cells did not show characteristic morphological differences; however, stress fiber formation of F-actin was markedly increased in Sh cells. Cell growth of Sh cells was slower than that of Sc cells at 48 hrs as determined by cell counts and MTT assay. On the cell invasion assay using a modified Boyden chamber coated with matrigel on the inner surface of the inserts, the invasion of Sh cells was significantly attenuated in comparison with that of Sc cells. Sphere-forming ability using ultra-low attachment plates supplemented with EGF and FGF-2 showed that Sh cells formed fewer spheres than Sc cells. CONCLUSION: Nestin is expressed in melanoma cells at the invasive front of melanoma tissues, and decreased expression level of nestin inhibits the growth and invasion of melanoma cells. Furthermore, nestin regulates the functions of cancer stem cells of malignant melanoma as determined by sphere-forming ability. Our findings imply that nestin is a promising novel therapeutic target in malignant melanomas.

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 1421. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1421


is, from the time the call was made) from those transported by the routine ambulance service. The predictable difference in overall mortality has never been used as evidence of the salutary effect of prehospital coronary care. Results obtained with the Belfast mobile coronary care unit (MCCU) indicate that the outlook of patients seen and treated early (mortality 100")2 is better than that of patients admitted to hospital coronary care units at a time of lower risk by traditional means (hospital mortality 15-200o ) and much better than that of patients seen early but not given intensive care (mortality 260, ).3 Of course the existence of an MCCU by itself cannot prevent many of those deaths which occur within the first minutes of an attack. Where an MCCU is available, however, much more can be done, through the establishment of "satellite" units in densely populated factories and office blocks4 and the training of large numbers of paramedical personnel in the technique of resuscitation,5 to prevent early death from ventricular fibrillation. Dr Hampton found that more lives might have been saved had the "cardiac ambulance" been dispatched more often while it was available. The criteria for selection of calls from the public are crucial. With a short response time for the special ambulance we would question the logic of sending a routine ambulance following a 999 call if it was nearer the patient. Dr Hampton's report does not question the unassailable fact that the principal causes of death-ventricular fibrillation and extension of the infarct due to autonomic disturbance-are mainly operative outside hospital. Since the means of preventing death are available and relatively inexpensive the logic of providing prehospital coronary care is irrefutable. Much the same argument could be used to justify the continuation of the fire service were it under attack. Direct measurement of the impact on community mortality cannot be made entirely from the results of operation of an MCCU. Nevertheless, an estimate can be made,6 and a decline in community mortality coinciding with the inception of an MCCU has been observed.7


In most higher-learning institutions, peer tutoring is becoming a phenomenon. Peer tutoring is an instructional learning method involving students teaching other students. Students work in pairs to help each other understand a subject or do an academic assignment. Peer tutoring works best when students of different skill levels collaborate. This study's primary purpose was to investigate the effectiveness of peer tutoring in elevating the academic performance of KUPTM students. The research site has been chosen to be conducted within KUPTM due to the samples mostly being in the range of age from 18-31 years old. This will ensure that the researchers will receive answers and responses in a more matured and structured form. Furthermore, this research's specified area is justified to be in KUPTM because the ground objectives of this particular research are to explore the functionality of peer tutoring programs as the element of elevation in the success and performance of KUPTM students.


The geological mapping of the Lavrion area lead to a revision of the lithostratigraphic subdivision and the recognition of three superposed tectonic units. The lower unit, the so-called autochthonous system, consists of a Triassic Jurassic metamorphic Pelagonian series, a disconformity related to the Eohellenic orogenic phase, and a Tithonian Lower Cretaceous non-metamorphic transgressive cover. Upon the lower unit, the "phyllite" nappe lies (middle unit), having on the top some remnants of a non-metamorphic Pelagonian nappe (upper


Interactive proof systems allow a resource-bounded verifier to decide an intractable language (or compute a hard function) by communicating with a powerful but untrusted prover. Such systems guarantee that the prover can only convince the verifier of true statements. In the context of centralized computation, a celebrated result shows that interactive proofs are extremely powerful, allowing polynomial-time verifiers to decide any language in PSPACE. In this work we initiate the study of interactive distributed proofs : a network of nodes interacts with a single untrusted prover, who sees the entire network graph, to decide whether the graph satisfies some property. We focus on the communication cost of the protocol --- the number of bits the nodes must exchange with the prover and each other. Our model can also be viewed as a generalization of the various models of "distributed NP'' (proof labeling schemes, etc.) which received significant attention recently: while these models only allow the prover to present each network node with a string of advice, our model allows for back-and-forth interaction. We prove both upper and lower bounds for the new model. We show that for some problems, interaction can exponentially decrease the communication cost compared to a non-interactive prover, but on the other hand, some problems retain non-trivial cost even with interaction.


We study spin-orbit-torque (SOT)-driven magnetization switching in perpendicularly magnetized Ta/Mo/Co40Fe40B20 (CoFeB)/MgO films. The thermal tolerance of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) is enhanced, and the films sustain the PMA at annealing temperatures of up to 430 °C, due to the ultra-thin Mo layer inserted between the Ta and CoFeB layers. More importantly, the Mo insertion layer also allows for the transmission of the spin current generated in the Ta layer due to spin Hall effect, which generates a damping-like SOT and is able to switch the perpendicular magnetization. When the Ta layer is replaced by a Pt layer, i.e., in a Pt/Mo/CoFeB/MgO multilayer, the direction of the SOT-induced damping-like effective field becomes opposite because of the opposite sign of spin Hall angle in Pt, which indicates that the SOT-driven switching is dominated by the spin current generated in the Ta or Pt layer rather than the Mo layer. Quantitative characterization through harmonic measurements reveals that the large SOT effective field is preserved for high annealing temperatures. This work provides a route to applying SOT in devices requiring high temperature processing steps during the back-end-of-line processes.


The test-system "Sensititre MycoTB" was applied to analyze 159 cultures of M.tuberculosis isolated from patients with tuberculosis. According data of investigation in "Bactec 960" they are identified as cultures with multiple medicinal sensitivity. The detailed analysis of results of application of mentioned test-system (mycoTB) demonstrated that significant part of cultures with multiple medicinal sensitivity is sensitive to anti-tuberculosis pharmaceuticals. The significant part of cultures is characterized by "intermediate" sensitivity/resistance than can be established by mentioned test-system. This data permits enlarging possibilities of chemotherapy of tuberculosis.


We provide a first investigation of fish species composition, sex ratios, age, length-weight relationships and growth models in Saghamo Lake located in Javakheti highland (Georgia). In total 713 specimens belonging to 8 species were collected included non-native Coregonus albula, Carassius gibelio and native Alburnoides bipunctatus, Squalius cephalus, Capoeta capoeta, Romanogobio persus, Salmo cf. caspius and Barbus lacerta, among which later two were recorded for the first time in the lake. In overall, relative abundances of all species is low while some species may not be presented with viable populations. Deviation from expected sex ratio, growth at age and age structure indicates severe anthropogenic pressure as a potential driver of fish community degradation in the lake.


We have developed a novel system for template tracking. Our system takes advantage of the theory of system identification to identify using minimal information the best model estimator of the affine and projective transformation. Lie algebras are used to characterize these transformations. This allows us to move along geodesics assuring the best approximation to the orbit of the Lie group involved.


There is a tendency of cases in transforming spoken and written language. A current debate was proposed about the role. This debate derives from current phenomenon which shows evidence which is related with learner mastery in the particular skills. Some learners are able to produce spoken form of language fluently, however, when it comes to writing, it is seen that they find difficulties and get disturbance to put down ideas and elaborate the ideas into a good writing. Hence, two questions arise. First, to what extent is the nature of spoken and written language? Second, what are strategies to help learners in transforming their spoken language to the written production? Therefore, this article is proposed to explain the nature of spoken and written language and present any strategies to help learners in transforming their spoken language into the written forms.


Heuristic search planning effectively finds solutions for large planning problems, but since the estimates are either not admissible or too weak, optimal solutions are found in rare cases only. In contrast, heuristic pattern databases are known to significantly improve lower bound estimates for optimally solving challenging single-agent problems like the 24-Puzzle or Rubik's Cube. This paper studies the effect of pattern databases in the context of deterministic planning. Given a fixed state description based on instantiated predicates, we provide a general abstraction scheme to automatically create admissible domain-independent memory-based heuristics for planning problems, where abstractions are found in factorizing the planning space. We evaluate the impact of pattern database heuristics in A* and hill climbing algorithms for a collection of benchmark domains.


Localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has the potential to be cured with surgery alone; however, some patients have a high risk of relapse and may benefit from additional treatment. Several efforts have been made to identify effective strategies, with mostly negative results. However, recent results with immune checkpoint inhibitors may change the current standard, and several ongoing trials are exploring new alternatives. In this perspective, we aim to provide an overview of previous adjuvant therapy efforts, current data supporting the use of checkpoint blockade, and a future outlook for adjuvant therapy in renal cell carcinoma.


Steroid hormones can have profound effects on prostate tumor development making it important to define steroid receptor expression in prostate tissues. For this purpose, androgen receptor (AR) and estrogen receptor (ER alpha and ER beta) expression was quantified in 12 clinically localized and 11 hormone-refractory sporadic prostate tumors, using real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR assays. To gain more insight into hormone-responsiveness, estrogen-regulated progesterone receptor (PGR) and androgen-regulated prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) mRNA levels were also quantified. There is a decrease in expression of ER beta in both clinically localized and hormone-refractory tumors relative to normal prostate tissues. Moreover, hormone-refractory tumors display a decreased expression of ER alpha and an increased expression of AR. There is a positive association between ER alpha, ER beta, and PGR expression (P < 0.0001) and a negative association between AR and the androgen-regulated gene PAP expression in hormone-refractory tumors. Taken together, these data indicate that, although increased expression of the AR gene might play a key role in endocrine treatment failure, it cannot be considered as the sole actor of this unresolved dilemma, and abnormalities in ER alpha and/or ER beta expression may also modulate the growth response of prostate cancer to hormone withdrawal. Our results also suggest that ER alpha and ER beta expression status could be used to identify advanced prostate tumor patients who may respond to antiestrogen therapy.


Abstract: I argue that the role of religion on economic performance is mainly through the networks of small religious groups. These groups form social networks that enable individuals to conduct non-formal contract enforcement mechanisms. I analyze the effects of religions on societies, focusing mainly on the institutional aspects that affect the capabilities of creating social capital via networks which enhance cooperation and decrease transaction costs. Since the interaction between institutions and organizations is expected to shape the institutional evolution and economic performance of an economy, religions that have a communal form of organization rather than a vertical (hierarchical) structure, thus allowing many different denominational sub-communities within a society, can be more beneficiary for development and growth. Such institutions may not only provide allocative and production efficiency, but also adaptive efficiency that is a key to long-run growth. However, these effects may turn negative depending on these institutions' role in causing group hostility and exclusion.


Kenya comprises of 83% arid and semi-arid land mainly suited to extensive livestock production. Communities living in the semi-arid areas have been affected by serious effects of climate change and variability. A study was carried out to evaluate farmer perceptions and adaptation to climate change in Naro Moru and Nairutia areas (both in Nyeri North District) and Matanya in Lamuria Division in Laikipia East District, areas that are typically semi-arid in nature. The farmers identified environmental destruction as the major contributor to the visible effects of climate change and variability in the region. The main indicators are erratic and low rainfalls, frequent droughts and dust storms, low crop yields and high day and low night time temperatures. The effects of climate change resulted into increased levels of poverty, food insecurity, change in biodiversity and scarcity of resources such as water and indigenous trees which are sources of medicine, nectar, fuel wood, timber and fodder. Changes in biodiversity entail disappearance of wild animals and insects such as safari ants and an upsurge of pests (e.g. centipedes, millipedes and birds). The reduced availability of resources has changed the people's attitudes towards the need to conserve the natural resources and enhance food security through self and group initiatives. The biggest efforts have been towards tree planting and husbandry and adoption of appropriate technologies and farming methods.


Summary form only given. The new process of quantum injection into an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) operating in entangled configuration is adopted to "amplify" the quantum entanglement and superposition properties of the photon couples generated by parametric down-conversion. Investigation on the invariance properties of the OPA Interaction Hamiltonian shows that, under certain dynamical conditions, the device may act as a Universal Quantum Cloning Machine (UQCM) of the input qubits. We report the first experimental realization of such a device. The structure of the Wigner function and of the field's correlation functions show a multiphoton Schroedinger-Cat behaviour of the emitted field which is largely detectable against the squeezed vacuum noise. The realization and a relevant fundamental application of the first "all optical" multiphoton Schrodinger-Cat are reported. The technical and pistemological perspectives of the new methods are considered.


This study investigates compound verb processing in second language speakers (L2) of Persian. Forty-six near-native L2 speakers of Persian were tested to examine the processing of transparent (non-idiomatic) and opaque (idiomatic) compound verbs, under masked priming paradigm. The results revealed a significant nominal priming effect in the opaque condition, and a numerically stronger nominal priming effect in the transparent condition. There was also an increase in the processing load on the parser when the target was an opaque compound. The results of this study seem to be compatible with the dual access or dual route hypothesis, yet with the version that assumes the two routes are activated in parallel rather than the version that assumes high frequency words are represented lexically but low frequency words are decomposed.


Notch1 has previously been implicated in the carcinogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The present study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of Notch1 in early stage HCC patients after hepatectomy. The differential expression of Notch1 in paired tumor and non-tumorous tissue was evaluated by RT-PCR, western blotting and immunohistochemistry. The correlation between Notch1 expression and the surgical outcome of patients at BCLC stage 0/A and its ≤5 cm subgroup was retrospectively investigated in 206 patients from the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital (training cohort), and prospectively validated in 185 patients from the same center and retrospectively verified in 129 patients from the Fujian Medical University (validation cohort 1 and 2, respectively). Compared with paired non-tumorous tissues, loss of Notch1 was observed in tumor tissue. Patients with normal Notch1 had better prognosis than those with loss of Notch1 in the training cohort and ≤5 cm subgroup (time to recurrence: 38.5±6.1 vs. 16.0±3.2 months, P<0.001 and 53.0±6.1 vs. 21.7±3.5 months, P=0.004; 1-, 3-, 5-year survival rates: 91, 64 and 49% vs. 73, 31 and 22%, P<0.001 and 93, 71, 57% vs. 76, 39, 24%, P<0.001). Notch1 expression was an independent factor for recurrence and survival (hazard ratio: 1.901, 2.154; 2.038 and 2.337). Moreover, Notch1 status affected early tumor recurrence, as the 2-year recurrence rate was 61.2 vs. 26.9% (P<0.001) and 51.2 vs. 21.3% (P=0.002) in tumors with reduced or increased Notch1 expression in this cohort and subgroup. These results were fully confirmed by the study in our prospective and retrospective validation cohorts. The status of Notch1 is useful for predicting the prognosis of patients with early stage HCC undergoing hepatectomy.


Records of 2644 kids born between 1983 and 1990 from a crossbreeding programme involving Boer, Jamnapari and Kottukachchiya breeds were analyzed to study the effects of breed types, sex and month of birth on the birth weight of goats. Average birth weights of Boer, Jamnapari, Kottukachchiya and 50% Boer crossbreds were 3.02, 2.76, 2.23 and 2.69 kg, respectively. Inter se mating of 50% Boer crossbreds did not cause any reduction in the birth weights. Backcrossing the 50% Boer crossbreds to the Boer increased birth weights. Male kids were significantly heavier at birth than the females. The effect of month of birth on birth weights was not significant.


A method for contrasting plates of acrylic resins for cranioplasty in defects in the skull bones was developed. Per each 1.0 g of protacryl (or butacryl, etc.) powder 0.2 g of iodine-containing agents (verografin, urografin, urotrast, etc.) was added. This ensured a high contrast of the allograft not only in the immediate but also in the late period. The developed method is of great significance in conducting expert medical assessment of working capacity when there is no corresponding medical documentation and the medical history is unclear.


The article presents a multi-strategy decision making system for robot soccer games. Through reinforcement processes, the coordination and cooperation between robots are learned on the flight of game. Meanwhile, a better action can be granted after iterative learning process. The experimental scenario is a 5-on-5-soccer game where the proposed system dynamically assigns each player a primitive role, such as attacker, goalie, etc. The responsibility of each role varies along state transitions. Therefore, the system consists of several strategies, such as offensive strategy, defensive strategy, and so on. As well, the decision-making mechanism can choose a better strategy in turns under circumstances encountered. In each strategy, a robot should behavior cooperatively with teammates and resolve conflicts aggressively. The major task assignment to robots in each strategy is simply to catch good positions. Therefore, the problem of dispatching robots to good positions in a reasonable manner should be coped with. This kind of problems is similar to dispatch problems in linear programming research. Utilizing modified simplex and branch and bound methods, each robot can be granted to its assigned spot with minimal cost. Consequently, robots based on the proposed decision making system can accomplish each situational task cooperatively


Proteins from some unrelated pathogens, including viruses and bacteria can recruit and activate cellular p90-ribosomal protein S6 kinases (RSKs) through a common linear motif. Our data suggested that such pathogens' proteins might act as adapters to dock the kinase toward specific substrates. We explored this hypothesis using the Cardiovirus leader protein (L) as a paradigm. L is known to trigger phenylalanine-glycine nucleoporins (FG-NUPs) hyperphosphorylation and nucleocytoplasmic trafficking perturbation. Using a biotin ligase fused to either RSK or to L, we identified FG-NUPs as primary partners of the L-RSK complex in infected cells. Mutant analysis shows that L uses distinct motifs to recruit RSK and to dock the L-RSK complex toward the FG-NUPs. Using an analog-sensitive RSK2 mutant kinase, we show that, in infected cells, L can trigger RSK to use NUP98 and NUP214 as direct substrates. Our data illustrate a novel virulence mechanism where pathogens' proteins retarget cellular protein kinases toward specific substrates.


Abstract

With the increased use of the Internet, online audio and video are becoming more and more popular. The operating income of those websites providing online audio and video services is mainly from advertising. Therefore, not only advertisers need to care about the importance of the user' attitude toward advertising, but also the providers of online audio-visual service websites should understand it. This study focused on the attitude toward advertising of young consumers in Chiang Mai, Thailand, when they watch online audio-visual videos on YouTube, and explored their buying behaviors. The study found that entertainment, informativeness and credibility had a strong positive correlation with the attitude toward YouTube advertising, while irritability had a negative correlation. Based on the results of the analysis, this study provided future research directions for the academic community and the industry, as well as references for formulating business strategies and future development.

JEL classification numbers: M31, M37.
Keywords: Online audio-visual services, Attitude toward advertising, Buying behavior.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the clinical characteristics, diagnosis and treatment of renal cell carcinoma with urinary tract tumor thrombus.

METHODS
From January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019, patients with renal cell carcinoma complicated with urinary tract tumor thrombus who were hospitalized in the Peking University Third Hospital and Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University were retrospectively analyzed. Meanwhile, we reviewed the literature, and the reported patients of renal cell carcinoma with urinary tract tumor thrombus were also included in our study. The basic information, clinical manifestations, treatment, pathological characteristics and follow-ups of all the patients were analyzed.

RESULTS
In our study, 6 patients from the two hospitals and 16 patients from previous literature reports were included. There were 13 males and 9 females with an average age of 54.7 years (22-79 years). Fifteen patients had renal cell carcinoma on the left side, 6 on the right side, and 1 on the unknown side. Gross hematuria was the most common chief complaint, including 18 patients. One patient complained of weight loss, 1 patient complained of microscopic hematuria, and 1 patient was found by ultrasound examination. Tumor thrombus was classified as grade Ⅰ in 9 cases (the tumor embolus protruded into the renal pelvis, but did not reach the ureteropelvic junction), grade Ⅱ in 10 cases (the tumor embolus protruded into the ureter, but not into the bladder), and grade Ⅲ in 3 cases (the tumor embolus passed through the ureter and protruded into the bladder). Only 11 patients were diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma before operation. Radical nephrectomy was performed in 9 cases and nephroureterectomy in 12 cases. In pathological diagnosis, there were 15 cases of clear cell renal cell carcinoma, 1 case of papillary renal cell carcinoma, 1 case of chromophobe cell carcinoma, 1 case of mixed cell renal cell carcinoma, 4 cases of renal cell carcinoma with undetermined classification. Eleven patients were followed up for 3-31 months, and 3 patients had lung metastasis within 6 months.

CONCLUSION
Renal cell carcinoma with urinary tract tumor thrombus is rare in clinic. It needs to be differentiated from renal pelvis carcinoma in diagnosis. The treatment principle can refer to general renal carcinoma. For locally advanced cases, complete resection is the best treatment, and its oncological prognosis needs more long-term and large-scale follow-up observation.


This paper will explore the different steps market participants should take to make sure they are prepared when LIBOR is phased out in December 2021. Part I will focus on the actions market participants should do before going into negotiations that can increase their potential to reach a consensual agreement. Part II will explore what financial firms should be prepared for during the negotiation process and what claims may arise when no agreement is reached. The decision for how to handle any LIBOR-linked financial instrument in their portfolio should be left to the discretion of market participants themselves. This paper does not set out to make that decision, but it will communicate the urgency with which firms should act to either reach a consensual agreement or prepare for the legal risk and litigation costs of DEFCON 1.


The effect of feeding Bacillus subtilis C-3102 (Calsporin) to sows and piglets on performance and gut health of weaned piglets was studied. The experiment contained 4 treatments. First, 8 of 16 sows were supplemented with 3 x 10(5) cfu B. subtilis C-3102/g feed during gestation and lactation whereas the other 8 sows were not supplemented. The probiotic was also included in the creep feed of the suckling offspring of the supplemented sows at an equal dose. Furthermore, at weaning (19-20 d of age), each of the 2 experimental groups were split up into 2 subgroups to yield 4 treatments. Therefore, 5 piglets of each sow were fed a control diet voided of probiotics and 5 littermates were offered the control diet supplemented with 3 x 10(5) cfu B. subtilis C-3102/g feed until 42 d after weaning (8 pen replicates with 5 piglets each). Piglets were sampled at d 0, 5, 13, and 42 after weaning. Supplementation of the probiotic to sows and suckling piglets resulted in higher short-chain fatty acid production in the distal small intestine and mid colon at weaning but not at d 5 and 13 after weaning, whereas villus atrophy in the small intestine and crypt deepening in the proximal small intestine was lower. Postweaning supplementation improved the feed:gain ratio for the total period (1.39 vs. 1.45; P = 0.031) and resulted in a trend for lower mRNA of IL-1 alpha (P = 0.091), higher lactobacillus counts (P = 0.074), and a significantly lower number of crypt goblet cells in distal small intestine mucosa in the early postweaning period. In addition, B. subtilis C-3102 was detected only in colonic contents or feces of piglets from the supplemented groups. Only 1 significant interaction between pre- and postweaning supplementation was found throughout the study. To conclude, preweaning supplementation positively affected some gut health parameters and postweaning supplementation improved the feed:gain ratio.


PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore some quantitative indicators from the social network analysis, observe the variations of these indicators over time and determine whether these indicators fit into the traditional team development stages model or theory. The primary focus is on the perspective of social interaction rather than the suitability of the indicator, i.e. the authors will not determine the optimal indicators nor compare the performance of different indicators. This study aims to propose a quantitative method to identify the development stages of virtual teams.Design/methodology/approachTwo phases were designed in this study. The first phase was a simple study to prove the preliminary ideas and explore which quantitative indicators would be suitable for analysis. In total, 16 undergraduates were randomly assigned to two virtual teams. They were required to complete an information system (IS) project through virtual teamwork and use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to communicate with each other. After proving the preliminary ideas, the authors collected communication data of the 30 virtual teams working on IS projects in the second phase. The total duration of this process was two months.FindingsThe findings practically identified three stages, which were found to be consistent with that of the previous qualitative studies. In the initial (inclusion) stage, intensity had an upward trend. In the second (control) stage, centralization had an upward trend. In the final (affection) stage, intensity and density had upward trends and centralization had a downward trend. Both density and centralization also became smooth in this final stage. The conclusion can serve as a basis for further studies in virtual team development.Originality/valueA successful virtual team will help industries to reduce their costs and increase performance and benefits. The findings will help industries quickly and objectively identify which stage they are at. This quantified approach will provide managers and leaders with a simple, useful way to highlight the needs for managing different aspects of team behavior at each stage of development. After establishing this approach, managers and leaders will be able to make plans to improve existing processes, set priorities, provide suitable principles and guidelines, etc., and eventually improve virtual team performance.


Abstract. We have used a high-precision, high-resolution digital terrain model (DTM) of the NASA Mars 2020 rover Perseverance landing site in Jezero crater based on mosaicked images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (MRO HiRISE) camera as a reference dataset to evaluate DTMs based on Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (MEX HRSC) and MRO Context camera (CTX) images. Results are consistent with our earlier HRSC-HiRISE comparisons at the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity landing site in Gale crater, confirming that those results were not compromised by the small area compared and potential problems with spatial registration. Specifically, height errors are on the order of half a pixel and correspond to an image matching error of 0.2–0.3 pixel but estimates of horizontal resolution are 10–20 pixels. Products from the HRSC team pipeline at DLR are smoother but more precise vertically than those produced by using the commercial stereo package SOCET SET®. The DLR products are also homogenous in quality, whereas the SOCET products are less smoothed and have higher errors in rougher terrain. Despite this weak variation, our results are consistent with a rule of thumb of 0.2–0.3 pixel matching precision based on many prior studies. Horizontal resolution is significantly coarser than the DTM ground sample distance (GSD), which is typically 3–5 pixels.


Author(s): Schneider, Karina | Advisor(s): Taylor, Brian D. | Abstract: As the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) embarks on a one-year dockless mobility pilot program, both LADOT staff and the residents they serve have raised concerns over equity and access. Dockless mobility refers to dockless or free-floating bicycles, electric bicycles, and electric scooters available for short-term rental that have begun to proliferate in cities across the country. LADOT staff have permitted eight companies with an accumulated 36,000 vehicles. Because the distribution of scooters across Los Angeles neighborhoods is far from even, LADOT staff are currently using CalEnviroScreen 3.0 to identify disadvantaged communities where regulations incentivize operators to deploy their scooters. However, CalEnviroScreen 3.0 is a metric developed to identify communities likely affected by environmental injustices and as such prioritizes environmental exposure factors over those that may affect transportation access. The purpose of this project is to first address the CalEnviroScreen limitations in analyzing dockless mobility equity by developing an access-focused Dockless Equity Map that locates the most socioeconomically and access disadvantaged communities in Los Angeles. LADOT staff could then produce regulations that promote enhanced dockless outreach and service in these areas. I constructed this map using data on socioeconomic characteristics (e.g. poverty level, race, etc.) and spatial access indicators (e.g. job accessibility by transit, car ownership, etc.). The Dockless Equity Map includes areas in the San Fernando Valley, East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, and the Harbor that may be the most appropriate targets for dockless mobility equity policies. While developing an appropriate Equity Map is a crucial step, simply dropping scooters in underserved areas will not translate to equitable access. The final section of this report identifies actions that LADOT staff can take during the one-year pilot and beyond to ensure equitable access in the Dockless Equity Map areas. Through interviews with community-based organization representatives, I developed the following recommendations: 1) engage with residents in the Dockless Equity Map target areas in order to educate them on dockless mobility, 2) utilize data collected during the one-year pilot to set specific equity goals, and 3) address infrastructure and safety concerns.


Much attention has been drawn to the cognitive basis of innovation. While interesting in many ways, this poses the threat of falling back to traditional internalist assumptions with regard to cognition. We oppose the ensuing contrast between internal cognitive processing and external public practices and technologies that such internal cognitive systems might produce and utilize. We argue that innovation is best understood from the gibsonian notion of affordance, and that many innovative practices emerge from the external scaffolding of cognitive processes. The public engageability that allows the disclosure of hidden affordances is not only –not even primarily– a property of cognitive products, but of cognitive processes. We elaborate on this claims by drawing on Dutilh Novaes' account of formal languages as cognitive technologies and Hutto's Narrative Practice Hypothesis. This paves the way to sketch some general principles on how to strategically seek for innovation by targeting hidden affordances.


There is compelling evidence that preconditioning occurs in humans. Experimental studies with potential clinical implications as well as clinical studies evaluating ischaemic, pharmacological and anaesthetic cardiac preconditioning in the perioperative setting are reviewed. These studies reveal promising results. However, there are conflicting reports on the efficacy of preconditioning in the diseased and aged myocardium. In addition, many anaesthetics and a significant number of perioperatively administered drugs affect the activity of cardiac sarcolemmal and mitochondrial K(ATP) channels, the end-effectors of cardiac preconditioning, and thereby markedly modulate preconditioning effects in myocardial tissue. Although these modulatory effects on K(ATP) channels have been investigated almost exclusively in laboratory investigations, they may have potential implications in clinical medicine. Important questions regarding the clinical utility and applicability of perioperative cardiac preconditioning remain unresolved and need more experimental work and randomized controlled clinical trials.


Abstract. Modern electrochemical gas sensors hold great potential for improving practices in air quality (AQ) monitoring as their low cost, ease
of operation and compact design can enable dense observational networks and
mobile measurements. Despite that, however, numerous studies have shown that
the performance of these sensors depends on a number of factors (e.g.
environmental conditions, sensor quality, maintenance and calibration), thereby adding significant uncertainties in the reported measurements
and large discrepancies from those recorded by reference-grade instruments.
In this work we investigate the performance of electrochemical sensors,
provided by two manufacturers (namely Alphasense and Winsen), for measuring
the concentrations of CO, NO2, O3 and SO2. To achieve that we carried out collocated yearlong measurements with reference-grade
instruments at a traffic AQ monitoring station in Nicosia, Cyprus, where
temperatures ranged from ca. 0 ∘C in the winter to almost 45 ∘C in the summer. The CO sensors exhibit the best performance
among all the ones we tested, having minimal mean relative error (MRE)
compared to reference instruments (ca. −5 %), although a significant
difference in their response was observed before and after the summer
period. At the other end of the spectrum, the SO2 sensors reported
concentration values that were at least 1 order of magnitude higher than
the respective reference measurements (with MREs being more than 1000 %
for Alphasense and almost 400 % for Winsen throughout the entire
measurement period), which can be justified by the fact that the
concentrations of SO2 at our measuring site were below their limit of
detection. In general, variabilities in the environmental conditions (i.e.
temperature and relative humidity) appear to significantly affect the
performance of the sensors. When compared with reference instruments, the CO and NO2 electrochemical sensors provide measurements that exhibit
increasing errors and decreasing correlations as temperature increases (from below 10 to above 30 ∘C) and RH decreases (from >75 %
to below 30 %). Interestingly, the performance of the sensors was affected irreversibly during the hot summer period, exhibiting different responses before and after that, resulting in a signal deterioration that was more than twice that reported by the manufacturers. With the exception of the Alphasense NO2 sensor, all low-cost sensors (LCSs) exhibited measurement uncertainties that were much higher, even at the beginning of our measurement period, compared to those required for qualifying the sensors for indicative air quality measurements according to the respective European Commission (EC) Directive. Overall, our results show that the response of all LCSs is strongly affected by the environmental conditions, warranting further investigations on how they are manufactured, calibrated and employed in the field.


Complicated hepatic microabscess secondary to ascending cholangitis following ERCP (Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatogram) is rare, and needs to be differentiated from 。ther microabscesses, metastasis or Caroli 's disease. We experienced a case of hepatic microabscess associated with septic cholangitis following ERCP. Cholangiogram showed multiple sac like abscess pockets with characteristic biliary communication , and CT scan revealed multiple low attenuated lesions. At the resolving stage of cholangitic microabscess, CT scan showed partial rim enhancement of the abscesses and disproportional dilatation of intrahepatic ducts. The residual parenchymal enhancement surrounding the resolved microabscess pockets and dilatated biliary ducts, however, remained even after clinical recovery.


Transgenic mice expressing PML-RARalpha in early myeloid cells under control of human cathepsin G regulatory sequences all develop a myeloproliferative syndrome, but only 15% to 20% develop acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) after a latent period of 6 to 14 months. However, this transgene is expressed at very low levels in the bone marrow cells of transgenic mice. Because the transgene includes only 6 kb of regulatory sequences from the human cathepsin G locus, we hypothesized that sequences required for high-level expression of the transgene might be located elsewhere in the cathepsin G locus and that a knock-in model might yield much higher expression levels and higher penetrance of disease. We, therefore, targeted a human PML-RARalpha cDNA to the 5' untranslated region of the murine cathepsin G gene, using homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells. This model produced a high-penetrance APL phenotype, with more than 90% of knock-in mice developing APL between 6 and 16 months of age. The latent period and phenotype of APL (including a low frequency of an interstitial deletion of chromosome 2) was similar to that of the previous transgenic model. Remarkably, however, the expression level of PML-RARalpha in bone marrow cells or APL cells was less than 3% of that measured in the low-penetrance transgenic model. Although the explanation for this result is not yet clear, one hypothesis suggests that very low levels of PML-RARalpha expression in early myeloid cells may be optimal for the development of APL in mice.


This paper presents a framework for segmentation of renal parenchymal area from ultrasound images based on a 2-step level set method. We used distance regularized level set evolution method to partition the kidney boundary, followed by region-scalable fitting energy minimization method to segment the kidney collecting system, and determined renal parenchymal area by subtracting the area of the collecting system from the gross kidney area. The proposed method demonstrated excellent validity and low inter-observer variability.


Piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer is the transducer which is technically designed for electrical measurement of non-medical electrical capacity, some physiology parameters of human body like blood pressure, pulse, breathe, body temperature, and etc. are non-electrical capacity. In order to measure these physiological parameters, the simplest way is to change them for the project is technically easier for measuring the amount of electricity (or called telecommunications), then the telecommunications which is equivalent to some of these physiological parameters to be enlarged, and measured, the medical transducer is the completion of the conversion of such devices. This article discussed the classification, structure and main performance index, and their meaning and application of the concept of volume, and introduced the medical application of the more important the concept of resolution and its transducer performance.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Approaches to ipsilateral ureters potentially aggravate tumor spread, as allegedly reported in ureteroscopy (URS) before radical nephroureterectomy (RNU). If URS truly exacerbates intravesical recurrence (IVR), retrograde pyelography (RGP), a less invasive alternative option for URS, might also give rise to IVR. We thus investigated the impact of preoperative RGP on IVR and attempted to reveal the mechanism involved. METHODS: Of 114 patients that underwent RNU for upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UUT-UC) from January 2004 to June 2013, 72 patients without a history of bladder tumor and preoperative URS were selectively enrolled and retrospectively reviewed. Times between RGP and RNU were collected and the length of intra-ureteral tumors which was defined by the maximal dimension on the image were measured. The impacts of clinicopathological factors on initial IVR were analyzed using logistic regression models. RESULTS: During a mean follow up period of 64.5 months, 32 (44.4%) patients experienced IVR, which was identified at a mean (±SD) 22.3±18.8 months after RNU. RGP was underwent in 41 (56.1%) patients. Despite a shorter follow up period (31.3±23.1 vs. 48.3±18.6 months), the tumor recurrence rate was significantly higher in the RGP group (63.4%, 26/41) than in the non-RGP counterparts (19.4%; 6/31, p<.000). The follow variables differed significantly in the IVR and non-IVR groups; age (64.6±8.51 yrs vs. 59.6±9.65 yrs, p=0.005), lower tumor location (53.1% vs. 20%, p=0.032), invasive tumor (over pT2; 53.1% vs. 17.5%, p=0.011), lower preoperative hemoglobin (12.8±1.36 vs. 13.9±1.65, p=0.004), higher preoperative creatinine (1.29±0.318 vs. 1.11±0.221, p=0.009), and preoperative RGP (81.3% vs. 37.5%, p<.000). The time between RGP and RNU and the length of tumor were not associated with IVR (p=0.411 and 0.715). Multivariate analysis showed tumor stage (>pT2; Odds ratio [OR]=4.877, p=0.008) and preoperative RGP (OR=6.715, p=0.001) independently predicted IVR. CONCLUSIONS: RGP before RNU was found to aggravate IVR, regardless of time between RGP and RNU or the size of tumor. These findings caution against the use of RGP as a diagnostic modality for UUT-UC and provide evidence supporting the notion that monoclonal tumor cell spread underlies the pathogenesis of IVR. Table. No title available. Source of Funding: none


Attempts to make Carl Gustav Jung's theory of archetypes scientifically credible tend to invoke biology and evolution theory. These convey faith in the power of science (scientism), taken here as a cultural metanarrative. The essay provides a critical appraisal of both biology-oriented and culture-oriented trends in Jungian studies, and steers the conceptualization of archetypes towards issues of embodied subjectivity and narrativity. Thematic parallels between transhumanism, on the one side, and the rebirth archetype as described by Jung, on the other, serve as a case in point.


Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have developed diametrically opposed national narratives and identities that are both predicated on the concept of victimization. These narratives have developed into simulacral narratives as the result of the nature of their development. This paper deals with the Palestinian simulacral narrative which bolsters societal values, particularly the value of victimhood, that are crucial to coping with the prolonged conflict. The Western media, at any given moment during the conflict, has either accepted the concept of Palestinian"s as victims of the conflict and the Palestinian simulacral narrative, or rejected it. The media then produces a hyperreality of the conflict for its Western viewers which influences the West"s acceptance or rejection of the Palestinian simulacral narrative. This paper uses Michel Khleifi"s Canticle of the Stones, Hany Abu-Assad"s Paradise Now, and Elia Sulieman"s Chronicle of a Disappearance and Divine Intervention to examine the degree to which Palestinian films confirm or contradict the societal beliefs that contribute to the prolongation of the conflict and the relationship between the presentation of those beliefs, the hyperreality of the Western community, and Western public opinion. It also examines the relationship between the presentation of violence in the films and the presence of violence in Palestine. This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council.


We present optical and atomic force microscopy measurements of the roughness of the core wall surface within a hollow core photonic bandgap fiber (HC-PBGF) over the [3×10-2  μm-1-30  μm-1] spatial frequency range. A recently developed immersion optical profilometry technique with picometer-scale sensitivity was used to measure the roughness of air-glass surfaces inside the fiber at unprecedentedly low spatial frequencies, which are known to have the highest impact on HC-PBGF scattering loss and, thus, determine their loss limit. Optical access to the inner surface of the core was obtained by the selective filling of the cladding holes with index matching liquid using techniques borrowed from micro-fluidics. Both measurement techniques reveal ultralow roughness levels exhibiting a 1/f spectral power density dependency characteristic of frozen surface capillary waves over a broad spatial frequency range. However, a deviation from this behavior at low spatial frequencies was observed for the first time, to the best of our knowledge.


We study adiabatic ~curvature! and entropy ~isocurvature! perturbations produced during a period of cosmological inflation that is driven by multiple scalar fields with an arbitrary interaction potential. A local rotation in field space is performed to separate out the adiabatic and entropy modes. The resulting field equations show explicitly how on large scales entropy perturbations can source adiabatic perturbations if the background solution follows a curved trajectory in field space, and how adiabatic perturbations cannot source entropy perturbations in the long-wavelength limit. It is the effective mass of the entropy field that determines the amplitude of entropy perturbations during inflation. We present two applications of the equations. First, we show why one in general expects the adiabatic and entropy perturbations to be correlated at the end of inflation, and calculate the cross correlation in the context of a double inflation model with two non-interacting fields. Second, we consider two-field preheating after inflation, examining conditions under which entropy perturbations can alter the large-scale curvature perturbation and showing how our new formalism has advantages in numerical stability when the background solution follows a non-trivial trajectory in field space.


Consumption of food containing mercury has been identified as a health risk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and the National Academy of Sciences recommend keeping the whole blood mercury level < 5.0 microg/L or the hair level < 1.0 microg/g. This corresponds to a reference dose (RfD) of 0.1 microg/kg body weight per day. All patients in a 1-year period (n = 720) who came for an office visit in a private internal medicine practice in San Francisco, California, were evaluated for mercury excess using the current RfD. One hundred twenty-three patients were tested (93 females, 30 males). Of these, data were statistically analyzed for 89 subjects. Mercury levels ranged from 2.0 to 89.5 microg/L for the 89 subjects. The mean for 66 women was 15 microg/L [standard deviation (SD) = 15], and for 23 men was 13 microg/L (SD = 5); 89% had levels exceeding the RfD. Subjects consumed 30 different forms or types of fish. Swordfish had the highest correlation with mercury level. Sixty-seven patients with serial blood levels over time after stopping fish showed a decline in mercury levels; reduction was significant (p < 0.0001). A substantial fraction of patients had diets high in fish consumption; of these, a high proportion had blood mercury levels exceeding the maximum level recommended by the U.S. EPA and National Academy of Sciences. The mean level for women in this survey was 10 times that of mercury levels found in a recent population survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some children were > 40 times the national mean.


We calculate the nuclear spin relaxation rate of clean quasi-two-dimensional (2D) superconductors with s-wave pairing in high magnetic fields using the BCS model and the Brandt, Pesch and Tewordt approximation for the single-particle propagator. The calculation is valid in the vicinity of . Thermal fluctuations of vortices are not taken into account. We evaluate numerically our results in the case of high- materials and organic superconductors. In a perpendicular field the Hebel - Slichter coherence peak is suppressed depending on the variation of the quasi-particle lifetime below . We also describe the magnetic field dependence of the nuclear spin relaxation rate. Using the experimentally determined value of the quasi-particle lifetime, the model reproduces the experimental initial variations of versus at different magnetic fields. However, the Hebel - Slichter peak is conserved in the low-field limit, or when the applied magnetic field is parallel to the superconducting planes.


To reduce the cost and time of transport in Eurasian railroad networks such as TKR, TCR and TSR owing to the problem of different track gauges (narrow/standard/broad gauge), it is important to develop the gauge - adjustable wheelset system to adapt easily to these gauges. Moreover, freight trains having the gauge - adjustable wheelsets should be passing various curved tracks in railroad networks. Therefore, to assure the safety of the gauge-adjustment wheelset system, it is necessary to evaluate integrity of locking parts in the system using stress analysis. This study is focused on analyzing contact stress of locking parts by using FEA(finite element analysis) simulation during the gauge changeover operation and freight trains' service in the curved track, respectively.


Responses labelled as emotional in the higher animals are frequently portrayed as incidental to the generation of reasonable behavior. Clearly this view is incompatible with the reality of animal behavior as observed in nature, emotion plays a significant role in the generation of useful behaviour. Homeostasis is the product of the interaction of the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. This work views emotional responses as part of an integrated approach to the generation of behavior in artificial organisms via mechanisms inspired by homeostasis. The mechanism presented here employs the concept of a novel Artificial Endocrine System which interacts with an Artificial Neural Network to generate behaviour which could be classified as emotive.


Therapy of variceal bleeding is currently based on endoscopic sclerotherapy. However, the treatment of bleeding recurrences after sclerotherapy has not yet been established, but consists of the choice between continuation of sclerotherapy or a surgical procedure. We report herein the results of portocaval shunt performed in 26 cirrhotic patients among the 175 cirrhotic patients (15%) admitted between 1985 and 1990 to our Intensive Care Unit for variceal bleeding. These 26 patients were operated because of failure of sclerotherapy as defined by haemostasis failure (n = 1), the persistence of unchanged oesophageal varices after six sessions of sclerotherapy (n = 1), and the occurrence of at least one severe episode of rebleeding (n = 24). Emergency and elective portocaval shunts were performed in 12 and 14 cases respectively. The time delay between admission and surgical procedure was equal to 21 +/- 8 hours and 12 +/- 4 days in the two groups respectively. The operative mortality (30 days) was equal to 23% and was observed in emergency shunts only. Actuarial survival rates were significantly different between the two groups (p < 0.01). Predictive factors of mortality as assessed by univariate analysis were the emergency nature of the procedure, serum aminotransferases and urea levels at the time of the index bleeding, and the number of bleeding episodes related to portal hypertension before the index bleeding. The prognosis at one year was not influenced by the number of bleeding recurrences between the index bleeding and the bleeding episode justifying the shunt.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Around 350 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus. In adults around 5% and during perinatal contact around 100% of the infections become chronic. The main complications of chronic HBV infection are liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore after chronic HBV infection has been diagnosed early therapy has to be considered. At present two drugs are available: Interferon-alpha and lamivudine. Therapy with Interferon-alpha is successful in 30-40% of the patients. In contrast, the initial response rate during lamivudine therapy is very good. However, in many of the patients mutant HBV strains are selected. Therefore in each patient it has to be considered individually which of the two drugs should be used. In this review these questions will be addressed and a special focus will be the use of lamivudine. Additionally future treatment options will be discussed.


Dynamic interacting systems are prevalent in vision tasks. These interactions are usually difficult to observe and measure directly, and yet understanding latent interactions is essential for performing inference tasks on dynamic systems like forecasting. Neural relational inference (NRI) techniques are thus introduced to explicitly estimate interpretable relations between the entities in the system for trajectory prediction. However, NRI assumes static relations; thus, dynamic neural relational inference (DNRI) was proposed to handle dynamic relations using LSTM. Unfortunately, the older information will be washed away when the LSTM updates the latent variable as a whole, which is why DNRI struggles with modeling long-term dependences and forecasting long sequences. This motivates us to propose a memory-augmented dynamic neural relational inference method, which maintains two associative memory pools: one for the interactive relations and the other for the individual entities. The two memory pools help retain useful relation features and node features for the estimation in the future steps. Our model dynamically estimates the relations by learning better embeddings and utilizing the long-range information stored in the memory. With the novel memory modules and customized structures, our memory-augmented DNRI can update and access the memory adaptively as required. The memory pools also serve as global latent variables across time to maintain detailed long-term temporal relations readily available for other components to use. Experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed method on modeling dynamic relations and forecasting complex trajectories.


In comparison to large islands and mainland destinations, economic development has
often proven to be difficult for small island destinations due to common
characteristics that include smallness in size, lack of resources (physical and human),
isolated location, high transportation cost and limited capacity to earn export income.
However, blessed with natural attractions, tourism has been acknowledged as the best
alternative for economic growth and survival of small island communities. Despite
the potential of tourism as a catalyst for economic development on small island
destinations, tourism may also have considerable impacts on small island systems.
Therefore, in order to ensure a continuous flow of economic benefits to small island
destinations, tourism on small island destinations needs to be properly planned,
developed and managed to develop positive interaction between tourism,
environmental, socio-cultural and economic factors. As such, tourism development
on small islands needs to be undertaken in a sustainable manner.
One important issue for sustainable development of tourism is knowledge of host and
tourist needs and constraints. As tourism is now global, there is a need to study this
issue from a cross-cultural context. This research investigates the cross-cultural
exchange between hosts and guests, and the potential impacts of cultural differences
on their perceptions of tourism impacts, mutual expectations and destination
attributes. A cross-cultural approach has been undertaken by grouping the samples
according to their language spoken; Malay, Chinese, English and non-English
(Continental European). The study encompasses both domestic and international
tourists. The inclusion of domestic tourists (Malay and Chinese) is important to allow
for a comparison with international tourists. This study is quantitative in nature with
survey data collected from three island destinations in Peninsular Malaysia,
representing small islands (Perhentian and Redang) and a large island (Langkawi).
The study locations have been divided in such a way to permit a meaningful
comparison between island settings, and to identify unique criteria and issues for
small island tourism. The Mann-Whitney U-test and Principal Components Analysis
(PCA) have been utilised in analysing the data. This study has demonstrated that hosts and guests from different cultural groups
behave differently with regard to perceptions, expectations and destination attributes.
The study contributes to the literature related to tourism impacts and consumer
behaviour in a cross-cultural context. Additionally, the study contributes to the
literature related to service quality and destination attributes, and outlines the
importance of cultural differences in providing quality tourism services.


The inefficiency of the Italian judicial system has contributed to reduced investments, slow growth, and a difficult business environment. The enforcement of civil and commercial claims suffers from excessive delays in court proceedings, resulting in a very large number of pending cases. The Italian authorities have, over the years, taken steps to remove bottlenecks and speed up judicial proceedings. While these measures are generally steps in the right direction, more can be done. Consideration could be given, inter alia, to reviewing court fees, improving the new mandatory mediation scheme, strengthening court management, and reforming the appeal system. JEL Classification Numbers: K40; O40


In the development of inhalable dry powder formulations, it is essential to evaluate their biological activities in preclinical animal models. This paper introduces a noninvasive method of intratracheal delivery of dry powder formulation in mice. A dry powder loading device that consists of a 200 µL gel loading pipette tip connected to an 1 mL syringe via a three-way stopcock is presented. A small amount of dry powder (1-2 mg) is loaded into the pipette tip and dispersed by 0.6 mL of air in the syringe. Because pipette tips are disposable and inexpensive, different dry powder formulations can be loaded into different tips in advance. Various formulations can be evaluated in the same animal experiment without device cleaning and dose refilling, thereby saving time and eliminating the risk of cross-contamination from residual powder. The extent of powder dispersion can be inspected by the amount of powder remaining in the pipette tip. A protocol of intubation in mouse with a custom-made light source and a guiding cannula is included. Proper intubation is one of the key factors that influences the intratracheal delivery of dry powder formulation to the deep lung region of the mouse.


Selecting the best corn hybrids can be a significant factor in the profitability of a corn production enterprise. The differences in performance among commercially available corn hybrids of the same maturity generally exceed 15 bushels per acre and frequently reach 50 bushels per acre. As a result, improving corn yields by an average of 5 to 10 bushels per acre through careful attention to hybrid selection is not unrealistic.


Objective: To evaluate the association of physical activity with left ventricular structure and function in the general population in a community setting. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a population-based study of subclinical atherosclerosis. Participants: A multiethnic sample of 4992 participants (aged 45–84 years; 52% female) free of clinically apparent cardiovascular disease. Interventions: Physical activity induces beneficial physiological cardiac remodelling in a cross-sectional study of non-athlete individuals. Main Outcome Measures: Left ventricular mass, volumes and function were assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. Physical activity, defined as intentional exercise and total moderate and vigorous physical activity, was assessed by a standard semiquantitative questionnaire. Results: Left ventricular mass and end-diastolic volume were positively associated with physical activity (eg, 1.4 g/m2 (women) and 3.1 g/m2 (men) greater left ventricular mass in the highest category of intentional exercise compared with individuals reporting no intentional exercise; p = 0.05 and p<0.001, respectively). Relationships were non-linear, with stronger positive associations at lower levels of physical activity (test for non-linearity; p = 0.02 and p = 0.03, respectively). Cardiac output and ejection fraction were unchanged with increased physical activity levels. Resting heart rate was lower in women and men with higher physical activity levels (eg, −2.6 beats/minute lower resting heart rate in the highest category of intentional exercise compared with individuals reporting no intentional exercise; p<0.001). Conclusions: In a community-based population free of clinically apparent cardiovascular disease, higher physical activity levels were associated with proportionally greater left ventricular mass and end-diastolic volume and lower resting heart rate.


Over the last decade, as more in-depth understanding of weld residual stresses is being achieved, particularly of their characteristic distributions in pressure vessel and piping components, the residual stress effects on stress intensities at welds are becoming better understood. In this paper, some of the important residual stress characteristics are first identified in the form of either "bending" dominated or "self-equilibrating" dominated types for girth welds. The applicability in other joint configurations in welded structures is then discussed, with a collection of validated residual stress distributions. The characterization of both "bending" and "self-equilibrating" types in residual stress distributions provides a consistent framework for stress intensity factor considerations in either fracture and fatigue assessment. The contribution of weld residual stresses to stress intensities at welds are shown to be in the form of K solutions under displacement controlled conditions. The "bending" type residual stresses provide a longer range of influence than "self-equilibrating" type in K solutions. The contribution of "self-equilibrating" type residual stresses to stress intensities is shown to be dominant when crack size is small, while the contribution of the "bending" type dominant for crack size up to a much large size with respect to wall thickness.Copyright © 2004 by ASME


Abstract. It is well known that more than three or four spectral measurements are required for accurate measurement of color under arbitrary illumination. Previous work has shown 6 to 10 measurements can yield accurate results on average, but with significant numbers of errors above the threshold of obvious visual detection. We demonstrate an imaging system (LED box) consisting of a monochrome camera, multiple LED illumination in a diffuse reflecting chamber that produces excellent color capture in perceptual quality measured in ΔE00. We evaluate this system with respect to practical applications with emphasis on textile quality assessment. Our system of 12 LEDs produces average and maximum training ΔE00 errors around 0.7 and 2.4, respectively; and average and maximum testing ΔE00 errors around 1.5 and 5.0, respectively. This performance exceeds that of reported colorimetric camera systems, except highly specialized configurations. We find that the stability of the system to LED variability under operating conditions is good. We show that pseudoinverse estimate produces better results than the MMSE estimate under actual operating conditions.


Phases can be determined for geometrically redundant amplitudes by iteration of the following procedure: compute an electron density map from the currently available phases; average the electron densities of all the crystallographically independent molecules; rebuild the crystal(s) from this averaged subunit, setting the density outside the molecular boundaries to its average value; obtain phase information from the resulting structure, and combine it with that given by isomorphous replacement to produce the phases to be used in the next iteration. This algorithm converges very rapidly, and has proved to be a powerful tool in the solution of two large unknown protein structures. This paper describes the computational techniques developed to implement it, which include a swift and general method for real-space averaging of electron density maps.


The effect of bulk-driven acoustic streaming on a turbulent boundary layer over a flat plate has been experimentally measured. In this fundamental study for boundary layer manipulation, the acoustic streaming flows were induced by two different types of high power ultrasonic transducers: a Langevin horn and a focussed array of parking sensor transducers, operating at 26 kHz and 40 kHz respectively. The boundary layer was characterised using CTA hot-wire anemometry, with high resolution measurements recorded in both the streamwise and spanwise directions around the transducer location. The results show that acoustic streaming flows in the order of 1.5 m/s can cause a reduction in the velocity energy content of approximately 3 dB across a wide frequency range between 10 Hz and 8 kHz


Carbon fiber precursor polymers such as poly[acrylonitrile-co-itaconic acid], poly[acrylonitrile-co-acrylamide] copolymers were synthesized through green chemistry routes i.e., via solid phase polymerization without using solvents, employing aqueous soluble inorganic metal salts as template compounds. The composition and the average molecular weights, such as the number average molecular weight (Mn), viscosity average molecular weight (Mv), weight average molecular weight (Mw) and size average molecular weight (Mz), were determined. The molecular weight distributions were evaluated by the Mv : Mn ratios estimated from the viscosity and osmotic measurements, and the Mw/Mn values were estimated from size exclusion chromatography (SEC-LALLS). The molecular weight distributions of these polymers, as determined from Mv/Mn and Mw/Mn, were 2.1 to 3.2 and 2.1 to 2.5 respectively. The molecular parameters [Mn (4.7 × 104), Mv (1.64 × 105), Mw (1.17 × 105) g mol−1] are comparable to those obtained through suspension [Mn (4.25 × 104), Mv (2.09 × 105), Mw(1.82 × 105) g mol−1] and solution [Mn (4.28 × 104), Mv (1.61 × 105), Mw(1.43 × 105) g mol−1] polymerization processes (conventional). The dispersity of the polymer spinning solution was also investigated using a parallel plate viscometer which confirms the homogeneity of the solution.


The aim of this study was to characterize functional fermented caprine milk. Functional properties of fermented milks was an effect of increasing the level of whey proteins, MUFA and PUFA content in final product  Milk used for experiments was obtained from  experimental station belonging to Poznań University of Life Sciences. Feeding strategy was included modification by adding 12% of Camelina sativa cake. The fermentation process was done by using Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus spp., and kefir grain microflora. The quality properties which were considered was metabolic activity, monosaccharide, disaccharide, lactic acid and ethanol content, aroma and fat profile. It was noted that increasing the content of functional components in processed milk caused changes in lactose, MUFA, PUFA and volatile acids content in final product.


Irregularities on rolling surfaces of deformable compact bodies induce normal contact vibrations and vibro-impacts in particular. Modelling, simulation and analysis of such an excitation and the system dynamical response are the objects of the study. Parameter analysis of transient vibro-impacts induced by a single irregularity is helpful in the understanding of dynamical properties of the system. Moreover, the analysis may be helpful in experiment design for detecting defects of rolling surfaces and faults of neighbour structures suspending/supporting the rolling bodies. Simulations performed with very simple models are next compared with results obtained from simulations of the whole wagon performed by using the Adams/Rail software.


The different methods used to explore the blood-brain barrier (made up of cerebral capillary vessels), and notably, at molecular level, isolated microvessel preparations, have greatly improved our knowledge in this particular field. Some of these methods could be used to evaluate the protective effects of therapeutic substances, such as Ginkgo biloba extract, on the blood-brain barrier.


In this study, we developed a foaming control system using the Gas Counter Pressure (GCP) combined with mold temperature control during the microcellular injection molding (MuCell) process and investigated its influence on the parts' surface quality and foams structures. The results revealed that under GCP control alone when GCP is greater than 10 MPa, part surface roughness for transparent polystyrene (PS) improved by 90%. When GCP increased, the skin thickness also increased, the weight reduction decreased and the average cell size reduced to about 30 μm. For black PS parts, when GCP is greater than 10 MPa, the part gloss reaches the same value as that molded by conventional injection molding. By increasing gas holding time, the cell density decreased and the cell size distribution became more uniform. The increase in amount of supercritical fluid foaming agent also increased the cell density. Applying mold temperature control alone with temperature in the range of 90–120°C (near Tg), the surface roughness improved by 65%. Increasing mold temperature decreased the skin thickness; however, the cell size distribution became significantly nonuniform. It was found that thin skin, small and uniform cell size as well as good surface quality can be achieved efficiently by simultaneous combining of GCP and mold temperature control. The proposed innovative approach may lead to a significant improvement and a more broad application for MuCell process. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013


Most musical phenomena involve repetitive structures that enable listeners to track meter, i.e. the tactus or beat, the longer over-arching measure or bar, and possibly other related layers. Meters with long measure duration, sometimes lasting more than a minute, occur in many music cultures, e.g. from India, Turkey, and Korea. However, current meter tracking algorithms, which were devised for cycles of a few seconds length, cannot process such structures accurately. We present a novel generalization to an existing Bayesian model for meter tracking that overcomes this limitation. The proposed model is evaluated on a set of Indian Hindustani music recordings, and we document significant performance increase over the previous models. The presented model opens the way for computational analysis of performances with long metrical cycles, and has important applications in music studies as well as in commercial applications that involve such musics.


Our federal and state securities laws are centered around two vital requirements for economic growth: capital formation and investor protection. Section 12(g) sits in the middle of these two concepts by attempting to ensure the latter without jeopardizing the former. However, since the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups ("JOBS") Act in 2012, exempt capital formation in the unregulated private market has increased dramatically. At the same time, new ways of investing in these spaces have been opened for retail investors. The result has been the exposure of an increasing amount of the public's capital to riskier investments in a sphere where information is unavailable in the best of times and deliberately hidden in the worst.
For founders of large private tech companies and their sophisticated investors, this structure remains advantageous. They are capable of raising large sums of capital, something normally only done by public companies, while avoiding the costs associated with our disclosure regime. They care little about the corporate governance responsibilities of running large companies and protect their interests above that of the company as a whole. Minority investors, primarily employees and, in increasing numbers, retail investors, are left in the dark without an ability to diversify and mitigate risk.
This Article gives recommendations on reforms to Section 12(g) in order to bring more companies into the public reporting sphere without jeopardizing the capital formation process.


Damped Linear Oscillators estimated by 2nd-order Latent Differential Equation have assumed a constant equilibrium and one oscillatory component. Lower-frequency oscillations may come from seasonal background processes, which non-randomly contribute to deviation from equilibrium at each occasion and confound estimation of dynamics over shorter timescales. Boker (2015) proposed a model of individual change on multiple timescales, but implementation, simulation, and applications to data have not been demonstrated. This study implemented a generalization of the proposed model; examined robustness to varied timescale ratios, measurement error, and occasions-per-person in simulated data; and tested for dynamics at multiple timescales in experience sampling affect data. Results show small standard errors and low bias to dynamic estimates at timescale ratios greater than 3:1. Below 3:1, estimate error was sensitive to noise and total occasions; rates of non-convergence increased. For affect data, model comparisons showed statistically significant dynamics at both timescales for both participants.


A second-order stochastic parabolic equation with zero Dirichlet boundary conditions is considered in a sufficiently smooth bounded domain. Existence, uniqueness, and regularity of the solution are established without assuming any compatibility relations. To control the solution near the boundary of the region, special Sobolev-type spaces with weights are introduced. To illustrate the results, two examples are considered: general linear equation with finite-dimensional noise and equation on a line segment, driven by space-time white noise.


The unexpected continuing mushrooming tendency of the COVID-19 epidemic calls for alarm in the entire globe especially with the cropping up of more divergent contagious variants being witnessed. On top of the many non-pharmaceutical measures put in place for containment of the pandemic, pharmacological measures have been incorporated in the battle against the SARS-CoV-2 especially with the commencement of vaccination in the early December 2020. This study develops a deterministic compartmental model that incorporates vaccination as a measure to combat the spread of COVID-19 epidemic. We use the model particularly to assess the potential impact of vaccination in shattering the chain of transmission of the virus in South Africa. Verification of the model is carried out by performing its best fit to cumulative COVID-19 positive cases data as reported by the government of the Republic of South Africa utilizing the maximum likelihood estimation algorithm implemented in fitR package. With some vaccines already being under utility while other are being developed, we consider two major vaccine efficacy scenarios. One scenario accounts for general hypothetical vaccines with 20%,50%,65% and 85% case efficacy. The other scenario considers the Johnson and Johnson's Janssen vaccine with its distinctive efficacy levels as reported to act against the 501Y.V2 variant. The sensitivity analysis and simulations for the model reveal that the cumulative infections decline drastically with increased extent of vaccination at each level of the vaccine efficacy.The study fundamentally discovers that vaccinating approximately 20% of the population with a vaccine of at least 60% efficacy would be sufficient in elimination of the pandemic over relatively shorter time. Moreover, with J&J vaccine maintaining its efficacious level against the 501Y.V2 variant, it would be the best vaccine to shortly eradicate the COVID-19 epidemic in South Africa © 2021 NSP Natural Sciences Publishing Cor.


]oe deAguiar is dead. But his vision for the AF A still lives in the memories of a few of us who worked with him in the formative years of the AF A. deAguiar was an AF A officer who envisioned the AF A headquarters in a skyscraper building situated in the midst of a park-like breeding facility. To him, the AFA was the leader in aviculture and avian conservation - the trailblazer and pathfinder. We've moved more slowly than deAguiar expected but it seems to me that his vision is becoming a reality. I believe that the AF A is the guiding force in aviculture and the entity that must set the goals, define the philosophy and bind together the tens of thousands of people and organizations who keep and breed birds. Actually, many of you may not know that several times the AF A seriously looked around for a few acres that could serve as a breeding/ rehabilitation center for birds and also house the AF A Home Office. At the time, quite a few years ago, property in Missouri and Oklahoma was considered but not found suitable for one reason or another. Consider, though, what could be accomplished with an APA-owned, world class breeding facility. We may not be quite ready for an installation the size and grandeur of deAguiar's vision but please be thinking in these terms. Do not be sur- prised to learn that AFA members have continued to quietly explore the possibilities of a highly professional breeding trust or foundation on AF A property. As the ecological crisis grows throughout the world, more and more plants and animals are threatened with extinction, primarily through loss of habitat. What can be done? The first step to take, obviously, is to preserve as much natural habitat as possible. But there are many factors that militate against complete preservation of the primordial environment. Desperate, indigenous peoples with a survival mentality will continue to encroach upon the pristine forests and wilderness areas just to stay alive. And not only those people. We civilized, industrialized people also want our "necessities" such as oil, minerals, timber and water, most of which are gotten from deeper and deeper in the primitive areas of the earth. Many countries have set aside huge tracts for national parks and wilderness areas. And other entities such as The Nature Conservancy have purchased thousands of acres to keep them pristine and untouched. All of these efforts are very commendable and deserve our support. They are the first line of defense. But these efforts only slow the trend, not stop or reverse it. We are still losing too much wilderness too fast. And many plants and animals with it. What else can be done? Well, I'm in favor of anything that buys time. It may be that the destruction of the environment will eventually decrease and perhaps even stop. I don't expect it in my lifetime, however, and I'd like to do more now. It seems to me that keeping as many bird species alive now is a better proposal than to abandon them to their precarious fate. Several world renowned zoological organizations have already addressed this situation by establishing conservation-oriented breeding and research facilities in addition to their traditional public displays. There are also several excellent private foundations whose very reason for being is to preserve certain species of animals through captive breeding. But what about the vast resources of the tens of thousands of private aviculturists? The private sector can do vastly more avian education, research and conservation than can the public. The private aviculturists, however, still seem to be somewhat diffused; scattered, perhaps, is the better word. The AFA, on the other hand, seems to be coming into sharper focus day by day. The AF A is the guiding light in the avicultural world and is changing the individual bird keeper from consumer to conserver. And this is how it's being done. = The AFA advocates and enhances the captive breeding of common and domesticated birds for the pet market. This relieves some of the demand for wild-caught birds. Very soon, domestically raised pet birds will be the only ones on the pet market. • The AF A initiated a strong campaign against smuggling birds. It has provided anti-smuggling posters that are on display at all the border crossings between the U.S.A. and Mexico. It has aired a TV public service announcement against smuggling and it sells anti-smuggling T-shirts. AFA members have cooperated with various authorities in "sting" operations to arrest smugglers and, of course, many anti-smuggling articles have been published in AFA literature to expose the evils of smuggling. • The AF A has awarded thousands of dollars to worthy research programs, from health and nutrition studies in the universities to field studies in the jungles. Recently, the AFA initiated its own field study of the Red-fronted Macaw and has highly respected professional biologists in Bolivia as I write this. This is only the beginning. • AF A members have been involved in numerous captive breeding projects that have increased the number of individual specimens of many different endangered species. Just a few of these species include the Scarletchested Parakeet, the Turquoise Parakeet, the Bali Mynah, the Nene Goose, the California Condor, the Blackhooded Red Siskin, about 15 species of pheasants and many other species of birds. The number of these birds alive today is much greater than would have been the case without aviculture's helping hand. • The AF A's Red Siskin Consortium serves as a model of cooperation among private aviculturists in an effort to bring back from the brink a critically endangered bird. Several AF A member clubs have begun their own consortiums to work with species particularly appropriate for their own circumstances. This commendable trend is growing. • The AF A is leading a campaign to bring aviculture out of the dark ages and into the era of high-tech professionalism. The MAP program, the AF A Exotic Bird Registry (both explained in detail elsewhere in this volume) and the use of sophisticated molecular sciences (DNA fingerprinting, etc.) are constantly advocated for the upgrading of AFA members' aviaries and techniques of avian husbandry. In short, the AF A is showing its members how to become world class professional aviculturists. Many other good things could be said about the AF A but this Editorial/ Opinion page is not the place for a full-blown history. I feel, though, that it is important that you get a broader understanding of what the AFA is really about. According to the AFA's original charter, it is "dedicated to conservation of bird wildlife through encouragement of captive breeding programs, scientific research and education of the general public." We are fulfilling these goals more and more every day. Joe deAguiar's vision is closer than ever to realization.


Environmental criticism, particularly the criticism of the built environment, has been mostly emotional and narrow-scoped. Architectural and planning competitions have been said to involve genuine criticism in the procedure of judging and ranking the entries. However, systematic and logically grounded principles are not easily found in the final documents of the competitions. Possible lines for developing methods of criticism are sketched here, although one has to admit that "the spirits of the ages" tend to stamp their marks on the practice of criticism.


Poly(1-vinylimidazole) (PVI) resin was prepared with Ni/sup 2 +/, CO/sup 2 +/, or Zn/sup 2 +/ as a template to study the adsorption of metal ions. The metal-1-vinylimidazole complex was copolymerized and cross-linked with 1-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone by ..gamma..-ray irradiation and the template metal ion was removed by treating the polymer complex with an acid. These PVI resins adsorbed metal ions more effectively than the PVI resin prepared without the template. The number of adsorption sites (As) and the stability constant (K) of Ni/sup 2 +/ complex were larger for the PVI resin prepared with the Ni ion template caused by the smaller dissociation rate constant of Ni ion from the resin. The composition of the Ni/sup 2 +/ complex in the resin remained constant. This suggests that the complexation proceeded via a one-step mechanism.


Background: Painful diagnostic and therapeutic procedures performed for children are routine actions. Opioids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as acetaminophens are among medications that can be used for this purpose. This study aimed to compare the onset and duration of action of intrabuccal (IB, submucosal) space and intramuscular (IM) injection of ketamine in pediatrics. Materials and Methods: This clinical trial study was carried out on 126 children of 1–15 years old referred to the emergency room of Al-Zahra and Kashani Hospitals in Isfahan and divided into two 63 populated groups of IM and IB. For one group randomly, 3 mg/kg IB ketamine was administered, and for another group, ketamine was injected intramuscularly at the dose of 5 mg/kg. The drug effect, surgeon satisfaction, and complications were evaluated. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results: The mean of time between injection and onset of drug effect in IM group was 5.71 min, whereas in IB group, it was 4.14 min (P < 0.0001). The mean of the duration of drug effect in IM group was 45.54 min, whereas in IB group, it was 24.63 min (P < 0.0001). Complications in IM group were significantly more reported than IB group (33.3% versus 11.1%, respectively, P = 003). The median of surgeon satisfaction in IM group was 3 and in IB group was 4 which was statistically significant (P = 0.007). Conclusions: IB method is preferred over IM method, and hence, it is recommended to use.